Dwelling Richly

Sunday, December 31st, 2006
First of Christmas
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA
Colossians 3:12-17

12 As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. 13Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. 14Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. 15And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in the one body. And be thankful. 16Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly; teach and admonish one another in all wisdom; and with gratitude in your hearts sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God. 17And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

Dear, Beloved, Sweetie, Sugarplum.

Have you ever stopped to think how the way someone is addressed sets the tone for the whole conversation? If you were to receive a letter, and the opening word was one of those (Dear, Beloved, Sweetie, Sugarplum), you would usually more or less know what to expect in the body of the letter. It is, I think, what we find more often than not comforting when we open scripture. While there are significant passages that get … shall we say … a little hard-nosed, if you take the general tone of scripture, especially the New Testament, you find that it is in many ways a love story. And it is the story of the love of God for humankind.

In his letter to the church at Colossae, Paul does set the tone by his greeting;

“To the saints and faithful brothers and sisters in Christ in Colossae”

If you are familiar with the New Testament, it may slip right past you as an example of a pretty much standard greeting at the beginning of the epistle.

Imagine, though, what it would mean to you to be a person who just recently heard the story of Jesus, and only in the last few weeks decided to become a follower of Christ.

You have no point of reference for what it means to BE a ‘good Christian’, you struggle to figure out how following Jesus is going to affect how you live your daily life, you get together with a small group of fellow believers who are in the same situation you are in … there are four or five people in the group who have been Christ-followers longer than pretty much everyone else. The one person who first brought the news of Jesus to the city, who helped start the group, moved on to another city three months ago, and left that first small group of converts to lead the rest of you. There’s a definite tie-in with the local Jewish Synagogue, but you are no more familiar with THEM and THEIR scriptures and rituals than you are with the local temple to Aphrodite. You’ve just never really gotten into “religion” – ANY of them.

That was what attracted you to this Jesus in the first place, he wasn’t about “standards and practices” – what words to say when, what incense to burn on what day, what prayer to recite at which hour, but about actually being in a RELATIONSHIP with God – the picture you got when you first heard the story was of what you never had – a loving, caring, giving father. And you wanted to be with him and be like him and be IN him all at the same time.

*****

Something was going on with the church at Colossae, on that much scholars agree, and somewhat as well on the nature of what it was – there were what seemed to be practitioners of a type of Jewish mystic tradition that fell back on ritual and merged it with some of the early ideas that said that in order to be a TRUE follower of Jesus you had to UNDERSTAND certain things in a CERTAIN WAY – it later developed into Gnosticism, we’ve mentioned it before, but in short it was a type of faith that was at it’s core EX-clusionary rather than IN-clusionary. It defined itself by who was part of the ‘in’ crowd, rather than opening its doors to the whole of humanity, as Jesus did in extending his arms on the Cross at Calvary.

The short of it is, there were folks who had moved into the group – the church – at Colossae, and were proclaiming that ‘special’ brand of knowledge that was required to be true followers, and people were becoming confused, some were dropping back or dropping out, some were swallowing the new stuff hook, line and sinker.

The fact of the matter is it is not only the ‘Newbies’ who are susceptible to misunderstandings, to confusion about what it means to be a Christ-follower. How many times have we heard someone share in their testimony that it wasn’t until they were an adult – after a lifetime of going to church – that something clicked – something got through – to make them realize just how important that RELATIONSHIP was, rather than the practice of going to church on Sundays, Wednesdays, and the occasional Tuesday or Thursday, like a good committee member or even a deacon? Can we each think of people whom we’ve known who simply attended church out of habit, because it was the acceptable thing to do, not because there was a true desire to or even an interest in seeking a deeper relationship with God in Christ?

In missions terminology, we speak of ‘Cultural Christianity’ – that is, bearing the name ‘Christian’ because the Christian church – whatever the local predominant denomination might be – has been so identified with BEING from a region, or country, or state, or area, that to be called a Christian has become identified more with one’s nationality or heritage, and is NOT a way of describing one’s faith pilgrimage. Most often I grew up hearing it in relation to the countries identified with the Roman Catholic tradition in Latin America, and I witnessed the hollowness of Cultural Christianity on at least a weekly basis, if not a daily basis.

I think I’ve shared with you the struggle involved in growing up as the son of missionaries in Chile, and having to come back to the States periodically – ultimately for good – once I graduated from High School – what made coming back to the States so difficult for me, first as a teenager, and then for college, was that I found Cultural Christianity to be AS present within our own Baptist tradition as anywhere else, and coming from a lifetime of being literally supported – affirmed, cared for, taken care of – by an agency of the Southern Baptist Convention, it was at best eye-opening, at worst completely disillusioning – to the point of turning me off to the whole idea of church – to see evidence of Christianity being NOT about faith, but about social standing or expectations.

I’ve come to the point in my own personal pilgrimage where I am able to understand and to a point affirm the need to recognize secular holidays and days of remembrance within the context of worship. That’s not to say that I am comfortable with it, but I understand that as a church we are called to bear witness to truth and righteousness in whatever context they appear, and that, I consider to be part of why we follow the civic calendar of the United States of America. If we were a congregation in another country of the world, we would to some degree probably celebrate and/or acknowledge, for example, our independence day, if there were such a date, or the date of the official organization of the nation of which we were citizens.

But what are we – Jerusalem Baptist Church, in Emmerton Virginia – really and truly ‘about’? What is it that is at the core of our being? What has kept us here for one hundred and seventy-five years? What has kept us GOING for this long?

Very simply, it has been the Spirit of the living God.

Do we look today as we looked one hundred and seventy-five years ago? Not at all. As we sing in worship, do we SOUND today as we did a hundred and seventy-five years ago? Probably not at all. We will have opportunities to sing again some of those long-forgotten hymns in the coming months. Do we ACT today as we did a hundred and seventy-five years ago? I would suspect that, though in the way we TREAT each other it is not that different, the way we interact, the way we speak to each other, would sound about as foreign to Elder Braxton as if he had hopped on a ship and traveled across the big pond to a far distant land.

So what has been the uniting thread through the years?

It has, I TRUST, been the love of Christ, being shared, being spilled over, being made EVIDENT in our actions, words, and manner.

There is another Missions term I’d like to share with you this morning. The word is ‘unchurched.’ It is a term used to describe someone who has had little or no exposure to matters of faith in the context of a local body of believers – someone who may have been taken to church as a young child but who probably cannot remember the last time they were inside a church building for anything other than a funeral or a wedding.

Did you know that, for all of the richness of the history that has been accumulated for what was first Royal Oaks and later became Jerusalem Baptist Church, even having been here for one hundred and seventy-five years, we are surrounded by people who can’t remember the last time they were in church? There are people within 10 miles of this building who know they are surrounded by probably a dozen churches but are really not interested in stepping into any of them. Some of them don’t bother coming up with a reason. Others have very good reasons for not wanting to step inside. It usually involves someone who DOES step inside one of these buildings on a regular basis, but you wouldn’t know it from the way they live their lives the rest of the week, perhaps even for the rest of the afternoon.

Paul is telling us, showing us how it works. How we are to treat each OTHER, and everyone else. There HAS to be something here that will draw people back, if we’ve been that faithful witness for seventeen and a half decades, there’s no reason we can’t be an even STRONGER witness to the love of Christ in the NEXT seventeen and a half decades.

(Reread passage in its entirety)

Look around at each other. There are people here that you know and love. There are people here you’ve gotten to know over the years, or months, in some cases. But the key word is ‘know’.

How many people are here that you’ve known only a short while? Do they outnumber the ones you’ve known for at least a decade or more?

Dearly beloved of Christ, brothers and sisters; if we come to church to only be with people we know, if we only make worship something familiar to US, something WE are comfortable with, that speaks to US because we’ve been around it all our lives, there will be very little that will be attractive or UNDERSTANDABLE to someone who has never been in a worship service or who has had a terrible experience with a supposed Christ-follower.

It’s not a popularity contest. It’s not about pandering to the masses. It’s about being genuine. It’s about being real, being honest, being open, and being vulnerable in the presence of God with each other. That’s an uncomfortable position to be in for ANYONE. Unless that vulnerability takes place in an atmosphere of acceptance and trust that precludes – that LITERALLY ELIMINATES the possibility of that trust being violated or betrayed.

Life is hard. Hard enough. There HAS to be a place where we can come and know that we are safe. Whatever they’re dealing with, whatever happened last night, whatever happened last week, whatever we’re facing this afternoon or this evening or tomorrow. This is what Paul meant when he said ‘Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly’ – if we make Jerusalem such a place, if we can make our discomfort secondary to the needs of those who’ve never experienced an extended, loving caring, committed family, we will look even LESS like the Royal Oaks family of the 1830’s, but we will still be recognizable as the most important thing we are – the body of Christ.

My invitation to you as 2006 comes to an end is to think about the people you know. Think of the ones who might not be involved in a church in the area. If they ARE, affirm them, encourage them to continue to be involved there. But if someone you know does NOT go anywhere, invite them to come to Jerusalem. The CHALLENGE for us all is to make this a place to which they will want to RETURN.

Let’s pray.

On Love

Sunday, December 24th, 2006
Advent 4C
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA
Romans 8:38, 39

38 For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, 39nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

How often have we actually stopped and thought about exactly what it was that took place – on an eternal scale – one night in a tiny hamlet in the Judean countryside somewhere around two thousand years ago?

