What’s In The Way?

Sunday, June 27th, 2004
Proper 8 (13)
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton, VA
Luke 9:51-62

51 When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem. 52 And he sent messengers ahead of him. On their way they entered a village of the Samaritans to make ready for him; 53 but they did not receive him, because his face was set toward Jerusalem. 54 When his disciples James and John saw it, they said, "Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?" 55 But he turned and rebuked them. 56 Then they went on to another village. 57 As they were going along the road, someone said to him, "I will follow you wherever you go." 58 And Jesus said to him, "Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head." 59 To another he said, "Follow me." But he said, "Lord, first let me go and bury my father." 60 But Jesus said to him, "Let the dead bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God." 61 Another said, "I will follow you, Lord; but let me first say farewell to those at my home." 62 Jesus said to him, "No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God."

Wherever He Leads I’ll go
Wherever He leads, I’ll go
I’ll follow my Christ, who loves me so.
Wherever he leads I’ll go.

That was the invitation hymn the evening I made my public commitment to missions in July of 1984. Keith Parks, then president of the Foreign Mission Board, was the speaker. He spoke about rope-holders and risk-takers. My family and I were attending Foreign Missions Week at Ridgecrest, outside of Asheville, NC. For the previous 3 years I had been wrestling with what seemed to be the ever-diminishing prospects of fulfilling that call to ministry as changes were coming about in the course of the Controversy within the Southern Baptist Convention.

I still had a year to go before graduating, and had known since before college that God was calling me to serve in some full-time capacity; one which I thought would eventually put me on the foreign mission field. I had gone through college pretty much assuming that, once done there, I’d go directly to seminary, and from seminary, knowing there was a requirement of at least 2 years’ experience in ministry, I had calculated that I’d be on the field by the time I was … 26. Unless I overlapped my two years’ experience with going to seminary, in which case I WOULD tie for youngest appointed missionary to that point, which, as far as I know, remains at the age of 24, but may have gone lower in the last 20 years.

What’s the phrase? The best laid plans?

Our text this morning is about that … about plans … hopes, dreams, even … and how we relate them to Christ’s call on our lives. We have Jesus traveling through Samaria, heading for Jerusalem, with his disciples in tow, as usual. Samaritans and Jews didn’t exactly relish each others’ company. There were longstanding differences having to do with, surprise! Matters of faith and practice! In this case, they began with where the ‘real’ place to worship was – “JERUSALEM”, said the Jews, ‘NOT’, said the Samaritans, who preferred Mount Gerizim as the correct place of worship, since that was where Jacob’s well was.

It seems almost a passing comment at the beginning of the story, at least in relation to what he says in later verses. Jesus has sent messengers ahead of the group to get things ready for them – a kind of first century version of today’s “advance teams.” Anyway, the messengers go into this Samaritan town and are apparently told in no uncertain terms, “thanks, but no thanks. We don’t want his business here.” and pretty much kick them out. The text doesn’t say exactly if the messengers WERE James and John, but it DOES report their reactions – and it actually sounds more like something you would hear Peter say –

"Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?"

Jesus rebukes them (again!), just tells them to drop it and move on. So they do.

As they keep moving along the road, someone comes up to Jesus and lays it out on the line for him:

"I will follow you wherever you go."

This seems like a pretty clear-cut statement. It could be, in the right context, I suppose. But Jesus’ response seems to be getting at the heart of the matter, or at least beginning to. Does it seem disproportionate, or even, slightly inappropriate to you that he answers like he does? Someone comes up to Jesus and pledges loyalty to him, and his answer is … that, unlike animals in the wild, he has no place to even call home. What’s he trying to get across? Here we come to the first obstacle to be overcome in following Christ. The obstacle of personal comfort.

There are studies that have been done in the aftermath of evangelism campaigns, crusades, and campground meetings, even youth retreats; spiritual highpoints of all kinds, to try to track the level of commitment that is maintained in the aftermath of one’s having made some sort of significant decision about his or her faith.

I don’t know the exact numbers, but I will say that they are nowhere near 100%. So the question becomes, if you made the commitment, what is standing in the way of carrying it out to completion?

If we look closely, Jesus isn’t turning the man away. In the account of this encounter that we find in the Gospel of Matthew, the man is identified as a scribe. The understanding behind that is of someone who knew the meaning of the word ‘commitment’. His words were not for show. They were meant. So this becomes a peek into a heavy deep and real conversation between Jesus and someone who wants to follow him. Jesus is essentially saying, “Do you really know what you are saying? Following me means giving up the comforts of home, and security, and wealth, and position, and standing, and respectability, and so many other things … you’ll more than likely be Uncomfortable a greater part of the time than you will be COMFORTABLE. Is that what you truly want? Because that is what truly following me entails.” While in many Western countries Christians have not experienced the loss of personal security and possessions that many of our brothers and sisters in Africa and Asia have faced, those who sincerely follow Christ can expect to pay a price for their discipleship. The reality of the cost needs to be set forth clearly. Some follow Christ too quickly, moved … by an emotional decision to become a Christian. One Scholar, Richard Lenski, observed that such a person “sees the soldiers on parade, the fine uniforms, and the flittering arms, and is eager to join but forgets the exhausting marches, the bloody battles, the graves, perhaps unmarked.” (Richard C. Lenski, The Interpretation of St. Luke’s Gospel (Minneapolis, Minn.; Augsburg Fortress, 1961), p. 559.)

