Squeeze Until Love Oozes Out

Romans 12:9-21; Matthew 16:21-28

August 31, 2014

© 2014

I have used the selected scripture readings from the Common Lectionary for my personal meditation for over 30 years but only began using them for preaching when I started doing interim ministry. I exercise some freedom with this, but I don’t want you to think I picked out certain passages to send you pointed messages. Instead, I want to lead you in listening for the voice of God to speak from scripture into our circumstances as individuals and as a congregation. Typically, we will read the Epistle or sometimes the Hebrew Scripture passage before the sermon, and I will tell the Gospel as part of my message. As I have soaked in these passages for today, I have been aware that I’m preaching before I’ve begun to get to know you. As you listen for God today, see if you hear what I think I have been hearing. When we are squeezed by the pressures of life, the interior quality of our love comes out.

Everything we read that follows “Let love be genuine.” is a montage portrait of genuine love. It is not a check list of moralisms like Ben Franklin tried unsuccessfully to use for personal character development. Genuine love is not individual qualities but operates in relationships. Mary Hinkle Shore, pastor of the Lutheran Church of the Good Shepherd in Brevard, North Carolina said about this passage, “Don’t try this alone.” Because they happen in relationships, genuine love and life are messy. We are to give the same quality of love to those who are our enemies as to our dearest friends.

Jesus was never interested in exterior conformity to arbitrary rules but knew that interaction with people reveals our interior character. Twice he said, “Out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks." In Matthew 12:34 it was addressed negatively to his critics and in Luke 6:45 as positive encouragement to his disciples.

When Paul wrote that responding to enemies with love would “heap burning coals on their heads,” he was alluding to Deuteronomy 32:35 and quoting Proverbs 25:22. This is not ultimate revenge but about wooing hostile folk to the love of Jesus.

Jesus is neither the teacher nor example of genuine love, but its ultimate expression, embodiment and empowerment, which is apparent in Matthew 16:21-28. When we are squeezed by the pressures of life, the interior quality of our love comes out.

From that time on, Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.²²And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, “God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you.” ²³But he turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”

²⁴Then Jesus told his disciples, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. ²⁵For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. ²⁶For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life? Or what will they give in return for their life? ²⁷“For the Son of Man is to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay everyone for what has been done.²⁸Truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.”

Jesus’ redemptive mission was accomplished by totally giving himself away in genuine love for all of us who were in rebellion against God, which is celebrated by the hymn in Philippians 2:5-11.

Following Peter’s great confession (Matthew 16:15), Jesus began preparing the disciples for his suffering, death and resurrection. He repeated this until entering Jerusalem for the last time. Though they didn’t understand until afterward, his genuine love wanted them to be ready.

Peter’s reaction indicated that they were expecting a triumphant messiah, not a suffering servant.

We can all relate to Peter’s reaction. We naturally recoil from death, our own or that of anyone we love. We want to believe that choosing right actions produces positive results. We have a hard time accepting that redemption comes by suffering. When we are squeezed by the pressures of life, the interior quality of our love comes out.

As the Reformation unfolded in the 1500’s, violence was common between various Protestant and Roman Catholic princes and groups. Dirk Willems was arrested for belonging to a group that practiced believer’s baptism. He escaped prison in winter. Having lost a lot of weight on prison rations, he ran across a frozen lake to escape the soldier that was chasing him. When he heavier soldier fell through the ice and screamed for help, Dirk Willems went back to rescue him. Once pulled to safety, the soldier captured Dirk Willems and returned him to prison where he was burned at the stake as a heretic in 1569.

Maximilian Kolbe was a Catholic priest in Nazi occupied Poland. In his friary he hid refugees from the Nazis, including over 2,000 Jews. He was imprisoned in Auschwitz. In 1941 three prisoners disappeared, and the guards took ten men to be starved to death in a totally dark bunker to deter escapes. When one of them cried out, "My wife! My children!" Father Kolbe volunteered to take his place. He led the other condemned men in song and prayer and encouraged them by telling them they would soon be in Heaven. Each time the guards checked on him, he was standing or kneeling in the middle of the cell and looking calmly at those who entered. After two weeks of dehydration and starvation, only Kolbe remained alive. The guards gave him a lethal injection.

In one church I served, a man who had struggled with life for a long time, hit and killed a jogger with his car and fled the scene. In his despair he committed suicide. With their permission, the family of the jogger visited this man’s family to express their forgiveness and pray for them, saying, “We have both lost a son. May Christ comfort both of our families.”

Jesus told his disciples any who want to become his followers to deny themselves and take up their cross and follow him. To deny one’s self cuts across the grain of everything in our self-fulfillment society. What could Jesus possibly have meant? When we are squeezed by the pressures of life, the interior quality of our love comes out.

Some have objected that the image of the cross would have been unintelligible to the disciples before Jesus’ crucifixion, but crucifixion was used by the Romans in Judea, so they understood not only it’s horror but also Jesus’ teaching of voluntarily surrendering your own life as an expression of love for unlovable people.

The Apostle Paul picked up on the profound, fundamental significance of such self-sacrificing love in Philippians 3:10-11. “I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead.”

