Longing for More

Isaiah 2:1-5; Matthew 24:36-44

December 1, 2013

© 2013

For the four Sundays of Advent, Rev. Regina Erwin, Associate Pastor of First Christian Church, Odessa, Texas, where I am currently Interim Pastor, and I will be dialog preaching. The scripts take on a different form and are a little less detailed as a result. We have outlined the basic flow, but you'll need to be there or use your imagination, as they will be more free-form  than usual. My thanks to Regina for her courageous imagination to try this and to the congregation for engaging with the conversation. Norm

Through Advent we read from the Hebrew Prophets, as we did from Isaiah 2 this morning, about God’s promise of a new day of peace. Viewed through a New Testament lens, we see them as pointing to Jesus and celebrate them with his birth. Now 2000 years since Jesus’ birth and perhaps 2700 years since Isaiah’s prophecy, we are still waiting for peace.

Regina

How are we supposed to be in constant wait for 2700 years? I can’t barely wait for my wedding in just a few short months.

There are so many conflicts and struggles all around the world: Syria, Pakistan, Egypt. For the children of the next generation after mine, they do not know a time where we have not been involved in a war. 

Did you realize that on the Homeland Security System that there is not a place for no risk of terrorist attacks just low.

Yet we can’t help but yearn for Isaiah’s vision in our lives and those of others. The words of verse four are on a wall near the United Nations Headquarters. “They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks, nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.”

Norm

Micah 4:1-3 is almost identical to Isaiah 2:1-5. They were contemporaries. Did one borrow from the other or did they both quote the same poem of hope? Joel 3:10 repeats the line about swords and plowshares, but we don’t know when he wrote.

Is it better to treat the promise of a coming peace as a feel-good message that we can all rally around, endorse, mention in a prayer and raise a glass to, or to proclaim along with our hope the reality of its long-standing absence?

In Matthew 24:36-44, Jesus said even he didn’t know when God’s hope for the future would come, but it would be a surprise.

Regina

 “But about that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. 

Norm

³⁷For as the days of Noah were, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. ³⁸For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day Noah entered the ark, ³⁹and they knew nothing until the flood came and swept them all away, so too will be the coming of the Son of Man. 

Regina

⁴⁰Then two will be in the field; one will be taken and one will be left. ⁴¹Two women will be grinding meal together; one will be taken and one will be left. 

Norm

⁴²Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. ⁴³But understand this: if the owner of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into. 

Regina

⁴⁴Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.

Regina

This text may seem uncomfortable for some of us. It asks us to live in readiness yet with the knowledge that the coming of Jesus will be at an unexpected time.

Norm

Jesus’ reference to the days of Noah does not mention the evil that brought God’s judgment on them but that people were engaged in ordinary daily life and were surprised by the flood.

Jesus spoke to our fear of being abandoned, We don't want to be abandoned. We want to make the cut, get the invitation, receive an acceptance letter, make the team, and be part of a family. We don't want to be abandoned.

Alyce McKenzie who teaches at Perkins School of theology at SMU tells of a grown woman who still tears up at the memory of being 7 years old on a family trip and being accidentally left behind at a gas station as the family station wagon drove off. She remembers the feeling of the concrete under her thin-soled sneakers, the smell of gasoline, the family car growing smaller and smaller in the distance, the sound of someone crying that turned out to be her. They came back as soon as they noticed she was missing, but the memory of those minutes remains. 

We have a hard time living with joyful expectancy when what we hope for seems so distant and unattainable.

Regina

We live with this constant promise. Sometimes we doubt it and other times, we know it to be the precious truth. We have the opportunity to live as Christ taught us, live as an example. We can teach those around us how to wait for that beloved promise. Church as a waiting community teaching example for culture

Norm

Jesus repeatedly urged being awake, alert, watching in readiness. How do we prepare for a promise? Promises always come as a surprise.

The surprise may be that Christ is already active among us. Part of watching is looking for the hidden signs of Christ’s present hope.

God reveals enough about the future to give us hope, but not so much that we do not have to live and walk by faith day after day.

Our society just can’t wait but starts to inundate us with holiday frenzy disguised as Christmas earlier and earlier. Advent is a counter-cultural call for waiting and anticipation. Advent is rehearsal of waiting for God’s hope.

Regina

9 year old “good fellows” Christmas

One of my favorite theologians, Walter Bruggemann summed up the season of Advent this way, “Advent invites us to awaken from our numbed endurance and our domesticated expectations to consider our life afresh  in light of new gifts that God is about to give.”

Norm

Here we are on the first Sunday of Advent and we feel like the student who joked on the second day of class “I’m already 2 weeks behind.”

6^th grade Christmas with Mom home from hospital.

Don’t knock yourself out trying to create the “perfect Christmas” (and be so frazzled you can’t enjoy it), but wait for God to surprise you.

What Kind of King is This?

Colossians 1:11-20; Luke 23:33-43

November 24, 2013

© 2013

Mark Galli the Editor of Christianity Today, writes in the November issue (p. 47) of looking across Yosemite Valley from Glacier Point (7,200 ft. elevation, 3,200 above valley floor) at Half Dome (8,800 ft. elevation, 1,600 ft. higher yet), experiencing and observing two reactions: fear and awe. People hold onto each other as they walk tentatively toward the edge. They dread falling over but want to get as close to the edge as possible.