So the question now becomes: What personal comforts are WE willing to give up for Christ’s sake?

Jesus initiates the next exchange the same way he started his conversations with Peter and the other disciples: two words: “Follow me.”

I remember when I first read the man’s response and Jesus’ response to HIM, I thought ‘well, that was rude!’ The man answers asking Jesus to let him go bury his father. And Jesus’

"Let the dead bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God."

Response seems more than a little cold. After all, on first reading, you’d think the man had just lost his father, and needs to go take care of burial arrangements.

It’s not that simple. This is one of those pieces of information that fill in, or maybe better; fill out, what the text is really saying when we encounter a difficult passage. It’s at times like these that I am truly grateful for what Biblical Scholarship throughout the ages has done for our understanding of scripture.

To “bury one’s father” was a figure of speech, meaning to continue in business with one’s father until the father’s death, at which time the inheritance would be divided. Leaving before that time would mean forfeiture of part or all of the inheritance. So it seems the man was more concerned with financial security than with actually being allowed to grieve his father.

So the question THEN becomes, are we willing to follow Christ if it means changing our vocation, stepping out of our comfort zone, from the predictable and known to the unpredictable and unknown?

The last couple of verses again repeat somewhat the same pattern – what appears to be a reasonable request is rebuffed by Jesus in a less-than-gracious tone. “I’ll follow you Lord, but first let me go say goodbye to my family”.

I need to tell you that, having gone through it from the other side, I never understood what was involved in this until I found myself in the position of having to face the prospect of … not so much moving myself away from family, but for some reason MORE than that, the prospect of moving our children away from family – after they’ve established relationships with grandparents and Aunts and Uncles and Cousins … granted, it’s only a couple of hours to Virginia Beach, and it’s a day’s drive to Kentucky, but that is the part I don’t personally remember, I was too young. The subject has never come up in conversation with Karen, my sister who was 9 when we moved to Costa Rica. The only thing that gave away the fact that she went through some missing of the family is in the fact that, as long as I can remember, she’s always had a better grasp of who was related to whom, and what their names were, when conversation turned to aunts and uncles and cousins and such that were left back here in the States.

Jesus’ reply is harsh. There’s no other word for it.

"No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God."

He’s talking about ultimate allegiance. We can hold family; children, cousins, grandparents, aunts, uncles, or even church family, brothers and sisters in Christ, the life of the church, involvement IN church, all close to our hearts, but ultimately, we must hold Jesus and our relationship to HIM as close to our hearts as he held us to his. If ANYTHING, ANYTHING else, takes that place, then he is not truly Lord of our lives.

And that is what Jesus is asking for: ultimate position in our lives. Let nothing get in the way of that.

Invitation:
As helpful as the internet is to me, I honestly didn’t think I would ever use something I got in an email in service. I was wrong. If you’ve ever thought of yourself as the primary reason God wouldn’t call you, then hear this list. Some of you may have already heard it, but here it is:

Noah was a drunk
Abraham was too old
Isaac was a daydreamer
Jacob was a liar
Leah was ugly
Joseph was abused
Moses had a stuttering problem
Gideon was afraid
Sampson had long hair and was a womanizer
Rahab was a prostitute
Jeremiah and Timothy were too young
David had an affair and was a murderer
Elijah was suicidal
Isaiah preached naked
Jonah ran from God
Naomi was a widow
Job went bankrupt
John the Baptist ate bugs
Peter denied Christ
The Disciples fell asleep while praying
Martha worried about everything
The Samaritan woman was divorced, more than once
Zaccheus was too small
Paul was too religious
Timothy had an ulcer...AND
Lazarus was dead!
No more excuses now!!
God can use you to your full potential.
Besides you aren't the message, you are just the messenger.

Let’s pray.

Children and Heirs

RESPONSIVE READING
Galatians 3:23-29

Leader: Now before faith came, we were imprisoned and guarded under the law until faith would be revealed.

People: Therefore the law was our disciplinarian until Christ came, so that we might be justified by faith.

Leader: But now that faith has come, we are no longer subject to a disciplinarian,

People: for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith.

Leader: As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.

People: There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.

ALL: And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to the promise.

