Beautiful Feet

Sunday, August 31st, 2003
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton
Romans 10:14-17

14 But how are they to call on one in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in one of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone to proclaim him? 15 And how are they to proclaim him unless they are sent? As it is written, "How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!" 16 But not all have obeyed the good news; for Isaiah says, "Lord, who has believed our message?" 17So faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes through the word of Christ.

To begin with, I would like everyone in here who can to take a moment and remove his or her shoes. Go ahead and take them off.

I will remove mine as well.

And I promise, I won’t do this every Sunday.

Ok, on with the sermon.

In the movie ‘Die Hard’, Bruce Willis’ character, a New York policeman flying across the country to meet with his estranged wife to reconcile, is a little anxious about the trip. One of his fellow passengers tells him that the best way to relax after a cross-country trip is to take off your shoes and socks and walk around barefoot for a few hours, getting used to the feel of the carpet between your toes. Willis’ character takes the advice, and removes his shoes and socks on arrival in the office/apartment tower that becomes the setting for the rest of the movie, he spends the next couple of hours shooting bad guys and blowing up helicopters and incidentally running through fields of broken glass barefoot. It’s been several years since I saw the movie, but if memory serves, he only complains a couple of times about his feet. If I haven’t retold the details correctly, I suspect I’ll be corrected next Sunday night at the pizza and movie night over at the parsonage.

In J. R. R. Tolkien’s ‘The Hobbit’, we’re introduced to Bilbo Baggins, a resident of The Shire. Hobbits are known to be very settled creatures. They love nothing better than to stay home, live quiet lives, and eat good meals. They also have unusually large feet for creatures their size, and they are especially hairy. Their feet are also very … hardy. Hobbits wear no shoes.

In The Lord of the Rings, the Fellowship of the Rings, there is a scene where the 9 members of the fellowship are trying to get to the land of Mordor, and at one point, they attempt to get to it through the most direct path they know, which is over a mountain pass. Here they are, trudging through snow and ice, thousands of feet up in the mountains, and Sam, Pippin, Mery, and Frodo are all barefoot, and yet seem unaffected, other than being chilled.

Though it is a minor point in the movies, I’d like to focus on feet for a few minutes this morning.

Mine, for example, have what I think are called bunions at the base of each of my big toes. The right one points to about two o’clock, and the other points to about ten o’clock. I have to be careful what kind of shoes I buy. I remember standing around the pool at the place where we had mission meeting in Spain with Bruce Reeder, Steve D’Amico, and Eric Thompson, other Journeymen and a Volunteer with whom I served while there. Bruce was from Missouri, and he was good about coming out and saying exactly what he was thinking. He took one look at my feet and said, “Well, Kenny, your toes are going all to Jones’!” I’d never heard the expression before, but I couldn’t help but laugh out loud. I knew exactly what it meant.

I’ve been remembering and noticing feet over the past few days.

There is a woman whose feet no longer form a pair. She lost one of her legs to an amputation several years ago and is now unable to walk. She spends her time in bed or in the chair next to her bed. Her remaining foot tells the story of a life spent raising 11 children on next to nothing. Her face tells more of the story, and her eyes are clouded by the years. But she still finds it in her to speak of ‘the good Lord’, and of an almost instinctive trust in his will having been carried out in the course of her life.

I remember the feet of hermana (sister) Elena de Alarcon, who taught me 4th and 5th grade Sunday school. She suffered from rheumatoid arthritis, and, though I never saw her feet out of her orthopedic shoes, her hands were gnarled like the branches of a twisting oak tree. I can only imagine what her feet may have looked like. She must have been in her late 70’s back IN the 70’s. I remember her voice being so strong, so sure of what she was saying. I remember one of her favorite illustrations was to compare us to the Andes Mountains, before and after a fresh winter snowfall, and explain that that was how clean the blood of Christ washed us all of our sins.

I remember one of the games we played at family night during mission meeting growing up was to have 5 or 6 of the men step into a back room and take off their shoes and socks and roll up their pants, and then step out behind a sheet, to where only their lower legs were visible, and the wives of each of them had to figure out which were who’s.

Last Saturday I watched a woman who’d suffered a stroke a couple of years ago and whose right side is paralyzed slowly, painstakingly make her way across the street and the graveyard to the sight where her friend of over 30 years was being laid to rest after a final battle with cancer. Her husband had the prayer of committal. She was the last one to arrive at the graveside, and the sun was hot, but nobody complained, or even said a word. Everyone waited respectfully and silently until she could be seated with the family under the awning.

