Kings and Kingdoms

Almighty and everlasting God, whose will it is to restore all things in your well-beloved Son, the King of kings and Lord of lords: Mercifully grant that the peoples of the earth, divided and enslaved by sin, may be freed and brought together under his most gracious rule; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

Revelation 1:4b-8
John 18:33-37

Kings and Kingdoms, Princes and Principalities. At the risk of sounding whiney, the last time you shared your pulpit with me I cried over the tragic loss of a friend’s mother. Today we cry over a world continuing to go mad. Violence in Ethiopia, Baghdad, Syria, France; and yesterday Belgium went on high alert against suspected terror attacks. Belgium! Except for NATO Headquarters, fine chocolates, and the Chimay Abbey with their wonderful ales, what in the world is there in Belgium that would warrant Enhanced Terror Alerts? What in the world would elicit an attack?

I guess that goes to show what I know about world affairs.

“What in the world…?” is actually a question asked in our gospel passage today. Or at least that’s how I paraphrase Pilate’s question to Jesus on this day after state elections in Louisiana. I mention our elections because Roman politicians, Pilate included, were sophisticated enough that had they met Hughie Long he would have addressed them as “Suh.”

Jesus, son of Mary, what in the world have you done to make these people so upset that they come to me? What have you done to make the Sanhedrin, the temple elite, think I, the Roman Prelate of Palestine, am less of an enemy than you? What did you do to turn the entire countryside on its ear? What did you do to earn this level of spite from your own people?

Now that’s a question.

I love that their exchange includes repartee straight out of “The Princess Bride.” Remember when leaving the Fire Swamps Prince Humperdink shouts “Surrender!” to Westley and Westley graciously accepts? Listen to this—

Pilate asks “So, you a king?” Jesus answered, "You say that I am a king.” Like I say, right out of “Princess Bride,” but Jesus continues, “For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice." But as Jesus said earlier in the passage, “my kingdom is not from here.”

We have heard the words of the glorious images that make up the answers to Pilate’s question since we began reading Mark’s and John’s Gospels at Advent last year. The images of the Baptism of the Lord, the miracles, the healings, the wisdom; these things begin answering the question, “What did you do.” But more than all of these things, more than these wonderful and glorious things, today we are given an image from John the Revelator about who Jesus is, what Jesus did and who he still is and what he continues to do.

He is the faithful witness. Jesus is the Christ, the select, the anointed. He is the one who was elected to come and bring the Word of life to the world. He is the one who does only what he sees his Father doing. He is the one who is in eternal relationship with the other persons of the Trinity. He participated in the works of God since before the beginning. He is the one who came to earth, fully human and fully divine, teaching us through his words and actions.

He is the firstborn of the dead. He is the one who was born to live to die and rise again. As we testify in the traditional version of the Apostles’ Creed, he descended into hell and rose again from the dead. As the firstborn of the dead, He is the Son who leads his brothers and sisters who have died and will die. He is the one who conquered death so that we will no longer know the full sting of the cold hard hand of mortality.

He has freed us from the power of sin by his own blood. As the Lamb of God, there is no other sacrifice that can be made that will be able to do what God has done now and forever through His Holy Son Jesus. There is no other priest that can make a sacrifice like the one the high priest of God makes of his own body, his own blood, his own life. By the power of his blood, we are free.

He is the ruler over the kings of the earth and has made us to be a kingdom of priests to serve him now and forever. Amen.

The question is not just what did Jesus do, it is what does Jesus continues to do. Pilate’s question is almost rhetorical. The answer he wants isn’t about the charges against Jesus. The politician in him knows all he needs to know to rule from the Pharisees who bring Jesus. As Tetrarch, Pilate knows what he plans to do, he wants more.

The question Pilate wants answered is much deeper than just a recitation of the charges; Pilate wants to know the Truth, “Truth” with a “Capital T,” about Jesus. The Truth Pilate wants to hear is the Truth we claim and testify on this Christ the King Sunday: The Lord is King and for this he was born and his kingdom is not of this earth. Creation is but a part of His kingdom.

From my “easily amused” file, November 6 was a pretty big day at our house. For the first time since September 2010, Olusegun Samuel released his seventh CD of original music titled, quite imaginatively, 7. Yes, he released a second disc of soul covers in 2011, but this is the first original music in over five years. Big deal, right? The name may not sound familiar, but Mr. Samuel is an acclaimed performer. He has won multiple Grammys and been nominated for an Academy Award.

This is where I give you the “Paul Harvey” “Rest of the Story” moment and tell you Olusegun Samuel is better known by the name Seal.

I have loved Seal’s music since his first CD, and being who I am, I prefer some of the unfamiliar songs from the CD’s that most people don’t hear very often. For example this song from his first disc released almost twenty-five years ago:

But if only you could see them
You could tell by their faces
They were kings and queens
Followed by princes and princesses
They were future power people
Throwing love to the loveless
Shining a light ‘cause they wanted it seen.

Well there were cries of why
Followed by cries of why not?
Can I reach out for you
If that feels good to me
And the riders will not stop us
Cause the only love they find is paradise
No the riders will not stop us
Cause the only love they find is paradise.

“Future Love Paradise” from Seal’s first CD is definitely one of my favorites. Funky beat, big hook, mad groove, great lyrics, what’s not to love?

But in a world gone mad, a world gone so very mad that Belgium has gone to “Alert Level ‘Danger Will Robinson’,” we have two choices. The first is to pack up the plantation, fill the moat, and pull up the drawbridge. We can retreat into ourselves so very deeply that we think, hope, we pray nobody can hurt us. We can try to create a cocoon that will protect us from the elements the world throws at us hoping to emerge like a butterfly when spring comes again to the world.

This doesn’t always work for the chrysalis though, does it? Last week’s squall line showed the damage one errant hailstone can inflict; the damage a big gust of wind can bring. Multiplied umpteen times and our shells don’t stand a chance.

Or we can take a better path. In Seal’s words, we can live like princes and princesses. We can shine the light because the King and the Kingdom want it seen and when the world asks why we can answer “why not?” Reaching out is always better than living in fear. Always.

That is future, love, paradise. In the words of our Prayer of Illumination, we act on our prayer that “the peoples of the earth, divided and enslaved by sin, may be freed and brought together under [God’s] most gracious rule.”

We need to remember the words of the American sonnet called “The New Colossus” which was placed at the foot of a French statue:

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give us your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
These American ideals, these Christian ideals, these show the world that we are not afraid of its chaos. We know the author of peace. We know the author of joy. We know the King of Kings.

The King of Kings lives and breathes and remains with us. We are to share this glorious hope not as people in pews, not as a man in the pulpit, not as mere mortal beings, but in the words of the Revelation, “as priests serving his God and father.” In this we rejoice in God’s triumph on behalf of all creation.

Yes, we know that the world is in an uproar and I see no end in sight. To paraphrase one of my favorite passages from Job, we know that Satan, the oppressor, the King of Lies, is in this world, just wandering around in it like an evil Johnny Appleseed sowing discontent. Yeah, we know that’s true.
But what’s more important than Satan’s lies is God’s truth. What’s more important is what Jesus tells Pilate, the Lord’s kingdom is not from this world. That is the truth we are called to share, that is our testimony.

As princes and princesses in the Kingdom of God we are called to shine the light of hope, the hope of God in Christ who came on a colt, not on a tank.
And so now I say again in the words of John the Revelator, “Grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven spirits who are before his throne, and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth.

“To him who loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood, and made us to be a kingdom, priests serving his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.”

Truth, not Facts

This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Marshall, Texas on Sunday January 6, 2013, Epiphany Sunday.

Isaiah 60:1-6

Psalm 72:1-7, 10-14

Ephesians 3:1-12

Matthew 2:1-12

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

Fables are short, self-contained, fictional stories. They can be written either in verse like a poem or in prose like a narrative tale. One of the hallmarks of the fable is that they feature animals, mythical creatures, plants, inanimate objects or even forces of nature that are given human qualities like verbal communication skills. The other hallmark is that fables illustrate a lesson, morals which are often added to the end of the story in a pithy maxim.