When I was explaining interim ministry to my mother, I told her I was not trying to make a church into a congregation I’d want to serve long term but to help them discover what kind of church God is calling them to be and helping them find the pastor God is calling to lead them to become the church for the mission to which God is calling them. Similarly, during your interim journey, the question is not about making your church suit your personal preferences but about letting go of what you’d like in a church to become a church that squeezes the love of Jesus all over people who need to know him.

My next sermon will be for August 31

The script below is for my last sermon as Interim Pastor of First Christian Church, Odessa, TX. I will be taking a two Sunday break from preaching. August 31 I will begin as Interim Pastor for Highlands, Christian Church, Dallas, TX. I expect to resume posting sermon scripts then.

Dreamers Beware!

Genesis 37:1-4, 12-28

August 10, 2014

© 2014

During our time together, I have witnessed God awakening First Christian Church from discouraged doldrums to a dream of boldly bringing Jesus’ radical hospitality to the people of Odessa. As I soaked in today’s story of Joseph’s brothers selling him as a slave, I was drawn into the driving force of Joseph’s dreams, though they were omitted from the reading. For summer Sunday school the church I served in Illinois used intergenerational family clusters. Each week a small group of singles, couples and families with children planned and led a learning experience for everyone. One summer when the theme was Old Testament characters, a family with five children was in the cluster assigned this story of Joseph. Those children immediately identified Joseph, not as a hero, but as a snotty, little brother tattletale. We still must ask, “How are we supposed to understand Joseph’s dreams?”

The text never identifies Joseph’s dreams as oracles from God, yet they foreshadow the events by which God would rescue them and the people of Egypt from severe famine. Given the sibling rivalry and parental favoritism Jacob brought into his family from his relationship with Esau, Joseph would have been wise to have kept his dreams to himself. But at least ten years later, when his brothers unknowingly came to him in Egypt for famine relief, he remembered his dreams, which seemed to prod him to “teach them a lesson.” (Genesis 42:9) Though Joseph had no further dreams, interpreting the dreams of Pharaoh’s cup bearer and baker and of Pharaoh himself put Joseph in the position of famine relief czar.

Joseph’s brothers’ reactions to his dreams are regrettably understandable. Beyond sibling resentment, they were the archetypical pooh-poohers of dreams. Without imagination they couldn’t see beyond their work.

I can’t say for sure whether God gave Joseph his dreams as prophecy, yet, God clearly was engaged with both Joseph’s annoying arrogance and his brothers’ distain.

I am convinced that God is the source of the dream of boldly bringing Jesus’ radical hospitality to the people of Odessa that can define this church’s future, much as other dreams of our time have defined our culture.

On September 12, 1962  at Rice University, President John Kennedy spoke of the dream of going to the moon.

Why, some say, [go to] the moon? Why choose this as our goal? … We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win.

On August 28, 1963 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his I Have a Dream speech at the Lincoln Memorial.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men are created equal.” I have a dream that little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today. I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and before the Lord will be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.

On October 11, 1971, John Lennon’s Imagine was released. Though it names religion, nationalism and wealth as what prevents the world from becoming one, it became the anthem for a generation. I believe the appeal of this dream calls for a more compelling dream from all of us who trust and follow Jesus.

You may say I'm a dreamer,

But I'm not the only one.

I hope someday you will join us,

And the world will be as one.

As we witness God awakening First Christian Church to a dream of boldly bringing Jesus’ radical hospitality to the people of Odessa, we ask, “Who are the dreamers of First Christian Church?” I would suggest that the Search and Call Committee dared to dream boldly about the future of this church as they interviewed candidates. As spiritual leaders, the Elders have prayed to have a dream from God for this church. The Merger Committee that became the Mission Task Force has brainstormed myriad ways to live into the dream of God’s exciting future mission. The Board has acted with faith to proceed with bold steps into God’s future for this church.

For what are these dreamers dreaming? You know they are not dreaming of going back to the 50’s and 60’s. Nor are they dreaming of copying the mega-churches. Rather, this church’s dreamers are dreaming of becoming a unique community of faith extending Jesus’ hospitality to the people of Odessa. They are dreaming of God making a connection between specific people and resources of this congregation with specific people and opportunities in the community. They are dreaming of more than a collection of programs that help people but of a complete identity and mentality of becoming the means of Jesus’ hospitality transforming the fabric of Odessa.

Just as Joseph’s brothers ridiculed and discounted his dreams, attitudes are the greatest obstacles to realizing these dreams for First Christian Church. Some of the most disabling attitudes are those that discount the church’s capacity to realize the dreams: “We’re too few.” “We’re too old.” “We don’t know how.” “We’re not strong enough.” Some of the most debilitating attitudes turn the focus inward. “We have all we can do to take care of ourselves.” Anxiety about how new people will change the church can also interfere with reaching out into our very diverse society. “Those people are not like us.”

Whether Joseph’s dreams were prophecy or not, they clearly came from God, and God saw to it that they were realized. I believe these dreams for First Christian Church also come from God, and God is the driving power for their realization. Attitudes of faith, daring, courage, risk-taking all open the way for actions that bring the dreams into reality. Like all of us, Joseph went through many hardships and difficulties on the way to the realization of his dreams. Nevertheless, passionate devotion to a dream that comes from God is unstoppable.