Luke 8:26-39

26 Then they arrived at the country of the Gerasenes, which is opposite Galilee. 27 As he stepped out on land, a man of the city who had demons met him. For a long time he had worn no clothes, and he did not live in a house but in the tombs. 28 When he saw Jesus, he fell down before him and shouted at the top of his voice, "What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, do not torment me"-- 29 for Jesus had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man. (For many times it had seized him; he was kept under guard and bound with chains and shackles, but he would break the bonds and be driven by the demon into the wilds.) 30 Jesus then asked him, "What is your name?" He said, "Legion"; for many demons had entered him. 31 They begged him not to order them to go back into the abyss. 32 Now there on the hillside a large herd of swine was feeding; and the demons begged Jesus to let them enter these. So he gave them permission. 33 Then the demons came out of the man and entered the swine, and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and was drowned. 34 When the swineherds saw what had happened, they ran off and told it in the city and in the country. 35 Then people came out to see what had happened, and when they came to Jesus, they found the man from whom the demons had gone sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind. And they were afraid. 36 Those who had seen it told them how the one who had been possessed by demons had been healed. 37 Then all the people of the surrounding country of the Gerasenes asked Jesus to leave them; for they were seized with great fear. So he got into the boat and returned. 38 The man from whom the demons had gone begged that he might be with him; but Jesus sent him away, saying, 39 "Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you." So he went away, proclaiming throughout the city how much Jesus had done for him.

Children and Heirs

Sunday, June 20th, 2004
Proper 7 (12)
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton, VA
Luke 8:26-39

I was in the den, watching television, when the doorbell rang. I walked into the living room and opened the door. Charlie was standing there, looking calm and collected. His eyes were clear, but his air was a little disheveled. His hair gave away the fact that there was something not entirely well with him. Though it had begun to grow back, there were still places where you could see his scalp through a very recent covering of newly-growing hair. Charlie had taken a pair of scissors to his head a couple of weeks earlier, during a psychotic break, after which he almost set the building in which he lived on fire. Charlie was a client of my housemates’ in Louisville, who worked with men and women who suffered from various illnesses of the brain that manifested in harrowing and, for the families, tortuous ways. Claude happened to not be in that afternoon, and Charlie didn’t ask to come in.

I’ve often wondered what it must be like to be possessed. Whether it was the man in our passage this morning, or Mary Magdalene, whom we read about last Sunday, having 7 demons thrown out of her. What would it be like to have a legion of demons driving me to madness, to run naked, and live in caves and tombs, away from the normal people, SANE society?

Past and present Hollywood depictions of demon possession would have us believe one who is possessed to have red-rimmed glow-in-the-dark eyes, and a raspy, guttural voice, and a free-floating very flexible neck, the easier to allow the head to spin on, as well as an easy, now you see it now you don’t subjection to the law of gravity.

Biblical records tell of demon possessed individuals and make passing reference to understandably appalling conditions, but they do not go into detail about what the people looked or sounded like. That is left to our imagination, for the most part, though some information is given.

To be honest, my first thought in approaching the text today was, ‘it’s Father’s day, how in the WORLD am I going to tie this story in with that?’

Well, I didn’t have to look very far.

Father’s day is a tough celebration for me. In relation to my own and Leslie’s father, it couldn’t be easier. James Kenneth Park and Donald Kenneth Maccubbin have given me more than enough reason to be thankful on Father’s day – I’ll not say this too strongly or dwell on it too much, but I’ve made it my intentional prayer on Father’s day to give thanks to God for Fathers who make it easy to think of God as Father.

I remember the first time I thanked God for fathers who make it easy to think of God as Father. It was Thanksgiving, 1991, and we had invited about a dozen of our friends, including my sisters Becky and … I think Lolly as well, and my father, who happened to be in the States on business with the Spanish Baptist Publishing House in El Paso, TX, to celebrate thanksgiving with Claude and me at the house on Field Avenue. The friends included at least two women who had been sexually abused by their fathers, though at the time, I only knew the story of one of them. I remember hearing a … quick intake of breath, not quite a gasp, when I spoke the phrase, and I sensed a sort of collective bracing in the fabric of the dynamics of the room, but there was no interruption of the prayer.

Please hear me say this: I don’t want us to come away today thinking of God ONLY as ‘Father’, but I DO want us to recognize traits in our fathers through which we can catch a glimpse of the father-heart of God. And by the same token, I hope we can, in those instances where our fathers have been less than perfect, find that the grace of God still has the power to heal and restore what is beyond our ability or power to control or restore by ourselves. Sometimes that happens through someone stepping into the father role, sometimes it doesn’t, but it does happen.

Jay, my former college roommate and United Methodist Minister and I usually end up online at the same time for part of the evening anyway, on Saturdays. We usually chat a little about how things are going, and bounce ideas off each other about what we are preaching from. Last night he pointed out a phrase that we find mentioned twice in the passage from Luke, and that is the response of the townspeople when they heard and saw that Jesus had cast out the demons from the man – IT WAS FEAR. I’m not talking about the swineherds who lost the pigs; it would seem that they would have a leg to stand on, at least in the most superficial interpretation of the event, if they had something to be sore about. After all, they were out of their livelihood. I AM talking about the people who had, probably over the years or months during which this man was possessed, become accustomed to his presence around them. Perhaps he served as a kind of built-in entertainment for the surrounding population. Here again those three verses:

35 Then people came out to see what had happened, and when they came to Jesus, they found the man from whom the demons had gone sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind. And they were afraid. 36 Those who had seen it told them how the one who had been possessed by demons had been healed. 37 Then all the people of the surrounding country of the Gerasenes asked Jesus to leave them; for they were seized with great fear.