On the face of it, it was a non-event. A young, anonymous woman had a baby boy accompanied by her fiancée – a man who was not yet her husband, who had initially planned on releasing her from their engagement quietly when he found out she was expecting, but who, somewhat mysteriously, changed his mind a short while later.

It might have been only slightly unusual that the delivery took place in a stable, but realistically speaking, the conditions in general – even for a well-prepared-for birth, were probably only marginally better, in terms of hygiene and exposure of the newborn to potentially fatal diseases and parasites.

The most notable aspect of the event was that it took place in the middle of a census. There’s a pretty good chance that, with all the other people who had been forced to report to their hometown in order to be counted, this may not have been the only birth that night.

What was one more baby boy?

It is, as we have said over these last few weeks of advent, one of the most important stories of our faith – this coming of Joseph and Mary to Bethlehem, this search for a room in a town overflowing with people. The image of the young couple, resting on the hay, with Jesus lying in a manger, surrounded by a bunch of farm animals is indelibly imprinted on our mind’s eyes. Then we have the shepherds, out in the fields, watching their flocks.

One of the true blessings of living away from large metropolitan areas is the night sky. Several nights this week have afforded us the opportunity to catch a glimpse of what the night sky might have looked like to the shepherds that night. There was no ‘light noise’ drowning out the glitter and glimmer and twinkling of the thousands and millions of stars in the sky that night. I read an apt phrase earlier this week, where the Milky Way was described as a dusting of stars across the sky. If you look at it … well, you can tell why it was called the milky way, because it DOES resemble a river of milk across the sky – but in the absence of drops falling on our faces, a drier analogy might be appropriate – to see a trail of dust across the sky – to not be able to distinguish anything more than the fact that there are literally millions of points of light that seem more like dust than enormous balls of burning gas billions of miles away … I find it PERFECTLY understandable to picture the shepherds laying on their backs on the hillside above Bethlehem, gazing at those same stars in wonder AND wondering about how the universe came together.

The 136th Psalm says it well. Just a part:

1O give thanks to the Lord, for he is good,*
2O give thanks to the God of gods,*
3O give thanks to the Lord of lords,*;
4who alone does great wonders,*;
5who by understanding made the heavens,*;
6who spread out the earth on the waters,*;
7who made the great lights,*;
8the sun to rule over the day,*;
9the moon and stars to rule over the night,*;

Those were just a part of the first nine verses. What is beautiful about the 136th Psalm is that it is a hymn. There is a recurring refrain after each of the phrases I just read. You might recognize the first line of the Psalm as the beginning of one of the choruses we sing sometimes in our non-traditional services. The refrain is:

For his steadfast love endures forever.

The song is “Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, his love endures forever” … what does it say that in this Psalm, the recurring theme – the recurring refrain—what the song always comes back to – is God’s steadfast love? Think of it, everything that God has done – from creation through redemption, through salvation, has been motivated by God’s love.

The other notable event that night was one that the shepherds got to tell about. There were angels and a heavenly chorus and a wall of sound that Phil Specter could only DREAM about when THIS choir belted out

“Glory to God in the highest heaven and on earth peace among those whom he favors!”

The problem was shepherds weren’t exactly considered to be pillars of the community in first century Palestine.

It’s interesting that some pretty important characters in the Bible were shepherds: Abraham, Moses, David.

And here we have more shepherds. The Christmas story talks about shepherds "abiding" in the fields. That means they lived there. They didn't lie around in fields all day and then go home and get cleaned up for bed. They lived outdoors, day and night, with the sheep. And they were required to protect that sheep at all costs...even at the cost of their own lives. The shepherd was expected to confront any wild animal that tried to attack a sheep and fight it off. If a bear or a wolf, or a mountain lion of some kind, got away with a sheep, the shepherd was expected to chase after the animal and try to rescue the sheep. Hmmm … I’m beginning to like the image of the shepherd more and more. And it’s beginning to shed new light on the reason we call Jesus “The Good Shepherd.”

All that, and Shepherds were not allowed to serve as witnesses in a trial. Shepherds and women. Their word was no good. They were at the bottom of the social register, more accurately, they weren’t even ON the social register. And yet, they are precisely whom God chose to be the ones to bring the first news of God’s coming to earth.

You see, even in the coming, in the incarnation, in God’s initial coming to earth to live among us, the Gospel message was already not JUST the words, but the FORM in which it was delivered. God was already showing us that God’s kingdom is not of this world. It would not and does not and WILL not conform to the expectations and rules and presuppositions on which this world builds itself up.

In this world, the more powerful the person, the more it is incumbent on the one who seeks THAT person to do what THEY must in order to gain an audience. In God’s upside-down kingdom, where the first shall be last, and the last shall be first, GOD came to US, WE didn’t go to GOD.

In this world, the more powerful you are, the more beautiful people gather around you.

In God’s world, the lowliest of the low, the weakest, the most marginalized, despised, rejected, unrecognized people are the ones God SPECIFICALLY calls to God’s self.

In our world, it is what we can do for the one in power. In God’s world, it is what God did for US.

In this world, WE are to show OUR love for God first. In God’s world, God showed GOD’S love for US first.

So what Paul wrote to the church in Rome was as true then as it was nearly 60 years earlier. The Shepherd’s message that God had decided, in love, to come to earth and dwell among us, and that there was nothing that was going to get in the way of that, was still true.

The marital status of Mary and Joseph was not going to get in the way. The lack of adequate shelter was not going to get in the way.

The fact that most of the people of Bethlehem, from the innkeepers who turned them away to the regular, run-of-the-mill people who weren’t even aware of what was happening didn’t get in the way.

The fact that later, Herod ordered all boys under the age of two to be killed didn’t get in the way.

Nothing was going to separate us from the love of God, come to earth in the form of that little baby boy named Jesus.

Nothing.

Let’s pray.

On Peace

Sunday, December 10th, 2006
Advent 2C
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA
Isaiah 9:2, 6; Micah 4:3; Matthew 5:9

Is. 9:2The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness— on them light has shined. 6For a child has been born for us, a son given to us; authority rests upon his shoulders; and he is named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

Micah 4:3He shall judge between many peoples, and shall arbitrate between strong nations far away; they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more;

Matthew 5:9“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.

In her children’s book “In God’s Name”, Sandy Eisenberg Sasso relates an enchanting story of how we came up with all the names we use for God. The names are born out of our own experiences. For example, “to the lonely child, God is ‘friend’, to the man who tends sheep in the valley, God is ‘Shepherd’, to the artist who carved figures from the earth’s hard stone, God is ‘my rock’, to the farmer whose skin is dark like the rich brown earth from which all things grow, God is ‘source of life’, and to the tired soldier who fought too many wars, God is ‘maker of peace.’” (Jewish Light Publishing, Woodstock, VT, 1994)

It has weighed heavy these last 5 years, to approach this Sunday of each Advent Season, and try to come to terms with the fact that, like it or not, we are a nation at war. Even as we sit here today, there are young men and women donning combat gear and checking their weapons and preparing to move out and patrol an area, or a town, or a neighborhood, and the chance that one or two or three or more of them will not return alive is all too real.

This past Wednesday evening, we attempted to do a brief survey of how many times the word ‘peace’ or some variation thereof appears in the Bible. My NIV concordance listed 102 instances, from Leviticus through the Revelation to John, in other words, even more than last week’s concordance on Hope, with something over 80 instances.

It may seem like just a mathematical exercise, to find out how many times a word or a variation of a word appears in scripture, and it may well be, but it bears noting. It is worth considering what the meaning might be behind the fact that there ARE 102 places in scripture where the word ‘peace’ is used … and in what context.

How often is the word used in the context of speaking of the human-divine relationship – between us and God – and whether or not THAT brings peace? How often is it used in the context of relationships between us as humans, as nations, as tribes?

In the discussion Wednesday, we referenced one particular passage: Matthew 10:32-38, in which Christ himself seems to reject his ‘prince of peace’ title from the Isaiah passage we read a few minutes ago: the context is Christ’s sending out the disciples on their first ‘practice run’ for taking the Gospel message to the rest of the world—he is describing what they are to expect, how they are to act, what they are to take with them – actually more like the fact that they are supposed to take NOTHING with them – and as he comes towards the end of the ‘commissioning service’, more or less, he turns to the issue of who will accept the good news and who will reject it, and he speaks these TERRIFYNG words –

32“Everyone therefore who acknowledges me before others, I also will acknowledge before my Father in heaven; 33but whoever denies me before others, I also will deny before my Father in heaven. 34“Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. 35For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; 36and one’s foes will be members of one’s own household. 37Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; 38and whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me. (Matthew 10)

That passage has always bothered me. As a younger man, it seemed to be that Jesus was saying that, in order to TRULY be a follower of Christ, you had to be in opposition to your parents, or your family. On some level, there had to be something that made you uncomfortable to be in the company of others.

What I initially mistook for a call to brace for conflict has become for me a call to radical, ultimate allegiance. It is a call to prioritize exactly what we consider to be the most important thing in our life – and to be true to that.

You remember how Jesus responded to the question about paying tribute to Caesar? ‘Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.’

There’s continuity between the two ideas there. What Christ is telling his disciples is to know what and WHO they believe, because there will be a time in each of our lives where our ultimate allegiance will be tested.

