This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Berryville, Arkansas on Sunday August 30, 2009, the 22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time.
Song of Solomon 2:8-13
Psalm 45:1-2, 6-9
James 1:17-27
Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.
On Wednesday evening when we got together for our reading of Mark’s gospel, a lot of thoughts started running through my mind. One of the things on my mind had to do with how things tend to run downhill. There is the polite example where we know that water runs downhill. One trip to the manse in a downpour shows that. Another way to look at this downhill flow is political. The word comes from above and those of us who live below have to deal with the follow through. The unfunded mandate, a requirement imposed by Congress on state or local governments with no funding to pay for it,[1] is a wonderful example of what government rules and regulations running downhill means.
There is something that I think I need to make clear about this first; many of these mandates are well intentioned, like the Clean Water and Clean Air acts. When many of America’s most polluting industries were getting started, there was so little efficiency that there was often considerable waste and pollution. The effects of this pollution were so far down the pike that they meant little at the time. Unfortunately, sometimes these inefficient ways became SOP, standard operating procedure. So today, the culture of many industries is to not change not simply because of the expense, but also because of red ink in the profit column too. In the meantime, air, ground, and water become polluted creating a whole new industry, the super-fund clean-up industry.
So yes, many mandates are well intentioned but at the same time, profits are lost to pay for them. Because they aren’t funded any other way, investors become leery and move their money out of these formerly more profitable industries. This creates twists and turns to the economy which can be felt at every level of society. President Reagan talked about “trickle-down economics” and how a rising tide lifts all boats. From what I have seen in life and in ministry, I am more familiar with the “trickle-down” that means the poor get poorer.
So, how does this relate to scripture? In Mark 7:3-4 we learn that the Pharisees and all of the Jews do not eat unless they thoroughly wash their hands observing the tradition of the elders and do not eat anything from the market unless they wash it and there are many other traditions that they observe including the washing of cups, pots, and bronze kettles. What this scripture only alludes to is that it isn’t just the Pharisees and all of the Jews who observe these rituals; they insisted that those they did business with also followed these rituals.
While the “they” of “they wash it” meant the washing performed by the temple kitchen patrol, it also included handling long before it ever reached their kitchen. The long-drawn-out laws of hand washing extended far beyond the hands of the Pharisees. This ritual cleanliness had to include all of the planting, harvesting, and preparation from the field. It also included the artisans, workers, and merchants who created and sold the cups, pots, and bronze kettles. The rules created its own little closed system to serve the temple; and the Pharisees ruled over it all.
It’s sort of like a small business getting a government contract. But before you sign the contract, you had better be aware of all of its terms and conditions. You had better be aware of every little provision and clause in the contract, every jot and tittle. You had better be careful because violating any piece of the contract makes the whole thing voidable. If your contract gets voided, there goes your investment, your profit, and the wages you owe your employees, and from there it just keeps running down hill. So beware of all of the terms of the contract. Beware of all of the terms in the law.
In Judaism, traditionally there are 613 commands, the Taryag Mitzvot. The Mitzvot are separated into two categories. There are 248 mitzvot aseh, or positive commands; one for each bone and significant organ in the human body. These are the things we are to do. There are also 365 mitzvot lo taaseh, or negative commands; one for every day of the year. These are the things we are never to do.[2]
Some of these rules make perfect sense to us today, things like, “Know there is a God,” “Know God is One,” and “Entertain thoughts of no other god except for the One True God.” We’re familiar with these rules from the Old Testament. These are lessons Jesus teaches us in the gospels.
Then again, there are others we do not follow. For example, the mitzvot includes prohibitions against eating non-kosher fish. Sorry, but I enjoy shrimp. They’re not kosher, but they’re tasty. Pork isn’t kosher either, but bacon makes everything better. In fact, a note to anyone who brings shrimp wrapped with bacon in two weeks for potluck Sunday: I will make it my purpose in life to make sure you don’t have to worry about leftovers.
On top of the mitzvot, human rules and traditions designed to protect the law created barriers to the law. It literally became impossible to follow the law because there were so many barriers to it. These barriers are bad enough when they create unintended consequences, but the step that is even worse is when people intend to take advantage of others using the barriers and the law.
One of the best examples in the last twenty years of people taking advantage of the law deals with home ownership. As long ago as the Clinton presidency, the government policy was to encourage and enable people to get mortgages so they could own their own homes. Home ownership is the greatest source of personal wealth for the majority of Americans, so encouraging home ownership is as American as apple pie. People own their own homes, they gain equity, personal wealth increases, and the American dream starts to become true for people who never imagined the dream could be theirs. Unfortunately, this is where the dream ran amok.
The Christian Century recently ran the story of an elderly woman named Mabel[3] who was a client of the Legal Assistance Foundation of Metropolitan Chicago. She needed just a little more money than her social security and house cleaning job provided. Between Mabel’s niece April and the loan salesman “Bill Sykes,” Mabel and her house went from the frying pan into the fire.
Bill Sykes knew that Mabel wouldn’t be able to handle the new level of debt, especially since Mabel owed back taxes and back water bills on the house. There were also a couple of judgments against the property so this new level of debt would soon become impossible to repay.
To quote the article:
The day before the signing, Sykes had not been happy. Two deals had tanked already that morning when a stubborn appraiser had refused to bring him high enough home values. He wouldn't use that bozo again. And now with Mabel's loan in doubt, he'd be lucky to gross $5,000 for the week—half his usual. He'd have to call the car dealer and tell him to put the Jaguar on hold.
A year ago Sykes would've given up. But that was before the big lunch he'd had with a representative of a subprime lender. The rep had displayed his employer's array of aggressive loan products: no doc, low doc, doc lite. All Sykes needed was a cooperative appraiser and a friendly closer, and he would be set: with these new products he'd be able to finance anybody. A year later, Sykes could see that the rep wasn't far wrong.
The vulnerable and overly trusting homeowner sitting on a ton of equity, the nice mortgage broker worming into the homeowner’s life, the greedy family member helping things along, the high up-front fees, the cash payment to cushion the deal, the risky mortgage products and the broker schooled by a lender's rep on how to push them. All this story needs is an out of tune piano to sound like a Dudley Do-Right cartoon. Unfortunately, this story doesn’t have an out of tune piano. Even more unfortunately it doesn’t have a Mountie.
The article ends like this:
Many have asked who is to blame. Some would blame the homeowners themselves. It is true that some borrowers bought homes they couldn't afford, but this happened mostly at the end of the lending spree and especially in certain highly publicized markets. The majority of borrowers sucked into bad subprime loans were long-term homeowners like Mabel who had equity that could be stripped and were on the receiving end of relentless marketing.
Some also point a finger at the Community Reinvestment Act, arguing that it forced banks to extend overly risky loans to unworthy borrowers. But the CRA was passed way back in 1977, some 25 years before the boom in subprime lending, and the biggest subprime lenders were nonbank entities not regulated by the CRA.
The chief culprits in the subprime lending crisis are the brokers, lenders, ratings agencies and investment banks that set up the system and pushed it beyond its breaking point, together with the policy makers and regulators who ignored warning signs and failed to apply the brakes.
As for Sykes, he's doing well these days. The meltdown has been good for the many entrepreneurs in the business who are now engaged in the mortgage-rescue industry that sprang up overnight. Just as before, Sykes sends out mailers by the thousands to homeowners in foreclosure. But now, instead of offering refinancing, he presents himself as an expert in foreclosure prevention and loan modification. He says he knows how to help homeowners get good results with their lender. He says he can gain a sympathetic hearing if he discovers that the homeowners were duped when they got their loan. He should know.
There are some people who would say that I as a pastor have no business talking about this from the pulpit. Some people would tell me to be quiet about political things; about law and government and clean air and talk about Jesus. Friends, the plain truth is that the gospel is political. In a time when church and state were completely interconnected, the gospel preached by Jesus was for the leaders of the synagogue and the political leaders because the synagogue leaders were political leaders. Separating church and state is not a biblical concept; it has only been around for about 240 years. So when we talk about the mandates that are a burden on the people, those mandates come from every seat of power and are put upon those who are subject to the power and the powerful.