I have been there, and even looking at a picture gives me a weak wobble in my knees. I have had a similar approach avoidance experience at Niagara Falls, especially in the tunnels behind the Canadian Falls, drawn to the power of the rushing water and feeling it pulling me in and over.

This was a profound worship experience for me. I wanted to lie face down in the tunnel and weep. Mark Galli compares this fear and fascination to being encountered by Almighty God: “We find ourselves attracted to the very thing that makes us afraid, and rather than running from it, we want to get closer.” (p. 49)

The call of Isaiah (6:1-8) expresses well this experience common in the Hebrew Scripture, which is reflected in many Psalms. But this is not limited to the Old Testament. As Hebrews 12:29 says, “Our God is a consuming fire.”

In the account of Jesus’ crucifixion in Luke 23:33-43, people responded with similar contradictory reactions. At this moment of Jesus’ apparent defeat, Luke presents him as King.

When they came to the place that is called The Skull, they crucified Jesus there with the criminals, one on his right and one on his left. ³⁴Then Jesus said, “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.”

And they cast lots to divide his clothing. ³⁵And the people stood by, watching; but the leaders scoffed at him, saying, “He saved others; let him save himself if he is the Messiah of God, his chosen one!”

³⁶The soldiers also mocked him, coming up and offering him sour wine, ³⁷and saying, “If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!” ³⁸There was also an inscription over him, “This is the King of the Jews.”

³⁹One of the criminals who were hanged there kept deriding him and saying, “Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us!”

⁴⁰But the other rebuked him, saying, “Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? ⁴¹And we indeed have been condemned justly, for we are getting what we deserve for our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong.” ⁴²Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”

⁴³He replied, “Truly I tell you[,] today[,] you will be with me in Paradise.”

If you remember, Luke uses “people” for those who followed Jesus positively while not yet his disciples. He wrote that “the people stood by, watching,” (v. 35) in distinct contrast to the leaders who scoffed, probably directing their ridicule at the people as much as at Jesus.

Luke gave special attention to the centrality of forgiveness in Jesus’ ministry, and his is the only Gospel that records Jesus’ prayer asking forgiveness for those who crucified him and his welcoming to Paradise one of the criminals who was crucified with him.

On this Christ the King Sunday, we pay specific attention to how Luke identified Jesus as King in his crucifixion account. The leaders and the unrepentant criminal scoffed at Jesus as Messiah. But the soldiers mocked him as King of the Jews. Pilate’s inscription “This is the King of the Jews” expressed his contempt for all the Jews, not just the charge against Jesus. “What kind of king do you have, anyway?” But the criminal asked Jesus to remember him when he came into his kingdom. Had he seen or heard Jesus before? Or did he recognize in Jesus’ response that Pilate’s inscription and the soldiers’ mocking were true. Jesus was King, even if they couldn’t see it?

Luke forces us to ask: What kind of King is Jesus? By holding Colossians 1:11-20 up against the way Luke presents Jesus as King at his crucifixion, we get a paradoxical picture of Jesus, to whom we respond with approach and avoidance.

Pagans often considered their kings to be gods. Egyptian Pharaohs and Roman Emperors expected to be revered as divine. But Israel never assigned divinity to her kings. Even the greatest were flawed humans. Colossians pointedly emphasizes that the fullness of God dwells in this King who is the image of the invisible God.

Colossians defines the mission of this God-King in terms of redemption and forgiveness of sins, making peace through the blood of his cross. That takes us directly to Luke’s presentation of Jesus as King at his crucifixion. What kind of King is Jesus? He is a Redeemer-King who gave himself to welcome us into his Kingdom.

Jesus welcoming the criminal Paradise is a puzzle. We may not solve the puzzle, but pondering it sheds light on Jesus as Redeemer-King. Where was Jesus, what was he doing between his death on the cross and his resurrection? Some have suggested he was in Paradise, since he told the criminal, “today you will be with me in Paradise.” Luke did not use punctuation, so the comma in our English translations could go after “today,” as I told the passage. The Apostle’s Creed says “He descended into hell.” More recent translations say “hades” or “the dead.” Though falling out of favor in our time, one theory is that Jesus actually went to hell to take our eternal punishment in that compressed time. As our Disciples forbearers recognized The Apostle’s Creed is not Scripture but a human document. Nevertheless, twice 1 Peter says that Jesus proclaimed the Gospel to the dead in prison (3:19; 4:6) which seems to have been during the time his body was in the tomb. The Eastern Church calls this “The Harrowing of Hell” and shows it in icons as Jesus breaking down the gates of hell to liberate those held prisoner there. The details are fascinating but too complex to fit in this sermon. When Peter made his confession in Matthew 16:18, Jesus said that the gates of hell could not prevail against the Church. In Jesus’ time a city’s gates were to keep invaders out, and not for pursuing enemies.

Since Jesus broke down its gates and invaded hell, we do not need to be afraid of the gates of hell. Hell needs to be afraid of us. As Redeemer-King, Jesus sends us as his agents on his mission to liberate hell’s prisoners.

On the same day John Kennedy was shot, November 22 fifty years ago, C. S. Lewis died. Michael Ward, Senior Research Fellow at Blackfriars Hall, University of Oxford, wrote a commemorative article in this month’s Christianity Today. He wrote that C. S. Lewis is in many ways closer to our postmodern contemporaries than he was to his own. “Our challenge in this post-Christian world is not so much to prove that Christianity is true as to show that it has meaning.” (p. 41)

A little later in the 60s, Karl Barth wrote in “The Rationality of Discipleship” that Christians don’t need to argue better than atheists, they need to live better.