The image from Isaiah resonates with all we read in the New Testament about Christ being the light of the world. In that light we find our reconciliation with God – the ultimate answer at the core of the world’s problems. Billy Graham puts it this way: "Our basic problem is not a race problem. Our basic problem is not a poverty problem. Our basic problem is not a war problem. Our basic problem is a heart problem. We need to get the heart changed, the heart transformed."

While I completely agree with Dr. Graham in the assessment of the basic world problem, understanding that the heart of every human being needs to be transformed in order for there to BE peace in the world, however overwhelming and inconceivably vast that responsibility seems, we cannot neglect the fact that we are also called, as we find in Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount in Matthew, to be peacemakers. That is one of our many challenges as Christ followers.

We are called to engage the world and address the world’s needs, to fill the emptiness that sucks the joy out of life by introducing TRUE life to people in the person of Jesus. We are to do everything in our power and in our abilities to work out our differences in a manner that would honor the Prince of Peace. And that working out of differences MUST begin within our own communities, our own congregations.

The outgrowth of NOT having peace with God is sin, and sin manifests itself through selfishness, cruelty, compassionlessness, indifference, uncaring, ruthlessness ... there are many other words we can fill in here, but you get the picture.

On a personal level, I think we’ve all seen what that can look like. In our darkest moments, we fit the descriptives pretty well.

On a corporate, societal level, we have also seen what that can look like – ethnic hatred and fighting, societies crumbling under sectarian violence, the subjugation of the weak and powerless by an entrenched power-hungry minority that is not responsive to the needs of the population as a whole. Those phrases can all be summed up in a single word: injustice.

We’ve seen it in the Balkans in the early and mid 90’s, we’ve seen it in South Africa under the Apartheid regime, we saw it in Rwanda and Burundi, also in the mid-90’s, in the genocide between the Hutu and the Tutsi tribes of those central African countries. We hear of it in the massacres that are happening even today in Sudan, in the region of Darfur, in East Africa. That injustice is not limited to the rest of the world. Here in the United States we’ve been guilty of institutionalizing injustice as well, in the form of Jim Crow laws here in the south, thankfully they have been removed from the books, but the quest for equality between the races continues, even today. We still see and hear of crimes motivated by hatred of people who are different almost every day.

The Micah passage is the goal – the image that we long to attain, that golden day when all of humanity will realize that there is no more need for war. Won’t that be a day to remember? Wouldn’t it be amazing if it came in our lifetime?

What does this mean for Jerusalem Baptist Church at Emmerton?

It means that it really DOES need to start in each of our hearts, but it can’t stop there. We need to be at peace with God individually before we move on to the rest of the world. And “the rest of the world” starts pretty quickly. It begins with an honest assessment of how many relationships there are in each of our lives in which we have done violence to someone else – whether by word or deed, or separation; whether through the act of speaking words in anger and not coming to a reconciliation once the argument was over, or whether by refusing to forgive or ask forgiveness from a brother or a sister when we come to realize that we were wrong or that the relationship is more important than any disagreement we might have between us.

It’s no less of a challenge to be peacemakers within these walls as it is to be one outside of these walls, but again, there is no room to neglect pursuing peace in either setting.

Our prayer, our goal, our hope to work towards is that Micah image, to beat our swords of bitterness into plowshares of gentleness, that will cultivate the loving relationships through which this body of believers will grow, to turn our spears of gossip and discontent into pruning hooks that will trim off the excess baggage that holds us back, that weighs and drags us down, keeping us from reaching and becoming more and more like Christ to each other, and then to the rest of the world.

Let’s pray.

On Hope

Sunday, December 3rd, 2006
Advent 1C
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA
Romans 8:18-25

18I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us. 19For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God; 20for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 21that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. 22We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now; 23and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. 24For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? 25But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.

We begin the new church year with the first Sunday of Advent – today. We’ve just lit the candle of Hope. Next Sunday we’ll light the candle of Peace, then of Joy, then Love, and finally, the Christ candle.

Today we also mark the beginning of the Lottie Moon Week of Prayer for International Missions – with its accompanying offering goal of $150 million dollars from across the Southern Baptist Convention – or World Missions, if we are to include missions programs other than those carried out by the Southern Baptist Convention, such as the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, the Samaritan’s Purse, Heifer International, or the Baptist General Association of Virginia. The fact that we choose to focus for the next few days on the missions program of one agency among many does not place it above the others, it just makes us aware, in a more specific way, of how we can be a part of … the global reach of the gospel.

Paul lived the global reach of the gospel as he traveled throughout Asia Minor and as he wrote to the church in Rome the words we read a few minutes ago.
Wednesday we handed out a list of scriptures verses that contain the word ‘Hope’ or ‘Hopes’, to read and meditate over the last few days, in anticipation of today’s lighting of the candle of Hope [1]. It is a list that spans almost the full length of the Bible, from the book of Job in the Hebrew Scriptures to the first letter of John in the New Testament.

We won’t go through the complete list, but we do choose to focus on the passage in Romans where Paul speaks of the Hope we have in Christ.

We would need to, at some point, ask ourselves what business we have in spending our resources of time and money and energy – which ARE, after all, limited – in facilitating the travel of individuals to people and countries around the world, which in many cases would just as soon not have us around. We’ve been made aware of that fact in the last few years by reports of missionaries being killed while on the field.

Lottie Moon, as we have heard in the past, spent herself – literally – in service to and on mission for the people of China. Rather than care for her own needs, her sense of calling to serve the Chinese people was so strong that she literally starved while she gave away rations to her starving neighbors in Tengchow, Shantung Province, in Northern China when a famine struck. She had advocated an offering to be collected during the week before Christmas among Baptist Churches to support mission work around the world based primarily on her own experience of hardship and struggles to remain and survive where God had called her to go. She passed away on Christmas Eve, 1912, aboard a ship that was docked in Kobe, Japan, in the process of bringing her back to the States for medical treatment.

We have to ask ourselves what it is that would motivate people to give their lives like that, to throw themselves so completely into something that it could ultimately cost them their lives.

It has to do with how one views his or her life to begin with, doesn’t it? If your understanding is that life – this terrestrial life – these seventy or eighty or more years or so that we spend here on earth are all that there IS, there is very little that would move you to the point of pouring yourself out for someone else.

If, however, your view is that this life is NOT all there is, that there is more TO life than just making yourself comfortable while you are here, then it becomes a lot easier to move away from that comfort, that ease, that looking out for number one and to come to a point of realizing that it is, in a very real way, a sense of hope in what lies … beneath, beyond, above, whatever directional word you want to use to describe it … what we can hear and see and taste and feel that truly brings meaning to life.

Don’t misunderstand. I’m not saying that life is worthless – it is TOTALLY worth it. It is precisely BECAUSE life is so precious that we go. We are promised full life; Jesus calls it ABUNDANT life – when we live for him. And that is what WE become participants in when we send – prayers, money, and people – even from within our own family, or even ourselves – to share with the world this hope that we find in living for Christ.

What we are charged with is to share the message of Christ – of Hope … Paul says,

‘24For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? 25But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.’

He was speaking not only to the people in the church at Rome, but he was speaking to us here today. Our hope is based on something we cannot see. And so we wait for it with patience. As we move through the Advent Season this year, let me invite you to think about what your deepest hope is, and realize that in the midst of that hope, however forlorn it may feel, know that Christ IS coming.

What does this mean for Jerusalem Baptist Church at Emmerton?

This evening we will hear from Rob Brown, a young man who served in India during the first half of this year through a program initiated by the Baptist General Association of Virginia. I would encourage you to come and hear what he has to say, not necessarily because it was through Virginia Baptists that he was able to go, that is more or less understood, in being a part of an association of over 1400 congregations that in turn make up a portion of the body of Christ on earth, but more for that last part – that ‘being a portion of the body of Christ on earth’ bit.

As a small rural congregation, and an active, involved, and motivated one, it is sometimes I think easy for us to get so caught up in the immediate needs of those in our immediate vicinity that we deeply care about, but we risk losing sight of our global impact.

Our challenge this morning is to lift our eyes ‘beyond the hills’, as it were, to get the God’s eye view of what God is doing in the WORLD, not JUST in Emmerton, Richmond County, and the Northern Neck.

And to get a feel for what’s going on beyond what we can see. I would invite us to think about those hopes that we have. I’ll share one hope with you that I have. My hope for this coming year is that we can put together a missions team, maybe four or five of us, maybe more, maybe less, and DO something – go somewhere. Maybe go to help in the continuing cleanup work down in the Gulf States, after Katrina, in Mississippi or Louisiana, maybe do something overseas. We’re going to hear about opportunities of service through the BGAV, there are programs available to us, there are partnerships we can engage in, that we can invest ourselves in, and get a clearer picture – a God’s eye view of what God is doing in the world.

When I worked for Bell Atlantic, we had these meetings, and there was a part at the beginning of the meeting that was an open forum – you would “board” ideas – it was a time where anyone could mention anything and it got written down. I’d like to do that with you all, but I’d like to board our hopes. Would anyone like to voice a hope?

(I hope that our congregation will grow in this coming year) Amen. That is my hope too.

Anyone else?

Another hope that I have is that as we begin to celebrate in January and through August if not beyond, will be an affirmation of what it means to have born witness for 175 years, and that that celebration will slingshot for us to move FORWARD – into the future.

Any others?

I know it was short notice, and that’s okay. If you come up with them, we may go back over them this evening. Be thinking…

(I hope that Mommy and Hannah get back safely) Yes, Caleb, I do too.