So what we must do as Christians, as followers of the one true Triune God is to find the mandate of the faith. First and foremost, our mandate is our Lord Jesus Christ, in his person, his words, and his work. It is found in his life, and his death, and his resurrection.
This is perhaps the most difficult, the most scandalous part of the gospel. By emptying himself of his Godly status, taking earthly form, and joining with us, Jesus teaches that it is in weakness and in poverty that real strength is found and exercised. Our society teaches us that we are to gain and exert power in strength. Our culture teaches that it is better to be Bill Sykes; make a ton of cash and get the Jag. Jesus teaches from the mitzvot not to withhold charity to the poor.[4]
Our mandate is found in the word of God. To find God’s will, we need to go to the best source of information about God, scripture opened by the Holy Spirit. The testimony of the testaments brings us words thousands of years old; words as important today as when they were written. Some will say the Bible is out of touch with our lives, but I say that words about the human condition and the one who created humanity are never out of vogue. This reading from Mark is a fine example. The injunctions from 1James are another.
Our mandate is found in the sacraments, the water of our baptism, and in the plate and cup of the table. At the font, we join with Jesus as members of his church. In the plate and cup we are nourished by the food of his body and blood. These symbols instituted by the Lord our God are what we use to define who we are in community with Christ and how he continues to feed us.
Our mandate is found in the church, the body of Christ. It is found in the worship and the fellowship we share together. It is found worshipping Christ, even with people we do not agree with, as long as we can all agree that Jesus is Lord.
There are all sorts of mandates in our world and in our lives. As a mandate, the law, the mitzvot, is important. Yet first we are called to follow Jesus, and the advice Jesus gave the Pharisees. To rephrase verse seven, worship Jesus, worship him, not the concepts and precepts we put in his path. We don’t have to protect Jesus from one another. We don’t have to build barriers to protect him. He proved he could take on death and hell. Let us follow Him, do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with God protecting the sick, the orphan, the widow and the oppressed. Doing these things, not following selfish human traditions and evil intentions, God’s good will comes from us and we will not be defiled.
[1] Unfunded Mandate, http://www.c-span.org/guide/congress/glossary/unfunded.htm, retrieved August 29, 2009.
[2] 613 Mitzvot, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/613_Mitzvot, accessed July 2, 2007.
[3] Lindsey, Daniel P. “Foreclosing on Mabel.” The Christian Century, August 11, 2009, pages 30-33.
[4] Deuteronomy 15:7
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Last Resort
This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Berryville, Arkansas on Sunday August 23, 2009, the 21st Sunday in Ordinary Time.
1Kings 8:22-30, 41-43
Psalm 84
Ephesians 6:10-20
John 6:56-69
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen
Today is the end of our time with the sixth chapter of the book of John. We began with 5,000 men being fed bread and fish on the shore of the Sea of Galilee. After dinner, Jesus shares a little one-on-one time with some disciples while the twelve sail across the lake. Later in the evening, leaving everyone unaware, Jesus follows the boat using only his sandals and his very being to make his way across the water. The twelve were shocked and amazed to see Jesus water skiing without the benefit of a boat across the lake, and those who Jesus left on the other side were just as shocked and amazed because Jesus was gone and all of the boats were still there.
This is when Jesus begins teaching lessons about the true bread of eternal life; and many of these lessons are repeated and repeated again so that all may hear, so that all may know. Some of his words are hard truths, like when he told the people that they came to see him because he could fill their bellies with bread, not because he is the bread. Some of his words are offensive. Jesus uses the “I AM,” the holy name of God when referring to himself. Jesus teaches that we must eat his flesh and drink his blood. This freaks out the people who take this too literally. This really freaks out those who make the connection between drinking his blood and the Genesis 9 prohibition against consuming blood. Those who make the connection between blood and atonement found in Leviticus 14 are ready to rent their robes and cry “Blasphemy!”
So for those who were going along with the difficult teachings about flesh and blood, Jesus then tells the disciples that flesh is useless! It’s the Spirit that gives life. His words are spirit and life; as are his flesh and his blood. The twist is not that his flesh and blood are useless, it’s that our flesh and blood are. There is nothing we can do to create truth. There is nothing we can do to make good. There is nothing we can do to earn salvation. Our flesh is the source of nothing. By him all things are possible. Life is found in him, by him, and through him. Just as the living Father sent him and he lives because of the Father, so too we live because of him; because of his flesh and because of his spirit.
It’s all in a day’s work for the bread of life.
A missionary told how she was once describing the loving character of the Christians’ God to a company of her Chinese sisters. As she went on in her holy enthusiasm, picturing God’s real character as full of mercy to the sinful and the suffering, one of the Chinese women turned to her neighbor and said, “Haven’t I often told you there ought to be a God like that?”[1]
These women had obviously believed in what we would call other gods. I don’t know what these other gods were. We could speculate and consider and think ourselves more enlightened because we don’t believe in the same sort of god-play that they do. But to what end?
When I was a young man, I would go on walks with my father. He would tell stories and impart wisdom. One evening crossing Brush Creek in Kansas City he told me, “You know, I tell you these stories so that you don’t make the same mistakes I did.” I answered him, “Don’t worry, I’ll make my own.”
We can say we don’t make the same mistakes these Chinese women made, not knowing about the one true Triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. No, we have other Gods.
One recent example of this sort of idol worship is a sense of security and protection emboldened by American power. In the third episode of the NBC drama “The West Wing,” the liberal democratic President Josiah Bartlett learns that his former chief physician, a naval officer, was killed going overseas to a new deployment. As the President laments this death he asks, “Did you know that two thousand years ago a Roman citizen could walk across the face of the known world free of the fear of molestation? He could walk across the earth unharmed, cloaked only in the words ‘Civis Romanis’ I am a Roman citizen. So great was the retribution of Rome, universally understood as certain, should any harm befall even one of its citizens.”[2]
Whether in ancient Rome, a fictional Washington D.C., or a real life Hometown, U.S.A.; this sentiment is not without appeal. When I heard that Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, the man responsible for killing 270 people, many of them Americans, in the bombing of Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland was set free to die at home,[3] a choice he did not give his victims; I don’t wonder if “Civis Romanis” is American Imperialism. I’m thinking it’s a good idea.
This is the sort of thing we might expect to hear from a pundit on Fox News, not the liberal President Bartlett.
What we would expect from this fictional president, a character whose fictional opponent called him a weak, lily-livered, intellectual, elitist snob, is something more of what we knew as a nation in the 1970’s in the morass of post-Vietnam, post-Watergate, hyperinflationary times. This quicksand of indecision which was often coupled with a hand-wringing of guilt over national sins, some of which are older than the nation itself, was caused by actions and inactions which needed then and continue to need national atonement. Still, handwringing and being ashamed are not the acts of atonement scripture prescribes. I looked it up.
It’s easy to say that these are two different sins; one of vanity and the other inferiority. I see them as mirror images of the same sin, one of an overblown sense of self held over the blessings of the Lord God. In our oh so enlightened culture, we often think that there is something that we could do to make things better; something we can do with our power, or something we can do with our wealth, or something we can do with our intellect, where without God we can do nothing. Without God, we can do nothing.
We as individuals and as a nation must remember that Jesus offered everything he had to end the separation between God and God’s good creation. He offered his flesh and his blood, his human life so that we may know eternal life. He emptied himself of his Godly status to be fully human, flesh and blood, so that he may be exactly like we are, though without sin. The man who could have brought himself off of the cross and changed life as we know it through power and might stayed there unto death, changing life as we know it by the power of weakness and submission.
When we depend on our strength more than we rely upon the Lord, we look to a god who is not our God. When we allow our weaknesses to overwhelm us, we fall before a god who is not our God. Have we made the same mistake that the Chinese women made? Not really, in truth, we have made our own. This tension between divine action and human choice has been a theme of this chapter from John’s gospel, of the past month of Sundays.
This might be a hard teaching. It may cause some to turn away. It may even offend. Jesus knew this. He knew his teachings would divide families, he knew his teachings would cause separation. Not because of anything he does, on the contrary. God the Father sent Jesus so that all may come to know God not only as Spirit but as flesh and blood. By sending Jesus, God the Father grants us the ability that we may all come to the Lord. But Jesus knew that because of who we are, because of human choice, because of the freedom we have to love God and one another, because of who we are, Jesus knew his hard teaching would cause some to turn away.
