Pentecost

May 27, 2012

Acts 2:1-21 

            On this Pentecost Sunday it should come as no surprise that we now turn to the story of Pentecost as found only in the book of Acts for this morning’s reading.  Listen for the Word of God as it speaks to you from the second chapter of Acts.

            READ

            I would venture to say that most Christians think Pentecost is purely a Christian holy day… that this day is unique to us as Christians  But before the events we read about this morning, Pentecost was already a holy day, which is why so many different Jews from so many different places were in Jerusalem at the time.  It would be like this story happening on this weekend and from here on out whenever we celebrated Memorial Day, it would suddenly have a second and different meaning that would eventually replace the original Memorial Day.  In the Jewish tradition, seven weeks after the Passover the Law was given.  Pentecost traditionally was the day that celebrated the giving of the Law.  And that’s an interesting foundation to build our Christian tradition on because the Law was life for the Jews… it was their connection to God’s will.  The Law taught how to walk in the ways of God’s righteousness.  The Law gave direction and inspiration.  The Law defined and delineated.  But on this particular Pentecost, Christians would no longer look to the Law for definitive guidance… not that the Law ceased to be influential and an important guide in the lives of these early Christians and even us later Christians… but with this Pentecost, the Holy Spirit would take the place of the Law as the primary guide in the life of a Christian.

            Which brings me to my first point this morning. And yes, this is going to be one of those very traditional three point sermons that used to stylistically be so popular… although there will be no poem at the end.  Not even an inspiring short haiku to see us off.  Anyway… my first point for this morning is Pentecost is Spirit driven.  We might as well start with the obvious.  On this day when we talk about the birth of the church, the life of the church is the Holy Spirit that works within and through the church.  Without the Holy Spirit, the church is little more than a group of like-minded and hopefully good-hearted individuals coming together now and again to hopefully do some nice and good things.  In the almost ironically titled Acts of the Apostles, before the Holy Spirit shows up what have the apostles accomplished?  In the story that Luke tells, after Jesus ascends they went back to Jerusalem and they returned to the upper room.  The one piece of business they take care of is replacing Judas so that they would equal twelve in number and not eleven.  And that’s about it.  That’s all they’ve accomplished.  Left on their own, the one thing they do is a little organizational reshuffling, and even then they resort to the casting of lots to help them in their decision making.  Left on their own, the apostles don’t have much of plan.  They are, in a way, still out there on that hill staring, slack-jawed, up at the sky.  There is no grand vision statement for this possible church or some ten-year plan of action to propel them forward.  Until the Spirit arrives the movement is pretty well stalled and in danger of ending before it even has a chance to begin.

            Now to say that the church is Spirit driven is easily misunderstood today because such a phrase… Spirit driven… often brings visions of more Pentecostal or charismatic churches.  The swaying in the pews, the shouting of amen peppering the worship service… maybe even a little speaking in tongues in the amen corner… these are often cited as signs of a Spirit driven church… especially where we live.  Our modern day commercial churches have also will turn a phrase like “Spirit driven” into some kind marketing tool… the latest book by Joel Warren or Rick Olsteen.  We think of the Spirit driven church as a place that’s happening, where the music is loud and full of 7-11 praise lyrics and the people can barely contain themselves.  All that’s more style rather than any definitive evidence of the Spirit is present.  So what do we of the frozen chosen variety of Christian mean by Spirit driven since it’s been a long time since I’ve seen someone doing back flips up and down the aisle in our church?  In truth our Presbyterian theology is very conducive to being a Spirit driven church.  As Presbyterians so much of our faith is quietly built on trust.  First, we acknowledge that this church does not belong to us.  The sign on the front may say Mount Jefferson Presbyterian, but that’s more of a hint as to how we are going to do church within and without these walls… how we’re going to organize ourselves and our understanding of God… our basic reformed theology.  In practice… with everything we do we look to the guidance of the Holy Spirit.  In our election of elders and in their work on the Session… its God’s will which is sought in prayer and debate… revealed to us through the Spirit.  Before we read from scripture we turn to the Spirit in our Prayer for Illumination knowing it is the Spirit that directs our insight… it is the Spirit that breathes life into this text and opens our minds and our hearts so we may hear God’s voice speak.  As a congregation, it is the Spirit that binds us together… that works to create community… that inspires us to go out and share our faith with one another and even beyond these walls.  It is the Holy Spirit working within us and through us that helps to welcome people into our community of faith.  We are constantly invoking the name of the Holy Spirit as an expression of our hope.  Theologian Shirley Guthrie describes the work of the Holy Spirit this way:  “The Holy Spirit brings new creaturely life that is stronger than sickness and even death itself; gives new beginnings to people whose lives seem to be at a dead end; brings new wisdom and guidance from God; calls, holds together, and sends out a new reconciled and reconciling community called the church; works in the world to create a whole new humanity and a whole new creation.  When the Spirit breaks in, old ways of thinking and living are left behind and new ways of thinking and living begin to take over.  Old boring, oppressive, and dead social structures and institutions are transformed into exciting new, liberating ones.  It may not happen all at once, but when the Holy Spirit comes there is the dawn of a new day, hope for a new and different future, and courage and strength to move toward it.”  So according to Guthrie, a Spirit driven church has a spiritual vibrancy and there is an aspect of new life… the people may not be literally dancing in the pews, but because of their faith there is a difference about them… about how they live their lives… about how they tackle the challenges that not only come to each of us in our live… but persist around us in our surrounding society… problems calling out for a Godly solution.  There is an integrity to the Spirit driven faith… that the talk talked is the walk walked. 

            Which brings me to my second point.  The Holy Spirit gives gifts.  We all know Paul’s list from his letter to the Galatians describing the fruit of the Spirit… love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.  Elsewhere he talks about how the gifts of the Spirit are for the building up of the body of Christ, that is the church.  From his first letter to the church in Corinth we learn, “To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.”  The Spirit gives us gifts not for our own pleasure, but for us to use for the benefit of others… for us to use with gratitude.  Think back to Paul’s list of the fruit of the Spirit.  All of those words are not just personal attributes, but they are relational attributes as well… they have to do with how we interact with one another.  The gifts of the Spirit work to build community.  In contrast, Paul gives the works of the flesh which tears apart community… fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing… all these work to tear apart and separate us one from another.

            To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.  It’s important that we notice that to each is given.  The Holy Spirit gives each of us a gift, probably even more than one… so there can be no claim of spiritual poverty in a Spirit driven church.  Each of us have been given a gift to use.  Each of us has value, importance and a role to play.  There are no bystanders or pew warmers in a Spirit driven church.  In the story of Pentecost the tongues of fire rested on each of them.  The list of places and languages just a few verses later number more than twelve… so it wasn’t just the twelve apostles who were given this gift on this Pentecost.  Later on in the chapter after Peter’s sermon concludes, Acts says that about three thousand that day devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.  That’s too many for just twelve men alone.  Three thousand would take a community working together.  Before that Pentecost the believers numbered only one hundred and twenty persons.  A community working together, empowered and inspired by the Holy Spirit can work miracles.  That day’s harvest would take every single one of them using their gift of the Spirit.

            So, point one… the church is Spirit driven… we can’t live without the Spirit.  When we turn from the Spirit we begin to asphyxiate and will eventually spiritually die.  We become a social club or a family church or even a mall where goods and services are traded through various programs and entertaining self-help mini-seminars.  Point two… the Spirit gives gifts to each of us which we are to respond to in the utmost gratitude, using those gifts for the benefit of the common good and not for just ourselves alone.  I hear a lot of talk today about blessings… getting blessings from God.  But think about this… what blessings did the apostles receive?  What blessings did they give?  The desire for self-blessings is a consumer driven Christianity… one that doesn’t create anything but merely takes.  

