Gideon Sunday Children's Sermon Audio

This children's sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Marshall, Texas on Sunday October 28, 2012, the 22nd Sunday of Ordinary Time.



On October 28, 2012, First Presbyterian Church along with many other local churches and the local Gideon camp celebrated Gideon Sunday. You can find the general format for this children's sermon at at this link and hear it here!

God bless the Gideon ministry. More information can be found at the Gideons homepage.

Half Right

This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Marshall, Texas on Sunday October 21, 2012, the 29th Sunday in Ordinary Time.

Job 38:1-7

Psalm 104:1-9, 24, 35c

Hebrews 5:1-10

Mark 10:35-45

May the words of my mouth and the mediations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer.  Amen

You know me well enough to know that sometimes, I get an image burned into my head. Sometimes it’s worth sharing, more often than not there’s the reason I keep it to myself or share it only with Marie. Well, the first part of this passage did just that, and today I’m sharing.

I see the dreamy eyes of James and John, the sons of Zebedee, the sons of Thunder, as they approach Jesus. In their minds eyes they are sitting next to Jesus, everyone wearing white robes, everyone’s hair flowing in the wind, riding on the back of a classic Ford Mustang convertible, the Homecoming King and his honor attendants.

You know the wave: elbow, elbow, wrist, wrist, wrist. Smiling and waving at the appreciative crowd. In my hometown they would have been riding on the back of the convertible on Johnson Drive all the way from the high school down to Nall Avenue, just short of the Baskin-Robbins where I worked. Crowds of people along the way would be getting ready for the big game, but not before showing their undying love for the three in the car.

Jesus is in the middle surrounded by admirers and disciples, sitting in the glory seat. He’s the one everyone adores; but everyone can see James and John, the next most popular kids in the senior class.

Jesus can’t be matched, everyone knows that, but to be next to the Lord, one on his right and the other on the left in his glory, that is the greatest place they could ever hope to be. They sit and wave and bask in the Lord’s reflected glory and just know everyone wants to be like them. That's what they want.

Suddenly, Jesus busts their dream bubbles. “You might think you can get in the car, but do you think you’ll be able to take the ride all the way to Nall Avenue? Will you be able to wear the crown and sash? Will you be able to take everything the crowds have to give?”

I’m sure James and John imagined sharing the love and adulation. “Oh, yes, we most certainly will be able to take it all.” I’m just as sure they didn’t imagine the jealousy, envy, hatred, and scorn.

Jesus gives the blushing boys a nod and tells them the truth they don’t understand, “Well guess what; you will get wear the crown and the sash and you will get to know it all, but whether you’ll be riding in the classic Mustang or not, that’s not up to me.”

That’s when the scenario in my head dissolves into the rest of the homecoming court, the ten who are sitting on hay bails on the flatbed truck behind the classic Mustang, they get upset with the upstarts. You know the rest, kicking, scratching, hair pulling… I can’t decide if my re-visioning of this passage is like a bad teen movie or the spoof of a bad teen movie.

If this reading is giving you a feeling of déjà vu, it should. This is the third time we find the Passion-prediction, apostle-slip, harsh-truth pattern in Mark’s gospel.

The first time is back in chapter 8 when Peter affirms Jesus is Lord. It began when Jesus tells the apostles there will be pain and suffering. Then Peter takes Jesus aside to tell him how to be the Messiah. Then Jesus dropped the bomb, “Get behind me Satan!”

The second time was found in chapter nine, “Then they came to Capernaum; and when [Jesus] was in the house he asked them, ‘What were you arguing about on the way?’ But they were silent, for on the way they had argued with one another over who was the greatest.” [1]

Today’s Passion description precedes our reading from Mark. In it Jesus says, “We are going up to Jerusalem and the Son of Man will be betrayed to the chief priests and the teachers of the law. They will condemn him to death and will hand him over to the Gentiles; they will mock him, and spit upon him, and flog him, and kill him. Three days he will rise.”[2] Then James and John ask to be second in command. Then Jesus tells them what’s going to really happen.

This is the third time Jesus had told his disciples that he will be mocked, spat upon, flogged, killed, and after three days raised from the dead.  It is completely absurd that immediately after this teaching, the third repeat of this same teaching, the Sons of Thunder ask if they can sit next to Jesus in his glory.

