Freedom of the Servant

This sermon was heard at the Federated Church in Weatherford, Oklahoma on Sunday June 26, 2016, the Thirteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time.

2 Kings 2:1-2, 6-14
Psalm 77:1-2, 11-20
Galatians 5:1,13-25
Luke 9:51-62

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

The Reverend Chip Andrus is the Pastor at South Salem Presbyterian Church in South Salem, New York. I knew Chip when he was the Pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in Harrison, Arkansas. He’s one of those people I want to be when I grow up. If envy wasn’t a sin, I would covet his musical talent. I tell people I’m musical, but not musically talented. Chip is both.

A few years ago Marie and I went to Sunday worship at First Harrison and the sermon had to do with being a servant. The choir didn’t do an anthem that day. Rather than the full choir and organ, Chip and a small combo of guitars gathered around the font. They sang the first single released from Bob Dylan’s 1979 studio album “Slow Train Coming.” It was his first release since becoming a born again Christian. They played “Gotta Serve Somebody” and played it quite well. During the sermon, Pastor Chip quoted the song:

But you're gonna have to serve somebody, yes
You're gonna have to serve somebody
Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord
But you're gonna have to serve somebody

There are two things from last Sunday’s sermon that I want to say again. The first is this paraphrase of Paul from Galatians, “there was a time when the nation of Israel lived under the custody of the Law, the Torah, until the faith could be revealed. The Law acted like a guardian taking care of the nation. Then the Christ came and we are now justified by faith and now that this faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian.”

I bring this back because this leads us to the beginning of our reading from Galatians. The words found on the cover of our bulletin, “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.”

In the days of Jesus, the Pharisees literally turned the law into a yoke of slavery. To be right with the law was to be right with the Temple Elite was to be right with the Pharisees. If you didn’t do as the Pharisees wanted, your relationship with God would be brought into question. In Jerusalem, at a time when everything revolved around the temple, if you ran afoul with the leaders you could be kicked out. Being kicked out would lead to spiritual, social, and financial ruin.

In the sacred and the secular, the Pharisees had the people in a yoke of slavery made from the law. In and of itself, the law was not bad, but when people use the Law, the word of God, to make the people slaves, that is bad.

We are no longer under the guardianship of the law, but that doesn’t mean we don’t need safeguards. Without rules people have a tendency to get off the leash and run. Folks can become overzealous. Our gospel reading from the New International Version says, “Jesus sent messengers on ahead, who went into a Samaritan village to get things ready for him; but the people there did not welcome him.” Remember, the Jews and the Samaritans were cousins who didn’t get along. Back to the story, “[they did] not welcome him because he was heading for Jerusalem. When the disciples James and John saw this, they asked, ’Lord, do you want us to call fire down from heaven to destroy them?’ But Jesus turned and rebuked them.”

Another translation, the New American Standard Bible, includes a comment by Jesus not found in earlier manuscripts. In this translation, Jesus rebukes the disciples saying, “You do not know what kind of spirit you are of; for the Son of Man did not come to destroy men’s lives, but to save them.” In that translation, not only do we know that James and John were rebuked, but how they were rebuked.

James and John were two of the most trusted disciples. They will see the transfiguration. They will accompany the Lord to Gethsemane when the time comes; and they get scolded for offering wrath when that is not the will of God. The Samaritans are the Hatfield’s to their McCoy and the nuclear option looks pretty good, but that is not the will of God.

To live in the age of grace that follows living under the law, we need to live in the right spirit, the Holy Spirit of God in Christ. To do that, I first want to bring back the other thing from last Sunday’s sermon. In the conclusion I said, “This is the good news of Jesus Christ. The God who sent his Son to show us a better way, to be the better way, became the living Torah so we can live by faith and not under the law.”

It’s not wrong to ask the question “if we don’t live under the law, then what do we live under?” You might even ask me if I am “anti-law-and-order.” Rest assured I love order contrary to the appearance of my desk at any given moment. But I heard it said that laws and rules are written for society’s dumbest people. Why is there a speed limit? So people don’t drive 145 mph through downtown OKC. Why does the NFL make football stadiums quit serving adult beverages after the third quarter? To reduce the number of drunk drivers. Why can’t you drive drunk? It’s about safety, the drinker’s and everybody else’s.

As Paul writes, the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit and what the flesh wants is, “sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like.” Paul sure knows how to make a list, doesn’t he?

When talking about Jesus as the Living Torah, the Law of God that came to be with us and to be one of us, we must remember that the Messiah only wants what is good and right for the children of God. Nothing bad can come from Jesus. I’ll say that again. Nothing bad can come from Jesus. This is the breadth of God’s love for us. The Lord who can do all things from creation to destruction, chooses love. There is no hate, no spite, no arrogance, no ignorance, no impatience, no grudges in the name of God.

In this “What Would Jesus Do?” moment, we have to remember that the answer is to live in the spirit of God. Paul has a list for what it means to live in the Spirit too, ‘love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.” He ends saying, “Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.”

Our reading from Paul’s letter to the Galatians ends with an admonition that can be read as a prayer, “Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.” He tells the Galatians that they live in the Spirit! Yes, they live in the Spirit!

Paul says freedom is in Christ. When we stand firm in Christ the burdens others place on us are gone. That doesn’t mean everything in life will automatically be peaches and cream; there are people who will try to put the yoke of the law around your neck again and again. There are Pharisees in every age who will tell you what to think and how to act and will do it in the name of God. When done to lift up what is not Godly, Paul tells to beware, “If you bite and devour each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other.”

Yes, people err. People goof. People make mistakes. You know the old expression, “To err is human, to blame is also human.” This is the nature of sin which we will not escape this side of glory. We can rejoice that while to err is human, to forgive divine. Living under the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ we are not servants to the law or, more importantly, the Pharisees, whether ancient and modern, who would bind us with it.

Pastor Chip quoted Bob Dylan saying:

But you're gonna have to serve somebody, yes
You're gonna have to serve somebody
Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord
But you're gonna have to serve somebody

I love Chip as a friend, pastor, and colleague in ministry. I follow him on Facebook, but not as a prophet. I am not a servant of Chip. As for Dylan’s music, I like this song. The album got fair to good reviews and the song won a Grammy. I’m not a servant of Dylan or his music. We are servants of Christ, and as his servants we are free from the yoke of the law. We are free. Free to live by the Spirit, serving one another humbly in love, for the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

Un/Worthy

This sermon was heard at the Federated Church in Weatherford, Oklahoma on Sunday June 12, 2016, the 11th Sunday in Ordinary Time.

1Kings 21:1-21a
Psalm 5:1-8
Galatians 2:15-21
Luke 7:36-8:3

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

Here’s a name baseball fans will remember, Al Hrabosky. “The Mad Hungarian” came up through the St. Louis Cardinal Minor League system to become one of the most influential relief pitchers of the Seventy’s. Was it his wicked delivery? His unrivaled intensity? His Fu Manchu mustache?

If you selected “All of the above” you got the Hrabosky effect.

In 1978 he left the Cards to sign a contract with the cross state rival Kansas City Royals. Two years later Hrabosky became a free agent and signed with the Atlanta Braves. When asked why the Royals did not choose to match the Braves’ offer, General Manager Joe Burke said he wasn’t worth it. Hrabosky countered, “The Braves are willing to pay me, so I must be worth it.”

This is today’s lesson in free market economics, something is worth as much as someone else is willing to pay for it. We’ll get back to this.

In our gospel reading, it’s getting along to be mealtime. It seems Luke’s gospel has Jesus going from one meal to the next, my kind of gospel. Jesus is invited to the home of Simon the Pharisee for a meal. Others are invited too.

Just a couple of things you may not be aware of that will be helpful. This isn’t a closed off banquet hall with high style chairs. This table is not very high at all and those who will eat lay on mats on their left elbows and eat with their right hands. Their legs will be splayed back and away from the table. Also, strangely to us, it is not uncommon for people to just drop in on the festivities seemingly for no good reason at all.

So Jesus goes with Simon to the festivities. Everyone was reclined at the table and the servants brought the food. Among the passersby is a local woman who has led a sinful life. As you see, anybody can just drop by a fancy dinner, even this sinful life leading woman! She breaks open an alabaster jar of perfume and anoints the feet of the Lord Jesus.

Can you imagine how good that felt after a long day on the road? The oils and the balm being rubbed lovingly into your feet. She’s weeping. She’s washing your feet with her long, long hair. Do you think he might have closed his eyes enjoying this tender care?

Well, she’s in his house, on his grounds, and Simon can’t keep quiet. He mumbles “If this man were a prophet, he would know who is touching him and what kind of woman she is—that she is a sinner.”