I remember watching the feet of Robert Lindley, the former organist at Thalia Lynn, as he played the postlude after Sunday morning services. Watching them move as nimbly across those pedals as his hands did across the keys and listening to the resulting sounds coming from the pipes on more than one occasion elicited a resounding ‘AMEN’.

Another pair of feet comes to mind. Attached to knees that have been causing pain and discomfort for some time, making it difficult if not impossible to manage the stairs in this building, the woman has still faithfully carried out duties as the director of Sunday school, and teacher, and choir member.

Other feet that come to mind:

Feet that spend their day teaching children acrobatics, stretching not only their muscles but their minds, their wills, exercising them all to reach for new goals, new heights. Yesterday, those feet took her to Kirkland Grove, where their owner spent the afternoon getting to know people who do not speak the same language she does, except when it comes to what David Wilcox calls ‘the language of the heart’ - where it’s more than just words that get spoken.

Feet that spend 6 days a week working for their employer, encased in work boots, heaving, hauling, directing, and moving, but that on Sunday morning sit under a table downstairs and share the word of God with other young adults, bringing to mind ideas that might otherwise go unthought. Finding new ways to think of old words, making them new all over again in the process.

Feet that come to the activities committee meetings, hurrying to bring to the folks gathered around the table ways in which we as a church can engage not only each other, but the community of which we are a part as well. Those same feet walked into church with their owner’s daughters just a couple of weeks ago to celebrate with them their baptism.

There are the feet that got uncomfortably warm this week in the wake of the storm that came through, knocking down several trees and knocking out power to the house, and thus the air conditioning. It took … 2 or 3 days to get power back, and in that time, those feet walked or drove their owner to all the places she needed to go to take care of getting everything back in order, but were still faithfully here yesterday checking on the flowers being ready to grace our sanctuary this morning.

In scripture, there are the feet of Adam and Eve, which walked with God in the Garden of Eden in the cool of the day.

There are the feet of Noah, which worked for years to build the ark, alongside his sons, following God’s command.

There are the feet of Jacob, struggling the find a foothold in the 32nd chapter of Genesis, wrestling with a man all night, and prevailing. The next morning, he demands that the man bless him. As we find out, the man was God, who in blessing Jacob gives him a new name, the name “Israel” “for you have striven with God and with Humans.”

We find feet in the book of Isaiah, chapter 52, where our text this morning is itself drawn from:

6 Therefore my people shall know my name; therefore, in that day they shall know that it is I who speak; here am I. 7 How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of the messenger who announces peace, who brings good news, who announces salvation, who says to Zion, "Your God reigns."

In the New Testament, we come, of course, to the feet of Christ.

There was a youth musical that I remember singing, “What’s It All About’, sometime in the mid to late 70’s … one of the songs was ‘Sandals’ – and the words to the chorus went something like this:

Sandals, sandals on his feet, dusty roads where people meet,
sandals, sandals came to me, steps that lead past Calvary.

There was, as we know, no public transportation in 1st century Palestine. The primary mode of transportation was walking. Except for the ride into Jerusalem the week before his death, I’m not sure the Bible mentions Jesus ever having done anything besides walk. Imagine what 30-plus years of walking barefoot or with open sandals would do to your feet. They must have been rugged feet. Mostly hardened to the elements, and calloused. Those same feet stepped into the Jordan to be baptized by John, climbed into a boat to teach from the water to the shore, curled up in sleep in the middle of a storm on the sea of Galilee, stood in front of Lazarus’ grave as Jesus wept, and carried him into the temple, bracing him as he overturned the money changers’ tables and cleared them out.

Those same feet were pierced by a long heavy nail at Calvary, and were hastily wrapped in a burial shroud on Friday afternoon and laid in the tomb.

Then we start reading of other feet again…

The feet of the women on Sunday morning, as they ran from the tomb to be the first missionaries, proclaiming the risen Lord.

The feet of the disciples, who at first did not believe, but who, after witnessing the risen Christ, could do nothing else but proclaim to the world that Christ has risen.


The feet of Paul and Silas, bound, in prison, while they sang hymns of praise to God. Feet that did not take their owners running from the prison after the walls came down in the earthquake, but stayed, and witnessed to the jailer, and introducing him to a powerful, risen Lord.

There is one major player in the Old Testament I haven’t mentioned until now. Can you tell me who it was? Scripture actually makes reference to his feet: Moses.

