First Things First

Or
The Gospel according to Peter Pan

Sunday, January 18th, 2004
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA
Revelation 21:1-5, Philippians 1:21-25

1 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. 2 And I saw the holy city, the New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them; 4 he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away." 5 And the one who was seated on the throne said, "See, I am making all things new."

Captain Hook pushes his face an inch closer to Peter Pan’s, wiggles his sword, which is crossed with Peter’s, and sneering, says,

“Pan, prepare to die”

In response, Peter gently smiles,

“To die would be a wonderful adventure.”

Of course, the movie doesn’t end there. In fact, it’s barely begun; it seems to be only about 15 minutes into it at that point. The pace of children’s movies has definitely increased. If you are familiar with the story by James Michael Barrie, the movie follows it’s general storyline: Peter escapes Hook’s attempt on his life in the first go-around, flies off to introduce Wendy to the lost boys, where she becomes their mother (based solely on her ability to tell stories), saves John and Michael from the pirates, and generally makes the movie nonstop action. Like I said, the pace of children’s movies has definitely increased. I was struck by the pause in that scene. The pace seemed to momentarily slow to a crawl to allow for the thought to sink in: “to die would be a wonderful adventure”

Most of you know by now that we laid Mary Jane Headley to rest this past Thursday after she passed away on Monday evening. I visited with her Monday afternoon, and at that point, all I could do was read from Psalms and pray with and for her. When we were last able to actually speak, a week ago Thursday, she let me know then that she wanted me to do her funeral. I can’t tell you how humbling it is to hear that from someone, and it was both an honor and a privilege to be able to fulfill her request. At one point in that visit she told me that sometimes she prayed “just to go to sleep and wake up in heaven”.

I think it is safe to say for any of us who’ve lived through extreme hardship, especially the loss of health, that that is not a thought that is foreign to us. We find Mary Jane’s thoughts echoing Paul in his letter to the Church in Philippi.

Traditionally, the setting for Paul’s writing the letter to the church at Philippi has been while in prison in Rome, awaiting an audience with Caesar. The date of the letter: between 61 and 63 AD, give or take. Since the traditional date for Paul’s martyrdom is between 64 and 67 AD, during Nero’s persecution of the Roman Christians, and first century prisons anywhere, even in Rome, were notorious for bringing about their own death sentence on the inmates, regardless of the sentence which they had received, death was probably very present in Paul’s thought, if not his daily life. He had just nursed the man who brought him news from the Philippians, Epaphroditus, back to health.

We are more familiar with the passage as it begins in one of the more traditional versions, and in each of them it reads virtually the same:

“For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain.”

I’d like to read that verse, 21 of the 1st chapter, and the next 4 verses from Eugene Petersen’s ‘The Message’ – In which Petersen is going for a thought-for-thought correspondence rather than word-for-word, he writes:

21 Alive, I'm Christ's messenger; dead, I'm his bounty. Life versus even more life! I can't lose. 22 As long as I'm alive in this body, there is good work for me to do. If I had to choose right now, I hardly know which I'd choose. 23 Hard choice! The desire to break camp here and be with Christ is powerful. Some days I can think of nothing better. 24 But most days, because of what you are going through, I am sure that it's better for me to stick it out here. 25 So I plan to be around awhile, companion to you as your growth and joy in this life of trusting God continues.

Picture if you will, Paul is in prison, clothes, if he had any, were the ones he wore in or which someone brought him. Food, if any, is what has been brought in specifically for him, since meals were not provided by management. Unheated, unventilated, and probably overcrowded, with no medical attention, such as it was. Paul would have every reason to expect death to be more of a release from his present circumstance than anything else. He admits that he longs to be able to ‘break camp’ and be with Christ, but in the same breath realizes that there is more to do before that happens – and I really like the way the thought is conveyed by Petersen in verse 25: “So I plan to be around awhile, companion to you as your growth and joy in this life of trusting God continues.” How many of us could truthfully say that what is keeping us here is to be in community and to watch God move, and to watch our trust in him increase, what the New Revised Standard Version translates “for your progress and joy in faith”?

I imagine the passage from Revelation is familiar to most of us. It is, of course, most often used at funerals and at the graveside, and appropriately so. The image of a place where God will wipe every tear from our eyes, where death will be no more, where there will be no more mourning and crying and pain does, as Paul said, create a powerful desire to be there rather than here. How can it not?? But let’s stop on the next phrase: “for the first things have passed away.”