            On that particular Pentecost, the Spirit gave the gift of tongues… not the strange ecstatic speaking in tongues which does little to build up the church… but a very practical gift of tongues… the ability to speak in other languages… as Terri and the choir  and the children so wonderfully illustrated with the anthem this morning.  Community was built up in Jerusalem that day because they are able to speak to the Jews who had come to Jerusalem from all over the empire.  The apostles and all the other disciples were able to meet them where they were and to talk to them in a language that was their own.  So point number three this morning is this… and I’ve already bumped up against it… that through the Spirit we are to create community by first meeting people where they are and speaking to them in a language they can understand.  That is an important theme of the New Testament that is often twisted around.  As Guthrie described us, stealing the idea directly from Paul, the church is a reconciling community.  In order to do the work of reconciliation we meet others at the point of reconciliation… at that point in which death has a hold of them and we bring to them the gift of new life in Christ… starting right there.  The Spirit driven church is realistic and the gifts the Spirit gives are practical for the work that lies before us.  We are given the tools of the harvest.  We are given the tools to build up.  We are given the tools to love and to forgive sins as many times as we are called to on behalf of a brother or sister.  Life can be hard.  Life can take people and beat them to a pulp.  Life can tell us all kinds of warm and reassuring lies and present many sins to ease our passage.  But the Spirit reminds us of the teachings of the Christ.  Jesus met the sick in their illness.  He met the broken in their brokenness.  He even confronted the wealthy in their wealth and the religious in their religiosity.  Not to arrogantly tear them down in judgment, but to show them a still more excellent way.  As the church we don’t build a pristine island without sin and invite others to join us once they’re good enough to live on our island by our own terms… through the Spirit we are driven out to meet them where they are and join our journey of faith to their journey of faith… growing in faith together in all humility. 

            On that Pentecost so long ago, the Spirit swept into the lives of the believers.  The Spirit gave them gifts for them to use, not for themselves, but so that they could reach out with the living gospel and connect with people and build a community of faith.  On Pentecost today, the Spirit still does the same.  Amen.

 

Ascension

May 20, 2012

Acts 1:1-11

            Our second reading this morning is very much like our first reading.  In fact, it is the exact same story of the Ascension except told from a little different point of view.  The Acts of the Apostles is the sequel to the gospel according to Luke… so where one book ends the other book begins… or to put it another way, what looks like the end of the gospel story is really just the beginning.  So I invite you to continue to listen as God’s Word speaks to you.

            READ

            In the story this writer is telling to Theophilus, it is a strange time for the disciples.  The last forty days have been like nothing they could have expected.  First they witness everything they thought they knew about Jesus… or expected Jesus to be… unravel before their eyes.  The arrest and the sham trial.  Jesus is crucified, dead and buried.  Nothing goes like it should and then… then there he is… back among them.  He’s not a ghost.  He’s resurrected.  Over these past forty days Jesus has been appearing to all manner of disciples… not just the inner circle.  He’s shown himself in the breaking of the bread to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus. He’s been there with all the disciples and it’s easy to imagine their expectations rising as the resurrected Jesus keeps reappearing.  Now things are going to get done like they had expected.  Now God’s Kingdom is going to break in.  Now everything is going to change with Jesus here to lead the way.  Now Jesus will take David’s throne and Israel will rise in the world with her enemies falling away. 

            But then… nothing happens.  Each day that passes… nothing happens.  Nothing along those lines at least. 

            You read this story being told… this gospel story… and everywhere it should go, it doesn’t.  Jesus entered into Jerusalem to palms and shouts of Hosanna… the very vision of David rising.  But that didn’t go anywhere.  He enters into the Temple with authority and overturns the tables of the moneychangers… challenging the hypocrisy that lived so comfortably in that holy place.  But that didn’t go anywhere.  The religious hypocrisy remained.  The moneychangers just came back the next day.  The priests and the scribes remained in their places of power.  In the garden of Gethsemane, at the time of the arrest there was a moment there when that sword flashed in the moonlight and blood was drawn.  There was a moment there when it looked like the balance of power was going to be toppled and Jesus would finally live into the expectations surrounding him as Messiah.  But no.  In garden, Jesus not only stops everything in its tracks… but heals the wound made by the sword… and is still arrested.

            Resurrection brought back all those hopes of a Jesus who was finally going to overthrow the power of injustice in the world.  Jesus was here.  Jesus was going to do it.  Stick with Jesus.  Jesus will lead the way.  But now… as the days go past, the amazing miracle of the resurrection seems to be almost wasted.  Here is Jesus among them again… thanks be to God… but all he does is teach just like he did before he came to Jerusalem.  It’s a strange time for the disciples.  What has been the point of it all?  Didn’t Jesus return for some greater purpose than just teaching the disciples and making promises of a coming Holy Spirit?  Isn’t there supposed to be something else happening in these days of resurrection?  You can hear their frustration and questioning… “Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?”  But no.  Instead he chastises the disciples for this question.  Tells them that it’s not for them to know and then he leaves them… promising that power will be coming to them soon through the Holy Spirit.  Jesus floats away and they are left standing there with their eyes cast heavenward… completely dumbfounded. 

            This is a strange time for the disciples.  They have followed Jesus to Jerusalem.  They thought they had lost him through the crucifixion.  They rejoiced at his return and then he leaves them… again.  He leaves them there… standing on that hill… staring into the sun.  The object of their faith disappears from before their eyes.  The person to which they have attached their fidelity and their devotion disappears.  Jesus, who was supposed to do all this stuff for them, goes away.

            And that’s the point of Ascension Sunday.  Jesus ascends… but so too must the disciples.  The disciples must begin to rise up to be the body of Christ.  This is a story of transition.  The Holy Spirit has been promised to them, but it hasn’t come yet.  Jesus must leave for the Spirit to come and fill the church with new life.  Saints, it’s easy to place your faith in something else.  It’s easy to expect this or that to be done for you.  It’s easy to follow behind.  But this story being told to Theophilus isn’t going to go like it should.  This story is going somewhere else as these disciples staring slack-jawed into the sun are going to have to stop following behind Jesus… watching and listening… and instead step up to live out their faith… to start showing and telling.

            It’s a strange time.  It’s a transition time.  For the last two Sundays we’ve been hearing later stories from the Acts of the Apostles… we’ve been hearing stories of the disciples being challenged in their faith by the Holy Spirit… being challenged and rising to the occasion.  Peter… Peter will go from a follower who will betray Christ when pressed to a leader who now boldly proclaims the gospel without fear or hestitation… who reaches out with healing to the sick… who challenges the injustices of authority and of the status quo… who will even sit down and break bread with Gentiles… baptizing them… making brothers and sisters in Christ of people who while only following Jesus he would have proclaimed unclean.  Peter’s life in faith will take him places he never expected to go… leading him finally to his own cross one day.

            Maybe that’s why we hear this story every year… bringing the Easter season to a close.  Maybe this story is here to show us that faith today has gotten a bit too predictable.  We know what to expect from a life of faith.  There’s a cozy frame surrounding our days together.  Rituals and habits to keep us secure.  Even now when that secure predictability is being threatened… when we are having a hard time imagining a church of tomorrow looking just like it did for the last sixty years… it fills us with anxiety.  How are will the church survive this transition into the unknown?  What strange times we are living in.  No, I haven’t noticed that I’m standing here on this hillside staring up into the sky.  When did that happen?

            Our High School graduates make for great sermon analogies for this day of Ascension.  They are in a time of transition.  Once they leave that High School for the last time… there is no going back.  Sure you can visit and reminisce… but when these days end… there is only one direction you can go.  You have to move forward into the unknown… where things don’t always happen as expected.  Like the story that is being told in Acts… that forward journey happens in waves… waves that once you pass through… again there is no going backwards.  High School.  College.  The challenges of career, relationships, independence… all those pieces that make up young adulthood.  Beginning to really come to grips with who you are and how there’s all these little bits from your life that have worked to shape the person you are beyond just the sheer will of your personality.  Who knows… maybe like these disciples you might learn that the Spirit of God can work through even you in ways that are unpredictable… taking you to places you may have not gone to on your own.  We look at you today and it’s exciting because even with the plans you have made… those of us who are older know that your life is still so wide open… this is a milestone in a much greater journey.  Speaking to you as middle aged man, I think my eyes are getting weaker because I’ve begun to spend too much time staring into the sun.  Of course, all those who are older than me tend to scoff at statements like that… what are you talking about… you are still young… your life is still so wide open… you have no idea what is going to happen next. 

