Seeking the Better Things

This sermon was heard at St. Andrew Presbyterian Church in Longview, Texas on Sunday August 4, 2013, the 18th Sunday in Ordinary Time.

Later this month St. Andrew will call and install their new Interim Pastor so while I am still on the fill-in list, my season of frequent service to this congregation is coming to an end. Thanks be to God for their hospitality and generosity during this season.

Unfortunately this week there is only text, no audio or video.

Hosea 11:1-11

Psalm 107:1-9, 43

Colossians 3:1-11

Luke 12:13-21

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

I would like to begin by saying how much I enjoyed Tara Porr’s sermon from last week.[1] I particularly enjoyed how she reimagined Hosea’s proposal, if you can call it that, to Gomer. The way she took scripture and inflected it into the way we speak was marvelous. When she used Gomer’s voice to say “That’s so sweet!” I laughed. It was a wonderful way to take a whore-endous, whore-rific, whore-rible piece of scripture—puns intended—and replay it in a modern way.

But it was her skill with handling the symbolism of Hosea wedding a woman of many sexual partners symbolically representing our Faithful Lord’s wedding to a nation that takes many partners that was brilliant. Still, I can imagine her preparing that sermon, reading that passage and thinking to herself “how in the world does this preach?” because I felt the same way when I read these passages from Colossians and Luke.

She read from the densest use of the word “whore” found in scripture. I get to share “fornication, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed (which is idolatry)” and “anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive language from your mouth.” After reading these passages, when I say, “This is the Word of the Lord” I almost expect to hear the congregation reply “Really?” instead of “Amen.”

Paul tells Timothy that all scripture is good and beneficial for study and teaching, but these have an edge to them that point to many uncomfortable lessons.

Then Marie showed me an article from the Wall Street Journal blogs about the actor Ben Foster who is starring in a movie based on retired Navy SEAL Marcus Luttrell’s memoir “Lone Survivor.” This book and its movie are based on one of his unit’s reconnaissance missions in the mountains of Afghanistan in 2005. Their objective was to kill or capture a Taliban leader. On missions like these in the wilderness of Afghanistan they would occasionally cross paths with local shepherds.

In a recent interview, Mr. Foster was asked about this scene. He replied, “The ancient question of war is do you kill a shepherd and save your own life and potentially endanger your people, or do you let him go? They decided to let them go, and these brave young men were hunted down.” [2]

Foster continues, “[Luttrell] was the lone survivor, and asked a man in this village to give him water. The law there is if you give a man water who asks for help in war, you’re taking him in as a family member and you must protect him to the death.” [3]

The reason I chose to tell this story is because I want us to consider our family. Who is our family? How do we welcome new members into our family? What does it mean to be a member of a family or more righteously this family? We’ll get back to that.

Our gospel reading opens with a definition of family which is gaining some traction these days, the family as an economic unit. In my 20’s I had a friend whose grandfather owned a large soybean farm in Kansas. This man and his wife had four children and after the parents’ death, each of them owned a quarter share in the farm. They had it all worked out, and the family as an economic unit was secure. They didn’t run into the trouble Luke’s gospel reports when Jesus had the brother screaming, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.”

This man wanted his request heard, and knew how to fawn while asking it too. “Teacher,” other translations say “Rabbi,” in a word he appealed to our Lord’s earthly status and the traditions of the thousands of teachers who came before him. Maybe if he had thought of Jesus as Lord rather than as teacher he would have been better off. As important as the family as an economic unit is, Jesus did not take to the question well. Jesus flat out asked the man who he thought he was to make this decision.

Jesus adds to his lesson telling the man and all with ears to hear, “Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one's life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.”

The story that follows is one which stock brokers, insurance agents, and others who sell 401(k)’s don’t want us to hear.  In a nutshell we can plan all we want, but there will be a day; and that day could be tomorrow or it could be 100 years from now. Depending on our own resources and taking joy in stuff ultimately leads down the road to nowhere.

So, Jesus tells us to be on our guard against all kinds greed and then tells a story about a man who has a special place for all of the stuff his life has brought him. I’m not talking about his barns either, in truth I’m talking about his heart.

There is a phrase in that sentence that always gets the best of me. Jesus doesn’t warn us about financial greed alone. As for this man, his greed took root in more than just his possessions; it took root in eating, drinking, and merriment; everything his life can buy but nothing God provides. He warns the people about all kinds of greed. I could give you a litany of the sorts of greed that corrupts the lives of human beings, but the list would be long, the oration would be boring, and the recitation ultimately incomplete.

In the end, it is enough to know that Jesus warns the people about all kinds of greed, not the run of the mill garden variety financial kind. Then it’s Paul who takes that laundry list and names it something else, he calls all kinds of greed idolatry.

Now if there isn’t a more loaded word than idolatry I’d like you to share it with me. I’m not saying you can’t find one, I’m saying if you do I’d like to get prepared to be frightened. Simply put, Idolatry is putting anything, the idol, before God. A pastor friend from Colorado thought the NFL was the perfect American idol. His opinion came from the simple truth that in the Mountain Time zone games start at 11:00 AM. With worship starting at 10:30 folks didn’t get out until the end of the first quarter. If there was a potluck it would be halftime before fans got home.

So many people stayed home during football season that giving actually went down during those four months, longer if the home team made the playoffs. Considering this was during John Elway’s heyday on the reins of the Broncos, the playoffs were almost a foregone conclusion. Yes, my pastor made a pretty good argument for the NFL being an idol.

As for taking this to the “loaded idolatry” level let me finish saying “Texas high school football” and get out of the way. Considering Allen ISD just finished a $60 million facility, that’s not a sanctuary or a tabernacle, it’s a bloody cathedral to high school football.

Is it an idol? I don’t know the people well enough to know, but $60 million for a high school football stadium? If the Church of Jesus Christ had fundraising like that there would be no hunger in East Texas.

Paul begins this portion of his epistle to the Colossians saying, “So if you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth, for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.”

Paul is writing this to the saints in Colossae, he’s writing to believers, the church. I make this point because some translations don’t say “So if…” they say “Since…” Paul is not asking whether they have been raised with Christ or not. In a lovely turn of a rhetorical phrase he is saying that they are raised in Christ.

