No Pussy-Footing Around

This sermon was preached at the First Presbyterian Church in Marshall, Texas on Sunday December 16, 2012, the 3rd Sunday of Advent.

Zephaniah 3:14-20

Isaiah 12:2-6

Philippians 4:4-7

Luke 3:7-18

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

Something happened to the sermon. The sermon this was turning into on Thursday took a radical turn on Friday. On Friday everything changed. Well, everything didn’t change, but tragedy crossed the national conscience. I’m not going to expand on the events. The last thing anyone should do is ever mention the name of the shooter ever again. I’m not saying ignore the issue, I’m saying let’s stop cloaking mass-murders in notoriety and infamy. I am not saying to ignore the victims either; I’m saying that easy platitudes aren’t enough for what happened.

On Friday a friend of mine wrote “today I saw the devil at work… what kind of person could walk into a school and take 20 5+ year olds life [sic]… words cant [sic] describe my thoughts right now.” He wasn’t pussy-footing around, was he? The problem with what he said is it shows a short memory.

The massacre at Columbine High School happened on April 20, 1999 in Jefferson County, Colorado, outside of Denver. That shooting ended the lives of fifteen innocent victims along with the gunmen.

On October 2, 2006, a shooting occurred at the West Nickel Mines School, an Amish one-room schoolhouse in the Old Order community of Nickel Mines, a village in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. The gunman shot ten girls, killing five, before committing suicide in the schoolhouse. What made this school shooting different was the Amish community’s response of forgiveness and reconciliation toward the widow of the shooter.

These shootings pale beside the Bath School Massacre. Since Bath was a bombing and not a shooting and took place in 1927 it doesn’t get the press. At Bath Consolidated Schools, a man who lost his farm to school taxes took it out on the school. He killed 38 children ages 7-11, two teachers, four other adults and himself. At least 58 others were injured.

The Bath School massacre is the deadliest mass murder in a school in U.S. history and the third-deadliest non-military massacre in U.S. history, behind 9/11 and the Oklahoma City bombing.

To complete our walk down memory lane I give you the Pontiac’s Rebellion school massacre, where four shooters entered the schoolhouse near Greencastle, Pennsylvania, shooting and killing the schoolmaster and nine or ten children. While reports of the number killed vary, it is known that only three children survived. This one doesn’t get any press despite or because it was the first American school shooting. It happened on July 26, 1764.

That’s what I mean saying everything didn’t change. There have been school shootings in America longer than there has been an America. Some folks talk about this as a second amendment issue when the first shooting predated the second amendment. It’s a matter of sin which predates the second amendment too. As for my friend who “saw the devil at work” on Friday, has he missed other atrocities people have inflicted upon one another? Is it that he hasn’t been paying attention? I’m willing to go with hyperbole, exaggeration to make a point. Then again, I just made an error I warned us about last week.

Last week I said that I can only confess my sins. Well, I just confessed my friend’s sins instead of my own. Let’s be honest, that’s not a good thing.

Last week’s gospel reading was John the Baptist’s ministerial introduction where “He went into all the country around the Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” We meet him again today in the last part of this introduction where Luke tells us of John meeting the crowds.[1]

Then John unloads on them! “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?” There’s no pussy-footing around with John, is there? People love pastors who share a message and do it with aplomb, a certain composure, style, and tact that puts people at ease and ready to listen. Well, John the Baptist was never known for tact that puts people at ease. Starting a conversation by yelling, “You brood of vipers!” puts a bow on that.

John’s tells the crowd they have sinned and it is up to them to repent because only in repentance is there forgiveness. There’s a lot of baggage on that word repentance but there’s an easy way to look at it, the Hebrew and Greek words for “repentance” can be translated “turn around.” John is telling us we must all turn our lives around to produce the fruit of repentance. Period. End of sentence. No pussy-footing around.

Friends, it is time I share with you that I have sinned. My sin has touched all of you. I have been pussy-footing around. When we came to Marshall I knew that we would need to do work in stewardship and evangelism. The path I take to begin this work is by teaching.

You have heard me say we have to know our stories. This is right out of ancient Celtic evangelism. St. Patrick was successful in Ireland because he knew his own story as a slave on the Emerald Isle and the history of the people. When he returned as a priest, knowing the gospel, the people, and the place, he was able to share the Good News in the land where he was once a prisoner and slave. I told that story once, once.

Knowing our stories and knowing them here in this place is the most wonderful way we can share the gospel in the way people will be able to hear it and respond to it. But I pussy-footed around, hoping the pieces would fall together. I don’t blame anyone for not getting my stories, I can be obtuse. Let’s face it, I just used the word obtuse! I must confess that I didn’t make the point I intended.

During our recent “Committed to Christ” evening study, one of the nights was about sharing our faith. I tried to cajole the class into trying what the study was teaching about faith sharing. Well, my “cajoling” wasn’t effective.

Another lesson in “Committed to Christ” was about giving. It brought out that Christ expects us to give our time, talent, and treasure. I’ve mentioned this triad every October during stewardship season too. Often people think giving one or two of three is enough.

This “Committed to Christ” lesson used an example of a divorced man who is not meeting all of his commitments (admittedly a gender stereotype but that is how it was taught). It asks what’s better, a man who pays his money but never spends any time with the kids or the man who is Weekend-Super-Dad but fails to pay for basic essentials. According to the lesson the correct answer is “none of the above.”

It’s time and talent and treasure and two out of three is bad. Later in the evening, someone said, “Well, God knows I do all I can.” The lesson didn’t get across; God expects more, God expects it all. Trying to make a point in a delicate way didn’t make my point at all. Pussy-footing around again.

A couple of weeks ago I used the R.E.M. lyric “It’s the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine” as my way of saying God is doing a new thing. God is doing something we may not even be able to see or recognize, but God is alive and God is not done with us yet. That point got lost. When I said “It’s the end of the world” that was all some folks heard. My style overwhelmed my substance. Pussy-footing again.