            Thank God for these two mysterious men in white robes who show up in our story.  I think this is one of the funniest scenes in the Bible… with the disciples all standing there… slack-jawed and looking up and these two men suddenly show up… “What are you looking at?”  They snap them back into reality and move them on down the road.  You can’t just stand around here on this hilltop looking into the sky and waiting for a tomorrow to come.  You have to leave this place and go… yesterday is over and you can’t get back there… tomorrow’s already on its way and it needs you to be fully in it… to ascend to God’s calling… as the body of Christ filled with the Holy Spirit… as the person who is living their faith… as someone who loves as God loves them.  Your faith is wide open… and the Spirit is on the way.  Amen.

Love the Child

May 13, 2012

1 John 5:1-6

            For our second reading this morning we are going back to 1 John.  However, before we get to this week’s reading, I want to put something back into your head from last week’s reading.  These are the two verses that come just before our passage begins this morning.  “Those who say, ‘I love God,’ and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen.  The commandment we have from him is this:  those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also.”  That last bit is very important… the commandment.  The commandment we have from God is this:  those who love God must love their brothers and their sisters also.  Listen for the Word of God as it continues to speak to you from 1 John.

            READ

            The writer of this letter is making sure that we don’t miss the point.  If we can’t love one another, we can’t love God.  We don’t love God if we don’t love one another.  The two are inseparable.  If we say we can love one and hate the other… then we are liars.  Liars.  That’s his word from the previous chapter.  He doesn’t give us any wiggle room here.  We must love the children of God if we are to love God.  The love is one and the same.

            Now to say such a thing… to hear such a statement… well, to hear it we easily agree with it.  How could we not.  To live it… well, that’s another thing altogether.  Our actions betray our hearts.  The first thing we do is to define just who are the children of God.  Who must we love and who can we leave out of this?  Who are the children of God?  It’s nothing more than a variation upon the lawyer’s question from the gospels that sets up the telling of the parable of the Good Samaritan.  “And who is my neighbor?”  Who must I love?  Interestingly, Jesus teaches the lesson by focusing not so much on the man who was beaten and who he was, but on the Samaritan who showed love to this complete stranger in the form of freely given mercy. 

            Our brief reading from Acts this morning and the story it represents is asking that very same question.  Who are the children of God?  And how do I know for sure?  Last week, we heard about what happened when Philip encountered the Ethiopian eunuch… this man who by all accounts should have been unacceptable… should have not made the cut as a child of God.  His very being was in violation of what was considered necessary to be called a child of God.  And yet, when the time came… and there was some water… there was nothing to prevent him from being baptized… from being made a brother in Christ.  And that is what he was.  And it wasn’t the water at the side of the road that made him so… it was God’s will.

            This week, it is Peter’s turn to wrestle with the question as he is called to the home of Cornelius, a Roman centurion of the Italian Cohort.  A Gentile.  But not just a Gentile, but a Roman… one of those who have come into his homeland… who conquered Peter’s people… who subjugated and ruled over the Jews… one of the leaders of the military who took away their freedom.  This man was an enemy.  Yet, Peter is called by the Spirit to go to the home of Cornelius.  The Spirit has also talked to Cornelius telling him to send for Peter.  Just like last week this meeting is arranged by God through the working of the Spirit.  It is by no accident that these two are being brought together.  This is providence.  This is God’s will at work.  These two, even though they have never met in person, have no love for one another simply because of what the other represents… even though both of them say they love God. 

            But God has spoken.  To Peter, God speaks through a dream telling him three times… “What God has made clean, you must not call profane.”  Sounds easy when you read about it.    But we are talking about a major shift for Peter.  Everything he knows… everything he has ever been taught… says these people are outside of God.  What use can God have for them?  Why do they even exist except maybe as a sign of the sinfulness of this world?  A sinfulness not worth God’s redemptive love.  Funny how quickly Peter has forgotten the words of Jesus… “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you?  But love your enemies, do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return.  Your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High; for he is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked.  Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.  Do not judge, and you will not be judged; do not condemn, and you will not be condemned.” 

            And who is my neighbor?  The one who showed mercy.  Jesus said to the lawyer, “Go and do likewise.”   

            Still… just as with the Ethiopian, Peter must violate scripture and tradition… both religious and social… to even enter into the home of Cornelius.  To associate with or to visit a Gentile was unlawful… it was profane… it would have made Peter unclean.  He would have been shunned as being one of them.  But the dream has told him something different.  And although still filled with doubts, Peter is beginning to believe that God shows no partiality… even if we do.  But even as he says this, he is still not willing to call Cornelius a brother in Christ yet… not until he witnesses for himself the Holy Spirit coming upon these Gentiles.  He witnesses them speaking in tongues and extolling God.  And Peter has a revelation… he finally believes… “Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?”  He finally believes that God shows no partiality. 

            And who are my brother and sisters in Christ?  Who are those for whom Christ suffered and died upon the cross?  Who are those for whom God raised up this very same Jesus?  Who are those whom God has washed clean by the water and blood?  Which sinner does God not seek until God finds?  To borrow the words of the Psalmist… “Where can I go from your spirit?  Or where can I flee from your presence?  If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.”

            And who is my neighbor?  And who is my brother or my sister?  If you say you don’t know the answer to this… then you are a liar.  For how can you say you know God, but not know a brother or a sister?

            The commandment we have from God is this:  those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also.  For the love of God is this, that we obey his commandments.  And his commandments are not burdensome, for whatever is born of God conquers the world.  Yet, how many of us no longer believe that love is the answer.  Maybe the commandment is… well, maybe we wouldn’t necessarily use the word burdensome… but we would use the word naïve.  We would use the word impractical.  Love conquers all?  Get real.  Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.  Yeah, right.

            Still… maybe it’s not as bad as all that.  Here is today, Mother’s Day.  And on Mother’s Day, it’s not the biology of being a mother that we celebrate… it is a mother’s love that we hold up on this day… that we lift up and aspire to.  Look, we all know that there are plenty of women who have children, but are not mothers.  Their hearts betrays them.  Their lack of love convicts them.  Having looked through hundreds of Mother’s Day cards, I have yet to find one that says something like… You used my college tuition to buy yourself a new convertible and have liposuction… so Happy Mother’s Day to the best mom.  We also know there are plenty of women who may not have given birth to a single child… or whose children may have all already grown up and left home… but they are shining examples of what being a mother is all about… because they know what it is to love freely and without condition.  It’s a mother’s love that we celebrate… the kind that would move heaven and earth if that was what their child needed.  It’s a mother’s love that we celebrate… the kind that experiences heartache now and again, but whose love never falters… who hurts when their child hurts… who celebrates when their child celebrates… We hold up this image of motherhood and just like all love, we aspire to it and even sometimes now and again we achieve such a love.  And I can’t help but wonder if we poor sinful creatures can sometimes achieve such a love… how much more is God’s love for God’s children?  Even the best of mother’s love must pale in comparison with how God loves.