Since they are raised in Christ their minds should not be on the things of the earth. They should not be set on the idols we make with our own hands and worshiped like they mean something. They are called to be of a higher mind. They are called to live the life they have been freely given at great cost so that we may be with Christ in God.

We are to surrender fornication, impurity, passion, evil desire, and all forms of greed (which is all forms of idolatry) forsaking anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive language. We are to be clothed with the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge according to the image of its creator. In that renewal there is no longer Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free; but Christ is all and in all!

We are to live in Christ so that we may not only be able to seek the better things, but accept them and nurture them when we discern them.

So, what does this have to do with family? Let’s begin with who is in the family.

Paul covered this pretty well. There is no longer Greek or Jew—cultural identification and membership is considered moot.

As for circumcised and uncircumcised this relates to faith. As culture bears no more meaning; neither does religious affiliation.

As for barbarians and Scythians, the Barbarians (with a capital B) were Turks and the Scythians were Iranian. This could have meant “from west or east” as much as it could mean “vicious people” verses “more cultured vicious people.”

Slave and Free had to do with social status as well as economic status. It comes down to whether or not you have freedom on earth, you have freedom in Christ.

These differentiations are vitally important because in this day and time we have to beware of who we say doesn’t belong. Let us remember that after the “Slaughter of the Innocents” in Matthew's gospel comes the “Escape to Egypt.” Our Lord’s family arrived as strangers in a strange land. They had no visas or permits. The Lord told the Jews to stay out of Egypt so there would have been few kin folk when they arrived. Thank God for the gifts of the Magi or else they would have had no gold or other liquid assets when they arrived.

In short, our Lord was once a political refugee and an illegal alien. In Christ there is freedom for all. This is vitally important to our Lord today because while an infant he was once was a refugee, a prisoner to the power and politics of his time.

How do we welcome new members into our family? In a way, it’s not completely unlike how the Afghani man accepted Marcus Luttrell, with water. While they extended a cup of drinking water, we become family in the waters of our baptism. In this holy sacrament we are welcomed into the community which Christ has ordained to be his body. In these holy waters we are baptized and sealed by the spirit.

In the waters of our baptism we suffer the death that faces all who come into the chaos of water only to be received into new life as a member of the Christian community. We are welcomed in this messy, messy sacrament to join together in the messy lives we live together. It is this unity in Christ, as he too was baptized in the waters of new life, that we come together as family. Family where we defend each one’s dignity against the world that would love to see that new life crushed.

So what does it mean to be a part of this family? It means more than showing up once a week and touching base like a seven-day game of tag where you have to come once a week or “you’re it.”

It means we defend one another. This isn’t unlike the answer to the question “who is my neighbor.” A neighbor is someone who shows mercy, someone who makes a difference. But neighbors are largely a voluntary alliance. We don’t get to pick our family.

Family, in family there is love and respect and dignity even when your little sister bugs the living daylights out of you. Even when your brother borrows the car and doesn’t bother to put gas in it, family is still family. When the Session, Presbytery, or General Assembly votes don’t go as we believe they should, we are still family. Even when family leaves, we are still family. In this love, even in the midst of strife, in the waters of our baptism God’s peace is there.

This is where I share our joy. Nurtured by the food and drink of the Lord’s Supper we share the joy found in our Call to Worship. In the words of the 107^th Psalm, Let them give thanks for the mercy of God, for the wonders the LORD does for all people. For God satisfies the thirsty and fills the hungry with good things. Whoever is wise will ponder these things, and consider well the mercies of the LORD. Halleluiah!

God satisfies the hungry heart with the better things. It’s up to us to seek them, nurture them, and share them with the world.

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[1] “When Words Aren’t Enough” based on Hosea 1:1-10. Miss Porr is a student at Princeton Seminary and about to start a yearlong internship in Groomsport, Northern Ireland. Godspeed and have a great year Tara.

[2] Chai, Barbara, “Ben Foster on how ‘Lone Survivor’ asks ancient questions of war.” http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2013/04/16/ben-foster-on-how-lone-survivor-asks-ancient-questions-of-war/, retrieved on July 31, 2013.

[3] I am reminded that Luttrell wrote in his book that he was offered tea instead of water. Foster’s recollection may be inaccurate, but it both is what he told Barbara Chai and works better with the end of the sermon.

Words and Deeds in a Chaotic World

This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Marshall, Texas on Sunday June 24, 2012, the 12th Sunday in Ordinary Time.

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1Samuel 17:32-49

Psalm 9:9-20

2Corinthians 6:1-13

Mark 4:35-41

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

Friends, it is good to be back with you. As you’ve probably heard, we’ve had a chaotic week. We discovered the distance from the Marshall Wal-Mart to our house is just over 1,253 miles if you go by way of Mexico, Missouri. We also discovered that some phone calls sometimes chaos has a way of overwhelming life. So it is good to be back home where we belong, away from the chaos. So now, if you will indulge me, I want to start at the beginning. In fact, I’m beginning with the beginning of the beginning.

Genesis 1:1-2 reads, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.” I begin here to share a word that doesn’t get a lot of play when looking at the creation story, formless. In this setting formless means “land reduced to primaeval [sic] chaos”[1] When God created the heavens and the earth; creation began with utter and complete disorder. There was nothing but chaos. It took the act of creation to bring order to the primeval chaos of existence.

In ancient times, water embodied chaos. So God built a barrier, a vault, between the waters of order and the waters of chaos. Continuing with verses 6 and 7, “And God said, ‘Let there be a vault between the waters to separate water from water.’ So God made the vault and separated the water under the vault from the water above it. And it was so.”

God would later use the waters of chaos to wipe creation from the face of the earth in the story the flood. The chaos of the sea is the home of the Leviathan, the ancient dragon of the sea. The Behemoth of Job is a creation of the seas and the waters. The abyss, the depths of the oceans and seas is the place of the bottomless, unfathomed, and incomprehensibly deep underworld. The sea was considered the personification of death itself. Ultimately, the scriptural image of the waters and the seas and the storms and the winds is danger.[2] 

In our enlightened age, even for people who do not know the history or the mystery, storm-tossed waters continue to be a metaphor for the turmoil of living.