In this case, more than five-thousand turned away, the five-thousand who came just for the bread that fills the belly. The twelve who came because Jesus is have the bread that fills the soul, the words of eternal life; they stayed because they knew Jesus was their last resort. They stayed because they had come to believe and know that Jesus is the Holy One of God.
Jesus knew they would stay, for a while; but in his perfection, he knew that we are not so perfect. Jesus knew Judas would betray him to the Roman Legions. Jesus even knew Peter, the speaker for the twelve, would deny him. Yet Jesus loved them. He loved them all. He loves them all.
Peter is held in this piece as the paragon of virtue. But we know better. With the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, we know Peter will draw a short sword and take the ear off of one of the slaves of the Pharisees. Peter will deny Christ just because he wanted to hear what was happening and keep warm. Some days we will act like Peter, professing and proclaiming the name of the Lord. And there are days when we abandon the Lord just to keep warm. Yet Jesus loves us. Jesus loves us all.
If you ever get the chance, the next time you are in Tulsa, go to the Great Harvest Bread Company store. Great Harvest is a maker of fine artisan breads and the smell alone is worth making the trip. The first time I went to Great Harvest was to the store in Colorado Springs. I walked into the store and was overwhelmed with the scent of the grains, yeast, spelt, berries and melting butter.
The most wonderful thing about going into the store is the free samples. They cut off a big hunk of bread, slather it with real butter—none of this margarine or “it’s not butter”—they slather it with real butter and hand it to you to taste that it is good. In line you find yuppie mothers with twin strollers, business people in high dollar suits, and homeless folks coming in from the weather. They don’t give you a tiny little spoonful of heavenly goodness like a Baskin-Robbins sample; they give you a thick slice of bread with butter.
It’s amazing; people come in as much for the experience and fellowship as they do for the filling of their bellies. This is a foretaste of the bread of life which fills our bodies and feeds our souls. Even more than great artisan bread, Jesus feeds us on every level. Jesus is the last bread we will ever want—not just for the physical fulfillment—but because once we experience God in Christ nothing else is the same.
Our flesh is useless; in his flesh is eternal life. As Jesus shares in our life we are to share in his so that we may live together in God’s peace and love. It is in his spirit that we have eternal life, life worth living.
It is this bread and this cup, his body and his blood that we share together at the table set by him so that we may be fed body and soul. It is by this bread and this cup that we are fed and strengthened to go into the world taking these hard lessons and the knowledge that there is no one and nothing else that compares to life in Christ.
It’s all in a day’s work for the bread of life.
[1] “Dome on the Range,” HomeliticsOnline.com, http://www.homileticsonline.com/subscriber/btl_display.asp?installment_id=93000158, retrieved August 13, 2006
[2] “The West Wing: A Proportional Response,” TV.com. http://www.tv.com/the-west-wing/a-proportional-response/episode/790/summary.html, retrieved August 22, 2009
[3] Lockerbie bomber freed, returns to cheers in Libya, http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090820/ap_on_re_eu/eu_britain_lockerbie, retrieved August 22, 2009.
1Kings 8:22-30, 41-43
Psalm 84
Ephesians 6:10-20
John 6:56-69
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen
Today is the end of our time with the sixth chapter of the book of John. We began with 5,000 men being fed bread and fish on the shore of the Sea of Galilee. After dinner, Jesus shares a little one-on-one time with some disciples while the twelve sail across the lake. Later in the evening, leaving everyone unaware, Jesus follows the boat using only his sandals and his very being to make his way across the water. The twelve were shocked and amazed to see Jesus water skiing without the benefit of a boat across the lake, and those who Jesus left on the other side were just as shocked and amazed because Jesus was gone and all of the boats were still there.
This is when Jesus begins teaching lessons about the true bread of eternal life; and many of these lessons are repeated and repeated again so that all may hear, so that all may know. Some of his words are hard truths, like when he told the people that they came to see him because he could fill their bellies with bread, not because he is the bread. Some of his words are offensive. Jesus uses the “I AM,” the holy name of God when referring to himself. Jesus teaches that we must eat his flesh and drink his blood. This freaks out the people who take this too literally. This really freaks out those who make the connection between drinking his blood and the Genesis 9 prohibition against consuming blood. Those who make the connection between blood and atonement found in Leviticus 14 are ready to rent their robes and cry “Blasphemy!”
So for those who were going along with the difficult teachings about flesh and blood, Jesus then tells the disciples that flesh is useless! It’s the Spirit that gives life. His words are spirit and life; as are his flesh and his blood. The twist is not that his flesh and blood are useless, it’s that our flesh and blood are. There is nothing we can do to create truth. There is nothing we can do to make good. There is nothing we can do to earn salvation. Our flesh is the source of nothing. By him all things are possible. Life is found in him, by him, and through him. Just as the living Father sent him and he lives because of the Father, so too we live because of him; because of his flesh and because of his spirit.
It’s all in a day’s work for the bread of life.
A missionary told how she was once describing the loving character of the Christians’ God to a company of her Chinese sisters. As she went on in her holy enthusiasm, picturing God’s real character as full of mercy to the sinful and the suffering, one of the Chinese women turned to her neighbor and said, “Haven’t I often told you there ought to be a God like that?”[1]
These women had obviously believed in what we would call other gods. I don’t know what these other gods were. We could speculate and consider and think ourselves more enlightened because we don’t believe in the same sort of god-play that they do. But to what end?
When I was a young man, I would go on walks with my father. He would tell stories and impart wisdom. One evening crossing Brush Creek in Kansas City he told me, “You know, I tell you these stories so that you don’t make the same mistakes I did.” I answered him, “Don’t worry, I’ll make my own.”
We can say we don’t make the same mistakes these Chinese women made, not knowing about the one true Triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. No, we have other Gods.
One recent example of this sort of idol worship is a sense of security and protection emboldened by American power. In the third episode of the NBC drama “The West Wing,” the liberal democratic President Josiah Bartlett learns that his former chief physician, a naval officer, was killed going overseas to a new deployment. As the President laments this death he asks, “Did you know that two thousand years ago a Roman citizen could walk across the face of the known world free of the fear of molestation? He could walk across the earth unharmed, cloaked only in the words ‘Civis Romanis’ I am a Roman citizen. So great was the retribution of Rome, universally understood as certain, should any harm befall even one of its citizens.”[2]
Whether in ancient Rome, a fictional Washington D.C., or a real life Hometown, U.S.A.; this sentiment is not without appeal. When I heard that Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, the man responsible for killing 270 people, many of them Americans, in the bombing of Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland was set free to die at home,[3] a choice he did not give his victims; I don’t wonder if “Civis Romanis” is American Imperialism. I’m thinking it’s a good idea.
This is the sort of thing we might expect to hear from a pundit on Fox News, not the liberal President Bartlett.
What we would expect from this fictional president, a character whose fictional opponent called him a weak, lily-livered, intellectual, elitist snob, is something more of what we knew as a nation in the 1970’s in the morass of post-Vietnam, post-Watergate, hyperinflationary times. This quicksand of indecision which was often coupled with a hand-wringing of guilt over national sins, some of which are older than the nation itself, was caused by actions and inactions which needed then and continue to need national atonement. Still, handwringing and being ashamed are not the acts of atonement scripture prescribes. I looked it up.
It’s easy to say that these are two different sins; one of vanity and the other inferiority. I see them as mirror images of the same sin, one of an overblown sense of self held over the blessings of the Lord God. In our oh so enlightened culture, we often think that there is something that we could do to make things better; something we can do with our power, or something we can do with our wealth, or something we can do with our intellect, where without God we can do nothing. Without God, we can do nothing.
We as individuals and as a nation must remember that Jesus offered everything he had to end the separation between God and God’s good creation. He offered his flesh and his blood, his human life so that we may know eternal life. He emptied himself of his Godly status to be fully human, flesh and blood, so that he may be exactly like we are, though without sin. The man who could have brought himself off of the cross and changed life as we know it through power and might stayed there unto death, changing life as we know it by the power of weakness and submission.