            Normally I don’t talk politics directly from the pulpit mostly because politics today have become overly opinionated and seems to do little to promote any real civil discourse.  But something happened this past week that I feel I really need to mention and it disturbs me to the core because it is such a blow to the common good.  Now it’s not the big story that you may think I’m going to mention… it’s a story that has probably gotten very little media coverage and the only reason I know about it because of Brian McFarland, our Presbytery’s Hunger Coordinator.  This is what passed through the House of Representatives this week… and to me this is the most anti-Christian news I’ve heard lately… I’m just going to read straight from the article… “The legislation makes drastic cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly food stamps). After passing a budget resolution that cut $134 billion from SNAP, House members went further and cut another $36 billion.  In addition to the SNAP cuts, the reconciliation bill prevents nearly 2 million working families from receiving the Child Tax Credit and eliminates the Social Services Block Grant, which helps fund services for seniors and children who are victims of abuse or neglect, Meals on Wheels, and child care for low-income families.”  I don’t know what this means… whether it the cuts are made or are still in the process of being made… but there is something seriously wrong here.  We may like to think we are a nation of Good Samaritans, but our collective identity is showing us to be more like the priest and the Levite that walks on the other side of the road so as not to make ourselves unclean.  We use scripture to justify so many of our actions, but fall silent as we violate the commandment to love one another.  Who loves a poor child in this manner and still says they love God?

            Saints, we ought to love one another because God loves one another.  Maybe that doesn’t grammatically makes sense, but I think you know what I mean.  And the love that the writer of 1 John is calling us to is not a love that tolerates one another… it is a love like the best of a mother’s love… to love one another as though that other were your very own child.  If we say we love God the parent, then we must love the child of God… on this hinges the whole of our faith.  Amen.

 

What is to Prevent?

May 6, 2012

Acts 8:26-40

            For our second reading this morning, we turn to a story in Acts.  Now on the surface our story looks like a simple evangelism story… a story of sharing the faith.  And it is that to be sure.  But underneath there are some other more challenging ideas bubbling.  So I invite you to listen carefully for the Word of God as it speaks to you this morning from the Acts of the Apostles.

            READ

            How great is it that for the past two weeks we’ve been celebrating the sacrament of baptism… and today we hear this story of the Ethiopian eunuch and Philip.  “Look, here is water!  What is to prevent me from being baptized?”   What an innocent sounding question.  What is to prevent?  We imagine the two of them riding along on the back of the Ethiopian’s chariot when he looks over at the right time and notices some water.  Look, here is water!  What a lucky break.  Let’s stop the horses and do this right now.  I am ready.  The story makes it sound so easy, but there is so much that has had to be overcome in order to get here… to get to this point of baptism… to get to this point where these two Philip and the unnamed Ethiopian eunuch will be brothers in Christ.   What is to prevent?  If we go backwards in Acts and look, what we’ll find is that this story shouldn’t have taken place… that is, if it weren’t for the work of the Holy Spirit guiding the church.

            Believe it or not.  This is still the Easter season… all the paraments are still white.  This is still the season where we are reflecting upon the impact of the resurrection.  In understanding Acts and the story that is being told… this morning think of the resurrection as a big stone that is thrown into a still pond.  There is the initial splash (He is risen!) and then the rings start expanding out from the splash… carrying that energy further and further out into the pond.  The story of Acts is how those rings affect and change the world of the apostles… and how the Holy Spirit begins to take them places where they perhaps wouldn’t have gone before on their own. 

            Let’s start with Philip, because his being here in the story is the direct result of one of those expanding resurrection rings.  So let’s jump back a few chapters and pick up his story. 

            The first effect of the resurrection on the earliest church community according to Acts was to cause them to share everything that they had… all that everyone in the church owned was held in common.  Everyone with any manner of wealth or property would come and lay it at the feet of the apostles for fair and equal distribution among the community.  Sorry, for those of you with a certain political outlook… but one of the first actions of the church was wealth redistribution… to see to the common good of the community… to use the assets of the community for the good of all.  And Acts says no one in the church was in need.  Then the story of Pentecost happens… the story that we will read in a few weeks… and the church grew not only in numbers but in different types of Jews… Jews who were not from the same places as the original members of this Christian movement.  At this time in the story, there were no Gentile converts… only Jews.  As the church community grew in numbers… as the circle of believers widened and became a little less homogeneous… this model of sharing everything in common became harder to maintain and… perhaps not surprisingly… complaints started to develop within the community.  The Hellenists… which is what this writer calls the Jews who were from outside of Judea but who had become a part of this new Christian movement… the Hellenists were beginning to complain that their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution of food… that favoritism was already beginning to take root in the early church in what appeared to be a preferential treatment for the Judean Jews.  In the light of resurrection… was this right?  Was this just?

            Early on in Acts the question was being raised for the community… how are we different from other groups… what difference does this resurrection make?  What differentiates the church?  Is our being followers of Jesus of Nazareth… the one crucified and raised… is our being followers of Jesus the Christ truly reflected in the actions of our community?  Preferential treatment for one part of the group over another is just a first step away from what Christ taught.  Early on they understood that Christ was especially to be found with those who were left out… that he would have stood with the weak… and acts of favoritism… no matter how small… are acts of marginalization.    

            This is where Philip comes into the story.  In order to stop this preferential treatment, the circle is widened and Philip and other Hellenist Jews are added to the leadership of the movement… seven men of good standing, full of the Spirit and wisdom.  To combat preferential treatment… to deal with the prejudice that existed between Judean Jews and Hellenist Jews… an opening was made so that the Hellenist Jews now shared in the leadership.  This widening of the circle is the movement of the story of Acts.  The early church keeps hitting a barrier that seeks to contain the effect of the resurrection… it hits the barrier and then with the Holy Spirit moves past it.  Philip represents the first widening of the circle.  It would seem more than appropriate then that he is the one who is sent out by the angel of the Lord in our story this morning.  And it’s important to catch that point.  This was not an act of the evangelism committee within the community… this story is told as an initiative of God’s.  It’s not a chance encounter between Philip and the Ethiopian.  It’s not a strange warming of Philip’s heart that causes him to reach out in love to this other that is so different from not only him, but of the others who are so far a part of this Christian movement.  Philip is sent out by God to encounter this Ethiopian eunuch on purpose.  You could say there is a plan at work here.  This is providential.

            Alright, so I guess it’s time we come to understand the importance of this Ethiopian eunuch. 

            First, his description as Ethiopian does not necessarily mean he is from the county of Ethiopia.  It does mean that he is a sub-Saharan African.  “Ethiopian” at this time was a general word that speaks more about his exoticness… his racial difference from the Jews, Romans, and other Mediterranean peoples that normally populate our Bible stories.  So being Ethiopian is the first barrier that reaches the ever expanding circle.  His inclusion will make the church more diverse than what it is… and, yes, that will bring a certain amount of prejudice and conflict.  Or… to say it another way… it will bring a challenge that the church will have to meet as they follow behind these ever expanding rings caused by the resurrection and their being followers of Christ.

            The larger push against the circle for this still very Jewish movement, though, is his being a eunuch.  As many times as the word is used in the story, it’s more important that we understand this man as a eunuch than any other descriptor.  And if you don’t know what a eunuch is… I’m not going to explain it to you now.  You’ll have to look that one up later… or google it on your smart phone while you continue to listen.  What’s important for us to know is that being a eunuch made him… according to Deuteronomy… unacceptable to God.  According to Deuteronomy there is no room for inclusion of this eunuch.  As a eunuch I have to even wonder at his status as a proselyte… as one who converts to Judaism.  He had been to Jerusalem to worship.  And maybe with his social standing as a court official in charge of Queen Candace’s treasury… maybe with that he thought he would have been welcomed at the Temple to worship.  But, my guess is that if they had found he was a eunuch, he would have been shown the door.  He was not welcome.  He was unacceptable.  Deuteronomy declared it so.  Even a Hellenist Jew like Philip would know this.