Perhaps you know that the arguments of the new atheists do not revolve around rational or empirical proofs but around the violence and damage perpetrated in the name of religions through the centuries. In such an environment, evangelism must radiate meaning and living, not philosophy. Shallow appeals to let Jesus solve your problems don’t cut it either. In our time, the essential ingredient of evangelism is the approach avoidance reality of our own relationships with God through Jesus in the challenges of life – individually and together. Mark Galli defined it this way. “Perhaps evangelism is not so much one hungry person telling another hungry person where to find bread, as one terrified person telling others where they can go to experience this beautiful fear.” (p. 48)

To learn more about "The Harrowing of Hell" go to
 http://nstolpewriting.blogspot.com/2012/02/questions-about-puzzling-passage-1.html

The Best is Yet to Be

Haggai 1:15b-2:9; Luke 20:27-38

November 10, 2013

© 2013

Robert Browning began his 1864 poem Rabbi Ben Ezra with these memorable lines.

Grow old along with me!

The best is yet to be,

The last of life, for which the first was made:

Our times are in His hand

Who saith "A whole I planned,

Youth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor be afraid!''

The poem was inspired by the life of twelfth century Rabbi Ben Ezra but is not his biography. Underneath the words are the love of Robert Browning and his wife Elizabeth Barrett Browning who had died in 1861. Theirs was one of the great love stories and marriages of literature. They did not get to grow old together as he was 49 when she died at 55. Yet his words brim with hope not grief. Candy and I are coming up on 45 years of marriage, three times as much as the Brownings enjoyed, and we can also affirm love’s improvement with age as I know many of you can as well.

Our daughter-in-law Leanne turns 40 this month. Maybe she’d rather I didn’t broadcast that. I commented to Candy that when I turned 40 I felt I had finally become a real adult, and she quipped about putting “welcome to adulthood” on Leanne’s card. Of course, we didn’t. Now that we are closer to 70 than 60, I’m feeling a certain calm and confidence of soul I had neither known nor expected.

Browning suggested “trust God,” “see all” and “be not afraid.” We are invited to grow old on our journeys accompanied by the eternal God. Aging isn’t easy, but concluding a full life is satisfying. At his 80^th birthday, my Dad told his children, grandchildren and great grandchildren that he had accomplished all he had hoped in his life and had no unresolved relationships. Our son David still refers to this as “Grandpa’s nunc dimitus” from Simeon’s song in Luke 2:25-35. “Now let your servant depart in peace.” We can live each day in hope that what lies ahead outshines what is left behind.

The prophecy of Haggai we read this morning comes when the people of Judah had returned to Jerusalem from Babylon and were rebuilding the Temple. After about 70 years, some of them remembered seeing Solomon’s Temple when they were children. Not only was that much more glorious than the one being built by Zerubbabel, but I’m sure that in their childhood memories Solomon’s Temple was gigantic and spectacular. What they saw now was as nothing in their sight. (Haggai 2:3)

But Haggai delivers an amazing word of encouragement from the Lord of Hosts, “The latter splendor of this house shall be greater than the former.” (Haggai 2:9) This suggests physical splendor, but the New Testament recasts the Temple in terms of the coming messiah and God dwelling among the community of faith. Haggai 2:6‑7 hints that the later splendor of the Temple will be unexpected, even cosmic, and come as God shakes heaven and earth, sea and land, and every nation.

I want to be careful not to allegorize Haggai or inappropriately apply his prophecy to 1^st Christian Church of Odessa, but I think we can relate to the message. Remembering past decades can leave us feeling about the present, that is seems as nothing in our sight. I suggest we can claim God’s word through Haggai, “Take courage, the later splendor shall be greater than the former.” But just as then, it will come with God’s great shaking, and what emerges will be different than what we remember.

Todd is a friend of our son David and around 40. This week he posted on Face Book, “OK I know I'm old but the world was a better place without bitstrips and hashtags.” Nostalgia easily distorts our perspective on the present. We long for what was familiar and are bewildered by changes coming faster than we can assimilate them. Even when conditions deteriorate, we can trust God that we are headed toward a latter splendor that shall be greater than the former. We can live each day in hope that what lies ahead outshines what is left behind.

In Luke 20:27-40, Jesus anchors this hopeful perspective on the future in our relationship with God.

Some Sadducees, those who say there is no resurrection, came to [Jesus] ²⁸and asked him a question,

‘Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies, leaving a wife but no children, the man shall marry the widow and raise up children for his brother. 

²⁹Now there were seven brothers; the first married, and died childless; ³⁰then the second ³¹and the third married her, and so in the same way all seven died childless.³²Finally the woman also died. 

³³In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife will the woman be? For the seven had married her.’

34 Jesus said to them, ‘Those who belong to this age marry and are given in marriage; ³⁵but those who are considered worthy of a place in that age and in the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage. 

³⁶Indeed they cannot die any more, because they are like angels and are children of God, being children of the resurrection.

³⁷And the fact that the dead are raised Moses himself showed, in the story about the bush, where he speaks of the Lord as the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. ³⁸Now he is God not of the dead, but of the living; for to him all of them are alive.’ 

³⁹Then some of the scribes answered, ‘Teacher, you have spoken well.’ ⁴⁰For they no longer dared to ask him another question.

As children of the God of the living, we belong to the resurrection, which means however good or bad things may seem at the moment, the best is yet to be. Though we are still living in this age, we belong to the age of the resurrection. That does not mean ignoring the present age but bringing resurrection hope to bear on daily realities.