There’s an old expression: “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.” So what do we do when the apostles are fooled a third time? Jesus does what he did each of the other times; he showed them where they were half right and tried to teach them the other half. If the end game is redemption of the whole of creation, what else is there to do? That’s grace in action.

What makes this painfully human is James and John asking to sit next to Jesus in his glory. They were seeking power and glory in this earthly kingdom, seeking the good things power and glory can bring. This is what they thought his glory would be. They asked and Jesus told them they would share his baptism and share his cup.

What they didn’t grasp was that his full glory was on the other side of the Passion. What didn’t get through their skulls was that the cup wasn’t anything anybody would want to share. “Cup” often meant a cup overflowing with misery and woe. They are anxious to be next to him in his ecstasy but not in his agony. Holy Week shows us this. On the heels of his last Passion prediction, they ask Jesus if he will let them hear the cheers, but nobody asks to scream in terror.

There’s a holy “nannie-nannie-na-na” to hearing Jesus tell James and John that those places on the left and right are not for him to grant. It is glorious to hear that those places are “for those for whom it has been prepared.” In a grim turn, those places will belong to two bandits, one on his right and one on his left.[3] We want to bask in his reflected glory, that’s the easy part. It’s not so easy to share the anguish. We beg to be next to Jesus in his glory, but nobody wants a piece of Golgotha, the place of a skull.[4]

Let’s not sugar coat this either, Jesus knows his fate will be horrific.  And he knows that being fully human, born from the womb of a woman; he will feel the pain.  He will know the horror of crucifixion. He will know the horror of abandonment by those closest to him. Being the Messiah does not come with its own spiritual morphine.  He is God and he is human, he will know the pain of a crucified man.

Being baptized in his own blood walking to his death? Drinking from the cup of the Passion? The passion Jesus told them about three different times? I wonder if they would have asked the same question if they had known what they were getting themselves into. It’s the good old fashioned “Beware of what you ask for, because you just might get it.” I wonder if this little heart-to-heart came to mind when the promise that they will be baptized with the same baptism and drink from the same cup was being fulfilled.

One more time, Jesus tells them what true leadership means. Jesus tells the disciples that the powerful lord their authority over the Gentiles. And the high officials lord their power and authority over those leaders. It’s a power struggle. It’s a top-down power struggle and as long as you can push your load downhill it’s all good. It’s being covered in what rolls downhill that gets nasty.

Whether it’s taxes or being forced to carry a soldier’s pack one mile, or any of the other nasty things the Romans or the Temple elite could require the people to do, being at the bottom of the ladder has no perks at all.

There’s one more truth about this fact, it’s not what Jesus wants us to do. “Not so with you,” he says, “instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all.” Microsoft Word warns me that that sentence has “verb confusion.” If that’s the only confusion it carries that would be enough, but what’s confusing in this sentence extends beyond the verbs.

He says “whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all.” Here’s an important point that often gets missed, to be a servant or a slave you must have a master. Let me say this again, to be a servant or a slave you must have a master. So here’s the question Jesus leaves unasked. He doesn’t ask the apostles. He doesn’t ask the disciples. He doesn’t ask the Jews or the Gentiles. He doesn’t ask the civil or temple leaders. He asks “Who are you going to serve?”

In 1979, Bob Dylan released his “Slow Train Coming” album, much to the dismay of the listening audience. Suddenly this young Jewish man who had played folk and rock suddenly took a turn into gospel and Christian rock long before it was cool. The big single on “Slow Train Coming” was “Gotta Serve Somebody.” The chorus rings out as plain as day:

You're gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed

You're gonna have to serve somebody,

It may be the devil or it may be the Lord

But you're gonna have to serve somebody.[5]

It doesn’t get any easier than this. It’s an either/or choice. Like Dylan sings you have to serve somebody and our choices are the devil or the Lord. Jesus proclaims “whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant” and “whoever wants to be first must be slave of all.” Jesus shows how he has made up his mind, “for even the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve.”

Jesus tells us to be servants, slaves of all. That is the example he has set for us and continues to set. Jesus did not come to be served, but to serve. His life has been given to pay the ransom for many. That is what we are called to do if we are going to be great. That is what is required because this ransom was paid for us. This is the example Jesus sets for all humanity.