(That everyone stays healthy) yes, that’s a good one.

Our hopes don’t have to be high and noble, those are good, and welcomed, but they can be simpler hopes - like hopes for health, hopes for safety, hopes for mending relationships, for strengthening relationships, for continued care of each other.

(I hope my son and his wife will have a beautiful baby) Margie hopes that her son and his wife will have a beautiful baby. Remind me, are they expecting? Yes? Yay! When? 5th of July? Wow! It’s early! Let’s keep Patrick and Jaqueline in our prayers.

Any others? Our hopes are sometimes not voiced, but they are there. We are a people of hope. It is what feeds our flame. It is what separates us, it is what differentiates us, it is what moves us and makes us want to be more.

Our invitation/closing hymn is number 390, ‘We Are Called To Be God’s People’. As we sing this, as we read the lyrics, as we internalize the thoughts and the ideas that are in this hymn, be thinking about how we can BE God’s people, tonight, and tomorrow, and the next day. Let’s stand and sing.

As we move from this form of worship into the worship that is our daily living, LISTEN to this benediction:

And now, may the Lord bless you and keep you, 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, set them on fire, and through YOU give the world HOPE.

Amen.


[1] (Job 13:5, Psalm 25:3, Psalm 33:18, Psalm 42:5, Psalm 62:5, Psalm 130:7, Psalm 146:5, Psalm 147:11, Isaiah 40:31, Jeremiah 29:11, Lamentations 3:21, Romans 5:4, Romans 8:20, Romans 8:24, Romans 8:25, Romans 12:12, Romans 15:4, Romans 15:13, 1Corinthians 13:7, 1 Corinthians 13:13, 1 Corinthians 15:13, Colossians 1:27, Titus 1:2, Hebrews 6:19, Hebrews 10:23, Hebrews 11:1, 1 John 3:3)

Where There is Forgiveness

Sunday, November 19th, 2006
Proper 28 B
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA
Hebrews 10:11-25

11And every priest stands day after day at his service, offering again and again the same sacrifices that can never take away sins. 12But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, “he sat down at the right hand of God,” 13and since then has been waiting “until his enemies would be made a footstool for his feet.” 14For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are sanctified. 15And the Holy Spirit also testifies to us, for after saying, 16“This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, says the Lord: I will put my laws in their hearts, and I will write them on their minds,” 17he also adds, “I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more.” 18Where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer any offering for sin. 19Therefore, my friends, since we have confidence to enter the sanctuary by the blood of Jesus, 20by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain (that is, through his flesh), 21and since we have a great priest over the house of God, 22let us approach with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. 23Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who has promised is faithful. 24And let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds, 25not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day approaching.

How can we communicate what it feels like to carry the weight of sin on our shoulders? What can we say, what image can we portray that will express in words that are understandable to those to whom we are speaking that will crystallize the feeling of walking around with … a millstone around our necks?

I could read to you from the letter that Ted Haggard, former pastor of New Life Church in Colorado Springs, Colorado, as well as former President of the National Association of Evangelicals, as he stepped down as both in the wake of the scandal that broke in the news a couple of weeks ago… the letter is heart rending. In part, he says “I am a deceiver and a liar. There is a part of my life that is so repulsive and dark that I've been warring against it all of my adult life.” When I first read that sentence, it brought to mind another, found in the 51st Psalm: “For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against you, you alone have I sinned”

What have we been seeing over the last few weeks in our study of Hebrews? What prompted the constant repetition of the sacrifices and offerings practiced by the people of Israel, in trying to maintain their relationship to God? It was an awareness that there is something in the human spirit that longs for cleansing, for restoration, for … forgiveness.

The question might be asked, forgiveness from what? And it is a valid question, if one has no sense of one’s own brokenness, one’s own selfishness, one’s own … failure to BE who God intended one to BE. In short, if I have no sense of wrongness about what I am doing or who I am or how I live out my life, it is terribly difficult if not impossible to UNDERSTAND that there is even a need FOR that cleansing, that restoration, that forgiveness. We cannot live in the awareness of grace unless we have ourselves experienced the forgiveness of God – we cannot understand grace – nor can we share it – unless we have had the experience of receiving it firsthand.

And how do we come to the place where we recognize that need? I would propose to you that, while it CAN happen through … shall we call it a … directive approach? Someone stands up, sometimes from a pulpit, sometimes from somewhere else, in the case of Reverend Haggard, a television studio, and calls a spade a spade. Either way can be effective. But I think the most effective truth teller is one’s own voice, one’s own spirit.

And you know what? As Baptists, we believe that. We believe that the Holy Spirit nudges our own spirits, and makes us realize – or at least BEGIN to realize – all that needs to change in us. And that nudging becomes a chorus, and the chorus plays continually, and we finally realize that, however good a person we thought we were … well, it’s no good. Not that we aren’t good, but that goodness is … self-defined, inadequate for the purpose of giving us a sense of purity … later in his letter, Reverend Haggard says something very interesting, he says, “The public person I was wasn't a lie; it was just incomplete. When I stopped communicating about my problems, the darkness increased and finally dominated me.”

What we are faced with is an awareness of wrongness, of brokenness, of a disconnect, in this case, between the public and the private person. And what is so heartbreaking is that this man felt so much shame at what he did that he closed it up inside and stopped looking for help in coming to terms with it, or overcoming it, or facing it and settling in his mind what it meant for him as a follower of Christ and as the leader of a congregation and in that self-imposed exile he lost himself.

The good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ is that even for this prodigal son, there is an expectant father, anxiously waiting his return.

In 1980, after I graduated from high school, we were living in Hermitage, TN, outside of Nashville. We attended my Aunt Lala’s church, Hermitage Hills Baptist, and one of the parent youth leaders … Gene Johnson … I remember one Bible Study, I THINK it was a Wednesday night, he stood up and said something that has stayed with me; he said he NEEDED to come to Church on Wednesday nights to make it through the rest of the week. I think what struck me most was the sincerity with which he said it. He really meant it. He truly felt it. It caught my attention, but it also made me start to think about what it might BE that he GOT from church on Wednesday nights that made him look forward to going … and what WAS it about the evening that helped him through the rest of the week.

We find the answer here in the last couple of verses of the passage this morning. The New Revised Standard Version doesn’t do the term justice, at the beginning of verse 24, where it says ‘And let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds,’ The thought would more accurately be translated ‘Let us RIVAL one another’. Let’s have a show of hands: how many would, off the top of your heads, and in no specific context, consider yourselves to be competitive?

We’re used to hearing about competition in sports, of course, notably HERE between, oh, Virginia Tech and UVA, or the Redskins and the Cowboys. There is also a competition we witness daily in our society, the competition to own the biggest house, the nicest car, the coolest gadget; it’s called ‘keeping up with the Jones’… and it preys on our weakness for the next new thing, the latest fashion, or the most expensive toys. In the best of circumstances, it can be frivolous, in the worst, it can be idolatrous.

What does this mean for Jerusalem Baptist Church at Emmerton?

Can you imagine an all-out competition, a rivalry in which we pledged all our spiritual, physical, and material resources to see who could do the most good works for one another? It is that drawing together for a common purpose that spurs us on to better, deeper, more meaningful relationships, higher goals, purer motives, and it all comes from being together, from being family, from being community for and to each other. But not JUST being together. Hanging out with people – even people you love – isn’t in and of itself a recipe for enhancing our spiritual awareness.

There needs to be a studied awareness of the purpose for the gathering. Last night was a prime example of that being put into practice. We began the meal with a time of thanksgiving in prayer, and for me, at least, it set the tone for the evening. Looking around the tables at you who were there made me aware of how grateful I am for your presence in my and Leslie’s and the kid’s lives. How much you mean to me not simply as your pastor, but as your brother in Christ, as a fellow pilgrim. You know as well as I do that I don’t pretend to have all the answers. I am comfortable with both wrestling with questions as well as leaving some unanswerable questions … unanswered. That sometimes makes for silences where we would LIKE to hear words, but we are learning to come to grips with the silences as well.

A couple of weeks ago we went through some of the things we as a body of believers are engaged in doing that are moving us forward into this inbreaking Kingdom of God we talk about … through different things we do, we let our community know we are here and God is there. Can we, beginning today, think of ways in which we can indiscriminately shower each other with God’s love as a body of believers, and do that in such a way that … in the BEST sense of the word, we become … addicted to getting together, being in the care of one another, sharing our lives, our joys and our sorrows with each other, not out of a sense of obligation or duty or tradition, let those be a PART of our motivation, but because we truly, deeply CARE for each other?

If we get a handle on how to do that, and do it well and consistently, I truly believe we would fulfill the paradigm, we would complete the model of being known as a body of Christ, not for how nice our sanctuary is, or how many people are here on a given Sunday, or even on how much we do in the community, not that any of that is necessarily bad, but it would be so much BETTER if we were know as a body of Christ – as a church – for how much we LOVE – each other, and the rest of the world. How we show that and live that would be a natural outgrowth of that love in action.

Can we rise to the challenge?

I have full confidence that we can. Let’s make it our mission to outdo each other in love and good deeds, and keep pushing each other on to that goal by gathering, whether for a meal or for prayer or for Bible study, the purpose of those meetings is twofold: and it is the unspoken purpose that is the primary one: we may BE praying together, we may BE studying together, we may BE sharing a meal together, but in that activity, we are ultimately encouraging each other, building each other up, strengthening each other’s faith, and spurring each other on to love and good deeds.