This is Simon the Pharisee’s “Al Hrabosky” moment of human economics; and as far as he’s concerned she’s not worth all that and a bag of chips. Jesus on the other hand teaches that heavenly economics are not human economics.

Jesus engages Simon in a riddle, actually a common form of entertainment at get-togethers like this in the day before college football and TiVo. He offered the story of a moneylender who forgave two debts, one of fifty denarii and another of 500 denarii.

First though, a quick lesson in ancient finance. A denarius was a day’s living wage for the common worker. It was fair, it wasn’t extravagant, it was a living wage. So 50 denarii would amount to a healthy credit card bill and 500 would pay for a nice sedan.

Neither bill so high it can’t be incurred or repaid over time, but when bankruptcy comes, broke is broke.

Jesus asks, “The moneylender forgave the debts of both. Now which of them will love him more?” Isn’t it obvious? It is to Simon, the one with the larger debt.

Jesus tells him he made the right choice. Technically it’s not much of a riddle, but then again, I find the rest of the conversation has a bigger riddle.

Back in the day, hospitality rules said that when you invite someone over you provide water for them to wash their feet. When you wear sandals and share roads with beasts of burden, you’d want to wash your feet too. On a side note which will become a matter of no small importance, you wash your own feet. A slave can’t be compelled to wash someone else’s feet.

Well, Simon didn’t provide so much as a basin of water. Simon did not meet his guest with a kiss either. Nor did Simon give oil for washing. This sinful woman provided perfume, her kisses, her tears, and her hair for our Lord’s feet. She could not be compelled to wash his feet, yet she did she served him on her own accord out of love. Yes, she may have been a sinful woman, and we don’t know what her sins are, but by my count the score is Sinful Woman 5, Simon 0.

Jesus continues, “Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven—as her great love has shown. But whoever has been forgiven little loves little.” To her alone he says, “Your sins are forgiven. Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”

This woman seemed to know what Paul tells the Galatians over and over. They are not saved by the Law, but by grace. Yes, she is a sinner, a sinner serving God. By accepting Jesus the Christ, by loving and serving Christ, she has found her way to forgiveness. She has found shalom. She has found peace.

Paul says what Christ shows, we who know God, we who know the Christ will find ourselves “among the sinners.” I find this ironic, I have always found that when we find ourselves around those who know God we find ourselves among those who sin too. People like Simon.

While we are on this earth, we sin. People sin. Some days we sin like we owe fifty day’s pay. Others like 500 day’s pay. Others we owe a government sized bailout. Who needs more love? Of course it’s the one who owes more.

But let’s ask this question, who’s more worthy?

The question of worth is always based on some scale. Some external scale that somebody sets up and interprets. Did you meet the scale? Did you exceed expectations? Did you earn this bonus? Are you worthy of this reward?

The Jews measure this through the law. The 613 Commandments, the 613 Mitzvoth. The 248 positive commandments and the 365 negative commandments; if you were going to be judged by a code, that was quite a code. There were people who would judge. There were courts and there were scribes and Pharisees. Paul knew all of this. Paul was raised in this and he was esteemed in all of this.

Then Paul received the revelation of the better way. “So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law, because by the works of the law no one will be justified.”

By his interpretation of the law, Simon judged the woman a sinner. She was way down on his totem pole. He, a Pharisee, was having Jesus, the “next big thing,” the “Flavor of the Month,” over for dinner. Simon’s star was ascending. He was seeing and being seen by all the right people. He had kept the law since a young child. Simon was living right. He thought he was on top of the world and in all the right ways, he was.

But with Jesus at the table, everything had changed. Paul says it this way to the Galatians, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” Jesus didn’t give himself for those with the best marks in the law. God in Christ knew the people who needed him most were those in the most difficulty, those who owed 500 denarii.

Those who owed fifty couldn’t save themselves though. It’s just that those who are in worse shape will love the redeemer more.

That’s the issue here. We have laws. We have lots of laws. They can be called benchmarks or standards or goals or outcome projections. They will end up as judgements. We face them every day and we will be judged worthy or unworthy.

In God’s law, we have all fallen short of the mark. We all sin. We are unworthy of the salvation freely offered through the life, work, death, and resurrection of our Lord Jesus. Yet, in God’s economics, as the children of God, though we are unworthy, we are saved. God loves us so much, that even if we think we have done enough, we haven’t, we can’t, and his grace is sufficient.

This takes me back to Simon and the sinful woman. Simon the Pharisee serves the Church and the Law, but he forgets the simplest principles of hospitality, water, oil, and greeting. The sinful woman brings these and the tears of shame knowing she’s not worthy, or is it tears of joy knowing that while she is not worthy, she is yet at the feet of her Lord.

Scripture doesn’t say. But this question makes me wonder this riddle, in our reading is Simon the fifty denarii sinner or is he the 500 denarii sinner? It also makes me wonder which I am. But in truth, all the answer to that riddle will show us is how grateful we should be when the moneylender forgives our debt.

In the end our response to this question must be to be like response of the sinful woman. Seek the feet of Christ and serve him where he is, for there is forgiveness. Not because we are worthy, because we are never going to be. Our human condition will forever keep us from that.

But here’s the Good News of Jesus Christ, like the sinful woman we seek and serve the Lord not because we are worthy, but because he is.

Storytelling

This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Marshall, Texas on Sunday June 17, 2012, the 11th Sunday in Ordinary Time. Happy Father's Day.

Podcast of "Storytelling" (MP3)

1 Samuel 15:34-16:13

Psalm 20

2 Corinthians 5:6-10, 14-17

Mark 4:26-34

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

On August 1, 1981, a small cadre of subscribers to one New Jersey cable television provider was introduced to the fledgling moments of what has become a juggernaut. At this moment, the screen showed the launch of the Space Shuttle Columbia on not just its maiden voyage, but the maiden space voyage of the shuttle program. It was followed by shots of the launch of Apollo 11 and still photos of an astronaut looking at a strange flag. The flag, while its logo did not change, its color schemes did. The image was the logo of a brand new cable network. In that moment, using the images of the greatest technological achievements and the greatest journey of exploration humanity has ever known, MTV started its journey.

The first video shown was by a New Wave Synthpop duo called “The Buggles” titled “Video Killed the Radio Star.” How's that for a prophecy?

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, Ted Turner isn’t above some sweet adulation. A few years later, Turner started the Cable Music Channel. Turner’s enterprise was geared to play a broader mix of music than MTV’s Rock and Pop format. After only one month of losing money, Turner sold the venture to MTV showing that flattery goes only so far. The Cable Music Channel became the domain of MTV’s first sister venture. Where MTV was geared toward a younger audience, this new venture was geared toward a slightly older audience. Video Hits One, VH1, became the Adult Contemporary version of Music Television.

Soon the MTV family of networks decided that a little variety was in order. Beyond music videos came music video news, live concerts, and concert movies. From this came movies with a rock and roll motif. One of the early examples of the reality TV craze was MTV’s “The Real World.” This eventually devolved into a debacle known as “The Jersey Shore.” Let me just add that if you have never heard of these shows you will become no better informed about life by learning about the MTV Networks versions of this particular genre.

But among these shows is one that allowed musical acts tell the stories behind their songs. “VH1 Storytellers” allowed artists to tell the stories about their music, writing experiences and memories. Then they would perform the song in front of an intimate audience. One of the great things about “Storytellers” is that it would allow bands and songwriters to share details about songs that might otherwise be missing. It would also allow the artist to disavow spurious interpretations of their songs.

There is one singer that may never appear on “Storytellers” because of the importance he places on the listener’s experience. Seal Henry Samuel, more commonly known as Seal, wrote in a set of liner notes that he doesn’t put lyrics to his songs on CD’s because he believes how the listener decodes the music and lyrics is at least as important as the work he puts into writing and recording the songs. Of course no matter how important this was to him years ago, Seal’s lyrics are now found in his CD booklets.

I tell this overly long story to make some points about storytelling. The first point I want to make is that some stories work for some people and don’t for others. If you haven’t paid a hoot-and-a-holler to music on television then this story just bored you to death. You may have wondered where it was going, then again, you might not have cared a lick and prayed I would finish so we can get to Catfish Express early enough to avoid the line. That last phrase was code for the notorious expression “beat the Baptists,” but that’s another point.

The choice of words in telling a story is the difference between making a news report and spinning a yarn. Good storytelling includes words and phrases that mean something more to the listener. We’re church goers, we’re mainline Protestants, we start worship at 11:00 AM; so when I say “beat the Baptists” I’m saying more than just “get to Catfish Express early enough to avoid the line.” That little phrase tells the world not only who we are but who we aren’t. It provides a grain of context to the story that ordinary reporting does not.