I have sinned against God and I have failed you. And now it is up to me to repent and seek forgiveness. Anyone who says that I have not sinned, thank you, but if I have not sinned I cannot be forgiven. For any who say “you sure have messed this up,” I ask you to remember the words of 1John, “If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.” The words of sin, repentance, and forgiveness are good words for all of us. They are at the hub of John’s message.

By my pussy-footing, I have failed to express the depth of our financial situation. I knew something was going on. Neal shared that information during session meetings and congregational meetings too. The news was out there, but I never shared it with you in a way that caused the urgency that makes people do something.

Well thanks be to God! About ten weeks ago when the Session met, Lisa took the financial situation information home and told her family what was going on. Robbie, yes Robbie, took the time to ask people what we should do. Robbie isn’t a child of this congregation anymore, he’s a grown man, and he acted like a grown man—he saw something broken and he asked for help to get it fixed. God bless you Robbie.

Some were embarrassed that Robbie aired the dirty laundry. Robbie stood up and said “what can I do?” No pussy-footing there.

At the last stated Session meeting Lisa asked again what we can do. Neal laid out several options. (Don’t think he laid out only one, he laid out several.) Today during the congregational meeting the Session will bring one of these to you and it is up to you to decide what we will do next. Using John’s words we will be asked to decide whether the ax is lying at the root of the tree or not. During this meeting no pussy-footing will be allowed.

We won’t allow blaming either. We won’t confess anybody’s sins but our own. We won’t do those things because they won’t help.

There’s something I read on the internet Friday, and since it was on the internet it must be true right? It was attributed to a graduate of Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, a PC(USA) seminary. I don’t know if he really said this or not, but regardless these words are worth sharing:

When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.’ To this day, especially in times of ‘disaster,’ I remember my mother’s words, and I am always comforted by realizing that there are still so many helpers - so many caring people in this world.

That Presbyterian Minister was a fellow named Fred Rogers, yes, that Fred Rogers, Mr. Rogers, and he’s in accord with what John told the crowd to do.

The crowd, knowing disaster was coming around the corner if they did not bear fruit in keeping with repentance, asked John what to do. Again in his very direct manner he had instructions for many different people in the crowd:

“What should we do then?” the crowd asked.

John answered, “Anyone who has two shirts should share with the one who has none, and anyone who has food should do the same.”

Even tax collectors came to be baptized. “Teacher,” they asked, “what should we do?”

“Don’t collect any more than you are required to,” he told them.

Then some soldiers asked him, “And what should we do?”

He replied, “Don’t extort money and don’t accuse people falsely—be content with your pay.”

John was telling people to be helpers, not hindrances. He told them to bear good fruit. He told them to turn from their ways that hurt one another. He told the people to take care of each other. He told them to behave like the brave teachers at Newtown and Nickel Mines and Columbine. He told them to be useful like the first responders—the police, fire, and medical workers who took care of the scene, taking care of innocent victims.

This afternoon we need to look for helpers. We need to be the people of the Philippian church who Paul calls gentle. He tells them to “Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.”

To this let me add while John said, “do not be anxious,” he did not say “don’t be concerned.” We need to be informed, concerned, and respond. There’s a line between “stress” and “distress” we can’t cross. Panic freezes action, the right amount of urgency can spur us onto great things. This is our call to confess and repent our sins, not anybody else’s. This is our chance to begin writing a new chapter today, a chapter baptized in the Holy Spirit with fire.

Today we light the Pink candle of joy. On a day like today, wedged horribly between a national tragedy and a local emergency, we are called to rejoice in the Lord always. Paul even repeats himself, “I will say it again: Rejoice!” But how? In the midst of horror and panic how can we rejoice? We say “Rejoice” in a world where we say Jesus is coming, and in the meantime we see evidence to the contrary. So how?

In situations like we have seen over this past week there is nothing else we can really do except listen to our Lord and Mr. Rogers. Mr. Rogers says find the helpers. Our Lord says I am your helper. John said this and more, exhorting the people and preaching the good news to them. Our helper is the Lord. It is up to us to seek the Lord’s help. Thanks be to God.

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[1] This paragraph was cut from the final manuscript due to time restraints. I add it here because I love to think about the crowds of biblical times as well as our own:

I love when the crowds come out in scripture because of the wide variety of people. This crowd included at least some of John’s disciples. I’m just as sure it had some folks who were interested, but had yet to make a commitment. Judging from what John is about to say some of his opponents are among the crowd. There may even be some temple leaders, scribes, Pharisees, members of the Sanhedrin, folks who would become enemies of Jesus too. Then, there’s a category of people we often ignore—just plain folks. As sure as I am today during a demonstration, I’m just as sure that in the day there were some folks in the crowd who were there because it was a good crowd. Remember, nobody ever shows up for a bad crowd.

Looking for Jesus

This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Marshall, Texas on Sunday February 5, 2012, the 5th Sunday in Ordinary Time.

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Isaiah 40:21-31

Psalm 147:1-11, 20c

1 Corinthians 9:16-23

Mark 1:29-39

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

There are times reading the scriptures that the simplicity of a phrase becomes more than the sum of its parts. I find this glorious grace in the phrase “Everyone is looking for you.” Jesus has gone to be alone with the Father and when his new companions find him they declare “Everyone is looking for you.” They mean everyone in town, in truth they have no idea how right they are.

At the beginning of our reading, we’ve reached the end of a long day; this is the day that started with last week’s reading of Jesus teaching in the synagogue. This is the day he teaches with authority in his words. With his words he exorcises a demon from a possessed man. His words carry so much authority his deeds flow from his mouth. That is an authority beyond the scribes.