It may be the devil or it may be the Lord, but you’re gonna have to serve somebody.

Often people say they have no master. Nobody has command over them. There’s a fierce independent streak among westerners in general and Americans in particular that insists no man is master over me. That’s not the good news because when we become our own masters we let bad things become our masters.

For an easy example, some of us are slaves to chemicals. Whether it’s tobacco or alcohol or chemicals we get legally or illegally, sometimes these chemicals become our masters. On November 1 I will celebrate 25 years without a cigarette. It’s been a long time coming, but I have to tell you, there are still days when I crave a cigarette. It’s been 25 years and I can still feel that hot smoke fill my lungs and sinuses and remember how it made me feel.

It may be the devil or it may be the Lord, but you’re gonna have to serve somebody.

Power, authority, and prestige are also things we think we can control, but in the long run they can gain control over us. This is what tempted the sons of Zebedee, the sons of Thunder. If we say we know better than that we make the devil’s favorite mistake, we forget we’re just as human as they were. When we want the things that bring us glory, we are hoping for the wrong things. Certainly this was a part of James’ and John’s thinking; after all they were only human.

Yesterday was Homecoming at East Texas Baptist University. Homecoming is this coming weekend at Marshall High School. That's a lot of custom cars with lots of pretty young ladies and handsome young men. They’ll be flying the colors and waving the flag. They’ll be cheering on the home team. They’re making a commitment, a decision. Not the most important one they will make, but still, they’re showing their loyalty.

We have two choices about who we serve, Jesus or the world. It may be the devil and it may be the Lord but we have to serve somebody. In the end, we need to remember that by the grace of God, through the life, death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, we have been bought and paid for. God wants us to behave like this matters to us. God wants us to be first by being the slave of all. The disciples got it half right. It’s up to us to seek Christ’s way, even the baptism and the cup, and continue God’s work, getting the other half right too.

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[1] Mark 9:33-34

[2] Mark 10:33-34

[3] Mark 15:27

[4] Mark 15:22

[5] Dylan, Bob. “Gotta Serve Somebody.” Columbia Records, 1979.

"Point of View" and "...then how?"

This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Marshall, Texas on Sunday October 14, 2012, the 28th Sunday in Ordinary Time.

Job 23:1-9, 16-17

Psalm 22:1-15

Hebrews 4:12-16

Mark 10:17-31

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer.  Amen

I like to start with something that has a little more pizzazz than this. I like starting with stories that either take an unexpected turn or stories that seem completely unrelated to the Gospel I had just read. Every pastor has their own way of beginning a sermon, but this one was illusive.

I mean these are some pretty heady readings. Hebrews tells us that Jesus has been tempted and tested just like we are yet is without sin. So let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence. At first look from a cautious point of view that doesn’t sound like such a good idea. Jesus was tried, tempted, and tested just like we are everyday, but he didn’t succumb to Satan’s antics. Jesus has been through the same things we have, and he did much better. How can we approach that?

The gospels are loaded with stories of how Jesus was tried by Satan after forty days in the wilderness, his family when they thought he was nuts, the Presbytery—er, Pharisees, and finally by his own. Yes, saying “by his own” I’m talking about Judas, but Mark’s gospel has shown us that many of the disciples who were named were named because they were making a mistake. Peter, even after he is declared to be the Rock of the Church, told Jesus how to be the Messiah.

So we should approach boldly, with confidence? With our sins and his sinlessness we how can we approach Jesus at all? If we approach with confidence had better make sure we don’t approach in arrogance. Otherwise we could end up like the Nazi’s at the end of “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade” after picking the wrong Grail cup.

Our Call to Worship this morning taken from the 22^nd Psalm begins with the greatest lament in Christian Literature! “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” I know my share of sorrow, grief, and shame—but these words take the cake. “Oh my God, I cry in the daytime and you do not answer; by night I find no rest.” Abandoned by God, the psalmist cries out.

You can expect fair-weather friends and bad-weather enemies to betray you, but when the times get hardest can you imagine being abandoned by your best friends? It happens to Jesus at his moment of greatest despair. It didn’t just happen, he prophesied it would happen.