This goes to another point, one made by Seal, listening to a story is as important as telling the story. Creating the message is what communication experts call this encoding the message. What the listener does is decoding the message. Further, listening, decoding, is the one element of storytelling the speaker has no control over. I can try to encode, to mold my words to touch everyone, but I know not everyone will decode, will hear the story the same way. This encoding and decoding process is one of the ways storytelling goes awry.

I’ve mentioned context, but culture is another important element to good storytelling. This is where I want to start talking about holy writ. One often shared complaint is that scripture is “no longer relevant.” Now, of course I disagree. What kind of Minister of Word and Sacrament would I be if I didn’t disagree? Now this I will say, the most basic and most important truths of scripture are still quite relevant. The themes of scripture remain true to all human existence too. What may or may not be as relevant are the methods used to share the gospel.

At issue here is that life in the ancient Mid-East under the rule of the Roman Empire is completely different from anything we experience here in 21^st Century East Texas. If you say that the geography, topography, and climate of the Texas Hill Country isn’t that different from ancient Palestine I would agree with you. There is some shared reference there. What I would remind you is that in ancient Palestine you couldn’t drive ten miles to the Chevron for an Icee.

Much that seems so obvious to us now meant something different in everyday life in the time of our Lord. One pertinent example is that in the next few months there will be increased chatter among Presbyterians about “biblical marriage.” It is vital to us to note that in Genesis there are several different kinds of “biblical marriage” and only one of them is “one man to one woman.” Frankly, that is the only wedding service the Session will approve in this sanctuary and I’m fine with that, but to say it is the only scriptural form is wrong. This is what happens when we impose the framework of our culture over the words of another.

Culture, context, language; these things fall neatly into the encoding and decoding of the gospel message. If the message is shared in a way that can’t be deciphered by the listener then the message is lost. If it is shared with loaded language then a different message may be sent. When loaded or jargon filled language is used walls can rise before the message can be fully sent. In fact, what I just said about marriage might have proven that very point.

Storytelling is a wonderful way of sharing a message, sharing the gospel, but it is not without its pitfalls.

Mark’s gospel tells us that Jesus chose to speak using parables, ancient stories loaded with broad concepts and multilayered messages. Some people find that very annoying. Some days I find it annoying!

Why didn’t Jesus come right out and say what he meant? Why did he leave behind all these cryptic sayings, loaded with innuendo, destined to be interpreted and reinterpreted, instead of a crisp code of laws or a stack of essays with titles like “How to Be a Good Disciple,” “A Brief Definition of the Kingdom of God” or “Seven Key Features of the Coming Kingdom and What This Means to You.”

Instead we have this culturally ancient, cross-eyed, cryptic, incomplete, awkward, and at times seemingly absurd yet eternally true collection of sayings known as the parables of Jesus.

A list of rules never changes, never adapts. Written essays are like insects encased in amber—beautiful and precisely formed, but no longer vital and alive. It takes the fluid format of a parable—a story that can never be told quite the same way twice—to keep breathing mysterious and glorious new life into the Good News. This way these stories are still vital 2,000 years after they were first told. With their many facets they are far more illusive and mysterious than hard and fast rules.

If you still think Jesus would have gotten his points across better with hard and fast rules, I ask you to remember the last time you sat down and really enjoyed reading Leviticus or the first few chapters of Numbers.

Then consider this; if the hard and fast rules and customs of family status and inheritance were followed in our reading from the Old Testament, the Call of David would never have happened. If Samuel had just anointed the eldest son as tradition dictated, Jesse’s eldest, the boy whose name means “God is Father,” Eliab[1], would have become king. Instead, the Lord is in charge and Samuel follows. He anoints the eighth and youngest son of Jesse. The rules were broken and it worked out pretty well.

We come to know that by preaching to his ancient and modern disciples in parables, Jesus lets us make the Good News become our own story, our own experience. None of us are farmers and few of us are gardeners, yet as we are swept up in these stories about seeds, we ourselves become part of a new parable—the parable of our lives. Taken all together, our individual experiences of the kingdom, our personal stories of God’s work and witness in our lives, end up creating a new gospel.

Know this; we are mistaken if we think our tradition stems from only the four gospels of the scriptural canon. As well as Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John; the church has two millennia of other gospels to celebrate; the books of Augustine and Aquinas, Luther and Calvin, Bonhoeffer and Barth. These “gospels” have become vital parts of our tradition because of their eternal reliance on the power of God and the reconciling work of Christ.

There are still other gospels that may not be quite so well-known, but have tremendous influence in our lives in this part of the body of Christ. We also remember “The Gospel According to Grandma;” or “The Gospel According to Mr. Al, Vicke, and Miss Marie;”[2] or “The Gospel According to That Kid at Camp Whose Name I Can’t Even Remember.” These personal parables enlighten our lives and the gospel.

All of us are in the process of writing our own gospels—our own accounts of experiencing the Good News of the coming kingdom in our midst. Writing a gospel through the very act of living is part of being a disciple of Christ. Sharing our gospel through the very act of living is also part of being a disciple of Christ. It is why Jesus gave the power of the parable to all those listening to his words. Storytelling is one of the most basic practices common to all human communities.

Stories connect us to one another, to our ancestors, to our world and to our Lord. In this week’s gospel text, Mark notes that when Jesus spoke to the crowds around him, he “spoke the word to them, as they were able to hear it; he did not speak to them except in parables.” Jesus knew that only parables had the ability to make the Good News of the kingdom a potent reality for every listening ear.

The mystery of how this works is glorious. People want proofs, rules, and standards; and Jesus gives us parables. William Sloane Coffin, created a godly monologue about our want for rules and God’s gift of parables in these words from a 1980 Advent sermon:

These creatures of mine are very clever.  They are always looking for evidence to make intelligently selfish decisions. That’s why their evangelists, instead of the freedom they need, give them all the proofs they want. I have told these evangelists there are no proofs for my existence, only witnesses. Nevertheless they go on proving one ineffable mystery after another with all the ardor of orthodoxy stamping out heresy. But I am the Lord God, and will not seek to overcome selfishness by appealing to selfish motives. So, as the prophet promised, I will send my people a son. I will seek to captivate their hearts, not conquer them. I will seek to open their minds, not crack their skulls. They, of course, will continue to fight me as they always have, but the contest between us will not be one of power—only of endurance. I will show them that true conquerors are not those who can inflict the most, but those who can suffer the most. I will show them that love never ends.[3]

  How is it that the stories of a Jewish carpenter recorded so long ago resonate so clearly with us now? Well, that is one of the blessings of our Messiah the wonderful storyteller. Words that could have been codified to provide hard and fast rules have value for the time they are written. Parables offer something better, truth, truth that resonates over time. This is the true value of the parable. This is the value of storytelling. Thanks be to God who is the author and teller of the greatest story ever told.

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[1] Brown, F..  Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon, The.  Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 2001, page 45.

[2] These are the men and women who provide Children’s Sermons at First Presbyterian in Marshall.

[3] Coffin, William Sloane, The Collected Sermons of William Sloane Coffin, The Riverside Years, Vol. 1, Louisville, Westminster-John Knox Press, 2008, page 387.

The Christian Mandate

This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Berryville, Arkansas on Sunday August 30, 2009, the 22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time.

Song of Solomon 2:8-13
Psalm 45:1-2, 6-9
James 1:17-27
Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23

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

On Wednesday evening when we got together for our reading of Mark’s gospel, a lot of thoughts started running through my mind. One of the things on my mind had to do with how things tend to run downhill. There is the polite example where we know that water runs downhill. One trip to the manse in a downpour shows that. Another way to look at this downhill flow is political. The word comes from above and those of us who live below have to deal with the follow through. The unfunded mandate, a requirement imposed by Congress on state or local governments with no funding to pay for it,[1] is a wonderful example of what government rules and regulations running downhill means.

There is something that I think I need to make clear about this first; many of these mandates are well intentioned, like the Clean Water and Clean Air acts. When many of America’s most polluting industries were getting started, there was so little efficiency that there was often considerable waste and pollution. The effects of this pollution were so far down the pike that they meant little at the time. Unfortunately, sometimes these inefficient ways became SOP, standard operating procedure. So today, the culture of many industries is to not change not simply because of the expense, but also because of red ink in the profit column too. In the meantime, air, ground, and water become polluted creating a whole new industry, the super-fund clean-up industry.

So yes, many mandates are well intentioned but at the same time, profits are lost to pay for them. Because they aren’t funded any other way, investors become leery and move their money out of these formerly more profitable industries. This creates twists and turns to the economy which can be felt at every level of society. President Reagan talked about “trickle-down economics” and how a rising tide lifts all boats. From what I have seen in life and in ministry, I am more familiar with the “trickle-down” that means the poor get poorer.