After synagogue worship, Jesus, with James and John, go to the home of Simon and Andrew. It’s a multigenerational setting with at least two generations and perhaps even more groups of parents and children. Since Simon and Andrew joined Jesus the previous day and since there is no work on the Sabbath, there may well not have been enough to go around. Still, the call to hospitality rings loud, so with the mouths to feed at home; Simon and Andrew bring three more.

There are three more mouths at dinner while Simon’s mother-in-law was in bed with a fever. Here’s something interesting about fevers. Deuteronomy 28 brings warnings about what will befall the nation should they be disobedient to the Lord. The blights include curses to the countryside and curses to the city. There are curses to the grain basked and the kneading trough. Neither the family nor the livestock nor the crop will be fruitful. There will be blight and terror in the household.

Verse 22 offers this specific curse, “The Lord will strike you with wasting disease, with fever and inflammation, with scorching heat and drought, with blight and mildew, which will plague you until you perish.” Yes, that’s right, fever. The same fever mentioned in Deuteronomy 28:22 is found in verse Mark 1:31. Jesus goes to her and helps her up; he lifts her back to health. The fever leaves. The fever leaves and she begins to wait on them. The Sabbath is not yet over, and she serves him.

Humanity’s sin is figured in the body of a wrecked woman who lies sick to the world, so ill she cannot rise. Jesus comes not only taking her illness, but taking the curse of sin from the world. This little note would not have gotten past the people of Israel. They who knew the law best would have seen this connection.

Just to add fuel to the fire of biblical injunctions and social conventions, touching the ill is a taboo, especially for a person who is not a member of the family. For a strange man to touch a woman who is not a member of the family is also against the mores of the time. Then for him to heal and her to serve; each does work on the Sabbath making a not a trifecta but a superfecta of prohibited behavior.

This is the simple point, Jesus breaks the rules. Jesus does things that no other person can do, not because he is above the law but because he is the law. He is the living law teaching us a new way to live together and take care of one another. He teaches us that even when it is unexpected, even when it is difficult to fathom, we are called upon to serve one another. Jesus shows us what it means to be our brothers’ keeper.

In fact, the word that our bible[1] translates as “to wait upon” is where we get our word deacon. In the Presbyterian Church, deacons are “ministers of compassion” sharing the grace and peace of God in the world through service. It’s not an administrative vocation like the Ruling Elder, it’s a passionate call to serve. It is truly a wonderful ministry and I thank the ladies of the church who have taken this ministry as their own to serve the body of Christ and the world.

But Jesus isn’t quite ready to tell the world who he is yet. So while this gospel begins proclaiming this the “gospel about Jesus Christ, the Son of God,” Jesus is not ready for the others in the narrative to know this yet. So as soon as the sun sets and the Sabbath ends he heals many and drives out demons, he silences the demons so they will not share the news they know.

This tells us something special too, this tells us that the demons know the truth of the Son of God; the demons know Jesus is the Christ. Often we hear people who “aren’t sure there even is a God.” We also hear that evil’s greatest trick is to make it so people don’t think the devil exists. Combine the two and there’s a really big trick: The demons who believe in God have convinced people that neither they nor God exist. Now that’s the big lie.

Yet, somewhere deep inside most of us is a place that longs for peace, longs for connection. For many people, the desire to seek God takes them to a solitary place where they seek connection not with something but with nothing. They seek a peace that does not exist in the natural world and they use nature as that focus. Many people would rather believe in creation than in the creator. It give us a choice, do we believe in something or do we believe in nothing. Friends, we believe not in something but someone, we believe in Jesus our Lord and Savior.

Jesus wakes early in the morning and while everyone else sleeps he goes to a solitary place to pray. He doesn’t seek to commune with nature, he seeks nature’s creator. Even Jesus needs some alone time with the Father, and if that’s true for him it is infinitely more true for us.

When the four find him they tell him everyone is looking for him. What does he do? Does he set up a base camp and open a shrine or a temple? No. Jesus tells his friends it is time to go somewhere else—to the nearby villages—so he can preach there also. That is why he has come, not so that people can come to him, but so that he can go to the people. We know that we need to seek God, but before that happens, before that can happen; the Lord Jesus, God who walked the earth, sought us first.

According to the Christian Century Magazine:

The GenXer [that is someone from the Post-Baby-Boom Generation, someone born between 1962 and 1980] is suspicious of institutions, especially religious institutions. He focuses on personal experience in the spiritual quest, and on a sense of suffering expressed in a psychological and spiritual crisis of meaning. The GenXer also accepts the ambiguity that may be found in the fusion of sacred and profane, spiritual and sensual, orthodox and blasphemous in popular culture. He does not reject or dismiss faith tradition or religious institutions, but they are not the only sources of spirituality. The implications are clear: If traditional Christianity is to engage the spiritual quest of the GenXer, it must attend to the ways in which these young adults draw on the church and popular culture.[2]

This was written nearly fifteen years ago, but considering the bulk of people who define their heavenly belief system as “spiritual, not religious,” it still rings true. As the article says, they don’t reject everything out of hand, but they connect it with what they know better than Jesus, the world around them. They seek connection, connection to the world and to something bigger.

Our gospel says everyone was looking for Jesus. In our time it may be more accurate to say everyone is looking for their own personal Valhalla or Nirvana or Heaven or whatever. So if everyone is looking for Personal Jesus, what do we do to help them find him?

The answer is as easy as this, share. It is up to us to share God with the world. We are called through the community of God to have a relationship with the Lord that came for us first. We are called to worship a God who seems to break the rules which appeals to many but in truth has broken the mold.

We worship God who came not to be served but to serve. In response we serve one another, the community, and the world. Today we do this not only with our work, words, tithes, and offerings; we do this through the Souper Bowl[3] offering.