When we depend on our strength more than we rely upon the Lord, we look to a god who is not our God. When we allow our weaknesses to overwhelm us, we fall before a god who is not our God. Have we made the same mistake that the Chinese women made? Not really, in truth, we have made our own. This tension between divine action and human choice has been a theme of this chapter from John’s gospel, of the past month of Sundays.
This might be a hard teaching. It may cause some to turn away. It may even offend. Jesus knew this. He knew his teachings would divide families, he knew his teachings would cause separation. Not because of anything he does, on the contrary. God the Father sent Jesus so that all may come to know God not only as Spirit but as flesh and blood. By sending Jesus, God the Father grants us the ability that we may all come to the Lord. But Jesus knew that because of who we are, because of human choice, because of the freedom we have to love God and one another, because of who we are, Jesus knew his hard teaching would cause some to turn away.
In this case, more than five-thousand turned away, the five-thousand who came just for the bread that fills the belly. The twelve who came because Jesus is have the bread that fills the soul, the words of eternal life; they stayed because they knew Jesus was their last resort. They stayed because they had come to believe and know that Jesus is the Holy One of God.
Jesus knew they would stay, for a while; but in his perfection, he knew that we are not so perfect. Jesus knew Judas would betray him to the Roman Legions. Jesus even knew Peter, the speaker for the twelve, would deny him. Yet Jesus loved them. He loved them all. He loves them all.
Peter is held in this piece as the paragon of virtue. But we know better. With the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, we know Peter will draw a short sword and take the ear off of one of the slaves of the Pharisees. Peter will deny Christ just because he wanted to hear what was happening and keep warm. Some days we will act like Peter, professing and proclaiming the name of the Lord. And there are days when we abandon the Lord just to keep warm. Yet Jesus loves us. Jesus loves us all.
If you ever get the chance, the next time you are in Tulsa, go to the Great Harvest Bread Company store. Great Harvest is a maker of fine artisan breads and the smell alone is worth making the trip. The first time I went to Great Harvest was to the store in Colorado Springs. I walked into the store and was overwhelmed with the scent of the grains, yeast, spelt, berries and melting butter.
The most wonderful thing about going into the store is the free samples. They cut off a big hunk of bread, slather it with real butter—none of this margarine or “it’s not butter”—they slather it with real butter and hand it to you to taste that it is good. In line you find yuppie mothers with twin strollers, business people in high dollar suits, and homeless folks coming in from the weather. They don’t give you a tiny little spoonful of heavenly goodness like a Baskin-Robbins sample; they give you a thick slice of bread with butter.
It’s amazing; people come in as much for the experience and fellowship as they do for the filling of their bellies. This is a foretaste of the bread of life which fills our bodies and feeds our souls. Even more than great artisan bread, Jesus feeds us on every level. Jesus is the last bread we will ever want—not just for the physical fulfillment—but because once we experience God in Christ nothing else is the same.
Our flesh is useless; in his flesh is eternal life. As Jesus shares in our life we are to share in his so that we may live together in God’s peace and love. It is in his spirit that we have eternal life, life worth living.
It is this bread and this cup, his body and his blood that we share together at the table set by him so that we may be fed body and soul. It is by this bread and this cup that we are fed and strengthened to go into the world taking these hard lessons and the knowledge that there is no one and nothing else that compares to life in Christ.
It’s all in a day’s work for the bread of life.
[1] “Dome on the Range,” HomeliticsOnline.com, http://www.homileticsonline.com/subscriber/btl_display.asp?installment_id=93000158, retrieved August 13, 2006
[2] “The West Wing: A Proportional Response,” TV.com. http://www.tv.com/the-west-wing/a-proportional-response/episode/790/summary.html, retrieved August 22, 2009
[3] Lockerbie bomber freed, returns to cheers in Libya, http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090820/ap_on_re_eu/eu_britain_lockerbie, retrieved August 22, 2009.
Sunday, August 16, 2009
Bread of Life
This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Berryville, Arkansas on Sunday August 16, 2009, the 20th Sunday in Ordinary Time.
1 Kings 2:10-12, 3:3-14
Psalm 111
Ephesians 5:15-20
John 6:51-58
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.
In John’s gospel, Jesus says “I AM” twenty-four times.[1] In each of these phrases the text invokes something very special; each of these phrases uses the Greek version of the Holy Name of God. I was reminded last week that it was C. S. Lewis who said that it is foolish to believe that Jesus is a wonderful teacher, but not the Son of God and the Son of Man. Jesus declares that he is the Son of God and the Son of Man. He clearly says “I AM,” at least in John’s gospel. Lewis tells us that our choices are to believe that Jesus is either exactly who he says he is, or that he’s a complete and total whack job. It is foolish to believe that a man can be a wise teacher if he claims to be God and is not. This is eminently logical, but logic is not where we should be coming from today.
Logic and knowledge and interpretation were the wheelhouse of the Jewish leadership. Jesus says I am the living bread that came down from heaven…and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh. The first thing that the temple leaders can think to say is “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” Yes, of course it’s a good question. It’s a very good question especially from someone and for someone who is so locked up in the legal aspects of faith that mystical and metaphorical symbols have no other expression than those of their fathers and their fathers before them. This is probably what Jesus finds disappointing. These are leaders who are ordained to serve the people with energy, intelligence, imagination, and love fail to exercise a grain of imagination. Well, actually I misspoke, that question comes from my ordination vows, not the Jewish leaders. Too, they are in the vows taken by all Presbyterian Elders.[2]
Jesus offers eternal life, life in Christ, life that is available not just in the future, but today too. Eternal life is connected to physical life; after all, Jesus existed in this world, he is the Word become flesh. But eternal life is more than physical life. Eternal life is life in Christ, life in God. Eternal life is life worth living. Very early on in John’s gospel we read this as it is written, “What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people.” In a very real way, John teaches that before the Word, before the life and the Word of Jesus how people lived wasn’t really life at all. Instead, at its best it was a step toward what life could be.
Some people lived well in that first step of life; David and his son Solomon were great examples of glorious lives lived in the Lord before Jesus lived. Our reading today demonstrates this showing that when the Lord asked Solomon what gift he wished to receive, Solomon was wise enough to ask for an understanding mind to govern the Lord’s people and the ability to discern between good and evil. It’s not too much of a leap to connect this request with our call to serve God’s people with energy, intelligence, imagination, and love.
Because Solomon sought wisdom instead of riches and power he received wisdom and was also given riches and power. Yet, neither David nor Solomon had the connection to the Lord that we have today. As from words of the Lord Jesus, “Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me.” As glorious and blessed as their lives were, they could not partake of God incarnate and live because of him, not in the way available to us through the flesh of the Lord Jesus Christ.
We participate in this action when we celebrate the Lord’s Supper. It is in the supper that we celebrate our continuing to abide in Christ and that Christ abides in us. By abiding, our lives and our faith are nourished in the love of the Lord Jesus. According to John Calvin, with the participation of the Holy Spirit, faith is nourished and strengthened by the sacrament. He calls the Lord’s Supper “a secret too sublime for my mind to understand or words to express. I experience it rather than understand it.”[3]
It is this choice of Calvin’s that further invites us to experience that mystery rather than to try to pick it apart. Denominations have done this dissection for hundreds of years, but it is to no avail. Rather, let us know that Jesus said “this is my body broken for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” Let us know that his body, his very flesh to us is bread for life. Let us remember this as we partake of the supper together. This element of togetherness is too important. Dietrich Bonhoeffer writes of coming together as the family of God together at the table which Christ invites us to share.
“The simple act of sitting down around a table is something a lot of people don't find particularly important - but for Christians, the shared supper is a vital aspect of spiritual life.
“‘The Scriptures speak of three kinds of table fellowship that Jesus keeps with his own: daily fellowship at table, the table fellowship of the Lord's Supper, and the final table fellowship in the kingdom of God. But in all three, the one thing that counts is that 'their eyes were opened, and they knew him.’
“‘The fellowship of the table teaches Christians that here they still eat the perishable bread of the earthly pilgrimage. But if they share this bread with one another, they shall also one day receive the imperishable bread together in the Father's house.’”[4]
We are called to eat the flesh, but we are to come together to eat it, not on the run like a holy sort of drive-thru window. We do this together because when we receive the Lord we receive one another too. Jesus came to be with the whole congress of creation, not just bits and pieces.