During our time together, I have witnessed God awakening First Christian Church from discouraged doldrums to a dream of boldly bringing Jesus’ radical hospitality to the people of Odessa. My last pastoral word to you is, “Dream on! And follow your dreams!” You are well on your way to answering, “How do we discern God’s dream for First Christian Church?” Your Search and Call Committee, Elders, Board and Mission Task Force have an abundance of raw materials from which God is building your unique dream.

Some of you may know that a little over a year ago I had received simultaneous offers from this church and another to serve as interim pastor. Perhaps the most significant reason we decided to come here was the confidence and hope the Search and Call Committee conveyed that they believed this church could have a future they had barely begun to dream about. While I know my work is done here, I am anticipating with excitement to see how your dreams come true. I’m dreaming of spiritually hungry people getting to know Jesus because of you. I’m dreaming of all of Odessa knowing you as those who practice Jesus’ radical hospitality. I’m dreaming of a multitude of interlinked community service missions that make a difference in people’s lives. I’m dreaming of people engaged in vigorous Bible investigation and energetic worship. I’m dreaming of people of all ages, all socio-economic levels and all ethnic backgrounds gathered in the name of Jesus by this congregation.

A few weeks ago, the slip of a couple of small details cued me that Joe and Dawn Weaks were the Search and Call Committee’s pastoral candidate finalists. Since I know them, it took some discipline to say nothing and avoid influencing the process. Now that you as a congregation have made that decision, I enthusiastically affirm your choice! I have had some interaction with them and know that the dreams for what this church can become were central and to their enthusiastic willingness to accept the call to come as your pastors. I know none of us are infallible, but I encourage you to follow their lead as you pursue God’s dreams for this church.

I know that some people are leaders and some are followers. I know that some are dreamers and some are doers. Finding the place that fits you in making dreams come true is one of life’s most exhilarating and satisfying experiences. I also know that some people are like Joseph, annoying people by blabbing their dreams. And some people are like Joseph’s brothers, squelching dreams at every turn. If you are feel inclined to be either a Joseph or one of his brothers as the new era of mission for First Christian Church gets underway this fall, I encourage you to make a personal appointment with Dawn or Joe to listen to each other and pray together. I will no longer be your pastor, but if you welcome them as you welcomed Candy and me, they will be wonderful pastors for you.

Wild, Wonderful Wrestling

Genesis 32:22-31

August 3, 2014

© 2014

I urge you to wrestle with God until this church is blessed with a bold new mission identity that discloses the face of God. Wrestling with God is often, wrongly assumed to be a sign of faltering, feeble faith.

After at least 14, but probably 20 or even more years, of growing under painful tutelage as the nephew/son-in-law of Laban in Haran, Jacob was about to begin his life destiny as the leader of God’s covenant community in Canaan. Wrestling with God was the boundary, turning point, hinge between these two legs of his journey. His wrestling with God was deeply spiritual and mystical, but it was not a dream or a vision; it had a bodily reality. His hip as well as his heart carried the scar of that night for the rest of his life.

Two weeks ago, I mentioned Lucy and Aslan the Lion from C. S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia. When Lucy was first introduced to Aslan she asked, “Then he isn’t safe?” To which Mr. Beaver answered, “Of course, he isn’t safe. But he is good.” Wrestling with God cannot be safe, but it is good. God has welcomed wrestlers since the days of Job who compared his wrestling with God to a conversation with a whirlwind (38:4; 40:6). After Job had rejected the safe, pious talk of his friends and insisted on his challenge to God, God spoke to Job’s friends and said, “You have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has done.” (42:8)

I am convinced that many people outside of the church avoid church because they imagine us as piously superficial and out of touch with the inscrutable, tragic realities of our world. I am also convinced that many of them will come running to a community of faith that honestly wrestles with God and welcomes them to join in.

I urge you to wrestle with God until this church is blessed with a bold new mission identity that discloses the face of God. When you wrestle with God, don’t give up too easily but persist until God blesses you.

Like Jacob we are increasingly aware that he was not wrestling with another man or even an ordinary angel (if there is such a thing) but with “The Angel of the Lord,” that is with God. As is clear from Jacob’s dislocated hip, God could have easily escaped Jacob’s grip, but didn’t, so Jacob could tenaciously hang on until he extracted a blessing from God.

Like our instant gratification society, many churches try one program after another to kick start growth, and when they don’t get immediate results conclude, “That didn’t work,” and discontinue before something new would have a chance to take effect. J. Allan Petersen, whom I worked with in marriage and family ministry 35+ years ago, used to tell frustrated parents of teens and young adults, “Don’t count the score at halftime.” That applies to church ministry as much as parenting.

We find it admirably quaint that some past spiritual giants wore holes in their knees and in the floor where they knelt to pray. While we can pray without kneeling, I fear we have made prayer so casual, we are in no danger of wrestling with God when we pray. Fully 100 of the 150 Psalms are complaints and laments – giants of faith wrestling with God. The fourth century Desert Father Abba Agathon said, “Prayer is warfare to the last breath.” (The Sayings of the Desert Fathers, Tr. Benedicta Ward, 1975, Cistercian Publications, Kalamazoo, MI, p. 22)

I urge you to wrestle with God until this church is blessed with a bold new mission identity that discloses the face of God. A blessing that has been wrestled from God will inevitably give you a bold new mission identity.