            Now that the Ethiopian eunuch is reading from Isaiah… even though the specific passage is later quoted in the story itself… is an important clue for us.  Isaiah was defining scripture for the early church in understanding the nature of Christ.  Isaiah’s description of the suffering servant became the framework for much of early Christian theology.  It’s no mistake that earlier in Luke’s gospel when Jesus stands to read in the synagogue in Nazareth that he reads from Isaiah.  For the Ethiopian eunuch, Isaiah would also hold another important message for his own personal journey of faith.  This comes from Isaiah 56 starting at verse three… “Do not let the foreigner joined to the Lord say, ‘The Lord will surely separate me from his people’; and do not let the eunuch say, ‘I am just a dry tree.’  For thus says the Lord:  To the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths, who choose the things that please me and hold fast my covenant, I will give, in my house and within my walls, a monument and a name better than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off.”  Can you see how Isaiah was his scriptural touchstone so that the eunuch could move forward in having a faith in God even though Deuteronomy would tell him that God did not have faith in him?  Isaiah’s words would include him where Deuteronomy would exclude him.  That tension between Isaiah and Deuteronomy is here in this story… will Philip follow Deuteronomy and also turn the eunuch away or will he follow Isaiah and welcome the eunuch into the community of faith?  Look, here is water!  What is to prevent me from being baptized?  There is not going to be some safe middle ground here where the eunuch is concerned.  There is no satisfactory compromise that can be reached over him that does equal justice to both the words in Deuteronomy and those in Isaiah.  We won’t find harmony with these two passages of scripture.  A difficult decision is going to have to be made.  There is going to have to be faithful discernment.  What effect will resurrection have on this scene? 

            God deliberately puts Philip on this road.  The Spirit deliberately sends him over to this specific chariot to meet this specific man.  It is not by chance.  Philip, starting with Isaiah, proclaims to the eunuch the good news about Jesus.  Then the eunuch asks Philip the question that pushes against the widening circle.  “Look, here is water!  What is to prevent me from being baptized?”  What is to prevent?  Well, you’re officially not Jewish, like the rest of us.  You’re an Ethiopian.  You’re a eunuch.  I’ve only just now told you about Jesus… so you’ve not had any time to prove yourself to the rest of us.  There is plenty here to prevent this Ethiopian eunuch from being baptized… Philip could have made a fairly decent case for delay.  In truth, there is only one thing in this story that works in the Ethiopian’s favor.  The Holy Spirit.  God sent Philip here.  What is to prevent the ever widening circle of the resurrection… nothing.  No prejudice that we can concoct will stand in the way of the good news of Christ.  The constant widening circle of resurrection exposes those lesser pieces that have attached themselves… or would want to attach themselves… to our faith.  Lesser ideas that do not belong to the good news… this may be our political views… or our racial views… or our national views… or our views from our own economic or social class… all these ideas that try to disguise themselves as the gospel, but are not.  In Christ Jesus we are one.  In Christ Jesus and Christ Jesus alone… through the power of the Holy Spirit… we are made one.  All these different ideas call at us and tempt us to draw the circle back in… to stop the ever expanding resurrection.  No, that’s too far.  You can’t take the gospel there because to do so goes beyond our comfort.  Those people are not suitable… those Hellenists… those Ethiopian eunuchs… those Gentile.  What is to prevent?  The good news keeps breaking through these barriers again and again.  God’s grace keeps teaching us through exposing where we would want to fall short.

            The ever widening circle still challenges us as it challenged the early church.  Those who were once outside are now in.  Ideas must be wrestled with and tested by the good news of Jesus.  Even the struggle within scripture continues as we have to continually discern between different teachings… and yes, sometimes opposing teachings… from these words that we hold sacred.  Saints, we are always becoming the church in the same way that this community in Acts was becoming the church… that faithful reflection of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen. 

Psalm 23

April 29, 2012

Psalm 23 

            The 23^rd Psalm just isn’t the same if it’s not read from the King James.  Now I don’t think I would ever say that about any other passage.  Never… in all the times that someone has asked me… have I ever referred anyone to the King James Version as the translation of choice for the Bible.  But the way the language flows with this Psalm I can’t read it from any other translation.  To do so is just too jarring and somehow just not as transcendent as it is in the King James.  So I invite you to listen for the Word of God as it speaks to you.

READ

            I want to try a little sermon experiment this morning.  I want to go back through the Psalm and let in other voices… different voices that want to speak and be heard.  Some voices speak to the truth, some are telling lies, and some are living in the grey somewhere between.  Some voices think they’re critics.  Some voices think they’re preachers.  Some voices think they’re the news.  Some voices just say what’s on their mind.  And some voices have stumbled into understanding.  Listen close and you may even hear your own voice.

“The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.”

But I do want.  I want so much.  I want a good life.  I want the best for my children for them to grow up safe and happy.  I want a job… a good paying job.  I want to be able to pay my bills and stand on my own without help from anyone. 

I want to keep my house. 

I want to use my credit card, please. 

I want to stop hurting. 

I want to do what I want to do, when I want to do it without anyone hassling me about it. 

I want to live to see another day. 

“Friends, if the Lord is your shepherd, he will see to it that you get what you want.  The Lord wants to bless you abundantly.” 

I don’t know what I want anymore.  I’ve got everything I could ask for… and I don’t know what to do with it.

The Lord is my shepherd; he maketh me to lie down in green pastures; he leadeth me besides the still waters.

Second we see, in verse 2, that God’s provision is perfect. David says that a good shepherd leads his sheep to green pastures and quiet waters. The green pastures probably refer to the tender young shoots that grow up in the morning and are loved by the wildlife of Palestine. The quiet waters probably refer to a well-spring with fresh water. The psalmist wants us to understand that this Shepherd goes all out for his sheep. The Shepherd wants them to have the best and is likewise sensitive to their needs. David wants us to understand that God does the same for His people. It was David’s experience and it ought to be ours. Some of us have deep struggles with our present financial situation, job situation as well as other things, but we need to come to grips with the truth, that as we seek God, we are not getting second best from Him. He is a faithful Shepherd to give us only what is excellent according to His own purpose and agenda. Can you trust Him for that? Listen to what Paul said the good Shepherd has done for His people: “He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for all of us, will He not then, along with Him, graciously give us all things”

You know my children are just not going to eat those green beans, so you can go ahead and take ‘em out of my box.  I hope I don’t sound ungrateful or nothing cause I do appreciate what ya’ll do for us here at the Food Closet but I’ve already got cans of those beans at home.  I’ve been meaning to bring ‘em back so you can maybe give ‘em to someone else, but we just don’t like ‘em.  Like I said my kids won’t eat ‘em.

“The whole village was so grateful for the well.  I don’t want to tell you where they were getting their water from before we arrived… it’ll make you sick just to think about it.  But I can tell you that almost everyone there was sick in one way or another and it had to do with the sanitary conditions of their water. I read this before I went on our trip, “Water-related diseases claim the lives of 2 million to 5 million people each year. Some analysts say that collectively these diseases, which include typhoid, cholera and hepatitis A, kill more people than HIV/AIDS.”  You and I don’t even think about our water it’s so easy to get.  It’s amazing how mission trips like these really open your eyes.  But coming back home on the plane, the hardest thing for me to realize was that we only helped one small village.  Think about how many other villages there are in that one country alone… villages just like the one we helped… without clean water.  It just boggles the mind to think about how the majority of the world lives even today what with everything we’ve got.”

The Lord is my Shepherd; he restoreth my soul:  he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.

Let’s see we need bread at the house… and milk.  And I think I’ll make a lasagna again this week.  Might as well make two and freeze one.  You never know when an extra lasagna might come in handy. 

Maybe the rain will hold off for awhile, I still need to mow the yard when I get home.  They said it would start raining sometime in the early afternoon… but they’ve been wrong before.  Maybe I’ll have the time if we don’t get caught in here too long.  What is he talking about now?  I can’t understand half the things that come out of his mouth.

What kind of reputation would a shepherd in Palestine earn if everyone knew he was careless and irresponsible with his own sheep? Let me ask you another question, what kind of reputation would God earn for Himself if He were careless with those who belong in His charge? God’s name is on the line in your life. He wants to show the world that He is faithful to provide for all your needs and guide you in righteous paths, in a holy life.