We see our human relationship through resurrection eyes. Almost all of the young people on one high school mission trip to Syracuse, NY had a sibling in the group. Our Bible studies were about how to get along as sisters and brothers in the family and in the church. At the end of the week, my oldest son Jon, wrote a “nurture note” to me that he signed, “Jon, your son and future brother.”

As children of the resurrection, we are living into God’s future today, confident that what lies ahead outshines what is left behind. In a world of pessimism, our mission is to welcome discouraged folk into a relationship with the God of the living.

Jesus’ conversation with the Sadducees suggests both continuity and discontinuity between this age and the resurrection. I have found Paul’s analogy in 1 Corinthians 15:38, 42-44 helps me grasp this.

As for what you sow, you do not sow the body that is to be, but a bare seed, perhaps of wheat or of some other grain.

So it is with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable, what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power. It is sown a physical body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a physical body, there is also a spiritual body.

If you look at a seed of any kind: a grain of wheat as Paul suggested or an acorn, you would not guess from the seed what the mature plant looks like. Yet, the DNA in every cell of the seed not only includes all the instructions for the mature plant, it is present in every cell of the mature plant. Of course, Paul did not know about DNA, but he knew wheat seeds only produced wheat, not oak trees or squash vines. God gives our mortal bodies resurrection life, which will be as much more glorious as an oak tree is more glorious than an acorn. Yet, they are intrinsically connected. So as a child of the resurrection, I am not waiting in the dark for something better but am germinating now so we can live each day in hope that what lies ahead outshines what is left behind.

Unlikely Heir

Habakkuk 1:1-4; 2:1-4; Luke 19:1-10

November 3, 2013

© 2013

On All Saints Sunday I appreciate the opportunity to remember with thanks those from our midst who have gone ahead of us. Following the New Testament, we consider all who have trusted Jesus to be saints, not just an elevated elite.

Nevertheless, we all know certain folk whose faith stands out and inspires. Think of someone you know personally whom you consider a most exemplary, spiritual Christian. This needs to be someone you know, not a public celebrity, not an historical or biblical character. I’d even exclude pastors as our public personas can be misleading. Do you have one person in mind? What qualities made you select them? How do you think they got that way? I suggest your answers as stimulating Twitter material.

Next a harder question. Can you think of someone whose spiritual credibility you initially dismissed, only to later discover significant depth of faith? Some of you may remember on September 1 I told about Bill Goodhart, the homeless man who engaged me in conversation about his contemplative life and the writing of Thomas Merton.

 Today we encounter the very familiar story of Zacchaeus. When we think we know the story, gaining fresh insights can be difficult. Today bullying is getting a lot of attention, and not just for children. Adults give and receive bullying too. Ask yourself if Zacchaeus might have been a victim of bullying?

To help us hear Luke 19:1-10 fresh, I’m going to tell it from Eugene Peterson’s paraphrase The Message. You may wish to follow along in the pew Bible on page 100 for comparison.

^1-4 Then Jesus entered and walked through Jericho. There was a man there, his name Zacchaeus, the head tax man and quite rich. He wanted desperately to see Jesus, but the crowd was in his way—he was a short man and couldn’t see over the crowd. So he ran on ahead and climbed up in a sycamore tree so he could see Jesus when he came by.

^5-7 When Jesus got to the tree, he looked up and said, “Zacchaeus, hurry down. Today is my day to be a guest in your home.” Zacchaeus scrambled out of the tree, hardly believing his good luck, delighted to take Jesus home with him. Everyone who saw the incident was indignant and grumped, “What business does he have getting cozy with this crook?”

⁸ Zacchaeus just stood there, a little stunned. He stammered apologetically, “Master, I give away half my income to the poor—and if I’m caught cheating, I pay four times the damages.”

^9-10 Jesus said, “Today is salvation day in this home! Here he is: Zacchaeus, son of Abraham! For the Son of Man came to find and restore the lost.”

A number of commentaries from a variety of backgrounds point out that neither Jesus nor Luke said anything about Zacchaeus repenting or quitting tax collecting. They also observed that the verbs in Zacchaeus’ response are present tense, though most English translations make them future tense. Also you may remember that Luke often used the word “crowd” when a group around Jesus was out of sync with him, which Luke does in v. 3. I am not suggesting that the conclusions drawn from these observations are necessarily correct, but I offer them to enrich and stimulate your thinking about Zacchaeus.

All through Luke we have been seeing how Jesus welcomed the poor who were outcasts. Now we see Jesus welcome a wealthy outcast and scapegoat.

With the verbs in present tense, Zacchaeus may have been saying that all along he was giving away half of his income to the poor. And not that he was purposely cheating, but when he miscalculated someone’s taxes, he paid them four times the error.

Jesus introduced Zacchaeus to the crowd saying, “He too is a son of Abraham.” He belongs to the same community you claim to. He’s one of you, even though you treat him as a scapegoat for your being under Roman occupation.

Like Abraham, whom God blessed to be a blessing (Genesis 12:1-3), Zacchaeus gave away his wealth to bless poor folk, and he corrected abuses of the tax system at his own expense. By calling Zacchaeus a son of Abraham, Jesus wasn’t just saying he’s gotten on the right track now, he was telling the crowd that Zacchaeus was living by his faith as Abraham did. (Genesis 15:6)

Habakkuk 2:4 says that the righteous (or just) live by their faith (maybe better, faithfulness).