The blessing God gave Jacob was a new name to go with his destiny as the leader of God’s covenant community. No longer Jacob, the sneak and cheat, but Israel, the one who wrestled with God and prevailed. He is still called Jacob 65 more times in Genesis and Israel only 23 times. Yet, Israel is the name by which his descendants were known, through whom the covenant with Abraham was fulfilled. British Rabbi Jonathan Sacks has said, “Faith is wrestling with God as Jacob once did.” Israel still identifies with the God Wrestler today.

Our society does not attach that kind of meaning and significance to names as was common throughout Old and New Testament times, and even in some other cultures today. Nevertheless, we know people acquire reputations by which they are known, and sometimes get a fitting nickname. We all had teachers we knew believed in their students. We all have neighbors who are known to be friendly and welcoming. We all know people in this church whose faith we admire. Churches, too, acquire reputations by which they are known in their community.

Even before we came to Odessa, in phone conversations about possible housing, we learned that First Christian Church was known as the downtown church with bells. As I talked to community people who came to Spaghetti Day, I learned that many people identified that event and the causes it supported over the years with this church. News coverage of the $5,000 check that went to Hope House this year communicated that this is a church committed to changing the Odessa community for the good. I know your new pastors are coming because they want to see that mission identity grow.

I urge you to wrestle with God until this church is blessed with a bold new mission identity that discloses the face of God. Through your face to face encounter with God, you will invariably disclose the face of God to others.

When Jacob realized he had been wrestling with God, he was awestruck if not terrified. He said, “I have seen God face to face, and yet my life is preserved.” He went from invoking “your God” when he spoke to his father Isaac, to bargaining that if God would take care of him, Jacob would claim Him as his God. Now, as he was about to assume the role for which God intended him before he was born, leader of God’s covenant community, he had been face to face with God. From now on God’s intimacy and immediacy would be readily apparent to him and all who came close to him.

God comes face to face with us in many different ways that are as individually distinct as our personalities are unique. At exactly the right moment, when we are sensitive and open, often when we are vulnerable, God converges all of our experience with the Bible, prayer and church through people who make the face of God unmistakably real. In Les Misérables, Victor Hugo wrote, “To love another person is to see the face of God.” Mother Teresa frequently spoke about seeing the face of Christ as she looked into the faces of those who were dying in the streets of Calcutta. I’ve mentioned before how when we were living in the Daybreak community with mentally handicapped folk, we learned to discern the presence of Christ in the pain of the core members. One young woman named Heather could not speak but she could sing. She sang along with the group as we sang in worship. When the group stopped singing, Heather often kept singing, as a kind of musical accompaniment to whatever was happening in worship until we got to the next song. In the house where Heather lived, she often sat for hours in a rocking chair singing, “Jesus loves Heather, yes he does, yes he does,” over and over again.

Our daredevil son David, who lives in Milwaukee, has adopted the opening lines of Poi Dog Pondering’s 1995 song Al Le Luia as a kind of personal anthem, “You should wear with pride the scars on your skin. They're a map of the adventures and the places you've been.” He had his face stitched five times before he started kindergarten. Axe in the leg, surgery to repair a dislocated shoulder, abraded face and shoulder when his bike handle bar broke in a 24 hour bike race (he rode in it again this weekend). Jacob, too, was scarred by wrestling with God. Yes, he got the blessing and the new identity for continuing the Abrahamic covenant, but his hip was dislocated, and he limped for the rest of his life. A face to face encounter with God will always leave a mark, a scar that points away from us to God. I am excited for what lies ahead for this church and the impact God will make on the people of Odessa through you. But you will receive wounds. Along the way you will feel tension in some relationships. You will have to let go of comfortable things you cherish. You will have to embrace new things that leave you uncertain and uneasy. Nevertheless, as you wrestle with God, you will be blessed with a bold mission identity by which the people of Odessa will see the face of God through you!

Honest Mirror

Genesis 29:15-28

July 27, 2014

© 2014

In her comments on the story of Jacob’s marriage to Leah and Rachel, Kathryn Schifferdecker who teaches Old Testament at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota says, “The swapping of brides on a wedding night (not to mention the fact that Jacob doesn't notice the switch until morning) would seem to be strange fodder for a sermon.”

When I started preaching with you, I said that we’d use the lectionary selections, albeit flexibly, to listen for a word from God for us. I must admit that though the story is familiar, hearing something I could understand as a word from God was harder than usual. I encourage you listen for God yourself and not take my words as God’s.

Two weeks ago as we watched the struggle between Esau and Jacob, we saw how God’s gracious, sovereign will was accomplished through the free will of flawed people. This week we see that God didn’t leave Jacob stranded with his flaws but was remaking him to be a suitable bearer of the Abrahamic covenant to bless all people.

As I have tried to live into this story of the polygamous marriages of Jacob, Leah and Rachel – looking ahead to adding their maids to this convoluted story – the word I am getting is that God’s gracious, unconditional love accepts us as we are and persistently prods us to grow up into Christ.