What are the first things the loud voice from the throne is talking about? Let’s back up a little further and read again beginning with verse 3, the second part –

"See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them;”

Is the speaker talking about the future, or about a possible present?

We have just finished celebrating Christmas, the coming of the Christ Child, and during the Christmas season we repeatedly made reference to what Christ’s coming meant: it meant that God came to earth to live among us, that Emmanuel; “God with us” was in the person of Jesus Christ.

Perhaps we need to really take a close look at what Jesus meant when he spoke of the Kingdom of God.

Yes, there is a brokeness to the world as we know it. It manifests itself every day: in a car bomb going off in Baghdad, sending the death toll of US citizens in Iraq to over 500, and an untold number of Iraqi citizens, rampant HIV in Africa, earthquakes in Iran, a plane crash in Egypt, it can all be overwhelming, making you want to run screaming from the room and be done with it.

And yet …

Hook seems to be winning. He actually succeeds in flying, with the necessary aid of some pixy dust and ‘happy thoughts’, though in this instance, happy has become a relative term. While he and Peter are engaged in their last battle, he is constantly stabbing – not only with his sword, but with his words as well … it brings to mind ‘the accuser’, ‘the father of lies’, his insinuations and barbs are tearing at Peter’s spirit to the point where he ends up on his back on the deck of the Jolly Roger, with no will left to fight, much less to live. Wendy pleads with Hook to let her give Peter a ‘thimble’. He scoffs at her “silly girl”, and shrugs her off, letting her near. She lays down beside Peter, and tells him she is sorry she has to leave and grow up, but she says that he will always be welcomed to listen to her stories, and that she will always hold him in her heart, and gives Peter her ‘thimble’, which turns out to be a kiss, and he bursts back to life and wins the day. Hmmm … sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

At the end of the movie, Peter is saying goodbye to Wendy as she leans out her window, and he looks at her, smiles, and says,

“To live, yes, to live would be a wonderful adventure!”

First things first: the words of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount:

"But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. (Mt 6:33)

How does that translate for Jerusalem Baptist Church?

Like this:

1. Unity in diversity: This coming Wednesday, we will hold our regularly scheduled business meeting, an event that can run smoothly or otherwise. Let it not be a meeting of cliques or special interest groups, but a meeting of brothers and sisters, sharing in love the purpose of furthering the Kingdom.

2. Visiting the sick, bereaved and lonely. It is what builds us up that will build others up – being in community. This afternoon we have an opportunity to carry this out, by visiting the residents at Farnham Manor at 2 PM. Anyone is welcome to join us.

3. Letting Love be our rule, and Christ be our head and our heart.

Let’s pray.

Your invitation is similar – to come and live in the Kingdom – in what is to be and what can be even in the midst of all the madness and stabbing and tearing that the world can throw at us. We are about living life as it should be lived – in the glory of the love found only in Jesus Christ.

Our hymn of invitation is number 426 – O Master Let Me Walk with Thee

Benediction:
May the Lord bless you and keep you.
May the Lord make his face to shine upon you
And be gracious unto you.
May God give you
Grace
Never to sell yourself short;
Grace
To risk something big for something good;
Grace
To remember that the world is now
Too dangerous
For anything but truth
And
Too small for anything but Love.
So may God take your minds
And think through them;
May God take your lips
And speak through them;
May God take your hearts
And set them on fire

Through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Invitation

Sunday, January 11, 2004
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA
1 Corinthians 11:23-26

23 For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread, 24 and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, "This is my body that is [broken] for you. Do this in remembrance of me." 25 In the same way he took the cup also, after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me." 26 For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.

‘Come see us’.

Those three words were all that made up the note at the bottom of the card. In the midst of the hustle and bustle of the season, and travels, and subsequent settling back in after those travels, the time has yet to come when we can respond to the invitation, but that time WILL come.

This last week we had guests for dinner two evenings. On Tuesday, Valentin, Lucio and Domingo, three of our Mexican friends who are working in White Stone, stopped in late in the afternoon, and we invited them to stay and share our spaghetti with us. We had a wonderful time. Lucio and Domingo are brothers to Mundo, who has 3 children of his own, who correspond in age roughly to our three, and while I was here meeting with the constitution committee, they were over in the parsonage basement attempting to play ‘Twister’ with the kids … while Leslie and Valentin got on the internet upstairs and tried to hunt for a car for Lucio. When I got back home, shortly after 9, we spent some more time laughing and visiting and just being with them.

