When Jesus had crossed again in the boat to the other side, a great crowd gathered around him; and he was by the sea. Then one of the leaders of the synagogue named Jairus came and, when he saw him, fell at his feet and begged him repeatedly, “My little daughter is at the point of death. Come and lay your hands on her so that she may be made well, and live.” So he went with him.
And a large crowd followed him and pressed in on him. Now there was a woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years. She had endured much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had; and she was no better, but rather grew worse. She had heard about Jesus, and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, for she said, “If I but touch his clothes, I will be made well.” Immediately her hemorrhage stopped; and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease. Immediately aware that power had gone forth from him, Jesus turned about in the crowd and said, “Who touched my clothes?” And his disciples said to him, “You see the crowd pressing in on you; how can you say, ‘Who touched me?’” He looked all around to see who had done it. But the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling, fell down before him, and told him the whole truth. He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.”
While he was still speaking, some people came from the leader’s house to say, “Your daughter is dead. Why trouble the teacher any further?” But overhearing what they said, Jesus said to the leader of the synagogue, “Do not fear, only believe.” He allowed no one to follow him except Peter, James, and John, the brother of James. When they came to the house of the leader of the synagogue, he saw a commotion, people weeping and wailing loudly. When he had entered, he said to them, “Why do you make a commotion and weep? The child is not dead but sleeping.” And they laughed at him. Then he put them all outside, and took the child’s father and mother and those who were with him, and went in where the child was. He took her by the hand and said to her, “Talitha cum,” which means, “Little girl, get up!” And immediately the girl got up and began to walk about (she was twelve years of age). At this they were overcome with amazement. He strictly ordered them that no one should know this, and told them to give her something to eat.
I confess that I find myself in a bit of a quandary this morning. My sensibilities about what is proper in worship mandate that the good news of God in Christ be proclaimed in some way during our time together – what we would ordinarily call a sermon. But, I also realize that this is the last Sunday I will stand in this pulpit as your associate pastor, and I really would like to take a few minutes of personal privilege and speak from my heart to yours about what these four years have meant to me. You see my predicament.
A few years ago, I saw a cartoon in a pastoral leadership magazine. The pastor stood at the pulpit, and all behind him on the chancel were boxes, appliances, and furniture. The caption read, “This morning, I’m going to say some things that have needed to be said for some time.”
This morning, I am going to say a few things that have needed to be said for some time. May we pray.
Our story today begins with a man named Jairus. He was an official in the synagogue, given the very special appointment of interpreting the Law, particularly regarding things clean and unclean. He and his wife prayed for years for a child, and finally, their prayers were answered. They were the proud parents of a remarkable girl. They loved her. They cherished her. They named her Talitha, which means “beautiful little girl.” She was a daddy’s girl. No father has loved his daughter quite the same. She was the apple of his eye. She put a song in his heart. And woe to any of the little boys in the village who wanted to date her.
When she was about 12 years old, she came down with a mysterious illness. They brought in the best doctors, but no one could do anything to make her better. She slowly became worse and worse, and every night, Jairus cried himself to sleep at the thought of losing her.
He woke one morning, and when he went out to get the Galilee Gazette, the neighbors were outside talking. There was a visitor in their town who had everyone excited. A carpenter from Nazareth who was also some sort of itinerant preacher. Someone named Jesus.
As it turned out, Jairus had already met Jesus. A few months earlier, Jairus went to one of his revivals out in the country. The truth was that Jairus was there to check him out. Some of his colleagues in the synagogue were a little nervous, and they sent Jairus out to see if he was breaking any of the purity laws.
Jairus found him to be a compelling and fascinating person. And while he spoke, something stirred within Jairus that had lain dormant for years. He felt alive. He felt his faith coming back to life. But right at the end of the revival, Jesus walked away from the microphone and off the platform and walked right over to Jairus. With great grace and gentleness, Jesus said, “Jairus, will you follow me?”
The first thing Jairus thought about was his job. He was an important person in town. He was an official in the synagogue, for goodness’ sake! He had a family to support! Be a follower of Jesus? How could he? What would everyone think? The cost was just too great.
Now, Jesus was in town. He had arrived with his entourage by boat, and was making his way from the shore through the center of town. Suddenly, it became clear. Jairus would go to Jesus. He made his way toward the town square, and you can imagine the scene. Everyone was there. Followers, skeptics, and the curious, vendors and merchants selling cheap trinkets trying to make a fast shekel.
Jairus pushed through the crowd. The people recognized him, and an excited whisper went from person to person. “It’s Jairus, from the synagogue!” Some wondered if he was there to accuse Jesus of breaking the law, or if he was going to throw his weight around and stop Jesus. Right there in front of everyone, though, Jairus knelt down, in full humility, not caring what anyone thought, Jairus said, “My daughter is at the point of death. Please, come lay your hands on her, that she may be made well.”
Jesus simply said, “Lead the way.” Jairus jumped up, grabbed him by the hand, and began to push back through the crowd toward his house. And then, he saw her. The bleeding woman. Jairus had driven her away from the synagogue more than once. She’d be there begging, but she could contaminate the whole place and everyone in it. Jairus saw her making a beeline for Jesus – stealthy, secretive, of course, but there was no doubt that she was zeroed in on Jesus. Jairus shot her a look that said, “Don’t touch him!” He knew that if she touched Jesus, Jesus would be unclean and unable to come and pray over his daughter until he had been purified, and by then, Talitha would be dead.
But it was too late. She touched the hem of his garment. Jesus immediately began to look around. “Who touched me?” he kept asking. Jairus wanted to lie and pin the blame on someone else in the crowd. Anyone other than that unclean, bleeding woman. But she confessed. It had been her.
But then, the most remarkable thing happened. Jesus looked at her, and called her “Daughter.” And suddenly, it all made sense to Jairus. As precious as his own daughter was to him, this woman was just as precious to Jesus. She mattered to him. The rest of the world had called her “unclean,” but Jesus called her daughter. And looking at Jesus, it was clear that Jesus loved her and cared for her deeply. She was not meant for the cruel labels the world had put on her, for she was a child of God.
The lesson was clear to everyone in the crowd that day. Call no one created in the image of God unclean. No one of God’s creating is beyond God’s redeeming. Every life, even the ones we don’t like, is an arena in which the glory of God can be revealed. As deeply as Jairus loved his own daughter, so Jesus loved this woman, and so he loves every man, woman, and child who ever has and ever will live. As is captured in one of the simple and profound children’s songs: “Jesus loves the little children; all the children of the world. Red and yellow, black and white:” (and here I add any and every other category of difference or distinction) “they are precious in his sight. Jesus loves the little children—and the youth, and the adults, and the old people—of the whole, wide, wonderful world.”
Jairus got it. Suddenly he didn’t care that Jesus was now unclean, because he recognized that the fullness of the power of God rested within him. I wonder what it would look like for us to recognize the power and presence of God at work within the very same people you and I are quick to call “unclean.” I pray for the day to come when we will not look solely on outward appearances, on distinctions and differences that we may not even understand, but when we will look for the power and presence of God to come through the very people we thought were the last people God would ever work through. I pray for the day when our own prejudices and judgmentalism will be overcome by the love of God shed abroad in the human heart.
But during this interruption, Talitha had died. Jairus’ heart sank. There was no sense in bothering Jesus anymore; death is final, and there is not a thing or a person who can overcome it. But Jesus simply turned to Jairus and said, “Where were we? Lead on.”
Jairus saw this woman as an interruption to his plans for Jesus. Perhaps you’ve heard it said that life is what happens to us when we’re making other plans. Often we see an interruption where Jesus sees an opportunity. Where we see an inconvenience, Jesus sees a situation in need of the love and grace of God.
They arrived at the house, Jesus looked around, and asked what all the fuss was about. The little girl was just taking a nap, he said. They laughed. Jesus emptied out the house of everyone but the girl’s parents and Peter, James and John. They went into the girl’s room, where Jesus took her hand and prayed for her for the longest time. Finally, he said, “Little girl, get up.” As he held her hand, she made the journey from death back into life, looked around the room, and reached up to her dad for a hug.
I have to admit that this part of the story got very personal for me all of a sudden. Three and a half weeks ago, I prayed beside the bed where my mom lay, I told her how much I loved her, and was holding her hand as she finished her earthly labor and joined the church triumphant. Then I read this text, and notice that Jesus is holding the hand of this little girl as she crosses the same threshold. Just as there was surely a palpable sense of God’s presence in that moment, there was the same sense in the room as I shared those moments with my mom. It is a certain holy privilege and God is certainly present in the midst of those moments.
Life is what happens when we’re making other plans. I hadn’t planned to go to New York that week, in fact, I had plans with many of you that were suddenly abandoned. But it was a holy interruption, and I wouldn’t trade the time I spent with my mom for anything in the world.
Friends, I would like to take this opportunity to thank you. To thank you for your many expressions of kindness and concern for me and my family over the past few weeks. But it goes beyond that. For the last four years, you have welcomed me more warmly than I thought possible. You have invited me into your homes and made me feel like a member of your families. You have invited me to share special and sacred moments in your lives. You welcomed my family when they came to visit. My mom loved coming to Boone. She referred to my home as her vacation home in the mountains. She and my dad always looked forward to their visits, and they looked forward to spending time with all of you as friends. And as well as they were treated indicated to them that you had all grown to love and care for me as much as I have come to love and care for you. It made them so proud to know that you had accepted me and my ministry among you as warmly as you have. Thank you for welcoming me.
I have been there for the birth of many of your children, I have prayed at bedsides and in hospital rooms as you said goodbye to loved ones. I have baptized some of you and your children, I have performed your weddings, I have buried your loved ones. You have listened to my sermons, worshipped with me around our Lord’s table, participated in my classes and Bible studies, and sought my counsel. It is a holy privilege to be invited into those intimate places in your lives, and it has been my honor to be there with you. Thank you for accepting my ministry here.
You allowed me to make my mistakes and keep learning and growing from them. I came to you still green around the edges and wet behind the ears. I had a great education, but little experience. Thank you for making my first experience in full-time ministry as wonderful, and rewarding, and fulfilling as these past four years have been. Seminary will give you a good theological education, but only a church can teach you how to be a pastor. You allowed me opportunities for continued growth and learning, and willingly forgave all of my human faults, failures, and shortcomings. Thank you for teaching me how to be a pastor.
You surrounded me with staff, lay leadership, and volunteers who are arguably the best team in all of United Methodism. I have learned so much from all of these people I have worked with on a daily basis, but more than that, I have enjoyed them. Even when the hours were long and the issues difficult, the day was always a bit brighter because of the people I would face those issues with. Thank you for surrounding me with those relationships.
From the bottom of my heart, I thank you. For the rest of my life, Boone United Methodist Church will hold a soft spot in my heart. In the years to come, when people ask me about my first church, I will pause, a slight smile will creep across my lips, and I will remember my appointment as your associate pastor for four years. I will say, “My first appointment was as the associate pastor of Boone United Methodist Church, and I wouldn’t have traded it for anything.”
Thank you.
God bless you.
I love you.
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Divine Investments - Acts 4:32-35
Now the company of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one said that any of the things which he possessed was his own, but they had everything in common. And with great power the apostles gave their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all. There was not a needy person among them, for as many as were possessors of land or houses sold them, and brought the proceeds of what was sold and laid it at the apostles’ feet; and the distribution was made to each as any had need.
I would like to welcome you to worship on this National Associate Pastor Appreciation Sunday, also known as the Sunday after Easter. See also Sunday after Thanksgiving, Memorial Day weekend, Fourth of July weekend, Labor Day weekend and Sunday after Christmas. All over the country, associate pastors are in the pulpit today, with the grueling schedule of Holy Week and Easter now behind us, breathing a bit easier, relaxing a bit.
But friends, today is still Easter. Easter is not a day or a season on the calendar that shows up only once and then disappears back into oblivion. Easter is a way of life in which we remember that the cemetery is empty and Christ is alive; this proclamation is the source of our hope. On this first Sunday after Easter, we are not here to coast for a week. We are here to celebrate the resurrection, and from the book of Acts, we learn of an instance in the early church in which they proclaimed the power of the resurrection, and their lives were changed because of it. May we pray.
Not long ago, I was talking with a waitress at a restaurant here in Boone. She knows what I do for a living, and one day we were talking about our jobs and what work is like for us. She said, “Can I tell you something? I hate working Sunday afternoons.” “Why’s that?” I asked. “Well, that’s when all the church people come in. As a whole, church people are notoriously bad tippers. The better dressed they are and the louder they talk about how great church was, the worse tipper they tend to be. A nice suit and a loud, long prayer usually translates into a dollar and a pamphlet.”
In the 4th Chapter of the book of Acts, Luke presents a picture of a church whose attitude about wealth, money, and property is quite different than the one portrayed by my waitress friend. The history of interpretation on this text is disappointing at best and disturbing at worst. Some have said that Luke was describing a brief and failed experiment of First Church Jerusalem. Others have said he described a sort of utopian ideal that might only happen in the New Jerusalem or a few select monastic communities. Still others have advocated following these prescriptions about property and wealth exactly as they are written; yet even the most enthusiastic supporters of interpreting all Scripture literally fudge this particular text. I find all these approaches sorely lacking; either they are so impractical as not to be followed, or they don’t do justice to the Biblical text.
A popular axiom of our day is often quoted, and many people swear it comes out of Scripture. You all know this one – finish it for me. God helps those . . . . who help themselves. It’s a cynical expression of our get-ahead society. But in today’s text, we have a witness against this. In the young church and among new Christians there was no one who owned something and kept it to him or herself. Things were distributed to anyone who had need, and no one was ashamed to accept something. Their slogan was not, “God helps those who help themselves.” Rather, because God helps everyone, they were there to help each other.
Of one heart and soul
There are a couple of things we need to point out in this text about how this community is described. The first is that they were of one heart and soul. This unity is expressed elsewhere throughout Scripture. In John 17, Jesus prays that his followers will be one. In 1 Corinthians and elsewhere, Paul describes the Church as one body with many members. We recognize our connection with one another, and realize that when one member of the body suffers, we all suffer. When one rejoices, we all rejoice.
In the church I grew up in, there was a lady in the congregation who had lived by meager means since her husband died. She was raising five daughters by herself working as a schoolbus driver when her health was good enough for her to work. There was never much money. One Christmas, one of the adult Sunday School classes took it upon themselves to give this woman a monetary gift so that her family’s Christmas would be a little merrier. It seemed a proper and Christian thing to do. To their surprise, she refused their gift.
When I heard my parents discuss this incident as an 8-year-old, I didn’t pay too much attention to it. But as I’ve thought about it in the years since, I’ve realized there is a huge gulf between two different worlds – the world of the woman on one side, and the world of the members of that Sunday School class on the other. For years, I read that story out of my own middle class worldview, the same worldview as most of the members of the Sunday School class. From that perspective, they were only trying to help. They were only trying to do the right thing – a little extra gift of charity. They recognized a need, they recognized they had some means that could address that need, and they came up with a practical solution to get the resources where they needed to be.