When Rebekah learned that Esau was planning to kill Jacob after Isaac died, she prepared to send him to her brother Laban for his safety. (Genesis 27:43) Independently, Isaac sent Jacob to his uncle Laban with specific instructions to marry one of his daughters. (Genesis 28:2) When Jacob met Rachel at the well, he responded with emotional tears and kisses (Genesis 29:11) I wonder if it was the same well where Eliezer found Rebekah to be Isaac’s wife. The text doesn’t say this, but I imagine him thinking, “Wow! She’s beautiful. Having her for a wife would be just great!” She seems to have responded positively too by running to tell her father. (Genesis 29:12) Laban ran to embrace and kiss Jacob. (Genesis 29:13) They seemed to be off to a great start for everyone.

But, yes, but! The sibling rivalry and family favoritism that fueled the disruptions in Jacob’s family in Canaan followed him to Haran and Laban’s family. This is a classic example of a basic principle of pastoral counseling. You cannot run away from your problems by changing locations (or spouses, or neighborhoods, or jobs). You carry them with you. Or as Cassius says in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars but in ourselves.”

What we read today is just the beginning of a story that would do the consummate soap opera writer proud. Jacob discovered that his uncle and father-in-law was a bigger cheat, sneak, swindler than he was. What seemed to be a good faith offer of fair pay for work seems to have been a scheme to marry off the less appealing daughter. He treated both Leah and Rachel as commodities, not at all the way the family treated Rebekah when she agreed to become Isaac’s wife. Seemingly to compensate for not being loved, God gave Leah children while Rachel remained childless for a long time. Starting with Rachel, the two sisters enlisted their maids to engage in a baby making contest and barter for Jacob’s attention with vegetables with legendary fertility qualities. As Laban’s flocks grew under Jacob’s care, Jacob began to build his own flocks, which were grazed a distance from each other. Though Laban kept changing the terms, with God’s blessing and apparent selective breeding, Jacob’s flocks became stronger and stronger, out-stripping Laban’s. Animosity and the call of God propelled Jacob to take his now large family and flocks back to Canaan. For whatever reason, Rachel stole her father’s family idols, which only added to the tension between Laban and Jacob. So they made a covenant to stay away from each other. On the journey to Canaan, God’s angels again met Jacob, and he called the place “God’s Camp.” Jacob was reminded of being encountered by God at Bethel, that we looked at last week, and assured that God had been with him during the difficult years in Haran, remaking him into a suitable leader to carry on the covenant with Abraham. And affirming that God would continue to be with him.

Laban was God’s mirror held up to Jacob so he could take an honest look at himself. Unlike the wicked queen in Snow White, who tried to kill the “fairest of them all” when the mirror answered honestly, Jacob was reshaped bit by bit as Laban banged up against his rough edges. James 1:23-24 also used the mirror as a motif for the Word of God that shows us as we are. We can choose to walk away and forget what we’ve seen or make amends when God’s gracious, unconditional love accepts us as we are and persistently prods us to grow up into Christ.

Have you ever recognized yourself in something that annoys you about someone else? I know I have. The story of Jacob and Laban tells us that this can be God’s way of getting us to grow up into Christ by taking an honest look at ourselves.

In the physical realm, coaches and trainers remind athletes that “no pain – no gain.” Similarly, while God’s unconditional love accepts us with all of our flaws, to leave us stuck with our shortcomings would not be love but cruelty. So even though an honest look in God’s spiritual mirror can be painful, it is lovingly intended to stimulate our growth to become more like Jesus.

The New Testament frequently speaks of growing up into Christ. I’ve posted several passages on the church’s Facebook page, on my blog and on Twitter at #FCCSUNDAY for you to explore that further. And I am intrigued at the three times the New Testament uses the image of milk as an encouragement for spiritual growth.

• 1 Corinthians 3:1-2 “I could not speak to you as spiritual people, but rather as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for solid food. Even now you are still not ready.”
• Hebrews 5:12-14 “You need milk, not solid food; for everyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is unskilled in the word of righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, for those whose faculties have been trained by practice to distinguish good from evil.”
• 1 Peter 2:2 “Like newborn infants, long for the pure, spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow into salvation.”

Since God’s gracious, unconditional love accepts us as we are and persistently prods us to grow up into Christ, none of us can use “that’s just the way I am” as an excuse for not growing toward Christ.

As I have reflected on this story of Jacob, Leah and Rachel, I have sensed God asking me to identify my growing edges where God is currently working to remake me. That exploration filled about 8 pages of my personal spiritual journal. I ask you the same question. What are your growing edges where God is remaking you?

Laban was God’s tool for remaking Jacob. Who are the annoying people in your life whom God may be using to remake you as they bang up against your rough edges? They don’t have to be people you necessarily think of as good spiritual examples. Laban certainly wasn’t. But with the right attitude, you can thank God for the gift of using them to help you grow up into Christ.

I know very well that the interim journey can be an uncomfortable, difficult time not just for the church as a community of faith, but for individuals as well. Uncertainty and competing and even conflicting hopes for the church's future can either push us to resist or open us up to God’s reconstruction in our lives. For this church, improvised summer worship adds to the discomfort. After the Praise Medley drawn from the first service, the rest of the service follows the plan of the second service. But the fit isn’t always smooth. We’re tweaking it every week to try to make it work as well as possible. Before long, we’ll be back to the regular schedule. Worshiping in a place and at a time we're not used to also keeps us off balance. The renovations in Fellowship Hall bring both anticipation and anxiety. I suggest the story of Jacob, Leah and Rachel encourages us to ask how God is using our discomforts to help up grow up into Christ.