Let’s look at Mark’s gospel.  In the midst of the storm, in the midst of the sea, in the midst of certain death; Jesus was resting on a cushion. We read that he was sleeping, but scripture goes further, he was sleeping on a cushion. The Galilean galley didn’t have a lido deck where Jesus could rest in the stern of the ship. On the contrary, these were working vessels for working men. There wasn’t a place designed on the ship to go take a nap. Still Jesus was resting on a cushion. 

Jesus knew there would be a storm. I imagine that as soon as the skies began to boil everyone knew there was going to be a storm. At least one-third of the disciples were seasoned fishermen and the rest of them were locals. As Jesus notes in Luke’s gospel,[3] these disciples knew how to interpret the look of earth and sky. So we can safely say, even though the storm rose suddenly while they were on the water, the men in the boats on the sea knew hard weather was coming up. Still Jesus takes a nap-on a cushion.

Soon everyone on the boat was, well, let’s say they were emotionally wrought. They were in a big old panic. They were losing their collective minds. Everyone had a pretty good idea what kind of danger they were in and the fishermen knew what kind of danger they were in, and Jesus slept.

I imagine by this point, everyone who saw the Lord catching forty winks on a cushion was wondering when or if he would wake up and grab a line or pick up a bucket to bail or something. Jesus had not yet revealed his messianic identity, so they weren’t expecting anything miraculous, but c’mon, lend a hand.

I also imagine their conversations included the sentence “Wake him up!” followed by its mate “No, you wake him up!” Finally, some of the disciples got the fuzzy end of the lollypop and scripture tells us what followed, “The disciples woke him and said to him, ‘Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?’”

Now, there’s a sentence right out of the chaos, “don’t you care?” And it’s not an unfamiliar sentence to these disciples on the water in the storm. The story of the prophet Jonah[4] features this scene:

Then the Lord sent a great wind on the sea, and such a violent storm arose that the ship threatened to break up. All the sailors were afraid and each cried out to his own god. And they threw the cargo into the sea to lighten the ship.

But Jonah had gone below deck, where he lay down and fell into a deep sleep. The captain went to him and said, “How can you sleep? Get up and call on your god! Maybe he will take notice of us so that we will not perish.”

In the midst of the chaos, Jonah takes a siesta as the world crumbles around him. This leaves us the captain to wake the one person not feverishly praying to his God. To paraphrase this captain, a man who cries out to his passenger, “Maybe your God will care enough not to drown us, maybe your God will care enough to keep the chaos from swallowing us. Do something!”

There is an old saying attributed to St Francis of Assisi, “Preach the gospel always, if necessary use words.” Francis is telling us to get up off the couch and do something with our salvation. It’s a good thought, but it denies an important truth. It forgets that when our God created the cosmos, he spoke. God didn’t pull the ingredients out of the cabinet and pop it in the Easy Bake. God spoke and God created. In our reading, Jesus spoke and the storm was calmed.

You have often heard me say all translation is interpretation, and this is true. In our reading, the New Revised Standard Version tells us Jesus awakens and says, “Peace! Be still!” Isn’t this wonderful? Can’t you see Jesus standing in the boat in the midst of the raging sea, stretching his arms and saying “Shalom!” It’s Jesus offering his peace over the terror of our lives. It’s a nice picture, but it’s not what Mark’s gospel means.

The New International Version gets it better in this case. Jesus cries out “Quiet! Be still!” The word Jesus uses is a cry to tell the wind to shut up. He’s telling the wind stop and be still. The Greek word tells us that Jesus is telling the wind to be muzzled.[5] Jesus binds the storm and the chaos in a muzzle. He’s not offering his peace. He’s not giving the wind and the storm his shalom. He’s binding the chaos of life now and forever from the midst of the tempest. In a word, in one word, Jesus binds the chaos of the world under his control for all times.

This is what I mean about words and deeds. For our Lord and God, words are deeds. Our God creates a world that he declares “very good” simply speaking it into existence. Our Lord binds the chaos of the world and places it under his control.

For us, this has been a time of chaos. By the way, if you think I’m standing in the pulpit talking about you specifically, you’re not completely wrong. When I was younger, I often felt like my pastor examined my soul when writing Sunday’s sermon. Please know that the reason this feeling has truth is that what I am saying is universal; we all know the chaos of our lives. We are all being thrown around in our dinghies on the sea of chaos. It’s the reason why the reader of Mark’s gospel could hear the story of Jonah in the words of the disciples; everyone was familiar with the stories. Just as important, they were familiar with the words.

A part of our personal chaos included the death of my sister’s husband Tom. Between Tom’s death and my mother-in-law Toni’s health, the chaos of our lives made their way across the life of the Elders, Georgia,[6] and this congregation. During Tom’s funeral, the Reverend Terry Kukuk of the First Presbyterian Church in Mexico, Missouri shared these words:[7]

Psalm 23 (the Lord is my shepherd…) was read this afternoon because Mary Jane (my sister) said it was Tom’s favorite. It’s a favorite Psalm for many. Somehow, these ancient words have stretched themselves out over the generations and found a home in many hearts. The image of God as shepherd brings comfort and reassurance in many moments for life. These words often act like an anchor, holding us when so much around us is falling apart.

We have come to associate Psalm 23 with funerals but when you really stop to consider the words of this Psalm you discover that this is a Psalm about living. For it locates the daily activities of life in the presence of God. This Psalm calls us to have confidence that in all circumstances of life we can turn to God and trust in God’s steadfast faithfulness.

In these words, Rev. Kukuk clearly and wonderfully answered one of the most problematic questions asked about scripture.  Jesus does not promise that there will be no more storms.  He promises that he will be with us in the storms.  Jesus doesn’t promise to end the pain.  He promises to be with us while we are in pain. 

In Leipzig, Martin Luther was asked, “Where will you be, Brother Martin, when church, state, princes and people turn against you?” Luther answered: “Why, then as now, in the hands of Almighty God.”[8]  So it was with Martin Luther, so it was with Jonah, so it was with the disciples, so it is with Mary Jane, so it is with Toni, so it is with us all.