“You see a house way on top of a hill because the man wants his house up there, but it’s the woman who has to go down into the valley, get the water, and bring it up every day,” he says. “The collection of water is a tremendous burden on women. When men are making decisions, they often aren’t making the kind of decisions that women would make. That’s why it’s important to include women in any of the discussions about water related to the household.”

Lord, forgive me.  I get so busy.  There is so much pressure on me right now that I can’t hardly breath let alone live into what I know what you want from me… what you want for me.  I hear these words… and I… well… I know I just constantly let you down.  I’ll try to do better.

“Humility doesn’t top the list of popular virtues these days, but if you’re ever in need of help, a humble friend is more likely to be there for you than a prideful one, new research suggests.  Humbleness has also been linked to generosity.  Studies find that the trait predicts charitable giving and generous behavior toward others in monetary games played in the lab.  ‘Compassion is hard if you don’t have humility,’ says psychologist Jordan LaBouff of the University of Maine.”

The Lord is my shepherd; Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.

“At least 200 people in 21 states and Washington, D.C., now have been sickened by raw scraped tuna contaminated with not one but two rare strains of salmonella, government health officials reported Thursday.  The outbreak could continue to grow. Illnesses that occurred after March 27 might not be reported yet because of the time frame between when a person becomes ill and when it’s reported to authorities.  At least two people have filed lawsuits against Moon Marine, a Cupertino, Calif., firm. The women, both from Wisconsin, said they became ill after eating tainted seafood.”

Four blasts rock Ukraine city weeks before Euro 2012 soccer tournament.

Big US companies adding jobs… overseas.

How Big Food won the childhood obesity war.

“God has only permitted what in His wisdom is ultimately good for you and will never allow permanent separation to come between you and Him. You can trust Him to protect you from everything He does not desire for your life.”

It’s cancer.

We’re going to have to let you go.

I’m leaving.  I don’t love you anymore.  I don’t know if I ever really did.

“Even to the casual observer, Victoria Chakwin, with hair the color of a tropical sunset, lip piercings and a ‘not traditional’ black and red dress, probably will stand out Saturdau at the Hedgesville, West Virginia High School senior prom.  But what truly makes the 18-year old remarkable can be seen only on a CT scan.  Transplant surgeon Bartley Griffith describes them as her ‘lovely lungs,’ a gift from an unknown donor that made it possible for Chakwin to join her classmates at prom and make plans for the next stage in her life.”

The Lord is my shepherd; thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.

Not far from the well where Jesus encountered the Samaritan woman, the Rev. Ibrahim Nairouz continues to spread a message of reconciliation.   Just as Jesus broke social conventions by engaging the woman with respect and care, Nairouz, an Episcopal priest in Nablus, jettisons perceptions that Muslims and Christians can’t live together in peace. His interfaith relationships also include people of the Samaritan sect, heirs of the faith held by the woman at the well.  “We know we are different religions, but in these differences we need to respect each other and know each other,” Nairouz said.  “The problem is not a religious problem,” he said. “It’s political, and we need to learn from all religions to bring peace.”

Similarly, Calvin’s notion of faith is focused on experience.  He defines faith as “a firm and certain knowledge of God’s benevolence toward us… both revealed to our minds and sealed upon our hearts through the Holy Spirit.”  Faith has more to do with experiencing the love of Christ, which surpasses all knowledge (Ephesians 3:18-19), than with “rational proof.”  Thus Calvin can say that “no one can well perceive the power of faith unless he feels it by experience in his heart.”   What is more important to him is the effect of this union. Calvin states:  “First, indeed, our soul should be entirely filled with the love of God.  From this will flow directly the love of neighbor.”  Like other great spiritual writers, Calvin affirms the priority of our relationship with God. However, love of neighbor, far from being in opposition to love of God, is a primary expression of it. In other words, union with Christ becomes the basis for union with one another. As Calvin puts it: “We must at all times seek after love and look toward the edification of our neighbor.”  To sum up, Calvin understands mystical union as a fact of Christian existence, an immediate result of faith that engrafts us into Christ and in turn prompts us to serve God and one another in love.

“Some members of Congress have said that churches should be primarily responsible for feeding hungry people.  The devastating proposed cuts by the House Budget and House Agriculture Committees to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) would mean on average every church in the country would have to come up with approximately $50,000 dedicated to feeding people- every year for the next 10 years.  Cuts to SNAP, particularly at a time of continued high unemployment and unprecedented need for food assistance, are a moral outrage.”

The Lord is my shepherd; surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

Look, I know you like the language and everything… but maybe we need to rewrite that last line.  Maybe it would be better if it read, “Surely goodness and mercy shall flow from me all the days of my life:  and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”  If goodness and mercy flows from us, then won’t we always be with God especially if that goodness and mercy comes from God?  And… yeah… don’t you see how if we’re with God then how could we want for anything.  What more could you want if you were already with God.  Being with God is also transformative so even the brownest and driest spots can become green and watered through God’s flowing goodness and mercy.  And how can we walk a righteous path without knowing that same goodness and mercy.  The same thing goes with fear… there’s no room for it if goodness and mercy flow from us.  I’ve heard that the opposite of fear is love.  And like that dude Calvin just said, our love of God is known in our love of neighbor.  We prepare the feast for our neighbors (and our enemies… they’re neighbors as well).  So, yeah.  Maybe we do need to change that last line… at least in our heads… and then the whole Psalm seems to make sense.

The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.

He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.

He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.

Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever.  Amen.

 

           

           

 

Baptized Into Christ

April 22, 2012

Genesis 17:1-14, Galatians 3:23-29 

            This morning our worship is centered around the sacrament of baptism, which means we’re straying from the lectionary this morning with our scripture readings… which I know will be a big letdown for all you lectionary purists out there.  The two scripture readings for today were chosen primarily because of how John Calvin understood and taught about baptism in his work, The Institutes.  In our first reading, we heard about the institution of circumcision, given as a visible mark to denote the covenant that God made with Abraham.  In our reading now from Galatians, Paul builds upon the idea of our being heirs through baptism in Christ Jesus… comparing it to the promise made to Abraham.  That’s right this is going to be one of those teaching sermons.  Listen for the Word of God as it speaks to you this morning.

            READ

            Baptism, strangely enough, is one of the theological points that divides Christians… it is one of the reasons we have different denominations.  Here in his letter to the Galatians is Paul talking about our being one in Christ… one faith, one baptism… and yet, baptism today divides us.  Christians don’t understand nor do they practice the sacrament of baptism in the same way.  Some traditions really stress the mode of baptism… how the person gets wet.  For some Christians if baptism isn’t performed in a particular manner then the baptism is in some way illegitimate.  For some it’s not really a baptism unless… let’s say… there is full immersion… which is often the case… as if the amount of water or how much the person gets wet is a sign of the effectiveness of the baptism.  Or it is argued that this is how we think John the Baptist performed baptisms and so we think Jesus was immersed… therefore we need to do the same thing to keep it legitimate or correct.  Some traditions… stress the individual being baptized… that the person being baptized be of a certain age… an age of discernment.  These traditions stress that baptism is the time when the individual makes their claim on God… they give their testimony… or they give their witness to their own personal faith and their asking Jesus to come into their lives.  Now some of you may have been raised in a tradition like this.  Some of you may still believe that this is the only way… or the best way to understand the sacrament of baptism.