On Friday evening, we had one of the area Pastors and his family over for supper. There is something about sharing a meal together, about sitting around a table and breaking bread, that draws you into communion with one another like nothing else. Our time together was relaxed and laid-back. It was 11 O’clock before we turned around twice. Lee and Kim have become good friends over the course of the last year, especially in the spring, when they opened their home to us as we were commuting from Virginia Beach to do the Hispanic work, or meet with the WMU, or the Associational Missions Committee, or, occasionally, a certain Pastor Search Committee. Over the course of the fall, with our shifting schedules, we’d not had many opportunities to spend time with them, and Friday was a welcome re-grouping.

I can imagine that some similar conversations might’ve taken place during the supper in the upper room so long ago. These men had gotten to know each other as well as they could. They had spent almost every waking moment together. The disciples had accepted Christ’s invitation 3 or so years earlier to come, follow him, and learn- learn to be fishers of men, learn to heal, learn to confront sin and injustice and Satan and stop them in their tracks.

That night, Christ was inviting them again to join him. But it would seem a bit odd. They’d been permanent fixtures of each other’s lives for so long, where else could he invite them to be, that they hadn’t already been with him?

Previously, his invitation had been to learn from him. That night, as it is today, his invitation was and is to DO. ‘Do this in remembrance of me’.

Leslie and I were talking over some ideas yesterday about the message for today, and she pointed out to me that throughout advent, I seem to have paused on themes of suffering and pain with each message. I’m afraid today’s message is no different in that respect.

Christ extended the bread and the wine and said ‘this is my body, which is broken for you; this cup is the new covenant in my blood’. The mention of blood in conjunction with a covenant only meant one thing: a sacrifice. Christ was speaking of nothing if not his coming death. In that sense, Jesus was inviting the disciples to join him in his passion. It always struck me, the reference to Holy Week as ‘passion week’. In a little over a month, a film will be released that brutally details the last 12 hours of Jesus’ life. It’s title: “The Passion of The Christ”. The root word is “Pati”, the Latin word for “suffer”. As Christians, we must not, ever, ignore pain and suffering. Our response to the brokenness in the world is where Christ shines through most plainly.

My word processing software’s list of synonyms for “passion” includes fervor, ardor, obsession, infatuation, excitement, enthusiasm, zeal, and craze. Odd, isn’t it? There is no mention of the root meaning: suffering. I like the last one: delight. It echoed so many passages – I’ll just mention two, and they bracket the book of Psalms: 1:1-2 and 149:1-4:

Ps 1:1 Blessed is the one who obeys the law of the LORD.
He doesn’t follow the advice of evil people.
He doesn’t make a habit of doing what sinners do.
He doesn’t join those who make fun of the LORD and his law.
Ps 1:2 Instead, he takes delight in the law of the LORD.


Ps 149:1 Praise the LORD.
Sing a new song to the LORD.
Sing praise to him in the community of his faithful people.
Ps 149:2 Let Israel be filled with joy because God is their Maker.
Let the people of Zion be glad because he is their King.
Ps 149:3 Let them praise his name with dancing.
Let them make music to him with harps and tambourines.
Ps 149:4 The LORD takes delight in his people.

So it seems to work both ways. We have a passion for God; God has a passion for us. We delight in him, he delights in us.

But just what is Christ inviting US to? What is Christ inviting Jerusalem Church to? Is it a life of luxury, a life of plenty? Or is it a life of service and struggle? Is it a life of perpetual suffering, or of perpetual joy, and are the two mutually exclusive? Is it freedom from want, or freedom from need? Is it a life free from illness and pain, or a life as fraught with pain and suffering as the person who has never heard of a God who became human and dwelt among us?

As I’ve said before, I believe Christ’s invitation is an invitation to communion, an invitation to enter into relationship with him. And in that relationship we are faced with a choice. Will our communion with Christ be reflected inwards or outwards?

Last week, Tony’s Children’s sermon touched on what happens to light when it hits a mirror – it is reflected. His point raises the question here: in what direction will your mirror be pointing? Is our reflection going to be a life of closed community, where we spend our time together, side by side, facing inward, enjoying each others’ company, certainly, but to the exclusion of the world around us, or is the reflection going to be in the other direction, where we find ourselves, still side by side, but facing outward.