So, how does this relate to scripture? In Mark 7:3-4 we learn that the Pharisees and all of the Jews do not eat unless they thoroughly wash their hands observing the tradition of the elders and do not eat anything from the market unless they wash it and there are many other traditions that they observe including the washing of cups, pots, and bronze kettles. What this scripture only alludes to is that it isn’t just the Pharisees and all of the Jews who observe these rituals; they insisted that those they did business with also followed these rituals.

While the “they” of “they wash it” meant the washing performed by the temple kitchen patrol, it also included handling long before it ever reached their kitchen. The long-drawn-out laws of hand washing extended far beyond the hands of the Pharisees. This ritual cleanliness had to include all of the planting, harvesting, and preparation from the field. It also included the artisans, workers, and merchants who created and sold the cups, pots, and bronze kettles. The rules created its own little closed system to serve the temple; and the Pharisees ruled over it all.

It’s sort of like a small business getting a government contract. But before you sign the contract, you had better be aware of all of its terms and conditions. You had better be aware of every little provision and clause in the contract, every jot and tittle. You had better be careful because violating any piece of the contract makes the whole thing voidable. If your contract gets voided, there goes your investment, your profit, and the wages you owe your employees, and from there it just keeps running down hill. So beware of all of the terms of the contract. Beware of all of the terms in the law.

In Judaism, traditionally there are 613 commands, the Taryag Mitzvot. The Mitzvot are separated into two categories. There are 248 mitzvot aseh, or positive commands; one for each bone and significant organ in the human body. These are the things we are to do. There are also 365 mitzvot lo taaseh, or negative commands; one for every day of the year. These are the things we are never to do.[2]

Some of these rules make perfect sense to us today, things like, “Know there is a God,” “Know God is One,” and “Entertain thoughts of no other god except for the One True God.” We’re familiar with these rules from the Old Testament. These are lessons Jesus teaches us in the gospels.

Then again, there are others we do not follow. For example, the mitzvot includes prohibitions against eating non-kosher fish. Sorry, but I enjoy shrimp. They’re not kosher, but they’re tasty. Pork isn’t kosher either, but bacon makes everything better. In fact, a note to anyone who brings shrimp wrapped with bacon in two weeks for potluck Sunday: I will make it my purpose in life to make sure you don’t have to worry about leftovers.

On top of the mitzvot, human rules and traditions designed to protect the law created barriers to the law. It literally became impossible to follow the law because there were so many barriers to it. These barriers are bad enough when they create unintended consequences, but the step that is even worse is when people intend to take advantage of others using the barriers and the law.

One of the best examples in the last twenty years of people taking advantage of the law deals with home ownership. As long ago as the Clinton presidency, the government policy was to encourage and enable people to get mortgages so they could own their own homes. Home ownership is the greatest source of personal wealth for the majority of Americans, so encouraging home ownership is as American as apple pie. People own their own homes, they gain equity, personal wealth increases, and the American dream starts to become true for people who never imagined the dream could be theirs. Unfortunately, this is where the dream ran amok.

The Christian Century recently ran the story of an elderly woman named Mabel[3] who was a client of the Legal Assistance Foundation of Metropolitan Chicago. She needed just a little more money than her social security and house cleaning job provided. Between Mabel’s niece April and the loan salesman “Bill Sykes,” Mabel and her house went from the frying pan into the fire.

Bill Sykes knew that Mabel wouldn’t be able to handle the new level of debt, especially since Mabel owed back taxes and back water bills on the house. There were also a couple of judgments against the property so this new level of debt would soon become impossible to repay.

To quote the article:

The day before the signing, Sykes had not been happy. Two deals had tanked already that morning when a stubborn appraiser had refused to bring him high enough home values. He wouldn't use that bozo again. And now with Mabel's loan in doubt, he'd be lucky to gross $5,000 for the week—half his usual. He'd have to call the car dealer and tell him to put the Jaguar on hold.

A year ago Sykes would've given up. But that was before the big lunch he'd had with a representative of a subprime lender. The rep had displayed his employer's array of aggressive loan products: no doc, low doc, doc lite. All Sykes needed was a cooperative appraiser and a friendly closer, and he would be set: with these new products he'd be able to finance anybody. A year later, Sykes could see that the rep wasn't far wrong.

The vulnerable and overly trusting homeowner sitting on a ton of equity, the nice mortgage broker worming into the homeowner’s life, the greedy family member helping things along, the high up-front fees, the cash payment to cushion the deal, the risky mortgage products and the broker schooled by a lender's rep on how to push them. All this story needs is an out of tune piano to sound like a Dudley Do-Right cartoon. Unfortunately, this story doesn’t have an out of tune piano. Even more unfortunately it doesn’t have a Mountie.

The article ends like this:

Many have asked who is to blame. Some would blame the homeowners themselves. It is true that some borrowers bought homes they couldn't afford, but this happened mostly at the end of the lending spree and especially in certain highly publicized markets. The majority of borrowers sucked into bad subprime loans were long-term homeowners like Mabel who had equity that could be stripped and were on the receiving end of relentless marketing.

Some also point a finger at the Community Reinvestment Act, arguing that it forced banks to extend overly risky loans to unworthy borrowers. But the CRA was passed way back in 1977, some 25 years before the boom in subprime lending, and the biggest subprime lenders were nonbank entities not regulated by the CRA.

The chief culprits in the subprime lending crisis are the brokers, lenders, ratings agencies and investment banks that set up the system and pushed it beyond its breaking point, together with the policy makers and regulators who ignored warning signs and failed to apply the brakes.

As for Sykes, he's doing well these days. The meltdown has been good for the many entrepreneurs in the business who are now engaged in the mortgage-rescue industry that sprang up overnight. Just as before, Sykes sends out mailers by the thousands to homeowners in foreclosure. But now, instead of offering refinancing, he presents himself as an expert in foreclosure prevention and loan modification. He says he knows how to help homeowners get good results with their lender. He says he can gain a sympathetic hearing if he discovers that the homeowners were duped when they got their loan. He should know.

There are some people who would say that I as a pastor have no business talking about this from the pulpit. Some people would tell me to be quiet about political things; about law and government and clean air and talk about Jesus. Friends, the plain truth is that the gospel is political. In a time when church and state were completely interconnected, the gospel preached by Jesus was for the leaders of the synagogue and the political leaders because the synagogue leaders were political leaders. Separating church and state is not a biblical concept; it has only been around for about 240 years. So when we talk about the mandates that are a burden on the people, those mandates come from every seat of power and are put upon those who are subject to the power and the powerful.

So what we must do as Christians, as followers of the one true Triune God is to find the mandate of the faith. First and foremost, our mandate is our Lord Jesus Christ, in his person, his words, and his work. It is found in his life, and his death, and his resurrection.

This is perhaps the most difficult, the most scandalous part of the gospel. By emptying himself of his Godly status, taking earthly form, and joining with us, Jesus teaches that it is in weakness and in poverty that real strength is found and exercised. Our society teaches us that we are to gain and exert power in strength. Our culture teaches that it is better to be Bill Sykes; make a ton of cash and get the Jag. Jesus teaches from the mitzvot not to withhold charity to the poor.[4]

Our mandate is found in the word of God. To find God’s will, we need to go to the best source of information about God, scripture opened by the Holy Spirit. The testimony of the testaments brings us words thousands of years old; words as important today as when they were written. Some will say the Bible is out of touch with our lives, but I say that words about the human condition and the one who created humanity are never out of vogue. This reading from Mark is a fine example. The injunctions from 1James are another.

Our mandate is found in the sacraments, the water of our baptism, and in the plate and cup of the table. At the font, we join with Jesus as members of his church. In the plate and cup we are nourished by the food of his body and blood. These symbols instituted by the Lord our God are what we use to define who we are in community with Christ and how he continues to feed us.
Our mandate is found in the church, the body of Christ. It is found in the worship and the fellowship we share together. It is found worshipping Christ, even with people we do not agree with, as long as we can all agree that Jesus is Lord.

There are all sorts of mandates in our world and in our lives. As a mandate, the law, the mitzvot, is important. Yet first we are called to follow Jesus, and the advice Jesus gave the Pharisees. To rephrase verse seven, worship Jesus, worship him, not the concepts and precepts we put in his path. We don’t have to protect Jesus from one another. We don’t have to build barriers to protect him. He proved he could take on death and hell. Let us follow Him, do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with God protecting the sick, the orphan, the widow and the oppressed. Doing these things, not following selfish human traditions and evil intentions, God’s good will comes from us and we will not be defiled.