Here is what this means to me: In the face of everything that did happen, was happening, and is going to happen, Jesus had a peace about him that was unknown to everyone else on the sea. The disciples knew they were in danger. The waves were breaking over the bow of the ship and it was taking on water. The boat was filling with so much water that it was being swamped by the sea, the wind, and the waves. 

The disciples were worried, I am sure; they knew their situation was perilous.  In the meantime, here’s Jesus, napping on the stern, on a cushion.  So when they were asking Jesus if he cared, the disciples were probably just hoping Jesus would grab a bucket or a line and help stem the rising tide of the storm. 

But what they got was different; they got the word of the Lord crying, “Be still.”  “Be still;” this is the same phrase Jesus used in the first chapter of Mark when expelling the unclean spirit from a man.  Now he uses this phrase to calm the chaos of the wind and the water and the sea. 

The disciples knew they needed a miracle, they didn’t know the miracle was taking a nap on the boat.  In ancient times, boats were seen as symbols of the church.  It was a great ark that saved humanity in the time of the great flood.  The boat was integral to the story of Jonah.  Jesus spent enough time on the docks to earn his union card.  Is it any wonder that we are called to the vessel where Jesus is by the rudder?  

Our reading reminds us that we are called to join the one who brings order to the storms, the rage, and the chaos in the boat we call the body of Christ, the church. This is what God calls us to do. Just like the lives of the disciples who are called to follow Jesus then, we are called now. We are called to be in the boat with Jesus through the chaos of our lives together. 

As the old song goes, “Does anyone know where the love of God goes when the waves turn the minutes to hours?”[9] Yes, we do. The love of God is with us in the waters of our baptism, the very waters that were separated at creation by the vault; the waters which Jesus stills by the grace of God and the power of the Holy Spirit. This is the love that muzzles the chaos of the sea and promises to remain with us through the storm of our lives.

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[1]  ‘Wht from the Brown Driver Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon, 1907.

[2] Interpreters Dictionary of the Bible, Chaos entry

[3] Luke 12:56

[4] Jonah 1:4-6

[5] A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature. Bauer, Danker Ed’s. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000, page 1060.

[6] Georgia is our church secretary and instrumental musician. She is a gem.

[7] Editor’s note—The quote from Rev. Kukuk is in italics. The regular font is my comment. –PAA

[8] Luther quote from HomileticsOnline.com, http://homileticsonline.com/subscriber/illustrations_for_installment.asp?installment_id=2723, retrieved June 21, 2009.

[9] Gordon Lightfoot, “The Wreck of the Edmond Fitzgerald.”

Sloppy Faith

This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Marshall, Texas on Sunday April 3, 2011, the 4th Sunday in Lent.

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1Samuel 16:1-13

Psalm 23

Ephesians 58-14

John 9:1-41

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

I believe in action. I believe in living faith. This is why I believe our sacraments are important to who we are as Christians. Sacraments are the visible signs of God’s invisible grace. This is why when I share the invitation to the table I will say, “This is the Lord's table. It is our Savior Jesus the Christ, not I, nor this congregation, nor this denomination, who invites those who trust him to share the feast which he has prepared.”[1]

The invitation is open to all who have faith in Christ as their Lord and Savior. It is for those whose faith is in Christ; not just those who ascribe to Presbyterianism. This is why I will also say:

Every time you eat this bread and drink this cup,

you proclaim the saving death of the risen Lord,

until he comes.

Remembering God’s gracious acts in Jesus Christ,

we take from your creation this bread and this wine

and joyfully celebrate his dying and rising,

as we await the day of his coming.[2]

We can’t see God’s good grace, we can see instances of grace and we can see the effects of grace, but we can’t see grace. It’s like the old Billy Graham saying, I can’t see the wind; I can see effects of the wind but I can’t see the wind. And of course, we have no more control over where God’s grace blows than we have over the wind. Our gospel reading is the glorious story of how this wind of faith blows.

Jesus was going along and saw a man who was blind from birth. So the apostles asked “Who sinned; this man or his parents that he was born blind.”  Short of anything resembling grace, this question is couched in traditional Jewish speculation about the relationship between illness and sin.[3] In this time and place, being born blind was considered more than a physical malady; it was seen as a spiritual malady too. But Jesus’ response tells the disciples that their question, shrouded in rabbinic tradition and Jewish history, isn’t the question.

Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be displayed in his life.”  John’s gospel offers sin differently from Jewish tradition.  Sin is not a moral category; it is a theological category about how we respond to the revelation of God in Jesus.[4] Jesus teaches that this man was born blind for God’s glory, not as a punishment for sin.

So Jesus took a step back and spit on the ground making a poultice of wet clay that he placed in the man’s eyes. He then told the man to go to the Pool of Siloam to wash. When he did, he came home seeing.

By the way, notice that after Jesus told the man to go, the Lord isn’t in the story until its very end. Hold that thought.

Now, if you think I used a lot of water on Cindy’s baptism in January, imagine walking through town from wherever Jesus found the man born blind to the Pool of Siloam. There always seemed to be a crowd around the Lord, so it wouldn’t be much of a stretch to imagine that a bunch of people saw him spitting on the ground, rolling it around into a paste, and packing it into the man’s eyeballs.

Anyone who isn’t saying “Ick” right now has gone to the end of the story. I want us to pause here for a moment.  I’ve made my fair share of mud pies, but none of them with my own spit. I’ve thrown some mud, but I’ve never packed it into anybody’s eyeballs. I’ve been dirty before, but I’ve never had anybody’s muddy spit ooze down my face. Friends, let’s admit it, as the miracles of Jesus go, this ranks up as one of the grossest. Glorious, yes, but still, it’s gross.

It’s said that Jesus could have done this miracle without all of the spit and mud, and that’s true. He healed Peter’s mother in law. He healed the little girl saying “Talita, cum.” He saved the Centurion’s slave with a word; Jesus wasn’t even in the neighborhood for that healing. So Jesus didn’t have to make the balm they wouldn’t make in Gilead, but he did.

To say that I know why he did this is beyond arrogance, it’s ignorance. Still, I’m going to give it a guess because it’s a part of my vocation to ponder the things of God. I believe Jesus finds value in symbols. I believe God finds value in symbolic action. Jesus didn’t have to create the saying “Here’s mud in your eye,” but he did. There was something of value to him creating the pumice and the man wearing it until washing it off in the Pool of Siloam.