We are called to reach out. We are called to share our treasure, sure, but that’s not all. Jesus of Nazareth, a man without earthly treasure, shared his time and his talent. Jesus shared his fully-human fully-divine being with the world and with us.

This too is our call. We are to welcome people with hospitality. We are to share our time. And when the time comes, we are to take time and recharge our batteries through praying. We are to take our talents to the people who come and to the world that doesn’t know what’s coming.

This is what we share. Why do we do this? Why do we share ourselves with the world? Simple, that is why Jesus has come, so that’s why he sends us too. I can’t promise this will always be comfortable. I can’t promise you will always feel ready when the time comes. Just know that God does not call the equipped, but equips the call.

And as always, remember, we are to seek God but God seeks us first, that is why he came.

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[1] This is from the New International Version. As for me, I prefer the NRSV’s translation which says “she began to serve them.”

[2] Foster, Charles R. "Paying Attention to Youth Culture," Christian Century, December 9, 1998, 1186. Parenthetic definition of GenXer is mine.

[3] See http://souperbowl.org

Talking to the Institution

This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Marshall, Texas on Sunday November 14, 2010, the 33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time.

Isaiah 65:17-25
Isaiah 12
2 Thessalonians 3:6-13
Luke 21:5-19

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

One of the greatest stories of faith in recent times came from of all places a high school football field in Texas. If this story sounds familiar, either you read it on ESPN.com or maybe you read it on my sermon blog. If you were on the Pastor Nominating Committee, you heard this story because this was the major illustration in the sermon I sent. This is how it began:

Rick Reilly is a columnist for ESPN the Magazine. He tells the story of what he calls the “oddest game in high school football history.” Faith High School in Grapevine, Texas played the Gainesville State School on Grapevine’s home turf, but after these facts, everything else was the Texas High School Football equivalent of The Twilight Zone.

The team from Gainesville hit the field running a 40-yard spirit line before crashing through a banner that said “Go Tornadoes.” This is nothing unusual. It’s like many other high school football games until you learn that the fans who filled the spirit line and made the banner were from Grapevine.

Yes, visiting team’s fans and banner were courtesy of the home team. More than 200 Faith fans sat in the Gainesville stands cheering on the kids from Gainesville. The visitors were cheered by name and there were even cheerleaders from the home team rooting on the visitors.

This sounds so very odd, especially in Texas where high school football is not only its own religion but has temples in every corner of the state. Still, there is one thing I haven’t mentioned about Gainesville that takes this story to a whole new level; Gainesville State School is one of the Texas Youth Commission’s twelve secure institutions. The TYC is the Texas juvenile corrections agency and Gainesville State is a maximum security youth facility.

According to their literature, “The [Texas Youth Commission] provides for the care, custody, rehabilitation, and reestablishment in society of Texas’ most chronically delinquent or serious juvenile offenders. Texas judges commit these youth to TYC for felony-level offenses committed when they were at least age 10 but not yet 17.” Yes, the Texas Youth Commission has maximum security facilities and they play football against Texas high schools.

The thought of providing a cheering section for Gainesville State started when Grapevine Faith’s head coach, Kris Hogan, “wanted to do something kind for the Gainesville team.” I think it’s important to note that Coach Hogan wanted to do something “kind.” He didn’t pity the boys in jail. He didn’t fear them either. He wanted them to receive kindness.

Reilly writes, “Faith had never played Gainesville, but Coach Hogan already knew the score. Faith was 7-2 going into the game, Gainesville 0-8 with 2 [touchdowns] all year. Faith has 70 kids, 11 coaches, the latest equipment and involved parents. Gainesville has a lot of kids with convictions for drugs, assault and robbery—many of whose families had disowned them—wearing seven-year-old shoulder pads and ancient helmets.

“So Hogan had this idea. What if half of our fans—for one night only—cheered for the other team? He sent out an email asking the [Faith high school] faithful to do just that. ‘Here's the message I want you to send: You are just as valuable as any other person on planet Earth.’

“Some people were naturally confused. One Faith player walked into Hogan's office and asked, ‘Coach, why are we doing this?’

And Hogan said, ‘Imagine if you didn't have a home life. Imagine if everybody had pretty much given up on you. Now imagine what it would mean for hundreds of people to suddenly believe in you.’”

After the game, both teams gathered in the middle of the field to pray. Everyone was taken aback when Isaiah, Gainesville State’s starting quarterback and middle linebacker, asked to lead the prayer, but this is what happens when the Holy Spirit gets in the way of our expectations. Isaiah prayed: “Lord, I don’t know how this happened, so I don’t know how to say thank You, but I never would’ve known there was so many people in the world that cared about us.”

Reilly wrote, “And it was a good thing everybody’s heads were bowed because they might’ve seen Hogan wiping away tears.”

After the game, “The Gainesville coach saw Hogan, grabbed him hard by the shoulders and said, ‘You'll never know what your people did for these kids tonight. You’ll never, ever know.’

“And as the bus pulled away, all the Gainesville players crammed to one side and pressed their hands to the window, staring at these people they’d never met before, watching their waves and smiles disappearing into the night.”

I love this story. This is sharing the Gospel; this is sharing the good news with someone who needs to hear it more than anything else in the world. Coach Hogan knew the gospel and responded to it. He did it at risk of his job too. Sure, there was no way that the Grapevine Lions would lose to the Gainesville Tornadoes, but if you want to upset a lot of parents who have the power to make the life of a football coach miserable, ask their friends to root against their kids.

When I was in Fort Worth a couple of weeks ago, I was chatting with some of the pastors at a conference and this story came up. I was asked if I had heard the next chapter in this story and this was news to me, so I excitedly asked what that happened next.

Well, it seems that a woman from New York was so impressed and dumbfounded by Coach Hogan’s act of grace that she called him. She tracked him down from half a country away to ask him why he did what he did. Sure, she had read the article, but she wanted to hear it for herself from the source. She wanted to know why he did what he did.

