A More Excellent Way

Sunday, January 28th, 2007
Epiphany 4
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA
1 Corinthians 13:1-13

1 If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing. 4Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant 5or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. 7It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 8Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. 9For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; 10but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. 11When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. 12For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. 13And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.

Confession time again. If you are keeping track, this is, I think, the fourth time I stand in front of you and reveal another frailty. What? So few, you may ask? Don’t worry. There’s more where this came from. (smile) I have to measure them out … I plan on retiring here, so we’ve got a while to cover them all.

The confession is that, more than usual, I am keenly aware of my inadequacy in approaching the subject matter this morning. We are talking about agapē love. For those of us here who have heard it before, no in-depth explanation is necessary, except for the purpose of refreshing the memory. For the rest of us, here’s the shorthand version of the forms of love:

In English, we have one word for the multiple variations of the emotion we call love; and that word is LOVE. We would just as soon love an omelet for breakfast as we would love to hear from a friend whom we haven’t heard from for years. We love the smell of bacon frying and we love the way that dress looks on you. We love you more than anything in this world, and we love the taste of chocolate syrup on vanilla ice cream. We love our country, we love our president, and we love our town. We love our pets, we love the way the new window treatment looks, and we would love to have the opportunity to tell you about the love of God in Christ.

Who said English is a complicated language?

In Greek, the Greek of the New Testament, there are FOUR words that we translate as love. The first is Erōs. You probably can make the connection as to what type of love that refers to – it is the love of deep desire, passionate aspiration, and sensuous longing. It often has a sexual or physical connotation. Neither the noun form of the word nor the verb form of it – eran – ever appears in the New Testament.

The next is storgē and the verb stergein – they concern the kind of affection we find in a family. Plato writes that a child stergein his parents and his parents love him. THESE words for love never appear in the New Testament, although the adjective philostorgos, brotherly affection, appears in Romans 12:10, which brings us to the third form of love found in the Greek language and, unlike the first two, also in the New Testament: The noun is philia and the verb is philein. They are used to describe different kinds of love throughout the New Testament – philein, the verb form, is used 33 times and Philos, the noun form, is used 29 times. They are the most common words used for love in Greek culture and literature.

The fourth one is the first one I mentioned earlier – agapē. What is interesting about this word is that it is used only rarely in Greek literature of the period, but it is the most widely used word for “love” in the New Testament and in the Septuagint, the Greek version of the Hebrew Scriptures that the Hellenistic Jews – those Jews of the diaspora – who moved out and away from the land of Palestine – and may not have been able to speak, much less read Hebrew – the Septuagint was their translation of the Hebrew Scriptures.

In that, the verb form of the word – agapan – occurs approximately 200 times. The noun agapē is used there 19 times. The verb agapan is used 130 times in the New Testament, and the noun agapē is used almost 120 times.

What is it about this word that eliminates it from common use in the Greek language? Why are the other forms of love so much more visible in the context of normal, regular, secular Greek life?

I think we could find a similar situation if we went over the uses of the word ‘love’ in our own culture and literature as well. After all, in that paragraph I read to you earlier, listing some of the ways in which we use the word ‘love’, you caught a glimpse of how the word can be used to express a whole range of feelings.

It would be an interesting exercise to try and come up with different words in English for the different kinds of emotion we now generally call love to be expressed. We do try to qualify the emotion with words such as ‘like’ and ‘esteem’ and ‘appreciate’, and to a certain degree, they serve the purpose, but it’s not always the case.

But this morning we are characterizing the love of God for humanity as defined in the person of Jesus Christ. Let me say that again: the love of God for humanity as defined in the person of Jesus Christ. What the seventy scholars who translated the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek and what Paul had an opportunity to do in using the word agapē to describe the love they were talking about was to frame the use of the word into a context that would communicate as clearly as they could make it communicate what that love was like. There is an element to that love that is distinct from the others in this particular passage. The form of the word calls for the adjectives that Paul is using to describe it to be put into tenses that speak to the essence of the emotion – to the essence of the love – they are not simply nice things being said about love – let me read it to you this way:

4Love is BEING patient; love is BEING kind; love is not BEING envious or boastful or arrogant 5or rude. It is not insisting on its own way; it is not BEING irritable or resentful; 6it IS not REJOICING in wrongdoing, but REJOICING in the truth. 7It IS BEARING all things, BELIEVING all things, HOPING all things, ENDURING all things.

Can you see the difference in the reading? This form in which the words are written are a description not simply of an emotion, but of a way of living, a way of acting, a way of BEING that goes beyond simply SAYING you believe something.