Of course our Old Testament reading was from Job. Last week’s reading from Job set up the scene for a man’s great downfall. His wife cries out “curse God and die!” Job refuses to curse God. He asks “Shall we receive the good at the hand of God, and not receive the bad?” So Job did not sin with his lips.

By this time in the story, Job is not a happy camper. His three “friends,” Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar, each try to tell Job why he is bad, wrong, evil, sinful, or whatever. Job is done. He wants justice. He’s so upset that he wants God to come and hear his complaint. He figures no great power would ever press charges against him. Job riles because God is absent, he is abandoned. He is lost, but he is not silenced by this darkness.

So with all of these stories, we see despair. People looking for what’s good. People looking for what’s just. People looking for peace in a world that looks like God is looking the other direction.

To this, we bring you the story of the rich man. The rich man asks the question of the hour, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” Let’s be honest, in one way or another, everyone has asked that question. We may scoff because we know how Jesus will respond, but honestly, everyone wants to know what we have to do to inherit eternal life.

At least the rich man doesn’t ask what he has to do to earn eternal life. To earn eternal life implies that there is something we can do, something that has to be done so that we can earn eternal life. At least he got that part of his question right. We can’t earn eternal life, we can only inherit it.

So Jesus gives him the quiz. Using the last six of the Ten Commandments, Jesus asks the rich man how he has treated the people around him, how he has lived in the community. He has kept the commandments of God since he was a boy.

So Jesus told him what comes next. Jesus used five verbs: Go, Sell, Give, Come, and Follow. He tells him to trade his treasures on Earth for treasures in Heaven. Then he can come and follow. He asks the man to do as the other disciples had done, leave it all behind and follow. This is the fate of the apostolic disciples. They gave all they had to God, in exchange God was all they had.

The Dutch missionary Andrew van der Bijl is more commonly known as Brother Andrew. The first of the many books he wrote was the memoir “God’s Smuggler.”[1] It tells the story of his early childhood, conversion to Christianity, and adventures as a Bible-smuggler behind the Iron Curtain. It has now sold over 10 million copies in thirty-five languages and is a model for the modern conversion and missionary story.

One of the major themes in the story is Andrew’s utter dependence upon God. When in Seminary in Scotland, one of the lessons that was impressed upon the students was that they all faced obligations, they all faced challenges, and these could only be met by complete and utter faith in God.

The seminarians who tried to rely on “keeping a little back in case of a rainy day” soon found that every day was rainy. When they began to depend upon themselves and their own money management skills two things happened:

The first was that the demands seemed to increase.

The second was that the miracles seemed to dry up.

The theme of God providing everything was first and foremost in the book. Miraculous acts and gifts provided what Andrew needed, from safety and provision traveling in Eastern Europe to toothpaste.

Nothing was too small or too big for God’s concern. I think we can safely say that this rich man’s story is the antithesis to “God’s Smuggler.” He wanted to follow the Lord, but the rich man didn’t want to leave his safety net behind.

After a bit more of this, noting how difficult it is for the wealthy to enter the kingdom of God, the disciples ask the big question all over again, “Who then can be saved?”

This is where folks often begin to feel a little smug. After all, none of us are rich. We certainly don’t have the riches that the rich man has. We don’t have the world at our disposal. The world is not our oyster. The only oysters we have are found in a Po’ Boy; and we say “po’” because we don’t have enough for the whole word “Poor.” We try to distance ourselves from this narrative because we’re nothing like this rich man, nothing like him at all.

This is how we perceive ourselves, our point of view. When our point of view begins to exclude us from specific scriptures, we fall into one of scripture’s traps. When we begin to think that lessons of scripture don’t apply to us because we’re nothing like that, we begin to pare not only the breadth of God’s sovereignty and authority, but the reach of God’s love.

When we think we are poor, it is because we don’t look around. No, I don’t live in that gated community on South Washington, neither do any of us. But when we look around, and see the poverty that surrounds us we learn that there are some who see us as the rich man who won’t give up what he has to help the poor and follow Jesus.

Also our reading talks about financial wealth. This is surely the most accessible form of wealth. But this is also when I wonder if this point of view isn’t overly restrictive. Our wealth extends beyond our treasure. It includes our time and our talent as well.