In the context of God’s answer to Habakkuk’s complaint, this line can fly by almost unnoticed, but it shows up three times in the New Testament at the core of the Gospel: Romans 1:17, Galatians 3:11 and Hebrews 10:38.

Whether Zacchaeus had already been living by his faith or began to live by his faith when Jesus encountered him, Jesus declared him a son of Abraham, who is the model of biblical faith. As is clear from Habakkuk and from Zacchaeus, faith is a lot more than agreeing to some correct information about God and ourselves. Faith is the totality of our lives. But it is not a works-righteousness by which we appease God. Rather is a whole way of life integrated around trusting God through Jesus.

So, whether or not Zacchaeus changed at this point, by calling him a son of Abraham, Jesus called the community to live by their faith and receive Zacchaeus as one of their own. Salvation for the community of faith comes when we recognize righteous scapegoats and receive them as one of our own.

Our question may not be, “How are we like Zacchaeus? How can we become heirs of Abraham?” but “How are we like the crowd? Who are our Zacchaeuses whose righteousness and faith we can recognize and receive them as one of us?”

Recognizing and receiving our Zacchaeuses as one of us starts with recognizing ourselves as scapegoats who live by our faith. The testimonies we heard this summer were wonderful witness to how God, sometimes through this congregation, transformed scapegoats into heirs of Abraham. I’d like to keep having a testimony about once a month in worship. If you’re ready see Regina or me.

Habakkuk opened his complaint to God by asking, “How long?” On this interim journey, with the possibility of more cooperation if not merger with Bethany Christian Church, many fresh ideas for reaching out to the people of Odessa are bubbling up. As we go from week to week, we can be impatient for faster progress, maybe even get discouraged. We need to hear God’s answer to Habakkuk in 2:3, “There is still a vision for the appointed time. Wait for it; it will surely come!”

One of the perennial issues of church growth is how to engage in authentic evangelism and not just shuffle Christians from one congregation to another. Dynamic preaching and razzle-dazzle music may entice some church members to switch congregations, but the unchurched and de-churched people around us don’t notice. Spiritually hungry people respond to authentic relationships and fearless engagement with their struggles. Our Disciples of Christ movement arose in the revivalist environment of the Second Great Awakening that emphasized a moment of conversion. Today, people with little if any church experience respond to relationships in a community that welcomes they with love. As they experience the reality of Christ’s presence and are exposed to the Gospel lived in relationships, they discover that they have decided to trust Jesus and become his disciples. That kind of evangelism happens with hospitality that intentionally invites and includes those may not seem like they are one of us into the middle of our shared life in Jesus. Salvation for the community of faith comes when we recognize righteous scapegoats and receive them as one of our own.

Reform and Restore

Joel 2:23-32; Luke 18:9-14

October 27, 2013 – Reformation Sunday

© 2013

Once there was a rabbi who was at the point of death, so the Jewish community proclaimed a day of fasting in the town in order to induce the Heavenly Judge to commute the sentence of death. On that very day, when the entire congregation was gathered in the synagogue for penance and prayer, the town drunkard went to the village tavern for some schnapps. When another Jew passed him on the way to synagogue, he rebuked him, saying, “Don't you know this is a fast-day and you're not allowed to drink? Why, everybody's at the synagogue praying for the rabbi!” So the drunkard went to the synagogue and prayed, “Dear God! Please restore our rabbi to good health so that I can have my schnapps!” The rabbi recovered, and it was considered a miracle. The Rabbi said to the: “May God preserve our village drunkard until he is a hundred and twenty years! Know that his prayer was heard by God when yours were not. He put his whole heart and soul into his prayer!” (A Treasury of Jewish Folklore: Stories, Traditions, Legends, Humor, Wisdom and Folk Songs of the Jewish People, Edited by Nathan Ausubel, © 1948, Crown Publishers, Inc., New York page 161)

We laugh at this very human folk story. See if it helps you hear Jesus’ story in Luke 18:9-14 with fresh ears.

[Jesus] also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt: ¹⁰“Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.

¹¹The Pharisee, standing by himself, was praying thus, ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. ¹²I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of all my income.’

¹³But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even look up to heaven, but was beating his breast and saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’

¹⁴I tell you, this man went down to his home justified rather than the other; for all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted.”

Luke put this story right after the parable of the widow and the unjust judge Regina preached on last week. Luke wrote that Jesus told that one to teach us to always pray and not lose heart. This one is also about prayer. It is not about our attempts at righteousness or even our self-improvement. Our situation is always hopeless, but God is the master of the impossible. When you pray, do not justify yourself, just ask God for mercy!

The Prophet Joel did not suggest that the people of Judah finally achieved some modicum of righteousness, but that God would pour out the Holy Spirit to empower them for the impossible. Spiritual renewal and restoration would spring from humble dependence on God’s mercy.

I chuckled when I saw that the day we’d be receiving our stewardship pledges for 2014, we’d hear Jesus’ critique of the Pharisee who bragged that he gave a tenth of all his income. Jesus wasn’t criticizing his tithing but his bragging about it and using it to justify himself to God. So if your pledge is based on a tithe, you can’t use this story as an excuse not to give 10%. Tracing to the examples of our parents, Candy and I have tithed for the entirety of our almost 45 year marriage. I’m not bothered if you want to lump us in with the Pharisee because I told you that, but I can say we’ve never regretted it.