            But the Reformed tradition takes a little different approach to baptism.  In the Reformed tradition the mode of baptism isn’t what is so important.  We will sprinkle this morning… which I do especially with infants.  No need to overwhelm them.  Or if you were here at the last baptism… you know I like to use larger amounts of water depending on the age of the person I’m baptizing… handfuls of water instead a wet hand.  If someone felt it were necessary, I would pour a bucket of water over their head… or three buckets, one for each person of the Trinity.  We’ve been to the river to do a baptism.  That was fun.  But one way of baptism wasn’t more correct or more effective.  In performing a baptism, in the Reformed tradition, how we do it just doesn’t matter.  The mode of baptism isn’t important because the water… the action… is a symbol.  It points to something else.  How we baptize… or even the water we use in baptism is not important.  Even though in the Presbyterian Church we try to have only Teaching Elders perform baptisms… even that is more about church organizational structure… keeping everything decent and in order… than it is about our theology.  The Presbyterian Church accepts all baptisms from all other churches.  Doesn’t matter who performed it, or how it was done or when it was done in a person’s life.  We believe in being baptized once and only once… we will never re-baptize a person.  The reason, again, is simple… because baptism is not about our actions, but is a symbol pointing us toward something else.

            And that something else is, of course, God.  When God commanded Abraham to circumcise all the men in his group… it was done as a sign of the covenant.  It was meant as a symbol pointing toward this covenant that God had already made with Abraham.  The circumcision itself had nothing to do with the effectiveness of the covenant… God’s promise and God’s steadfastness made the covenant effective.  Think what it would have been like if circumcision was treated like baptism is treated today… so that what was most important was when a person was circumcised… or what kind of knife was used… or did you make the cut from the right to the left or from the left to the right?  Can you imagine if someone insisted on re-circumcision?  Not only would that be impossible… but in thinking about it you can see how foolish it would be.  What is most important is God and the covenant God has made.  Circumcision doesn’t and couldn’t improve upon the covenant.  And it’s the same with baptism.  Our baptism can’t improve upon what God in Christ has already done for us.  Our baptism can’t make us any more forgiven or any more claimed by God’s steadfast love and grace… but it points to what God has already done.  Baptism points us to the covenant of the cross and the resurrection.  This is what Paul was saying in his letter to the Romans… “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?  Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.”  The symbols, be they circumcision or baptism, are never as important as the covenants they symbolize.

            And so also of lesser importance is the individual in Reformed baptism.  In our reading from Galatians, Paul is quick to emphasize our oneness in Christ.  He strips away aspects of our individuality… being no longer Jew or Greek, no longer slave or free, no longer male or female… but one in Christ.  We are one in community.  Baptism is a communal event.  And that may be an odd sentence for our very individualistic society.  But baptism is about becoming a part of the community of Christ.  In most of Paul’s writings, he is arguing against circumcision because it has become a way of dividing people.  Remember in Paul’s time, there were either the circumcised Jews… those who were a part of the community of the covenant of God… and then there were those uncircumcised Gentiles… people who were outside of the covenant.  But Paul argues against circumcision… or rather, he argues against the divisive properties of circumcision in favor of grace.  He argues against an understanding that begins to emphasize that it is the symbol… it is the doing of circumcision… of being circumcised… that brings us into the covenant and not the actions of God.  Paul argues, however, that it wasn’t a mark of the flesh… but it was grace and grace alone that justified.  And following his arguments, he wasn’t about to replace divisive circumcision with divisive baptism… it was grace that justified.  And it was God who through grace gave the gift of faith… that God brought people into the one body of Christ… that God brought people into community.  The covenants of God… they are not meant to create individuals, but communities… they are not meant to benefit individuals alone, but individuals are to use their gifts of faith to benefit their faith communities… and to have their faith communities benefits the world around them. 

            In the church today, I don’t think we don’t hear enough about being one in Christ.  We hear about individuals… or we hear about like groupings of individuals… where you are either liberal or conservative… one in our likeness, but divided in our differences.  The body of Christ is not big enough to house us all… you are either in or out… you are either with us or against us… you are either circumcised or uncircumcised.  The argument hasn’t changed too much… and neither has Paul’s response.  “As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.”  I don’t see that too much… especially in the Presbyterian church of the moment.  And that’s sad… and it’s wrong.  People come to church for their own individual reasons… often seeking from church something for themselves and themselves alone.  As a minister, I often hear people talk about coming to church in order to be fed.  And they don’t mind treading on others, if it means that they get the feeding that they are looking for… for themselves… even if by their own actions… in their own pursuit of being fed… they starve another within the community.  But the church isn’t a place of religious consumerism… nor is it a gathering of like-minded individuals… anymore than it is a bureaucratic institution that we maintain and uphold ourselves through the rightness of our actions… we are called by God, through the Holy Spirit to be the body of Christ.  Our theology is higher than our practiced reality.  Imagine if the church reflected our theology.  Imagine a community where instead of coming to be fed and to consume, you are coming to feed and to give of yourself… where the most important person in the church is always the one sitting next to you in the pew… or sitting in the pew in front of you… or sitting behind you… or the person who is not even here at this time who you know needs to experience the gospel in their lives.  Imagine a community that freely gave of itself for the building up of others in the faith… where you could focus all your energy on another because you know someone else is caring for you.  Baptized into Christ.  Is perhaps, this more the meaning of this phrase?

            This morning a children of God is coming forward to be baptized.  And this congregation will make a promise to her… to guide and nurture her by word and deed, with love and prayer, encouraging her to know and to follow Christ and to be a faithful member of his church.  We will make the exact same promise next Sunday when another child of God is brought forward to be baptized.  One promise… the same promise no matter the age.  That is the model of the church our understanding of baptism creates.  A community of faith where we share ourselves with one another… where we encourage one another throughout our lives.  All of you have been given the gifts of the Spirit to make this into the community that God intends.  And that’s what I want you to think about during the ceremony… especially as you reflect upon your own baptism this morning.  What kind of church are we baptizing Janis into today?  Is this church yours… does it belong to you… or is this God’s church?  Are you called to be here… baptized into Christ… having clothed yourselves with Christ… one in Christ?  Or are you bringing Janis and next week Sarah Kate into a divided church where as individuals we seek only our own self-fulfillment at the expense of community?  Are you giving them a church that lives out the gospel or one that lives out the comfortable and familiar practices of its own traditions and culture?  These two are being baptized into the church… into the body of Christ, and I want you to think about the church you will be giving to them… about what has been done with the church that was given to you.  Is this the best that Holy Spirit can do with us?

            Saints, in the Reformed tradition baptism isn’t about the water… nor is it about the when in life the ceremony is performed… it’s not all about the person being baptized… baptism is about God… it is about being brought into the community created and nourished by the promises of God… a community where we are one in Christ Jesus.  Amen.

While Thomas Was Out

April 15, 2012

John 20:19-30 

            For whatever reason, the great minds behind the lectionary decided that the story we are about to hear from John’s gospel should always be the gospel reading immediately after Easter.  Every year, it’s the same one… the slanderous story against Thomas.  Anyway… despite my personal feelings… let me invite you to listen for the Word of God as it speaks to you this morning from the gospel according to John.

            READ

            Last year, I spent this time giving a defense for Thomas… and made sure you all were aware of the many other things that Thomas either did in the gospel stories or in the legends we have about him.  I did what I could to help chisel away at this totally unfair reputation and labeling of “Doubting Thomas”.  This year I thought maybe I would begin a viral campaign to see if we could get John’s gospel thrown out of the Bible and replace it with the gospel of Thomas.  Now while that would be sweet justice… it would probably take too much work… and I don’t think I want to deal with all the hassles that will undoubtedly come with trying to change something in the Bible.  You know how some people are.

            So what to say about this story this year?  Where to begin?  The story itself actually begins with the lack of faith … or doubting… of the other disciples… all the ones not named Thomas.  These other disciples have already been told about the resurrected Jesus by Mary Magdalene.  In John’s telling of the Easter story, Jesus has already made an appearance to Mary while she was still weeping at the tomb.  These disciples not named Thomas have already heard the good news of the resurrection straight from Mary… and their response to this news is to go and lock the door and to hide in fear lest they too be found out as followers of Jesus and crucified or worse… although I’m not sure what would be worse.  The disciples are still afraid… just as they were from the moment Jesus had been arrested… and this day of resurrection has not taken away their fear… yet.