Thomas Merton wrote, “There is not one of us, individually, racially, socially, who is not fully complete in any sense of having in himself all the excellence of all humanity. And this excellence, this totality, is built up out of the contributions of the particular parts of it that we all can share with one another. I am therefore not completely human until I have found myself in my African and Asian and Indonesian brother because he has the part of which I lack.”[5]
We come together because separately none of us are complete.
Barbara Williamson tells this story: “Each year at lambing time, there are lambs and ewes who do not make it. Inevitably, on one side of the field is a ewe whose lamb has died. The ewe is filled with ilk but will not nourish any lamb she does not recognize as her own. Inevitably, on the other side of the field is a lamb whose mother has died. That lamb will starve because no ewe will accept and nourish it. So the shepherd takes the dead lamb and slits its throat, and pours its blood over the body of the living lamb. Recognizing the blood, the ewe will now nurse and save the orphaned lamb. Through the gift of the blood of the lamb who has died, the living lamb is recognized and restored to the fold, nourished and saved. That is the Lamb of God.”[6]
By his stripes, by his blood, we are saved. The bread of life feeds us and allows us to be recognized by the Father…or as this illustration tells us, the mother. This is a paschal way to express the invitation we receive to come to the table.
The words of the Orthodox liturgy call us to the table this way:
Come, O faithful ones,
let us enjoy the Lord’s hospitality,
in the banquet of immortality
In the upper chamber, with minds uplifted,
let us learn the Word from the Word
whom we magnify.[7]
We are called to the table to share the bread of life. Another ancient word used for the bread of life is Eucharist. The words of the ancient church describe the Eucharist as “either by good grace, or by thanksgiving. And rightly, indeed it is to be called good grace, as well because it signifies eternal life, concerning which it has been written: The grace of God is eternal life, and also because it contains Christ the Lord, who is true grace and the fountain of all favors.”[8]
Consider these words from Paul Bernier: “If we understand Eucharist as the mystery of Christ’s continuing ability to feed his people, if we know that his bread is broken to be shared with the needy and the poor, this will form out attitude and lend the dynamism of faith too our efforts. We need a clear ideal of what kind of world we are striving to build and the ideal we take from the Lord’s table is that he has given us brothers and sisters the world over who have a claim on us because we accept the bread broken in order to be shared.”[9]
These favors, this life, nourished by the bread of life calls us to more than simply taking from the loaf; we are to offer the loaf just as the Lord offered it to us. As the author Flannery O’Connor wrote, “You will have found Christ when you are concerned with other people’s sufferings and not your own.”[10] In the words of Mother Teresa, “The Eucharist and the poor are but one love for me.”[11]
As bloody and as violent as some of these images of are; twentieth century theologian Karl Rahner reminds us that “The Lord gave himself to us precisely as food to be enjoyed.”[12] In a world that is often more focused on the suffering of Good Friday, we are called to be the people of Easter. Grace came to us violently, but Jesus went to it voluntarily so that we may enjoy him forever.
I know I have piled many, many images together. Sometimes the connection is well explained, sometimes the imagery opens us to new ways to taste and see that the Lord is good, and sometimes it’s just baffling. It is my hope that these images can help spark a new look at the bread of life for all of us, a new look at the great I AM and who HE IS. Jesus is the bread of life; it is by his flesh that we are fed with the gift of eternal life. He is the fountain of all favors and we are the fruit of his work.
But in a spiritual way, many live like the Dickens character Oliver Twist. We are orphans in a strange place, hoping for even a morsel of bread so that we may know life, and so that we may share this new life with others. It is our hope that we may eat of this bread and drink of this cup; and when we do, we should hunger and thirst for new life, holy life, life in Christ. It is my hope that we can all leave here with Twist’s words on our lips, begging to the Lord our God with anticipation of living life eternal; life with, by and through God. “Please sir, I want some more.”
[1] BibleWorks search for the Greek phrase “ego eimi,” the equivalent to the Hebrew Tetragrammaton.
[2] PC(USA) and Cumberland Presbyterian Church, Book of Occasional Services, pages 58 and 24.
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Calvin.
[4] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1954), 66.
[5] Eucharist, Liturgical Training Publications 18
[6] Eucharist
[7] Orthodox liturgy, Eucharist
[8] Eucharist
[9] Eucharist 86
[10] Eucharist 120
[11] Eucharist, 123
[12] Eucharist, 82
1 Kings 2:10-12, 3:3-14
Psalm 111
Ephesians 5:15-20
John 6:51-58
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.
In John’s gospel, Jesus says “I AM” twenty-four times.[1] In each of these phrases the text invokes something very special; each of these phrases uses the Greek version of the Holy Name of God. I was reminded last week that it was C. S. Lewis who said that it is foolish to believe that Jesus is a wonderful teacher, but not the Son of God and the Son of Man. Jesus declares that he is the Son of God and the Son of Man. He clearly says “I AM,” at least in John’s gospel. Lewis tells us that our choices are to believe that Jesus is either exactly who he says he is, or that he’s a complete and total whack job. It is foolish to believe that a man can be a wise teacher if he claims to be God and is not. This is eminently logical, but logic is not where we should be coming from today.
Logic and knowledge and interpretation were the wheelhouse of the Jewish leadership. Jesus says I am the living bread that came down from heaven…and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh. The first thing that the temple leaders can think to say is “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” Yes, of course it’s a good question. It’s a very good question especially from someone and for someone who is so locked up in the legal aspects of faith that mystical and metaphorical symbols have no other expression than those of their fathers and their fathers before them. This is probably what Jesus finds disappointing. These are leaders who are ordained to serve the people with energy, intelligence, imagination, and love fail to exercise a grain of imagination. Well, actually I misspoke, that question comes from my ordination vows, not the Jewish leaders. Too, they are in the vows taken by all Presbyterian Elders.[2]
Jesus offers eternal life, life in Christ, life that is available not just in the future, but today too. Eternal life is connected to physical life; after all, Jesus existed in this world, he is the Word become flesh. But eternal life is more than physical life. Eternal life is life in Christ, life in God. Eternal life is life worth living. Very early on in John’s gospel we read this as it is written, “What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people.” In a very real way, John teaches that before the Word, before the life and the Word of Jesus how people lived wasn’t really life at all. Instead, at its best it was a step toward what life could be.
Some people lived well in that first step of life; David and his son Solomon were great examples of glorious lives lived in the Lord before Jesus lived. Our reading today demonstrates this showing that when the Lord asked Solomon what gift he wished to receive, Solomon was wise enough to ask for an understanding mind to govern the Lord’s people and the ability to discern between good and evil. It’s not too much of a leap to connect this request with our call to serve God’s people with energy, intelligence, imagination, and love.
Because Solomon sought wisdom instead of riches and power he received wisdom and was also given riches and power. Yet, neither David nor Solomon had the connection to the Lord that we have today. As from words of the Lord Jesus, “Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me.” As glorious and blessed as their lives were, they could not partake of God incarnate and live because of him, not in the way available to us through the flesh of the Lord Jesus Christ.
We participate in this action when we celebrate the Lord’s Supper. It is in the supper that we celebrate our continuing to abide in Christ and that Christ abides in us. By abiding, our lives and our faith are nourished in the love of the Lord Jesus. According to John Calvin, with the participation of the Holy Spirit, faith is nourished and strengthened by the sacrament. He calls the Lord’s Supper “a secret too sublime for my mind to understand or words to express. I experience it rather than understand it.”[3]
It is this choice of Calvin’s that further invites us to experience that mystery rather than to try to pick it apart. Denominations have done this dissection for hundreds of years, but it is to no avail. Rather, let us know that Jesus said “this is my body broken for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” Let us know that his body, his very flesh to us is bread for life. Let us remember this as we partake of the supper together. This element of togetherness is too important. Dietrich Bonhoeffer writes of coming together as the family of God together at the table which Christ invites us to share.
“The simple act of sitting down around a table is something a lot of people don't find particularly important - but for Christians, the shared supper is a vital aspect of spiritual life.
“‘The Scriptures speak of three kinds of table fellowship that Jesus keeps with his own: daily fellowship at table, the table fellowship of the Lord's Supper, and the final table fellowship in the kingdom of God. But in all three, the one thing that counts is that 'their eyes were opened, and they knew him.’