Let’s pray.

Lord we hear your command to love one another
And we know ourselves to not always be loveable.
So help us extend grace, to share your love, from a true heart,
Recognizing that we have all received grace
Through Jesus Christ our Lord
Amen

Eagerly Waiting

Sunday, November 12th, 2006
Proper 27 B
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA
Hebrews 9:24-28

24For Christ did not enter a sanctuary made by human hands, a mere copy of the true one, but he entered into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf. 25Nor was it to offer himself again and again, as the high priest enters the Holy Place year after year with blood that is not his own; 26for then he would have had to suffer again and again since the foundation of the world. But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the age to remove sin by the sacrifice of himself. 27And just as it is appointed for mortals to die once, and after that the judgment, 28so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin, but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.

I went to visit Aunt Patsy while I was in Virginia Beach this week. I surprised her, I think. She was moved into an assisted living and nursing center few days ago, it happened to be behind the hospital in which Hannah was born, in Chesapeake. Driving down Battlefield Boulevard brought back some memories of a night a little over 11 years ago when Leslie and I drove that same route as a couple and drove back home a couple of days later as a family.

I had a wonderful visit with Aunt Patsy. I had to wear gloves and a protective mask, since she is fighting a lung infection of some kind, but she caught me up on her family, and I told her about how things are going here at Jerusalem and with the Hispanic Ministry.

The conversation began there, but it wandered on to other subjects, and the week’s events being what they were, she asked me how I felt about the outcome of the elections. I shared with her that I was pleased with the results, but when she gave me this LOOK, I had to explain that, coming from the experience that I come from, my pleasure at the outcome of elections is not necessarily with regards to the specifics of who got elected to what position, but more with the fact that there has been another peaceful transition of power. I hope we never lose sight of how precious that is, given the situation of the world today.

I remember being a lot more invested in the outcomes of elections. It didn’t last too long, thankfully. Not that I don’t CARE who gets elected. I care very much. I’m still a citizen, and there are still issues that I believe deeply in. But I found I can lose perspective if I focus solely on what the powers of this world are doing or not doing in response to my vote. All I found I needed to do to quell that depth of investment was to remind myself that salvation – not just my own, but everyone else’s – did not and does not depend on who got elected to the Congress, or the Senate, or in those years when it happens, who the new President is. It is okay to recognize civil and secular holidays, because they are a part of the society in which we live and work, but we should never, EVER, as members of the body of Christ, forget that there is truly only one holiday that bears celebrating, and that is Easter. That is the reason we are here, that is the ONLY reason we are STILL here, after two thousand years, or after a hundred and seventy four years. Our salvation rests in the Lord Jesus Christ. And there is ONE term that has no limits.

So, on to the text:

Over the last few weeks we’ve been walking through the message to the Hebrews. It is written to a group of believers who have been suffering persecution for their faith in Christ. The letter is devoted to comparing and contrasting the supremacy of Jesus Christ as their (and our) high priest and sacrifice over and against that role being carried out by one of the Levitical high priests of Israel – those who fulfilled that role by virtue of having been born into the tribe of Levi.

This morning we are again presented with a restatement of what Christ has done for us. The reference to Jesus having passed through a sanctuary NOT made by human hands but rather, heaven itself, is not just the writer saying ‘my high priest is better than your high priest!’ it is a statement of faith. It is not, I think, intended as a taunt to those who would relinquish their faith and return to the drudgery of the repetitive ritual of prayer and sacrifice and offering in order to maintain one’s justification before God, but it is intended as a word of encouragement, of hope, of exclamation, reminding them (and us) of the ultimate nature of Christ’s purpose and accomplishment on earth. The Gospels are full of the teachings of Jesus – the synoptics – Mark, Matthew and Luke, are primarily made up of Jesus’ teachings. The Gospel of John goes in a different direction. John is a gospel of belief, of witness, of encouragement, yes, but it is more fully given to the task of explaining who Jesus WAS rather than what he TAUGHT – though there is some of THAT as well. The epistles delve into two areas of the Christian life – belief and practice. Paul focuses for the most part on practice – what it means to LIVE the life of a follower of Christ, though he DOES dedicate most of the epistle to the church at Rome to belief. The rest of the letters and writings we find in the New Testament focus on articles of faith and encouragement of believers.

One thing that I was more aware of in the meetings and worship services over the three days I was at the State Association meeting this week was of the role of encouragement – of believers, of leaders, of laypeople. The preaching was exemplary, full of wit and humor and insight. I would invite anyone who can to join us next year as we meet in the Convention Center in Richmond next November 13th and 14th to come along. Attending some of the meetings can be, in all honesty, boring. But it is in the ‘in-between’ times that the true wealth of the Baptist General Association of Virginia is seen and experienced. The hugs and handshakes and sharing that goes on does more to build the body of Christ CALLED the BGAV than anything else. The shared worship experiences only enhance and strengthen it.

Ultimately, I believe that is what the writer of the letter to the Hebrews was going for as well. He or she knew what they were going through – they may not have been sharing in it at the moment, but had experienced it personally enough to know what to expect both in terms of what might be coming in their direction and what they would be dealing with in the aftermath of the events. There is a strength that can be gained from shared experiences that cannot be communicated in any other way.

I was listening to a message by the pastor of Broadway Baptist Church in Ft. Worth, Texas. He went through a list of people he missed – people who’ve passed away over the last couple of years. He mentioned several, perhaps 10, members of the church who’ve ‘moved to heaven.’ Among them was Bill Hendricks, one of my professors at Southern, and a person I considered a friend. I first met him and his wife Barbara while serving in Spain. Brett Younger, the pastor, was talking about what he missed about the people he was naming, and it struck a chord in me, it resonated with the feelings I have for Charlotte Lewis, for Mary Jane & Earl Headley, for Margaret and William Franklin, for Irene Hinson, for Pearl Boyle and Hazel Pierson, for Dahlia Perritt, for so many others over the last three plus years … there is something that ultimately they each held in common. At some point in our visiting, they expressed an anticipation of heaven. They each shared somehow that they were eagerly waiting for that encounter. They were ready for it, even looking forward to it.

What does this mean for Jerusalem Baptist Church at Emmerton?

None of us here today knows when that time of encounter will come for us, but I trust, I HOPE the feeling is echoed with those who’ve gone on before. In the sense of preparedness, I would hope that we are ALL at the point in our lives that we can GLADLY say ‘come quick Lord Jesus.’ And honestly mean it. Whether quick in the sense of meeting him here or US meeting him THERE is not important – it’s the fact of the MEETING that is important. It is for us to join the host of people around the world who are eagerly waiting for that coming, that meeting, that glad reunion.

Let’s pray.


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!

For This Reason

Sunday, November 5th, 2006
Proper 26 B
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA
Hebrews 9:11-15

11But when Christ came as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation), 12he entered once for all into the Holy Place, not with the blood of goats and calves, but with his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption. 13For if the blood of goats and bulls, with the sprinkling of the ashes of a heifer, sanctifies those who have been defiled so that their flesh is purified, 14how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to worship the living God!
15For this reason he is the mediator of a new covenant, so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance, because a death has occurred that redeems them from the transgressions under the first covenant.

I read something startling while preparing for the message for today. The commentator for Hebrews whom I am reading said that in the sacrifices performed in the Hebrew ritual by the high priest, there was no sense of magic, or transcendence … no aura of mysticism surrounding the killing of sheep and goats or bulls and cows, or pigeons, and the collecting of their blood for the offerings that were then delivered by the high priest.

I realized that I tend to associate unrealistic … images, effects, maybe, I’m not certain what the word would be that would fit here, but the idea is that I ascribe more to an event when I am not familiar with it – when it is far out of my standard mode of life – when it is either set far apart from me in distance and/or in time – than when it is something I are familiar with and see as an everyday occurrence.

The business of offering sacrifices was, in the Hebrew religion, a daily occurrence. A Religious Ritual, yes, but still, a part of a daily routine – something the priests who managed the temple got up and did every day. I imagine they had something like a rotating schedule for who was in charge of keeping the fires going, who was responsible for carting away the burned bodies of the animals, who escorted people in and out, and that they had lunch breaks just like any other daily routine.

It is difficult for me to think of that practice as a routine. First, because it carries the weight of reestablishing the relationship with God, and second, because I can’t easily imagine something like those things going on and not having SOME sense OF the transcendent – some sense of the presence of God in what you were doing.

Granted, I’ve only been serving as a full-time minister for a little over three years, and there are things that have come to be a part of a routine, mostly things like meetings, but the practices surrounding our worship have never lost their impact for me. I think that is as much a statement about how we DO worship as it is about how we can individually approach worship.
…

So we have these practices, these rituals that were set down hundreds of years before the time in which the people who are first hearing this letter read to them were living. Some, if not all of them, were either aware of, or intimately familiar with, the rituals – they either observed or participated directly in them in order to cleanse themselves from their sins and be ‘right with God’, once again.

But they have become boring … ineffective, humdrum. They seemingly cleanse the body of the person offering them, but they don’t do a lot for the spirit – for the soul. They know on an intellectual level that they have met the requirement dictated by the law, and there is SOME consolation in that, but there is not a LOT of consolation in it.