But from the lady’s perspective, she saw herself as the object of the class’s charity, and feared that they looked upon her in the same way. An inequality between their places was already present, but that Christmas gift made it official. She didn’t want to be beholden to anyone; she didn’t want to feel like she owed anyone anything.
Today’s text tells us that the members of the early church were of one heart and soul. I think the class Christmas gift failed because of class – not a Sunday School class, but social class. In other words, they were not of one heart and soul. At the end of the day, there would still be a group of haves and a group of have-nots. One would be the giver of charity, the other its recipient. Their worlds would remain largely separate, and the place of intersection would be marked by an incident highlighting the separation. It was a well-intentioned effort, but hardly an expression of unity of heart and soul.
But, we are meant for that unity. John Wesley described the character of a Methodist as “one in whom the love of God and neighbor is shed abroad in his [or her] heart.” We are designed for relationship with God and each other, and the goal of Christian living should be an increasingly richer relationship along both dimensions as is possible.
Christianity is not a faith that can be practiced in isolation or apart from other people. It is a community religion, the goal of which is to stretch and grow us in our relationships with God and with one another. A solitary Christian, a Christian standing outside community is an oxymoron; you can’t live and grow as a Christian apart from others. Our relationships with God and others are mutually interdependent. Recognizing ourselves as children of God will necessarily concern us with the other children in the family. We are part of one body of Christ, each bringing our own unique gifts and abilities for the betterment and upbuilding of the body.
Everything in common
I would like to welcome you to worship on this National Associate Pastor Appreciation Sunday, also known as the Sunday after Easter. See also Sunday after Thanksgiving, Memorial Day weekend, Fourth of July weekend, Labor Day weekend and Sunday after Christmas. All over the country, associate pastors are in the pulpit today, with the grueling schedule of Holy Week and Easter now behind us, breathing a bit easier, relaxing a bit.
But friends, today is still Easter. Easter is not a day or a season on the calendar that shows up only once and then disappears back into oblivion. Easter is a way of life in which we remember that the cemetery is empty and Christ is alive; this proclamation is the source of our hope. On this first Sunday after Easter, we are not here to coast for a week. We are here to celebrate the resurrection, and from the book of Acts, we learn of an instance in the early church in which they proclaimed the power of the resurrection, and their lives were changed because of it. May we pray.
Not long ago, I was talking with a waitress at a restaurant here in Boone. She knows what I do for a living, and one day we were talking about our jobs and what work is like for us. She said, “Can I tell you something? I hate working Sunday afternoons.” “Why’s that?” I asked. “Well, that’s when all the church people come in. As a whole, church people are notoriously bad tippers. The better dressed they are and the louder they talk about how great church was, the worse tipper they tend to be. A nice suit and a loud, long prayer usually translates into a dollar and a pamphlet.”
In the 4th Chapter of the book of Acts, Luke presents a picture of a church whose attitude about wealth, money, and property is quite different than the one portrayed by my waitress friend. The history of interpretation on this text is disappointing at best and disturbing at worst. Some have said that Luke was describing a brief and failed experiment of First Church Jerusalem. Others have said he described a sort of utopian ideal that might only happen in the New Jerusalem or a few select monastic communities. Still others have advocated following these prescriptions about property and wealth exactly as they are written; yet even the most enthusiastic supporters of interpreting all Scripture literally fudge this particular text. I find all these approaches sorely lacking; either they are so impractical as not to be followed, or they don’t do justice to the Biblical text.
A popular axiom of our day is often quoted, and many people swear it comes out of Scripture. You all know this one – finish it for me. God helps those . . . . who help themselves. It’s a cynical expression of our get-ahead society. But in today’s text, we have a witness against this. In the young church and among new Christians there was no one who owned something and kept it to him or herself. Things were distributed to anyone who had need, and no one was ashamed to accept something. Their slogan was not, “God helps those who help themselves.” Rather, because God helps everyone, they were there to help each other.
Of one heart and soul
There are a couple of things we need to point out in this text about how this community is described. The first is that they were of one heart and soul. This unity is expressed elsewhere throughout Scripture. In John 17, Jesus prays that his followers will be one. In 1 Corinthians and elsewhere, Paul describes the Church as one body with many members. We recognize our connection with one another, and realize that when one member of the body suffers, we all suffer. When one rejoices, we all rejoice.
In the church I grew up in, there was a lady in the congregation who had lived by meager means since her husband died. She was raising five daughters by herself working as a schoolbus driver when her health was good enough for her to work. There was never much money. One Christmas, one of the adult Sunday School classes took it upon themselves to give this woman a monetary gift so that her family’s Christmas would be a little merrier. It seemed a proper and Christian thing to do. To their surprise, she refused their gift.
When I heard my parents discuss this incident as an 8-year-old, I didn’t pay too much attention to it. But as I’ve thought about it in the years since, I’ve realized there is a huge gulf between two different worlds – the world of the woman on one side, and the world of the members of that Sunday School class on the other. For years, I read that story out of my own middle class worldview, the same worldview as most of the members of the Sunday School class. From that perspective, they were only trying to help. They were only trying to do the right thing – a little extra gift of charity. They recognized a need, they recognized they had some means that could address that need, and they came up with a practical solution to get the resources where they needed to be.
But from the lady’s perspective, she saw herself as the object of the class’s charity, and feared that they looked upon her in the same way. An inequality between their places was already present, but that Christmas gift made it official. She didn’t want to be beholden to anyone; she didn’t want to feel like she owed anyone anything.
Today’s text tells us that the members of the early church were of one heart and soul. I think the class Christmas gift failed because of class – not a Sunday School class, but social class. In other words, they were not of one heart and soul. At the end of the day, there would still be a group of haves and a group of have-nots. One would be the giver of charity, the other its recipient. Their worlds would remain largely separate, and the place of intersection would be marked by an incident highlighting the separation. It was a well-intentioned effort, but hardly an expression of unity of heart and soul.
But, we are meant for that unity. John Wesley described the character of a Methodist as “one in whom the love of God and neighbor is shed abroad in his [or her] heart.” We are designed for relationship with God and each other, and the goal of Christian living should be an increasingly richer relationship along both dimensions as is possible.
Christianity is not a faith that can be practiced in isolation or apart from other people. It is a community religion, the goal of which is to stretch and grow us in our relationships with God and with one another. A solitary Christian, a Christian standing outside community is an oxymoron; you can’t live and grow as a Christian apart from others. Our relationships with God and others are mutually interdependent. Recognizing ourselves as children of God will necessarily concern us with the other children in the family. We are part of one body of Christ, each bringing our own unique gifts and abilities for the betterment and upbuilding of the body.
Everything in common
In addition to being of one heart and soul, the text describes the early church as holding everything in common. This is that point in the sermon where someone just had that “Ah-hah” moment and said, “I knew it! He’s trying to get us to become communists!” But, I’m not. This is really much larger and broader than a particular economic or political system.
I’m also aware that when we talk about religious communities who hold everything in common, many of our minds make associations with some awful examples – communities at Jonestown and Waco, communities who followed Rev. Jim Jones or David Koresh and a whole host of other cults. Even at best, we may think of communities of nuns and monks, and while we might admire their discipline, I doubt any of us are ready or interested in joining that type of community.
Even so, the text says they held all things in common. We are likely thinking solely of material possessions in common, but I’d like for us to think about it in broader terms than that. I’d also like for us to think about the sort of community and relationships that must be in place before we can even think about holding things in common.
Who here has ever been set up on a blind date? My goodness, if I had a dollar for every blind date I’ve been set up on, let’s just say I wouldn’t still be working my day job. If you’re anything like me, perhaps you remember blind dates by a certain descriptor – there’s the Cracker Barrel incident (needless to say, if you ask a potential suitor where they’d like to meet and they immediately respond “Cracker Barrel,” it’s just going downhill from there), and I have more entries in the “Cougar file” than I can sufficiently remember or articulate.
But every time two innocent and unsuspecting people are set up by the perpetrator who claims to be a friend to both, the friend is hoping the two people will have something in common.
When new neighbors move in, we and they are both hoping we’ll find things in common. When we join a civic organization or social club, a tennis league, volleyball team, club softball, or sign our kids up for dance or soccer, we’re doing it with the hope of finding people with whom we have things in common. And when people come to a church, they are just hoping and praying to find things in common with the people here.
Relationships are what hold a church together. Statistics show that after visiting, people choose to remain part of a church because of the relationships they have with people there. My guess is that this is true for us. If you’re new, you’re likely looking for some common ground with the people here. If you’ve been here awhile, there are always new people coming in looking for those bonds, and we have an incredible opportunity to extend those bridges of connection, friendship, and community.
Common ground is the heart of community. Common ground is the heart of all relationships. The text describes the early church as holding all things in common. In other words, there were strong and tight relationships – bonds of commonality, if you will – holding the church together. The church is and should be a network of relationships. The healthier those relationships, the healthier the church. The more dysfunctional those relationships, the more dysfunctional the church.
The picture of the early church painted in this text from Acts is one of such strong and healthy relationships that they were said to be of one heart and soul and to hold all things in common. The goal of their community was not shared property or a unified budget. They simply wanted to share life together around the central and common source of their hope – the resurrection of Christ. They built a network of relationships centered on and grounded in the exclamation point of Easter that God inserts hope into what seems hopeless. They weren’t trying to create a shared economy or an intentional community. Rather, because their relationships were so healthy, because of the strong bond they shared with Christ and as brothers and sisters in Christ, because their community was so strong, the natural and inevitable result was the desire to hold all things in common. Their goal was a strong and healthy network of relationships rooted in their unity in Christ, and when that was achieved, they found there were other things they wanted to hold in common.
Think of it like family. The definition of family has changed and broadened in recent years, and I’m using it in that broader sense. I’m referring to that person or group of people to whom you feel closest, whom you identify as your closest allies whether you’re related by blood or not. They’re the people who are always there for you, who may know you better than you know yourself, with whom you would stick through thick and thin. If one of them needed something, you’d help them get it.
When my little brother was in college, he had a few semesters where he came up short. I was in a position to help him out, and I did. He has since graduated and is already doing quite well as a software designer, and recently offered to pay me back. I told him he didn’t need to, but I did want him to remember his big brother’s generosity in coming years when I will be asking to borrow his boat, or his house in the Caymans, or when my church needs a few large gifts in a new building campaign. I’ve reminded him that those payments during his college years weren’t a loan, but an investment in my future.
But in the early church, they weren’t giving with an eye toward one’s own interests. There was no giving now in hopes of a greater return later, or giving to receive a tax benefit, or giving as a vehicle toward publicity. While there’s certainly nothing wrong with receiving a tax break or some good PR because of a gift we’ve made, our text doesn’t describe those things as the primary motivation for generosity.
A lifestyle of sharing
In fact, the culture described moves beyond charity and giving and embraces a lifestyle of sharing. We all learned back in Kindergarten that sharing is a good thing. Here, we are presented with a community in which sharing is a way of life, and so it should be for us. The early church recognized itself to be deeply connected to Christ, and therefore, deeply connected to each other. Because they already shared so much – identity in Christ, deep relationships with one another, sharing material and monetary resources was part of their shared life together. A culture of sharing was their norm, giving was not just charity or a handout. Because life itself was shared, everything in life, including money, was fully shared.
Friends, today I encourage each of us to think less about giving and more about sharing. The difference is that giving can remain largely impersonal and detached, whereas sharing begs for relationship. This afternoon, when you go to lunch, yes, tip generously, but even more than that, remember that the person serving your food is a person with real needs and real emotions. Know that whatever you have – whether that is time, money, some particular skill on so on – that is a gift and blessing from God. Those gifts have been given to us that we bless others through them. Challenge yourself to move beyond giving toward truly sharing, take time to build relationships, find things in common.
I want this congregation to be place of strong and authentic relationships. I want each of us to be intentional about reaching out and connecting, every day of the week as we live our lives, and every Sunday morning as we gather as a community. Every day, we encounter numerous relationships just waiting to be formed, if we only stop and see each other face to face, and recognize the person behind the eyes of the stranger.
As a church, we can and should be a place where those relationships happen. We can be a place to which disconnected people throughout our community can come and be connected to God and to other people. Our motto as Christians is not that God helps those who help themselves. Rather, because God helps everyone, we can help each other.
Last week, we celebrated Easter Sunday, and today we are still celebrating Easter. For us, Easter is a lifestyle that celebrates the insertion of hope into a hopeless world, and the inbreaking of the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God brings with it a whole new set of values and assumptions that completely turn the world on its head. The kingdom of God reminds me that my time, money and energy are best invested in the things of God and not of this world.
When I think of where my time and money can best be spent, I can think of no better investment than in relationships with people who are created in God’s image, regardless of their color, social status, or any other thing; people who are of sacred and inestimable worth.
The early church was such an integrated network of relationships that they were said to hold all things in common, to be of one heart and mind, and to have no need among them. May it be so for us.
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Yes, There Is Hope - John 20:1-18 (Blackburn's Chapel)
Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb. So she ran and went Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved,, and said to them,” They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.” Then Peter and the other disciple set out and went toward the tomb. The two were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. He bent down to look in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in. Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen wrappings lying there, and the cloth that had been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself. Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first,, also went in, and he saw and believe; for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead. Then the disciples returned to their homes.
But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb; and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. They said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.” When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?” Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned and said to him in Hebrew, “Rabbouni!” (which means Teacher). Jesus said to her, “Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.” Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord;” and she told them that he had said these things to her.”
God does God’s best work in cemeteries. Mike Slaughter is the pastor of Ginghamsburg United Methodist Church, about 20 miles north of Dayton, Ohio. He is one of the leaders of the Young Pastors Network, a leadership academy for 50 United Methodist pastors under the age of 35 from around the country. We met at Ginghamsburg back in October, and as he got up to welcome the group he said, “I’d like to welcome you to Dayton, which was recently named by US News and World Report as the fastest dying city in America.” Mike was appointed to Ginghamsburg in 1979, when the population of Dayton was 205,000. The population is now 155,000, and a February 2009 issue of Forbes magazine ranked it as the “5th emptiest city in America.” During the same time, Ginghamsburg Church has grown from 90 worshipers to over 5000 per weekend. After explaining these statistics, Mike looked around the room and said, “God does God’s best work in cemeteries.”
It’s a lesson those earliest followers of Jesus had yet to learn. After surviving the unthinkable horror of that Friday, as they stood at the foot of a crude cross, watching their friend and teacher helpless against the onset of death, early on the first day of the week one more crushing blow was dealt. Not only was he dead, but they had taken his body away. They – whoever they are – had won. The powers of evil were too great. It felt so final.