Doesn’t that seem odd to you? Wouldn’t you imagine that there would be a Positive response to Jesus’ casting out a legion of demons from a man who runs around with no clothes on in a cemetery? Doesn’t it seem to make sense that the end result, the man sitting in his right mind, clothed, next to Jesus would be a more desirable outcome than to have to continue to put up with him in his deranged state?

If there is a single argument for a high degree of historicity to the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ ministry, it is this: they are true to human nature, even when it seemingly goes against what one would expect to find in the middle of a work written for the express purpose of bringing the reader or listener to faith in Jesus. If the Disciples had had the services of a modern-day publicist, the passage would probably read “they found the man from whom the demons had gone sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind. And they began to ask him about his encounter with Jesus, and thousands believed and followed Jesus that day. But it doesn’t come out that way. We find the same pattern in the passion narrative. The disciples didn’t behave in what we could comfortably call a noble or courageous manner.

So the scene begs the question: What were they afraid of? Were they afraid that perhaps the demons that had taken over this man were still at large, and might take them over as well? Were they simply afraid of the power Jesus displayed in ridding the man of the demons? After all, a legion was the term used to indicate a division of the Roman army, which consisted of 5,000 men so - drawing a loose parallel - we’re talking about a considerable number of otherworldly spirits inhabiting one person. Or was there something else going on?

Might it be that what they were afraid of was the CHANGE that the event could potentially mean for their individual, settled, to whatever degree they could be, lives in a quiet, rural area of the Transjordan?

They were confronted with another type of possession, in the person sitting beside the formerly demon-possessed man, the man they called Jesus. He was utterly and totally possessed by the living God. To the point where he could say, “if you have seen me, you have seen the father.”

I said earlier that Father’s day is a tough celebration – and I mean that in this way: it is tough FOR ME to think of myself as someone worth celebrating in the role as father. I feel inadequate to the task. More often than not, though I love my children, I wonder what damage I am doing to them; their psyches, their spirits, their sense of self… these last three days with Leslie gone have been good and sometimes bad, easy and sometimes hard. There are times when I can really identify with what it must’ve been like to be possessed by something not good for children. It’s funny, when it comes to dealing with my children, I find myself fairly often repeating Paul’s words in his letter to the Romans, we find it in chapter 7, verse 15:

“For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.”

It is in those moments that I think I can really identify with being possessed by demons.

I was honestly looking forward to the time to be with the kids. I thought last night as I was giving them their baths, about asking them what they liked most and least about me being their father. I didn’t ask. I chose not to. I know they love me, and I know they know I love them. Everything else I have to remind myself to give over to grace.

What does this mean for Jerusalem Baptist Church at Emmerton?

What this means is this: Can we, as fathers, mothers, brothers, and sisters, as children and heirs of the promise of life, look at the person sitting next to us and say in humility and love, “if you’ve seen me, you’ve seen the Father”?

Can we so form our lives, so discipline ourselves, to the point where, as Leslie Sanders mentioned last Saturday morning, the first thing people will think of when they see us is, “there is a child of God.”?

Let’s pray.

… Sins, Which Were Many …

Sunday, June 13th, 2004
Proper 6 (11)
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton, VA
Luke 7:36-8:3

36 One of the Pharisees asked Jesus to eat with him, and he went into the Pharisee's house and took his place at the table. 37 And a woman in the city, who was a sinner, having learned that he was eating in the Pharisee's house, brought an alabaster jar of ointment. 38 She stood behind him at his feet, weeping, and began to bathe his feet with her tears and to dry them with her hair. Then she continued kissing his feet and anointing them with the ointment. 39 Now when the Pharisee who had invited him saw it, he said to himself, "If this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what kind of woman this is who is touching him—that she is a sinner." 40 Jesus spoke up and said to him, "Simon, I have something to say to you." "Teacher," he replied, "speak." 41 "A certain creditor had two debtors; one owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. 42 When they could not pay, he canceled the debts for both of them. Now which of them will love him more?" 43 Simon answered, "I suppose the one for whom he canceled the greater debt." And Jesus said to him, "You have judged rightly." 44 Then turning toward the woman, he said to Simon, "Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave me no water for my feet, but she has bathed my feet with her tears and dried them with her hair. 45 You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in she has not stopped kissing my feet. 46 You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment. 47 Therefore, I tell you, her sins, which were many, have been forgiven; hence she has shown great love. But the one to whom little is forgiven, loves little." 48 Then he said to her, "Your sins are forgiven." 49 But those who were at the table with him began to say among themselves, "Who is this who even forgives sins?" 50 And he said to the woman, "Your faith has saved you; go in peace." 8:1 Soon afterwards he went on through cities and villages, proclaiming and bringing the good news of the kingdom of God. The twelve were with him, 2 as well as some women who had been cured of evil spirits and infirmities: Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out, 3 and Joanna, the wife of Herod's steward Chuza, and Susanna, and many others, who provided for them out of their resources.