Exodus Chapter 3: most of us know the story: Moses tending his father in law’s sheep, Moses sees the burning bush, Moses hears the voice of God. The event galvanizes him, and God sends him back to Egypt and to Pharaoh and ultimately to be the liberator of Israel. But at the beginning, what does God ask him to do?

“Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground."

It is not the physical location, as it is the fact that he was in the presence of God that made the ground Holy.

We are, here today, in the presence of God. We are on Holy Ground. It is altogether proper that we remove our sandals. What we are about is carrying God’s kingdom to the world around us. And it is within these walls that the Kingdom must be seen, and felt, and heard, and spoken.

Seminary started back this week. I’m taking a class with Randel Everett, president of the Seminary and now also Pastor at First Baptist Church, Newport News, which is where the Hampton Roads Campus is now located. I got a Jewel in class on Thursday night. It is a quote from Leslie Newbigin, who served for nearly 40 years as a missionary, a scholar and a theologian in India:

“The greatest hermeneutic of the Gospel is a community that lives by it”

Hermeneutic is a fancy word for Preaching.

We are all Moses, hearing God say “I have observed the misery of my people, I have heard their cry, and I know their suffering”. We are all called to do nothing less than bring in the Kingdom of God to this world.

Lets pray.

Shining Like Stars

Sunday, August 24, 2003
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA
(2 Timothy 2:22 reference: Pure in heart) Philippians 2:1-15

“She can decorate your whole room for $5.00!”

Stacey and Jim, my new roommates, were telling me about a friend of theirs who lived in Louisville. She hosted bible studies in her tiny one-bedroom apartment, and spent her money on books like Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s “Living Together” and “Letters and Papers from Prison”, Sheldon Vanauken’s “A Severe Mercy”, Watchman Nee’s “The Normal Christian Life” and “Sit, Walk, Stand” and Eugene Petersen’s “A Long Obedience In The Same Direction.” Those books, and the discussions they prompted between my roommates and myself, and those sometimes monthly trips up to Louisville to gather in Sue’s living room and hang out and hash out what we were learning of what we believed, did more to spur my growth as a follower of Christ than almost anything else. It was my exploration of faith away from the familiar surroundings of church and family.

Sue encouraged all of us with her love, her humor, and her compassion. A week wouldn’t go by that we wouldn’t receive a package from her. Usually it was a big manila envelope, with individual cards or handwritten letters for each of the four of us, along with an article or two she’d copied from a magazine, like Sojourner’s that she thought particularly relevant or insightful.

The text this morning is an exhortation. Paul is writing from prison. Where that prison is, either in Ephesus early in Paul’s career or in Rome towards the latter part of his life is a matter of debate among scholars. But the context remains. Prison is prison, regardless of geography or chronology. I’m sure there are reasons to conclude one way or the other, but for the purposes of the Philippians receiving and reading the letter, the same held true. Paul was in prison, and he took the time to write to us, so we better see what he has to say.

He starts the letter off with a beautiful thanksgiving: “I thank my God every time I remember you, constantly praying with joy in every one of my prayers for all of you, because of your sharing in the gospel from the first day until now. I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ” (1:3-6) and that tone carries throughout the letter. There is an assurance, a hope, and a joy that permeates the letter and jumps out at anyone reading it, even more so in light of the fact that Paul was writing it from prison.

There are definite references, though, to be found, which point to problems that have arisen among the Philippians. Chapter 1 verse 15-17: Some proclaim Christ from envy and rivalry, but others from goodwill. These proclaim Christ out of love, knowing that I have been put here for the defense of the gospel; the others proclaim Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely but intending to increase my suffering in my imprisonment. What is so striking about Paul’s response here, though, is how he ultimately turns away from the negativity that prompted the mention, and summarizes in verse 18: What does it matter? Just this, that Christ is proclaimed in every way, whether out of false motives or true; and in that I rejoice.”

Before this, Paul presents himself as an example for the Philippians to emulate, but then he cuts loose. In academic circles it is referred to as a Christological Hymn, beginning with the first verse in chapter 2, Paul begins to build momentum.

If then there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy, make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others.

We could spend a good deal of time deconstructing the passage, speak of the structure Paul used, the wording and the phrasing, and that all deserves attention, but to simply read the words brings the message.

It seems that Paul is saying ‘do this for me’ – (make my joy complete), when he lays down the challenge: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. His exhortation is towards unity above all else. In the face of opposition from Judaizers like those he was addressing in the letter to the churches in Galatia, Paul’s appeal is to humility, obedience, and selflessness.