“‘The fellowship of the table teaches Christians that here they still eat the perishable bread of the earthly pilgrimage. But if they share this bread with one another, they shall also one day receive the imperishable bread together in the Father's house.’”[4]
We are called to eat the flesh, but we are to come together to eat it, not on the run like a holy sort of drive-thru window. We do this together because when we receive the Lord we receive one another too. Jesus came to be with the whole congress of creation, not just bits and pieces.
Thomas Merton wrote, “There is not one of us, individually, racially, socially, who is not fully complete in any sense of having in himself all the excellence of all humanity. And this excellence, this totality, is built up out of the contributions of the particular parts of it that we all can share with one another. I am therefore not completely human until I have found myself in my African and Asian and Indonesian brother because he has the part of which I lack.”[5]
We come together because separately none of us are complete.
Barbara Williamson tells this story: “Each year at lambing time, there are lambs and ewes who do not make it. Inevitably, on one side of the field is a ewe whose lamb has died. The ewe is filled with ilk but will not nourish any lamb she does not recognize as her own. Inevitably, on the other side of the field is a lamb whose mother has died. That lamb will starve because no ewe will accept and nourish it. So the shepherd takes the dead lamb and slits its throat, and pours its blood over the body of the living lamb. Recognizing the blood, the ewe will now nurse and save the orphaned lamb. Through the gift of the blood of the lamb who has died, the living lamb is recognized and restored to the fold, nourished and saved. That is the Lamb of God.”[6]
By his stripes, by his blood, we are saved. The bread of life feeds us and allows us to be recognized by the Father…or as this illustration tells us, the mother. This is a paschal way to express the invitation we receive to come to the table.
The words of the Orthodox liturgy call us to the table this way:
Come, O faithful ones,
let us enjoy the Lord’s hospitality,
in the banquet of immortality
In the upper chamber, with minds uplifted,
let us learn the Word from the Word
whom we magnify.[7]
We are called to the table to share the bread of life. Another ancient word used for the bread of life is Eucharist. The words of the ancient church describe the Eucharist as “either by good grace, or by thanksgiving. And rightly, indeed it is to be called good grace, as well because it signifies eternal life, concerning which it has been written: The grace of God is eternal life, and also because it contains Christ the Lord, who is true grace and the fountain of all favors.”[8]
Consider these words from Paul Bernier: “If we understand Eucharist as the mystery of Christ’s continuing ability to feed his people, if we know that his bread is broken to be shared with the needy and the poor, this will form out attitude and lend the dynamism of faith too our efforts. We need a clear ideal of what kind of world we are striving to build and the ideal we take from the Lord’s table is that he has given us brothers and sisters the world over who have a claim on us because we accept the bread broken in order to be shared.”[9]
These favors, this life, nourished by the bread of life calls us to more than simply taking from the loaf; we are to offer the loaf just as the Lord offered it to us. As the author Flannery O’Connor wrote, “You will have found Christ when you are concerned with other people’s sufferings and not your own.”[10] In the words of Mother Teresa, “The Eucharist and the poor are but one love for me.”[11]
As bloody and as violent as some of these images of are; twentieth century theologian Karl Rahner reminds us that “The Lord gave himself to us precisely as food to be enjoyed.”[12] In a world that is often more focused on the suffering of Good Friday, we are called to be the people of Easter. Grace came to us violently, but Jesus went to it voluntarily so that we may enjoy him forever.
I know I have piled many, many images together. Sometimes the connection is well explained, sometimes the imagery opens us to new ways to taste and see that the Lord is good, and sometimes it’s just baffling. It is my hope that these images can help spark a new look at the bread of life for all of us, a new look at the great I AM and who HE IS. Jesus is the bread of life; it is by his flesh that we are fed with the gift of eternal life. He is the fountain of all favors and we are the fruit of his work.
But in a spiritual way, many live like the Dickens character Oliver Twist. We are orphans in a strange place, hoping for even a morsel of bread so that we may know life, and so that we may share this new life with others. It is our hope that we may eat of this bread and drink of this cup; and when we do, we should hunger and thirst for new life, holy life, life in Christ. It is my hope that we can all leave here with Twist’s words on our lips, begging to the Lord our God with anticipation of living life eternal; life with, by and through God. “Please sir, I want some more.”
[1] BibleWorks search for the Greek phrase “ego eimi,” the equivalent to the Hebrew Tetragrammaton.
[2] PC(USA) and Cumberland Presbyterian Church, Book of Occasional Services, pages 58 and 24.
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Calvin.
[4] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1954), 66.
[5] Eucharist, Liturgical Training Publications 18
[6] Eucharist
[7] Orthodox liturgy, Eucharist
[8] Eucharist
[9] Eucharist 86
[10] Eucharist 120
[11] Eucharist, 123
[12] Eucharist, 82
Sunday, August 09, 2009
Which Came First?
Dear Friends, please excuse my absence for the past two weeks. On July 28 at 2:00 AM my mother died. Thanks to the good people of First Presbyterian in Berryville for allowing my absence. Thanks also to the Reverend Dick Shinkle, and Mr. Ken Kinser for ably filling the pulpit while Marie and I were out of town.
This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Berryville, Arkansas on Sunday August 9, 2009, the 19th Sunday in Ordinary Time.
2 Samuel 18:5-9, 15, 31-33
Psalm 130
Ephesians 4:25-5:2
John 6:35, 41-51
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.
One of my high school biology teachers was one of those people with a slightly crazy eye and a wicked sense of humor. Naturally, I liked the guy. Just to add a little spice to the day, occasionally someone would ask Mr. Schartz a biologically absurd question. No, it wasn’t me… not always. For example, one day Mani Mani, yes, that’s his real name, asked Mr. Schartz “Which came first the chicken or the egg?” Mr. Schartz answered, “The egg, dinosaurs hatched from eggs long before chickens.”
Honestly, we were disappointed by his answer. Yeah, sure, dinosaurs were older than chickens, but it didn’t answer the question the way we wanted it answered. His answer was too simple, too direct, way too on target. We wanted some sort of obscure, arcane information that could have only come from the mouth of Mr. Schartz. Of course his answer was right, and I remember it over thirty years later, but if anything it was too correct. Nothing funny, nothing witty, nothing provocative, it was just the right answer given to fifteen and sixteen year old boys who were looking for something a little wilder and a little weirder.
The theological equivalent of this question goes something like this: Which came first, grace or faith; salvation or acceptance of salvation? Now there’s a question that has been asked for two-thousand years.
Jesus makes the answer abundantly clear in our reading today. “No one can come to me unless drawn by the father who sent me.” It is by the grace of God that we are saved. There is no act that we can perform which can enhance our status with God. There is no wrong we can right, no song we can sing, no word that we can speak that will do what God cannot do without us. Since there is nothing we can do to earn our salvation, salvation comes from grace alone.
A few years ago, the Mount Comfort church participated in a huge evangelical event sponsored by several churches in Northwest Arkansas, including First Baptist Springdale and Christian Life Cathedral. Marie and I served as counselors for the event. What this meant is that after the evening’s activities, we were to go to the floor of Barnhill Arena on the UofA Campus and help counsel individuals who were seeking a relationship with Christ connect with a church.
We were told that it was our duty as soldiers in the army of the Lord to get unbelievers to sign their names to the card connecting them to this event and the Lord Jesus Christ. Maybe it was in the other order, I don’t remember. It was important to get folks to sign their names to a card at the event—even if they had signed their name to a similar “card at church camp”[1] years earlier. The way the organizer described it, it was as if the camp card is no longer valid. That part always puzzled me, does signing a card at church camp expire after a certain age? Is “signature salvation” like cell phone rollover minutes? If not used after twelve months it goes away?
The way this event was described to us, it was our opportunity to “bring” the unchruched into a relationship with the Lord, as if anything we did could do that. A signature on a card, whether done at church camp or at the home of the Razorbacks, does not seal our salvation. That was done long ago before the dawn of creation. It was done by the creator of all things, the creator of salvation.