Generous giving (without talking about it) reinforces humility and dependence on God’s mercy. When our perspective is that we are giving to God rather than the institution that receives the money, we release our claim to control what happens to that money and our sense of owning it. I’m not suggesting we don’t need to make wise choices or that institutions don’t need to be accountable, but that our humility is spiritually nourished by releasing our gifts. We all know about some philanthropists who seem to be motivated by pride. They make large donations that really purchase getting their names on buildings, not that that is wrong, but it doesn’t have the same spiritual effect on the giver that releasing does.

When we give in a spirit of humility, our gifts become tangible prayers like that of the tax collector. We are in effect telling God we are letting go of our claims to control, ownership, pride and righteousness.

By letting go of whatever we claim as our own: wealth, accomplishment, even righteousness, we are open to receive God’s mercy. Spiritual renewal and restoration spring from humble dependence on God’s mercy.

With this parable, Jesus springs a spiritual trap on us. He knows we’ll switch our identification from the Pharisee – the good church member – to the tax collector – the outcast. We become as proud as the Pharisee that we are tax collectors. We discover that we regard the Pharisee with contempt and belong to those who trust in ourselves that we are righteous.

Since the Greek text doesn’t have modern punctuation, it is not clear whether “all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted” is Jesus’ conclusion or Luke’s explanation, but it is one of the most pervasive principles of the Bible. It comes between the two banquet parables in Luke 14:11. In Matthew 23:12, it comes in the middle of Jesus’ scathing criticism of the self-righteous scribes and Pharisees. It is quoted in James 4:10 and 1 Peter 5:6 as essential to discipleship and spiritual leadership. I found over a dozen similar sayings throughout the Hebrew Scriptures.

Humility as the path to exaltation defined the life of Jesus. In the Magnificat (Luke 1:52), Mary sang before Jesus was born that he would bring down the powerful and exalt the lowly. The great hymn of Philippians 2:6-11 celebrates that as Jesus humbled himself as a servant, God highly exalted him with a name above every name.

We experience God’s great reversal when we worship. Aware of our spiritual helplessness, we exalt God who welcomes us with great mercy. As the magnitude of this mercy dawns on us, we experience exuberant, exalted worship. Spiritual renewal and restoration spring from humble dependence on God’s mercy.

Today is Reformation Sunday. We celebrate, not only God’s renewing work in the Church in history almost 500 years ago, but also God’s renewing in our own time. Since the days of the Apostles, the Church has gone through many cycles of decay and renewal. Whether we feel like we are hanging on in a cycle of decay or on the verge of the next restoration, we can pray what has come to be known as “The Jesus Prayer” modeled on the prayer of the tax collector. “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on us. We are sinners.”

The Church should not be surprised at these cycles of decay and renewal. That was the pattern for ancient Israel for a couple of millennia. Joel wrote when people had lost hope in a decay cycle. He not only promised that renewal was coming, but that God would restore all that had been lost. I take this as a word of encouragement for this congregation. God is at work and days of renewal and restoration are ahead, even if we can’t see them clearly.

In keeping with what Jesus tells us about humble dependence on God’s mercy, Joel did not tell Judah that they could create the restoration, but that God would do it by pouring out the Holy Spirit. The future of 1^st Christian Church of Odessa does not depend on having the right programs or even on finding the right pastor. We don’t make it happen. We let God do it to, with and within us, which means humbly relinquishing control to God.

As you make your pledges today, I encourage you not to think of your money funding the future of this congregation but to think of it as a humble appeal to God to be merciful to this congregation. Think of it as a tangible prayer relinquishing yourself and the church to the Holy Spirit’s leading and power. I moved the sermon ahead of communion and the offering today so that they could be your response to having heard the call of Jesus.

The Other Nine?

Jeremiah 29:1, 4-7; Luke 17:11-19

October 13, 2013

© 2013

Like most churches started more than 40 or 50 years ago, 1^st Christian Church, Odessa can identify with the exiles who received Jeremiah’s letter. They had been taken from the comfortable security of Judah to unfamiliar, unsettling Babylon. They wished they could go back to a world they understood as quickly as possible. Older congregations in decline are both jealous and critical of mega-churches and baffled by the increasingly secular society in which church, religion and God are pushed to the margins if not rejected.

Judah’s Babylonian captors treated them as a zoo exhibit. “Sing us one of the songs of Zion.” They responded, “How can we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land?” (Psalm 137:4) Their discouragement was aggravated by unrealized, unrealistic expectations. Similarly today, talking about how churches used to prosper when the world was different only contributes to discouragement.

Instead of pandering to a false hope of a quick return to the familiarity of Judah, Jeremiah instructed them to settle down for the long haul in foreign territory. Seek the welfare of the city where you are, for in its welfare you will find your welfare. For today’s congregations, I think that means letting go of the booming church years of the 50s and 60s and settling into the 21^st century as foreign as it feels. Our welfare is tied to the time and place where God has put us now, not where God put our parents then.

Jeremiah offered the exiles in Babylon a practical plan: build, plant, grow and pray. Houses and gardens set down roots that nourish. Don’t wait for a better time; have children now. And above all, pray! Not just for yourselves but for the very people who carried you into exile. I think Jeremiah would tell us not just to pray for 1^st Christian Church, Odessa. He’d say to pray that the other churches in town will prosper too. There are plenty of people who don’t know Jesus to go around. Evangelism is not about competition between churches. Instead, pray for the people of Odessa who are not connected to Christ.