We all need an honest spiritual mirror so God can remake us. The pastor of the church I served in New Jersey preached about the dangers of “hidden faults” and quoted Psalm 19:12. “Who can detect their errors? Clear me from hidden faults.” After the sermon, one of the Elders said to the pastor, “I don’t think I have any hidden faults. I think I know all the faults I’ve got.” To which the pastor responded, “The problem with hidden faults is that they are hidden.” Just as Laban was God’s mirror to help Jacob recognize and amend his faults, God sends us people, circumstances, and yes Scripture, as spiritual mirrors to prod us to grow up into Christ.

Growth Verses

Romans 8:29

For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn within a large family. 

Romans 12:2

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect.

1 Corinthians 3:1

And so, brothers and sisters, I could not speak to you as spiritual people, but rather as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ.

Ephesians 4:14-15

We must no longer be children, tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of doctrine, by people’s trickery, by their craftiness in deceitful scheming. But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ,

Hebrews 5:12-14

You need milk, not solid food; for everyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is unskilled in the word of righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, for those whose faculties have been trained by practice to distinguish good from evil. 

Hebrews 13:21

make you complete in everything good so that you may do his will, working among us that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen.

James 1:4

and let endurance have its full effect, so that you may be mature and complete, lacking in nothing.

1 Peter 2:2

Like newborn infants, long for the pure, spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow into salvation—

2 Peter 3:18

But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen.

Waking Up at the Gate of Heaven

Genesis 28:10-19a

July 20, 2014

© 2014

 

Jacob's Dream
William Blake
1805

We just read about Jacob waking from his dream and exclaiming, “Surely the Lord is in this place—and I did not know it!” Whether from sleep or spiritual stupor, have you ever awakened to discover God was right there with you?”

The last night of a high school mission trip our evening activity was small groups performing brief skits to represent the week. The first one was funny, and without planning, each one was more serious than the previous. The last group reenacted Jesus washing the disciples’ feet and then washed the feet of the whole group. In the quiet that persisted when they were done, one of the guys who projected an “I’m too cool for youth group” attitude and didn’t come often said, “Oh wow! God really is here!”

Close to death and knowing that the covenant promise would be fulfilled through Jacob, Isaac blessed him and sent him to Rebekah’s brother Laban to get a wife from the clan. Esau was planning to kill Jacob when Isaac died. With his mother’s help, Jacob not only obeyed his father’s wishes, but fled for his life from his brother. Seemingly by chance, Jacob came to a certain specific place where he dreamed of a stairway to heaven and woke to the realization the Lord was in this awesome place.

Just like Jacob, on your journey, God is beside you in every place whether you are awake to know it or not.

Do you have some personal sacred spaces you go to where you expect God to meet you?

Ancient Celtic Christians spoke of “thin places” where this world and eternity were so close together you could hear or see from one to the other. Dawn and dusk, when it is neither day nor night, are such holy times every day. The Benedictine hours of Lauds to start the day with praise and Vespers to end the day with prayer reflect this rhythm. Sacred spaces may be adorned with symbols of previous encounters with God, such as this church’s cross walls and the Good Shepherd window in the chapel.

Jacob apparently accidently stumbled into a place that was already recognized as a sanctuary, perhaps a solitary rocky peak. He unwittingly takes a stone for a pillow, which was sometimes done by those desiring an oracle from God. The “ladder” may have been like a stairway up the side of a Mesopotamian ziggurat that Abraham would have been familiar with from Ur. That would have symbolized a sacred connection between earth and heaven. Unlike pagan ziggurats, such as the Tower of Babel that were human efforts to climb to heaven, Jacob’s ladder was God coming to earth to visit a human.

The Elders did some thinking about what makes a sacred space when talking about renovating Fellowship Hall, which had once been this church’s sanctuary, to become a worship center without losing its multi-functionality. The stained glass windows were obviously critical. The arches are being played up for a sacred focus on the chancel. Some of a place’s sacredness comes from the celebration of important events such as baptisms, weddings, funerals and holy days such as Christmas, Easter and Pentecost. After Jacob’s encounter with God, Bethel continued to be an important sacred place for Israel until the destruction of the Northern Kingdom over 1,000 years later.

Jacob’s journey to a relationship with God poses a haunting question for us. Has your journey taken you from believing in God to an intimate relationship with God?

Several times in the 13 months I’ve been with you, I’ve quoted Father Thomas Hopko, retired Dean of St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Seminary in New York. He told the students preparing for ministry that his mother’s advice applied to them: if you want to grow as a Christian, read your Bible, say your prayers and go to church. These are at the core of all the spiritual disciples of every Christian tradition from every time of Church history. And sometimes as we sleepwalk through them, we wake up and discover that God is standing beside us and we did not know it. We feel the awe of being in the dwelling of God at the very gate of heaven.

When Jacob deceived his father Isaac into giving him the covenant blessing, thinking he was Esau returned quickly from the hunt, Isaac asked how he had been so fast. Jacob answered, “The Lord your God granted me success.” (Genesis 27:20) But now, after being personally encountered by God, Jacob said, “The Lord shall be my God.” (Genesis 28:21) As we shall see in the next two Sundays, God had a long-term plan for reshaping Jacob, but he was a changed man after being encountered by God at Bethel. His journey took a new, though not easy, direction.