            There is, however, one disciple who is not hiding and cowering in fear… he’s gone out somewhere… that heroic disciple named Thomas.  John doesn’t bother to tell us what brave deed Thomas is up to while he is away.  But it is to those who are locked in the room, to whom Jesus appears.  And when Jesus does appear he shows them his wounds… he gives them some manner of physical proof to show that it is really him.  And it is to these cowering, doubting, fearful disciples that he then gives the Holy Spirit… breathing upon them… an interesting visual that… and it is these hiding and cowering disciples that Jesus sends out into the world just as God had sent him.  You would think Jesus could do better… find a better class of disciple.

            Last week with Mark’s Easter story… the women flee the tomb in terror and amazement and tell no one… and the story ended there.  This week, Jesus gives the Holy Spirit to a bunch of frightened disciples, who don’t believe Mary Magdalene who has seen and spoken to the risen Christ… who don’t believe until they see the resurrected Christ himself.  Okay, so I will concede the point that when Thomas returns to the house from wherever it is he was… he not only does not believe the word of Mary Magdalene, but he also does not believe the word of the rest of the disciples who have now witnessed the resurrected Christ.  He wants what they had been given… he wants to lay eyes upon Jesus… he wants to be able to put his hands on the wounds… he wants the same thing the other disciples were given while he was gone.  He wants the resurrected Christ standing before him… the hard evidence… and not the Holy Spirit… not that intangible breath of truth.

            Thomas is not unique in his doubting.  And really there is no reason to single him out.  But this part of the story seems to be less about doubting than it is about our need to have something tangible to which to anchor our faith.  What I love so much about Mark’s Easter story is that Jesus does not appear.  You have a whole bunch of nothing… an empty tomb, that’s it.  And there are the instructions by the mysterious young man in white sitting in the tomb.  Go to Galilee.  Go to Galilee like Jesus said and you will meet him there.  So what was it that inspired those disciples in Mark to make that initial journey if they didn’t have that tangible proof of a resurrected Jesus appearing to them first… just to give them a sneak peak of what they might find in Galilee… a little foretaste so that they could be assured that this journey they were going to take had some manner of payoff at the end?

            The life of the church is the Holy Spirit living here among its gathered members.  To me, that’s what this whole story is really about… and not about Thomas.  He just makes for a good fall guy for lazy theologians and preachers.  What’s most important in this passage is that weird scene of Jesus breathing on the disciples… and how they… meaning we… must become the body of Christ… and how they… meaning we… must let go of this physical resurrected Jesus and embrace the Spirit.  Before his crucifixion, it’s what Jesus’ long goodbye speech in John’s gospel is about… preparing the disciples for the coming Spirit… “But now I am going to him who sent me; yet none of you asks me, ‘Where are you going?’  But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your hearts.  Nevertheless I tell you the truth:  it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you.” 

            Honestly, it would be so much easier to have something tangible before us… telling us exactly what it is we’re supposed to do.  It would be easier to follow the authority we place upon that something tangible… and not have to lead from a breath.  I can’t prove to you a breath.  I can’t show you what a breath looks like.  With a breath all you can do is feel it… all you can see is its effect as things move because of its invisible presence.  How do you place authority in a breath?  A breath is not clear leadership, but means discernment on our part… and how do we know when we’ve discerned correctly.  What if we get it wrong?  But John’s gospel concurs with all the others… the church can’t begin until Jesus is gone… and this is to our advantage.  The resurrection didn’t occur so that we could hang onto Jesus… the resurrection happened as a witness to the righteousness of God… the resurrection happened as a witness to the grace of God, which would no longer tolerate the brokenness of creation and the rule of sin.  The resurrection happened as proof of the kingdom of God… the effect of which is now the people of God being the body of Christ… of ministering as Christ would minister… of reviving the world with the same breath that first gave life to the dust. 

            The life of the church is the Holy Spirit living here among its gathered members.  Jesus breathed on them… meaning us… and said to them… us… “Receive the Holy Spirit.  If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”  That’s a huge responsibility.  With the giving of the Holy Spirit comes the power of forgiveness.  With the giving of the Holy Spirit comes the greatest power of Jesus Christ… the power of forgiveness.  Now I know we’re amazed by the walking on the water, the miraculous feedings and healings… but the greatest power of Jesus Christ is the power we have just given witness to again… the power to which the empty tomb witnesses… the greatest power of Jesus Christ is the power shown by the cross… the power of forgiveness.  By the cross our sins were forgiven.  And now Jesus gives us the same power… to forgive… or to retain.  A choice is given to us it would seem.  Forgive or retain.   

            Let’s see.  On this day when we are supposed to be talking about doubt… how many of you doubt that statement?  How many of you doubt that the Spirit that lives among us and between us… how many of you doubt that through the receiving of the Holy Spirit we have been given the power to forgive someone their sins?  Even with that power standing right before us in black and white… palms outstretched and showing us his side?  Many do doubt.  I was once having an argument with a fellow minister about a particular sin that he retained for all those who were guilty of that particular sin… and I brought this passage up to him in our discussion… and wondered why he retained this particular sin we were arguing over… why wouldn’t he forgive them?  Because he was a Biblical literalist, I thought I had him cornered… his retention was unnecessary… what if he started with the same forgiveness he had been shown… what had that forgiveness meant to him and his faith?  But he still managed to give me several reasons for retention.  He said he retained the sin because scripture called it a sin.  Well, that one didn’t make much sense to me… not then… not now… but he wouldn’t clarify what he meant by that.  It seemed to me a strange provision to forgiveness… that we could only forgive those sins that scripture didn’t call sin.  I would imagine those were sins good places to start.  He retained the sin because the sinners were not repentant… they had not earned the forgiveness… or shown that they wanted to be free of their sin.  He retained their sin because they continued sinning.  Not only had they not earned the forgiveness, but stubbornly kept on sinning.  If they would stop in their sinning, he could perhaps extend forgiveness.  Grace is okay for God, but if we show too much grace then that grace may be perceived as permissiveness… and the proverbial slippery slope.  Extending forgiveness meant, to him, that we were no longer calling a sin a sin.  And I couldn’t persuade him that forgiveness didn’t change the sin… it changed the conditions around the sin.  Psychologically he had a point.  People are more motivated by the threat of punishment than they are by forgiveness.  There are psychological studies that show that clearly.  Unfortunately, though, our theology is not based upon punishment… but forgiveness.  The cross that we lift up doesn’t say, “And this is what you’re going to get if you don’t behave.”  It said instead, “This is what I gave, because I love you.” 

            Then this minister with which I was arguing made a move that I was totally not prepared for and he flatly stated that only Christ can forgive sins.  We had no power to forgive or retain sin.  He doubted.  Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not forgive. 

            Maybe there isn’t a choice there as I previously thought.  Without forgiveness the default position is that we then retain the person’s sins.    

            It’s not so much doubting in the resurrection… it’s doubting that the resurrection has any meaning for us… it’s doubting if the Spirit is really here… it’s doubting if Jesus expects us to follow the path he has laid out for us or if we’re just spiritual hangers on still hoping to personally benefit but without any action on our part to make that trip to Galilee… hanging around the empty tomb.  It’s denying that the Holy Spirit has anything to do with me and that this story we tell again and again… isn’t my story.

            Doubting Thomas.  He has made for a great distraction through the years as we read this story again and again… every Sunday after Easter.  But what is important is what happened while Thomas was out.  Jesus gave the Holy Spirit to the disciples… meaning us… and this great power to forgive sins.  What would happen if the church believed that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and through believing forgave people their sins… what if the church loved as Jesus loved the disciples… meaning us… who even while they cowered, frightened behind locked doors that they hoped would keep them safe from the outside world… these disciples were still given the Holy Spirit… were still given this power to forgive or retain… nowhere near being good enough or holy enough or righteous enough to receive it on their own merits.  Saints, believe the good news… let go of your doubt… the Holy Spirit is here… the Holy Spirit is alive… and it lives in us and through us.  Amen.