This is an example of what Ralph Wood wrote about in the journal “Christian Ethics.” Wood writes, “The German religious painter Mathias Grunewald’s Isenheim Altarpiece gets the order of things right when it shows John the Baptist standing beneath the cross and pointing with his long index finger away from himself to the Man who has been nailed on the cross for our sins. From the mouth of the Baptizer issues these words: ‘May he increase that I decrease.’”[2]
Paul’s famous writing to the Ephesians states it this way: “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God—not the result of works, so that no one may boast.”[3]
Wood rephrases this with a provocative statement that is sure to convict any reader; “Without the gospel of salvation by grace alone through faith alone, we get the order backward—Christ decreased in order that we may increase.” [4] When we say we “bring” somebody to the Lord we put the cart before the horse. God is all ready with us, we bring nobody.
This takes us to another element from our reading of John’s gospel. Jesus goes on saying, “Very truly, I tell you, whoever believes has eternal life.” We are saved by grace which was present since before the beginning. We are saved by grace which is purchased by Christ’s death on the cross. Yet it is by faith that we come to know what God’s grace is and what it means to us, what eternal life means to us.
But I ask you to pause for a moment. We should never think of eternal life as what comes after. We tend to think of eternal life as something to do with length of life when in truth it has to do with the quality of our life, both here and on the other side of forever. “‘Eternal life’ does not speak of immortality or a future life in heaven, but is a metaphor for living now in the unending presence of God.”[5] Eternal life is a quality of life issue, but a quality of holy joy rather than a quality of human happiness.
Wood continues, “I don't believe that God much cares whether we are happy, but I believe that he cares enormously whether we are faithful and therefore joyful. Happiness is largely a matter of outward circumstance. We must possess certain things to be happy: health, money, security, success, and power. None of these things is required for joy. True joy lies in knowing that we are saved by God. It is by grace alone through his gift of faith alone. This knowledge brings the peace that surpasses all mere human happiness. We can have this joy and peace no matter how grim our circumstances-even amidst poverty and ill health, despite failure and weakness, and no matter how sinful we are.”[6]
This is how we are to respond, not in happiness, but in joy. In the joy of God we are to put away falsehood speaking the truth to our neighbors, for we are members of one another. Paul again explains this in his writing to the Ephesians as we read today. As with much of Paul’s teaching, this is not easy. We are called not to sin steal or let evil talk come from our mouths. We are to put away wrath and anger and wrangling and slander and all malice. We are called to be kind and tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven us. We are called to be imitators of Christ living in love as he loves us; giving ourselves as he gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
There are two things at work here; there is the saving grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and our response to that grace which is faith. These two things we will confess in word and song in a few moments.
Our Affirmation of Faith comes from the Westminster Standards and what we believe about effectual calling. (Sorry about the five dollar word.) We believe that God so loves the world, that even before the creation of the world, that although we are dead to sin, by the power of the Word and the Holy Spirit, through the saving work of Jesus Christ we are called into a saving relationship with the holy triune God.
And before our Affirmation, we will sing the song inspired by Isaiah’s vision of the Holy Lord in the temple. We will sing asking God’s question to Isaiah “Whom shall I send?” Then we will respond with Isaiah’s glorious words: “Here I am, Lord. / Is it I, Lord? / I have heard You calling in the night/ I will go, Lord, if You lead me. / I will hold Your people in my heart.”[7]
Our vocation is defined by Jesus in today’s gospel reading; the effectual calling of the Lord followed by our active response. It’s not the sort of thing that will win us a popularity contest, Jesus even notes that the popular kids, the power elite, grumble and complain about his words. Of course, it is the most powerful are called loudest by Jesus to hear the word of God. It is the most powerful who can make the biggest difference in the lives of the weak and oppressed in our earthly confines. Still, from the Sanhedrin to Congress, it seems like the power elite have trouble with this.
So it is up to us, it is up to the disciples of Jesus Christ to take God’s word into the world for caring for the poor, caring for those in need. Reinhold Niebuhr wrote of this and how we use our freedom. He tells us that freedom without responsibility is a horrible thing. Exercising freedom without resolve for others simply takes and takes; it’s a one way street of greed and gluttony. The freedom Christ exercises, the freedom Christ calls us to exercise is the freedom to live in joy and give sacrificially one for another. Freedom with responsibility requires action on our parts to take the gospel into the world and show the world God’s good grace through faith.
I read this yesterday and I have to share it with you. Wikipedia reports[8] “Penitents Compete” is a new Turkish reality television series in which a Jewish rabbi, a Buddhist monk, a Greek Orthodox priest, and a Muslim imam will attempt to convert a group of 10 atheists each week. It is scheduled to begin airing in September 2009 on Turkey's Kanal T network.
Kanal T's Deputy Director Ahmet Özdemir has said that that the goal of the show is “to turn disbelievers into (believers in) God,” but that which God they choose is up to them. He also believes that the show will be helpful for those interested in learning about other religions. Any converts will be offered a free pilgrimage to one of four holy sites–Mecca, Vatican City, Jerusalem, or Tibet. The newly-converted will be followed by a camera crew to ensure that the trip is a pilgrimage and not a vacation.
Two hundred atheists had already applied as of July and were being pre-vetted by an eight-person team of theologians to ensure that they truly are atheists, and not simply seeking to gain fame or fortune.
Some say the show will be good for interfaith relations and others say it’s inappropriate for television. A Turkish mufti worries that the show will confuse people and have negative consequences. An Israeli Rabbi noted that the spirit of this program does not jibe with Jewish tradition which doesn’t allow the active seeking of converts. This same Rabbi also said the show is “tasteless,” which I always thought was a touchstone of reality television.
Still, the best way for us to represent our faith, our life in Christ, whether on Turkish television or here in our own little corner of the world, is to hear Christ’s call and respond. We are to know that we do not come to the Lord unless drawn by the Father who sent him. We are to believe so that we may have eternal life. We are to enjoy eternal life confident in the life of peace and joy of knowing that we are saved by God, knowledge which surpasses all human happiness.
[1] That is a direct quote
[2] Homiletics Online, Animating Illustrations, keywords “grace alone,” http://www.homileticsonline.com/subscriber/illustration_search.asp?keywords="grace%20alone", retrieved August 6, 2009.
[3] Ephesians 2:8-9, NRSV
[4] Homiletics Online, Animating Illustrations, keywords “grace alone,” http://www.homileticsonline.com/subscriber/illustration_search.asp?keywords="grace%20alone", retrieved August 6, 2009.
[5] New Interpreter’s Study Bible, note on “Eternal Life from John 6 as found in the CD-ROM edition.
[6] Ibid, Homiletics Online
[7] Copyright © 1981 Daniel J. Schutte and New Dawn Music, 5536 NE Hassalo, Portland, Oregon 97213.
[8] Penitents Compete, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penitents_Compete, retrieved August 8, 2009.
This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Berryville, Arkansas on Sunday August 9, 2009, the 19th Sunday in Ordinary Time.
2 Samuel 18:5-9, 15, 31-33
Psalm 130
Ephesians 4:25-5:2
John 6:35, 41-51
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.
One of my high school biology teachers was one of those people with a slightly crazy eye and a wicked sense of humor. Naturally, I liked the guy. Just to add a little spice to the day, occasionally someone would ask Mr. Schartz a biologically absurd question. No, it wasn’t me… not always. For example, one day Mani Mani, yes, that’s his real name, asked Mr. Schartz “Which came first the chicken or the egg?” Mr. Schartz answered, “The egg, dinosaurs hatched from eggs long before chickens.”
Honestly, we were disappointed by his answer. Yeah, sure, dinosaurs were older than chickens, but it didn’t answer the question the way we wanted it answered. His answer was too simple, too direct, way too on target. We wanted some sort of obscure, arcane information that could have only come from the mouth of Mr. Schartz. Of course his answer was right, and I remember it over thirty years later, but if anything it was too correct. Nothing funny, nothing witty, nothing provocative, it was just the right answer given to fifteen and sixteen year old boys who were looking for something a little wilder and a little weirder.
The theological equivalent of this question goes something like this: Which came first, grace or faith; salvation or acceptance of salvation? Now there’s a question that has been asked for two-thousand years.