The most famous fables in the West are Aesop’s Fables. We’re all familiar with his fable of “The Tortoise and the Hare.” I could say more, but all I have to say is “Slow and steady wins the race” and we’d know all we need to know to recognize the fable and its moral.

There’s something special about fables as a literary form that’s important for us today, it’s that fables are a fictional literary genre. When you read the story of the tortoise that plods along slowly but surely to the race’s finish line, defeating the swifter but less goal focused hare who napped along the way; we must come to know that no matter how much “truth” this story contains, it is completely devoid of facts. Starting with talking animals there is not a fact in the whole story.

This story is so truthful that looking at it a little differently, we could rephrase the moral to say “the race is not to the swift.” If that sounds familiar it’s because this version of the moral of this story is biblical. It’s found at Ecclesiastes 9:11.

This sounds counter-intuitive, how can we have truth without facts? Aren’t good facts found at the root of truth? I can’t deny this really. I like facts. I spent way too much time in school to not appreciate things like the Pythagorean Theorem and E=mc². I even love “I before E except after C or when it sounds like a long A as in neighbor and weigh or some weird words like weird.” Sometimes though, stories like fables contain greater truth than all of the facts in the world.

So let me say this again, the truth is not always laden with facts. The best example of truth without facts is here to your left in the chancel, our crèche, our nativity scene.

Let’s begin with the rustic barnyard setting. It was highly unlikely that the place where they stayed was a stand-alone structure. Bible scholars say that the place where the animals stayed was more likely a cave than a barn. So this lovely shingled feature was not where Jesus our Lord was born.

Usually in most nativity scenes you will see the whole thing set up from the first Sunday in Advent. Advent means coming, but everyone has already arrived. Just to add one more historical inaccuracy our nativity scene has had the magi, the wise men, present from the beginning. Epiphany is the day in the church calendar when we celebrate the coming of the wise men after the birth of the Christ child, so their early arrival points to other issues.

The first issue is the time of the arrival of the magi. They didn’t show up on the heels of the shepherds like every Christmas pageant would have us believe. They arrived sometime later. When did they arrive? Scripture gives us a clue about that.

The language gives us an indication. Scripture says that the magi came looking for the child. Verses nine and eleven say very specifically they came to the place where the child was. Scripture didn’t say infant, it said child. This had to be intentional. If Jesus had been an infant they would have come to see an infant, not a child. The word scripture uses depicts a child who had yet to reach puberty. So Jesus must have been between the ages of two and twelve.

Here’s another wonderful not-fact, we just sang “We Three Kings of Orient Are.” It’s a great hymn, I love it. I’ve loved it since I learned it in grade school. Now ask yourself this, why do we say there are three kings? That’s not in scripture. A biblical scholar from the late 600’s and early 700’s named Bede established the number of magi at three. Don’t get me wrong, Bede, also called the Venerable Bede, was a saint of the ancient church. He has status in the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Anglican, and Lutheran Churches. In computer speak we would say he works across platforms. But as for establishing the number, he probably chose it based on the number of gifts, one King for each gift. So it’s a logical choice, it’s just not supported in scripture.

Historians would be want to remind us that no matter how many kings there were, they would not have come alone. They would have come with an entourage for protection if nothing else. These were dangerous roads. Further, it could have been a good many kings or just two. The only hint we have from scripture is the plural word magi. We know there were at least two.

Here’s another obsession, were these magi “wise men” or “sorcerers,” or “magicians?” In fact, the only word that isn’t used in scripture to refer to magi is “king.” (That kind of ruins the whole “we three kings” thing, doesn’t it?) In our language it matters, there’s a tremendous difference between what we would call a “wise man” and a “sorcerer.” But when these words were written, when these were originally read, the difference didn’t cause a scandal. They do today; if they didn’t then we wouldn’t have any trouble calling these three “wise men” “sorcerers.”

So let me apologize if I burst your bubble. The way that we celebrate Epiphany just doesn’t add up to the facts of the situation. It’s a great story, a wonderful tale, it’s just not factual. So here’s our duty, if it’s not factual, what’s the truth in the story.

So here’s an important question, “Are the facts, at least the way we often read them, important to the truth?” I say no. I say that sometimes we get obsessed by facts or missing facts that in the end don’t end up meaning a hill of beans.

Were there three kings or not? It doesn’t really matter, does it?

Did they show up on the heels of the shepherds like in a Christmas pageant or not? It doesn’t really matter, does it?

Were they kings or sorcerers? It didn’t matter to the folks who heard this story in its original language. To them it didn’t really matter, did it?

One important truth we can take from this reading is that everybody is seeking something more important. Everybody is seeking something more significant than the lonely unexplored life that people who don’t know Christ live. These travelers sought Christ; this is probably the most important truth we can learn. Just like all of us everyday, they came looking for Christ.

So how did the magi know to come to seek Jesus? They saw a star and they followed it. Somehow, someway, they received the word of the Lord saying, “Come, follow me.” Was it by a voice the way you are hearing mine right now? Maybe, maybe not, we’ll never know. Did they get the same news the shepherds got? Again, scripture doesn’t say so we don’t know. None of this diminishes the truth that God called to them and they answered.

The last lesson we need to take came from our Ephesians reading, “[Christ’s] intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms, according to his eternal purpose that he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Christ came to us and he intended the church to take the Word of God to the world, the Word of God that is accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Today, this congregation fulfills this purpose; this congregation celebrates Epiphany with the ordination and installation of new Elders to the Session. Two members of this congregation step out in faith of being selected by the Lord, elected by this congregation, and ordained into leadership in this part of the body of Christ.

They come faithfully in the name of the Lord to use their gifts for good of this congregation and the church universal. And we come in faith and trust that through our acts and our words their ministry will be blessed by the glory that arrived in Bethlehem, was crucified at the place called the Skull, and arose from the tomb.

This is truth. Facts help paint the picture, but facts can paint a multitude of pictures. Scholars say that Aesop’s fable of the Tortoise and the Hare has several different morals. I mentioned two of them myself. People interpret and reinterpret the words of scripture to shade all sorts of opinions. The same facts have been used to create many different religions.

We need to go beyond facts to find the truth. The moral of today’s scripture, just as we heard in today’s children’s sermon is this, “Wise men seek him still.” Pithy and found at the end, it has the hallmarks of a good moral. Truthfully, we are all seekers and when we find the Lord our God we must worship, just like those wise men so long ago.

Facts

This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Marshall, Texas on Sunday May 22, 2011, the 5th Sunday of Easter.

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Acts 7:55-60

Psalm 31:1-5, 15-16

1Peter 2:2-10

John 14:1-14

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

When I was in college my fraternity brothers and I played a stupid game. At the dawn of what we call “basic cable” The USA Network was more than reruns of NCIS and Law and Order: You Pick ‘Em. They showed reruns of Dragnet. For those of you who aren’t snickering, Dragnet was a late ‘60’s police procedural drama that focused on Sergeant Joe Friday and his partner Detective Bill Gannon. In the first minute of the show Sergeant Friday would tell the audience what the day was, what the weather was in Los Angeles, what division they were working out of, who his partner was and who he was.

So when I was in college, my idea of amusment was sitting in the basement of a fraternity house with six guys waiting to hear “It was the tenth of October, it was sunny in Los Angeles, we were working out of bunko, my partner is Bill Gannon, my name is Friday.” Our stupid game was to guess the date of the trial at the end of the show. Thanks, I’m much better now.

One of the trademarks of the series was was labored dialogue, but what stuck out was Jack Webb’s vocal delivery. It was low key, barely varied in pitch or tempo, but there was still something very distinctive. So when the witnesses they were interviewing would make a side comment or follow a rabbit hole in the dialogue, the Sergeant would say “Just the facts” in a quick, curt, business like way.