Congregations who struggle to keep up when they no longer feel comfortable in their world are tempted to view stewardship in terms of survival. How can we raise the money to pay the bills? This can lead to a discouraging downward spiral. Conversely, congregations who catch the vision of the spiritual welfare of the unchurched people around them find that stewardship is about mission. How can we develop the resources to introduce spiritually hungry people to Jesus? A focus on outward mission motivates compelling passion.

We are talking about a vision for mission in the Leadership Conversations, Prayer Triads, Merger Committee, Stewardship Committee, the Elders and the Board. As your interim pastor my job is to help you discern the mission to which God is calling you, not to define your mission for you. But my prayer is that this congregation will become a hospitable community who welcomes its neighbors into faith relationships with Jesus.

When stewardship is integral to a congregation’s vision for mission, it ceases to be a necessary function for responsible planning and budgeting and becomes an act of faith in God’s long-range purpose for the church. Making a pledge for the coming year is a commitment to what Eugene Peterson calls “a long obedience in the same direction.” It expresses confidence in God’s purpose regardless of short-term results. It is what Jim Collins in his book Good to Great imagines as turning a flywheel, not stopping too soon but building long-term momentum.

Like every stewardship campaign, you are being asked to prayerfully consider what God wants you to pledge for the mission of 1^st Christian Church, Odessa in 2014. I suggest you ask God what size of pledge would stretch your faith. Also ask God how your giving for the rest of 2013 could stretch your faith?

Many pastors are understandably reticent to say too much about money for fear of sounding like they want a bigger pay check. As an interim pastor I can be forthright about the importance of stewardship on the interim journey between pastors because my pay is already settled.

First, building stewardship momentum during the interim journey is important to maintain and build ministry momentum. We are not marking time and waiting. We are accelerating into God’s future for this church. Many churches slump on the interim journey by adopting a “wait and see what the new pastor is like” attitude. Don’t!

Second, the interim journey is the time to amass a generous start-up reserve so that when the new pastor comes with proposals for new ministries, you can get started right away and not lose time as you seek the resources to start new ministries. Instead you can capitalize on the enthusiasm of having a new pastor.

Third, good stewardship is essential for attracting top pastoral candidates. When they look at your congregational profile, they want to see that you are in good financial shape in the present and are financially prepared for the future. Solid stewardship in 2013 and 2014 will give your Search and Call Committee the confidence to offer a package to a top candidate that says, “We want you!” and not “We hope we can afford you.”

Stewardship expresses and nourishes our personal spiritual well-being. Last week we listened to Jesus say that faith as small as a mustard seed accomplishes great things. When our giving stretches our faith, we also trust God to set our priorities on the rest of our resources. When our giving stretches our faith, we get to trust God to meet our needs with what’s left. Jesus’ healing of the ten lepers in Luke 17:11-19 is a window into the practical spirituality of stewardship.

On the way to Jerusalem Jesus was going through the region between Samaria and Galilee. ¹²As he entered a village, ten lepers approached him. Keeping their distance, ¹³they called out, saying, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!”

¹⁴When he saw them, he said to them, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went, they were made clean.

¹⁵Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice. ¹⁶He prostrated himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him. And he was a Samaritan.

¹⁷Then Jesus asked, “Were not ten made clean? But the other nine, where are they? ¹⁸Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?” ¹⁹Then he said to him, “Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well.”

Gratitude is the highest spiritual motivation. When we appreciate all God has done for us in Christ, we switch from asking “How much should I give?” to “How can I find a way to give more to express my thanks?”

A healthy sense of responsibility is also a spiritual motivation if it doesn’t get distorted into guilt. All ten lepers were healed, and nothing suggests that Jesus took back that healing when they didn’t express gratitude.

That one out of ten expressed gratitude, echoes the truism that 10% of the people do 90% of the church’s work. I’ve heard it compared to a football game: 22 people desperately in need of rest and 50,000 people desperately in need of exercise.

You may know that in a Jewish synagogue certain prayers cannot be said without a minion of 10 heads of households (men in conservative and orthodox synagogues). This reflects a practical application of tithing and full community participation. If a small Jewish community in the diaspora wanted to start a synagogue and hire a rabbi, they needed ten heads of households who would commit to tithing. That way the rabbi could be paid what was average for them and the rabbi’s tithe paid synagogue expenses.

Personal involvement in mission is also spiritually motivating. Jesus was motivated to heal the lepers who were outcasts and very needy. The one who returned to thank him was a Samaritan, making him a double outcast. When Jesus told him his faith had made him well, he went beyond physical healing to spiritual wholeness. One of life’s greatest satisfactions is participating when Christ transforms people. That requires having personal relationships with the lepers and Samaritans around us. Mission driven stewardship provides the resources for such opportunities.

Convinced to Believe

Jeremiah 32:1-3a, 6-15; Luke 16:19-31

September 29, 2013

© 2013

I have had the privilege of getting to know Allan Eubank, a Disciples of Christ minister who has served as a missionary in Thailand since 1960. His book God, Are You Really God? tells the stories of Thai people who have trusted Jesus when challenged to ask God to address their lives’ trials. Allan’s evangelistic technique in a predominantly Buddhist culture takes a page from Psalm 34:8. “O taste and see that the Lord is good.” What would you say has or would convince you to trust Jesus and become his disciple?

Logical or empirical evidence or arguments from philosophy or science?

Mystical or miraculous experiences, either your own or for someone you knew or read about?