Was it the man’s obedience that cured him? Was it Jesus making magic mud? Was it something else? I don’t know. What I do know is that Jesus asked a man to participate in his miracle when it could have been done with a snap of the fingers. Jesus wanted him involved in his miracle.

This is the point of the story when we go from icky sloppy to sloppy because of what happens next. We’re not half way through with John’s gospel and the Pharisees are coming at Jesus with both barrels. Of course like any good mobster movie, they don’t go at him directly; they go after the one he cares about. They dissect the man so recently given sight.

The neighbors ask the man who now sees “Where is he?” Where is Jesus? His relpy: “I don’t know.” I love that. “No, I don’t know where he went, I was blind, hello!”

This is where his newly blooming Christian bud is tested. The Pharisees quiz one another, is this healer a saint because he can do such miraculous signs or is he a sinner because he does them on the Sabbath? The man who now sees really doesn’t have an opinion on the learned matters that belong to the scholars; he just knows that the one who can do such healing is a prophet.

Of course the Pharisees decide to check their facts. Was he blind from birth? Really? If he wasn’t then there was no miracle. So they go to his parents who confirm blindness. But they know that this sloppy bit of religiosity can blow up in their faces. They could be put out of the Synagogue and cut off from their faith and social lives and that won’t do. They throw their son under the bus instead. Hey, you want to know what happened to him, ask him. He’s a man. He’s responsible for his own actions. In effect they say “Leave us out of this.”

They try to get the man who now sees to throw Jesus under the bus this time and this time he wades head long into the slop of his new faith. He doesn’t know who was a saint and who was a sinner, but he does know he was blind but now he can see. He doesn’t know who the Pharisees are or what they want, but he knows that Jesus has done what no other prophet has ever done, give sight to a blind man.

Finally, the Pharisees can’t take his disrespectful behavior another minute. By disrespectful I mean earnest, honest, and loving. They throw him out of the Synagogue for no doing of his own. He was thrown out because he did something foolhardy, he was healed.

Well, as the old song goes, if loving you is wrong, I don’t want to be right.

This is when Jesus reenters the story. He shares his identity with the man who now sees in front of the temple rulers who are blinded by their own inflexible faith. The man believed and worshipped. Those whose neck remained stiff rested in their own sin.

The man who now sees is living in the sloppy faith where he is healed with spit and clay on the Sabbath. He is thrown out of the Synagogue, which was the center of his faith. He is evicted from the community that he had called his own; thrown out into the muck and mire of the world without the faith of his fathers. The faith taught that his blindness was the result of sin, now we discover that the removal of blindness leads him to the new way God is working in the world.

Faith is often sloppy. Often faith is not always easy and straight forward like we want it to be. Often it’s like this man who now sees. The glory of God reigns making our old way of life impossible, and that gets sloppy. Often it’s like David’s kingship, established in danger over seven older brothers.

People want a good solid list of things we can be for and things we can be against. It makes sense, yet no matter how we rebel against it, we long for structure. Unfortunately, life in Christ doesn’t always lead us down the straight line we want. Sometimes like with David and the man born blind it puts us at odds with our own families.

Frankly, it’s easier to stand against something than it is to stand for something. The Westboro Baptist Church has made a mission out of standing against America in the guise of standing for God. It’s easier to say no than it is to say yes. No limits our boundaries, yes opens them up to places we may not be comfortable.

I guess this is where I should apologize to Cindy. For a denomination renowned for baptism by “sprinkling,” I used a lot more water than she expected, than anyone expected.  Now, I’m not apologizing for using a lot of water, I won’t ask to be forgiven for that. I do pray Cindy will forgive me for not warning her or having a towel ready. That was bad form on my part and I apologize for that. For everyone else who was surprised about the amount of water I used, don’t worry. It’s alright in the eyes of the Book of Order and the Directory for Worship. The amount of water I used is Presbyterian kosher.

What’s true is that water is the symbol we use in baptism. Baptism itself is the symbol that represents the grace of our Lord who was himself baptized. We are baptized for remission of sins. Baptism also represents a bath, a bath that cleans our skins and our lives. The waters of our baptism also represent the fluids of our first birth. In our birth into faith we are reminded of our birth into life. The sacrament of baptism in the Presbyterian Church represents a welcoming into the community of faith; this is why it is as proper to baptize infants and children as it is to baptize adults. Since one of the responsibilities of baptism is that the community helps care for and instruct all of the baptized, it is actually good for children to be baptized as soon as the parents desire.

So if water is a symbol, then the amount of water used is also a symbol. We can use as much or as little as we want. We can dunk or dab people. The symbolic action God wants is represented either way. But there is a reason I choose to make people drip with water when we are baptized, and that’s that our faith can be sloppy. Since our faith can be sloppy, our baptism shouldn’t be a dainty little affair, it should be sloppy too.

We live a faith that can be sloppy, a faith where God says yes. Yes gets us healed on the Sabbath, even though every stitch of the faith tells us just to wait until after sunset. Yes introduces us to people we wouldn’t associate with in a million years. Yes puts us in situations we never dreamed to imagine. Yes puts David on the throne. Yes puts us outside the Synagogue with Jesus and the man who now sees.

No puts us with the heroes of the orthodoxy, which isn’t always bad but often lacks elbow room for the Holy Spirit. No gives us the Alcoholics Anonymous definition of insanity, “When you do the same thing over and over again expecting a different result.”

Our God is the God of “Yes.” Our faith should be the faith that says “Yes.” Say yes to God, say yes to the sloppy faith that is faith in Christ, and let us remember the waters of our baptism, and the sloppier the better.

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[1] This is a part of what I say in the “Welcome to the Table” before celebrating the Lord’s Supper.

[2] Book of Common Worship

[3] The New Interpreter’s Bible, Volume IX, Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1995, p 653.

[4] Ibid.

He Had to Go Through Samaria

This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Marshall, Texas on Sunday March 27, 2011, the 3rd Sunday in Lent.