It wasn’t until I was in Seminary, a full 16 years after I made the decision as a ten-year-old to place my trust in God and become a follower of Jesus Christ, that I came to the adult realization that, except for Christ’s presence in me through the Holy Spirit, I was no different from your average, run-of-the-mill, garden variety heathen non-believer.

Janet Hale and I were walking through the door from Broadus Lounge into the hallway that led past the upstairs mailboxes to the rest of the main academic building on campus at Southern. I worked with Janet and her parents my first year in Spain as a Journeyman, and we hadn’t seen each other for a few weeks. We were catching up on each other’s personal life, and something in the conversation, I think it may have been something that had become known on campus that struck me as more reminiscent of my days at Western Kentucky University than as something I would encounter in a place of theological study such as Southern.

There was an atmosphere at Southern at the time … something like a circling of the wagons, but it was disconnected, it was uncoordinated. There were students who were sympathetic to the movement in the convention, but at the time there were more students who were either indifferent to it or were against it. Most were simply focused on getting through the schooling and getting out and into what they felt God calling them to do.

That having been said, Southern, at the time, was not unlike any other institution of higher learning in the country, which is to say, there was a mix of people from all walks of life who were attending. There were young students who came straight out of college, idealistic and fresh-faced. There were second-career students, mature adults who had already been ‘out in the world’, making a living in a secular field, and somehow ended up there. There were professional students who had their eyes set on professional academia, gunning for their PhD and consumed by the esoteric minutiae of the translation and interpretation of a particular passage or the understanding of a single issue. Others were focusing on comparative religion degrees, spending their time at Southern learning of the Christian faith as an academic exercise.

In short, Southern was and had always been pursuing it’s stated purpose of equipping and preparing men and women called of God for ministry. What made it messy were those same men and women, because not all of them were clean-cut, called-out, right-living, wanna-be ministers. They were much more like a group of people picked at random out of the aisles at Wal-Mart on any given Saturday.

I began referring to the Revised Common Lectionary a few weeks ago, and have found it to be really helpful in following a structure in terms of sermon preparation. The lectionary is basically a list of scripture readings that, for any given Sunday, has a reading from the Old Testament, the Psalms, The Gospels, and the rest of the New Testament.

It struck me, as I read the passage for today, that the text selection included the first three verses of the chapter following the end of this particular story. Usually, chapter divisions were determined by what would be the normal process – the end of a story, the conclusion of an idea or an argument, the beginning of a new theme, a relatively logical stop and start. It doesn’t seem to be any different in this instance: verse 50 of chapter 7 is a concluding thought:

“And he said to the woman, "Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”

It doesn’t make a lot of sense to then pick up at what appears to be the beginning of the next ‘scene’ for the end of the text selection for today –

“Soon afterwards he went on through cities and villages, proclaiming and bringing the good news of the kingdom of God. The twelve were with him, 2 as well as some women who had been cured of evil spirits and infirmities: Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out, 3 and Joanna, the wife of Herod's steward Chuza, and Susanna, and many others, who provided for them out of their resources.”

But is it really all that nonsensical? Think about it. Jesus goes to the house of a Pharisee, Simon, and sits down to share a meal with him. Typical customs of the day would call for the host to greet the guest with a kiss, to offer oil to anoint their heads, and water with which to rinse their feet, since they would have traveled on foot the vast majority of the time, and dust has a way of getting everywhere, doesn’t it? But neither of those things happens. Instead, we find that a woman comes up behind Jesus, he would have been reclining at a low table, with his feet extended out from under him, and she is crying a river of tears. Have you ever found yourself uncontrollably crying? Crying even when you knew you wanted to stop, but you were unable to? That was what she was doing.

Although the custom was to anoint the head, she’s chosen to let her tears fall on his feet, and then proceeds to anoint his FEET with the perfume. The commentary on that section of scripture that I read said that the motivation for the woman’s anointing Jesus’ feet instead of his head is uncertain.


I couldn’t help but wonder about what possibly would have motivated her to wet his feet instead of his head. My first thought was actually logistical. If Jesus was reclining, let’s say he was reclining forward from the waist, with his legs half-stretched out behind him, or fully extended on his stomach, with legs behind, it would have simply been too awkward a move for her to try to get to his head, so she just stood at his feet and her tears naturally fell on them.

But the second thought is one that, for me anyway, speaks more to where she found herself. How often do we speak about sitting at the head of Jesus? No, we speak so much more about sitting at the … feet of Jesus. The position carries with it so much additional information … the connotation, the suggestion, or subtext that goes along with sitting at the feet of someone speaks more of where we see ourselves in relation to them than anything else. I think that would have been the case in first century Palestine as well, and in particular, at the house of Simon the Pharisee, with this woman. Assumptions have been made that it was Mary Magdalene, but she is not actually named in the passage in Luke. Only in John is she named, and there she is identified as Mary, the sister of Martha and Lazarus. Oddly, the same story appears in all four Gospels. In all the other gospels, the event is framed in a way that it makes a statement about the poor, and Jesus concludes each telling of the scene with words to the effect that ‘the poor will always be with you, but I will not always be with you.’ … In Luke, the take, the spin, is different “why are you criticizing what she is doing, since what she is doing, you were supposed to do, but didn’t?” is basically what Jesus is telling Simon and the others who are there.

