"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.

Lenten Lament

This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church on Sunday February 28, 2010, the Second Sunday in Lent.

Genesis 15:1-12, 17-18
Psalm 27
Philippians 3:17-4:1
Luke 13:31-35

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 sky is falling.” This cry is heard from many different stories, but its most usually cited source is the Aesop fable of the same name; though we commonly call that story by the name of its main character, Chicken Little.

Oh, yes, the sky is falling. Chicken Little is beaned by an acorn while eating her lunch under the shade of an old oak tree. Being civically minded, she decides she must inform the king of their impending doom. Along the way, several other animals come to help Chicken Little spread the word including Henny Penny, Cocky Lockey and Goosey Loosey and others. Finally, they come across Foxy Loxy who offers to help spread the word. All the while, it’s Foxy Loxy’s intent to lure the gang down into his den where he will eat them for his dinner.

Now, a jester can tell a king things in story and song that no one else would ever dare say aloud. So when the storyteller would get to this point in the fable there would be several different directions the tale can be taken depending on what moral the teller intends to share.

In this tradition, there are several different endings to this fable. In the most famous ending,[1] Foxy Loxy eats Chicken Little’s friends, but the last one, usually Cocky Lockey, survives long enough to warn her and she escapes. In this ending, we learn the dangers of making poor decisions based on worse information and believing everything we hear.

In the “happy ending” version,[2] all of the characters are saved by an unnamed little gray squirrel who has seen the fox’s game before and warns them of a more likely doom than the sky falling. To free the unknowingly trapped menagerie, the squirrel hurls a rock into Foxy’s skull creating enough of a diversion to free the captives. One of the lessons we take from this ending is to be brave like the squirrel and not, well chicken.

Reading these tales with all of their characters and all of their voices conveys a level of energy that creates a sense of confusion. In a manic rendering of this story with its sudden climax, we are trapped much like all of the animals in Foxy Loxy’s den. Comparing this fable to our gospel reading, I would say that, the Pharisees would fulfill in the role of Chicken Little and the gang all too well.

“Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you!” It has a nice “the sky is falling” ring to it, doesn’t it? There is terror in the wings, the apocalyptic sign of the ages, sure and certain death is on the way and running is your only salvation.

If in my recasting of this fable, the Pharisees serve as Chicken Little and her band of followers, and Jesus serves as the King, of course; it looks like Herod appears in the guise of Foxy Loxy having his eyes on something bigger than small livestock.

So as we read of Jesus calling Herod “that fox,” we can tell he means business. Let’s begin with the fact that the biblical witness on foxes is hardly favorable. As it was for Aesop, the fox Jesus refers to is sly, cunning, and voraciously destructive. Yet Jesus isn’t worried. Jesus knows what time it is and his Blackberry is up to date with his schedule from now until Passover and beyond.

Jesus is warned that Herod wants to kill him. Jesus gives a warning in return. Jesus tells Herod and the Pharisees and the world that he will not be hindered. His work will not be impeded by Herod or by anybody else. He will cast out demons. He will perform cures. Then on the third day, he will finish his work.

Finish, this is the same word Jesus will use upon the cross as he commends his spirit into his Father’s hands. On that Good Friday Jesus will say “It is finished.” Today he says, “On that day I finish.”

Jesus knows his fate, and he knows that today it has nothing to do with Herod Antipas. He knows it so well that he knows that his fate will be met down the road in Jerusalem.

Jerusalem, oh Jerusalem, this is a city that does not live up to its name. The Hebrew word for “City of Peace,” Jerusalem kills the prophets and stones those sent to it. This is where Naboth[3] and Zechariah[4] were stoned. This is where Stephen[5] will be stoned. This is a city that has been besieged over forty times and razed to the ground seventeen.[6] City of Peace? Not so much.

As Jesus warns the Pharisees that he will not be rushed, as Jesus warns Herod that he is not finished, and as he warns Jerusalem that he is coming; Jesus laments. He doesn’t lament his fate, no; he laments the city where his fate will be sealed. He laments the city where his fate will be unsealed.

In the City of David, in the City of Solomon’s Temple, In the City of God, Jesus laments how often he has wanted, longed to gather the people. As a hen gathers her brood, Jesus longs to gather the children of Jerusalem. As Jesus longs to gather the children of Jerusalem, Jesus longs to gather the children of God in this day and time.

I would like to share two stories with you:

Victor Shepherd is a Canadian minister, theologian, and author.[7] In his seminary training, he had a course with Dr. James Wilkes, a Toronto psychiatrist. During one class, a student lamented that in this age of agnosticism and secularism we were no longer sure of the church’s vocation. Wilkes stared at the student for the longest time as if the student were half-deranged and then remarked, “Are you telling me that you can have a suffering human being in front of you and you don’t know what the church’s vocation is?”[8]

A professor laments that seminarians can believe the church has difficulty finding its place in a world of pain and suffering. Vocation lays in front us in poverty, hunger, and despair. Here in Lapeer County, the unemployment rate is 9.5% and 8.5% of families live below the poverty level. Poverty numbers shoot up to 14.4% of families with children under age eighteen and 21.7% of families whose children are all under the age of five.[9] Some of these numbers are in line with national percentages, some higher, some lower.[10] We don’t have to look far to see that the church’s vocation to show compassion and be the light of Christ in the world is all around us.

The second story comes from the Landisville, Pennsylvania Mennonite Church where every Sunday members pray for a son of their congregation. Every month they send him a small sum of money, and every month some of them visit him.