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Exodus 17:1-7

Psalm 95

Romans 5:1-11

John 4:5-42

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

Lent is a journey, a time of preparation as we follow the movements of Jesus from the moment after he was baptized through his travels around Judea and Galilee to the triumphant entry into Jerusalem. Lent ends with Jesus introducing the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, being betrayed by his disciple, dying on a tree, and rising from the tomb. Today the journey takes us through Samaria where along with the Lord we meet the woman at the well.

We start at verse five, “So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph.” What a lovely sentence.  It should remind us of Abraham and Sarah, and Joseph and his brothers.

This scene also harkens back to 1 Kings with the story of Elijah asking the widow of Sidon for a cup of water.  Elijah and Jesus both interrupt the women’s daily chores seeking hospitality.  It also takes us back to the betrothal stories of Abraham’s servant seeking a wife for Isaac in Genesis and Moses at the well of Midian finding a bride of his own in Exodus.  In each of these stories water is used as a sign from the Lord, a sign of family and a sign of new family.

These vital images of the faith should play gloriously in our minds.

The problem with all of these glorious images is that they crowded my mind with too much wonder. So much that I had no idea where this morning’s sermon should go. I quickly realized that without a Sherpa there was no way I was going to get to the mountaintop, to the point of the story.  Then realizing I’m your Sherpa; the awesome responsibility of preaching the Gospel became even more daunting today than it usually does.

The story of the woman at the well, the story of the living water, it’s a story Christians know very well. I know when reading it my eyes didn’t glaze over, but there was a familiarity I brought to the text, a familiarity that dulled my focus.

Yes, my mind drifted through the passage, and my drifting was reverent and glorious, but it was drifting all the same. This story is so well known that sometimes we Christians forget to really read it because we already know it.

One of the things you have probably noticed about my sermons is that I try to find a hook, a story or an illustration, that shines light on the reading. Sometimes the connection is very obvious, sometimes the connection is barely recognizable.

As I said, I had trouble finding this connection, and then a couple of days ago I read something that showed me what I needed, and I hope it helps you too.[i] It sent me to verse four, the verse before our reading this morning, the verse that starts the paragraph in our bibles. It says, “He had to go through Samaria.”  That was it, “He had to go through Samaria.” Everything that follows happens because he had to go through Samaria.

It’s seemingly one of those lovely transition sentences that takes us from one bible story to the next.  Except that it’s not a simple segue like “meanwhile back at the ranch.”  There’s more to it than meets the eye.

This is when little questions entered my mind, things like why did he “have” to go through Samaria? I’ll get to that one in a couple of minutes.

Here’s an easier question, didn’t Jews avoid Samaria at all costs? Yes they did. The Jews avoided Samaria at all costs. Part of the irony of the story of the Good Samaritan is that in the day there was no such thing as a good Samaritan. To the Jews the Samaritans were the cousins from the wrong side of the tracks and as our reading says “Jews do not associate with Samaritans.”[ii]

Here’s another easy question, wasn’t there more than one way from Judea to Galilee, including one that avoided going through Samaria? This answer is yes to that one too.  It’s because of this seedy Samaritan reputation there were several routes from Judea to Galilee avoiding Samaria all together.  These roads took longer, but they were well worth it to the traveler that didn’t want to go to the wrong side of the tracks.

So when we read “he had to go through Samaria” we read it like a travelogue. When it was written nearly 2,000 years ago it was written to reflect a conscious choice and a scandalous one at that. This leads us back to the first question, why did he “have” to go through Samaria?

If he didn’t have to go through Samaria because there were other paths, and if Jews avoided Samaria why did he have to go through Samaria? The answer isn’t logistical, the answer isn’t tactical, the answer isn’t ancestral.

Why did he have to go through Samaria? He went to Samaria because that was where he was called to go. The answer is evangelical.

I have been asked by several folks for a report on the numbers of people in worship recently.  Let me begin saying there is reason to rejoice.  The average number of people in worship in October of last year was almost 31, this month the average is 42 people in worship. This is an increase of over 38 percent.

In 2009, we reported nine people participating in Christian Education.  With four new Christian Education offerings in the past six months, we have filled twenty seats in these classes alone. Count the Women’s Circle that wasn’t counted in 2009 and this number is going way up.

According to Presbytery reports, over the past ten years, this congregation has celebrated ten infant baptisms and five adult baptisms, a full 20 percent of which we celebrated this year on Baptism of the Lord Sunday. Trust me when I say that people who look at numbers love increasing baptism and particularly increasing adult baptism numbers.

The Clerk of Session’s report to the denomination shows that we have as many members under the age of 45 as we do over the age of 65. This may not mean anything to you, but again to people who read the numbers it means a great deal. They love seeing numbers like these.

Our society also keeps score using dollars and cents too, so we should look at these numbers; and by my calculations the comparisons between offerings collected last October and this March is equally remarkable, offerings have increased by nearly 45 percent.

Now, I didn’t ask Neal to collect these figures, anyone with six months worth of bulletins could have assembled these numbers just like I did. My analysis doesn’t reflect whether these trends are normal either. For all I know, the attendance and offering trends I just cited happen every year. But I believe there is reason to celebrate. Especially since there are so many new faces in the congregation, this is a reason to shout for joy.

This means that there are people who are sharing the Good News of our Lord Jesus Christ and inviting people to come and worship the Father in Spirit and truth, and this invitation has not fallen on deaf ears or still feet. People are sharing and people are coming. Like Jesus to the woman at the well the Good News is being shared, this is a reason to shout for joy.

But what should we be shouting? What is our joy? Our reading from Romans, the scripture I read at the beginning of worship today gives us an answer to that question.

We mustn’t celebrate that we are strong. We mustn’t celebrate that we are good. We mustn’t celebrate that God is on our side.  If we boast we must boast about our access to the grace in which we stand.  If we boast we must boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. If we boast we must boast in our sufferings; knowing suffering produces endurance that produces character that produces hope, and hope does not disappoint.

We can boast that while we were still weak, Christ died for all of us ungodly people. God demonstrates love for us that while we were still sinners Christ died for us. We can boast that while we were still weak we have been justified by his blood and are saved from God’s wrath through Christ.