A point worth noting is that, in all the other accounts of this event, Simon is identified as a Leper, not as a Pharisee, as he is in Luke. I imagine some scholars would point to the fact that Luke’s purpose and intended audience was different from what the other Gospel writers were trying to do, and I’d have to agree. It just seems odd that 3 out of the 4 instances of a gospel account of supposedly the same event would change a somewhat critical piece of information about one of the main characters in the story. Perhaps Luke was trying to convince Theophilus, the recipient of his letters, that Jesus didn’t ALWAYS end up arguing with the Pharisees, and consequently wasn’t always persecuted by them, but that it was a tense coexistence.

I have to think that the choice of changing the profession, as it were, of Simon says something about what Luke thought might be comparable to a Leper, on a level beneath the superficial. Does the fact that he made a diseased man part of the religious establishment of the time speak to how he may have viewed them? As individuals who were so … afflicted with the desire for holiness, they were not even able to recognize the Son of God when he was staring them in the face? What can that say to us today, here, as members of the current religious establishment? Do we limit our understanding of where God can be? Who God can speak through? Where God can be found? Who God can use?

Who can God use? Who DID God use? We know he used a tax collector, some fishermen, and some political zealots, but here we find others he used. The text says;

(Jesus) went through cities and villages, proclaiming and bringing the good news of the kingdom of God.

It also says the twelve were with him – those tax collectors, fishermen and zealots … it goes on, however, to name some names … but what is a marvelous coloring of the text is the way the people are identified:

Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out, and Joanna, the wife of Herod’s steward Chuza, and Susanna, and many others, who provided for them out of their resources.

In those last 6 verses, we have a full process of call and commission. The woman’s sins have been forgiven, she responds in a very natural way – she is overwhelmed with gratitude, evidenced by her tears and her extravagant gift of ointment.

“Hence she has shown great love.”

So what does this mean for Jerusalem Baptist Church at Emmerton? What does this mean for us?

I would hope it means we have an opportunity to find ourselves in the story – as part of the story. The question is which part? Is it easier to put ourselves in the place of the woman, whose sins, which were many, and were forgiven found herself following Christ, accompanying him in his proclamation of the good news of the kingdom of God, and being used by him in that. Or do you more easily identify with Simon, the Pharisee, who was welcoming Jesus, but on his own terms? Do we limit what Jesus can do with us and through us? Do we impose our expectations, our sense of propriety, our cultural norms on him, in an attempt to make him more palatable, more acceptable, when if we look at Jesus closely, we find that on some level, he is offensive – in the sense that he is on the offense against those human inventions that keep us separated from each other, unwilling or unable to break down the barriers which separate the sinners from the saints?

We find the truth in Paul’s words to the church in Rome:

ALL have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

But hear the Gospel of Grace:

Our sins, which were many, can be or have been forgiven through the love of God in Christ Jesus.

Let’s pray.

For Margaret
Saturday, June 12th, 2004, 2PM
Jerusalem Baptist Church

One of the great benefits i have in my life is that my three college roommates are or have been in some form of ministry, and we still find ourselves bouncing things off each other and exchanging ideas, even today, just as we did in college. One of them, Jay, a United Methodist Minister in Nashville, wrote a couple of days ago in his online journal the following notes about what it means to be in ministry at a time like this. His thoughts put into words my own in facing you today.

"There is something sacred in our encounters with the dying, something life affirming in the midst of death. When I am home in the shower and that shiver runs up my spine as I ponder my own mortality, the unknown of death sometimes seems overwhelming. Yet, when I am sitting beside the bed of the one who is facing death, for some reason the fear leaves and there is recognition of God's presence.

Death puts everything else in perspective. It places us in relationship to one another as the power dynamics that so characterize our lives are torn down. On the surface it may not seem so, since one party is dependent on the other for such basic needs and hygiene and the quenching of thirst. Yet, the caregiver finds him or herself in a place as helpless as the dying. No matter what we do, the outcome is still the same. We work to alleviate suffering, while knowing that the ultimate power of restoration is not in our hands.

I continue to be amazed that this power of ordination, this being called to Pastor a congregation, leads others to invite me into their most sacred moments. How many times have I been a fly on the wall, being present for a family as a loved one dies only to know that I am receiving much more than the family? The ministry of presence is a powerful gift -- both for the other and for the one being present.

We watched yesterday as the funeral of Ronald Reagan progressed in all its glory. The National Cathedral was full of men in black suits and women in their finest attire, and a coffin draped with the flag of our nation. It was a national moment of recognition, a ritual in honor of a life.

Yet, the most sacred spaces are not filled with pomp and splendor. They are happening today in bedrooms, hospital rooms, and hospice residences throughout the world. The words aren't flowery. There are tears and blood and sweat intermixed. They aren't particularly pretty. But God is present in the midst of them, helping some into a new place of being, and comforting those left behind."