So when they talked, Coach Hogan shared the plan of salvation with the woman and she was promptly sorry she asked. I don’t know what in her life turned her off to this presentation of the good news of Jesus Christ, but this wasn’t what she wanted to hear. She wanted to hear about why he acted like he did. She wanted to hear about how what they did changed the lives of the boys in prison, the boys from Grapevine, and maybe most of all how it changed him.

It’s like the famous line out of the Paul Newman movie “Cool Hand Luke,” “What we got here is… failure to communicate.” Coach Hogan was answering her question. It just didn’t sound like the answer to her. “What we got here is… failure to communicate.”

Jesus tells us that we will be called before others; kings and governors and other powerful people, and this is our opportunity to testify. And when we testify we aren’t to have defense strategies prepared because the Lord will give us the words none of our opponents will be able to withstand or contradict.

This was what Coach Hogan did; he took his prepared defense and presented it. Sadly, the script he had did not interest the woman, she was hoping for something different.

Jesus promises to give us words, and in all truth, we have been given the words to use when kings and governors ask us to testify. The best source of words when the world’s institutions call; we are to use are right in front of us, we have the words of scripture. These words give us the best defense, more than we could ever imagine. And in these words, we are given the speech to talk about who God is.

The Lord is bold and caring and loving. The Old Testament shows us a multifaceted God, one that creates humanity because God wants a loving relationship with humanity. We are also presented a jealous God who disciplines when we stray and worship other gods.

This is the same Lord who is presented in the New Testament in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, Jesus the Christ. This is the same Lord who turns over the money changer’s tables in the temple invoking the words of Isaiah and Jeremiah when he tells them they are making the temple a den of thieves. The same God who John tells us not only is the perfect personification of love, but is love.

In scripture we are not only presented with the image of God, but with the narrative of how God stands in relationship with God’s people and all of creation. Theologian George Lindbeck writes “the primary focus of [of the bible] is not on God’s being in itself, for that is not what the text is about, but on how life is to be lived and reality constructed in the light of God’s character as an agent as this is depicted in the stories of Israel and of Jesus.” Scripture gives us a complete picture of the Lord in relationship with creation and humanity.

Scripture also tells the story of Israel, the story of how the Lord says and lives the announcement, “I will be your God and you will be my people.” It is the story of the Lordship of God, the kingship of God in the kingdom of God. It is the story of a disobedient Nazirite who becomes the renowned and notorious Sampson. It’s the intimate story of a prophet who anoints a simple shepherd boy who becomes King David.

It is the story of how Jesus interacts with the disciples, and not just how Jesus interacts with Peter, James and John; the “popular kids” disciples. It is the story of Jesus’ relationship with Simon the Zealot, Peter’s brother Andrew, Matthew the tax collector; and even the story of Jesus’ relationship with Judas, the disciple who would betray him.

Our testimony is both who the Lord our God is, and who the Lord our God is in our lives. And when people ask us about who Jesus is, when people ask you what you believe; they don’t want to hear theological rhetoric. This is a pity because these wonderful words include the plan of salvation Coach Hogan shared with this woman. It’s a grand and glorious story, it is the Good News even if this woman wasn’t ready to hear it.

People want us to tell them about who God is and why God is important in our lives. They want to know why God is important to us. They want to hear stories of power and glory, stories of faith and redemption. People want to know not just who God is, but why God is important in our lives.

Even more important than the testimony of our tongue is the testimony of our hands. Jesus said much, but what he did intensified what he said. He not only tells us to behave with compassion, he was compassionate. He healed when the rest of the world rested. He fed the multitudes when others would send them home hungry. He forgave when others passed the sentence of death. He returned from places others remained, and he remained in places others left. And we are called to follow him in these acts of peace, grace, and mercy.

Seemingly what this woman wanted to hear is why Coach Hogan did what he did. Let’s consider Rick Reilly’s article again for a reminder of what he did.

Coach Hogan, “wanted to do something kind for the Gainesville team.” He didn’t pity the boys in jail. He didn’t fear them either. He wanted them to receive kindness. He wanted the boys from Gainesville to get this message, ‘You are just as valuable as any other person on planet Earth.’” He even wanted his players to walk a mile or two in the shoes of their opponents, “Imagine if you didn't have a home life. Imagine if everybody had pretty much given up on you. Now imagine what it would mean for hundreds of people to suddenly believe in you.”

Coach Hogan was living into these words from Matthew’s gospel: “I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.”

Kris Hogan was blessed and he knew it, and he knew the source of his blessings too. He knew the salvation story and just as importantly he knew that he was called to respond to the gospel. He knew that whatever he did for one of the least of these brothers of Christ, he also did for Christ. I believe Kris Hogan knew that he couldn’t change the world; he couldn’t end poverty or hunger. World peace was out of his grasp, but on one shining evening under the Texas sky he could touch the lives of these boys. He knew that as he did for the least of these brothers of Christ, he also did for Christ.

Maybe, just maybe, that’s what this woman needed to hear and how she needed to hear it. She wanted to know why Coach Hogan did what he did and he did what he did because that’s what his faith called him to do. As he was tending to these young men, he was tending to Christ.

Jesus warns us though; we are called to testify in very difficult times. We are warned that others will vie for our attention. Some will even claim to be like gods or even gods themselves. Idols will abound in times like these. We will hear that end times are near, whether individually or as a nation or a people. We will hear that end times are near, and we are instructed not to follow them. We are told that terrifying things will happen and terrifying things will be rumored, yet as long as we know who God is and who God is in our lives, we are set upon ground that cannot be shaken even by the earthquakes of our lives.