Over the course of three years, they had come to know and love this itinerant preacher. Jesus had captivated their attention. They played follow-the-leader with him, thumbing their noses at the rules by which the world seemed to operate. Jesus dared them to imagine a different world – a world in which masters wash their disciples feet, a world in which the winner is the one who finishes last, a world in which a 5,000 plate banquet is served from a little boy’s superhero lunchbox and there’s not enough Tupperware to contain the leftovers. A world in which there is always enough, and where wolves and lambs sit side by side at the table.
But now, all that was shattered. Reality came crashing down around them in the silence of that early morning as they stared into the empty tomb. Insult piled on top of injury. The game was over, and their team had lost. The cemetery was but a stark reminder of the finality of defeat, the bondage to the powers of death and despair.
The powers of evil had thrown their worst at Jesus and sealed the presence of God behind a giant stone. They danced their victory dance and said, “Lights out. Checkmate. Game Over.” There in the cemetery, in the cool mist just before dawn, it seemed all hope was lost.
But friends, God does God’s best work in cemeteries. The powers of evil said, “Game over,” but on Easter morning, God said, “Guess again.” On Easter morning, God said, “The old rules as you understand them no longer apply.” Throughout his ministry, Jesus had been teaching about the kingdom of God in which the rules of the world were completely turned on their head. On Easter morning, God said, “My kingdom is here.” On Easter morning, God said, “Watch out world, because I am on the loose.”
Christ is just as loose today as he was on that first Easter Sunday. We are not here for a history lesson on the details of what happened that particular Sunday at the tomb. We are not here for some sort of a pleasant memory or a sweet sentimental feeling. We are here because Christ is on the loose, because Christ is free from the grave, because Christ intends to meet each of us unexpectedly along the ordinary paths of our lives.
Resurrection is not just something we observe, or hear about, or even something we celebrate. Resurrection becomes who we are; it becomes something in which we participate. As we continue to encounter the resurrected Jesus, as the living Christ finds his way deep into the fiber of our being, a transformation by the grace of God takes place. We find old destructive habits and attitudes and relationships dying, and the life-giving things of God being born in their place. The old hymn put it this way: “’Are ye able,’ said the Master, ‘to be crucified with me. ‘Yes’ the sturdy dreamers answered, ‘to the death we follow thee.’”
Every time we celebrate a baptism, we remember this. A vow is made by every newly baptized person or on their behalf that they renounce the spiritual forces of wickedness, reject evil, and repent of their sin. In other words, every baptism celebrates a death to those things that stand between us and God. To the congregation, we say, “Remember your baptism and be thankful.” As said by Jim Harnish, pastor of Hyde Park United Methodist Church in Tampa, FL, “We’re not asking them to remember some specific event in the past, but to remember that they are marked by the sign of baptism. As a part of the body of Christ, they are a baptized people whose life together is constantly being transformed by the grace of God that invites them into the continual process of death and resurrection.” (Jim Harnish, You Only Have to Die, p. 30).
Though we are constantly invited into that process, make no mistake about it: resurrection is about God. It’s not about the new thing that we do; it’s about the new thing that God does in and through us. The resurrection is not about our own cleverness or ingenuity or change of attitude. The resurrection is about God doing a new thing, about God making a way where there seemed to be no way, about God creating and restoring life when death was not only inevitable, but already a certain fact.
God does God’s best work in cemeteries. God inserts hope into what seems hopeless. I hope that’s why you have come this morning. Not looking for a history lesson, or a pleasant memory, or a sweet sentimental feeling, or simply out of duty. I hope you have coming looking for an encounter with the resurrected and living Christ. I hope you have come looking for the power of the resurrection to bring newness into your life. I hope you have come looking for hope.
On that first Easter, a small group of disciples was waiting for the burst of a Jerusalem sunrise, but the morning held no hope. The memory of death lingered palpably in the air, and Mary stood there weeping. But in the haze before dawn, what they got was hope.
During World War II, a Navy submarine became stuck on the bottom of the harbor in New York City. There was no electricity and oxygen was running out. Rescue divers heard the sound of tapping coming from inside the submarine and recognized it as Morse code. From inside the submarine, the sailors were asking, “Is there any hope?” The rescuers tapped back, “Yes, there is hope.”
Any sociologist will tell you about the important human phenomenon called hope. Without it, life seems trivial. What God did at the resurrection was to insert hope into a world desperately in need of it. The world can be an awfully difficult and burdened place sometimes. But the resurrection of Jesus is a promise and a testimony and a downpayment of hope. It will not solve all the world’s problems. It won’t eliminate suffering or poverty. It’s not a good luck charm or a legislative principle. The world continues to have its pain and suffering, but in the resurrection of Jesus, hope forces its way through the cracks. When we are wondering if there is any hope, the resurrection is God tapping back that yes, there is hope. The resurrection is a God-given sign that the lives of all people, including you and including me, are meant for more and not for less, that no life of God’s creating is beyond God’s redeeming, that even death, as authoritative and final as it seems, is not the end.
And friends, resurrection is happening all around us. The change from death into life is happening all around us, as God works transformation in the depths of the human heart. When an alcoholic go into recovery, that’s resurrection. When unhealthy relationships are healed, that’s resurrection. When a community rallies to meet the needs of its families, that’s resurrection. When a person is changed from self-centered living to God-centered living, that’s resurrection.
And everything that has happened, is happening, and will happen here at Blackburn’s Chapel is resurrection. I remember when retired Bishop Lawrence McCleskey said, “A church can believe its best days are behind them, or they can believe their best days are ahead of them. In either case, they’ll be right.” This congregation chooses to believe that our best days are still ahead of us. God is working and moving here. The sense of God’s presence is so palpable that we have no choice but to believe that God is doing a new thing right here in our midst, that God is, in the words of Charles Wesley, changing us “from glory into glory.”
Friends, we believe that our best days as a congregation are still in front of us. That’s resurrection! Easter is not just a day or a season that shows up on the calendar and then disappears. Easter is a lifestyle. We are Easter people! We are resurrection people! Easter happens when lives are transformed, when the things of God graft themselves into the core of our being and we find ourselves alive with the newness of God’s presence. Easter is not a one-time occurrence, it is something that happens over and over again. The early Christians recognized this. They worshipped every Sunday expecting the things of the world to die, and for God to show up and transform the world. Every time we gather, I hope we gather with an expectation that God is in our midst, that God still inserts hope into what seems hopeless to us, and that God still transforms the world.
It’s what we have each shown up looking for today. We are looking for an encounter with the risen Christ, and we expect to be changed because of it. In today’s text, Jesus encounters Mary outside the tomb, and she mistakenly believes he’s the gardener. He asks why she is weeping and who she is looking for. She was looking for Jesus, but she had no idea she would meet the risen Jesus. Her tears of mourning were transformed into tears of joy, and my hopeful expectation is that will happen for each of us.
But it doesn’t stop there. The good news that Jesus is risen was good news on that first Easter Sunday, and it continues to be good news today. And while it’s certainly good news for us as individuals and as a congregation, it isn’t only for us. It was and remains good news for the entire world.
And so today, we gather, and we celebrate the good news that Christ is risen! Christ is risen indeed! Today God takes on the broken ways of the world and says, “You shall not win. The game is not yet over, and I have been set loose.” Today we proclaim that Jesus is Lord, and not the powers and principalities of this world. The same power that rolled the stone away is ours in all the circumstances of life. Today, though we may be pressed, we are not crushed; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down but not destroyed. Though the powers of the world have literally paved over hope and tried to wipe its memory from existence, today that same hope begins to bubble its way to the surface. When we are wondering if there is hope, the resurrection is God tapping back the message that yes, there is hope.
Every day but especially on this day we remember not that Christ has risen, but that Christ is risen! Resurrection is not a one-time event, but an on-going reality. Every day but especially on this day we proclaim that the same life-giving power that raised Jesus from the dead is available to everyone – certainly at the hour of death but not only at the hour of death, certainly in the greatest trial but not only in the greatest trial. The life-giving power of God is available here and now to help us live in the face of uncertainty, suffering, guilt, and shame. But those things do not have the final word, for even death itself, by the life-giving power and grace of God, is not the end of the story. In the words of John Donne, “Death be not proud, thou hast died.”
The cemetery is empty and Christ is alive; therein lies our hope.
But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb; and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. They said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.” When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?” Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned and said to him in Hebrew, “Rabbouni!” (which means Teacher). Jesus said to her, “Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.” Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord;” and she told them that he had said these things to her.”
God does God’s best work in cemeteries. Mike Slaughter is the pastor of Ginghamsburg United Methodist Church, about 20 miles north of Dayton, Ohio. He is one of the leaders of the Young Pastors Network, a leadership academy for 50 United Methodist pastors under the age of 35 from around the country. We met at Ginghamsburg back in October, and as he got up to welcome the group he said, “I’d like to welcome you to Dayton, which was recently named by US News and World Report as the fastest dying city in America.” Mike was appointed to Ginghamsburg in 1979, when the population of Dayton was 205,000. The population is now 155,000, and a February 2009 issue of Forbes magazine ranked it as the “5th emptiest city in America.” During the same time, Ginghamsburg Church has grown from 90 worshipers to over 5000 per weekend. After explaining these statistics, Mike looked around the room and said, “God does God’s best work in cemeteries.”
It’s a lesson those earliest followers of Jesus had yet to learn. After surviving the unthinkable horror of that Friday, as they stood at the foot of a crude cross, watching their friend and teacher helpless against the onset of death, early on the first day of the week one more crushing blow was dealt. Not only was he dead, but they had taken his body away. They – whoever they are – had won. The powers of evil were too great. It felt so final.
Over the course of three years, they had come to know and love this itinerant preacher. Jesus had captivated their attention. They played follow-the-leader with him, thumbing their noses at the rules by which the world seemed to operate. Jesus dared them to imagine a different world – a world in which masters wash their disciples feet, a world in which the winner is the one who finishes last, a world in which a 5,000 plate banquet is served from a little boy’s superhero lunchbox and there’s not enough Tupperware to contain the leftovers. A world in which there is always enough, and where wolves and lambs sit side by side at the table.
But now, all that was shattered. Reality came crashing down around them in the silence of that early morning as they stared into the empty tomb. Insult piled on top of injury. The game was over, and their team had lost. The cemetery was but a stark reminder of the finality of defeat, the bondage to the powers of death and despair.
The powers of evil had thrown their worst at Jesus and sealed the presence of God behind a giant stone. They danced their victory dance and said, “Lights out. Checkmate. Game Over.” There in the cemetery, in the cool mist just before dawn, it seemed all hope was lost.
But friends, God does God’s best work in cemeteries. The powers of evil said, “Game over,” but on Easter morning, God said, “Guess again.” On Easter morning, God said, “The old rules as you understand them no longer apply.” Throughout his ministry, Jesus had been teaching about the kingdom of God in which the rules of the world were completely turned on their head. On Easter morning, God said, “My kingdom is here.” On Easter morning, God said, “Watch out world, because I am on the loose.”
Christ is just as loose today as he was on that first Easter Sunday. We are not here for a history lesson on the details of what happened that particular Sunday at the tomb. We are not here for some sort of a pleasant memory or a sweet sentimental feeling. We are here because Christ is on the loose, because Christ is free from the grave, because Christ intends to meet each of us unexpectedly along the ordinary paths of our lives.
Resurrection is not just something we observe, or hear about, or even something we celebrate. Resurrection becomes who we are; it becomes something in which we participate. As we continue to encounter the resurrected Jesus, as the living Christ finds his way deep into the fiber of our being, a transformation by the grace of God takes place. We find old destructive habits and attitudes and relationships dying, and the life-giving things of God being born in their place. The old hymn put it this way: “’Are ye able,’ said the Master, ‘to be crucified with me. ‘Yes’ the sturdy dreamers answered, ‘to the death we follow thee.’”
Every time we celebrate a baptism, we remember this. A vow is made by every newly baptized person or on their behalf that they renounce the spiritual forces of wickedness, reject evil, and repent of their sin. In other words, every baptism celebrates a death to those things that stand between us and God. To the congregation, we say, “Remember your baptism and be thankful.” As said by Jim Harnish, pastor of Hyde Park United Methodist Church in Tampa, FL, “We’re not asking them to remember some specific event in the past, but to remember that they are marked by the sign of baptism. As a part of the body of Christ, they are a baptized people whose life together is constantly being transformed by the grace of God that invites them into the continual process of death and resurrection.” (Jim Harnish, You Only Have to Die, p. 30).
Though we are constantly invited into that process, make no mistake about it: resurrection is about God. It’s not about the new thing that we do; it’s about the new thing that God does in and through us. The resurrection is not about our own cleverness or ingenuity or change of attitude. The resurrection is about God doing a new thing, about God making a way where there seemed to be no way, about God creating and restoring life when death was not only inevitable, but already a certain fact.
God does God’s best work in cemeteries. God inserts hope into what seems hopeless. I hope that’s why you have come this morning. Not looking for a history lesson, or a pleasant memory, or a sweet sentimental feeling, or simply out of duty. I hope you have coming looking for an encounter with the resurrected and living Christ. I hope you have come looking for the power of the resurrection to bring newness into your life. I hope you have come looking for hope.
On that first Easter, a small group of disciples was waiting for the burst of a Jerusalem sunrise, but the morning held no hope. The memory of death lingered palpably in the air, and Mary stood there weeping. But in the haze before dawn, what they got was hope.
During World War II, a Navy submarine became stuck on the bottom of the harbor in New York City. There was no electricity and oxygen was running out. Rescue divers heard the sound of tapping coming from inside the submarine and recognized it as Morse code. From inside the submarine, the sailors were asking, “Is there any hope?” The rescuers tapped back, “Yes, there is hope.”
Any sociologist will tell you about the important human phenomenon called hope. Without it, life seems trivial. What God did at the resurrection was to insert hope into a world desperately in need of it. The world can be an awfully difficult and burdened place sometimes. But the resurrection of Jesus is a promise and a testimony and a downpayment of hope. It will not solve all the world’s problems. It won’t eliminate suffering or poverty. It’s not a good luck charm or a legislative principle. The world continues to have its pain and suffering, but in the resurrection of Jesus, hope forces its way through the cracks. When we are wondering if there is any hope, the resurrection is God tapping back that yes, there is hope. The resurrection is a God-given sign that the lives of all people, including you and including me, are meant for more and not for less, that no life of God’s creating is beyond God’s redeeming, that even death, as authoritative and final as it seems, is not the end.
And friends, resurrection is happening all around us. The change from death into life is happening all around us, as God works transformation in the depths of the human heart. When an alcoholic go into recovery, that’s resurrection. When unhealthy relationships are healed, that’s resurrection. When a community rallies to meet the needs of its families, that’s resurrection. When a person is changed from self-centered living to God-centered living, that’s resurrection.