[1] Unfunded Mandate, http://www.c-span.org/guide/congress/glossary/unfunded.htm, retrieved August 29, 2009.
[2] 613 Mitzvot, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/613_Mitzvot, accessed July 2, 2007.
[3] Lindsey, Daniel P. “Foreclosing on Mabel.” The Christian Century, August 11, 2009, pages 30-33.
[4] Deuteronomy 15:7

For Those with Ears to Hear

This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Berryville, Arkansas on Sunday May 17, 2009, the 6th Sunday in Lent. Sorry for the poor sermon title.

Acts 10:44-48
Psalm 98
1 John 5:1-6
John 15:9-17

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 movie “Rudy” is the story of Daniel “Rudy” Ruettiger, a young man who wants to play football for the University of Notre Dame more than anything else in the world. Of course, this isn’t an easy road. Because of grades and money, he worked in a steel mill after graduating from high school. So when he decides to go to college he is older than most of the rest of the student body. Because of his relatively weak academic credentials, he starts his studies at Holy Cross Junior College in South Bend. At 5’6”, Rudy is also much, much smaller than any other member of the Fighting Irish.

But he works, and he prays, and he works and he prays. One of the relationships the movie focuses on is between Rudy and a parish priest in South Bend, Father Cavanaugh. Rudy, feeling the futility of his actions asks Father Cavanaugh about God. Father Cavanaugh says, “Son, in 35 years of religious study, I have only come up with two hard incontrovertible facts: there is a God, and I'm not Him.”[1]

There are several things that ring true for me in these readings from John today, and they bring me back to Father Cavanaugh’s words, there is a God, and I’m not Him.

To begin, if we are to do anything, we are to abide in God’s love. Abiding in the love of God expresses the central theme of our gospel readings last week and this week.[2] The relationship of God and Jesus with one another and with the community is one of presence and mutuality. Last week, we followed the imagery of how the vine symbolizes the way that the life of the Christian community is shaped by love and intertwined with the abiding presence of Jesus and the presence of the Father.

Our reading from 1John shows us how we are to abide in Christ, by obeying his commandments; commandments which are not burdensome. John’s gospel records Jesus saying that we are called to keep the commandments and abide in God’s love so that Jesus may take joy in us; and so that our joy may be complete.

We follow the commandments not so that we may lose our freedom, but so that our freedom may be increased in love. Dietrich Bonhoeffer writes:

Biblically, freedom means free for service to God and neighbor, freedom for obedience to the commandments of God. This presupposes freedom from every internal and external force that hinders us from this service. Thus, freedom does not mean the dissolution of all authority but rather means living under the authorities and obligations ordained and limited by the word of God… Freedom is not primarily an individual right, but a responsibility. Freedom is not primarily oriented toward the individual but toward the neighbor.

Jesus says “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” To Jesus, freedom and love is found in acting responsibly, sacrificing for friends. Friendship is defined by Jesus’ love. To be Jesus’ friend is to love Jesus and be loved by him.[4]

Jesus showed the ultimate exercise of freedom and the greatest act of love in giving his life for not just his friends, but to redeem creation through his blood upon the cross. This is our commandment, to love one another as Jesus loves us.

If you are wondering if laying down your life isn’t burdensome, I don’t blame you. But a little more explanation will help with that.

In this writing, the word burdensome deals with legal restrictions.[5] I used to work in two heavily regulated industries. I worked under a United States Education Department grant and I worked in the… well let’s call it the hospitality industry. Both of these things were loaded with burdensome regulation. In Kansas City, it is illegal for a patron of a bar to buy a cocktail for a female employee of that same bar, whether on duty or not. I suspect this ties into prostitution laws somehow.

When I worked under the federal grant, we were required to follow a huge book of regulations, the Education Department General Administrative Regulations, EDGAR. EDGAR was very precise, but it had one big loophole, whenever federal regulation ran contradictory to college regulation, the college took precedence. Believe me; getting a local grant administrator to follow that little gem, which is in the school’s favor, was tough. Add to that local regulations often came in the form of state laws and it took a team of lawyers to hire a math tutor.

Jesus teaches and John writes that love is not bounded by the burdens of the law. We hear “you shall love the Lord your God and your neighbor as yourself,” this greatest commandment of them all frees us so that we may be obedient to the needs of the community, not to the letter of the law.

Our readings also teach that we are the children of God and friends of Jesus. Our reading from 1John begins, “Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the parent loves the child. By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments.”

The gospel tells us that Jesus longer calls us servants “because the servant does not know what the master is doing;” he continues “but I have called you friends.” The friend of Jesus, like the child entering the family business, is taught the intricacies of the Father’s work. By this knowledge, we bear good fruit, the good fruit of the kingdom.

In his book “Palm Sunday,” Kurt Vonnegut speaks of the family brewing business, a business that closed around 1920 with Prohibition. In an interview, when asked what made their beer special, Vonnegut said that during the brewing process, there was a special ingredient added, which only two of the brew masters knew. This ingredient was added in secret, everyone else on the brewery floor had to leave. When asked what the ingredient was, he said, “Coffee.”

This is one of the joys of the family business. In a family business, there are quirky peculiarities that make a difference. This is seen in products like the Vonnegut family beer. This is the joy of learning from the Lord of all creation, so that we may learn the will of God and the special revelation of the word in Jesus Christ.

This can also be seen in processes. There is a famous story about the women of a particular family who always cut off the end of a ham, or a roast depending on the story teller, before putting it in the pan. A man who marries into this family wonders why and hears from three generations of women that they cut off the ends of the meat because that’s what their mother did. The man finally tracks the story down to the grand matron of the family who tells him that the reason she cut off the end was because her pan was too small for the entire cut of meat. She had to cut off the end so that it would fit in her pan and in the oven.

While this story talks about family life and the joy of children learning from their parents, it also makes one more important point. Sometimes, what we learn is not what was being taught.

Jesus tells us that he calls us friends because he has made known to us everything that he has heard from the Father. This is wonderful and glorious; Jesus has made everything known to us that he has heard from the father.

What is unfortunate is that like the following generations, we may think we follow when we really don’t. What is unfortunate is that while Jesus has made everything that he has heard from the Father known to us, our hearing is not perfect. Another way to say this is using the words of Father Cavanaugh, “There is a God, and I’m not Him.”

We are called to go and bear fruit, we are called to go to the Father with requests in the name of the Son, but we know that we do not always bear good fruit. We know that our prayers are not always answered in the ways we want them answered. This is no lapse on the part of the Father or the Son; it is a lapse that sin has laid upon our hearing. The shame is even when we want to follow in perfect accord; we are not able.

This is perhaps why it is important to hang upon this commandment, that we love one another as Christ has loved us. There is no greater love is this, than when we abide in God’s love and be Jesus’ friends; and to be Jesus’ friend is to love Jesus and be loved by him.

[1] “Rudy,” Internet Movie Data Base. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0108002/, retrieved May 16, 2009
[2] Study notes for John 15:9-17. The New Interpreter’s Study Bible, Electronic Edition. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2003.
[3] Bonhoeffer, Dietrich, I Want to Live These Days, A Year of Daily Devotions. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2007, page 136.
[4] Ibid. New Interpreter’s Study Bible
[5] Bauer, Walter. A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, Third Edition. Frederick William Danker, Editor. Chicago: University Of Chicago Press, 2001.

Hardware

This Sunday is Gideon Sunday at First Presbyterian Church in Berryville. We will be hearing the report of the local and global Gideon Society so I will not be in the pulpit. This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Chruch in Berryville, Arkansas on the 30th Sunday of Ordinary Time in 2005.

Deuteronomy 34:1-12
Psalm 90:1-6, 13-17
1 Thessalonians 2:1-8
Matthew 22:34-46

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

I love watching “This Old House” on PBS. When I was younger, the show was much more about home improvement tips, how-to advice, and new technology for the home. Now it is more about characters and stories involved in home remodeling. Some of the more memorable recent episodes deal with the hosts meeting with the homeowners and the historical commission of whatever city they are in that season. Don’t get me wrong, I loved the Salem series and how they attempted to put a parking area in the backyard. They eventually lost that one to the city Historical Commission. And I liked last season’s “wooden mantle piece” episode in the Carlisle home. It had all of the drama that could be mustered by fire codes, Underwriter’s Laboratories, and a wild computer set up. But I do long for the good old days of “This Old House.” The days when they would teach you how to put up wallpaper, put in new windows, and hang doors.

Hanging doors is mysteriously difficult. When mounting a door, you have to make sure the frame is square. If it is not, the door will not hang properly, and then opening and closing it becomes very difficult. The door knob and lock set are pretty easy to get right, assuming you use the proper jig, but the hinges are a different matter. Setting the hinges seems to be a source of high drama. For a door to be put in hinges properly, if both sides are not lined up perfectly, putting the hinge pins in is impossible. Yes, jigs exist, but with at least four hinge plates on each door, and usually six, there is a lot of room for error. And with that many opportunities for error, just one misplaced hinge plate and the door will not hang well, causing all sorts of problems. Depending on which door, it can make heating and cooling more expensive or even become a security issue.