We live in a world that no longer knows scripture and faith. We may call this a Christian nation, but in truth we live in a nation that is more inclined toward salvation on its own terms than on the creator’s. So we need to share the good news, the same good news Coach Hogan shared with this woman, but we need new words in addition to the words that have been used for generations.

We are also warned that on the basis or our testimony, on the basis of the one we testify about, we will be hated and some will be put to death. History, both ancient and current, show us this is what happens when we speak truth to the institutions. But through our endurance, through the perseverance of the faith and the one in whom we have faith, we will not simply persevere, we will gain life. We will gain our souls. We are saved by grace through faith. It is this faith, this grace we are to share with the world. We are called to share God’s story and we are called to share our stories as the children of God.

To testify brings an outrageous level of terror; with good reason. Jesus warns us that in this time we are called to testify we will be in danger. We will be called to testify when kings will be in a place to take our lives and Pharisees eject us from the temple. Worse, our friends and neighbors may begin calling us names like Jesus freak. But our witness, our testimony is the church’s evangelism. Through testimony in the faith of our Lord and God we are called to be disciples. We are called to be God’s people, because the Lord is our God.

It’s scary; then again the Greek word for witness is martyr. It’s supposed to be scary. But in God, we have nothing to fear. Our life is our testimony and in our testimony is the life of the Lord in our lives. It is up to us to testify, to share the good news of who God is and what God does in our lives.

Text Notes

Now I’ve Seen Everything, http://timelovesahero.blogspot.com/2008/12/now-ive-seen-everything.html, retrieved November 13, 2010.

Reilly, Rick, Life of Reilly, ESPN the Magazine, cited from ESPN.com, http://sports.espn.go.com/espnmag/story?section=magazine&id=3789373, retrieved December 24, 2008. Quotes from Reilly’s article are found in quotation marks throughout this sermon. Thanks to Rick Reilly, Glory to God!

Overview of the Juvenile Corrections System in Texas, http://www.tyc.state.tx.us/about/overview.html, retrieved November 14, 2010.

Note: the Texas Juvenile Corrections System does not release last names of inmates.

Lindbeck, George A., The Nature of Doctrine: Religion and Theology in a Postliberal Age. Louisville; Westminster/John Knox Press, 1984, page 121.

Experience Required/Required Experience

This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Berryville, Arkansas on Sunday April 25, 2010, the 4th Sunday in Easter.

Acts 9:36-43
Psalm 23
Revelation 7:9-17
John 10:22-30

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

This morning, we begin with our reading from Acts. The last time we saw Peter he was in Jerusalem with the other apostles. They had been imprisoned and flogged for teaching and healing at the temple in the name of the Risen Lord Jesus Christ. Since this time, Peter had made his way to the city of Lydda, not far from the modern city of Tel Aviv.

Two men were sent from Joppa, the modern port city of Joffa, to Lydda, a distance of about ten miles. They were sent to find Peter and tell him to come with them without delay. Scripture is silent about whether Peter knew what was happening or not. It is easy to assume that he did not considering the reported conversation. But when you consider the social norms, sending two men instead of a messenger with a note, along with the request that he come without delay, Peter would have naturally assumed it was urgent. Surely along the journey, we can assume the two men would not have kept Peter in the dark.

When he arrives, he doesn’t see Tabitha, first he sees widows showing the clothes that she had made for them. In fact, the verb from the Greek implies that they were wearing the clothes she had made.[1] They were not showing the clothes on mannequins or hangers like in a department store display. They were standing and showing how Tabitha lived her faith giving generously to support the widows, some of the weakest people in the society. Peter then puts everyone out of the room and prays. If this looks familiar it’s because it is. Jesus did this same thing in Luke 7; and since Luke and Acts were written by the same author, the similarity is not a coincidence.

Peter finally, simply prays, “Tabitha, get up.” Then she opened her eyes and he helped her up. Peter then called to the saints and the widows to come and see what the Lord had done. This vignette ends with the proclamation, “this became known throughout Joppa, and many believed in the Lord.”

They had seen the glory of God. They shared so that it may be known, and now many more believed in the Lord. Only Peter and Tabitha experienced the miracle first hand. Only a handful of people saw the immediate results of this miracle. There were many more who came to know in the hours and days that followed when Tabitha was again in the market and in the local meeting. And of course all of Joppa knew what had happened to Tabitha when the widow network spread the news at the Senior Center.

Now that she had been brought back to life, now that she had been restored to the community, this word spread too. And in a society where the main source of news is word of mouth, you know that just as soon as the word left the house, it reached all the ships in the harbor and spread across the Mediterranean. The only difference between now and then is that now we say, “It’s true, I saw it on the news,” or “I read it on the internet.”

I started with this story from Acts to illustrate the point Jesus was making to the Pharisees, the people Jesus referred to as “the Jews” in this passage.[2] In Acts, we learn that many people believed after experiencing what happened with Peter and Tabitha. It wasn’t that they saw what happened; only Peter and Tabitha were in the room. It wasn’t that they were in the house, there were at least two men and a bunch of widows in the house, but that’s nothing compared with the population of a port city. Yet we learn that many believed because of this miracle. By hearing, many believed in Jesus because of the power of this miracle.

Our gospel reading begins with the Pharisees gathering around him and asking him, “How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.” They want Jesus to tell them who he is in words they can understand. What’s funny is that Jesus has used the words of the Law and the Prophets. The words the Pharisees know. He has told the world who he is in ways the Pharisees were better equipped to understand than anybody else on earth; and they didn’t get it.

Even more than the words that he used, Jesus used an even more explicit way of telling the Pharisees and the world who he was. Jesus told them that he is the long awaited Messiah through his actions, along with his words.[3] It isn’t that words aren’t useful, but so far Jesus has shown the world who he is through actions more than words. On a deeper level, this points out that the fullness of faith in Jesus the Messiah is not something that can be boiled down to words alone. The fullness of the gospel cannot simply be reduced to a creed, it must be experienced.