Our faith often consists of theological convictions and religious practices. Those are important and can bring us to a sacred space or time when we awaken and discover that God has been beside us all along. Then, like Jacob, our journeys take a new turn toward an intimate relationship with God who is beside us in every place whether we are awake to know it or not. Among everything else, our spiritual disciplines and religious practices are transformed. We get a great picture of this from Brother Lawrence (1614-1691) whose book The Practice of the Presence of God records his spiritual insights while working in the kitchen in the Carmelite Priory in Paris. While the better educated monks did the “important” work of study, meditation, prayer and ministry, he washed pots and pans, and in his later years made sandals. He did recognize that his work enabled the other monks to engage in monastic disciplines from which he was excluded. We have no record of the insights of the higher monks, but we have his little book that records his friendship with Jesus who stood beside him in the kitchen.

What hints and clues let you know that Jesus is standing beside you?

I love one episode in C. S. Lewis’ Voyage of the Dawn Treader, from The Chronicles of Narnia. The Dawn Treader is the ship sailing to the edge of the world with the children who have come to Narnia from England. They arrive at the island of the Duffle Puds, invisible creatures who make a loud thumping noise as they move around. They want to become visible again, and Lucy agrees to go into the magician’s house to find the book of spells and discover and speak the spell for making the invisible, visible. With some trepidation, Lucy searches the house, locates the book, finds the spell and reads it aloud. She can’t see the Duffle Puds from there, but discovers that Aslan, the Christ-figure lion in the Narnia stories has suddenly appeared beside her. A little startled, Lucy asks, “When did you get here?” Aslan answers, “I’ve been with you all along on your whole voyage. You just couldn’t see me.” Lucy asks, “Then how can I see you now?” Aslan answers, “You said the spell for making the invisible, visible. So I appeared.” In astonishment Lucy asks, “Do I have the power to make you visible?” And Aslan answers, “Don’t you think I would follow my own rules?” By the way, yes, the Duffle Puds also became visible: dwarf-like people with one very large foot on which they hop around, thus the thumping noise.

God reiterated the Abrahamic covenant to Jacob. You will have descendants who will inherit this land, through whom God will bless the whole human race. Then God promised Jacob to be with him wherever he went, which must have been wonderfully assuring to him as he was going to be wandering in one way or another the rest of his life. This God without boundaries was dramatically different than the pagan deities who were thought to be tied to specific geographic territories. When people changed locations, they changed gods. This God who had promised to be with Jacob everywhere was God for all people – a radical concept then and even today as our society tends to treat religion as a cultural artifact rather than an intimate, personal relationship with God.

During this interim journey between pastors, we have been very aware of being in transition from the way things were to the way things will become. However, I can tell you with great confidence; you will not be going to a settled, static situation. You will be embarking on an ever changing journey into an uncharted future. I can also assure you that God will go with you wherever you go, just as God went with Jacob on his journey. Our personal and family lives are not settled and static either. Children and grandchildren grow up. We retire from careers. Babies are born and old people die. That’s not always easy, but it is inevitable and actually good. Whether you are awake to know it or not, God is beside you at every place on this journey. 

The Pieces Fit Together

Genesis 25:19-34

July 13, 2014

© 2014

The fairy tale love story of Rebekah and Isaac that we looked at last week did not end with “and they lived happily ever after.” We just read how it took a bitter turn that lasted the rest of their lives and played out through the whole second half of Genesis. In Genesis 50:20 after Jacob’s death, his son Joseph told his brothers who had sold him as a slave, “Even though you intended to do harm to me, God intended it for good.”

Knowing God’s covenant promise to Abraham was to be continued through them, twenty years of childlessness stressed the faith of Rebekah and Isaac. When they did have the twin boys – Esau and Jacob – sibling rivalry and parental favoritism undermined their love story until what Isaac and Rebekah shared was bitterness from Esau’s Canaanite wives (Genesis 26:35).

The story of Isaac and Rebekah as parents of Esau and Jacob is an eloquent if awkward dance of God’s sovereign will and deeply flawed human free will. God chose Isaac and Rebekah to continue the covenant promise to Abraham, and God chose to keep them childless for 20 years. With love and deep empathy for Rebekah’s anxiety, Isaac prayed for her to have a child. Probably many times through those 20 years.

God answered Isaac’s prayer, and Rebekah began a difficult pregnancy. In distress, Rebekah inquired of the Lord to understand what was happening. She received the oracle foretelling the struggles that would continue between her children for generations interminable. God did not just know she was carrying twins; God gave her these rival twins as part of God’s plan to bless all humanity through Abraham’s descendants.

Jacob comes off as a sneak and a cheat. But he knew the value of the birthright and blessing of the covenant. He was willing to swindle, cheat and lie to get it. Esau discounted its value so much he was said to despise it and was willing to sell it for a bowl of “red stuff.”

Today we would say the favoritism of Isaac toward Esau and Rebekah toward Jacob was dysfunctional. Rebekah even collaborated with Jacob to not only cheat her other son, but deceive Isaac who had loved her so passionately. Yet God used all of this to propel the covenant blessing forward.