We can boast that we were enemies of Christ and while enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of the Son. And how much greater is our salvation that we are saved through his life and his death.  This is how we have been reconciled to God, through the life and the work, through the death and blood of Jesus Christ.

Paul’s letter to the Romans teaches us that if we boast, we can only boast about who Jesus is and what he has done.  The story at the well shows us how Jesus reaches out to those who have nothing to boast about, people who were society’s “others,” the “enemies.” At the well Jesus broke every rule in the book, but then again, whose rules are those?

Jesus dares all with ears to hear to reconsider what sustains us and its source.  The Samaritans were so interested in finding the answers to these questions that they invited Jesus to stay with them so they could learn more about the word and the work and the life-giving water.  This was not simple either, because Jesus chose to stay and eat and share God’s grace with the people his culture vilifies. Yet because Jesus went though Samaria, because Jesus chose to throw convention and the rules to the wind, many came to testify that he is the Savior of the world.

Jesus had to go through Samaria.  Not because it was the easiest route, but because it was the most difficult.  Jesus touches the untouchable yesterday, today, and tomorrow.  Renewed by God through the Holy Spirit we receive the same assurance in this gift of living water, by which the great benefits of life through him in the waters of our baptism are set before our eyes to behold.[iii] This is something we can boast about.

This water, this work, this relationship is new and dangerous. Jesus showed that himself when he approached the Samaritan woman at the well. In each of these instances, social conventions went out the window and a new connection was forged. Based on those Old Testament well texts what Jesus was doing was not new to scripture. It was new to the mitzvah, the rules established by the Priests, the Pharisees, and the Scribes, but not to scripture. This new relationship was dangerous, but new relationships are always dangerous.

Lent is a journey. In this journey, Jesus went to places where few Jews dared to travel, he had to go through Samaria. He went there because it was the right place to go. He taught because it was the right thing to do. He went there to share his grace because this is his vocation.

Lent is a journey. It sends us to places we wouldn’t go without the grace and peace of Christ in our lives. Christ sends us places we wouldn’t go without faith and the hope that comes through faith.

Like I said earlier, the reason Jesus had to go through Samaria was evangelical.  By the grace of God, through the faith our Lord shows in us, and by the hope our Lord gives us; we are called to follow these footsteps. We are called to visit our own little Samaria’s sharing the grace and peace of our Lord Jesus Christ. The reason we are sent to do this, like Jesus was sent, is evangelical.

The Good News of the Gospel is that this congregation has been bringing in the harvest that was planted so long ago. The Good News of the Gospel is that we continue planting the seed of God’s Word so that the glorious harvest may continue. There are so many others who need to hear the word. Because people are still thirsty for the word like this Samaritan woman and her community, and we are to carry the living water to the world so that all may be quenched.

So yes, rejoice in growth of this part of the body of Christ, and boast in the one who makes all life possible. Drink from the font of living waters and share it with all around you.

---

[i] HomileticsOnline.com, commentary on John 4:5-42, retrieved February 18, 2008.

[ii] John 4:9c, New International Version

[iii] Paraphrase from The Second Helvetic Confession, Chapter XX “Of Holy Baptism,” Paragraph 3, “What it means to be baptized.” 

One Peace

This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Berryville, Arkansas on Sunday June 2009, the 12th Sunday in Ordinary Time

1Samuel 17:32-49
Psalm 9:9-20
2Corinthians 6:1-13
Mark 4:35-41

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

In ancient times, water was the embodiment of chaos. Genesis 1:6 mentions God building a barrier, a firmament, between the waters of order and the waters of chaos. God would later use the waters of chaos to wipe creation from the face of the earth in the story of Noah and the flood. The chaos of the sea is the home of the Leviathan, the ancient dragon of the sea. The Behemoth of Job is a creation of the seas and the waters. The abyss, the depths of the oceans and seas is the place of the bottomless, unfathomed, and unfathomably deep underworld. The sea has been considered the personification of death itself. Ultimately, the scriptural view of the waters and the seas and the storms and the winds is one of danger.[1]

In our enlightened age, even for people who do not know this part of the history of or the mystery; storm-tossed waters continue to be a frequently used metaphor for the turmoil of living.

In 1976, the Edmund Fitzgerald went down, and singer-songwriter Gordon Lightfoot recorded a haunting ballad in honor of and as a tribute to the ship and the men who lost their lives. He called it “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.”

The Edmund Fitzgerald was a giant ore freighter, 729 feet in length, and was the largest carrier on the Great Lakes from 1958 until 1971. The Fitzgerald was labeled “the pride of the American Flag.”

On November 10, 1975, the Fitzgerald was hauling a heavy load of ore to Detroit when it ran into a severe storm. This storm generated 27-30-foot swells. During the evening hours the ship disappeared from radar screens; apparently it sank in a matter of minutes. It now rests on the bottom of Lake Superior broken in two with the bow upright and the stern upside down still loaded with its cargo of ore and all 29 hands.

In Gordon Lightfoot’s ballad about the sinking of the freighter Edmund Fitzgerald, he asks: “Does anyone know where the love of God goes/When the waves turn the minutes to hours?”[2] That’s quite a question, but it’s not the first time it has been asked. Both the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald and today’s gospel reading remind us of one of the most well known stories of the Old Testament, the story of Jonah. In the case of the gospel, this literary flashback is quite intentional.

As the book of Jonah begins, Jonah receives the word of the Lord and does his level best to avoid his vocation. He buys passage on a vessel to Tarshish and goes below deck for a nap. By the fourth verse, the Lord made the sea boil with a storm. In the fifth, everyone on the vessel was praying to one god and another for deliverance. In the sixth verse, the captain of the vessel wakes Jonah pleading, “Get up, call on your god! Perhaps the god will spare us a thought so that we do not perish.”

Here is the answer to Gordon Lightfoot’s question; the same question asked by the apostles; the same hope that the ship captain had when imploring Jonah to call on his god. The love of God is ever present. In this love lies our one peace. In times like these that doesn’t seem so very likely. In times like these, asking “where has the love of God gone?” or as it is asked in our gospel reading, “Teacher, don't you care if we drown?” are the questions that are on our minds. At times like these, we hope and pray the Lord will spare us a thought so we will not perish.