Jesus answers the Pharisees, “I have told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father’s name testify to me; but you do not believe.” Jesus tells these Pharisees, as he has told the world, that he is the long awaited Messiah, they just didn’t get it.

Jesus tells the Pharisees “The works that I do in my Father’s name testify to me.” He provides the finest wine for the wedding banquet in Cana[4] and feeds the five thousand.[5] He heals the son of the royal official[6] and the beggar at the pool of Siloam.[7] Jesus feeds the people and heals the sick. Knowing the Law and the Prophets, the Pharisees should have been able to see that Jesus is the Messiah, but they didn’t get it.

This is where the use of the good shepherd becomes useful again. In the preceding verses from this chapter, Jesus tells all who were present, including the Pharisees, “I am the Good Shepherd” who keeps his sheep.[8]

He says “I am the gate” and the only way to enter is through him. Being the gate is more than a metaphor. The pens used at this time were little more than earthen circles with bramble around the tops of them. There was no gate on these pens, so the shepherd would stand in the gate mouth, between the sheep and the wilds and terrors of the world. For a predator to enter, it would have to go through the shepherd who would guard the pen with his life.

We celebrated this ultimate guarding a mere four weeks ago on Easter Sunday. The sheep who know him and know his voice have a place with Jesus, but the predators who would take the sheep do not.

Two weeks ago, I spoke about making our faith real. I said:

These first Christian disciples, these who become the first apostles sent into the world, are the first graduating class of the church. These Christians are given their commission, they are sent to do something. Far more valuable than an Ivy League sheepskin, they are then equipped with the one thing that enables them to do anything; the breath, the Holy Spirit of God.

They will not be able to present Christ to the world in the same way Christ presented himself to them. Christ presented himself physically, bodily to them; this option is no longer available. Instead they, and we, we represent Christ to the world. It is important for us that we represent Christ in the world. It is we who are now Christ’s body in the world. By the word of God, through the power of the Holy Spirit, we are able to show the grace and peace of God to the world.

In a world that insists on touching a wall that is covered with signs that say “wet paint,” it is up to us to paint the world in ways that people will reach out and touch. This is how we make our faith real for ourselves and for others, by representing Christ’s love and forgiveness in the world. In Christ’s grace and peace through the power of the Holy Spirit, our witness makes Christ real to the rest of the world.

Peter and Tabitha shared one of God’s miracles together, and then with the people in her house, then with the city of Joppa, and then with the world. This miracle has been shared across time and space. This miracle has been shared from generation to generation. I don’t know if any miracle you have experienced is as grand as this, as for me, no. Still there are miracles in our lives that happen every day; some as small as a smile from a loved one, others as grand as divine intervention. These do not spark our faith as much as they kindle the spark of faith in our lives. Miracles don’t start our faith, they help reinforce it.

In Christ’s grace and peace through the power of the Holy Spirit, we are saved by faith through grace. This is important for us to remember, that our faith is not a product of what we do. The development of our faith is based upon God’s actions in Jesus Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit.[9] While I said two weeks ago that it is up to us to share our faith, I failed to say that our faith must also be real to us. I don’t say this to tell you that if you never had a mountain top experience you have the worthless faith of the Pharisee. No, I only say this to say that this is not true; we are saved by grace through faith. We are saved by the work of Jesus Christ, not by anything we do.

What I do say is that it is up to us, as sheep of the fold, to listen for the voice of the shepherd. We are promised that as the sheep we recognize the voice of the Good Shepherd. It is when we listen that we hear and it is when we hear that we recognize. Then are we able to share by botrh deed and word. So let us listen. Let us rest in the outstretched arms of the loving God. Let us then follow and be sent and share God’s loving kindness with the world.

[1] Harvard, Joseph S., Wall, Robert W. Feasting on the Word, Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009, pages 426-431.
[2] Excursus from The New Interpreters’ Study Bible, “I am” sayings
[3] Jones, Gary D., Donelson, Lewis R. Feasting on the Word, Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009, pages 444-449.
[4] John 2:1-12
[5] John 6:1-15
[6] John 4:43-54
[7] John 9:1-12
[8] John 10:7-14
[9] Ibid, Donelson

Go

This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Berryville, Arkansas on Sunday December 20, 2009, the 4th Sunday of Advent. This sermon completes the series "Ready, Set, Go."

Micah 5:2-5a
Psalm 80:1-7
Hebrews 10:5-10
Luke 1:39-46

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

As a boy of the suburbs, I have had very little experience with milk straight from the farm. I remember having farm fresh milk once or twice, but it has been a long, long time. What I remember is that there were a flood of flavors that I just can’t get from a half-gallon of 2% from Price Cutter. The farm fresh was just so rich; its flavors so distinct and so full I can imagine that I remember, even if most of that memory was created.

But, in a day and time when dairy farms are huge operations shipping milk off to plants for processing and distribution, it is impossible to keep that farm fresh flavor. In fact, it’s impossible because milk straight off of the farm will turn a lot faster than milk that has been pasteurized. Pasteurization slows microbial growth[1] keeping milk fresher longer.

Still, what is lost is that straight off of the farm freshness. Well, given a choice between pasteurized milk and a game of Russian roulette every time eat cereal, I’ll take pasteurized milk. It is a pity though; pasteurization makes everything so consistent that for me the taste of farm fresh milk is lost to a vague memory.

There is a tendency in our lives to look at scripture through pasteurized eyes too. We are so used to reading the gospel and hearing it interpreted that it tends to become pasteurized. This loss isn’t exclusive to church members; it is a tremendous danger for ministers too. We see the gospel through academic eyes, historical eyes, denominational eyes, and theological eyes; it can get to the point that the farm fresh nature of the Word of God becomes as lost to us as the taste of milk straight from the cow.