Verses 5-11 are some of the most beautiful found in the entire New Testament:

Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death— even death on a cross. Therefore, God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

You can almost hear the words reverberating in the cell … to the glory of God the Father … I can picture Paul pausing after having said, perhaps even sung that part, a Doxology not unlike the one we sang here just a few minutes ago. The New Revised Standard editors have been kind enough to lay out that section in verse format – to separate it from the surrounding text, and set it apart as what it is: a poem, a song, a hymn.

12 Therefore, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed me, not only in my presence, but much more now in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; 13 for it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure. 14 Do all things without murmuring and arguing, 15 so that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, in which you shine like stars in the world.

Paul here is asking the Philippians to figure it out on their own. Not only as a matter of personal growth, but as a simple necessity. In chapter 1 verse 27, we read: “Only, live your life in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that, whether I come and see you or am absent and hear about you …” Paul knew he was not going to be around forever. From a practical standpoint, and if his spreading of the gospel of Christ was going to continue at all, he reminds the Philippians that it is not HIS instructions that they are ultimately following, but God’s. Verse 13: for it is GOD who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure.

Stacey, Jim and I went on a retreat together with the students from the campus group called ‘His House’ – which was similar to the Baptist Student Union, and the retreat got started EARLY on a Saturday morning. As we shuffled into the main gathering room, Mark, the president of the organization, started handing out chores to be done, as in cleaning, and cooking, and washing dishes, etc. Being who we were, there was an immediate response … mostly silence, but some mumbled, undercurrent of dissatisfaction. Mark was ready, and gently but firmly reminded us of this verse – do all things without murmuring or arguing. I suspect that, had the context been anything else besides a retreat, the murmuring and arguing would have continued, but for the place and the time, HIS entreaty to be less like ourselves and more like Christ hit home.

In the end, that is what Paul is asking that the Philippians then and we now be: more like Christ: obedient, of one mind, thinking of others first, kind, selfless, giving.

Verse 15:

so that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, in which you shine like stars in the world.

I was chatting with Sue last night, and asked how she was doing. She and her husband Shawn adopted two sisters whose mother died several years ago, and who had been shuffled through the foster care system in Louisville for several years. She shared with me that as of December, they also adopted a 13 year-old boy whom they’ve known longer than the girls. His father is an alcoholic and his mother is mentally handicapped.

“It’s pure joy”, she said. “They are fussing and fighting with each other, and I need to go tuck them in. He sleeps over at his mom’s 2 nights a week, and we hope to someday have a home big enough to just bring his mom in with us too.”

Sue still shines like a star in my heaven.

A little over a month ago, Dan Bagby preached from 2 Timothy 2:22: Shun youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart

Over the last 4 Sundays we’ve looked at each of those: Righteousness, Faith and faithfulness, love, and peace. We cannot neglect that last phrase of the verse: ALONG WITH those who call on the Lord from a pure heart.

We are together in this. As a congregation, we’ve been presented with a slate of nominees for deacon as well as the list of people who’ve agreed to roll up their sleeves and take it upon themselves to engage in the life and care of the church. As part of our process, we will be meeting in business session Wednesday night to elect those deacons, agreeing to support them, and to affirm our own commitment to take our part in the life of the church, by encouraging others who do not know Jesus or who have no family of faith to come see, hear, and join us as WE pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace.

If you are here today, and have not given your life to Jesus, that is our first priority. Have this mind in you that was in Christ, who didn’t puff himself up, but made himself obedient, even to death on a cross. Your call is to obedience, and obedience even to death to sin. God is calling you away from slavery to sin to victory over death through Christ.

If you are looking for a church home, a family of faith that will learn and grow and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace alongside you, we would welcome you to come be a part of this local body of believers.

If this IS your church home, and you ARE actively engaged in that pursuit, my word to you today is of gratitude, for that rightness, that faithfulness, that love, that peace that you are a part of.

Let’s pray.

Not As The World Gives

Sunday, August 17th, 2003
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA
(2 Timothy 2:22), John 14:22-27

22 Judas (not Iscariot) said to him, "Lord, how is it that you will reveal yourself to us, and not to the world?" 23 Jesus answered him, "Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. 24 Whoever does not love me does not keep my words; and the word that you hear is not mine, but is from the Father who sent me. 25 "I have said these things to you while I am still with you. 26 But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you. 27 Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.