Fifty years later, “Just the facts”[1] is still the trademark of the show. Looking at today’s gospel reading, I got this feeling of just the facts. There are a lot of facts in the narrative.

Here’s the first fact we get in our reading today, in the Father’s house there are many rooms. Since the dawn of the faith, Jews identified “the Father’s house” with a heavenly dwelling place. This is clearly the image that Jesus is using. There are enough rooms in the Father’s house. This is the first fact.

The narrative moves on when Jesus says “you know the way to the place where I am going.” What the editor doesn’t say is that this is a setup. Jesus hopes someone will ask what he means so he can switch the conversation to a new way of living as the family of God. Thomas takes the bait and Jesus sets the hook. Thomas says “we don’t know the way” which leads Jesus to the second fact, Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. This is followed by the fact that no one comes to the Father except through him.

But there is always more to the facts than simply meets the eye. To be useful facts demand interpretation.

As we talk about the Father’s house we miss a very important part of the picture. When we look at the Father’s house image, we think of heaven, the final eternal reward, but this is not what Jesus means. Referring back to John 8:35, Jesus says “Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever.” The Greek word the New International Version translates as “family” in 8:35 is translated in 14:2 as house. These editors understood that the house of God is the family of God and could have easily written “the Father’s family” instead of “the Father’s house.”

What this means to us is that where we know that a house has rooms; what we don’t so much get out of the translation is that Jesus was not talking about a physical location in the afterlife, he was talking this life and relationship with him and with the Father. This passage can be poorly interpreted to mean that in heaven there are more than enough rooms for each of us to have our own view of the beach and the mountains. What it means is that God has so much love that we are sons and daughters in the heavenly family. It means that God’s love is never ending and overflowing.

Jesus says that he is going there to prepare our place. Another way to say this is Jesus intercedes for us. The resurrection is often described as the lamb of God sacrificed for the sins of the world. This is how Jesus intercedes for us. This was the final earthly action preparing a place for us. His sacrifice makes it possible for us to take our place as children of God.

This revelation also points to the truth Jesus shares when he says I am in the Father and the Father is in me. Their relationship is so full and so glorious that while the Father is not the Son and the Son is not the Father, they are so close that they and their work are in complete harmony. This is the relationship Jesus came to show us. This is the relationship that we are called to share with him and with one another.

Looking at Jesus saying “I am the way, the truth, and the life;” he uses the ancient name of God and describes himself as God and then he says more. He begins with the way. This word literally means “the path” or “the road” not “the way we do things.” In a more literary way, it means a journey. We are called to take this life voyage as Jesus traveled it. We are to walk with his holy wise compassion. We are called to work to reconcile creation to God. Anything less is not the path God intends.

When we say he is “the truth,” we think of factual truth. This is right for as far as it goes, but it doesn’t go nearly far enough. When Jesus says he is the truth he says he is reliable and he is faithful, which is much more than factually correct. When Jesus says he is the truth, he says he is truth personified as he is God personified. By him God’s truth is accessible to all. By him truth is the reality of the fully human fully divine Messiah.

When we say that he is the life, we say that he is life eternal. What is amazing is that while we will never know what it means to be fully divine, we won’t know what it means to be fully human either. Jesus is more human than we can hope to be. He lives in the way we cannot live without his real presence in our lives. He is the life that he wants us to live. He is the life that he shares. He is the life we are called to share.

Again, we know the facts of “the way, the truth, and the life,” but until we look at them in the light that shines beyond simple facts, we don’t know our Lord as well as God desires.

There is one more piece to this, when Jesus says no one comes to the Father except through me. Nineteen hundred years after these words were written we look at them through the eyes of our lives and our faith, not the lives of those who first heard them. We need to get past the facts we read in English and find their truth. That’s what makes this difficult to hear.

When we look at this phrase, we read it to mean that Jesus is the only way to God. When we read the passage this way what it means is that we’re right. We’re in church, we worship God, we’re right. We’re right and anyone who doesn’t agree with us is wrong. But that should never be our benchmark. The cornerstone of the church is not that we are right about anything. The foundation of our faith must always be God is right.

So those who heard this letter didn’t hear it the way we hear it today. What this meant when it was written is that the claims Jesus makes, the truth he tells, is the full expression of the complete revelation the authors of John’s gospel received. It was how they had experienced the Father and the Son, and what it means to be a member of the church. It means that they are no longer a part of the Jewish community. It means that they are no longer part of the gentile community either. It means that in the community of Christ where no one comes to the Father except through the Son.

Yes, this truth does establish boundaries. It says this is who we are and this is how we understand God. It says who we are. It doesn’t say a word about who anybody else is.

It says that through a man named Jesus of Nazareth God reveals his holy presence and the means to reconciliation with God the Father Almighty. It says that salvation comes through the Son. It says this is the particular truth that separates Christians from all other peoples. As for me, I say this is better than being right.

As for me, I say the truth of Jesus Christ is more than just the facts.

Six months ago I attended the PC(USA) transformation conference in Fort Worth. I have been thinking about what I learned there ever since. This week, I have been reading one of the books I got while I was there. It’s Kevin G. Ford’s “Transforming Church, Bringing out the Good to Get to the Great.”[2] One of the things it teaches is that each congregation has a code, a sort of a DNA that helps define who we are and even more strongly who we are not.

I have spent quite a bit of time thinking about our code here at the First Presbyterian Church in Marshall, Texas. I say it like this, with our denomination and our location, because our code, while being similar to many Presbyterian and other Reformed Christian churches, is also different from many Presbyterian and other Reformed Christian churches. This is why events and programs which work so wonderfully and so well at some churches would be a horrible mistake at others.

Many thoughts have gone through my head about our code. I have heard and I myself have said that this congregation is a family. With apologies to The Olive Garden, I find it true; when you’re here you are family. I have also heard us called “The Church of the Bells.” When folks ask me what church I pastor and I say “First Presbyterian” they usually have no idea which church I’m talking about. When I say “The Church of the Bells” you can see their eyes light up in recognition. Everybody knows “The Church of the Bells” and where it’s located. We also say we are a downtown church, not one on the fringe of town.

I am sure there are many others and I hope you will share your insights with me. At the Session meeting tonight I hope the Elders will add to this conversation that is so far in my head.

These are all bits and pieces of our code. But the problem with code is that it’s just facts, what they are not is the truth. Like DNA, code is the building block but it’s not the building. The truth is found when we use the code to seek the answers to questions like “What does it mean to be a part of the heavenly family?” “What is so important about ‘The Church of the Bells’?” “What does it mean to be a downtown church?” “What does it mean to us that we testify that no one comes to the Father except through the Son,” especially in a world with a new religion on every corner.

Our code helps us frame who we are, in Peter’s words a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people. But the furniture is added only when we find what the code means as we trust in God and trust in Jesus so we may proclaim the mighty acts of God who calls us out of the darkness into his marvelous light. Knowing the code doesn’t matter until we do something with it to do God’s reconciling work.

Sergeant Joe Friday took just the facts. Each witness can testify only to what they saw. But it was Friday who took the facts and interpreted them to find the truth. He took “Just the facts” and made them into more. We have wonderful and glorious facts, but it isn’t until we seek the truth that they matter. This is our call, our vocation, and in this we grow in the faith of relationship with the Father and the Son.

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[1] “Just the facts” is actually said more often than the more popular “Just the facts, mam.”

[2] Ford, Kevin G., “Transforming Church, Bringing out the Good to Get to the Great.” Carol Stream, IL: Saltriver, 2007.

Hinting at Jesus

This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Marshall, Texas on Sunday December 5, 2010, the 2nd Sunday in Advent.