Some of us have made sacrifices. Some of us have taken jobs in places where our talents are needed to help those who don’t have the same resources we do. Some of us have taken jobs in places where our talents are sorely needed to help those in crisis and in danger. Some of us have served our country to help preserve the freedom of the rich and the poor. Some of us have taken our lives and shared them with the sick and the widowed and the orphaned. All who do this forsake worldly wealth in exchange for Christian service, but is there more?

Even more than all of this, we are called to set aside our egos. We are called to set aside what we think is best so that we can find and follow what God thinks is best. Setting aside our selves, our notions, and our identities is even tougher than emptying the bank account. From our point of view what we have is limited, and it’s ours! From God’s point of view, what we have been given, given, is everything!

In “Call to Conversion,” Jim Wallis reminds us “Evangelism can no longer mean simply taking people out of the world, running them through some process of conversion and then placing them back in the same world and somehow expecting them to survive. If conversion is the translation of persons from one world to another, from one community to another, then conversion to Christ requires a new environment in which it is more possible to live a Christian life.”[2]

We are called to accept the gift of eternal life and everything that comes with it, the good and the bad. We are then called to share those blessings with others creating a new community that is only possible through God.

So, there is nothing we can do to earn eternal life. There is nothing we can do to purchase our inheritance. For us it is impossible. We can’t buy our way into the family, yet there is a great cost, whether economic or not, to following Jesus like the first apostles and disciples. Our point of view may even keep us from seeing the price we are being called to pay. So then what, what can we do to inherit eternal life?

Gloriously, our earlier readings not only ask big questions, they give us big answers.

Hebrews says that Jesus has been tempted and tested just like we are yet is without sin. So let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence. This still sounds pretty heady and then we finish reading the verse. We approach the throne of grace “so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”

Grace and mercy are things we cannot hope to earn or purchase. Offering anything for grace or mercy would not make them grace or mercy at all! The cautious point of view I mentioned earlier is not what God wants from us. Jesus didn’t show us a way we could imitate, he showed us Himself. We can’t be sinless, but we can follow Jesus. This is why we are called to ask. This is why we are called to be bold.

As for the psalmist, too well we know the cry “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” But regardless of how David feels about his earthly situation, he still knows God is God. He cries, “Yet you are the Holy One, enthroned upon the praises of Israel, our ancestors put their trust in you; they trusted, and you delivered them.

As for Job, well, he’s seeking an audience with the Lord trusting the Lord is just.

So here’s my point, and it gets back to verse 18 from our Mark reading. Jesus asks the young man “Why do you call me good? No one is good—except for God alone.” This repeats what Hebrews and Psalms teach us. God is good and no one is good except for God alone. It also reminds us that Jesus did not come to eliminate the law. Jesus loves the man because he follows the law! But to follow Jesus, there is more.

We don’t really know the fate of this rich man. He may have gone home and died a rich man who told stories about the day Jesus told him to give it all up. He might have told that story as a grand joke or as a sad lament. Then again, he may have repented. He may have done as Jesus asked, not immediately, but he might have.

Scripture doesn’t say he did, and scripture doesn’t say he didn’t.

What I say is Jesus is in the business of reconciliation. Our take on the shape of reconciliation isn’t always to our liking. It wasn’t to the liking of a lot of people. That’s our point of view, but it is God bringing us together in the name of Christ. And that’s who can be saved, everyone through Christ; because only in God are all things possible.

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[1] Brother Andrew with John and Elizabeth Sherrill, “God’s Smuggler.” Old Tappan, NJ: Spire Books, 1967.

[2] Wallis, Jim, “The Call to Conversion.” San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1992), 115. Found at http://www.homileticsonline.com/subscriber/illustration_search.asp?item_topic_id=1208.

The Way It's Meant to Be

This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Marshall, Texas on Sunday October 7, the 27th Sunday in Ordinary Time.

Job 1:1, 2:1-10

Psalm 26

Hebrews 1:1-1, 2:5-12

Mark 10:2-16

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 Christian Century Magazine recently ran a cover story called “The Gospel in Seven Words.”[1] The magazine recalls a story from Will Campbell’s autobiography “Brother to a Dragonfly.” In this part of Campbell’s story, his friend P. D. East badgers him for a succinct definition of Christianity. East did not want a long or fancy explanation. “I’m not too bright,” he told Campbell. “Keep it simple. In ten words or less, what’s the Christian message?”