When asked which commandment in the law is the greatest, Jesus told an expert in the law, “This is the greatest and first commandment: You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” He followed this saying the second is like it: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang the law and the prophets.”

This is it, these are the big lessons Jesus wants us to learn. It’s not surprising. These commands from Deuteronomy and Leviticus answer this lawyer’s questions very well. In Mark’s account of this encounter, the lawyer even praises Jesus for his fine response. It is not uncommon for Rabbis and Prophets to summarize the law in one way or another. Moses started with 613 commandments spread throughout the Torah. David was able to reduce the number to eleven, and then Isaiah to six. Micah whittled the number to three; Amos to two and Habakkuk finally got the number down to just one.[1] So Jesus’ answers are good for the man who is schooled in the law; faithful to the law and to the traditions of the prophets.

Over the past several weeks we have followed the cross examination of Jesus on important issues and trivial matters in Matthew’s gospel. He is asked about paying taxes and he is asked about the resurrection. He teaches in parables and shows wisdom far beyond the cunning of those serving as his prosecutors. Before this exchange, Jesus silences the Scribes and Pharisees like a snapping dog is muzzled. And now they are dumbfounded by his wisdom, unable to ask any more questions.

Since they are unable to ask any more questions, Jesus is left to ask the next one. If David calls the Messiah “Lord,” and the Messiah is the son of David, then how can the Lord be David’s Son? Now, I don’t mind telling you (well, maybe a little bit); I do not have the answer to every question. I have faith and trust the Holy Spirit that when I am asked questions I will either receive an answer from the Lord or have the good sense to say, “I don’t know.” This is one of those “I don’t know” moments. I find Jesus’ question very confusing. Back in the day, I would have been as dumbfounded as the Scribes.

Among my spiritual disciplines, I read one chapter of Proverbs every day. With 31 Proverbs, It’s pretty easy to read one every day, and start again at the beginning of every month. I recommend it; it helps me become more familiar with the wisdom of Solomon. But the Proverbs have a lot of interesting little twists in them, especially about dealing with fools. And it infuriates me! The one that comes to mind is Proverbs 26, verses 4 and 5: “Do not answer fools according to their folly, or you will be a fool yourself. Answer fools according to their folly, or they will be wise in their own eyes.”

Don’t answer fools according to their folly? Answer fools according to their folly? I don’t get this one at all. One of these proverbs follows the other, and they completely contradict one another. I understand them individually, the wisdom is flawless. But the logic of one directly following the other is beyond my understanding. So today I pray. One day I will consult the commentaries and hopefully I will find some sort of explanation. Until that day, I rest in the wisdom, and ponder the logic.

One of the ways I deal with this is with a piece of advice I received in seminary. One of the supplementary textbooks for “Introduction to the Old Testament” was Michael Joseph Brown’s, "What They Didn’t Tell You, A Survivor’s Guide to Biblical Studies." This book offers twenty-eight “rules of thumb” for seminarians. Some of the information was useful, some wasn’t. But one of the rules has stuck with me like a stone in my shoe. Rule number ten says, “The Bible means what it says, and says what it means. Except when it doesn’t.”

Some days I am wound pretty tight, but when I remember this rule, it helps remind me that I am not going to understand every nuance of scripture, and it sets me free to consider what is going on in the text beyond my human logic. It helps me with this Proverb, and it also helps me with this portion of our gospel reading.

You see… locked into our earthly time and place, locked into our human knowledge, Jesus’ question to the Scribes and Pharisees is puzzling. But the question cannot be answered with our terms. When we consider it as prophetic insight from our Lord instead of a genealogy question, this piece of scripture challenges the leaders—it challenges us—to recognize Jesus as the Messiah commissioned by God to manifest God’s saving presence and eternal empire as attested by David.[2] From a riddle about a Lord to a prophetic voice, Jesus challenges all who have ears to hear the Word of the Lord, not only as it is written but as it is in person.

And here, Jesus rides a camel through the eye of a needle. He dares to answer the fools their foolish arguments. He answers them in wisdom beyond their perception and with a question beyond their understanding. This isn’t the last time Jesus will be asked questions. And it won’t be the last time he shares wisdom in the temple. But the lack of response to this riddle speaks volumes. It is difficult to answer this divine question using human thoughts and genealogy. It can only be answered with faith and trust.

Hebrews calls faith “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”[3] Calvin says faith is, “a firm and certain knowledge of God’s benevolence toward us, founded upon the truth of the freely given promise in Christ, both revealed to our minds and sealed upon our hearts through the Holy Spirit.”[4] And when we do not this conviction of things not seen; this firm and certain knowledge of God’s benevolence, then answering Jesus’ question is impossible.

Just a moment ago, I said that I would have been dumbfounded by Jesus’ question. And that is true. Does it mean my faith is not strong enough? I pray not. But I will admit, there are many times when I try to build on the foundation of education and logic. Working in Higher Education for over ten years, spending ten years more working on degrees, becoming a man of letters, I am trained to think that way. When I am confronted by questions like this one Jesus asked the Scribes and Pharisees, I am forced to take a step back, and consider what I know. I am forced to consider what I don’t know. And I am forced to consider how I came to know it. I am forced to remember that I am a child of God, saved by grace through faith. And I am forced to remind myself that sometimes I act like a Pharisee.

This is where I return to the hinge again. Hinges have three main parts, two halves and the pin. These are our two halves:

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and all your soul and all your mind.” We are not told by Jesus to leave any of our faculties at home. God wants us to love with all that we are, and all that we can be.

“You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” God too wants us to love one another with all our heart and soul and mind. We are called to bring every God given talent with us to the church as the body of Christ and the rest of the community. We are called to love one another fully, completely, and without reservation. On this hinge hang the law and the prophets.

We confess that moral law is found and realized in the Ten Commandments, delivered by the voice of God upon Mount Sinai, and written on two tables of stone. The first four commandments contain our duty to God. Jesus summarizes these when he tells us “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and all your soul and all your mind.” The other six summarize our duty to one another. This is in the statement, “you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

The amazing thing is if either one of these elements is missing, the law and the prophets will not be fulfilled. But with the hinge, without the pin, the hinge is useless. In this illustration, Christ is our hinge pin, holding in place these two commandments.

If love of God or neighbor is missing, the value of Jesus is diminished because he came as the living incarnation of the love of God and humanity. Fully human and fully divine, Jesus bridges the gap between the two and holds them together in a way that allows the law and the prophets to be fulfilled.

One of the many things Jesus is called is the law, the Torah, personified. Jesus not only fulfills the law, he is the law. The God of Abraham and Isaac writes the law on stone tablets and gives them to Moses. Jesus lives the law for our lives and gives himself to us, a life given in Jesus the Christ. We are called to live this moral life, a life given in the Ten Commandments. We are given them in the simplest of directions, you shall love the Lord your God, and your neighbor as yourself. Let us accept the commandment. Let us answer Jesus’ question to the Scribes and Pharisees this way—the Messiah can be the son of David because you, the son of David, are the Christ, and my Lord. May we respond by doing your will. Amen.

[1] David, Psalm 15:2-5; Isaiah 33:15; Micah 6:8; Amos 5:4; Habakkuk 2:4.
[2] New Interpreter’s Study Bible, comment on Matthew 22:41-45
[3] Hebrews 14:1
[4] Institutes, Vol. III, Part 2, Paragraph vii.

Hear and Act--Yada, Yada, Yada

This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Berryville, Arkansas on Sunday June 1, 2008, the Ninth Sunday of Ordinary Time.

Genesis 6:9-22, 7:24, 8:14-19
Psalm 46
Romans 1:16-17, 3:22b-28 (29-31)
Matthew 7:21-29

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 television show “Seinfeld” brought America a taste of what it is like to be Jewish in New York. One of the things the show gave us is the phrase, “yada, yada, yada.” The way it was used, it meant “et cetera” or “you know.” In truth, this word, this Hebrew phrase means, “he knows, he knows, he knows.” But as with many other words and phrases, the context often means more than the words alone.

In the biblical context, yada means much more. In the Old Testament, “knowing God” especially involves obedience.[1] So when we say that we know God, or when we say we know what God wants, we must also show that we know God through obedience to the word. As we come to know God’s word, we become more familiar with the laws and demands God commands. To know God means that we know God’s laws and are obedient to them. So when we say, “I know,” we must be careful not only to know intellectually, or emotionally, but actively too.