Prayer, money and visits: fairly typical examples of congregational care giving, one might suppose. What's atypical is that nine years ago, after a meal with relatives on a calm Sunday afternoon, 14-year-old Keith Weaver killed his parents, Clair and Anna May, and his sister, Kimberly. The inexplicable horror of the crime and the loss of lives rocked the Weavers’ family, church, and community to the core.

In the middle of their grief and disillusionment, however, members of the Landisville congregation got busy. They helped clean the house where the murders occurred, established a legal support committee to care for Keith's needs so that the surviving brother and sister wouldn't have to, and founded a seventy times seven fund to collect money for his expenses. They studied grief, forgiveness and victimization in Sunday school and sermons, calling on the expertise of area chaplains and counselors. A year after the tragedy, they held a memorial service to lament the loss of their loved ones and to recommit themselves to the journey of forgiveness.[11]

The Landisville story reminds us that in every crime there are countless victims who need to receive the peace and love of Jesus Christ. The congregation in Landisville continues that journey, through prayers and financial help and visits to Keith in prison. “Forgiveness is an act of God's grace,” says Landisville pastor Sam Thomas. “You don't forgive and forget; you forgive again and again and again.”

In the midst of every lament, there is a call to action. Jesus laments the victims and the victimizers of Jerusalem. He laments a city that is not willing to be called to serve as the heart and hands of the Lord in the City of God. Jesus continuously wants to gather the city and protect the children of Jerusalem.

Yes, we remember wonderful promises like “wings of eagles” which will make us able to run and not be weary; walk and not faint.[12] But instead of likening himself to the majestic hunter, Jesus likens himself to a hen. Jesus is not the bird that strikes terror into prey of all sizes; he compares himself to a maternal protector. This is the king who will ride into Jerusalem on the back of a colt, not astride a great warhorse. Jesus responds to lament in love and nurture, not in war and destruction.

The 27th Psalm gives us the image of a great king facing the greatest dangers of his civilization. Ordained and installed as the head of the nation of Israel by the power and glory of the Lord, he still has many enemies. Evildoers have come upon him to eat up his flesh. Armies have encamped against him. He laments that even his father and mother will forsake him, but it is the Lord who will sustain him. Let us hear the words of the 27th Psalm:

For on the day of trouble the LORD shall shelter me in safety;
the LORD shall hide me in the secrecy of the holy place
and set me high upon a rock.

Even now the LORD lifts up my head
above my enemies round about me.
Therefore I will offer in the holy place an oblation
with sounds of great gladness;
I will sing and make music to the LORD.[13]

There is woe, danger. Herod has been waiting at the door for thousands of years, and by the light of Christ that shines, the darkness is pierced. Jesus lives and works, praying for Jerusalem and for us in the midst of the things that cause us to lose sight of the church’s vocation.

In this, we can rest assured that in the grand scheme of life, nothing happens outside of the love and protection of the Lord God Almighty. Where last week we heard the story of Jesus and the devil in the wilderness, this week we hear the story of another temptation, Jesus is invited to run for his life. Jesus cuts through the worldly political twists and turns, knowing that his time will not come today or tomorrow. Jesus is in control even when it will appear to the world that he is not.

In the grand scheme, while we must let God be God who will act in God’s own time and in God’s own way; we must not allow ourselves to let this be our call to inaction. We must begin by being willing to be collected as chicks gathered by their mother, and then we must allow ourselves to be nurtured and grow into the people God calls us to be. As chicks will follow their mother hen, we must follow Christ seeking and finding the vocation of the church to share the good news with the world, using words when necessary.

We begin by hearing that the sky is falling all around us, and in many very real ways it is. Still, we cannot let ourselves be distracted by Herod or any of the other foxes that make their ways into our lives. In the fable, the king shows Chicken Little that the sky is not falling; it is just a tiny acorn. Let us go to the King of Kings, the one who protects us from every foxy Herod, and shows us the way to say, “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.”

[1] Chicken Little, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sky_Is_Falling_(fable), retrieved February 25, 2010.
[2] Chicken Little, http://www.edsanders.com/chickenlittle/, retrieved February 25, 2010.
[3] 1Kings 21:8-14
[4] 2Chronicles 24:20-22
[5] Acts 7:52, 58
[6] Tan, Paul Lee, “Encyclopedia of 7700 Illustrations, Sign of the Times.” Chicago: Assurance Publishers, 1979, entry #2593.
[7] Victor Shepherd, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_Shepherd, retrieved February 25, 2010.
[8] HomileticsOnline.com, referencing Victor Shepherd, “Mandate for a congregation,” January 1998, Victor Shepherd Web Site, victorshepherd.on.ca. Found at Illuminating Illustrations, http://homileticsonline.com/subscriber/illustration_search.asp?keywords=lament, February 23, 2010.
[9] Census.gov website, http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/ADPTable?_bm=y&-geo_id=05000US26087&-qr_name=ACS_2008_3YR_G00_DP3YR3&-ds_name=ACS_2008_3YR_G00_&-_lang=en&-_sse=on, retrieved February 25, 2010.
[10] Census.gov website, http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/ADPTable?_bm=y&-geo_id=01000US&-qr_name=ACS_2008_3YR_G00_DP3YR3&-ds_name=ACS_2008_3YR_G00_&-_lang=en&-_caller=geoselect&-redoLog=false&-format=, retrieved February 25, 2010.
[11] HomileticsOnline.com, referencing Valerie Weaver-Zercher, God's Crime Bill, www.christianitytoday.com. Found at Illuminating Illustrations, http://homileticsonline.com/subscriber/illustration_search.asp?keywords=lament, February 23, 2010.
[12] Isaiah 40:31
[13] Psalm 27:5-6, “The Book of Common Worship.” Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1993, page 639.