And everything that has happened, is happening, and will happen here at Blackburn’s Chapel is resurrection. I remember when retired Bishop Lawrence McCleskey said, “A church can believe its best days are behind them, or they can believe their best days are ahead of them. In either case, they’ll be right.” This congregation chooses to believe that our best days are still ahead of us. God is working and moving here. The sense of God’s presence is so palpable that we have no choice but to believe that God is doing a new thing right here in our midst, that God is, in the words of Charles Wesley, changing us “from glory into glory.”
Friends, we believe that our best days as a congregation are still in front of us. That’s resurrection! Easter is not just a day or a season that shows up on the calendar and then disappears. Easter is a lifestyle. We are Easter people! We are resurrection people! Easter happens when lives are transformed, when the things of God graft themselves into the core of our being and we find ourselves alive with the newness of God’s presence. Easter is not a one-time occurrence, it is something that happens over and over again. The early Christians recognized this. They worshipped every Sunday expecting the things of the world to die, and for God to show up and transform the world. Every time we gather, I hope we gather with an expectation that God is in our midst, that God still inserts hope into what seems hopeless to us, and that God still transforms the world.
It’s what we have each shown up looking for today. We are looking for an encounter with the risen Christ, and we expect to be changed because of it. In today’s text, Jesus encounters Mary outside the tomb, and she mistakenly believes he’s the gardener. He asks why she is weeping and who she is looking for. She was looking for Jesus, but she had no idea she would meet the risen Jesus. Her tears of mourning were transformed into tears of joy, and my hopeful expectation is that will happen for each of us.
But it doesn’t stop there. The good news that Jesus is risen was good news on that first Easter Sunday, and it continues to be good news today. And while it’s certainly good news for us as individuals and as a congregation, it isn’t only for us. It was and remains good news for the entire world.
And so today, we gather, and we celebrate the good news that Christ is risen! Christ is risen indeed! Today God takes on the broken ways of the world and says, “You shall not win. The game is not yet over, and I have been set loose.” Today we proclaim that Jesus is Lord, and not the powers and principalities of this world. The same power that rolled the stone away is ours in all the circumstances of life. Today, though we may be pressed, we are not crushed; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down but not destroyed. Though the powers of the world have literally paved over hope and tried to wipe its memory from existence, today that same hope begins to bubble its way to the surface. When we are wondering if there is hope, the resurrection is God tapping back the message that yes, there is hope.
Every day but especially on this day we remember not that Christ has risen, but that Christ is risen! Resurrection is not a one-time event, but an on-going reality. Every day but especially on this day we proclaim that the same life-giving power that raised Jesus from the dead is available to everyone – certainly at the hour of death but not only at the hour of death, certainly in the greatest trial but not only in the greatest trial. The life-giving power of God is available here and now to help us live in the face of uncertainty, suffering, guilt, and shame. But those things do not have the final word, for even death itself, by the life-giving power and grace of God, is not the end of the story. In the words of John Donne, “Death be not proud, thou hast died.”
The cemetery is empty and Christ is alive; therein lies our hope.
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Empty and Full (Community Lenten Reflections): Psalm 51:1-12 and Luke 1:26-38
1Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions.
2Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.
3For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me.
4Against you, you alone, have I sinned, and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are justified in your sentence and blameless when you pass judgment.
5Indeed, I was born guilty, a sinner when my mother conceived me.
6You desire truth in the inward being; therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart.
7Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
8Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that you have crushed rejoice.
9Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities.
10Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me.
11Do not cast me away from your presence, and do not take your holy spirit from me.
12Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and sustain in me a willing spirit.
26In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, 27to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. 28And he came to her and said, “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.” 29But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. 30The angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. 31And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. 32He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. 33He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” 34Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I am a virgin?” 35The angel said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God. 36And now, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month for her who was said to be barren. 37For nothing will be impossible with God.” 38Then Mary said, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” Then the angel departed from her.
If you have consulted your calendar today, you’ll notice that it is March 25. Today is exactly nine months before Christmas, which makes today the Feast Day of the Annunciation. That is, today we celebrate the message given to Jesus’ mother Mary that she will bear a son who will save his people from their sin. To those among us who follow the liturgical calendar, this may mean more than it does to those among us who do not. Or, if you’re like us Methodists, who pick and choose when we follow the liturgical calendar and the lectionary as seems most fitting our needs, today may be a confusing time that perplexes worship planning.
In true Methodist fashion, we who like to find a middle way, I have cobbled together today’s service using one reading from the Lectionary for this coming Sunday – the Psalm, and another reading for the Feast Day of the Annunciation, our reading from St. Luke’s Gospel.
It seems a strange juxtaposition, does it not? On the one hand, the Psalmist cries out, “Create in me a clean heart, O God!” Cleanse me! Purge me! Empty me! Let all the things in my life I cling to be wiped away. On the other hand, the angel tells Mary that she will literally be filled with the things of God. The Psalmist acknowledges guilt, having been born a sinner when conceived. The child Mary will bear is without sin, the one who will become sin for the world. The Psalmist recognizes the inherent distance between God and humanity; Mary is told that through her, God plans to come and dwell among us.
In fact, the first part of the message Mary receives is this: “The Lord is with you.” In fact, these very words are ingrained in many of us with a rhythmic pattern. A friend of mine who is now a Lutheran pastor recalls going to see Star Wars with his family in the theater back in 1977 when he was growing up in the midwest. That part in the movie came up when, for the first time, one of the characters says to another, “The force be with you.” He said, “200 pious Lutherans in the theater immediately responded, ‘And also with you.’”
In many of our traditions, this is how worship begins – the presence of the Lord is invoked and wished upon the worshippers. “The Lord be with you.” (Wait for response). It’s a call to prayer, acknowledging that the grace of God is present even before we invoke God’s name. “The Lord be with you.” (Wait for response). It is a statement of blessing – that the Spirit of the Lord, a unifying Spirit, may remain between the two of us even while we are apart from one another.
The angel explains the details of the plot to Mary, and her only question is a good one: “How can this be?” Having been answered to her satisfaction, her only response from this point on is yes. “May it be to me as you have said,” she says.
I wonder what would happen if the people of God were to respond similarly. If God spoke, in whatever way that happens in our particular traditions, and we simply said yes. “May it be to me as you have said.”
And yet, that seems easier said than done. There are so many things that keep us from being able to say a clear, resounding solid “yes” to God. Distractions, ambition, pride, selfishness, disinterest all get in the way. And here is where the words of the Psalmist during this Lenten season do us good, as we ask God to create within us clean hearts, to restore us in our relationship with God and nurture our relationships with each other. Before we can be filled with the things of God, as Mary was, we first need to be emptied of the things of ourselves. Being part of the work of God means that we must surrender our wills to God’s, and I think that the exact intersection between this Lenten Psalm and the news given to Mary.
John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, gave us a covenant service by which we could strengthen this bond and continually give ourselves over to this work. The central prayer of the service is the thought upon which I wish to leave us today:
I am no longer my own, but thine. Put me to what thou wilt, rank me with whom thou wilt. Put me to doing, put me to suffering. Let me employed by thee or laid aside for thee, exalted for thee or brought low by thee. Let me be full, let me be empty. Let me have all things, let me have nothing. I freely and heartily yield all things to thy pleasure and disposal. And now, O glorious and blessed God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, thou art mine, and I am thine. So be it. And the covenant which I have made on earth, let it be ratified in heaven. Amen.
2Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.
3For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me.
4Against you, you alone, have I sinned, and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are justified in your sentence and blameless when you pass judgment.
5Indeed, I was born guilty, a sinner when my mother conceived me.
6You desire truth in the inward being; therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart.
7Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
8Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that you have crushed rejoice.
9Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities.
10Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me.
11Do not cast me away from your presence, and do not take your holy spirit from me.
12Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and sustain in me a willing spirit.
26In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, 27to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. 28And he came to her and said, “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.” 29But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. 30The angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. 31And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. 32He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. 33He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” 34Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I am a virgin?” 35The angel said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God. 36And now, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month for her who was said to be barren. 37For nothing will be impossible with God.” 38Then Mary said, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” Then the angel departed from her.
If you have consulted your calendar today, you’ll notice that it is March 25. Today is exactly nine months before Christmas, which makes today the Feast Day of the Annunciation. That is, today we celebrate the message given to Jesus’ mother Mary that she will bear a son who will save his people from their sin. To those among us who follow the liturgical calendar, this may mean more than it does to those among us who do not. Or, if you’re like us Methodists, who pick and choose when we follow the liturgical calendar and the lectionary as seems most fitting our needs, today may be a confusing time that perplexes worship planning.
In true Methodist fashion, we who like to find a middle way, I have cobbled together today’s service using one reading from the Lectionary for this coming Sunday – the Psalm, and another reading for the Feast Day of the Annunciation, our reading from St. Luke’s Gospel.
It seems a strange juxtaposition, does it not? On the one hand, the Psalmist cries out, “Create in me a clean heart, O God!” Cleanse me! Purge me! Empty me! Let all the things in my life I cling to be wiped away. On the other hand, the angel tells Mary that she will literally be filled with the things of God. The Psalmist acknowledges guilt, having been born a sinner when conceived. The child Mary will bear is without sin, the one who will become sin for the world. The Psalmist recognizes the inherent distance between God and humanity; Mary is told that through her, God plans to come and dwell among us.
In fact, the first part of the message Mary receives is this: “The Lord is with you.” In fact, these very words are ingrained in many of us with a rhythmic pattern. A friend of mine who is now a Lutheran pastor recalls going to see Star Wars with his family in the theater back in 1977 when he was growing up in the midwest. That part in the movie came up when, for the first time, one of the characters says to another, “The force be with you.” He said, “200 pious Lutherans in the theater immediately responded, ‘And also with you.’”
In many of our traditions, this is how worship begins – the presence of the Lord is invoked and wished upon the worshippers. “The Lord be with you.” (Wait for response). It’s a call to prayer, acknowledging that the grace of God is present even before we invoke God’s name. “The Lord be with you.” (Wait for response). It is a statement of blessing – that the Spirit of the Lord, a unifying Spirit, may remain between the two of us even while we are apart from one another.
The angel explains the details of the plot to Mary, and her only question is a good one: “How can this be?” Having been answered to her satisfaction, her only response from this point on is yes. “May it be to me as you have said,” she says.
I wonder what would happen if the people of God were to respond similarly. If God spoke, in whatever way that happens in our particular traditions, and we simply said yes. “May it be to me as you have said.”
And yet, that seems easier said than done. There are so many things that keep us from being able to say a clear, resounding solid “yes” to God. Distractions, ambition, pride, selfishness, disinterest all get in the way. And here is where the words of the Psalmist during this Lenten season do us good, as we ask God to create within us clean hearts, to restore us in our relationship with God and nurture our relationships with each other. Before we can be filled with the things of God, as Mary was, we first need to be emptied of the things of ourselves. Being part of the work of God means that we must surrender our wills to God’s, and I think that the exact intersection between this Lenten Psalm and the news given to Mary.
John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, gave us a covenant service by which we could strengthen this bond and continually give ourselves over to this work. The central prayer of the service is the thought upon which I wish to leave us today:
I am no longer my own, but thine. Put me to what thou wilt, rank me with whom thou wilt. Put me to doing, put me to suffering. Let me employed by thee or laid aside for thee, exalted for thee or brought low by thee. Let me be full, let me be empty. Let me have all things, let me have nothing. I freely and heartily yield all things to thy pleasure and disposal. And now, O glorious and blessed God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, thou art mine, and I am thine. So be it. And the covenant which I have made on earth, let it be ratified in heaven. Amen.
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Redeeming Time - Exodus 20:1-17
Then God spoke all these words: 2I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; 3you shall have no other gods before me. 4You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. 5You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and the fourth generation of those who reject me, 6but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments. 7You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not acquit anyone who misuses his name. 8Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy. 9Six days you shall labor and do all your work. 10But the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work—you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns. 11For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and consecrated it. 12Honor your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you. 13You shall not murder. 14You shall not commit adultery. 15You shall not steal. 16You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. 17You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.
At Cross Trails Church in Gainsboro, TN you’ll find a version of the Ten Commandments translated into Jackson County English. Now, my Hebrew isn’t all that good, so I guess God must have given these commandments in Southern Hebrew. And you know what? I love that God speaks to us in our native language. Pastor John and I have an ongoing discussion about how when God speaks to him, God says “y’all.” When God speaks to me, God says, “yous guys.” To people in middle Tennessee, God says: (1) Just one God. (2) Put nothin' before God. (3) Watch yer mouth. (4) Git yourself to Sunday meetin.' (5) Honor yer Ma & Pa. (6) No killin.' (7) No foolin' around with another fella's gal. (8) Don't take what ain't yers. (9) No tellin' tales or gossipin' – I suppose this would also include following up statements with “bless their heart” or couching gossip as a prayer request. (10) Don't be hankerin' for yer buddy's stuff.
In our society, something about the number ten suggests completeness. For one, it’s a manageable number. You have ten fingers, so keeping something to ten keeps it in the sphere of managability. A quick search on Google will reveal lists of Ten Commandments – the Ten Commandments of Investing, the Ten Commandments of Home Ownership, the Ten Commandments of Fly Fishing, the Ten Commandments of selecting the right college, and so on.
I think everyone here today would agree that the Ten Commandments are important for Christians to know and follow. Sometimes that’s easier said than done, and that’s exactly what we’ll talk about today. May we pray.
As I say the words, “Ten Commandments,” no doubt a number of thoughts will come into your head. Perhaps you have an image of Charleton Heston coming down off the mountain in that great epic movie, or the time you accompanied your Jewish friend to synagogue. Perhaps you’re thinking “law,” or “rules.” Perhaps “guidelines” or “covenant.” Perhaps you’re thinking of Miss Kitty who taught you the Ten Commandments back in your 3rd grade Sunday School class, or perhaps you’re thinking about the Alabama Supreme Court.
This last reference reminds us of how controversial the Ten Commandments have become. On one hand, they have a universal character about them. Recent polls indicate that roughly ¾ of Americans – this number has not changed significantly in decades – affirm the Ten Commandments as an important set of moral standards with broad and far-reaching applicability. It is hard to avoid recognizing that the kinds of directions in the Ten Commandments are widely present in a variety of societies and cultural traditions throughout space or time. Within the Ten Commandments are moral guidelines found in many of the world’s major religions. In the fourth chapter of Deuteronomy, the biblical narrative recognizes the wisdom of the big ten and obeying them beyond the confines of Israel.
On the other hand, the Commandments have a particular character about them. That is, they are given within a particular faith – the Hebrew faith – and passed along to the descendents of that faith, including Christianity.
You can feel the tension between those two positions – one extreme that says the Ten Commandments are universally binding, and one that says they are particular to the Hebrew faith and its descendents. I know good, faithful, Bible-believing, Spirit-filled Christians who fall along this entire spectrum, and who have vehemently strong opinions on this matter.