Isaiah 11:1-10

Psalm 72:1-7, 18-19

Romans 15:4-13

Matthew 3:1-12

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

Meredith Kemp-Pappan is a recent Austin Seminary graduate working in the denomination’s Office of Evangelism & Church Growth. The other day her twitter feed offered this little tidbit about today’s gospel reading, “The more I think about it, John the Baptist was a real pain in the @#%* neck.”[1] This much is true, John was a thorn in the sides of many people, especially those who were the rich and powerful people in the Jewish community; and particularly Herod Antipas, the Tetrarch of the region John called home.

John came from the wilderness of Judea, which meant to everyone who knew the formal politics of the region that he was nobody. Where is power focused? It’s in the cities, of course. Whether Austin for state government, D.C. for the federal, Louisville for the denomination, or even Dallas for the Presbytery and the Synod, the seat of power ends up being in the cities. It may not have happened in that order. Everyplace was nowhere before it became somewhere, so it could well be that the seat of power nested and the city grew up around it. Regardless, the wilderness is not where power comes from and it’s where John set up his operation. But hey, the wilderness was good enough for Elijah when he started in ministry, so it can’t be all bad.

There is another thing that Matthew’s gospel tells us that shows that John is a great big nobody, his clothes. I love driving through the square outside the Federal and County courthouses and looking at the people. The men and the women in their fine suits; you know who the people who have power are. You can tell by the way they’re dressed. You can tell by the cars they drive. You can tell by the way they carry themselves. The folks who are being accused, especially in the county courts, not so much, we often see them wearing jeans and a shirt. Their shoes aren’t shined. They’re scared of what could happen next.

The moneyed powerful have lunch at The Bakery Restaurant on the square. Those without power, prestige, and cash; it’s McDonalds if it’s not a bologna sandwich. Last Wednesday I stopped by The Bakery and as I walked around the square and there were more suits having lunch than you’ll find at a Tux shop before prom. Even the “Mother’s Day Out” crowd was dressed like they watched one too many episodes of “The Real Housewives” on Bravo.

So consider then as John comes wandering out of the wilderness and into a group of people. Some of them are the well heeled folks from the seats of power; others are rural folk trying to scratch out a living in the hinterlands. He doesn’t look much like either group. He is wearing camel hair clothes with a leather belt. In a fashion forward way, it sounds like he’s a sharp dressed man. In truth, the clothes he was wearing would look to us like a rough camel skin smock tied with a leather belt. There is no mention of sandals and certainly no mention of boxers or briefs. He doesn’t have the big bucks haircut and a comb would probably surrender the moment it saw his head.

He’s wild, he’s unruly, he looks dangerous, and he’s attracting crowds, crowds who have come to confess their sins and be baptized by him in the Jordan. The contrast between John from the wilderness and all of the people who came from Jerusalem and Judea to see him was deep, deep indeed, but there is one more thing that we must remember. The well heeled people came out to the wilderness to go see John. It’s like the Presbytery office heading out to deep west Texas because they heard there was a spiritual ruckus exploding around them, and they wanted to see what the hullabaloo was about and become a part of it too.

Style never goes out of style, and when a trend is to be followed; leave it to the trend setters to spot the good ones and latch on like a leech.

If the best defense is a good offense, John was the most offensive of all. He knows why they’re coming. He knows that they want to see the show and become a part of the show. The Pharisees and Sadducees figure that they’ll be able to tell their good friends and not-so-friendly rivals that “they were there” and “they saw it all” when John the Baptist was getting started.

Can’t you hear it now, “Oh yes, I was among the first to receive his anointing. You should have seen the scene! You should have been there!”

John of course isn’t having it. “You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee the coming wrath?” He not only doubts their intentions, he invokes an animal which is associated with the fall of humanity from grace into sin and for good measure isn’t kosher. He not only calls them insincere and insignificant, he calls them unclean.

In my opinion, television shows, movies, music, and even sporting events get bluer and bluer with their screams and their insults. I say that the well crafted insult with a well placed word says much more with far less, and John demonstrates this today.

Then he even derails their first line of defense, who they are with the authority they receive from the synagogues and the temple. John cries out “Don’t say to yourselves, ‘Abraham is our father,’” You know they want to answer back “How dare he! Doesn’t he know who we are?” John warns them not to go there, not to invoke their status as the sons of Abraham because God can raise children from nothing. Their lofty status and their expensive suits and fine shoes mean nothing to John the Baptist. John may be the original king of “what have you done for me lately?” Yes, the leaders of the temple and the synagogues have been important to the nation, but what have you done for me lately?

John’s take, you are nothing, nothing to the kingdom of God.

Given that John thinks little of the temple elite giving lip service, er, glory to God in the highest; he tells them to produce fruit in keeping with repentance. John tells them that a good tree will produce good fruit and the trees that are producing bad fruit are all ready marked for the fire by the ax setting at their root ball.

United Church of Christ pastor Mark E. Yurs recently wrote, “John’s wilderness preaching brings to mind a memorable line from Stanley Hauerwas and William H. Willimon. …They write, ‘Indeed, one of [the two] us is temped to think there is not much wrong with the church that could not be cured by God calling about a hundred really insensitive, uncaring, and offensive people to ministry.’”[2]

On a side note, this speaks to political correctness. In the early 1990’s, when this Hauerwas and Willimon quote was written, political correctness was beginning to define itself. As for me, when political correctness was about treating others, particularly those who are different, with respect and dignity; I could get behind that. It reminds me of a step toward Christ’s invocation to love one another. Of course, when PC morphed from respect and dignity into not only people trying not to offend one another but legislating words and thoughts of offense, I became more and more leery. You could say I love the concept and the motivation, but I’m not much enamored with the execution or what has come from it.

John the Baptist would have nothing to do with the concept of not offending someone. He downright knew how to offend people for the kingdom of God. That being said, along with Hauerwas and Willimon, I can’t imagine the Church universal being able to handle more than a hundred John the Baptist’s at any one time.

Meredith Kemp-Pappan has a point, “The more I think about it, John the Baptist was a real pain in the @#%* neck.”[3] If the Reverend Kemp-Pappan threw this quip to the universe as a random thought in a tweet, she should be affirmed that Hauerwas and Willimon thought enough about that sentiment to publish a similar thought twenty years ago. Yes, John’s a pain, but he’s the kind of pain the Church could use from time to time.

Then, at this point in John’s wilderness sermon, I imagine he drops his voice to a different level as he tells the world what’s coming next. He hints that there is a change on the way. He hints that someone who will do the work of redeeming creation is coming. He is coming with the Holy Spirit and fire. The name is unknown, the person is unknown to John at this moment, but we know who he is hinting at, he’s hinting at Jesus of Nazareth, Jesus who is the Christ.

He hints that while the baptism he celebrates is a ritual bath cleaning us for repentance for sins. The baptism that is coming will serve as a refiner’s fire. The baptism of the one who comes will separate us from our impurities like the flames eliminate the chaff from the wheat leaving only the kernel of truth behind. He tells us that the fire is unquenchable, but the wind that blows, the Holy Spirit of God, we know that this wind will never quit blowing either.

So what does this tell us for today?

The first thing is that as John speaks truth to power, we are to speak truth to power. Folks who are so impressed with their own power and prestige have no place for God in their lives. People who are full of themselves have no place to be filled in Christ. According to scripture, over the course of the next few years the elite would show that they have no place for Jesus in their lives. The power elite of this age don’t seem to be much different.

At that, in many ways, many of the power elite of the church (lower case “c” here) seem to have been co-opted by truths that are not the truth John brings from the wilderness. It’s a metropolitan, cosmopolitan truth that has more to do with power and lunch than with the authority of God and bread of life. It is up to us to speak truth to this power. It’s not a comfortable place to be, and it’s not a comfortable thing to do, but John the Baptist was not about comfort.

So what is that truth we are to speak? Jesus is coming, that’s the truth. As he was coming 2,000 some years ago, he is coming today. Thy kingdom, the kingdom of God is coming. I always got a kick out of that old bumper sticker that said “Jesus is coming, look busy” because that’s hardly necessary. Jesus knows who has been busy and what they have been busy with. If we have been wrapped up with ourselves he will know. If we have been wrapped up with his people, he’ll know that too.