There’s a new addition to the wall in the study over at the parsonage, courtesy of the National Geographic Society. It came in yesterday’s mail. It is a map of the world. I have it up on the wall right above my desk; I face it as I’m sitting at the keyboard.

One of the best benefits of the internet is the ability to communicate across vast distances … and time, in a way. As I’ve mentioned in the past, I’ve been able to connect with childhood friends, and my college roommates, and just this week I reconnected with Breena Paine, whom I first knew as Breena Kent, an MK from Paraguay, who is now married, has two kids, and is serving with her husband in Chiang Mai, Thailand, the same city that Scott and Erica Riddell are serving in as missionaries. My last contact with her was almost 19 years ago, at the candidate conference for the Journeyman group of which I became a part. All that to say this: communion means so much more than simply communing with each other in this context (here within these walls). Communion means recognizing community across the room as well as across the street, the county, the river, the state, the country and the world and CELEBRATING IT.

We say we celebrate the Lord’s Supper, and in that sense the word celebrate means ‘to observe’ but in a real sense, Christ’s invitation is to celebrate communion with him in whatever context you find yourself in. It is a solemn occasion. It recalls for us just that which Jesus was predicting to his disciples: his suffering and death. But as we know, and as we can testify to, we are a resurrection people. We view the event in light of the resurrection: Christ’s triumph over death, in a way, his foreshadowing of how we can and will overcome the darkest shadows of human existence to one day draw in that breath of heaven. In that sense, we celebrate – festively- the joy of the resurrection.

What is Christ inviting you to? There are as many answers to that question as there are people in this room.

Whatever that means, wherever that takes us, individually or as a congregation, Christ is with us. He has promised us the companion – the Holy Spirit. And it is in and through the Spirit that we now gather around the table.

Will the deacons please join me at the table?

24 and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, "This is my body that is [broken] for you. Do this in remembrance of me."

25 In the same way he took the cup also, after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me."

Hymn of invitation: 369 ‘Purer in Hear O God’

Benediction (on cover of bulletin)

‘Blest be the tie that binds’

Beginnings

Sunday, January 4, 2004
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA
John 1:1-5; 3:1-5

1:1-5

1In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being 4 in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

3:1-5

1Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews. 2 He came to Jesus by night and said to him, "Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God." 3 Jesus answered him, "Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above." 4 Nicodemus said to him, "How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother's womb and be born?" 5 Jesus answered, "Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit.

I don’t know about you, but this past week’s New Year’s celebration was exceptionally quiet for us.

Part of it, I’m sure, had to do with the fact that we pulled into the driveway at about ten minutes to midnight on New Year’s Eve, after leaving Louisville at 9, we were pretty tired. The other part of it was that, at midnight, we were still in the midst of unloading the minivan, so our new year’s wishes were more in the manner of “huff, puff, (groan) oh, happy new year …” than a rousing boisterous well-wishing. We did celebrate, but it was a very small celebration, with a couple of close friends who have become family to us since we moved here, sitting in front of the fire, and basically exchanging small talk and good wishes.

So the New Year was ushered in in the midst of other activity. In some ways, it felt like just another Wednesday night, the only difference being that we had been on a trip.

In truth, to some degree the celebration was anticlimactic; the previous week had been a full one. Our time in Kentucky had been rich with events – a Christmas Eve service at my sister’s church, Highland Baptist, which was the first ever (I think) which the entire family attended – including all in-laws and grandkids, then a Christmas day full of family – not just immediate family, but the additional presence of a Chilean friend and HER family, who are living in Dayton Ohio and who drove down to spend the better part of the day with us—she repeatedly commented on how our house in Santiago was ‘always open’ … it was a precious time of reconnecting with our Chilean family. On Friday we gathered with several MK friends and THEIR families – again, people we’d not seen in several years, and on Tuesday, my 3 college roommates and our ‘adopted roommate’ Sue (though she lived in Louisville, while we were two hours south in Bowling Green), and I gathered with all of our families for the first time – counting my sister Becky and her family, 12 adults and 16 kids … it was chaotic and crowded, noisy, when all the kids came inside, but the time together was sweet. I found myself standing on the edges of the den, watching everyone. They’d not changed that much, except for the kids tagging along … but that in itself was a huge change. It was wonderful to see how … settled … in the best sense of the word … everyone was. People finding themselves in the midst of doing what they love doing. What they are gifted to do, what they are willing and able to do.