There is an awareness that the sacrifices that have been offered cover and expiate – that is, release – the person making the offering from the guilt of the sin they have committed – inadvertently – and that is a key word – inadvertently – unknowingly, or unintentionally.

You see, the ‘catch’ in the Hebrew ritual sacrifice was that it did not absolve one of the guilt for committing a sin INTENTIONALLY – of knowingly and premeditatedly … robbing someone, or lying with malicious intent – with intent to harm, or doing or saying any number of other things – and they, as well as the guilt associated with the other sins committed, would continually weigh you down with the knowledge that no matter what you do, your body may be acceptable, but it’s going to take a lot more for your spirit to feel acceptable.

That was the draw for the crowds who sought out John the Baptist when he was preaching in the wilderness, and baptizing for the repentance of sins. The people who formed the lines to receive his baptism had already BEEN ritually cleansed – but they were looking for more. And it is that ‘more’ that we find in Christ – that God KNOWS we needed, and continue to need.

There is something at the root of our faith that is at times difficult to reconcile. We speak of a God of love and mercy, and yet, we read of and speak of the sacrifice that was demanded BY GOD for the forgiveness of sins. What is it in God that requires that of us?

I would suggest to you that it had – and has – little to do with appeasing the wrath of God, but on the contrary, it has to do with meeting the self-appointed dictates OF a loving God.

God’s love is a love that does not gloss over, does not ignore the fact of sins of commission or omission, but rather demands a change of heart on our part – it is not a love that lets us continually drag the name of Jesus through the mud without consequences, but expects to see in us a turning away from that darkness that is so present in the world and a turning towards the light of Christ.

And it is through that light, through the life of Christ, that we enter into relationship with God.

That is what the whole POINT of the ritual was about to begin with! God wanting to remain in relationship with humanity, and doing whatever became necessary to do so.

Can you imagine a relationship where everything has become … routine, humdrum, second nature? Where the words and actions are automatic, rather than heartfelt? Where the person whom you love beyond words simply takes you for granted, and hardly spends time with you, doesn’t speak to you unless it is absolutely necessary, and even then, does so glumly, monosyllabically, and can’t seem to get away from you quickly enough?

There’s a part of me that is resistant to making God’s attributes and attitudes and actions human. There is an element of ‘Otherness’ that always needs to be maintained in our minds at least, when thinking and speaking about God, but we have to hold that in some sort of tension with the fact that God did, after all, become flesh and walked among us—became fully human while not losing any of the divine aspects of God’s being. So it is natural for us to want to speak of God in human terms – since God DID become human.

One thing that communicates across that divide – between the human and the divine – is how love responds when it is injured … it is difficult, if not impossible, to overlook the pain caused by someone to whom you feel closest when they do something that hurts you. I think what God was doing in becoming Christ was trying to communicate that to all of humanity – that God wants more than a routine, run-of-the-mill relationship – or LACK of relationship, really, when you think of it, with humanity. God LOVES us, and wants to be with us, show us what we are capable of, how God INTENDED for us to BE, what we can do here in our own life, in our local reality that can have a transcendent impact not only on our lives, but on the lives of everyone around us.

We speak of the blood of Christ not because it is some kind of connection to an ancient ritual, but because it speaks to the cost of what it means to become a Christ follower. Blood symbolizes the ultimate offering – the last offering that can be given – because it symbolizes life.

What does that mean for Jerusalem Baptist Church at Emmerton?

It means we honor the reason for which Christ gave his life.

You may have heard the song by David Meece a few years ago “We Are the Reason” – the words are ‘we are the reason that he gave his life, we are the reason that he suffered and died, to a world that was lost he gave all he could give, to show us the reason to live’—

So it is with us here at Jerusalem, as members of a local congregation, a local family of faith, and on another level, as members of a greater family of faith both present and past. This past Wednesday was All Saint’s Day – a day to note and remember – and honor – all those who have gone before us as followers of Christ – can we name them, even some of them? Those who led US to Christ and by their example drew us into the family of faith to which we belong today?

(offer the names)

It is for that reason, to be in relationship with them and with us, that God came to live among us.

Let’s pray.

Once For All

Sunday, October 29th, 2006
Proper 25 B
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA
Hebrews 7:23-28

23Furthermore, the former priests were many in number, because they were prevented by death from continuing in office; 24but he holds his priesthood permanently, because he continues forever. 25Consequently he is able for all time to save those who approach God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them. 26For it was fitting that we should have such a high priest, holy, blameless, undefiled, separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens. 27Unlike the other high priests, he has no need to offer sacrifices day after day, first for his own sins, and then for those of the people; this he did once for all when he offered himself. 28For the law appoints as high priests those who are subject to weakness, but the word of the oath, which came later than the law, appoints a Son who has been made perfect forever.

Once and for all, once is enough, only once. No need to do it over. How many different ways can it be said?

As we’ve been going through the letter to the Hebrews these last couple of weeks, the central theme has been the sufficiency of Christ as both priest and sacrifice, as set against the requirement in the Hebrew religion to have the high priest to offer sacrifices, as well as, of course, the sacrifices themselves.

This goes to the heart of the critical distinction between the Christian faith and all other faiths, and it is what is essentially counterintuitive about our faith, this ‘once and for all’ business. For some reason, it goes against the grain of human nature to believe in an easy out – maybe that is why we are so drawn to it when it presents itself.

If we were to sit down and compare other faiths of the world – and I have to preface what I am going to say with the statement that I am knowingly using a broad brush here – each of the other world religions has an element of the need to somehow through some form of repetition – whether of actions – sacrifices or otherwise – prayers, or even LIVES – for those that believe in reincarnation – that we will somehow attain righteousness, worthiness, enlightenment, in one way or another, in a word: salvation. The essential distinction between Christianity and other faiths is that it is a central tenet – in other words, a central belief – of the faith that it is not by anything we DO that salvation is attained – it is a gift; unmerited – or undeserved, and unattainable. There is nothing we can do to affect our position in relation to it. That is what was scandalous foolishness to the Jews and the Greeks of the first century. Even today, we are sometimes unknowingly of the same mind that considers our salvation something that we can influence. It is reflected in the comment we so often hear surrounding the death of someone “he was such a good person, they HAVE to be let into heaven.” The connection is made, consciously or not, between the way a life is lived and the attainment of salvation.

It’s an understandable struggle when we see the world around us reflect that causal relationship between action and response. “If I do this, if I work hard, apply myself, sacrifice … I will one day reap the rewards of my labor.” There is a universal understanding that in order to receive something, we must somehow, someway, somewhere, PAY for it.

How do we square that …cycle, that system … with what we are presented in the Gospel? That is what I mean when I say that it is counterintuitive of the Gospel to essentially offer something for nothing when our culture – this North American, Capitalistic, Hedonistic, Materialistic culture of ours – tells us at every turn that that is the way it works and that is the RIGHT way!

The short answer is, the Gospel was not born in the United States, and it is not constrained in any way whatsoever by the dictates of any earthly culture – ANY culture, but by the heart of God in relationship with humankind.

Christ was born into a context – a nation, a land, a people, a point in history, that necessarily informed the way we read the relationship he modeled for us, but that is not to say that the RELATIONSHIP is limited by the parameters of that context.

It is helpful and informative and illuminating to know and understand the layers of meaning that are brought out in any given passage by studying and understanding their context – what was going on in the region, at that time, what certain words and images meant to a people at a particular time, how the use of them might have resonated with the folks who first heard a letter read to them. That is why it is not wasteful to take time to study and learn about these things – whether in seminary or in small study groups – in Sunday School or in Bible Study. It is what we are doing on Monday mornings at 10:30 and on Wednesday evenings here at Jerusalem. But ultimately, it is the nature of the relationship that makes all the difference in our lives as Christ-followers. Following is a section from a commentary on the passage. As I read through it, listen to what is happening – the discussion is about images, about the context of what the hearers – those people who first received the letter – might have been thinking as they heard it read to them.

The perfect adequacy of Christ in his moral qualifications as High Priest is emphasized in such a high priest. Holy sums up the perfect piety of Jesus including his possession of such virtues as obedience, faith, humility, loyalty, and reverence. Blameless denotes his perfect innocence. He not only had no harmful attitudes toward others, he practiced no evil deeds against them. Unstained carries the picture of the essential moral goodness of Jesus in contrast with the ceremonial purity of the Levitical priests, who were required to separate themselves from all people for seven days before the Day of Atonement, that no defiling touch might disqualify them to offer a pure sacrifice. In contrast, Jesus was so essentially good that he did not have to be hypersensitive about mingling with sinners.

These phrases, separated from sinners, exalted above the heavens, unite to show that, when Jesus sacrificed himself for the sins of men once for all, he had no further contact with sin in the priestly sense. The only vital contact he ever had with sin was in his perfect resistance of its temptation and in his perfect sacrifice for the sins of others. Now that such a sacrifice has been completed, his work for sinful men is over. He does not have to sacrifice repeatedly as did the Levitical priests. He now resides in a higher sphere, immune to the contagion of human sin. (Charles A. Trentham, The Broadman Bible Commentary, © 1972, Broadman Press, Nashville)

Do you hear what is happening? There’s a filling in going on – a fleshing OUT, may be more appropriately stated – of the gaps in our knowledge, of the words on the page. But it doesn’t move us to become more like our first century Jewish and Gentile brothers and sisters; it moves us towards Christ, and towards God.