I am not saying that we are saved by our works, but we will be judged by them. All of the things that seem so important in this life which are not holy will be burned away by the refiner’s fire like so much chaff from the wheat. The branches, limbs, and even trees that bear poor fruit, or no fruit at all, will be introduced to the ax and thrown to the flame. No, we aren’t worthy to carry his sandals, but we are to carry his Word into the world.

Finally, John’s faith is dangerous. We all see where it got him. He spoke the truth to Herod Antipas and met his maker face to face for the trouble. To speak the truth to the world, we will not always be loved. Then again, this is the way of all the prophets.

Now, I’m not saying that we should go out there and bust chops in the name of the Lord. As the old English saying goes, it’s easier to catch flies with honey than with vinegar. But sometimes, the vinegar is what’s necessary to clean up sticky theology when too much honey has been poured. The world may have a place for a hundred John the Baptist’s, but I don’t think even Texas is big enough for that much unvarnished truth at one time

So friends, beware the yeast of the Pharisees so that we aren’t lifted up in our own importance. Listen to the truth around us and know that some days will be better than others. Let’s know that John the Baptist was a real pain in the @#%* neck and know that his rough edges are sometimes necessary. It’s the rough edge of sandpaper that smoothes the surface of the wood. Let us prepare for the coming of Jesus, because yes, advent means coming. And that’s John’s message, Jesus is coming.

---

[1] Meredith Kemp-Pappan, Twitter Feed, 8:17 AM, December 2, 2010. The word I mumbled through in worship is “ass.”

[2] Hauerwas, Stanley, and Willimon, William H., “Resident Aliens.” Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1989, page 167 cited by Mark E. Yurs, “Feasting on the Word” Volume A.1. Bartlett, David L. and Taylor, Barbara Brown, Editors. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010, page 45.

[3] Ibid Meredith Kemp-Pappan.

What Is Truth?

This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Berryville, Arkansas on Sunday May 30, 2010, Trinity Sunday. Nineteen footnotes is excessive, but some of the notes are comments for readers that I did not make from the pulpit. What is in parentheses was spoken.

Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31
Psalm 8
Romans 5:1-5
John 16:12-15

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

Several years ago, the Comedy Central cable channel premiered “The Colbert Report.” No, not Colbert, like Jim the golfer, but Colbert—with a French pronunciation. In an interview with Bill O’Reilly on The Factor, Colbert stated that he is of “Irish descent and only adopted the French pronunciation of his surname to ‘get the cultural elites’ on his side.”[1] Pronounced this way, the name of the show rhymes; it’s “The Colbert Report,” not “The Colbert Report.” What’s funny about that is…[2] never mind, it’s the cornerstone joke of this satiric farce.

In the premier episode, Colbert introduced a feature segment that would define his show called “The Wørd” where the host takes a common, or not so common, word or phrase and defines it in novel and hilarious ways. The first word to enter the lexicon was "truthiness."

Truthiness is defined as “‘truth’ that a person claims to know intuitively ‘from the gut’ without regard to evidence, logic, intellectual examination, or facts.[3] Webster's has sanctioned truthiness with two definitions: “truth that comes from the gut, not books” and “the quality of preferring concepts or facts one wishes to be true, rather than concepts of facts known to be true.”[4]

In a BBC editorial,[5] Drew Westen cites the first debate of the 2000 Presidential campaign as an example illustrating the perils of trying to persuade voters with truth verses truthiness. In the debate, Vice President Al Gore explained how Governor George W. Bush’s health care plan would be more expensive to persons on Medicare including the worst phrase ever used in a political debate. Vice President Gore said, “Under the governor’s plan, if you kept the same fee for service that you have now under Medicare, your premiums would go up by between 18% and 47%, and that is the study of the Congressional plan that he’s modeled his proposal on by the Medicare actuaries.”

Medicare actuaries? Mr. Gore, you had me at (insert snoring sound here).[6] Muddled would be more like it to most debate watchers.

With this response: “Look, this is a man who has great numbers. He talks about numbers. I’m beginning to think not only did he invent the internet, but he invented the calculator. It’s fuzzy math. It’s trying to scare people in the voting booth.” Mr. Bush established himself to be one of us, not one of them; one of those Harvard educated cultural elites.[7]

The Vice President talked numbers and policy. The Governor countered with stories of what would happen “to you.” Westen points out that “stories always trump statistics, which means the politician with the best stories is going to win.” It’s little wonder the nation elected President Bush instead of President Gore.[8]

Stories over facts, anecdotes over data, gut feelings over measured research; this is the essence of truthiness. But heaven forbid; truthiness and being a follower of our Lord and Messiah do not mix well.

On this day, on this Trinity Sunday, the disciples are told “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide [them] into all the truth.” The disciples are told that the Spirit will hear the truth from the Father; this truth will glorify the Son. The disciples are then told again that the Father has given all truth to the Son; and this truth he will share with the Spirit who will share it with them.

The Holy Spirit of God, the Spirit who was at the creation of all that was created, the Spirit who descended upon Jesus like a dove, the Spirit that roared through the house where the disciples were staying on that first Christian Pentecost; the Holy Spirit of God is the Spirit of truth.
So here’s a good question for us: “What is truth?”

It’s a good question, deceptively good. Pilate asked Jesus this question. We read that passage from John’s gospel every year, every Good Friday. And considering that the 117th meeting of the Presbytery of Arkansas is coming up next weekend, the Session meets with the General Presbyter the next day, and the 219th General Assembly meets in July, it’s a darn fine question. These church leaders meet to do the church’s work in the name of the Lord. So again I ask: “What is truth?”

Being the stickler that I am, I start with what truth meant for the people who heard these words from the lips of Jesus. In the Hebraic understanding, truth is firm, solid, valid, and binding. When it is applied to people, and we do say that the Holy Spirit is a person, it characterizes their speech, action, and thought. It describes someone with integrity.[9]

In the Jewish legal sense, it means that the truth rests upon authentic facts. Truth is factual, impressive. It is beyond trivial objections. It is undisputable.[10] I guess that’s the Al Gore sense of truth. Of course in ancient Israel, the Rabbis were the arbiters of God’s truth, and they saw the Torah as its ultimate expression. By this truth, they found evidence of the Living God and that God is the everlasting king.[11]

Of course, legal truth is not the same as religious truth. Truth goes beyond legalistic definitions making it a mark and goal of divine action. Because of this truth, God is worthy of absolute confidence.

To those who wrote Hebraic law, truth has an element of transparency; it carries a meaning of not concealing. Truth declares itself that it really is the truth. (By the way, my English teacher always told me not to use the word while defining the word. Then again, this definition comes from the Greek, not the English. Let’s go on.) Of course, there is an implication that people might try to conceal, falsify, truncate, or suppress; of course that’s the nature of sin. So truth must encompass the full most real state of affairs.

In legal affairs, this is the difference between “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth” and “don’t give more answer than the question asks.” The truth demands the whole truth. Lawyers and their ancient counterparts don’t want anymore truth than is necessary.

Truth has certainty of force. It has judicial righteousness. People on whom you can rely are people of truth. It denotes a sincerity and honesty that like any virtue is public, not private. Truth is an authentic teaching of faith, something that I have endeavored over the past five years behind this pulpit. The truth has the ability to show the full difference between the divine and what isn’t divine.[12]

My English language bible dictionary elaborates on truth. It says that biblical people who spoke the truth often used metaphors, expressions to tell the truth of the glory of God. They had to do this because the realities of the truth were too difficult to express and be understood in literal language.[13] Maybe this is what Jesus meant when he said the disciples could not bear to hear the truth at that moment. I’m just guessing here.

It also says that truth is defined by a pattern of action. Truth is not established in a one-off sort of experience. It must be continuously told, it must be continuously lived. It is a characteristic of our actions, not our words. By this definition we cannot tell the truth without living the truth. Since actions speak louder than words, “do as I say, not as I do” is not an option.