“No Jesus, No Peace, Know Jesus, Know Peace”

We’ve seen the bumper sticker hundreds of times. While I nod, affirming the message, I bristle at the whole bumper-sticker theology idea. If bumper stickers were meant to raise a question, I’d have slapped one on my car that says, “Arminius was right”, but they don’t always do that. They try to convey a complex truth in a few short words that can be read while traveling at 65 miles per hour on the interstate. More often than not, the bumper sticker does not do justice to the issue it is trying to address. That is why one of my favorites is ‘visualize whirled peas’. It doesn’t take itself too seriously.

The thing is, in those 8 words, “No Jesus, No Peace, Know Jesus, Know Peace” what is conveyed in that nutshell is a simple but profound truth that we can readily come back to or build on.

Since coming to Jerusalem, it has been my privilege to be involved in the ministry of visitation – people from the congregation or somehow related to the congregation who are either at home, in an assisted living center, or a nursing home. This includes visiting folks who are in the hospital.
What has been a true gift has been to witness the graciousness with which people deal with their infirmities, or illnesses. To look someone in the eye and have him or her say “I’m ready to die” with complete assurance has been a lesson in faith, and have made that aspect of this pastorate rewarding in a way that I never thought possible.

Just a few minutes after he was born, the pediatrician came in to check on Caleb. He placed the stethoscope against his chest, and listened intently. He repeated the process, and then looked up at us and said, “it sounds like he may have a slight murmur”.

Hannah had been born healthy as a horse, and Leslie had made it through both pregnancies with no major setbacks or crises. There was nothing that came up in the prenatal care, the sonograms, or during the delivery process that warned us that anything might be amiss. The doctor explained what a murmur was, a hole in the wall of the heart that separates the two lower ventricles from each other.

We were scheduled to see a pediatric cardiologist as quickly as possible, and I believe it was within 2 or 3 days of his birth that we found ourselves sitting in the specialist’s office. I don’t remember his name, but he looked at us, and explained that the hole in Caleb’s heart was relatively small, and that there was a good chance that it would close up on it’s own, but that there was also a chance that that would not happen, and that we might be looking at the possibility of surgical intervention.

I remember he stopped explaining the details, and looked at us and said something like, “at this point, in my experience, 90% of couples have only one question on their minds: “why me?” I was wondering if you might be asking yourselves that same question?”

Leslie and I looked at each other and just kind of shrugged and looked back at him and said, “No, that’s ISN’T a question we were asking ourselves”. He was surprised enough to ask why not. Our answer seemed to surprise him even more. I tried to explain why the question wasn’t even on our radar screen, and finally I looked at Leslie to help put into words what we were wanting to say, and she said ‘Things like this happen to all kinds of people. We’re no different in that sense; we’re as human as the rest of the world. But we do have faith that God will be with us through this, no matter what happens.’

Let’s broaden the scope of the word “peace”. We automatically think of the word that is in opposition to the given- peace, so the opposite is war or conflict.

There’s another Bumper sticker: “If you want peace, work for justice”.

I’d contend that there has never been true peace on earth. We have, of course, experienced periods of tranquility, times, sometimes years, when conflict has been mostly absent from our environment. But if we look at the situation worldwide, there has never been a time when there hasn’t been some sort of armed conflict going on somewhere in the world. I remember reading somewhere that, at any given time, there are approximately 200 armed conflicts going on somewhere in the world. There are those we are all familiar with: the conflict in the Middle East, in Ireland, in Iraq, Afghanistan, and between India and Pakistan. There is the conflict in Liberia, and again in Burundi, as well as East Timor, a province of Indonesia, where a civil war has been raging for decades. Some places make the headlines, others don’t, but there are always, always those whose daily existence is comparable to … hell. We have much to be thankful for, and at the same time, much to be responsible for.

Turning to the text, the context is at the last supper. John is a little different from the other Gospels in that sense. If you have a red-letter edition of the Bible, you can compare the four Gospels, and you find that in Matthew, Mark and Luke, there is a lot of connecting material, and the words of Jesus are interspersed throughout. In John, it is almost the opposite. There are pages and pages of Jesus speaking, interrupted here and there with connecting material, or text that is setting up the situation. In the passage, Jesus has already alluded to his coming death to the disciples, and they are struggling with trying to understand how that might happen. The peace Jesus spoke of could not be exemption from conflict and trial. Jesus himself had been "troubled" by the impending Crucifixion (12:27 "Now my soul is troubled. And what should I say--'Father, save me from this hour'? No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour. 28 Father, glorify your name."). The peace he spoke of here is the calmness of confidence in God. Jesus had this peace because he was sure of the Father's love and approval. He could therefore move forward to meet the crisis without fear or hesitation. The world can give only false peace, which mostly comes from the ignorance of peril or self-reliance. With his promise of peace, he repeated the words of comfort he had spoken in reply to Peter's earlier question (cf. v.1"Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me.). The disciples must have continued to show their dismay as they contemplated Jesus' departure.