So what do we do? First, I think the argument over where the Ten Commandments should be displayed is one of those issues about which faithful Christians can disagree. This is one of the things I love about being a United Methodist – we do not have to hold identical opinions about everything under the sun. John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, frequently said, “In matters that do not strike at the heart of scriptural Christianity, we are free to think and let think.” Regarding what we believe, he said, “in essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; and in all things, charity.” Whatever we think the place of the Ten Commandments is outside the synagogue and church, we are free to hold differing opinions.
Second, I’d like us to consider the context in which the Ten Commandments are given. It’s back in verse 2 of today’s reading: I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.” In other words, the Ten Commandments are given in the context of an existing covenant. It’s as if God says, “Just as a reminder – I am God. I’ve done some things for you that you may remember. I’ve made a covenant with you. I am your God, and you’re my people. Since you’re living in my house, I have some rules I want you to follow. Don’t think of these as restrictions, but think of these as helping you grow in your relationship with me and with each other. If you follow these things, you’ll find yourself growing in your upward relationship with me and in your outward relationships with each other.”
So, the point of the Ten Commandments is not to enforce some universal moral code, but to draw us into deeper relationship with God and each other. What if we took the time and effort that goes into the debate about where and how the Ten Commandments ought to be displayed and devoted that to inviting people into covenant with God? What if we devoted that time and energy to building our relationships with each other? It seems to me there are a whole lot of people out there vehemently arguing about the importance of the Ten Commandments, but I feel our time could be better spent internalizing and living them out than in passing legislation for or against them. I’ll bet Georgia congressman Lynn Westmoreland wishes he had learned this lesson before this interview. (Show clip from 2006 interview - Steven Colbert & Westmoreland http://www.funnyhub.com/videos/pages/ten-commandments.html).
It seems that sometimes we miss the forest for the trees, doesn’t it? Before we argue with each other about the Ten Commandments, it might be a good idea to actually know what they are.
Let’s focus on what we can agree on here. The Ten Commandments are important to people of Hebrew faith and its descendents, including us Christians. Jesus told us to remove the log out of our own eye before helping our neighbor with the speck out of theirs. Whether other people are exposed to and following the Ten Commandments is an issue to be dealt with after we, ourselves, are following them completely.
While we could focus on any of the Commandments in greater detail, I want to consider this one: Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work – you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns. For in six days the Lord make heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and consecrated it.
From the very beginning, a rhythm and pattern is established by God in the account of creation. During those proverbial days of creation, God works six days, and then says, “You know, I’m not going into the office tomorrow. I’m going to take the day off.” Perhaps God had consulted Ray’s Weather, and Ray predicted the seventh day was going to be a five-golf-ball day.
The pattern of six days of work and one day of rest is a good one to follow. God created us with a yearning to rest and enjoy what we have done, to stop working, and breathe deeply. John Calvin, who in many ways founded what we understand to be the Protestant work ethic, wrote, “Work is good, but when we work all the time work becomes a curse, not a blessing.”
And yet, particularly within our society, the tendency toward workaholism continues at a blinding pace. Particularly in this economic climate, those of us who still have adequate employment may find ourselves working all the harder, proving ourselves to be hard-working, loyal, productive members of the organization – you know, the valuable team members they wouldn’t want to let go if things got tight. No doubt many of us are putting in long hours all week, and then going in for a few hours on Saturday before starting our second job.
Not only do we work like dogs, a lot of us are proud of it! We don’t need rest! We don’t need sleep! We don’t need time for renewal or recreation! Look at how hard we work! Nevermind the fact that we’ll have a nervous breakdown at 33. Nevermind that we’ve neglected our families at the times they’ve needed us the most! Nevermind that you’ll have a massive stress-induced heart attack in your 50s! 24/7 is not just a phrase, anymore – it’s a way of life.
Many of you recall when society itself seemed to support a sabbath. Stores, restaurants, and gas stations were closed on Sundays. The nostalgic among us will yearn for a return to these simpler, more innocent times. But I also know that many you experienced those Sundays as oppressive. Oddly enough, you had to help prepare that big mid-day meal, you had to set the table, and then you had a mountain of dishes to wash. After you did all that work, odd considering that is the type of work prohibited in legalistic interpretations of the sabbath, you were confined to the living room or perhaps the front porch for the remainder of the day. Some of you weren’t allowed to play games, or invite a friend over, or head to a friend’s house, or go to the playground, or spend money on anything.
While I appreciate these attempts to remember the sabbath and keep it holy, I think they completely miss the point. First, if you want to be that legalistic, the actual sabbath is still Saturday, not Sunday. In the Jewish understanding, the seventh day, the day of rest, is the sabbath. It is significant that Christians worship on Sunday. Sunday is the day of our Lord’s resurrection, and so every Sunday, Christians celebrate a little mini-Easter. Sunday is the first day – the day associated with creation. But Sunday is also the eighth day – the day the Jews associated with redemption. So for Christians to worship on Sunday, we celebrate who we are as God’s beloved children created in God’s image, but we also celebrate our redemption in Christ. We celebrate that because of Jesus, we find our rest in him through the power and witness of the Holy Spirit.
Second, the sabbath is not about legalism or restriction. Indeed, Jesus reminds the religious leaders of his day, “The Sabbath is made for human beings, not human beings for the Sabbath.” In other words, a day of rest is a gift to us. The purpose of the tradition was not to add another rule to the list of religious requirements and obligations. It is about the nurture and restoration and healing of human lives. Jesus wasn’t interested in legalism, but he was interested in whole, healthy human beings. John Calvin again: “On the Sabbath we cease our work so God can do God’s work in us.”
So then we find ourselves back in a more traditional understanding of the Protestant work ethic – work hard all week, and then take a day to rest and enjoy the fruit of your labor. In the tale of creation, after all, this is what God did! However, I’d like to remind you where humanity shows up in that particular story, and perhaps reframe the discussion a bit.
Whatever you understand the days of creation to mean, notice that humankind is not created until the sixth proverbial day. Before that, God has been creating all the creatures – wild animals and creeping things (Gen 1:24) – it seems to have been a full day. But the last item on God’s agenda before he turns out the lights on that sixth day is to create humankind – male and female God creates us in God’s image, and God blesses us, and makes us stewards over the whole created order. The next day, the proverbial seventh day of creation, the sabbath God consecrated, is humankind’s first full day. I imagine them waking up, saying, “Hey God – what are we gonna do today? Name and catalog the animals, or the rivers or the oceans? Name the mountains or the stars? See how many kinds of trees you’ve planted in this garden?”
“Today, my children, we’re going to rest.”
“But God, we haven’t even done anything yet! We haven’t worked! We haven’t earned our rest yet!”
The sabbath is a gift from God before we have done a thing to deserve it. The sabbath is itself a gift from God who is gracious, who gives good gifts to God’s children before we have asked for them, before we have earned them, before we deserve them. God does not give the sabbath as reward for work completed – God gives the sabbath as a pure and simple gift before we’ve done a thing. Honor the sabbath and keep it holy, because it is a gift from God, it is a means of grace, it is how God redeems and hallows time, it is where our relationships with God and one another are nurtured.
The story is told of an American boat that docked in a small Mexican fishing village. The owner of the boat complimented the Mexican fisherman on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took to catch them. “Not long.” “Then, why don’t you stay out and fish more?” The small catch was sufficient to meet his needs and those of his family. “What do you do with the rest of your time?” the American wondered. I sleep late, I fish a little, play with my children, and take a siesta with my wife. In the evenings, I go into the village, see my friends, have a few drinks, and have a good time. I have a full life.”
The American interrupted. “I have an MBA from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and I can help! First, you should fish longer hours every day. With the extra money from all the fish you sell, you could buy a bigger boat. Then, with the extra money from the bigger boat, you could eventually buy a second, and a third, and a fourth, and eventually have a whole fleet of boats. Then, instead of selling to the middle man, you can negotiate directly with the processor and perhaps have your own plant! Then you could leave this little village and move to Mexico City, Los Angeles, or even New York City!”
“How long will that take?” “I dunno, 20, 25 years. When your business gets big, you can get into the stock market and make millions! After that, you can retire, live in a tiny village near the coast, sleep late, play with your children and grandchildren, take a siesta with your wife, and spend the evenings enjoying your friends.”
We can spend a lifetime working to get somewhere. Many times, however, we find that we’re already there. We can work and work to earn some rest or a chance to slow down. But God invites us to recognize that rest is a gift we already have.
Remember the sabbath and keep it holy. Slow down, and enjoy the good things in your life as a gift from God. Spend time with God and with those you love. Time is both a gift from God and a precious resource. Remember the sabbath, and keep it holy.
At Cross Trails Church in Gainsboro, TN you’ll find a version of the Ten Commandments translated into Jackson County English. Now, my Hebrew isn’t all that good, so I guess God must have given these commandments in Southern Hebrew. And you know what? I love that God speaks to us in our native language. Pastor John and I have an ongoing discussion about how when God speaks to him, God says “y’all.” When God speaks to me, God says, “yous guys.” To people in middle Tennessee, God says: (1) Just one God. (2) Put nothin' before God. (3) Watch yer mouth. (4) Git yourself to Sunday meetin.' (5) Honor yer Ma & Pa. (6) No killin.' (7) No foolin' around with another fella's gal. (8) Don't take what ain't yers. (9) No tellin' tales or gossipin' – I suppose this would also include following up statements with “bless their heart” or couching gossip as a prayer request. (10) Don't be hankerin' for yer buddy's stuff.
In our society, something about the number ten suggests completeness. For one, it’s a manageable number. You have ten fingers, so keeping something to ten keeps it in the sphere of managability. A quick search on Google will reveal lists of Ten Commandments – the Ten Commandments of Investing, the Ten Commandments of Home Ownership, the Ten Commandments of Fly Fishing, the Ten Commandments of selecting the right college, and so on.
I think everyone here today would agree that the Ten Commandments are important for Christians to know and follow. Sometimes that’s easier said than done, and that’s exactly what we’ll talk about today. May we pray.
As I say the words, “Ten Commandments,” no doubt a number of thoughts will come into your head. Perhaps you have an image of Charleton Heston coming down off the mountain in that great epic movie, or the time you accompanied your Jewish friend to synagogue. Perhaps you’re thinking “law,” or “rules.” Perhaps “guidelines” or “covenant.” Perhaps you’re thinking of Miss Kitty who taught you the Ten Commandments back in your 3rd grade Sunday School class, or perhaps you’re thinking about the Alabama Supreme Court.
This last reference reminds us of how controversial the Ten Commandments have become. On one hand, they have a universal character about them. Recent polls indicate that roughly ¾ of Americans – this number has not changed significantly in decades – affirm the Ten Commandments as an important set of moral standards with broad and far-reaching applicability. It is hard to avoid recognizing that the kinds of directions in the Ten Commandments are widely present in a variety of societies and cultural traditions throughout space or time. Within the Ten Commandments are moral guidelines found in many of the world’s major religions. In the fourth chapter of Deuteronomy, the biblical narrative recognizes the wisdom of the big ten and obeying them beyond the confines of Israel.
On the other hand, the Commandments have a particular character about them. That is, they are given within a particular faith – the Hebrew faith – and passed along to the descendents of that faith, including Christianity.
You can feel the tension between those two positions – one extreme that says the Ten Commandments are universally binding, and one that says they are particular to the Hebrew faith and its descendents. I know good, faithful, Bible-believing, Spirit-filled Christians who fall along this entire spectrum, and who have vehemently strong opinions on this matter.
So what do we do? First, I think the argument over where the Ten Commandments should be displayed is one of those issues about which faithful Christians can disagree. This is one of the things I love about being a United Methodist – we do not have to hold identical opinions about everything under the sun. John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, frequently said, “In matters that do not strike at the heart of scriptural Christianity, we are free to think and let think.” Regarding what we believe, he said, “in essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; and in all things, charity.” Whatever we think the place of the Ten Commandments is outside the synagogue and church, we are free to hold differing opinions.
Second, I’d like us to consider the context in which the Ten Commandments are given. It’s back in verse 2 of today’s reading: I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.” In other words, the Ten Commandments are given in the context of an existing covenant. It’s as if God says, “Just as a reminder – I am God. I’ve done some things for you that you may remember. I’ve made a covenant with you. I am your God, and you’re my people. Since you’re living in my house, I have some rules I want you to follow. Don’t think of these as restrictions, but think of these as helping you grow in your relationship with me and with each other. If you follow these things, you’ll find yourself growing in your upward relationship with me and in your outward relationships with each other.”
So, the point of the Ten Commandments is not to enforce some universal moral code, but to draw us into deeper relationship with God and each other. What if we took the time and effort that goes into the debate about where and how the Ten Commandments ought to be displayed and devoted that to inviting people into covenant with God? What if we devoted that time and energy to building our relationships with each other? It seems to me there are a whole lot of people out there vehemently arguing about the importance of the Ten Commandments, but I feel our time could be better spent internalizing and living them out than in passing legislation for or against them. I’ll bet Georgia congressman Lynn Westmoreland wishes he had learned this lesson before this interview. (Show clip from 2006 interview - Steven Colbert & Westmoreland http://www.funnyhub.com/videos/pages/ten-commandments.html).
It seems that sometimes we miss the forest for the trees, doesn’t it? Before we argue with each other about the Ten Commandments, it might be a good idea to actually know what they are.
Let’s focus on what we can agree on here. The Ten Commandments are important to people of Hebrew faith and its descendents, including us Christians. Jesus told us to remove the log out of our own eye before helping our neighbor with the speck out of theirs. Whether other people are exposed to and following the Ten Commandments is an issue to be dealt with after we, ourselves, are following them completely.
While we could focus on any of the Commandments in greater detail, I want to consider this one: Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work – you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns. For in six days the Lord make heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and consecrated it.
From the very beginning, a rhythm and pattern is established by God in the account of creation. During those proverbial days of creation, God works six days, and then says, “You know, I’m not going into the office tomorrow. I’m going to take the day off.” Perhaps God had consulted Ray’s Weather, and Ray predicted the seventh day was going to be a five-golf-ball day.
The pattern of six days of work and one day of rest is a good one to follow. God created us with a yearning to rest and enjoy what we have done, to stop working, and breathe deeply. John Calvin, who in many ways founded what we understand to be the Protestant work ethic, wrote, “Work is good, but when we work all the time work becomes a curse, not a blessing.”
And yet, particularly within our society, the tendency toward workaholism continues at a blinding pace. Particularly in this economic climate, those of us who still have adequate employment may find ourselves working all the harder, proving ourselves to be hard-working, loyal, productive members of the organization – you know, the valuable team members they wouldn’t want to let go if things got tight. No doubt many of us are putting in long hours all week, and then going in for a few hours on Saturday before starting our second job.