We shall see in the next couple of weeks the disastrous effects of jealousy, favoritism, and deception. Yet, justice prevailed, spiritual sensitivity was sharpened, and covenant blessing proceeded, not in spite of but through the deeply flawed choices and actions of all.

For millennia, theologians and philosophers have debated and speculated whether humans have free will or is all determined by God’s sovereign will or even blind fate. The Jacob and Esau story does not resolve that issue but invites us to marvel at how God’s sovereign will and even deeply flawed human free will fit together. As responsible, free moral agents we trust God to work not just in spite of our flaws but through them.

We may recognize this in world events seen in the sweep of human history over the centuries, but we have trouble discerning God’s hand in the midst of a present catastrophe.

The cruel, ancient empires all collapsed: Egypt, Babylon, Persia and Rome, as did Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. But the chaotic conflicts that are shredding Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan today defy even knowing who to cheer for, much less figuring out how the United States or the international community can or should respond.

I have found an immensely powerful perspective in the Hebrew Prophet Habakkuk. He began by complaining to God about the rampant injustice among his own people.

O Lord, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not listen? Or cry to you “Violence!” and you will not save? Why do you make me see wrong-doing and look at trouble? Destruction and violence are before me; strife and contention arise. (1:2‑3)

God answered that judgment was coming from the Babylonians (Chaldeans).

For I am rousing the Chaldeans, that fierce and impetuous nation, who march through the breadth of the earth to seize dwellings not their own. Dread and fearsome are they; their justice and dignity proceed from themselves. (1:6-7)

Habakkuk objected to God using those who are so evil as agents of justice.

Are you not from of old, O Lord my God, my Holy One? You shall not die. O Lord, you have marked them for judgment; and you, O Rock, have established them for punishment. Your eyes are too pure to behold evil, and you cannot look on wrongdoing; why do you look on the treacherous, and are silent when the wicked swallow those more righteous than they? (1:12-13)

God answered to be patient because judgment would come to the Babylonians too.

For there is still a vision for the appointed time; it speaks of the end, and does not lie. If it seems to tarry, wait for it; it will surely come, it will not delay. Look at the proud! Their spirit is not right in them, but the righteous live by their faith. (2:3-4)

Habakkuk affirmed his trust in God when he still couldn’t see the pieces fitting together.

Though the fig tree does not blossom, and no fruit is on the vines; though the produce of the olive fails and the fields yield no food; though the flock is cut off from the fold and there is no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will exult in the God of my salvation. (3:17-18)

From Habakkuk I am learning to be patient with an always fluid flow of world events and watch for every expression of justice and peace as pointers toward the Kingdom of God in our messy world. I am learning to trust God’s sovereign will to fit together with the deeply flawed pieces of human free will.

Every congregation’s interim journey between pastors has many moving parts, and this church is no exception. Many of them seem to have nothing to do with each other. Some are planned and some seem random. Some seem to take steps toward the future and others slip back toward the past. Some are apparent but many are hidden until the last minute. As we reflect on Jacob and Esau today, I think we can learn as a congregation together to trust God to fit the pieces together.

During my time with you informal conversations about possibilities of merging with other congregations became serious exploration with Bethany Christian Church. We did a few things together: Trunk or Treat, children’s Christmas pageant, fellowship dinner. Both churches formed Merger Committees. Our Merger Committee met several times and envisioned many mission opportunities in Odessa, and concluded we could do almost any of these whether the merger happened or not. Of course, it didn’t but that committee became the Mission Task Force and continues to pursue our future mission.

We have taken some beginning steps toward greater mission presence in Odessa, starting with last summer’s service day. We have stepped up involvement with Meals on Wheels. The spaghetti day and resultant gift of $5,000 to Hope House was wonderful fellowship of service for our folk, a positive opportunity for our community, great help to Hope House which resulted in wide awareness of our church as committed to the good of Odessa.

Our shared interim journey and the search and call process are approaching climactic culmination. I hope you are all praying with earnest anticipation for God to fit all of the pieces together.

Last July 7, when I had just started this journey with you, I shared my testimony and told you how God used a fight in the church we belonged to in Illinois to start the process of calling me to pastoral ministry. God used another fight in the church I was serving in Wisconsin to bring us to Texas and into the Disciples. Both of those were painful experiences. I believe the combatants of their own free will chose words and actions that were not in harmony with God. Yet, I believe God worked in those events, not only for our family but for the others who were affected. We often quote from Romans 8:26-29 when facing difficult circumstances, perhaps too glibly.

Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn within a large family.

Rather than superficial assurance, I see this passage as not only a call to prayer, but to intense prayer beyond words, depending on the Holy Spirit’s intercession.

Rather than puzzling over how God’s sovereign will works without overriding my free will, this passage directs my attention to the purpose of God’s sovereign will: that I will be conformed to the image of God’s Son, Jesus Christ. How my perspective changes when instead of complaining about what is uncertain or uncomfortable, I focus on how God is shaping me to be a little more like Jesus every day!

Yes I have free will as a gift from God. That makes me a responsible moral agent who must live with the consequences of my decisions and actions. I am also affected by the freely chosen decisions and actions of others. However, our free will is not powerful enough to thwart the gracious sovereign will of God. So I am learning to trust God’s sovereign will to fit together with the deeply flawed pieces of human free will.