In teaching, truth is teaching reality, not myth to the listener. It teaches reliability of the message as a guide for life. It recalls the Jewish characteristic of reliable teaching as truth and as another way of expressing what is held dear in the Torah, in the Law.[14]

John’s writings take all this and wonderfully distills it saying that truth is God’s faithful commitment to God’s people. This is where we get into one of the most glorious answers to the question of “What is truth?” John’s gospel teaches that “the incarnate Word makes God’s truth accessible in the sense that Jesus displays the reality of the divine person. Jesus is at once the manifestation of God’s faithful character and the divine reality.”[15]

Now we are getting to where the rubber meets the road. Pardon me for backing up into my opening story, but I am about to introduce a grain of truthiness into worship this morning. I thank you for your rapt attention to my excursion into the dictionary answers to the question “what is truth?” I don’t blame you if your eyes glazed over either, even if just a little bit, as I entered into the hallowed ground of my “inner Al Gore.”

If truthiness has taught me one thing it’s that all of the facts in the world don’t matter when something more powerful is at stake. I can give you all of the facts about truth in the world, but it is the stories resonate more than the data ever will.

R. Buckminster Fuller teaches “Truth is completely spontaneous. Lies have to be taught.”[16]

William Sloane Coffin has written “Fear distorts truth, not by exaggerating the ills of the world… but by underestimating our ability to deal with them… while love seeks truth, fear seeks safety.”[17]

Acting in truth is the focus of this expression from Mennonite writer John K. Stoner: “Speaking the truth is the most significant political action available to any of us—not voting, but speaking the truth. This view is based on the familiar biblical notion that the Word is central. The Word is the truth; the expression of the truth by human lips moves culture and history toward the government of God. There is no higher form of political action, nor is there one that can contribute more to the wholeness of the human community.”[18]

In their own way, in their own incomplete way, there is an element of truthiness in all of these examples, but I will admit, they do give us a bit of traction into the question “what is truth?” that straight data lacks. So let us turn from truth that is not quite the truth and move to that most basic source of truth, scripture.

Let us return to Jesus’ long teaching during his final meal with his disciples, the lessons he gives the eleven remaining disciples during his last supper. Our reading today comes from this speech, also in this teaching is John 14 where Jesus tells his disciples “I am the truth.” This is our answer, Jesus is the truth. Jesus is the truth.

Still, there is something devilish about thinking that we have fully received the whole truth. It’s not that the truth ever changes; it’s that our understanding of the truth does. This is what it means to be reformed and continually being reformed. “When we claim to have arrived at the Truth, capital T, we cheat ourselves. Finality of understanding, closure of interpretation, shuts us off from further insights, illuminations, inspirations, and so on. When it comes to Truth with a capital T, we spend our lives in waiting rooms on our knees. There are no ‘immaculate perceptions.’ We all walk into the dark.”[19]

Yes Jesus is the truth, and if we think that in our lifetime, with scripture, with 2,000 years of interpretation of the New Testament and 2,000 more of the Old, and even with the gift of the Holy Spirit—the Spirit of Truth indwelling us since that first Pentecost, we will never know the whole truth. The truth is just too big to be known by us, that is the mystery of the Triune God.

The answer to the question what is truth is often in front of us. It calls us to know the truth that we are saved by grace through faith. It calls us to act with the integrity of Jesus in all situations so that our actions will glorify the Son as the Spirit glorifies the Son; not to earn our salvation, but to respond to it. It calls us to act in truth humbly, because Jesus was humble.

So let the answer to the question of what is truth mean one thing to all of us. Let the answer mean that all spiritual truth in the world is nothing if we do nothing with it. We must remember the ancient Hebrew definition that truth is in action and the teaching of Stoner that the Word spoken is central. Virtue requires public action, there is no such thing as a private virtue.

Seek truth, act in truth. Remember love seeks truth, fear seeks safety. Jesus is the truth, as lavishly bold as a flash of lightening and as sublimely humble as the distant rumble of thunder.

[1] Stephen Colbert (character), http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Colbert_(character), citing “Stephen Colbert Enters the No Spin Zone”, http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,244882,00.html, retrieved May 28, 2010.
[2] Homage to the Reverend James “Skipper” French.
[3] Truthiness, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truthiness, retrieved May 28, 2010.
[4] The Truth of Truthiness, http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/12/12/opinion/meyer/main2250923.shtml, retrieved May 28, 2010.
[5] BBC News, “Why Do People Vote Against Their Own Interests?” http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8474611.stm, retrieved May 28, 2010.
[6] Yes, it’s a “Jerry Maguire” reference.
[7] This is where I mention that George W. Bush went to Yale University and was a member of one of its most famous secret societies, Skull and Bones, but does anybody say that Bush was an Ivy Leaguer just like Gore, nooooooo.
[8] Please, don’t get started on popular vote vs. Electoral College, I get it, I get it. So as a registered Democrat, let me just say for the record that the 43rd President of the United States is George W. Bush, not Al Gore, Jr.
[9] Kittel, Gerhard, “Theological Dictionary of the New Testament.” Volume I. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1964, pages 232-233.
[10] Ibid. 233.
[11] Ibid. 237.
[12] Ibid. 242-245
[13] Truth, “New Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible.” Volume 5 Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 2009, Page 675
[14] Ibid.
[15] Ibid.
[16] HomileticsOnline.com, keyword search “Truth”, http://homileticsonline.com/subscriber/illustration_search.asp?item_topic_id=859, retrieved May 28, 2010
[17] Coffin, William Sloane, “The Courage to Love.” New York: Harper and Row, 1982, 60.
[18] Stoner, John K. in “Mennonite Life.” quoted in The Other Side, March-April 1997 and in Context, August 15, 1997, 4.
[19] Ibid.

The Greater Truth

This sermon would have been heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Berryville, Arkansas on Sunday January 31, 2010. Unfortunately, due to the weather only the pastor and his spouse were in church.

Jeremiah 1:4-10
Psalm 71:1-6
1 Corinthians 13:1-13
Luke 4:21-30

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

As we ended last week’s gospel reading with Luke 4:21, so today be begin with this verse. This gives us a wonderful transition from last week to this. In the middle of last week’s sermon I inserted this little teaser:

Then Jesus sits, as is the tradition of the teacher in the synagogue, and he says, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” He reads one of the prophecies from the book of Isaiah which announces the Messiah, the Anointed. Using the word which comes to us through the Greeks, this is how Isaiah introduces the Christ. Luke, using these very words, formally introduces Jesus and his ministry to the world.

Imagine what’s going to happen next in Luke’s gospel.

Well, we have made it to next week and we see how the people respond to the words of the Lord. At the beginning, they loved him and what he said. We are told “All spoke well of him, amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth.”

They declared him the son of Joseph, this proclamation is also declared in the genealogy of Jesus from the third chapter of Luke. Then again, this genealogy contains the wonderful phrase “as was thought.” Luke writes that Jesus is the son of Joseph with a wink, reminding the reader of this gospel that we know better. We have the knowledge that Jesus is the Son of the Almighty God.

We learned this wondrous, glorious truth in the verse immediately before Luke’s genealogy. We learn it in Luke’s rendition of the Baptism of the Lord when the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”

So the good people of Nazareth are placing their claim on the hometown boy made good. They declare him to be one of them, the son of their very own Joseph. They were ready to hold a parade. Jesus had been praised because of the Spirit filled word that had come from his lips. He had been lifted up by many on the west side of the Jordan. But in their synagogue, this graduate of Nazareth Tech’s carpentry program had claimed the prophecy of Isaiah, declaring himself the anointed.

Sure, they were right, they just had no idea what it meant.

That’s one of the fuzzy things about the gospel. We know the truth, but sometimes what we know has nothing to do with the truth of God’s word.