This is what Jesus is getting at when he talks of those who hear his words and act on them. We’re not just hearing them with our ears, and processing them with our minds, and keeping them in our hearts, but putting calluses on our hands doing what he has said too.

Jesus impresses this point upon those listening to the end of the Sermon of the Mount. In this, certainly one of the most important sermons in the history of exhortation, Jesus ends his comments to his disciples saying, only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven will enter the kingdom of heaven. Belief is one thing, but action is key. Jesus reminds the people that he will send the evildoers from his presence.

Now the New Living Translation doesn’t say “you evildoers.” It says “you who break God’s laws” instead. For our understanding of the culture, this translation is closer to the intent of the text. Remember, Matthew’s gospel was written for Jewish believers in Jesus, ones to whom the law is an important part of life. Where the Gentiles would know about the law, the Jews would know it as an integral part of daily life. So when on that day, judgment day, the Lord tells the believer, “Get away from me, you who break God’s laws,” this would be heard with heart wrenching sorrow.

And oh yes, this passage is directed toward believers, not the unknowing masses.

We may do great deeds of power in the name of the Lord, but even so, it is still possible to break God’s laws. And let me ask you, who is more accountable; the one who has never heard God’s laws, or those who know them and break them? Ignorance may be no defense, but disobedience is worse.

Paul helps us discern what it is to be obedient. Our reading from Romans tells us “For in [the gospel] the righteousness of God is revealed through faith for faith.” He continues reminding us that we are justified not by the law or by works, but by faith.

So Jesus says those who do the will of his Father will enter the kingdom of heaven on judgment day, and Paul tells us that we are justified by grace through faith and not by works. These seem to go in two different directions. Jesus tells us not to break the law and Paul tells us we are saved by not by the law but by grace. How do we handle these two pieces of scripture that seem to contradict one another?

Let’s go back a couple of weeks when I talked about faith and repentance.[2] As I mentioned in that sermon,[3] according to biblical scholars, Paul speaks of faith as union with Christ; the death of the old nature, the putting on of the new humanity, resurrection to newness of life, and new creation.[4] So the faith Paul speaks so strongly of is more than a spiritual or emotional thing, there is a physical putting on of new life in Christ which demands a response, an active response.

The scribes and the Pharisees talk of 613 laws, the Taryag Mitzvot. In these laws are 248 positive laws, things to do, and 365 negative laws, things not to do.[5] Jesus distills this into two simple commands saying, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law.”[6] The experts in the law tell us there are many laws; Jesus tells us that all of our laws come from just these two.

The Hebrew word often used to show the love of God is hesed. Hesed is bold and unpredictable. It is unorthodox and unbound by convention and culture. It is a love which only God is capable; it is a love we are called to imitate and follow. We are called to be immersed in the hesed of the Lord. Only by first being immersed in this love can we share it with others.

Biblical scholar Carolyn Custis James writes hesed is “driven, not by duty or legal obligation, but by a bone-deep commitment—a loyal, selfless love that motivates a person to do voluntarily what no one has a right to expect or ask of them.”[7]

Hesed is only present when we have the option to walk away. Hesed is only present with perfect freedom; the freedom to do as we wish, yet choose to do what is beyond the pale of valor. Hesed is only present when we put all that we have and more into our love for God and one another. And it is in times like these when we are able to give more than we could ever know or imagine. Jesus teaches us how to love one another with this perfect daring love.

We all know of Leah, the young girl Lucille gives us updates about who is battling cancer. What you don’t know is that her cousin Rachel died of the same cancer years earlier at the age of six. What we don’t see are Rachel’s parents who know the loss of a child, giving her all of their love, more than they could have ever hoped to give.

Rachel’s dream was her wedding. Even at the age of five, she was anticipating her special day. Because hesed knows no bounds, because hesed knows which of our rules can and should be broken; with her family and friends she celebrated her wedding. Her special day was a joyful day for the entire family. But I cannot imagine how the joy of this celebration was not diminished by the terror of cancer.

Yet, through God’s perfect love, through his hesed, life was celebrated, love was shared, and joy was known. Hesed won the day, even in the light of the grief that would follow some months later as a six year old girl dies.

It is this sacrificial love we are called to share. This is the law we are to carry out. This is how we are to respond to one another in faith, this is how we keep the laws of God and not become evildoers. We do this not for our salvation, but in response to our salvation. This is the joy we are to share with our Lord, one another, and our neighbor. This is the love we are especially to share with the sojourner and the stranger, those who come and go in our lives.

This is what we are to hear, this is what we are to obey, only then can we know. We pack school supplies for children we don’t even know, yet our lives intersect theirs every day that homework is finished. And we are called to do more; we are called to be outrageous in committing hesed on an unsuspecting world. There is a call for school supplies for Iraqi and Pakistani school children. Is it time to take the school supply project global? And before anyone asks if this is the kind of project we can handle; as we have received the grace and peace of God’s extravagant love; I ask as believers in Christ how can we answer with any less?

We are saved by grace through faith which is not spiritual, but active. What we do is not works to garner salvation, but acts performed in response to God’s perfect love. And once we dare ourselves to stretch beyond what we could ever hope or imagine, just dream of where God’s grace will take us.

The crowd was astounded, amazed at Jesus’ teaching for he spoke with authority, not as their teachers of the Law. You see, the scribes did have an authority. They followed the authority of the written word and those who had interpreted it a thousand years before them. But Jesus does not rely upon the authority of mere mortals. He is God, he is the living Torah, he is the law incarnate. As Emmanuel, God with us, he teaches with his own authority—the authority of the Lord our God. We are to hear his words and act on them through his boundless love. Then we will be like the wise man who builds his home upon the rock, our rock and our redeemer. Amen

[1] “Yada”, “The Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon.” Oxford: Clarendon Press 1907
[2] From the Sixth Sunday of Easter, Acts 17:22-31 and John 14:15-21.
[3] “Election Day,” http://timelovesahero.blogspot.com/2008/04/election-day.html, accessed May 31, 2008.
[4] Repentance, “The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible.” Buttirck, Editor. 21st Printing, Electronic Edition, Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1962
[5] 613 Mitzvot, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/613_Mitzvot, accessed July 2, 2007.
[6] Matthew 22:37-39
[7] Custin James, Carolyn, “The Gospel of Ruth, Loving God Enough to Break the Rules.” Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2008, page 115.

New Rules

This sermon was delivered at the First Presbyterian Church in Berryville, Arkansas on the 14th Sunday of Ordinary Time, July 8, 2007.

2Kings 5:1-14
Psalm 30
Galatians 6:1-16
Luke 10:1-11, 16-20

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

Rules, I have been thinking a lot about rules lately. I have long joked that according to Genesis, we began with one rule. Don’t eat that. Sure, humanity had chores; we were to tend the garden. We had responsibilities too; worship and be in community with God. But really, there was only one rule, don’t eat that. So, how’d that work out? Gradually, the number of rules increased. From one, we went to ten, the Ten Commandments. But really, in the end, those weren’t enough to work in an increasingly complex society. In Judaism, traditionally there are 613 commandments, the Taryag Mitzvot.

The Taryag Mitzvot are separated into two categories, there are 248 mitzvot aseh, or positive commandments, the things we are called to do. There are also 365 mitzvot lo taaseh, or negative commandments, the things we are called never to do. These numbers have significance in Judaism, 248 corresponds to the number of bones and significant organs in the human body according to Jewish tradition and 365 corresponds to the number of days in the year.[1]

Some of these rules make perfect sense to us today, things like, “Know there is a God,” “Know God is One,” and “Entertain thoughts of no other god except for the One True God.” We’re familiar with these rules from the Old Testament. These are lessons Jesus teaches us in the gospels. Then again, there are others we do not follow. For example, the mitzvot includes the prohibition against eating non-kosher fish. Sorry, but I enjoy catfish and shrimp. Neither is kosher, but both are tasty. In fact, if you brought either of these wrapped with bacon for today’s potluck, then I will make it my purpose in life to make sure you don’t have to worry about leftovers. Again, the pork isn’t kosher, but my mouth is watering anyway.

My point is this; rules have long been a part of religion. Some of them are as old as creation; some of them are as recent as the last meeting of the PC (U.S.A.) General Assembly. Some of them are wise in their time but outdated. For example, catfish and shellfish are bottom feeders eating God knows what from the bottoms of ponds and streams. Undercooked pork can lead to trichinosis. But today, with modern farming and food preparation methods the risks associated with non-kosher foods are minimized.

As for the PC (U.S.A.), the Book of Order contains 425 pages of rules of order and discipline along with the Directory for Worship which tells Presbyterians across the country what we shall do, what we should do, what it is appropriate for us to do, and what we may do.[2] Every other year when the General Assembly meets, additions and subtractions to the book are considered. Last summer in Birmingham was no exception. Next summer in San Jose will be no exception.