And that is where, in a wonderfully miraculous and contradictory sort of way, we DO become more like our first century brothers and sisters, or 10th century, or 15th or 18th or 21st … regardless of the time and the place, because that is what happens when we open scripture and our hearts and minds, all at the same time.

What does this mean for Jerusalem Baptist Church at Emmerton?

When we open scripture, we are confronted with Jesus. We are faced with the Jesus of history, and the impact he had THEN on those who chose to follow him THEN. And we have the testament of history, of the church, and of that cloud of witnesses that preceded us in the faith. Through the hymns and stories of our faith, we see the fruits of that heritage, that legacy. As Virginians, we stand on a history that includes the first statute on Religious Freedom, and right here in this sanctuary, we stand just about 12 or 13 miles from where 4 Baptist preachers were imprisoned for practicing that freedom even when the law of the land had not yet changed to OFFER it.

What we also stand on is the promise of God in Christ to be our welcome, be our home, and to be our strength. To be our intercessor, our pray-er, and the sacrifice in our place. It is a solemn and joyous promise, this salvation that is so freely offered.

The question for us here today is if we can take that gift to heart and offer it just as freely in the way we live our lives, share our dreams, and hopes, and talents – with each other, with the community, with the world?

(Below is a transcription from the conclusion of the message – extemporaneously given in conversation with the congregation)

How will we do that? (I’m done with the manuscript). How will Jerusalem live that out? How will we … how DO we? We have ways that we do it already. Can you name them? Go ahead! How do we share this gift, how do we … shine?

(Telling others of Christ), okay,
(The youth meals), yes,
(Going and visiting people), yes,
(Shoeboxes), yes,
(Visiting Farnham Manor), um-hmm,
(Visiting the sick and the bereaved), yes.

On an introspective level, gathering on Mondays and Wednesdays – because it’s not just to study, it’s to pray, it’s to intercede.

(Our prayer chain), yes, it has sometimes worked overtime, but that is also an example.

(In the Women’s Missionary Union), learning about missions around the world, yes, and working to support that, yes,

(Not only internationally, but locally as well, through the Hispanic Ministry of the Association, this church shares its Pastor.) Yeah, you do.

And I am forever grateful for that – the willingness to open up to the possibilities.

Everything we’ve named for the most part has been things that we’ve done all along. It’s what in a lot of ways … we’re getting ready to celebrate one hundred and seventy-five years of history … it is what ties us to the cloud of witnesses that preceded us.

(To Lottie Moon) – Yes, supporting Lottie Moon, yes.

It is what makes us greater than who we are individually or even as a local congregation – we are part of The Church, and the body of Christ in the world.

Coming up on the anniversary will be a time to look back on 175 years, but it is not ONLY that. I think in looking back on 175 years we’re going to realize that those 175 years have been … have created a momentum for us as a church to move FORWARD, not just to look back. The 175 years have built a legacy and built, (again the physics) built up the motion that is going to push us forward.

The challenge is to figure out what we’re going to look like as that happens. The challenge is stepping out of our comfort zone, away from the manuscript J and open up to what God can move us to do. Things that we could hardly imagine ourselves doing, we could DO! Because …

(This row is our future, the front row – our future is sitting on the front row) (FYI: the front row was filled with the children of the church)

Yes, but not only. Everybody in every row is our future, because y’all don’t stay here when we finish the service on Sundays. Everybody in this room … scatters.

(the comment was something along the lines of the fact that the future starts with us – our children learn from us and from the family of faith that is the church) That’s right, yes, it does.

So it’s not just a matter of leaving it to the children. It’s a matter of walking alongside them, guiding, mentoring, directing ... and allowing for the freedom for the Spirit to move them in directions that we might not be comfortable with, but which are yet a reflection of the glory and the love of God in the world.

… What’s the song, ‘Holiness’? You all know the words, I think.
“Holiness is what I long for, holiness is what I need.
Holiness is what you want from me”

In one sense, holiness is perfection, but in the sense that we’ve mentioned before, perfection is completeness, we need to understand that that holiness is the holiness that we have through Christ, it’s not our own holiness.

Let’s sing.

Holiness, holiness is what I long for
Holiness, holiness is what you want from me

So take my heart, and form it
Take my mind transform it
Take my will conform it
To yours, to yours, oh Lord

Faithfulness, faithfulness is what I long for
Faithfulness is what I need
Faithfulness, faithfulness is what you want from me

So take my heart, and form it
Take my mind transform it
Take my will conform it
To yours, to yours, oh Lord

Brokenness, brokenness is what I long for
Brokenness is what I need
Brokenness, brokenness is what you want from me

So take my heart, and form it
Take my mind transform it
Take my will conform it
To yours, to yours, oh Lord

So we have this opportunity, we have this gift; we have this wonderful push behind us. How will we take advantage of that motion? Be open to what could happen as we leave this form of worship, and move into the worship that is our daily life. Be sensitive to the leading of the Holy Spirit, maybe in the smallest thing, in the smallest detail, in the single word that can change somebody’s day.

Let’s commission ourselves:

And now, 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 Christ our Lord.
Amen.

Learning Obedience

Sunday, October 22nd, 2006
Proper 24 B
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA
Hebrews 5:1-10

1 Every high priest chosen from among mortals is put in charge of things pertaining to God on their behalf, to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins. 2 He is able to deal gently with the ignorant and wayward, since he himself is subject to weakness; 3 and because of this he must offer sacrifice for his own sins as well as for those of the people. 4 And one does not presume to take this honor, but takes it only when called by God, just as Aaron was. 5 So also Christ did not glorify himself in becoming a high priest, but was appointed by the one who said to him, “You are my Son, today I have begotten you”; 6 as he says also in another place, “You are a priest forever, according to the order of Melchizedek.” 7 In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to the one who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission. 8 Although he was a Son, he learned obedience through what he suffered; 9 and having been made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him, 10 having been designated by God a high priest according to the order of Melchizedek.

A few weeks ago Time© Magazine’s cover story was entitled “Does God want you to be Rich?” The cover pictured a close-up of a Rolls Royce, and the hood ornament was not the double R’s that are normally seen on a Rolls, but a gleaming, golden cross.

I remember the same argument raging, as it were, in the early ‘80’s while I was in college. It seems to have resurfaced. It is an ongoing debate within Christianity, but to be fair, it would seem to be a debate concentrated among Christians from developed countries. If we were to ask a brother or a sister from a developing nation of the world whether or not God wants us to be rich, I suspect we’d get an exasperated shake of the head and the reply would be, “You already ARE rich! Why are you asking if God WANTS you to be?”

There was a quote from one of the leading ‘prosperity theology’ proponents in the story. Her words were, “Who would want something where you’re miserable, broke and ugly and you have to muddle through until you go to heaven?”

Who indeed? That actually sounds like life, to me.

It would seem to be that popular culture marketing and advertising has sunk its claws into the realm of faith. It’s not a new phenomenon. People have always been drawn to those who promise them a life of ease and freedom from worry. Who wouldn’t be? If the promise can be delivered, then all the better. There’s enough pain in the world why NOT try to avoid as much of it as possible?

The question is not one of how much pain and misery we can avoid, but rather, what would that accomplish in our lives of faith?

You may already be familiar with the story of the little boy who is watching a butterfly struggle to emerge from its cocoon, and as he sits engrossed in watching it strain and strain against the enclosure, he feels sure that it is about to give up and die, and so he reaches out and widens the opening with the slightest of motions, and the butterfly climbs out, finally free. You know the rest of the story. The boy’s father comes by and notices what is happening. When the boy tells him what he did, the father, with a sad look on his face, explains that now the butterfly is doomed to die much sooner than it otherwise would have, because the struggle to free itself from the cocoon that imprisoned it, while terrible in itself, had the effect of strengthening the muscles with which the butterfly would be able to flap its wings in order to fly. In freeing it too soon, the boy sidestepped the necessary exercise that would have enabled the butterfly to fly from flower to flower and feed.

The lesson must not be lost on us. It is the same one that the writer of Hebrews is attempting to communicate. Indeed, the likelihood that he or she had personally experienced suffering and anguish similar to what they describe in this morning’s passage is high indeed, if not a certainty. The history of the early church is full of example after example of the martyrs of the faith. Men and women, young and old, who suffered what to us would be inconceivable pain and agony for the sole reason that they professed Christ as their Lord. Some of the hymns we sing, that hold the deepest lessons of the Christian life were born from the womb of unimaginable grief and anguish.

I can’t remember who the speaker was, but a Pastor was relating a comment that one of his parishioners shared with him as he was exiting the sanctuary after the service one Sunday. The comment was roughly this: “your preaching seems to be getting worse. You must be happy.”

I can identify with that statement on one level – as one who enjoys writing, I can say from experience that, at least from THIS perspective, the writing that happens in the midst of some life crisis is more cathartic – more healing, energizing, or invigorating – than the writing that happens when I am happy. There’s something TO being able to sit down and put down in words something to the effect of “OH GOD why is this happening” than there is to sitting down and writing “today we had a family picnic and the weather was beautiful.” There is less angst, of course, there is more peace, and there is more contentment. None of those things are readily conducive to some blazing insight on the human condition.

But what is it that is being discussed? The ability, qualifications and character of the high priest to SERVE as the High Priest – to preside and instruct people regarding their status, or offering of sacrifices.

Glancing back for a moment to our text from last week – we read in Hebrews 4:15:

15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin.