A relationship with a person of faith whose relationship with Jesus was authentic and compelling?

When the outlook seems bleak, listening to the Word of God convinces us to trust God has good in store for us. We read how Jeremiah heard the word of the Lord that he was to buy a field from Hanamel (vv. 6-7), and when Hanamel came to Jeremiah in prison and asked to sell him the field, Jeremiah knew it was the word of the Lord (v. 8).

This sale of land was according to the laws in Leviticus 25. In verse 23 God said, “The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is mine; with me you are but aliens and tenants.” Real estate was not thought of as private property at the owner’s disposal but as belonging to God and held in trust for the community and future generations. As Hanamel’s cousin, Jeremiah had not only the right but the responsibility to buy it to keep it in the family. What is 1^st Christian Church’s legacy held in trust for future generations of those who will follow Jesus?

Judah was under siege by the Babylonians when Jeremiah bought the field. It was a sign that as bleak as their situation seemed, they could hope in God who had a future for them. What signs of hope do you think God is giving 1^st Christian Church for a fruitful future?

The field that Jeremiah bought had already been occupied by the Babylonians. Buying it was not a wise fiscal investment, but it was a powerful act of faith. What act of faith can you take to express your confidence in God’s hope for the future of 1^st Christian Church?

The story of the rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16:19-31 is familiar but unique in all the Gospels. It is Jesus’ only parable with a named character. Lazarus means “God helps.” Since Luke did not introduce it as a parable, some have wondered if the rich man and Lazarus were real people who had recently died that his audience would have recognized. Yet, the story is clearly a parable and not a history or a theological exposition.

“There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. ²⁰And at his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, ²¹who longed to satisfy his hunger with what fell from the rich man’s table; even the dogs would come and lick his sores. ²²The poor man died and was carried away by the angels to be with Abraham. The rich man also died and was buried.

²³In Hades, where he was being tormented, he looked up and saw Abraham far away with Lazarus by his side. ²⁴He called out, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am in agony in these flames.’

²⁵But Abraham said, ‘Child, remember that during your lifetime you received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner evil things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in agony. ²⁶Besides all this, between you and us a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who might want to pass from here to you cannot do so, and no one can cross from there to us.’

²⁷He said, ‘Then, father, I beg you to send him to my father’s house— ²⁸for I have five brothers—that he may warn them, so that they will not also come into this place of torment.’

²⁹Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the prophets; they should listen to them.’ ³⁰He said, ‘No, father Abraham; but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’ ³¹He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’”

With exquisite literary eloquence Jesus told God’s reversal. Poor Lazarus was personalized with the dignity of being named while the self-important rich man remained anonymous. Lazarus was escorted by angels to Abraham, but the rich man was simply buried. As an indigent, Lazarus’ body would have been tossed into the burning garbage dump that had become the popular image of Hades, while the rich man had the honor of a burial. But Lazarus was comforted with Abraham, and the rich man found himself in Hades. In his luxurious life, the rich man ignored Lazarus’ agony, but begged for Lazarus to relive his agony with a drop of water.

To take this as teaching about details of what happens when people die in isolation from the rest of Scripture will miss the “ah-ha” insight Jesus was conveying. Invisible people are important to God. If we are in harmony with God, we will empathize with them and do what we can to relieve their suffering.

Jesus’ secondary insight is that people are not convinced by persuasive arguments or spectacular experiences. Whether Jesus pointed to his own resurrection in verse 31, that’s how the early church understood it. His opponents covered up evidence he had risen. While they may encourage believers, I’m skeptical that unbelievers are convinced by reading about someone’s vision of heaven after a back from death experience. When the outlook seems bleak, listening to Scripture convinces us to trust God has good in store for us.

John Stendahl, pastor of the Lutheran Church of the Newtons, Newton, MA, was “visiting a young man in a facility for people with severe brain injuries. He was agitated and eager to walk, so I joined him as he went from room to room as if he were searching for someone. Eventually we came to a big room that was not in use. At the far end a couple of janitors were at work buffing the floor. I saw that no one was sitting at any of the tables and said to the young man, ‘There’s nobody in here.’ Then, from the other side of the room, came the voice of one of the janitors. ‘What do you mean, nobody? We’re not nobody.’” Christian Century, September 18, 2013, p. 21.

Listening to Scripture opens our spiritual eyes to see invisible people as full humans, loved by God, valuable enough for Jesus to redeem. Listening to Scripture gives us God’s perspective on unchurched and dechurched people, people of all cultural and ethnic backgrounds, all socio-economic positions from homeless to executive, all generations. Rather than a nuisance or annoyance, God puts invisible people in our paths for us to see opportunities to give and receive love.

Jesus told the rich man his brothers should listen to Moses and the Prophets, which was shorthand for the Scripture they had. We also have the Gospels and Epistles. They would not have had printed copies but would have to go to synagogue to hear them read aloud. By listening to Scripture in community, we join the conversation God has been having with people for generations. In our post-print world we tend to think in terms of cookbooks and shop manuals, textbooks and self-help books. Listening to Scripture is much more than information to agree with; it changes our perspective and shapes our character.

Invisible people are all around us. They may not all be in physical agony as Lazarus was. Some are as hollow as the rich man was. Many are spiritually hungry and unaware of the nourishment available by listening to Moses and the Prophets, Jesus and the Apostles. Evangelism is not trying to convince people to believe the right facts about Jesus but to be met by him as Scripture overflows from us so they can listen.