It made for a lesson in thanksgiving – I’d like to quote from a note one of them made on his website – Jay is Pastor of Antioch United Methodist Church, outside of Nashville, and said this about the gathering:

It is a bit pretentious to say so, but our experience in Bowling Green … was an experiment in Christian community ... We shared similar values. We shared financially -- because we didn't have any other choice. We prayed together, sang together, worshipped together, broke bread together, and yelled and screamed at each other. It was a place of authenticity for us, and I think led us into a relationship that can easily pick up from where we left it the last time we were together … it represents one model of life together in the body of Christ. Perhaps much of my striving in church is to regain that sense of community that we felt …

What I touched base with on Tuesday was that which had a huge impact on who I am and who I’ve become over the last 20 years.

I know the first scripture passage was at the beginning of John, but let’s deal with the second passage first.

We find Nicodemus attracted to something like that community. Here he is, a member of the Sanhedrin, the ruling council, he was nothing if not part of the establishment in first-century Jerusalem. Jesus is nothing if not the antiestablishment. He and his disciples are constantly getting into trouble for breaking the Sabbath and eating with sinners.

And yet, Nicodemus sees something. He approaches at night, which says something about who he was mindful of …

"Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God”

His salutation is courteous, even respectful; Rabbi was a term of respect as well as a title. The fact that Nicodemus addresses Jesus by the title says something about how he saw Jesus. I somehow doubt that he was trying to butter Jesus up … being in a position of power himself, there doesn’t seem to be a reason for that to be happening. His question is seemingly interrupted by Jesus’ reply to his greeting … the question, if any, is implied – the reference to “these signs” that “no one can do apart from the presence of God”.

As usual, Jesus cuts right to the chase – “no one can see the Kingdom of God without being born from above” – he is asserting that even admitting to the miraculous acts that Jesus was performing as being from God doesn’t accord one the right to be a witness to - or perhaps even a participant in the Kingdom – that can only come from the Spirit – by being born from above – a term that has been translated and popularized as being ‘Born Again’.

Nicodemus’ response can be taken a couple of ways -
At first sight he appears to be quite materialistic in his attitude, thinking that Jesus was advocating what was impossible--a second physical birth. On the other hand, perhaps he meant, "How can a man whose habits and ways of thinking have been fixed by age expect to change radically?" Physical rebirth is impossible, but is spiritual change any more feasible?

Yesterday we held a memorial service for Diana Svara, Soozin’s brother in law’s sister, who had been living with the Loudenslagers up until the Saturday after Christmas. After the service we gathered with the family at Cliff and Soozin’s to eat and share a little more in memories of Diana with them. Leslie and I sat in the kitchen with Jean, and she shared with us some of the same feelings that Diana had had before making a decision for Christ. Diana’s response to a question about her relationship with the Lord had repeatedly been “I’m not good enough; I’ve done too many bad things in my life to be saved”. Jean’s response (and I have to say here that it was the Holy Spirit that was speaking through her lips) was “if you were able to be good enough to be saved, then there’d be no reason for Jesus to hang on the cross!” Jean said it was like a light went off in Diana’s head.

So why am I relating a conversion experience on the first Sunday of the year?

Here’s why.

Let’s not lose sight of the incredible gift we’ve been given by God in allowing us to welcome another year into our lives. As the first verses of the Gospel say, God was in the beginning. God is into beginnings. Jesus was saying to Nicodemus and says to us all – to really see what is going on, you have to see the world with new eyes! You have to go through a change so profound that it is as though you’ve been born again – you must be born of the Spirit!

Yes, you may be set in your ways, you’ve got a way of looking at the world that has shaped what you believe and what you expect. Jesus shows us again and again to expect the unexpected. God is in the most unlikely places. In the house of a tax collector, in a jar of perfume broken over his feet, in a conversation with a woman who would give Elizabeth Taylor a run for her money…

What can we look forward to in 2004? In a few short words; God, moving in – and more importantly, THROUGH- our lives, and the life of THIS community of faith, this family, Jerusalem Church at Emmerton.

I can hardly wait!


Let’s pray.



Benediction


Now--

May the Lord Christ go before you—to prepare your way;

Christ beside you be companion to you, everywhere you go;

Christ beneath you, strengthen and uphold you – when you fall—or fail;

Christ behind you, finish and complete what you must leave undone;

Christ within you, give you faith and courage, love and hope;

But mostly --

Christ above you, bless and keep you, now and evermore!

Amen!