As Christians we are called to be ‘little Christs’. In that, each of us presents to the world our individual ‘take’, our individual flavoring of Jesus. Some of us are more like ourselves than like Jesus. Some, more and more like Christ.
I knew Margaret briefly while she was still relatively healthy, but for the most part, I have known her in her illness.

What I drew from the time we spent together was not only from her, but from hers and her family’s relationship. To watch Ritsy and Cindy time and time again carry her to the hospital late at night, to watch them trade off time spent with her and William, caring for both of them, and to watch as William tended to and stood watch over his companion of 53 years, spoke to me so strongly about what it means to be family, to be present, to be giving. It so deepened my understanding of what Jesus meant when he commended us to each other … to be family to each other, that in that deepening came a challenge to find more and more ways to carry that out to the fullest that I am able.

In the passage I read to you, beginning with the second verse of Chapter 5, Paul says



“For in this tent we groan, longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling – if indeed, when we have taken it off we will not be found naked. For while we are still in this tent, we groan under our burden, because we wish not to be unclothed but to be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life.


We know that Margaret’s passing itself was peaceful. The time leading up to that, was less so. This Robe I’m wearing is a symbol of the role I hold as a minister. But I am not the robe. When I wear it, some will see the robe and not the person. In a similar way, Margaret’s body was not who she WAS. Her body was what presented her to us, it was what helped us recognize her while she was with us. But what made her who she was was on the inside. That is something that is recognizable in any form.

In the same way that I can remove the robe and present myself as the person I am, not just the calling I follow, Margaret has now shed her body and is face to face with Christ, who has known her and has welcomed her into his presence.

So what I would ask you to do as we say farewell to Margaret is to draw from your own knowledge of her, and find that part of you that she touched, and look for an opportunity to share that with William, or Ritsy, or Billy, or Lou, or Cindy, or any of the grandchildren or the rest of the family. Let them know that there are ways in which Margaret has touched your lives that they would recognize the ‘Margaret-ness’ of them. Share memories, stories, and thoughts with them. Let them know just how many lives she DID touch, and make a difference in, just as Christ made the difference in HER life.

Let’s pray.

Faith, Peace, Suffering, Endurance, Hope

Sunday, June 6, 2004
Trinity Sunday
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton
Romans 5:1-5

1 Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. 3 And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5 and hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.

Forty-nine years ago yesterday, my parents were married in Paducah, Kentucky. They were both 24 at the time, soon to be 25. Having gotten married at the age of 30, 24 seems like an awfully young age to enter into a marriage covenant.

I could stop here and talk about what different times those were from now, or I could mention that my father was the oldest of 7, and my mother was the oldest daughter, the middle child, of 5, so there was probably a degree of maturity in both of them that would have come naturally, and both those statements would be true, but the point to be made in telling the story of their anniversary is that, regardless of what their age was, they did not know what was in store for them, and yet they made this commitment.

At the time, my mother was teaching high school English, and my father was working as a mailman. Both had already felt the call to ministry and missions, but they were just getting started down that road. Both those jobs had a relative amount of security built into them. Working for the government generally means that you have a pretty good chance of maintaining a steady paycheck and retiring with a good pension.

God had other plans for my parents. Within two years, they had my sister Karen, and my father had gone back and completed his college degree on the GI bill at Murray State University, just less than 50 miles south of Paducah. The same year he graduated, 1957, they packed up and moved to Fort Worth, TX, to enter Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, in preparation for appointment as Missionaries through the Foreign Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention.

They spent the next 4 years in Texas. My dad completed seminary, and the family grew by one more daughter, my sister Becky, born in 1960. Within a year after that, they had moved back to Paducah in response to a call from West End Baptist Church, where daddy served as Minister of Education, and Momma served as pianist at East End Baptist Church. In 1962, my sister Lolly was born.

Within the year, they had moved to Louisville, where daddy did some graduate specialist work while serving as Minister of Education at Tabernacle Baptist Church, and I was born in 1963. A year later, they were appointed missionaries to Chile, and moved to Costa Rica, for a year of language study. When that year was up, we came back to the States for a few weeks before traveling to New York and boarding a ship that took us to Valparaiso, Chile, where we arrived on November 18th, 1965. The stories multiply from there, both in relationship to our extended family back here in the States, and our found family there in Chile. Those stories continue to evolve as time goes on, but let’s go back for a moment to that day, June 5th, 1955.

“I do.”

With those two words in the middle of a pretty standardized litany, we initiate, we invite, and we welcome the prospect of a shared lifetime. Nothing we say to another person will carry more disproportionate weight than those two, tiny words. I’ve had the honor of presiding at two such events, and am thrilled at the prospect of other opportunities to bless and affirm the vows of couples who are ready to commit their lives to each other.