As one of the most problematic questions asked in scripture; its answer is one of the most wonderful. Jesus does not promise that there will be no more storms. He promises that he will be with us in the storms. Jesus doesn’t promise to end the pain. He promises to be with us while we are in pain. In Leipzig, Martin Luther was asked, “Where will you be, Brother Martin, when church, state, princes and people turn against you?” Luther answered: “Why, then as now, in the hands of Almighty God.”[3] So it was with Martin Luther, so it was with Jonah, so it was with the apostles, so it is with us today. Our one peace is in the hands of Almighty God.

Let’s look at Mark’s gospel. In the midst of the storm, in the midst of the sea, in the midst of certain death; Jesus was resting on a cushion. We read that he was sleeping, but scripture goes one step further, he was sleeping on a cushion. The Galilean galley didn’t have a lido deck where Jesus could rest in the stern of the ship. On the contrary, these were working vessels for working men. There wasn’t a place designed on the ship to go take a nap. Still Jesus was resting on a cushion.

Jesus knew there would be a storm. I imagine everyone knew there was going to be a storm. At least one-third of the apostles were seasoned fishermen. They knew how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky, as Jesus so aptly notes in Luke’s gospel.[4] Still Jesus takes a nap-on a cushion. Jesus brought or found a cushion on board this fisher’s boat. He lay down on the cushion and went to sleep. He did this intentionally. He knew what was going to happen; he knew there was going to be a blow on the water; and he rested.

Here is what this means to me. In the face of everything that did happen, was happening, and was going to happen, Jesus had a peace about him that was unknown to everyone else on the sea. The disciples knew they were in danger. The waves were breaking over the bow of the ship and it was taking on water. The boat was filling with so much water that it was being swamped by the sea, the wind, and the waves.

The disciples were worried, I am sure; they knew their situation was perilous. In the meantime, here’s Jesus, napping on the stern, on a pillow. So when they were asking Jesus if he cared, were they looking for divine intervention? Probably not, Jesus had yet to share his messianic identity, so there was no reason to think he would still the chaos. The disciples were probably just hoping Jesus would grab a bucket or a line and help stem the rising tide of the storm.

But what they got was different; they got the word of the Lord crying, “Be still.” “Be still;” this is the same phrase Jesus used in the first chapter of Mark when expelling the unclean spirit from a man. Now he uses this phrase to calm the chaos of the wind and the water and the sea. “Who is this?” the disciples ask. “Who is this that the wind and the sea obey him?” They had no idea. But this is where the scripture becomes remarkable. Only now are the disciples filled with awe or, as other translations say, filled with great terror.

Yes, there was fear in the disciples during the storm, but they had an idea of what to expect from this watery chaos. I imagine they had some fear in this perilous situation. They knew what storms on the lake were about; I imagine they had experienced gales like this before. I imagine the fishermen in the group had experienced the loss of boats, catch, and even friends in the chaos of the water. They had never experienced anything like this.

This experience gave them a sense of awe that they had never experienced before, a sense of awe laced with fear. While the word in the original text covers the range from terror and anxiety to honor and respect, it comes with an element of mastery over the experience through reflection. The evaluation of this reflection is closely bound to an understanding of one’s own existence and religious understanding.[5] They knew the danger of the water. They were clueless about the danger of having the one who can still the water and the chaos sleeping on a cushion in the back of the boat.

This is more than a miracle story; it’s a miracle story with a divine epiphany. The apostles knew they needed a miracle, they didn’t know the miracle was taking a nap on the boat. In ancient times, boats were seen as symbols of the church. It was a great ark that saved humanity in the time of the great flood. The boat was integral to the story of Jonah. Jesus spent enough time on the docks to earn his union card. Is it any wonder that we are called to the vessel where Jesus is by the rudder?

Our reading reminds us that we are called to join with the one who brings order to the storms, the rage, and the chaos in the boat we call the body of Christ, the church. We are called to be with and work with the one whom we fear, the one whom we hold in awe. This is what God calls us to do. Just like the lives of the disciples who are called to follow Jesus then, we are called now. We are called to be in the boat with Jesus through the chaos of our lives together.

This is a good ending, but there is one more piece to share before we close this chapter. Our reading includes the words, “they took him with them in the boat, just as he was.” If you understand this perfectly, you have a step up on me. “Just as he was.” Well, he was tired after a long day of teaching. That is one thing we can well imagine, and it would explain his sound sleep in the stern, but I don’t think that’s what’s important about taking him just as he was.

Crossing the sea, they were going from the Jewish side over to the gentile side. They were going from a place they knew well and were going to a foreign place. It would be like being in Fort Smith in the late 1800’s. Yes, locals knew the place well, but all it took was a river crossing to be in Indian Territory. In its own way, Fort Smith was a border town. In the culture of the time and place, crossing the line was like going from civilization to the wild and wooly land of the natives. This is what it was like for the boat load of apostles and their rabbi crossing the sea from civilization to gentile territory too.

But Jesus was taken just as he was; a human being, a Hebrew, a carpenter, and to the amazement and fear of the apostles, God in the flesh. Let us take great joy in this too; Jesus takes us just as we are and remains with us now and forever. Even as we are so overwhelmed by our fear that our faith shakes in the presence of both the chaos and the one who brings peace to the chaos, Jesus takes us just as we are and remains with us now and forever. Just as we are, we are called to stay in the boat of the church which is his body.

Does anyone know where the love of God goes when the waves turn the minutes to hours? Yes, we do. The love of God is with us in the waters of our baptism, the very waters that were separated at creation by the firmament; the waters which Jesus stills by the grace of God and the power of the Holy Spirit. This is the love that promises to remain with us through the storm, even though the storms continue. In this and this alone is our one peace.

[1] Interpreters Dictionary of the Bible, Chaos entry
[2] Illustration from HomileticsOnline.com, http://homileticsonline.com/subscriber/illustrations_for_installment.asp?installment_id=93000145, retrieved June 16, 2009
[3] Luther quote from HomileticsOnline.com, http://homileticsonline.com/subscriber/illustrations_for_installment.asp?installment_id=2723, retrieved June 21, 2009.
[4] Luke 12:56
[5] Kittel, TDNT, vol. IX, page 192