Campbell obliged his friend saying “We’re all bastards but God loves us anyway.” This led them to an extended discussion that stuck in East’s mind. He wasn’t sure he bought it, but it gave him something to think about.

It’s a wild gospel, “We’re all bastards but God loves us anyway.” I guess the first question that comes to a more reserved mind is what did Campbell mean using “The ‘B’ Word”? I ask because he could have meant we are the illegitimate children of creation. He could have meant we are a wicked, spiteful sort compared to the glorious perfection of our creator and our Lord. He could have meant to use it to capture the attention of the listener, then the reader, and now you today. Any or none of these may be right.

Whatever the reason, the magazine suggests Campbell begins with the bad news that we are who we are, because without the bad news there is no longing for the good news. The good news is that God is who God is, the lover of all sinful humanity.

The Christian Century asked several authors and theologians to contribute their version of the seven word gospel. Some examples include:

Christian Century Contributing Editor Martin E. Marty contributed “God, through Jesus Christ, welcomes you anyhow.” He says the “anyhow” hints at the mercy in God’s welcome.

Donald W. Shriver makes a similar move with “Divinely persistent, God really loves us.”

Beverly Roberts Gaventa goes the same direction saying “In Christ, God’s yes defeats our no.”

The human tendency to mess things up and long for another chance is essential, if unspoken, in Mary Karr’s “We are the Church of Infinite Chances.” Karr was the only respondent to squeeze in a mention of the church—there’s no second chance without a church to offer it.

M. Craig Barnes boils it down to four words: “We live by grace.”[2]

The “Letters to the Editor” section of the magazine and the comments section to the internet article brought a fruitful harvest of examples[3] including:

“Love God. Love your neighbor as yourself.” and the similar, “Love one another as I loved you.”

“God loves the whole world...  No exceptions!”

One reader took advantage of punctuation to give himself more words writing, “All things (heaven/earth) reconciled in Christ.”

One reader uses his words not only to affirm God’s purpose, but to affirm our missional purpose in God’s vocation, “You are Love. Act like it.”

Something else I like about this one is that it points out the difference between the way it is and the way it’s meant to be. Our Gospel reading leads us into a conflict between the Law of Moses and the Way of God. So we start with a question that seems straightforward and is anything but; the Pharisees ask “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?”

Asking this question, the Pharisees tried to draw Jesus into their argument between rabbinical schools of thought. Evidently, controversy over divorce is as old as marriage itself. 

At this time in Ancient Israel, there were three different rabbinical schools of thought about divorce. The position taken by the Shammai School was very strict, while a more lenient stance taken by the Hillel School. Somewhere between the two fell the teachings of the Aqiba School.[4]

If Jesus takes one position over the others, then the uproar begins. Sit on the fence and everybody gets upset. The trap has been laid and it’s the ultimate no-win situation. Gloriously, Jesus knows the game they play and he knows the truth is the only way to answer their question.

They ask “Is it lawful?”  Jesus asks them back, “Well, what did Moses command you?”

Willing to answer their own questions, the Pharisees say “Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of dismissal and to divorce her.” With just a word from Moses, the woman is eligible for a pink slip. I imagine one group of rabbis were happy to hear this. I am just as sure that those who sided against the others were dismayed, ready to make their point before the Lord.

But Jesus will have nothing to do with their arguments over the Law of Moses.  Jesus, the Word Incarnate, turns away from interpretation and shares the Living Word with all who will listen.  Jesus reminds them all the reason Moses said what he did was not because of marriage, but because of the people who married.  Moses said a man can write a certificate of dismissal not because marriage is hard, but because people become hard. 

This word, hard, has a specific meaning for the Rabbis and the Pharisees; it doesn’t describe something hard like a rock or difficult like ruling the people or perilous like crossing the desert.  In this case, Jesus meant that the people of God were as stubborn and unyielding as they were when Moses used this word in Deuteronomy 10:16 summing up the essence of the Law saying to the people “Circumcise, then, the foreskin of your heart, and do not be stubborn any longer.”[5]

In this passage Jesus stands for what God wants. Jesus stands for the better way.  Jesus stands up for people who are married more than he stands up for marriage. He stands for people sharing life together in the love of God rather than institutional wedlock. He stands for grace and love over law and certificates of dismissal. Jesus stands up for loving and caring relationships, not legal documents that either bind or unbind a couple.