Our reading from Jeremiah shows one such misunderstanding. The Lord God has appointed the young Jeremiah a prophet to all the nations. Jeremiah tells the Lord, “Not me, I have no idea what to say or how to say it. I’m just a boy; I don’t have the lips of the prophet.”

The Lord tells the boy not to say no. The Lord tells the boy “you will do as I command.” The Lord tells the boy not to be afraid, because in the words of the Lord God, “I am with you to deliver you.” The Lord promises to keep, rescue, and protect Jeremiah during his life in service.

But in a way, near the end of the reading the Lord affirms that Jeremiah doesn’t have the tools to be a prophet. The boy does not know what to say, or how to say it. The Lord knows Jeremiah is only a child. He knows he’s only human. So the Lord puts forth his hand and touches his mouth declaring “Behold, I have put my words into thy mouth. See, I have this day set thee over the nations and over the kingdoms, to root out and to pull down, and to destroy and to overthrow; to build and to plant.”

As obvious as this seems when saying this, of course the Lord knew Jeremiah didn’t have the tools to be a prophet to the nations. Of course he knew Jeremiah needed the words that he did not have. This is what the Lord supplied Jeremiah. The Lord ordained and anointed Jeremiah a prophet. With a touch to the lips, Jeremiah is given God’s word in his mouth.

This is one of those truths that may seem a little fuzzy. God doesn’t choose the equipped, God equips the chosen. Jeremiah was a boy. He was truly nobody special. As we have said before, the young boys were the ones who had some of the most dangerous jobs in the household, including tending the sheep through the dead of night.

He had no skills, he had no status. Yet, he was chosen, he was anointed, and he was charged. These were all actions of the Lord God. As the Lord lead; Jeremiah followed. He did as he was told to do. He shared what he was told to share.

Paul’s epistle to the Corinthians takes the principle of equipping the saints a step further. Where 1Corinthians 12 and 14 teach us about the spiritual gifts, the gifts of the Holy Spirit, 1Corinthians 13 teaches us how we are to use these gifts. He teaches we must use these gifts in love. Again, this is where we apply the principle of what we think we know having nothing to do with the truth of the gospel.

We know this scripture from nearly every wedding we have ever attended. Because of that we often think of this as how wedded love is shared with a partner. Now don’t get me wrong, I know that my wife is a gift from God, but describing wedded love was not Paul’s intent.

Paul was teaching a quarrelsome, bawdy, self-serving group of Christians, yes Christians, they were mistreating the Good News that they were so graciously given. As the old camp song goes, “They’ll Know We Are Christians by our Love,” well the church at Corinth was doing a poor job of showing the world the true meaning of Christian love.

So Paul taught them the elements of Christian love, things like patience, kindness, protection, trust, hope and perseverance. By the way, do you notice how these elements mirror the way the Lord promised to keep, rescue, and protect, Jeremiah? This is no coincidence. Then he also taught them what Christian love is not; things like envious, boastful, arrogant, rude, irritable, or resentful. Even more, he taught them that without love, there is nothing. Paul teaches that if he gives everything, every talent, every tongue, every prophecy; and does not do it in God’s love, there is nothing.

Bible headings often give us an idea of where a passage is going to go. The bible I use most often calls our gospel reading “Preaching in Nazareth”[1] but others call it “Rejected in Nazareth.” As we know, the Lord’s first preaching in his hometown synagogue wasn’t all peaches and cream. But there’s one other thing these headings do, they show what the publisher was focusing on when editing.

Well, surely this piece could be called “Rejected in Nazareth.” After all, when the people who want to throw you a parade want to throw you off a cliff about 125 words later, rejection might even be a mild description of what’s happening in Nazareth. And what words they were.

Jesus had a different message for the people of his hometown than he had for those he had known so far in his ministry. While Luke’s gospel is silent on the particulars of what happened in Capernaum, he told the people of Nazareth that by the time he was finished with them, they would be most likely finished with him.

He told them that they would consider him not only a great healer, but a sick man as well. This is why they will scream “Physician, cure yourself!” Jesus reminds them a prophet is not accepted in their own hometown, and he was about to show them why this is true in his case too.

Jesus refers to the widow at Zarephath in Sidon. In 1Kings 17, Elijah shares the word of God declaring a drought that will not end until the Lord says so. There will be neither rain nor dew until such a time as when the Lord is satisfied. This continues for 42 months.

During that time, Elijah is called to find a widow who will feed him at Zarephath. There he finds the widow and asks for bread and water. Water is doable for the widow, but as for the bread, she has very little meal and even less oil. Elijah promises her God’s bounty if she trusts and serves him bread. As surely as God lives, the oil and the meal never run out in her home during the drought according to the word of the Lord that was spoken by Elijah.

The woman’s life is then devastated by the death of her son. This death was not only the end of her son’s life, but it was culturally the end of her and her household as well. A devastated Elijah made intercession to the Lord on behalf of the widow and her son and he was revived. There was great joy in the household as they could taste and see that the Lord is good.

What makes this interesting is that this little burg is on the coast between Tyre and Sidon in modern day Lebanon about 85 miles north of the modern Israeli border. Elijah is in gentile territory serving the Lord God by serving and being served by the unclean and the unsaved. Jesus reminds the people that there were many widows in Israel, but Elijah was sent to the other, the unclean, the gentile. Why did Elijah do this? Because according to the book of Kings, Omri the King of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord. Citing this example in the synagogue wouldn’t make Jesus popular with the people.

Jesus also referred the crowd to Naaman the Syrian. Naaman was a great warrior and also a leper. He was just as unclean as all of the Israelite lepers. But Naaman sought the prophet Elisha to cure his ailment. To make a long story short, Naaman was cured when all of the Israelite lepers remained afflicted. Again, the Israelites did not bring themselves to the prophet and the doubly unclean Naaman, the gentile leper, is healed. Let me say again, citing this example in the synagogue wouldn’t make Jesus popular with the people.

Where so many of us might focus on the nearly mystical way Jesus passed through the crowd and went on his way, this is not what is revealed about God’s self in this passage. The comedienne Sarah Silverman has a comedy special called “Jesus Is Magic,” and when we focus on this part of the passage, we focus on what makes David Copperfield special, not the Jesus.

What we need to take from this passage as the children of God is that we cannot claim God as our own. As Jesus is claimed by the people of Nazareth as their own, as people, pastors, and prophets all over the world claim God as their own, the holy and Triune God belongs to no one. It is the Lord who gives us what we have, just as Jeremiah received an anointing of power and vocation with a touch to the lips. It is in the love of God that we take the gifts we are given not for our own pride and joy, but for the love of God by which we live today.

It is in the Lord’s righteousness that we are delivered and rescued. This is what we are called to seek. Just as the widow at Zarephath received the Lord’s blessing, just as Naaman the Syrian received the Lord’s healing; we are to call on the Lord our God by God’s righteousness not our own. It is easy for us to focus on the miraculous. Worship of God who does great acts is glorious. But we are called to seek the greater gifts, the greater truth of how the Lord Jesus reveals himself, not how we reveal him.

[1] The New Interpreter’s Study Bible

Where Truth Lies

This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Berryville, Arkansas on Sunday October 12, 2008, the 28th Sunday in Ordinary Time.

Exodus 32:1-14
Psalm 106:1-6, 19-23
Philippians 4:1-9
Matthew 22:1-14

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

Parables are wonderful stories with one big problem. As the parables are read, people who know scripture tend to respond saying, “Ah yes, this is a wonderful story” and with that, tune into past experiences with the parable instead of paying attention to it as it is being shared anew.

This is one of many truths about the parables of Jesus Christ; we listen to them through the ears of our experience, not the ears of the Holy Spirit. Believe me, when I say “we” I mean “we” because I have to fight this temptation as much as anybody else.

Within this parable, there are many different kinds of truth. There is historical and cultural truth as the parable has references that we may not catch because we are not familiar with the history and culture. There is literary truth, because the parable as a form of literature contains truth in that context. There is also the truth of interpretation since there is nearly 2,000 years of analysis behind Matthew’s gospel.