Not only do we work like dogs, a lot of us are proud of it! We don’t need rest! We don’t need sleep! We don’t need time for renewal or recreation! Look at how hard we work! Nevermind the fact that we’ll have a nervous breakdown at 33. Nevermind that we’ve neglected our families at the times they’ve needed us the most! Nevermind that you’ll have a massive stress-induced heart attack in your 50s! 24/7 is not just a phrase, anymore – it’s a way of life.
Many of you recall when society itself seemed to support a sabbath. Stores, restaurants, and gas stations were closed on Sundays. The nostalgic among us will yearn for a return to these simpler, more innocent times. But I also know that many you experienced those Sundays as oppressive. Oddly enough, you had to help prepare that big mid-day meal, you had to set the table, and then you had a mountain of dishes to wash. After you did all that work, odd considering that is the type of work prohibited in legalistic interpretations of the sabbath, you were confined to the living room or perhaps the front porch for the remainder of the day. Some of you weren’t allowed to play games, or invite a friend over, or head to a friend’s house, or go to the playground, or spend money on anything.
While I appreciate these attempts to remember the sabbath and keep it holy, I think they completely miss the point. First, if you want to be that legalistic, the actual sabbath is still Saturday, not Sunday. In the Jewish understanding, the seventh day, the day of rest, is the sabbath. It is significant that Christians worship on Sunday. Sunday is the day of our Lord’s resurrection, and so every Sunday, Christians celebrate a little mini-Easter. Sunday is the first day – the day associated with creation. But Sunday is also the eighth day – the day the Jews associated with redemption. So for Christians to worship on Sunday, we celebrate who we are as God’s beloved children created in God’s image, but we also celebrate our redemption in Christ. We celebrate that because of Jesus, we find our rest in him through the power and witness of the Holy Spirit.
Second, the sabbath is not about legalism or restriction. Indeed, Jesus reminds the religious leaders of his day, “The Sabbath is made for human beings, not human beings for the Sabbath.” In other words, a day of rest is a gift to us. The purpose of the tradition was not to add another rule to the list of religious requirements and obligations. It is about the nurture and restoration and healing of human lives. Jesus wasn’t interested in legalism, but he was interested in whole, healthy human beings. John Calvin again: “On the Sabbath we cease our work so God can do God’s work in us.”
So then we find ourselves back in a more traditional understanding of the Protestant work ethic – work hard all week, and then take a day to rest and enjoy the fruit of your labor. In the tale of creation, after all, this is what God did! However, I’d like to remind you where humanity shows up in that particular story, and perhaps reframe the discussion a bit.
Whatever you understand the days of creation to mean, notice that humankind is not created until the sixth proverbial day. Before that, God has been creating all the creatures – wild animals and creeping things (Gen 1:24) – it seems to have been a full day. But the last item on God’s agenda before he turns out the lights on that sixth day is to create humankind – male and female God creates us in God’s image, and God blesses us, and makes us stewards over the whole created order. The next day, the proverbial seventh day of creation, the sabbath God consecrated, is humankind’s first full day. I imagine them waking up, saying, “Hey God – what are we gonna do today? Name and catalog the animals, or the rivers or the oceans? Name the mountains or the stars? See how many kinds of trees you’ve planted in this garden?”
“Today, my children, we’re going to rest.”
“But God, we haven’t even done anything yet! We haven’t worked! We haven’t earned our rest yet!”
The sabbath is a gift from God before we have done a thing to deserve it. The sabbath is itself a gift from God who is gracious, who gives good gifts to God’s children before we have asked for them, before we have earned them, before we deserve them. God does not give the sabbath as reward for work completed – God gives the sabbath as a pure and simple gift before we’ve done a thing. Honor the sabbath and keep it holy, because it is a gift from God, it is a means of grace, it is how God redeems and hallows time, it is where our relationships with God and one another are nurtured.
The story is told of an American boat that docked in a small Mexican fishing village. The owner of the boat complimented the Mexican fisherman on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took to catch them. “Not long.” “Then, why don’t you stay out and fish more?” The small catch was sufficient to meet his needs and those of his family. “What do you do with the rest of your time?” the American wondered. I sleep late, I fish a little, play with my children, and take a siesta with my wife. In the evenings, I go into the village, see my friends, have a few drinks, and have a good time. I have a full life.”
The American interrupted. “I have an MBA from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and I can help! First, you should fish longer hours every day. With the extra money from all the fish you sell, you could buy a bigger boat. Then, with the extra money from the bigger boat, you could eventually buy a second, and a third, and a fourth, and eventually have a whole fleet of boats. Then, instead of selling to the middle man, you can negotiate directly with the processor and perhaps have your own plant! Then you could leave this little village and move to Mexico City, Los Angeles, or even New York City!”
“How long will that take?” “I dunno, 20, 25 years. When your business gets big, you can get into the stock market and make millions! After that, you can retire, live in a tiny village near the coast, sleep late, play with your children and grandchildren, take a siesta with your wife, and spend the evenings enjoying your friends.”
We can spend a lifetime working to get somewhere. Many times, however, we find that we’re already there. We can work and work to earn some rest or a chance to slow down. But God invites us to recognize that rest is a gift we already have.
Remember the sabbath and keep it holy. Slow down, and enjoy the good things in your life as a gift from God. Spend time with God and with those you love. Time is both a gift from God and a precious resource. Remember the sabbath, and keep it holy.
Sunday, March 1, 2009
Where Was God? John 9:1-7 (Blackburn's Chapel)
As he walked along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him. We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” When he said this, he spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva and spread the mud on the man’s eyes, saying to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means Sent). Then he went and washed and came back and was able to see.
When you finished high school physics, did you think you would never have to recite Newton’s laws of motion again? So did I. That’s part of the reason I majored in humanities and not in the sciences. I was never going to balance another equation or determine the velocity of a watermelon seed spit by my cousin. But this morning, I need to review one of those laws with you. Finish Newton’s third law of motion for me: “For every action . . . . there is an equal and opposite reaction.”
Whether they knew it or not, the disciples were articulating this law quite well in this morning’s Scripture passage. As they’re walking down the road, they ask Jesus a question. Spotting a man born blind, the wheels in their heads start turning. In their worldview, hardships are the result of sin. In fact, they are the direct result of sin. That is, some specific sin causes each specific hardship. It would be only logical, therefore, that the man’s blindness is the direct result of some specific sin.
The disciples question represents one end of the spectrum, in which we humans chart the course of our own destiny. Good things happen when we act righteously, bad things happen when we act sinfully. It’s a sort of a “What goes around comes around” flavor of theology. Before we get into too much of a rush to dismiss their question, we have to admit that a whole lot of what happens to us is the natural consequence of decisions and actions we’ve already made. If you choose to tell your significant other they look fat in whatever outfit they’re wearing today, there will be negative consequences directly related to your decision. If you choose to embezzle money from your employer, there will be negative consequences directly related to your decision. If I choose to regularly and excessively exceed the speed limit – now you know we’re dealing in the hypothetical – there will be negative consequences that even the combined legal powers of Four Eggers, PW Glidewell, Don Watson, and Jim Deal can’t get me out of. There are certainly a number of hardships that are the direct result of our own sin.
Before we dismiss the disciples’ question too quickly, the sins of our parents can also have a harmful effect on us. When a mother addicted to crack gives birth to a child, the child suffers the direct consequence of its parents’ sin. When parents spend all their money on their own selfish indulgences and there is nothing left to adequately feed, clothe, and shelter their children, children suffer the direct consequence of their parents’ sin.
At the other end of the spectrum is a theology in which God dictates the results of our lives. That is, God sets forces in motion and orders the world in such a way that only the results God desires actually happen. Indeed, St. Paul tells us in his letter to the Romans, “We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him.” This premise is easily misinterpreted, however. We often hear that all things that happen to us are good, or that all things have a good in them. We can spend our lives trying to find the purpose behind every incident of pain and suffering. In this view, God sadistically places obstacles in our path in order to teach us something or make a point. Remember, according to this view, every instance of pain or suffering is there on purpose because some good is going to be worked out of it.
We see this viewpoint lived out when bad things happen to good people. It’s almost a default mode that we go into when there is unexplainable tragedy. When my mom was first diagnosed with aggressive stage 4 breast cancer in June of 2004 and even since then, I can’t tell you how many times I saw this lived out. As she kept a daily journal in those first few months and continued to keep it, she toyed with the idea of turning her daily musings into a book. One of the chapters in that book was going to be, “Stupid things people say when someone has cancer.” One of my personal favorites was, “I’m sure God did this for a reason.” I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs, “God didn’t do this! And if he did, that’s a God I don’t want anything to do with.”
These comments reflect a very popular theology that is widely held. When tragedy strikes, people are prone to just shrug their shoulders and say, “Everything happens for a reason.” Religious expressions of this popular theology would say, “I guess it must have been God’s will that this happened.”
I need to push back against that. This view says that everything that happens is God’s will. Every child who dies as a result of hunger does so at the will of God. Every time someone’s spouse comes homes drunk and beats them does so at the will of God. Every person who commits a rape or a murder does so at the will of God. You see why this breaks down. Pretty soon God is turned into a monster who intentionally calls down suffering on the world in order to accomplish something else. Quite frankly, if that was my view of God, I would have stopped believing in God a long time ago.
The theologian William Barclay lost his 20-year-old daughter in a horrible boating accident. Years later, he received an anonymous letter. “Dear Dr. Barclay, I know why God killed your daughter. It was to save her from corruption by your heresies.” “I wanted to write a letter back,” said Barclay. “Not in anger and fury, because that came and went in a flash. I wanted to write back in pity telling whomever ‘Your God is my devil. Your God is the God I don’t believe in.’”
Or, think about what gets said around other tragedies in which people specifically make God the author of suffering, always for some divine purpose. When a child dies, someone will inevitably say something like, “I guess God just needed another cherub in heaven.” Theirs is the God I don’t believe in. When the AIDS epidemic broke out 25 years ago, how many Christians rejoiced in what they perceived to be God’s judgment on homosexuals? Theirs is the God I don’t believe in. On September 11, how many Christians announced that God was angry with us for coming loose from our moorings as a nation? Theirs is the God I don’t believe in. How many Christians divide and separate, and sing wonderful songs of praise to God, yet bar from their pews anyone unlike them? Theirs is the God I don’t believe in.
God doesn’t give people cancer. God doesn’t cause traffic fatalities. God doesn’t inflict illness upon children. God doesn’t do to his children what we wouldn’t do to our children.
Here’s the reality. We live in a world in which the rain falls upon the just and the unjust alike. There is a great deal of suffering in the world. God is not the author of this suffering. God has not caused this suffering. So where is God in all this?
The scriptures tell us that God is kind. God is loving. God is merciful. God is compassionate. These things describe God’s nature. God does things that are consistent with these particular characteristics. Anything that falls outside the purview of love, or mercy, or compassion are not the work of God. God can still work in the midst of the greatest tragedy, but God has not caused them. God can still redeem good out of the jaws of the most tragic circumstance, but God did not commit the tragedy.
Back in our text today, why was the man born blind? Jesus tells us it was not because of anyone’s sin. He was not born blind as an object lesson. He was not born blind in order to teach us something. He was not born blind in order to be given sight.
Where was God in the story? God was being glorified. Whether the rain falls or the sun shines, whether the wind blows or the sky is calm, God is being glorified. Whether we are born blind or with sight, God is being glorified. Whether we suffer with cancer or live a long and healthy life, God is being glorified.
Where was God? God was being glorified. God was being glorified in the man’s blindness. God was being glorified in the man’s sight. God was being glorified in all the conditions and circumstances of the man’s life. In fact, later in this story, the man is brought before the Pharisees and religious leaders to give an account of his healing. They are concerned with procedure, offended by a healing taking place on the Sabbath. Indeed, God was being glorified, yet they failed to give glory to God and chose to focus on circumstances of little consequence.
In my mom’s battle with cancer, a battle that is slowly defeating her, where is God? Well, if we focused on the cancer itself, if we focused on this particular storm of life, it would be difficult to see God. But my mom has said, “I’m not going to be a victim to cancer. I am going to enjoy the people and the things in my life that bring me joy.” My mom has chosen to focus on the blessings in her life, in the midst of great pain and difficulty, instead of wallowing in her illness. Now, it still hurts. It’s still difficult. As a family, we’ve shed a lot of tears over the last five years, and we’ve grieved, knowing that cancer will eventually take my mom from us on this side of the resurrection.
Where is God in all that? Mom has used the events surrounding her cancer to minister to others. She has helped other people and their families going through what she has. She has shared her faith story with new boldness and clarity. She sees God all around – in her friendships and family relationships, in the beauty of creation, in the laughter of her grandchildren. As a family, the moments we have together have become all the more precious, and we recognize every additional day with her on this earth is a unique and precious blessing from God.
There is so much that is good in our lives, how can we not be grateful? God walks with us and will not let us go. God doesn’t do bad things to God’s children. God is our rock and refuge. And in the midst of suffering, we have an outlook on our suffering that says, “God, do something good with this. Help me to count my blessings and savor the joy I have each day.” Finally, we rest in God’s arms, knowing that we have a Father who loves us more than we could imagine or believe. As people of faith, that’s how we’re called to face those darkest and stormiest moments in our lives.
Perhaps the question to be considered this morning is not, “Where is God?” but rather, “Who is God?” I cannot believe in the God who loves pain. I shall never believe in the God who does not know how to hope. I cannot believe in the God who only cares about souls and not people, who is unmoved by human suffering or thinks it’s simply people getting their just desserts. I cannot believe in a God who is incapable of making all things new, who never weeps, who has no mystery, and is nothing more than a little more powerful, vindictive version of ourselves. I cannot believe in a God who is not love and does not transform everything he touches.
I believe in a different God. I believe in one who knows our suffering, who weeps with us in our suffering, who enters into our suffering with us. I believe in one who is with us in our suffering, and can still redeem even the most damaging and harmful acts for good. I believe in one who leads us through the valley of the shadow of death and teaches us not to fear evil. I believe in one who sets a table before us in the presence of our enemies, who calls us to this table, and who promises to strengthen our bonds with him and with each other in the breaking of this bread and the taking of this cup. That is my God and I shall have no other. Amen.
When you finished high school physics, did you think you would never have to recite Newton’s laws of motion again? So did I. That’s part of the reason I majored in humanities and not in the sciences. I was never going to balance another equation or determine the velocity of a watermelon seed spit by my cousin. But this morning, I need to review one of those laws with you. Finish Newton’s third law of motion for me: “For every action . . . . there is an equal and opposite reaction.”
Whether they knew it or not, the disciples were articulating this law quite well in this morning’s Scripture passage. As they’re walking down the road, they ask Jesus a question. Spotting a man born blind, the wheels in their heads start turning. In their worldview, hardships are the result of sin. In fact, they are the direct result of sin. That is, some specific sin causes each specific hardship. It would be only logical, therefore, that the man’s blindness is the direct result of some specific sin.