For example, this passage is utterly absurd. Through the way 2,000 years of interpretation has pasteurized this scene, we lose how scandalous it was then and still is. We are used to thinking of it as a wonderfully somber candle lit meeting between two women whose sons will change the world, but when we look at it with unpasteurized eyes; it’s absurd.

In the movie, Elizabeth and Mary should be played by members of Monty Python’s Flying Circus! I imagine Graham Chapman as Elizabeth and Eric Idle as Mary. I can also see a place for a Terry Gilliam cartoon depicting the extra-super utero conversation between Jesus and John.

Let’s take this absurdity even further using names from the news. Imagine if you will Elizabeth and Mary’s conversation in this setting: Imagine a couple of months before her due date, the oldest woman ever to give birth sitting down for coffee with her pregnant cousin, a seventh grader. That’s what’s going on in our gospel reading.

Looking to a modern equivalent, in 2007 Maria del Carmen Bousada became the oldest woman ever to give birth at the age of 66.[2] When her true age was revealed, and it was discovered that she lied to a California fertility clinic taking ten years off of her age so she would be eligible for invitro-fertilization, the firestorm rang in the news for a week. Given the modern American news cycle, a week is an eternity.

Consider the younger end of this equation, whether Sarah Palin’s daughter or Brittney Spears’ sister, these high school aged girls giving birth was fodder for pundits for weeks. Even though teen pregnancy no longer carries the stigma it once did, the press, both liberal and conservative, was making hay with these young women. Whether a family values issue or an issue of whose family, these scandals were the talk of the airwaves for ages.

Consider now that these girls are about five years older than Mary and I can imagine Bill O’Reilly having a seizure talking about this meeting between two women who should not be first time mothers.

We’re all used to seeing the visit of Elizabeth and Mary as a meeting of peers, and nothing could be further from the truth. We have become so used to this story that we now fail to appreciate how absurd it really is until we look at it in a setting that’s closer to home for us.

So now in the name of absurdity, I have invoked Monty Python’s Flying Circus and Fox News, Pepper-Pots and Bill O’Reilly. Yes, I want us to get a firm grip on just how absurd this meeting really is.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer writes, “No priest, no theologian stood at the manger of Bethlehem. And yet all Christian theology has its origin in the wonder of wonders: that God became human. Holy Theology arises from knees bent before the mystery of the divine child in the stable. Without the holy night, there is no theology.”[3] What is wonderful and glorious about our reading from Luke is that it gives us a preview of Bonhoeffer’s theology.

In our reading, when these absurdly pregnant women come together, their children recognize one another before their birth. These cousins come together to celebrate, or perhaps at their respective ages commiserate, their pregnancies only to discover that their unborn children are all ready partners in the greatest of all scriptural prophecies.

Elizabeth cries, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.” Elizabeth knows what is happening, her son knows what is happening; they are able to see the glory of the Lord being fulfilled through this absurd situation.

Mary sings, “My soul magnifies the Lord.” Mary and her son too know what is happening and are able to see the glory of the Lord being fulfilled through this absurd situation.

These women come together, glorifying God and testifying the faith, in Bonhoeffer’s words the theology. They testify to the persons and work of the Baptizer and the Christ at the dawn of their birth. Their testimony is bold and dynamic; it’s filled with life in the midst of scandal. It is nothing like the pasteurized readings I have heard, and on occasion have given.

This is a problem with our lives and our faith in the eyes of Bonhoeffer’s theology. So often our knees fail to bend before the mystery of the divine child in the stable; our faith becoming pasteurized so it won’t spoil. We must resist this.

We testify God was born of a woman. We testify God lived the life of a Palestinian Jew. We testify he performed miracles. We testify he was crucified, dead, and buried; and on the third day he rose again from the dead. We testify he ascended into heaven without a second death all so that we may have eternal life. This is scandalous, this is controversial, and this is absurd; and we believe-we have faith that this is true. We have faith this is the truth.

Over the past four Sundays, we have come along the path of the Advent, the coming of the Lord. Over these last three, we have been going through the “Ready, Set, Go” of preparing for Christmas. We have made straight the ways for the Lord. We have repented at the behest of John the Baptist. And today as we go, we need to go knowing that what we testify, what we are all called to share with the world is wonderful and glorious and scandalous and absurd.

Thomas Heagle testifies, “In the human experience of Jesus, God became available to us as the depth of human life. Thus, a Christian believes that the experience of ultimate meaning comes not from a leap out of the human condition, but a journey through its dark waters.”[4]

God comes to us in the depths of where we are. Too often, we have added layers of piety that bind the Holy Spirit into a straight jacket that takes God out of those dark waters. I become party to this straight jacket when worship becomes more pious than God’s own self. More than once, I have left inadequate the wonder and the glory that is two unlikely mothers bearing their even more unlikely children.

Let us go into those dark waters with the story we hear year round, the story of the fully human-fully divine God of all creation. Let us share his grace, his peace, and his mercy so that all of God’s children will be able to see our Lord at work in us and even more importantly beyond us. The Lord will not be contained by what we consider to be absurd or common sense. Let us take the unpasteurized God into the world, sharing God’s life with God’s creation.

[1] Pasteurization, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pasteurization, retrieved December 13, 2009
[2] Woolls, Daniel, “Oldest Woman to Give Birth Dies at 69.” boston.com, http://www.boston.com/news/health/articles/2009/07/16/oldest_woman_to_give_birth_dies_at_69/, retrieved December 13, 2009.
[3] Bonhoeffer, Dietrich, “I Want to Live These Days with You. A Year of Daily Devotions.” Louisville, KY: Westminster-John Knox Press, 2005, page 363.
[4] Heagle, Thomas, “A Contemporary Meditation on Hope.” Chicago: Thomas Moore Press.