Know that when these rules were written, both the mitzvot and the Book of Order, they were based on scripture and formulated by the greatest theological minds of the day. None of these were created with a mind toward being petty or officious or legalistic. They were created as a way of interpreting scripture and the law of God for their given society. The Law isn’t bad, but it has its limitations. Our New Testament readings show us that Jesus has changed and continues to change the rules.

In this part of Luke’s gospel, Jesus sends the seventy ahead of him in pairs to the towns he intends to go himself. He is sending advance teams; they are laying the groundwork and doing reconnaissance work for Jesus and for the kingdom. They are sent with very specific instructions of what they are to do.

It’s kind of like when the circus comes to town. There is always a group that comes a day or two before the show to prepare for the arrival of the main caravan. They do the last minute advertising and pre-show publicity. They scout out laundromats, grocery stores, gas stations and other places that are important for a traveling show. They also staple arrows to telephone poles pointing directions for the caravan to follow to the venue. Jesus sends the seventy to do the advance work and give an indication of what a taste of the kingdom of God is like.

So Jesus sends them with instructions, new rules. The first is easy, so easy I missed it until I saw it in a commentary. Jesus’ first instruction is to pray. When reading chapter ten’s second verse, often it is read as a command to collect the harvest. Yes, the harvest is plentiful and yes, the laborers are few, but that is not the most important part of this command. Jesus commands “ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”

It is always tempting to take on the mantle of the “doer,” there is something very American about finding something that needs to be done and doing it. So when reading the harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few, we scream, “Pick me, Monty!”[3] and take up what needs to be done. But this is not what Jesus calls them to do. Jesus gives a new rule to follow before beginning new endeavors. Jesus says pray, Jesus says, “ask the Lord.”

The next thing Jesus does is send out the seventy. He does so with two pieces of advice, two new rules if you will. He tells them it’s dangerous out there and travel light. As Jesus sends the seventy, he says, “Go on your way. See, I am sending you out like lambs into the midst of wolves.” As Cat Stevens once sang, “Hope you make a lot of nice friends out there/But just remember there's a lot of bad and beware.”[4] Perhaps this is why this piece of advice is coupled with carry no purse, no bag, and no sandals. If the seventy are in danger in the world, it is best they not worry about their stuff.

These instructions also have to do with being dependent upon the Lord for their provisions, and not their own packing skills or wiles. They are told to go and enter a home asking if anyone shares in peace, if so, this is where they are to stay. They are to rely on the Lord for their safety, their lodging, and their sustenance. They aren’t supposed to scope out the town and look for a better offer; they are to stay at the first place that welcomes them. This is the next piece of advice; rely on the peace of the Lord to show you where you are supposed to be.

The following piece comes in two separate places in the reading. Jesus changes the rules; some of the old ones don’t apply any more. In the verse that gives us the advice to travel light, Jesus also tells the seventy to greet no one on the road. Further, when they enter a new town and its people welcome them, they are to eat what is set before them. Neither of these new rules is kosher.

As for greeting people on the road, there is ceremony involved in greeting. When I lived in southeast Colorado it was traditional that when driving down the street everyone waved to everyone. I was told if you didn’t wave to a neighbor when you passed them on the road they wouldn’t talk to you again until after church on Sunday. Because your neighbor snubbed you, everyone at church would know you had snubbed your neighbor. It may seem petty, but it happens everywhere.

Comedian Jeff Foxworthy says that if you allow someone to pass you on the highway and they don’t give you the little “thank you” wave, you should be entitled to ride their tail, make them loose in the back end, and force them into the wall.[5] In a place where greeting someone on the road could end in a ritual taking several hours, Jesus tells his disciples to forego ritual and go.

Of course the command to eat what you are given is difficult for a Jew who keeps a kosher table. The command to cast aside familiar dietary requirements for bacon wrapped shrimp would be very difficult for the seventy to grasp. While Jesus ministry was focused on the Jews, he was traveling through gentile regions too. His recon teams would be traveling into these places first, so they had to be ready for what was ahead of them. So he gives this new rule my father would be proud of, clean your plate.

Jesus’ final piece of advice, his last new rule is to deliver the one message of the imminence of the kingdom of God. He tells the seventy to deliver this one message whether facing acceptance or adversity. He tells them when welcomed into a new community to say this, “the kingdom of God has come near.” Then he tells them what when they are not welcomed into town to say this, “the kingdom of God has come near.” Two completely different circumstances, only one response, “the kingdom of God has come near.”

For those who know the peace of God, this information will be reassuring. This is what we who know the Lord all long to hear and experience. The kingdom of God has come near. For those who reject the peace of God through the disciples, this is an ominous warning. Beware; the kingdom of God has come near.

Two situations, one message; Jesus tells the seventy to deliver the one message of the nearness of the kingdom, and let the chips fall where they may. The seventy are not to call down fire from heaven. James and John were told not to do this in last week’s gospel reading, and the seventy are told not to call down fire this week. The message all humanity needs to hear and learn and respond to is “the kingdom of God has come near.”

So Jesus has given the seventy new rules. Some of these are consistent with the 613 mitzvot, some are not. The Presbyterian Book of Order is not inconsistent with the new rules, though there doesn’t seem to be a specific mention of these rules either.

Earlier I said not only that Jesus changed the rules, but continues to change the rules. This is a dicier proposition. If Jesus is still changing the rules, then what do the new rules look like? I believe Paul’s letter to the Galatians helps us answer this question. Paul tells the church at Galatia to bear one another’s burdens, this way the law of Christ will be fulfilled. He tells the church people who think they are something they are not that they deceive themselves. He tells the church God will not be mocked and they well reap as they sow. This harkens back to the 613 mitzvah. We are reminded not to grow weary in doing what is right. Paul says our lives, our very beings are to be circumcised to Christ, not our bodies to the law. We are to boast in nothing except for the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Darryl Hill was the first African American to play football for the University of Maryland in the early 1960’s. He received a great deal of abuse from fans throughout the South, but he was especially shocked by the shouts and taunts of the crowd at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Wake Forest had deep Baptist ties and its teams were known as the Demon Deacons.

As the pre-game warm-up ended, Hill notices Wake Forest’s captain approaching him. “I want to apologize for the behavior of my fans,” he said to Hill. Then draping his arm over Hill’s shoulder, he began to walk toward the Wake Forest side of the field, where the jeering was at its worst. By the time the two of them reached the middle of the field, the rude screaming had dropped to near silence.[6]

In a place where slavery and all of its horrible degradations found sanctification in scripture, new rules ended this inhuman practice. In a time and place where abuse of another was justified because of skin color, one man in a football uniform made a step toward changing things by embracing who his fans would not. The old rules people lived by were and continue to be replaced by new rules pointing to new life in Jesus.

Oh, as a professional football player this Wake Forest man would be the first white man to be paired with a black roommate in the National Football League. While the “Kansas Comet” Gale Sayers made a bigger splash in the NFL, it was his roommate who walked Darryl Hill to the Wake side of the field. It is this man who Sayers wrote about him in his book “I Am Third.” This man’s name is Brian Piccolo. You might remember the NFL part of this story from the 70’s TV movie, “Brian’s Song.” Like Paul Harvey would say, “Now you know the rest of the story.”[7]

Remember that the Lord is the one who writes the story, and continues to write the story. And be alert, because sometimes, sometimes he changes the rules. And when rules change we need to be vigilant discerning whether the new rules come from God. When rules point to ways we present ourselves, Jesus reminds us this is nothing. How we present ourselves to him is everything. This is the new rule, the rule of love and obedience toward Jesus Christ our Lord through the cross. We need to be sure any new rule reflects the one truth we know for sure, the kingdom of God has come near.

[1] 613 Mitzvot, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/613_Mitzvot, accessed July 2, 2007.
[2] The Office of the General Assembly, the PC (U.S.A.), The Constitution of the Presbyterian Church U.S.A., Part III, Book of Order, 2005-2007, Preface. Louisville, KY: Office of the General Assembly, 2005, page 4.
[3] Monty Hall, a “Let’s Make A Deal” reference
[4] Stevens, Cat, “Wild World.” Off of “Tea for the Tillerman.” 1970.
[5] Foxworthy, Jeff, et. al. “Blue Collar Comedy Tour Rides Again.” Paramount Pictures, 2004.
[6] Animating Illustration from Homiletics Online, http://homileticsonline.com/subscriber/printer_friendly_installment.asp?installment_id=9300004, accessed June 10, 2007.
[7] Paul Harvey ends his human interest stories with the tag line, “…and now you know the rest of the story.”