Jesus makes the answer abundantly clear in our reading today. “No one can come to me unless drawn by the father who sent me.” It is by the grace of God that we are saved. There is no act that we can perform which can enhance our status with God. There is no wrong we can right, no song we can sing, no word that we can speak that will do what God cannot do without us. Since there is nothing we can do to earn our salvation, salvation comes from grace alone.
A few years ago, the Mount Comfort church participated in a huge evangelical event sponsored by several churches in Northwest Arkansas, including First Baptist Springdale and Christian Life Cathedral. Marie and I served as counselors for the event. What this meant is that after the evening’s activities, we were to go to the floor of Barnhill Arena on the UofA Campus and help counsel individuals who were seeking a relationship with Christ connect with a church.
We were told that it was our duty as soldiers in the army of the Lord to get unbelievers to sign their names to the card connecting them to this event and the Lord Jesus Christ. Maybe it was in the other order, I don’t remember. It was important to get folks to sign their names to a card at the event—even if they had signed their name to a similar “card at church camp”[1] years earlier. The way the organizer described it, it was as if the camp card is no longer valid. That part always puzzled me, does signing a card at church camp expire after a certain age? Is “signature salvation” like cell phone rollover minutes? If not used after twelve months it goes away?
The way this event was described to us, it was our opportunity to “bring” the unchruched into a relationship with the Lord, as if anything we did could do that. A signature on a card, whether done at church camp or at the home of the Razorbacks, does not seal our salvation. That was done long ago before the dawn of creation. It was done by the creator of all things, the creator of salvation.
This is an example of what Ralph Wood wrote about in the journal “Christian Ethics.” Wood writes, “The German religious painter Mathias Grunewald’s Isenheim Altarpiece gets the order of things right when it shows John the Baptist standing beneath the cross and pointing with his long index finger away from himself to the Man who has been nailed on the cross for our sins. From the mouth of the Baptizer issues these words: ‘May he increase that I decrease.’”[2]
Paul’s famous writing to the Ephesians states it this way: “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God—not the result of works, so that no one may boast.”[3]
Wood rephrases this with a provocative statement that is sure to convict any reader; “Without the gospel of salvation by grace alone through faith alone, we get the order backward—Christ decreased in order that we may increase.” [4] When we say we “bring” somebody to the Lord we put the cart before the horse. God is all ready with us, we bring nobody.
This takes us to another element from our reading of John’s gospel. Jesus goes on saying, “Very truly, I tell you, whoever believes has eternal life.” We are saved by grace which was present since before the beginning. We are saved by grace which is purchased by Christ’s death on the cross. Yet it is by faith that we come to know what God’s grace is and what it means to us, what eternal life means to us.
But I ask you to pause for a moment. We should never think of eternal life as what comes after. We tend to think of eternal life as something to do with length of life when in truth it has to do with the quality of our life, both here and on the other side of forever. “‘Eternal life’ does not speak of immortality or a future life in heaven, but is a metaphor for living now in the unending presence of God.”[5] Eternal life is a quality of life issue, but a quality of holy joy rather than a quality of human happiness.
Wood continues, “I don't believe that God much cares whether we are happy, but I believe that he cares enormously whether we are faithful and therefore joyful. Happiness is largely a matter of outward circumstance. We must possess certain things to be happy: health, money, security, success, and power. None of these things is required for joy. True joy lies in knowing that we are saved by God. It is by grace alone through his gift of faith alone. This knowledge brings the peace that surpasses all mere human happiness. We can have this joy and peace no matter how grim our circumstances-even amidst poverty and ill health, despite failure and weakness, and no matter how sinful we are.”[6]
This is how we are to respond, not in happiness, but in joy. In the joy of God we are to put away falsehood speaking the truth to our neighbors, for we are members of one another. Paul again explains this in his writing to the Ephesians as we read today. As with much of Paul’s teaching, this is not easy. We are called not to sin steal or let evil talk come from our mouths. We are to put away wrath and anger and wrangling and slander and all malice. We are called to be kind and tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven us. We are called to be imitators of Christ living in love as he loves us; giving ourselves as he gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
There are two things at work here; there is the saving grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and our response to that grace which is faith. These two things we will confess in word and song in a few moments.
Our Affirmation of Faith comes from the Westminster Standards and what we believe about effectual calling. (Sorry about the five dollar word.) We believe that God so loves the world, that even before the creation of the world, that although we are dead to sin, by the power of the Word and the Holy Spirit, through the saving work of Jesus Christ we are called into a saving relationship with the holy triune God.
And before our Affirmation, we will sing the song inspired by Isaiah’s vision of the Holy Lord in the temple. We will sing asking God’s question to Isaiah “Whom shall I send?” Then we will respond with Isaiah’s glorious words: “Here I am, Lord. / Is it I, Lord? / I have heard You calling in the night/ I will go, Lord, if You lead me. / I will hold Your people in my heart.”[7]
Our vocation is defined by Jesus in today’s gospel reading; the effectual calling of the Lord followed by our active response. It’s not the sort of thing that will win us a popularity contest, Jesus even notes that the popular kids, the power elite, grumble and complain about his words. Of course, it is the most powerful are called loudest by Jesus to hear the word of God. It is the most powerful who can make the biggest difference in the lives of the weak and oppressed in our earthly confines. Still, from the Sanhedrin to Congress, it seems like the power elite have trouble with this.
So it is up to us, it is up to the disciples of Jesus Christ to take God’s word into the world for caring for the poor, caring for those in need. Reinhold Niebuhr wrote of this and how we use our freedom. He tells us that freedom without responsibility is a horrible thing. Exercising freedom without resolve for others simply takes and takes; it’s a one way street of greed and gluttony. The freedom Christ exercises, the freedom Christ calls us to exercise is the freedom to live in joy and give sacrificially one for another. Freedom with responsibility requires action on our parts to take the gospel into the world and show the world God’s good grace through faith.
I read this yesterday and I have to share it with you. Wikipedia reports[8] “Penitents Compete” is a new Turkish reality television series in which a Jewish rabbi, a Buddhist monk, a Greek Orthodox priest, and a Muslim imam will attempt to convert a group of 10 atheists each week. It is scheduled to begin airing in September 2009 on Turkey's Kanal T network.
Kanal T's Deputy Director Ahmet Özdemir has said that that the goal of the show is “to turn disbelievers into (believers in) God,” but that which God they choose is up to them. He also believes that the show will be helpful for those interested in learning about other religions. Any converts will be offered a free pilgrimage to one of four holy sites–Mecca, Vatican City, Jerusalem, or Tibet. The newly-converted will be followed by a camera crew to ensure that the trip is a pilgrimage and not a vacation.
Two hundred atheists had already applied as of July and were being pre-vetted by an eight-person team of theologians to ensure that they truly are atheists, and not simply seeking to gain fame or fortune.
Some say the show will be good for interfaith relations and others say it’s inappropriate for television. A Turkish mufti worries that the show will confuse people and have negative consequences. An Israeli Rabbi noted that the spirit of this program does not jibe with Jewish tradition which doesn’t allow the active seeking of converts. This same Rabbi also said the show is “tasteless,” which I always thought was a touchstone of reality television.
Still, the best way for us to represent our faith, our life in Christ, whether on Turkish television or here in our own little corner of the world, is to hear Christ’s call and respond. We are to know that we do not come to the Lord unless drawn by the Father who sent him. We are to believe so that we may have eternal life. We are to enjoy eternal life confident in the life of peace and joy of knowing that we are saved by God, knowledge which surpasses all human happiness.
[1] That is a direct quote
[2] Homiletics Online, Animating Illustrations, keywords “grace alone,” http://www.homileticsonline.com/subscriber/illustration_search.asp?keywords="grace%20alone", retrieved August 6, 2009.
[3] Ephesians 2:8-9, NRSV
[4] Homiletics Online, Animating Illustrations, keywords “grace alone,” http://www.homileticsonline.com/subscriber/illustration_search.asp?keywords="grace%20alone", retrieved August 6, 2009.
[5] New Interpreter’s Study Bible, note on “Eternal Life from John 6 as found in the CD-ROM edition.
[6] Ibid, Homiletics Online
[7] Copyright © 1981 Daniel J. Schutte and New Dawn Music, 5536 NE Hassalo, Portland, Oregon 97213.
[8] Penitents Compete, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penitents_Compete, retrieved August 8, 2009.
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