So, let’s begin with the king who gave a wedding banquet for his son sending his slaves to call those who had been invited to the wedding banquet. One of the first historical things we need to know is that long before the celebration, the people would have received invitations. While they did not know the precise time or day of the wedding feast, because of the hustle and bustle of preparing for the celebration, they would not be surprised when the slaves came with the “day of event” summons.[1]

Another bit of history we need to know is that at this time weddings, while grand feasts, are not the timed to the minute thing they are today. For the king’s slaves to prepare a great banquet, the oxen and the fat calves had to be slaughtered and prepared. This is nothing like my macaroni and cheese with summer sausage casserole in the oven for today’s potluck.

Preaching another scripture passage about cooking a full team of oxen, the Reverend Doctor David W. Johnson said:

“I’ve never actually boiled an ox. Or wanted to. I do a brisket now and again. That takes all afternoon. I have no idea how long it took to boil the oxen, but it wasn’t done in an afternoon. How long would it take to butcher and dress twenty-four oxen, cook them all up, and prepare beef stew for a bazillion? Maybe a week. Maybe a year. Maybe three years plus two summers.”[2]

Our parable doesn’t say how many oxen and fatted calves were slaughtered and prepared, but as it was the king who gave the banquet, we can imagine the number was substantial. The language tells us it was absolutely plural, so took preparations took quite a while. Many were involved in other preparations for the wedding feast, not just the slaves but other citizens of the kingdom too. The banquet master would get in touch with the priest to butcher the animals. He would have needed the people who provided bread, spices, and other foods. And don’t forget the wine merchant. Since many were involved in its preparation, the people knew the feast was coming.

Another important historical element to this piece is that when the people say, “we’re busy” to the king’s servants; it means more than “we’re busy.” To reject the king’s invitation, or more properly the king’s command, is an act of rebellion. To do it en masse is a sign of conspiracy.[3] Historically, no king would stand for this.

Parables are great, but these nuances are lost until we learn them. There are elements of truth in the history and culture of this story, but there is truth beyond history and culture.

Another part of the truth comes from the literary qualities of the parable. One of the key concepts of the parable is that it is not a true story. Even though as we have just heard, there is historical truth mixed in, this story does not reflect an actual event.

So in our story, after the slaves return to the king mistreated and worse, the king wages war on those who reject him and his invitation. This part of the story should be a red flag that this is not a true story. I ask what king would let supper get cold to go and wage war on a city? This is wonderfully epic, filled with dramatic exaggeration, and highly unlikely.

Further, as a nation we have recent experience about the success of a campaign of “shock and awe.” There is literally no way to wage war and be home for dinner in this or any age. So in the realm of factual events, the war events described in this story would not have happened. But in the parable, we see that those who betrayed the king got what they deserved.

As literature, this parable brings us a broad epic sense of scope which the story misses without its literary elements. It’s not that all pieces of the parable add up, but as a story, there is truth within the exaggeration.

As for truth found in interpretation, there is much. This is the third of three parables Jesus spoke to the Pharisees, chief priests, and elders in the temple. Scholars say the first parable, the one of the two sons, focuses on John the Baptist and the people’s response to his ministry. The second, the parable of the vineyard, uses allegory to interpret Jerusalem’s fall as punishment for the leaders’ unfaithfulness. This third parable is a final warning to the church of Jesus Christ to remain faithful and not follow the footsteps of the Pharisees, chief priests, and elders.[4]

The history of interpretation gives us a chronological progression of stories warning first those who rejected John; then the Pharisees, chief priests and elders who rejected the prophets and then the Son; and a final warning that the church might never reject Jesus and the vocation he has lain upon it.

Often, we speak of faith in terms of putting on new clothes. We talk of the church as being the bride of Christ. So a part of the history of interpretation leads us to be called to put on Christ as we join together with Christ as the bride of Christ.

The truth found in the history of interpretation is that while all are called, those who do not respond to this call are dealt with harshly. I am not saying that we are saved by works because we are saved by grace through faith. I am saying that there are dire consequences if we accept the Lord’s invitation and all we do is show up expecting to be fed.[5] This judgment was true in the days of the prophets, in the days of Jesus, in the days of Matthew’s gospel; and it is true for us today.

As these words are the words of Jesus, there is more truth in them than we will find in our interpretation of them. Two thousand years of interpretation alone cannot give us the truth of God’s word.

A way to consider the differences between historical truth and mythical truth comes from the voice of the Rev. William Sloane Coffin. On February 5, 1978 he spoke these words in a sermon about the miracle of turning water to wine from John’s gospel:

“Several years ago, driving south through Virginia, I crossed the mighty Rappahannock River. Amazed at its width, I couldn’t help concluding that George Washington’s throwing arm must have been comparable to Reggie Jackson’s if he hurled, as he reputedly did, the silver dollar from one bank clear across to the other. Suppose one day modern scholarship should establish that the silver dollar splashed. Would George Washington no longer be father of his country? Obviously not, because George Washington is father of his country not because he hurled a dollar clear across the Rappahannock or because he could not tell a lie about that fallen cherry tree—what choice did he have?—but because he was commander of the Revolutionary forces and the first president of the United States.”[6]

Let us consider this question for ourselves, was George Washington the father of our country because of the cherry tree incident or because of his service in the American Revolution? Was he father of our country because he could throw a coin across a river or because he was our nation’s first President? I think we can agree he is the father of our country because of the important work he did in securing our freedom and leading the nation.

In a way, sometimes the facts can get in the way of the truth. The debate over whether these stories actually happened or not gets in the way of the truth that they embody. These stories may not be true in the sense that they actually happened, but this does not dilute the truth behind them. The myth helps inform the truth that makes us better able to understand who Washington is to the people of this nation.

This brings us to the question we must ask ourselves about Jesus. Is he our Lord and Savior because of all of the cool stuff he did? Is he Lord of our life because he could turn water to wine? Is he Lord because he could best the highly educated leaders of the temple as they tried to trick him into speaking heresy against the temple or rebellion against Rome? Is he Lord because he could turn a phrase and tell a wonderful story? Or is he our Lord because he is who he says he is; the Son of God and the Son of Man?

The truth we find beyond history, beyond literature, beyond interpretation, beyond anything our minds can fully conceive; the truth we find is that Jesus is Lord because he is God. He is God since before the beginning. He is God when he walked the earth. He is God when he was crucified and on the third day rose again from the dead. He is God who sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty. The parables help us understand who Jesus is; but they do not define who Jesus is.

The wonder and the glory of the truth is that all are invited to the wedding banquet. All are welcome to a place at the Messiah’s table. The wonder and the glory of the truth is that all are sought by the king’s slaves.

This leads us to one more truth, the truth beyond being called to the table. The truth of our call and our vocation as the church of Jesus Christ is that we are all called to be God’s faithful servants; calling the people, both good and bad, to join the messianic feast of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. In this truth we are called to respond to the Lord our God as faithful servants, putting on Jesus as we enter into the banquet and into the world.

And as the servants of the Lord Almighty, we are called to invite others to the banquet. As we are called by the Lord to come, we are called by the Lord to bring others. By grace, our faith is to be an active expression of God’s love for all creation. This is one of the ways we wear the wedding robe. This is how we put on the garment of Jesus Christ.

There is much this parable offers us to find where truth lies, and its eternal truth is this: We are called to come to the table. We are called to bring others to the table. And it is the King of Glory who calls us first.

[1] The New Interpreter’s Bible. Vol. VIII. Leander Keck, General Editor. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1995, page 417.
[2] Johnson, David W. from personal correspondence. The “three years and two summers” is a reference to the usual amount of time it takes to earn a Master’s of Divinity from Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Ibid. pages 412-419
[5] Ibid, New Interpreter’s Bible, page 419
[6] Coffin, William Sloane, “The Collected Sermons of William Sloane Coffin.” Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1987, page 40.