One of the terms used in the book of Revelation for the church is ‘the bride of Christ.’(crf 19:7, 21:2, 21:9, 22:17) There is appropriateness to the image; this committing of our lives, as the body of Christ, to Christ, who committed himself – who literally sacrificed himself for our life as a congregation, as well as our lives individually, is reflected on so many levels with the commitment made by two people when they get married that we can easily draw from our daily lives as married couples, or even couples in relationship but not yet married, parallels with our relationship with God through Jesus. Think of one of you as God, the other as the Church, the love that brought you together is Jesus, and the love that keeps you going, day in and day out, is the Holy Spirit. Take it from there, but like any metaphor, don’t take it too far or too literally, or it breaks down.

A couple of weeks ago, I got an email from Pat, with a riddle in it: it went something like this: What is Greater than God, and more evil than the Devil? Poor people have it, Rich people need it, and if you eat it you’ll die. There was a postscript to the riddle: it said something like: a whole class of kindergarteners got the answer right away, but out of a class of college students or seminary students, only 5 got it right. I couldn’t get past that first statement. I KNEW, from reading it, that it was in some ways a play on words … a verbal trick … but then, most riddles are that anyway.

The answer: Nothing.

Metaphors are rarely intended to be taken to the extreme, so don’t think I’m saying that one of you will be God in the relationship and the other will be the church forever. The point is in the relationship – and most importantly, what has formed that relationship.

Let’s look at today’s passage through the lens of a marriage relationship. Justified by faith - Justification means putting our trust in the power and goodness of God whose grace gives us peace instead of the sinful conflict between God's will and our will. The parallel might be, when we enter into relationship with another, in a huge step of faith, we put trust in the other person – to the point of being of one mind with them … there will, of course, be disagreements and maybe arguments, but if the marriage is founded on love, those differences will be a place of growth for both of us. It is the same way when we enter into relationship with God. The love of Jesus bonds us to God in such a way that, as we uncover those areas in our lives where we “disagree” with God, where our will and God’s will come in conflict, and we realize that in spite of that conflict, God loves US anyway, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ - we are drawn closer to God through Christ, just as we are drawn closer to each other in relationship through our love for each other, in spite of those differences, and the differences begin to melt away.

Grace in which we stand – I love that phrase. To stand in grace is to be upheld, surrounded, and strengthened by that relationship – it SO describes the marriage relationship, and SO describes the relationship we enter into with God when we accept Jesus Christ as our Lord, and allow the Holy Spirit to come into our lives and transform us.

Boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God … Boasting was generally frowned on by Jesus. This past Wednesday night, in our study of the discipline of fasting, we learned that when Jesus speaks about fasting in the 6th chapter of Matthew, he is targeting the Pharisees, who fasted on Tuesdays and Thursdays. How do we know that? Tuesdays and Thursdays were the days when all the farmers and merchants came to Jerusalem to set up the market, and the population swelled by several factors. The Pharisees chose those days to fast, and wore their dour expressions in order to let everyone KNOW that they were fasting, in order to allow everyone the privilege of seeing how spiritual they were. Jesus’ point was that you don’t boast in what brings you favor in the sight of humans, you boast in what will bring you favor in the sight of God. Just as in the marriage relationship, ultimately, if you are truly committed to each other, you will do what pleases your spouse. The determining factor in any major decision will be “what does my wife think about this?” Or, “what does my husband think of this?”

But we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, I have been humbled in my visits with William and Margaret Franklin to watch the faithfulness to the relationship in that house. No, they’re not perfect, but the way in which William stays by Margaret’s side speaks to the depth of the commitment they made to each other so many years ago. Margaret is suffering through her illness, but William is as well. The endurance they are both displaying puts my minor aches and pains in stark relief – and perspective.

And endurance produces character… There have been a few events in mine and Leslie’s life as a couple that we would qualify as suffering – the death of her Grandfathers, dealing with the news of Caleb’s heart murmur, my losing my job. A few events that confronted us with our own mortality and fallibility, but going through them – together – made all the difference in the world. Something that Leslie and I tell each other, have told each other through the years, is this: I can go through anything as long as I’m holding your hand. It is our own version of ‘nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ.’
And character produces hope, There’s that word on which so much is built – HOPE.

What does Paul say?

And hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.

What does this mean for Jerusalem Baptist Church at Emmerton?

It means that we are in a relationship with God that is every bit as immediate and dynamic as our relationship with each other. That is why it is in our working out our relationships with each other that we learn how to BE in relationship with God. There is reciprocity, a give and take that God wants to make us aware of in our life as a congregation in order for us to understand that GOD longs for that same intimacy, that same daily-ness, that same engagement with and from us with him!

This morning we recognized those of our youth who have already graduated or will soon be graduating from high school. Inside each of the Bibles that we gave them, we put a copy of our congregational benediction. Below the benediction, they each have a personal note, and though they each say something slightly different, they do each have at least one thing in common: they each say that there will always be a home here for these young men and this woman with this family of faith. There will always be people here who love them and are praying for them. It’s a lot like a marriage commitment, to say that. I don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow, much less 5 or 10 years from now. I don’t know who will be here and who won’t be here. But I do know one thing: as long as Christ is present in the person of the Holy Spirit, that love that fuels and sustains our ongoing relationship with God will mean that there WILL always be people here who WILL make a home for these graduates and the rest of us.

Let’s pray.