The disciples question represents one end of the spectrum, in which we humans chart the course of our own destiny. Good things happen when we act righteously, bad things happen when we act sinfully. It’s a sort of a “What goes around comes around” flavor of theology. Before we get into too much of a rush to dismiss their question, we have to admit that a whole lot of what happens to us is the natural consequence of decisions and actions we’ve already made. If you choose to tell your significant other they look fat in whatever outfit they’re wearing today, there will be negative consequences directly related to your decision. If you choose to embezzle money from your employer, there will be negative consequences directly related to your decision. If I choose to regularly and excessively exceed the speed limit – now you know we’re dealing in the hypothetical – there will be negative consequences that even the combined legal powers of Four Eggers, PW Glidewell, Don Watson, and Jim Deal can’t get me out of. There are certainly a number of hardships that are the direct result of our own sin.
Before we dismiss the disciples’ question too quickly, the sins of our parents can also have a harmful effect on us. When a mother addicted to crack gives birth to a child, the child suffers the direct consequence of its parents’ sin. When parents spend all their money on their own selfish indulgences and there is nothing left to adequately feed, clothe, and shelter their children, children suffer the direct consequence of their parents’ sin.
At the other end of the spectrum is a theology in which God dictates the results of our lives. That is, God sets forces in motion and orders the world in such a way that only the results God desires actually happen. Indeed, St. Paul tells us in his letter to the Romans, “We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him.” This premise is easily misinterpreted, however. We often hear that all things that happen to us are good, or that all things have a good in them. We can spend our lives trying to find the purpose behind every incident of pain and suffering. In this view, God sadistically places obstacles in our path in order to teach us something or make a point. Remember, according to this view, every instance of pain or suffering is there on purpose because some good is going to be worked out of it.
We see this viewpoint lived out when bad things happen to good people. It’s almost a default mode that we go into when there is unexplainable tragedy. When my mom was first diagnosed with aggressive stage 4 breast cancer in June of 2004 and even since then, I can’t tell you how many times I saw this lived out. As she kept a daily journal in those first few months and continued to keep it, she toyed with the idea of turning her daily musings into a book. One of the chapters in that book was going to be, “Stupid things people say when someone has cancer.” One of my personal favorites was, “I’m sure God did this for a reason.” I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs, “God didn’t do this! And if he did, that’s a God I don’t want anything to do with.”
These comments reflect a very popular theology that is widely held. When tragedy strikes, people are prone to just shrug their shoulders and say, “Everything happens for a reason.” Religious expressions of this popular theology would say, “I guess it must have been God’s will that this happened.”
I need to push back against that. This view says that everything that happens is God’s will. Every child who dies as a result of hunger does so at the will of God. Every time someone’s spouse comes homes drunk and beats them does so at the will of God. Every person who commits a rape or a murder does so at the will of God. You see why this breaks down. Pretty soon God is turned into a monster who intentionally calls down suffering on the world in order to accomplish something else. Quite frankly, if that was my view of God, I would have stopped believing in God a long time ago.
The theologian William Barclay lost his 20-year-old daughter in a horrible boating accident. Years later, he received an anonymous letter. “Dear Dr. Barclay, I know why God killed your daughter. It was to save her from corruption by your heresies.” “I wanted to write a letter back,” said Barclay. “Not in anger and fury, because that came and went in a flash. I wanted to write back in pity telling whomever ‘Your God is my devil. Your God is the God I don’t believe in.’”
Or, think about what gets said around other tragedies in which people specifically make God the author of suffering, always for some divine purpose. When a child dies, someone will inevitably say something like, “I guess God just needed another cherub in heaven.” Theirs is the God I don’t believe in. When the AIDS epidemic broke out 25 years ago, how many Christians rejoiced in what they perceived to be God’s judgment on homosexuals? Theirs is the God I don’t believe in. On September 11, how many Christians announced that God was angry with us for coming loose from our moorings as a nation? Theirs is the God I don’t believe in. How many Christians divide and separate, and sing wonderful songs of praise to God, yet bar from their pews anyone unlike them? Theirs is the God I don’t believe in.
God doesn’t give people cancer. God doesn’t cause traffic fatalities. God doesn’t inflict illness upon children. God doesn’t do to his children what we wouldn’t do to our children.
Here’s the reality. We live in a world in which the rain falls upon the just and the unjust alike. There is a great deal of suffering in the world. God is not the author of this suffering. God has not caused this suffering. So where is God in all this?
The scriptures tell us that God is kind. God is loving. God is merciful. God is compassionate. These things describe God’s nature. God does things that are consistent with these particular characteristics. Anything that falls outside the purview of love, or mercy, or compassion are not the work of God. God can still work in the midst of the greatest tragedy, but God has not caused them. God can still redeem good out of the jaws of the most tragic circumstance, but God did not commit the tragedy.
Back in our text today, why was the man born blind? Jesus tells us it was not because of anyone’s sin. He was not born blind as an object lesson. He was not born blind in order to teach us something. He was not born blind in order to be given sight.
Where was God in the story? God was being glorified. Whether the rain falls or the sun shines, whether the wind blows or the sky is calm, God is being glorified. Whether we are born blind or with sight, God is being glorified. Whether we suffer with cancer or live a long and healthy life, God is being glorified.
Where was God? God was being glorified. God was being glorified in the man’s blindness. God was being glorified in the man’s sight. God was being glorified in all the conditions and circumstances of the man’s life. In fact, later in this story, the man is brought before the Pharisees and religious leaders to give an account of his healing. They are concerned with procedure, offended by a healing taking place on the Sabbath. Indeed, God was being glorified, yet they failed to give glory to God and chose to focus on circumstances of little consequence.
In my mom’s battle with cancer, a battle that is slowly defeating her, where is God? Well, if we focused on the cancer itself, if we focused on this particular storm of life, it would be difficult to see God. But my mom has said, “I’m not going to be a victim to cancer. I am going to enjoy the people and the things in my life that bring me joy.” My mom has chosen to focus on the blessings in her life, in the midst of great pain and difficulty, instead of wallowing in her illness. Now, it still hurts. It’s still difficult. As a family, we’ve shed a lot of tears over the last five years, and we’ve grieved, knowing that cancer will eventually take my mom from us on this side of the resurrection.
Where is God in all that? Mom has used the events surrounding her cancer to minister to others. She has helped other people and their families going through what she has. She has shared her faith story with new boldness and clarity. She sees God all around – in her friendships and family relationships, in the beauty of creation, in the laughter of her grandchildren. As a family, the moments we have together have become all the more precious, and we recognize every additional day with her on this earth is a unique and precious blessing from God.
There is so much that is good in our lives, how can we not be grateful? God walks with us and will not let us go. God doesn’t do bad things to God’s children. God is our rock and refuge. And in the midst of suffering, we have an outlook on our suffering that says, “God, do something good with this. Help me to count my blessings and savor the joy I have each day.” Finally, we rest in God’s arms, knowing that we have a Father who loves us more than we could imagine or believe. As people of faith, that’s how we’re called to face those darkest and stormiest moments in our lives.
Perhaps the question to be considered this morning is not, “Where is God?” but rather, “Who is God?” I cannot believe in the God who loves pain. I shall never believe in the God who does not know how to hope. I cannot believe in the God who only cares about souls and not people, who is unmoved by human suffering or thinks it’s simply people getting their just desserts. I cannot believe in a God who is incapable of making all things new, who never weeps, who has no mystery, and is nothing more than a little more powerful, vindictive version of ourselves. I cannot believe in a God who is not love and does not transform everything he touches.
I believe in a different God. I believe in one who knows our suffering, who weeps with us in our suffering, who enters into our suffering with us. I believe in one who is with us in our suffering, and can still redeem even the most damaging and harmful acts for good. I believe in one who leads us through the valley of the shadow of death and teaches us not to fear evil. I believe in one who sets a table before us in the presence of our enemies, who calls us to this table, and who promises to strengthen our bonds with him and with each other in the breaking of this bread and the taking of this cup. That is my God and I shall have no other. Amen.
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Up and Away - Mark 1:14-20
Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.” As Jesus passed along the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the sea—for they were fishermen. And Jesus said to them, “Follow me and I will make you fish for people.” And immediately they left their nets and followed him. As he went a little farther, he saw James son of Zebedee and his brother John, who were in their boat mending the nets. Immediately he called them; and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men, and followed him.
Jesus was walking along the lake, and seeing the fishermen in their boats, he said, “Follow me,” and they did. Easier said than done! This week, I was staying with a friend in DC. Wednesday morning, we planned to go grab some breakfast and she wanted to show me her office. Since I was then leaving town and she was staying at work, we took separate cars. She hopped in her car and said, “Follow me!” Easier said than done.
We went across DC in morning rush-hour combined with however many million people trying to get out of DC after Tuesday’s events. There were accidents all over the place, stalled-out vehicles, and blocked intersections. As we drove across town, she forced her Honda Civic through places it was rude for one car to squeeze through, let alone two, especially when the second has out-of-town tags! Now, those of you who have ridden with me know that I have no problem being a bit “assertive” and pushing my car into places I need it to be, but even my limits were stretched on that. “Follow me!” she said, which is sometimes easier said than done. May we pray.
I love this passage of Scripture. I remember learning this one at a very young age in children’s church, and we had a song that went along with it and everything. As Mark tells it, it was all very simple. Jesus said, “Follow me!” and they did. Jesus said, “I will make you fish for people,” and they all nodded in agreement, as if they completely understood everything he was saying.
But I wonder if wasn’t more complicated than that. Mark, as you know, has a way of telling the story that sorta hits the highlights and moves on. I wonder if the disciples asked where they were going to be following? Or for how long? Or why they should follow him in the first place? I wonder how Zebedee felt when he watched his business succession plan drop their nets in the boat and walk off without even stamping their timecards. Who knows, maybe Zebedee was a bad father and a hard boss, and the boys were grateful for anything that took them away. I wonder if Simon Peter or Andrew or James or John stopped and said, “He’s going to make us fish for people? Does anyone know what he means by that? Are we going to be gone for just a couple of hours or what? And WHEN are we stopping to get something to eat?”
Mark doesn’t answer these questions—in fact, he is not even concerned with them. And really, for Mark, these few little verses are a transition – little more than a stopping point on the story to explain how a few followers ended up on the journey.
When Jesus calls these fishermen to follow him, to be his first disciples, we realize that we are being given a glimpse of the beginning of their journey with Jesus. Think of being one of Jesus’ disciples as a journey with Jesus. Journeys, as you know, have a starting point and a destination, but there is a whole lot that has to happen between those two things. This evening, for example, I have to drive to Jacksonville, Florida for a series of meetings. I have a beginning point in mind – Boone, NC. I have a destination in mind – Jacksonville, FL. But do you know what has to happen between Boone and Jacksonville? Several hours in the car, through very boring and mundane parts of South Carolina and Georgia. Eventually, I’ll arrive, but I won’t arrive there all at once. It will happen over time, mile by mile, as I close in on my destination.
I think it’s easier and more exciting to become a follower than it is to remain a follower. Becoming a follower of Jesus is pretty easy on day one. Or starting a new diet, or a new exercise regimen, or quitting smoking, or getting organized or any other new venture is always easiest on day one. Starting something is easy, but sticking to it and following through with it is a little more difficult.
Think of the commitment your most significant relationships take. With your partner, your children, your parents, your siblings – these relationships require constant commitment. When the relationship is new, it’s exciting, it’s fresh, it’s a constant adventure. But somewhere along the line, you get used to it. And, you may even begin to get bored with it. That’s where the commitment kicks in.
This is one of the things I stress to couples who are about to get married. A wedding, though it can be costly and somewhat stressful, is easy. But marriage can be more difficult. The wedding is fun—a great big party with all your friends and family, everyone dressed up in fine clothes, celebrating, happy, smiling—that’s just a fun occasion! But marriage—the day-to-day ins and outs of communicating, putting up with weird habits, and learning to place someone else’s needs higher than your own—that takes a lot of work. The wedding is the fun part, but marriage takes work. It takes daily commitment. It takes waking up every morning and saying “Today I am going to treat my partner with greater honor than I treat myself.”
That’s a big commitment. That’s a lot of communication. That’s a lot of willingness to say “I’m sorry, please forgive me.” That’s a lot of sticking together through days that aren’t all that exciting, through very mundane chores, through times of want and plenty, through times of joy and sorrow, through times of better and worse. It’s a commitment, and it takes some work.
A wedding is great, but you know what’s even better, in my opinion? A third anniversary. After about three years, the shiny has worn off. Things may not be as exciting any more. Quirks that used to be adorable are now annoying. A third anniversary is something that should be celebrated, and a 5th anniversary, and a 9th, and a 14th – these should be celebrated because they are reminders to us that two people have stuck it out through what may have been very difficult, painful, or just plain boring circumstances. I can still remember the party celebrating my grandparents’ 50th anniversary. Papa publicly thanked Grandma for 27 happy years of marriage.
By the way, I don’t recommend that. Members of my family delight in pushing my grandmother’s buttons just to get a reaction, and we all learned that from him. But it was also an honest admission that it wasn’t all wine and roses, but these two people chose to face it together instead of apart. They were in it for the long haul.
Jesus said he was going to make the disciples fishers of people. Now, many of you are probably familiar with catch and release fishing. This seems an odd practice to me. When I was growing up, we didn’t catch fish simply to throw them back in the lake. If you aren’t going to take it home and eat it, why would you want to catch it, torture it by poking holes in its lip, and then put it back in the water?
I wonder if that wouldn’t create a lake full of fish with low self-esteem and bad attitudes. You have to go back to your friends and family with holes all in your lip and explain that you weren’t good enough. They didn’t want to eat you. All your life you’ve wanted to grow up and feed a hungry family, and then you’re caught, they look you over, and throw you back in the water.
Can I tell you something about the way Jesus fishes? Jesus isn’t into “catch and release.” When Jesus catches you, he means business. Jesus cast his net and caught these fishermen up into the kingdom of God, and there was no looking back. And so it is with us. When Jesus catches you, he’s not offering you a leisurely vacation. He’s not catching you simply to throw you back into the water. When Jesus catches you, it means that he wants to keep you, that he is committed to you, that he makes an everlasting promise and covenant with you that begs your participation and cooperation.
This morning, we baptized Lydia Grace Dean. Her baptism marks the beginning of her journey with God, it marks when Jesus walked beside the lakeshore and called her name, it marks the day that she became a disciple of Jesus Christ. God is committed to her, and God asks us to commit to raising her and nurturing her in the Christian faith. And you know what? This is something that will happen daily. Today is not the end of the story! Baptism is the beginning of a journey, a time when God has said “yes” to each of us, and it anticipates the days and weeks and months and years of our continuing to say “yes” back to God.