William Powell Tuck, professor of Preaching at Southern Seminary for many years, [wrote in ‘The Struggle for Meaning’ (Pennsylvania: Judson Press, 1977), pp. 113-114,] describes it this way:

Two artists were commissioned to paint their conception of peace. Each went into his studio and worked for the allotted time. The day came when the paintings were to be viewed. The veiled canvasses were placed on easels in the gallery. The first artist threw the veil off his painting. Everyone smiled and took a deep breath. The tranquil, pastoral scene almost exuded the delightful odors of suppertime, hot biscuits, freshly mowed hay, and the contented lowing of farm animals being fed in the barn.

When the other painting was unveiled, viewers were jolted by the scene of a raging, torrential waterfall cascading, exploding, crashing on the rocks below. A gnarled little tree seemed to be clinging to a craggy opening in the rocks. Through the foam and mist of the waterfall, you could see a bird's nest precariously perched on the end of a limb stretched out over the falls. There on the nest in the midst of the crashing, thundering torrent was a mother bird singing her heart out. This is how Jesus would have painted peace-contentment in spite of conflict, joy that comes from within rather than from without.

We have in our own midst people who are facing the raging torrents of life. Some of us can look back on events of the last year, or the last few months or weeks and sometimes days, and see that waterfall in hindsight, aware that the raging is behind us, and that we have, through the grace of God and the presence of the Holy Spirit, come through. Others of us are aware that we are in the middle of the biggest storm of our lives.

Eijrhvnhn the greek word for peace used in verse 27, from which we get the name Irene, is an inward peace that comes from knowing who you are- and WHOSE you are.

I asked Elwood’s permission earlier to share some of his story, and he agreed, so here it is: He’s been healthy as a horse all his life, active, farming and working … for several months, beginning last year, he started feeling discomfort. For a long time the doctors thought it was a sinus infection. He finally went in for some serious testing, and they found that his spleen was three times the normal size, and ruptured. Surgery followed as quickly as possible, in early June. Tissue was sent off for analysis, and the diagnosis came back like a raging flood: cancer, and not only cancer, but also melanoma, as serious a prognosis as they could encounter.

I first met Elwood in the hospital after the surgery. At first, he thought I was a doctor. At the time, we didn’t have the pathology report. I went to visit him at home on the 11th of June, and I believe at that time he’d been given the report. As we sat and prayed, Elwood has shared that he felt a flood of peace come over him. Since then, going through all the testing, and the doctor’s appointments, and everything else, including the death of his father, that peace has not left him.

A few minutes ago we sang the hymn “it is well with my soul”. Reflect on those words:

“when sorrows like sea billows roll … though satan should buffet, though trials should come”

Are YOU at peace? Do you know to whom you belong? Can you look at your life and say “I am at peace”?

If you cannot, your invitation is to take the first step in that direction, by giving your life to the prince of peace.

If you have already done that, and are looking for a home from which you can share that peace with others, we would welcome you.

If you are a member of Jerusalem, your invitation is to recognize that peace, and be sensitive to anything that would hinder it, and strive for peace not only in your own life, but in the life of the church and in the life of our community, and in the life of the world.

Let’s pray.

By This We're Known

Sunday, August 10th, 2003
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA
(2 Timothy 2:22), 1 John, 3:1-3

1 See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are. The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. 2 Beloved, we are God's children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is. 3 And all who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure.

I have a picture on my desk. It is sitting just in front of the monitor and next to the keyboard. The picture is of Leslie, Hannah, Caleb, Judson, and me, taken in 1999. Judson was coming up on 4 months of age, Caleb was not yet 2, Hannah had just turned 4. The Christmas tree is behind us, and the kids and Leslie are decked out in festive red and green. All of us except Judson have smiles on our faces, to varying degrees. Hannah is smiling sunnily straight into the camera, Caleb looks like he’s getting ready to say something (nothing new under the sun), Judson is looking down at his hand, holding Leslie’s, and Leslie and I are both looking into the lens.

That year, Christmas was an incredible time. I’m not sure what the children will remember of it, but it will always have a special place in both my and Leslie’s life.

You see, a little over a month before the picture was taken, I had lost my job. Although Leslie was working part time at Thalia Lynn, her salary was not enough for us to meet expenses, much less attempt to live on.