And the thought is continued here in chapter 5. There is an emphasis on the fact that in the incarnation, God did not exempt his son from the rules laid out – including the rule about suffering that is a result of the broken relationship WITH God which colors every aspect of our lives.

I think we need to remember that God’s call on our lives is not a call TO suffer for suffering’s sake, but a call to care, a call to be compassionate – literally, to suffer alongside – those who DO suffer. What you can probably tell me better than I can understand from my own experience is that there simply IS no avoidance of suffering. We have all, to one degree or another, lived through events in our lives that we would rather have not lived through – for the sake of the sorrow – if asked to live through them again, we would most likely say “That’s okay. Once was enough.” Even though we understand that what and who we are now was and is being formed in no small way by what we experienced in that ‘vale of tears’.

What does this mean for Jerusalem Baptist Church at Emmerton?

The learning can happen on an individual level, of course, but can it happen as well on a corporate level?

What experiences has Jerusalem, as a family of faith, walked through together, pain and all? Have those experiences drawn us closer together or caused us to distance ourselves from one another? Have we learned to “deal gently” with each other in the wake of those trials? Have we truly learned how precious we are to each other, as individuals, as family, as brothers and sisters seeking to honor God and follow God’s will for our life as a congregation?

We must not, will not, cannot sidestep an experience into which we are thrust simply because it is painful. We must understand that it is through those experiences that we are learning what it means to follow Christ in the fullest sense of the word – through whatever circumstance we are passing.

As we have noted before, as Christ followers, we are following the example of Christ. We are living the life of Christ through our participation in the inbreaking of the Kingdom of God. While that has moments of incredible glory, as we well know, it also has moments of incredible sorrow. While we pray for blessing and protection and health of loved ones and family members, we know and understand that there is no guarantee that we will not be struck down in any number of ways – cancer, an accident, there is really no way to know what might happen this afternoon or this evening, much less tomorrow. Christ himself claimed no special knowledge of what was to come, but accepted what came – up to and including his crucifixion and death – and relied wholly on God to be with him through it. So let that be our lesson – to rely wholly on God, no matter what our condition.

Let’s pray.

Naked and Laid Bare

Sunday, October 15th, 2006
Proper 23 B
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA
Hebrews 4:12-16

12Indeed, the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow; it is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. 13And before him no creature is hidden, but all are naked and laid bare to the eyes of the one to whom we must render an account.

14Since, then, we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast to our confession. 15For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin. 16Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

Do I really want to dwell on the fact that God knows what I was doing on July 1st, 1988, or February 23rd, 1978, or April 26th, 1983? Some people in my life are aware of what was going on in my life at those times, but in regards to GOD knowing … it’s not something I remind myself of on a regular basis. So reading this morning’s passage in Hebrews just sort of woke me up again to the fact that there is NOTHING I have done, am doing, or will do that is hidden from God’s knowing.

So while the first couple of verses may not be designed specifically to discomfit us – to cause us to be uncomfortable – they do anyway. It’s a sobering thought, when we really sit down and think – God knows my heart. God knows my mind. God knows the intentions of my heart, and those thoughts in the deepest, darkest reaches of my brain, where those thoughts seem to linger … and fester … and swell … you know, the ones that are SERIOUSLY incompatible with who I am trying to become as a Christian.

But we need to be reminded … sometimes repeatedly … of that reality … along with the reality that is brought out in the very next verses.

The passage this morning actually straddles the first divide in the message to the Hebrews. Up to this point, the writer has been talking about God and the word of God – in some ways, a review of the Old Testament concept of God … and the emphasis changes between verses 13 and 14. From that judging, holy, and to some degree distant God, to God incarnate – in Christ Jesus.

The NRSV, which does not, in this version or the ones in the pews, include the headers of sections as you might find in the New International Version or other contemporary versions of the scriptures, actually adds a space between those two verses. It signals the start of a new idea, a new concept, and a new emphasis.

And it is in this new aspect that we move away from the judging, demanding, even COLD concept of God to an image of God that is a fleshing out of what and who Jesus was. The writer begins to unfold for us an image of a God who, in his infinite wisdom, and more, in his infinite love, set himself in the place of the high priest of Israel for the NEW Israel – became both mediator and sacrifice for a people who, just like the tribes in the desert, were unfaithful, turned their backs on God, and ignored God’s calls to righteousness, to holiness, to purity, to obedience and to service.

What is important to remember is that, in providing God’s self as the intermediary between us, there is no change in the original structure of the relationship. God is STILL a demanding God. Not in a childish, spoiled way that the word ‘demanding’ can sometimes be interpreted to mean, but by virtue of who God IS. It is because of the very nature of God that we are expected to present ourselves holy, unblemished, perfect in every way before the throne. And it is with that understanding that we read those first two verses of the passage today. In some ways, it’s a word of advice and warning. The writer is reiterating what Paul says in his letter to the Romans, and the Corinthians, and the Galatians, and so many others – that God expects us to CHANGE as we follow him, as we draw closer to him, as we find ourselves IN him. Entering into a relationship with God is nothing, if not transformational to our very core.

That transformation, that change of heart, that changed mind that we hear of in the Gospels, and in Paul’s letters to other Christians, is the very one that the writer here is speaking about being naked and laid bare before God. I can’t think of any more … vivid description of what it will be like for us to acknowledge who we really, truly are before God.

Can we approach the thought of being naked before God and feel comfortable with the idea, if we really explore our hearts, and our minds, and our souls? Are we really comfortable with the idea that, that which we are too afraid or too embarrassed or too uncomfortable with to speak of even with our spouse or our very best friend will be the subject of open conversation when we are face to face with God?

If you are like me – and I truly don’t think we are that different, any of us, from one another – you’ve got a mixture of emotions running through you right now, thinking about that meeting someday. There’s eager anticipation at the prospect of being face to face with God. So many unanswered questions will be … resolved – not necessarily answered – but possibly – either with answers or with perspective – what is truly important will be revealed as that, and what is not … will go by the wayside.

The prospect of seeing loved ones whom we KNOW are in the divine presence, which have joined the heavenly choirs and have been singing hallelujah is thrilling in itself. As humans, we can anticipate events that have not yet come to pass. By that same token, we can anticipate events that will likewise cause us anxiety, like that part about God knowing our emotions and our attitudes and our thoughts and intentions. The Psalm we read as our responsive reading in some ways highlights that aspect of our relationship with God that would lead us to feel uneasy. In fact, it is the opening words of that Psalm that Christ himself quoted from while hanging on the cross at Golgotha. The words and the Psalm speak to those moments when we feel most distant from God, when we recognize just how broken and unworthy we are, how traitorous, how weak, how frail.

The good news of the Gospel comes out in the opening phrase of verse 14 –

14Since, then, we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast to our confession.

The writer is saying, yes, there is God, but here is our high priest – and what is HE like? ‘Let us hold fast to our confession’ – what exactly is our confession? As we recount at any of our baptism services, the earliest confession of faith of the church is comprised of three simple words: “Jesus Is Lord”.

15For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin.

When Jesus came to us, he could have come as a super hero, untouchable, blazing in all his glory to complete the destruction of the forces of evil, and usher in a glorious reign … but, had it happened that way, it would have been on some level coerced, imposed, a foregone conclusion to a sequence of events for humanity to have followed him. It would have required no faith to see a super-being triumphant over mere mortals. Christ was tempted with that outcome at the beginning of his public ministry, and he rejected it.

He rejected it because that was not the messiah he WAS. He knew that to really get people to follow him, it was going to have to be voluntarily, freely, with openness and willingness, and a love that would persevere through all things – to the point of suffering and death.

The hope of the Gospel is found in the fact that salvation doesn’t depend on us, but on Christ.

16Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

There’s a recognition of our brokenness, our fallenness, our weakness, and in that recognition there is an understanding that is full of gratitude, since our ability to approach God does not depend on our own merits, but on Christ’s.

It is a word of exhortation, and of encouragement, and comfort, all wrapped up together, to know that it is not US God sees, but Christ.

What does this mean for Jerusalem Baptist Church at Emmerton?

Think about it. If God sees Christ and not us … why is it that we seem to be distracted by the … outward appearances, by the ‘us’ that we see on the surface? We so easily fall into the trap of categorizing some as ‘good people’ others as ‘no count’, others as ‘ok, but keep them at arm’s length’.

Ask yourself this question: was the early church built on the shoulders of the leading citizens of the day? The folks who were the biggest merchants, the governmental leaders? NO! It was it built in SPITE OF THEM -- on the shoulders of the people who were most readily drawn to the Gospel – the outcasts, widows, slaves, those for whom the meaning of true freedom was not competing against some imagined temporary freedom they enjoyed on a daily basis, but which in fact had little to do with the freedom Christ offered them?

The message of the Gospel is best understood by those who are more familiar with the underside of society – the mold of what is accepted and acceptable is easier to break when we ourselves find ourselves broken, at wit’s end, with nowhere left to turn.

Part of living into this faith that we share is understanding and not forgetting that we are all – however fine a veneer we can put on it – we are all broken. We have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, and on that level we are ONE. And we ONLY rely on the grace of God through Christ Jesus to draw us together.

If we keep reminding ourselves that that is the case, no matter who walks into this building, we will more easily be able to accept, more readily be able to call brother and sister, more comfortably sit beside, more genuinely share.

Let’s pray.