Yes, the Law allows divorce; and Jesus doesn’t stand for the wayit is but for the way it’s meant to be, something better, a life worth living.

A life constrained by legal bonds and contracts is hardly a life worth living. Life isn’t meant to be lived in court; it is meant to be lived in the unconditional love of God. A love we are given not despite who we are—not despite the fact that there is divorce and remorse—but because of who we are—because we are the children of God. It is as the children of God that we live life the way it’s meant to be.

Jesus knows that this connection, this untainted love, is best shown by children; children who do not know what we grown-ups horribly call real life. Children, who in the best of circumstances, can’t imagine shattered relationships. Children who inherently trust; trusting and loving so graciously that Jesus says the kingdom of God belongs to children such as these. Jesus says “anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.”

We live in a complicated world, and it just keeps getting more complicated everyday. The things that don’t get more complicated get bigger and faster. If I told you that it is easy to live in our world like children you would probably laugh and rightfully so. Yet no matter how hard it is by any definition of hard, God gives us what we need to live the way it’s meant to be.

About twenty-five years ago a nationwide poll asked, “What word or phrase would you most like to hear uttered to you, sincerely?” The most frequent thing the respondents wanted to hear was “I love you.” The second is as glorious as the first, “You are forgiven.” The third seems different from the others. It’s “Supper is ready.”[6]

Today, in worship, we hear all of these things. Today, the Lord our God tells us these things. Today we have heard God’s love, and we respond to God’s love sharing God’s peace and love with one another. We have confessed our sins against God and against one another and have heard “Christ who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one origin. In Jesus Christ we are forgiven.”[7] Soon we will hear the words of invitation to the table, the call that supper is ready as we celebrate the sacrament of Holy Communion, the Lord’s Supper. 

By the grace of God we are given what we need to live God blessed lives, lives worthy of the kingdom of heaven, and the hard cold world we see all around us. We are given the blessings of God’s love, God’s forgiveness, and God’s nourishment. We have received love and grace, plate and cup; and we have received them from Jesus.

We are called to come together and revel in God’s grace, and hope. We are called to come together and share. When we ask what we have to give one another, we can only give from what we receive. We must learn the songs of God in our own lives so that we may sing aloud our song of thanksgiving, recounting God’s wonderful deeds. 

We are called to share what we are given with the world. We can spend all the time we want lamenting what we don’t have with one another because we live in a world where the Word does not fully live, not right now. But we must be willing to share what is here already, and in Christ we have everything that’s worth sharing.

By this, we share the gospel. By this, we build relationships. On this World Communion Sunday, we join with Christians around the world and celebrate what brings us together instead of what tears us apart. And today, to nourish all creation for this task, we are fed by the sacrament. 

You might be wondering what P. D. East thought of Will Campbell’s response to his request for ten words. East replied, “If you want to try again, you have two words left.” I wonder what the gospel in seven words looks like to us. Let this be a great point of discussion about who we are and whose we are and who we are called to become. Share it together at lunch! Or go on-line and share! Go ahead and post it to my facebook page once I get this sermon uploaded.

Finally, let me offer my seven words: “God loves, forgives, and redeems. Supper’s ready.”

If I say “Amen” would say that’s eight words. Oh well, supper’s ready, come and get it! Amen.

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[1] http://www.christiancentury.org/article/2012-08/gospel-seven-words

[2] These examples are only vaguely edited from the Christian Century article. It’s really very interesting, you should look it up.

[3] http://www.christiancentury.org/blogs/archive/2011-10/whats-gospel-seven-words

[4] Williams, Lamar, Jr.  Mark, Interpretation, A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching.  Louisville, KY: John Knox Press, 1983, pages 175-177

[5] Ibid.

[6] http://www.homileticsonline.com/subscriber/illustration_search.asp?item_topic_id=1193, With thanks to James A. Harnish, "Walking With Jesus: Forgiveness," Tampa, Fla., March 22, 1998.

[7] Kirk, James G. “When We Gather, A Book of Prayers for Worship.”  Louisville, KY; Geneva Press, 2001, page 233.