Though everything in me wanted to curl up and sleep for a week or more after I was dismissed, she wouldn’t let me. The very next day, I was sent to the employment office to fill out the necessary paperwork, and begin the process of securing a new job.

Exactly two months later, my next employer hired me. The story of those two months is the story of God’s unmerited, unexpected, and undying love, expressed through not only church members, but co-workers, friends from the day school where Hannah was attending, and even the staff at the credit union where we banked.

The director of the child development center at church offered me a temporary job in the kitchen, as dishwasher. I accepted, and even though it only paid minimum wage, it kept me in motion. I only ended up working there for a week, but I consider that time to have been critical to my understanding of what it means to BE God’s presence and grace in someone else’s life, and what it means to ACCEPT God’s presence and grace in your own life.

This is what I learned:

God has gifted you with a mind and a body, and has graced you with a place of service. That place of service may not always be the picture of paradise we always hope for, but it is where you are, and God is with you. Putting those two things together means that, in truth, regardless of where you are, God is with you, and you are therefore his ambassador, his representative. As such, when you act, God either acts in sometimes seemingly insignificant ways or doesn’t.

To speak of love in a Christian context is to attempt to put into words what can only be shown in deeds. If we say we love and don’t show it, the words don’t amount to much. If we say we love and show something contrary to that love, it does more than immediate damage. It creates a precedent of untruth that works against not only the immediate situation, but taints any future encounters.

The other thing I learned was to be ready to receive God’s grace from unexpected sources.

A friend from Church, a new Christian who had sung with Leslie in the praise team that plays for the contemporary service, called me from his job and let me know of a temporary opening as receptionist for the real estate firm with whom his boss shared a building. I started working for them at the beginning of December, and worked there for the next 6 weeks. During those 6 weeks, I saw a world I’d not been exposed to before. Real estate in a competitive market can be a cutthroat business. It may have been due to the season, but as Christmas approached, I witnessed God’s grace moving through those agents and brokers to a degree that I had not thought possible.

But then, as soon as I say that, I’m reminded of the verse in Luke 18,

‘What is impossible for mortals is Possible for God’.

I could go on about our experiences during those two months, about the members of our church who walked up to us with a hug and a Christmas card that included a check, or how bags of groceries seemed to appear either on our doorstep or in our Sunday school room, about the host of angels WE encountered that Christmas.

As the text says, beloved, we are God’s Children now. As a child, we are imprinted with our parent’s behavior.

Let it be so with us as children of God.

Paul says, What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is

Insofar as we become more and more like God, how will the love of God be manifested in us?

Dan mentioned taking on one prejudice to rid himself of during the season of lent. As we move into this new school year, perhaps we can take on the challenge as we approach Christmas and find that new way to love. That new way to be Christ in unexpected ways.

(read note – and refer to Gayle’s email)

Let’s pray

We Come In Faith

Sunday, August 3, 2003
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA
(2 Timothy 2:22), I Corinthians 15:57-58

57 But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. 58Therefore, my beloved, be steadfast, immovable, always excelling in the work of the Lord, because you know that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.

I was pleasantly surprised by this week’s cover story in the Religious Herald: “A Missionary Love Story”. The picture is of Uncle John and Aunt Edith Parker, both retired missionaries, who served for 38 and 35 years, respectively, but in different countries: He in Chile, and she in Brazil.

If you had a chance to read the story, and I hope you did, you’ll know that Uncle John’s first wife, Aunt Ruby, passed away in February of 1997, after 54 years of marriage, and he and Aunt Edith, who’d never been married, were wed on October 25th of the same year.

Aunt Ruby and I had a special relationship. Not only was her youngest son also named Kenny, but also she and I shared the same birthday, July 13th. As it happened, we usually celebrated our birthday together, and she would always make her famous peanut brittle.

I always thought it was interesting, the way Uncle John and Aunt Ruby met. They were each appointed as single missionaries to Chile in 1941. Once there, they met and fell in love. Their courtship was carried out in Chile, and when they decided to marry, they had to resign and return to the States. If I’m not mistaken, I think they had the wedding ceremony IN Chile and even went on their honeymoon there before coming back here to resign as single missionaries and be reappointed as a couple back to Chile, where they spent the next nearly 4 decades serving as missionaries through the Foreign Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention.