Becoming a disciple of Jesus Christ is not a one-time static event. So many times we act as if someone’s baptism, or their public profession of faith, or their salvation moment, or their heart being strangely warmed or however we choose to describe that experience is all that matters, when, in fact, that moment simply highlights an important part of their spiritual journey. Being a disciple is something that happens each and every day of our lives as we say “yes” and recommit ourselves to the life offered in Christ. People will sometimes ask when I became a disciple of Jesus Christ, and my answer has always been this: “I became a disciple of Jesus Christ at my baptism, and by the grace of God, each and every day since then.”
I’m sure that on that day beside the sea of Galilee, Simon Peter, Andrew, James, and John had no idea what they were getting themselves into. They had no idea what was about to unfold before them. I’m sure there were numerous times they were ready to walk away from the whole thing, ready to walk away from Jesus. And, quite honestly, there was nothing that forced them to stay.
But look at what they would have missed out on. They would have missed out on the teachings, and the healings, and the miracles. They would have missed out on a vision of the kingdom of God that was broad and glorious, a vision of the kingdom of God that cast a wide net and invited the whole world to come and be part of God’s family.
Friends, when Jesus goes fishing, he’s not into catch and release. When he catches you, he wants you to be a child of God. He wants you to be one of his disciples. He wants to pull you up out of the water and away from its murky depths. He wants you on his fishing crew, casting his net far and wide, a fishing crew that doesn’t only work weekends, or who plays catch and release, who pick and choose among all those who are dying to know God. Our calling is to cast the net and let God do the sorting. We don’t have the freedom to decide who gets to be loved and accepted and called by God. We don’t have the leisure to say, “He’s no good. She’s no good. Throw ‘em back in.”
Brothers and sisters, the time for picking and choosing is over. Now is the time for inviting everyone we find – the good and the bad, those who smell good and those who smell bad, rich and poor, black and white, those whom we like and those whom we don’t, Republicans and Democrats and Independents, Carolina fans and Duke fans and Wake Forest fans and State fans and even Florida and Boston College fans, those who are popular and those who are unloved, the educated and the simple, the cultured and the unrefined—everyone—we are called to invite everyone into God’s presence, to cast our net wide and haul them all in and then let the Master Fisherman figure out what He’s going to do with all of ‘em once they’re in the boat.
No wonder you can’t do this job part-time. It just shows that a relationship with Jesus, like any other relationship, is a continual, daily, intense thing. There are times it’s going to be hard and challenging and gut-wrenching. There are times when people will say all sorts of things about you. There are times you’ll be absolutely exhausted and overwhelmed by the enormity of the family business.
But look at the payoff. You’ll see it in the eyes of people who never considered that they could possibly be loved or accepted by God. I was discussing this text with Brooke Newsome earlier in the week. Some of you know Brooke. She graduated from ASU last May. She was active in the ministry of the Wesley Foundation, and she became an affiliate member of this church during her time in Boone. She’s now a full-time missionary through the United Methodist Church’s US-2 program, and is in the middle of a 2-year placement at Cunningham Children’s Home in Urbana, Illinois. Many of the kids have been in and out of multiple foster homes and juvenile detention facilities. About 75% of these kids have been sexually abused. All but two are on daily pshychotropic drugs. They are kids society would have otherwise given up on, kids who thought that God could never call their name or have any desire to fish for them.
But through the work of Brooke and the rest of the staff and volunteers, these kids are discovering what it means to be made in the image of God, how much they are loved and valued by the Master Fisherman. She said, “you have no idea what it means to these kids when they have been unloved and unwanted all their lives, and they realize that God not only loves them, but wants them in his net.”
Friends, I realize that we all have our own stuff going on, and our experiences with God have all been different. Maybe God called your name a long time ago, and you walked together, but you’ve been gone for awhile. God wants you back. Or maybe you’ve never really thought that God or anyone else could love you, and you’ve kept your distance. God wants you, too. Or maybe even Christians or some Church somewhere told you that you were outside the reach of God’s net, that God didn’t love you, or that you were somehow a second-class citizen in God’s plan. That’s simply not true. God wants you, too.
Jesus continues to walk the shores of our lives, calling each of our names, and inviting us to be caught up in his net. He wants each and every one of us on his fishing crew, casting the net far and wide – touching every person with his love and grace.
Jesus was walking along the lake, and seeing the fishermen in their boats, he said, “Follow me,” and they did. Easier said than done! This week, I was staying with a friend in DC. Wednesday morning, we planned to go grab some breakfast and she wanted to show me her office. Since I was then leaving town and she was staying at work, we took separate cars. She hopped in her car and said, “Follow me!” Easier said than done.
We went across DC in morning rush-hour combined with however many million people trying to get out of DC after Tuesday’s events. There were accidents all over the place, stalled-out vehicles, and blocked intersections. As we drove across town, she forced her Honda Civic through places it was rude for one car to squeeze through, let alone two, especially when the second has out-of-town tags! Now, those of you who have ridden with me know that I have no problem being a bit “assertive” and pushing my car into places I need it to be, but even my limits were stretched on that. “Follow me!” she said, which is sometimes easier said than done. May we pray.
I love this passage of Scripture. I remember learning this one at a very young age in children’s church, and we had a song that went along with it and everything. As Mark tells it, it was all very simple. Jesus said, “Follow me!” and they did. Jesus said, “I will make you fish for people,” and they all nodded in agreement, as if they completely understood everything he was saying.
But I wonder if wasn’t more complicated than that. Mark, as you know, has a way of telling the story that sorta hits the highlights and moves on. I wonder if the disciples asked where they were going to be following? Or for how long? Or why they should follow him in the first place? I wonder how Zebedee felt when he watched his business succession plan drop their nets in the boat and walk off without even stamping their timecards. Who knows, maybe Zebedee was a bad father and a hard boss, and the boys were grateful for anything that took them away. I wonder if Simon Peter or Andrew or James or John stopped and said, “He’s going to make us fish for people? Does anyone know what he means by that? Are we going to be gone for just a couple of hours or what? And WHEN are we stopping to get something to eat?”
Mark doesn’t answer these questions—in fact, he is not even concerned with them. And really, for Mark, these few little verses are a transition – little more than a stopping point on the story to explain how a few followers ended up on the journey.
When Jesus calls these fishermen to follow him, to be his first disciples, we realize that we are being given a glimpse of the beginning of their journey with Jesus. Think of being one of Jesus’ disciples as a journey with Jesus. Journeys, as you know, have a starting point and a destination, but there is a whole lot that has to happen between those two things. This evening, for example, I have to drive to Jacksonville, Florida for a series of meetings. I have a beginning point in mind – Boone, NC. I have a destination in mind – Jacksonville, FL. But do you know what has to happen between Boone and Jacksonville? Several hours in the car, through very boring and mundane parts of South Carolina and Georgia. Eventually, I’ll arrive, but I won’t arrive there all at once. It will happen over time, mile by mile, as I close in on my destination.
I think it’s easier and more exciting to become a follower than it is to remain a follower. Becoming a follower of Jesus is pretty easy on day one. Or starting a new diet, or a new exercise regimen, or quitting smoking, or getting organized or any other new venture is always easiest on day one. Starting something is easy, but sticking to it and following through with it is a little more difficult.
Think of the commitment your most significant relationships take. With your partner, your children, your parents, your siblings – these relationships require constant commitment. When the relationship is new, it’s exciting, it’s fresh, it’s a constant adventure. But somewhere along the line, you get used to it. And, you may even begin to get bored with it. That’s where the commitment kicks in.
This is one of the things I stress to couples who are about to get married. A wedding, though it can be costly and somewhat stressful, is easy. But marriage can be more difficult. The wedding is fun—a great big party with all your friends and family, everyone dressed up in fine clothes, celebrating, happy, smiling—that’s just a fun occasion! But marriage—the day-to-day ins and outs of communicating, putting up with weird habits, and learning to place someone else’s needs higher than your own—that takes a lot of work. The wedding is the fun part, but marriage takes work. It takes daily commitment. It takes waking up every morning and saying “Today I am going to treat my partner with greater honor than I treat myself.”
That’s a big commitment. That’s a lot of communication. That’s a lot of willingness to say “I’m sorry, please forgive me.” That’s a lot of sticking together through days that aren’t all that exciting, through very mundane chores, through times of want and plenty, through times of joy and sorrow, through times of better and worse. It’s a commitment, and it takes some work.
A wedding is great, but you know what’s even better, in my opinion? A third anniversary. After about three years, the shiny has worn off. Things may not be as exciting any more. Quirks that used to be adorable are now annoying. A third anniversary is something that should be celebrated, and a 5th anniversary, and a 9th, and a 14th – these should be celebrated because they are reminders to us that two people have stuck it out through what may have been very difficult, painful, or just plain boring circumstances. I can still remember the party celebrating my grandparents’ 50th anniversary. Papa publicly thanked Grandma for 27 happy years of marriage.
By the way, I don’t recommend that. Members of my family delight in pushing my grandmother’s buttons just to get a reaction, and we all learned that from him. But it was also an honest admission that it wasn’t all wine and roses, but these two people chose to face it together instead of apart. They were in it for the long haul.
Jesus said he was going to make the disciples fishers of people. Now, many of you are probably familiar with catch and release fishing. This seems an odd practice to me. When I was growing up, we didn’t catch fish simply to throw them back in the lake. If you aren’t going to take it home and eat it, why would you want to catch it, torture it by poking holes in its lip, and then put it back in the water?
I wonder if that wouldn’t create a lake full of fish with low self-esteem and bad attitudes. You have to go back to your friends and family with holes all in your lip and explain that you weren’t good enough. They didn’t want to eat you. All your life you’ve wanted to grow up and feed a hungry family, and then you’re caught, they look you over, and throw you back in the water.
Can I tell you something about the way Jesus fishes? Jesus isn’t into “catch and release.” When Jesus catches you, he means business. Jesus cast his net and caught these fishermen up into the kingdom of God, and there was no looking back. And so it is with us. When Jesus catches you, he’s not offering you a leisurely vacation. He’s not catching you simply to throw you back into the water. When Jesus catches you, it means that he wants to keep you, that he is committed to you, that he makes an everlasting promise and covenant with you that begs your participation and cooperation.
This morning, we baptized Lydia Grace Dean. Her baptism marks the beginning of her journey with God, it marks when Jesus walked beside the lakeshore and called her name, it marks the day that she became a disciple of Jesus Christ. God is committed to her, and God asks us to commit to raising her and nurturing her in the Christian faith. And you know what? This is something that will happen daily. Today is not the end of the story! Baptism is the beginning of a journey, a time when God has said “yes” to each of us, and it anticipates the days and weeks and months and years of our continuing to say “yes” back to God.
Becoming a disciple of Jesus Christ is not a one-time static event. So many times we act as if someone’s baptism, or their public profession of faith, or their salvation moment, or their heart being strangely warmed or however we choose to describe that experience is all that matters, when, in fact, that moment simply highlights an important part of their spiritual journey. Being a disciple is something that happens each and every day of our lives as we say “yes” and recommit ourselves to the life offered in Christ. People will sometimes ask when I became a disciple of Jesus Christ, and my answer has always been this: “I became a disciple of Jesus Christ at my baptism, and by the grace of God, each and every day since then.”
I’m sure that on that day beside the sea of Galilee, Simon Peter, Andrew, James, and John had no idea what they were getting themselves into. They had no idea what was about to unfold before them. I’m sure there were numerous times they were ready to walk away from the whole thing, ready to walk away from Jesus. And, quite honestly, there was nothing that forced them to stay.
But look at what they would have missed out on. They would have missed out on the teachings, and the healings, and the miracles. They would have missed out on a vision of the kingdom of God that was broad and glorious, a vision of the kingdom of God that cast a wide net and invited the whole world to come and be part of God’s family.
Friends, when Jesus goes fishing, he’s not into catch and release. When he catches you, he wants you to be a child of God. He wants you to be one of his disciples. He wants to pull you up out of the water and away from its murky depths. He wants you on his fishing crew, casting his net far and wide, a fishing crew that doesn’t only work weekends, or who plays catch and release, who pick and choose among all those who are dying to know God. Our calling is to cast the net and let God do the sorting. We don’t have the freedom to decide who gets to be loved and accepted and called by God. We don’t have the leisure to say, “He’s no good. She’s no good. Throw ‘em back in.”
Brothers and sisters, the time for picking and choosing is over. Now is the time for inviting everyone we find – the good and the bad, those who smell good and those who smell bad, rich and poor, black and white, those whom we like and those whom we don’t, Republicans and Democrats and Independents, Carolina fans and Duke fans and Wake Forest fans and State fans and even Florida and Boston College fans, those who are popular and those who are unloved, the educated and the simple, the cultured and the unrefined—everyone—we are called to invite everyone into God’s presence, to cast our net wide and haul them all in and then let the Master Fisherman figure out what He’s going to do with all of ‘em once they’re in the boat.
No wonder you can’t do this job part-time. It just shows that a relationship with Jesus, like any other relationship, is a continual, daily, intense thing. There are times it’s going to be hard and challenging and gut-wrenching. There are times when people will say all sorts of things about you. There are times you’ll be absolutely exhausted and overwhelmed by the enormity of the family business.
But look at the payoff. You’ll see it in the eyes of people who never considered that they could possibly be loved or accepted by God. I was discussing this text with Brooke Newsome earlier in the week. Some of you know Brooke. She graduated from ASU last May. She was active in the ministry of the Wesley Foundation, and she became an affiliate member of this church during her time in Boone. She’s now a full-time missionary through the United Methodist Church’s US-2 program, and is in the middle of a 2-year placement at Cunningham Children’s Home in Urbana, Illinois. Many of the kids have been in and out of multiple foster homes and juvenile detention facilities. About 75% of these kids have been sexually abused. All but two are on daily pshychotropic drugs. They are kids society would have otherwise given up on, kids who thought that God could never call their name or have any desire to fish for them.
But through the work of Brooke and the rest of the staff and volunteers, these kids are discovering what it means to be made in the image of God, how much they are loved and valued by the Master Fisherman. She said, “you have no idea what it means to these kids when they have been unloved and unwanted all their lives, and they realize that God not only loves them, but wants them in his net.”
Friends, I realize that we all have our own stuff going on, and our experiences with God have all been different. Maybe God called your name a long time ago, and you walked together, but you’ve been gone for awhile. God wants you back. Or maybe you’ve never really thought that God or anyone else could love you, and you’ve kept your distance. God wants you, too. Or maybe even Christians or some Church somewhere told you that you were outside the reach of God’s net, that God didn’t love you, or that you were somehow a second-class citizen in God’s plan. That’s simply not true. God wants you, too.
Jesus continues to walk the shores of our lives, calling each of our names, and inviting us to be caught up in his net. He wants each and every one of us on his fishing crew, casting the net far and wide – touching every person with his love and grace.
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