We are following the outline of II Timothy 2:22, and are on Faithfulness today. There is no doubt as to the faithfulness of all of the people in the story: John, Ruby, and Edith, and so many others like them who’ve given their lives for the cause of sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Their combined years of service speak to an aspect of faithfulness that is essential – longevity. There is a reason marital vows include the phrase “’til death us do part”.

In the late 1820’s, when Elder Thomas Braxton and the group of folks who came with him and began to meet and finally decided to establish ‘Royal Oaks Baptist Church”, and later changed that name to “Jerusalem”, the decision to constitute a church was one that was made with no ‘expiration date’ in mind. Faithfulness means open-ended commitment. Their decision was to BE CHURCH to each other. That commitment, that faithfulness, has continued since then, ultimately by all of us here today.

Our faithfulness to each other is, first and foremost, a reflection of our commitment to Christ. It is not the same as that commitment, but it goes hand in hand with it. In James we read ‘faith without works is dead’. In a way, that is saying ‘faithfulness in word alone is not faithfulness at all’. We must live out that faithfulness in our actions. Simply put, being faithful in church means being COMMITTED TO church.

I need to clarify something here. A corporate trainer I heard once differentiated involvement from commitment this way: a chicken is involved in breakfast; a pig, on the other hand, is committed to breakfast.

In the interest of general health and well-being, not to mention emotional and spiritual well-being, there is a difference between our commitment to Christ and our commitment to church. Being actively involved in the life of the church takes time and energy, as any activity would. In that aspect, it falls under the ‘on the 7th day God rested’ clause. Our commitment to Christ is of the heart and of the spirit. Our commitment to church is not ONLY of the heart and the spirit, but the body as well.
Therefore: your activity, commitment and involvement in the life of the church should go in cycles.

The human body is built to work in cycles. Circadian rythms, I think is what they are called. (If there is a biology major here today, perhaps they could help me out). The body has an active cycle, and a cycle of rest. That rest cycle is used to replenish and restore the body for the active cycle.

In that the church is the body of Christ, and we are part of that body, we also need to rest and alternatively, be active. It is reflected in the rotations we set up for deacons, for committees, and most other organizations within the church.

Faithfulness is reflected in the care we give each other, and the community around us. My sense since I’ve been here is that we don’t need to worry about that too much. Being a polling place at election time, participating in meals on wheels in January, providing for the needy through the food pantry, those are all evidence of faithfulness to the community. In the care we give each other, it would be reflected in how we arrange ourselves internally. In the meetings of the nominating committee over the last few weeks, that has come to mind. One thing that is taken for granted in a small congregation is that those who are active and involved wear many hats. One person with whom I spoke is involved in … at least 5 committees or organizations, and I don’t think that is terribly unusual within the congregation. That is why it is important to be intentional about resting from our labors. I’m not sure what that is going to look like for Jerusalem, but it does need to BE.

In academic circles, there is what is called a sabbatical. Every so often, a professor will take a hiatus from his duties in lecturing and will spend either a year or several months away from them – to study, to write, to reflect on what his or her work means, or find a new direction that he or she has not had time to explore previously because of those standing commitments.

Yes, there are lots of jobs to do, many responsibilities, even in a church this size. And there are people who step up to the challenge.

It has been encouraging to see the number and variety of names that are already in the nominating committee’s lists. As with any congregation, there are those names that show up repeatedly, but there are a solid number of other names that only appear once or twice. That is good in that it reflects a widely involved congregation. Be that as it may, perhaps it is time to reflect on what you have been doing for Jerusalem, or maybe, what you COULD be doing WITH Jerusalem.

In the end, our faithfulness begins with God’s faithfulness. Just as we love because he first loved us, we are faithful because he was first faithful to us. What we see time and time again in scripture is call and response. God calls, and we respond. God acts, and we react. God moves, and we move with God.
How is God moving in your life? Are you open to what comes next? Are you willing to step out of involvement and into commitment?

As Paul says, your labor is not in vain. What you do for the kingdom, whether it is as a missionary, as a minister, deacon, Sunday school teacher, committee chair, has significance, has meaning, has a place in the inbreaking of the Kingdom of God.

If you are here today and have been involved, but know that somehow, someway you need to be committed, your invitation is to first commit your life to Christ, to respond in faith to the author and finisher of our faith.

If you are looking for a place where you CAN commit, your invitation is to join with us in committing our lives, minds, and hearts to the furthering of the Kingdom of God.

If you are here, and are or have been committed and active, your invitation is to examine that, and search your heart, and find if it is time to rest, or time to reengage in this community of faith, rested, and ready to bring renewed energies to the task at hand.

Let’s pray.