What does this mean for Jerusalem Baptist Church at Emmerton?

We can say we believe in the love of God. We can sing about it, pray for it, read about it, teach about it, and even preach about it. But, as Paul himself said, if we don’t HAVE what it is we are talking about, we’re nothing. Clanging bells, noisy gongs, so much hot air. The catch is, what he goes on to say is even more than that – we can put it into action – you’ve heard me preach about how the love we profess is not simply an emotion, but it is a word that denotes action – we can go through the motions – feed the poor with the food off our tables, clothe them with the clothes off our backs, we can be the final arbiter in matters of faith and practice for the Rappahannock Baptist Association or even the Baptist General Association of Virginia, and have people lined up at our doorstep to get an answer to their up-until-now unanswerable questions … all that and more … but if we don’t have the love of God in our hearts, it’s not worth another first-century Greek term: piddly-squat.

Agapē is used to express the spontaneous, creative, caring love that is expressive of God’s nature and that extended to undeserving humanity in Christ. People who accept God’s love are empowered by the Spirit of God to live thankfully and obediently in response to God’s love and thereby live by the love that redeems them in Jesus Christ. It becomes their love, but it is the gift of God’s love. It is not their … OUR work, but God’s gift. We do not gain it, we receive it. It comes not through self-assertion, but through self-surrender. Love evokes faith and faith evokes love. Love is the aim of Christians because they have died and been raised with Christ, and because love is given those who give themselves to the Spirit.

Love is centered in concern for others. Love is the principle that controls the exercise of all gifts: love creates unity, not division. To follow the way of love – the more excellent way – is to follow the very nature of God God’s self. Agapē is the most excellent way because it is grounded in God. Love is God in humanity.
(Raymond Bryan Brown, The Broadman Bible Commentary Vol 10, 1 Corinthians, Broadman Press, Nashville, 1970)

Let’s pray.

The Body Is One

Sunday, January 21st, 2007
Epiphany 3
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA
1 Corinthians 12:12-31

12 For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. 13For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit. 14Indeed, the body does not consist of one member but of many. 15If the foot would say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. 16And if the ear would say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. 17If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be? If the whole body were hearing, where would the sense of smell be? 18But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. 19If all were a single member, where would the body be? 20As it is, there are many members, yet one body. 21The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” 22On the contrary, the members of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, 23and those members of the body that we think less honorable we clothe with greater honor, and our less respectable members are treated with greater respect; 24whereas our more respectable members do not need this. But God has so arranged the body, giving the greater honor to the inferior member, 25that there may be no dissension within the body, but the members may have the same care for one another. 26If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it. 27Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. 28And God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers; then deeds of power, then gifts of healing, forms of assistance, forms of leadership, various kinds of tongues. 29Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles? 30Do all possess gifts of healing? Do all speak in tongues? Do all interpret? 31But strive for the greater gifts. And I will show you a still more excellent way.

During our training as journeymen, way back in the dark ages of the mid-80s, our group of 65 candidates was divided into teams of varying sizes, with different goals set for us each week. One team I was in was asked to come up with a multi-media presentation for one of our devotional times in the evenings. We gathered, and those of the group who at that time had already decided on a career in ministry, suggested we do a slide show – back when they were still 35 mm SLIDES that you put into a tray that ran through a projector – based on our passage this morning. The rest of the group served as models for the pictures that were taken to provide the visual representation of the text as Paul walks us through what it means to be a part of a whole.

There were, course, poses of people trying to show themselves to be a hand, or a foot, or an eye, and at the same time to look down on some other member of the body. It was still pretty close to the 70’s, if you ask me.

It was not the first attempt at a more-or-less dramatic representation of the ‘many members, one body’ passage of first Corinthians.

The point was, and is, that this has been a centerpiece of our understanding of what it means to be a part of the body of Christ because it so clearly states the realities of existence AS a member of the body.

We recognize and understand that as much as we differ as individuals, however we see things differently, or even use different terminology, phrases, and titles, we are STILL all members of the same body – the body of Christ.

The congregation of the church at Corinth was about as multi-anything as you could GET at the time; racial, ethnic, cultural, religious. There were Greeks, Romans, Jews, Asians; there were former pagans, disciples of Aphrodite, the prevailing ‘church’ of Corinth, and Jews who still held to most of their own religious practices. There were former Greek Stoics, former Roman emperor-worshippers, and as there likely are everywhere, nominal members of the majoritarian popular church – folks who wouldn’t say they WEREN’T disciples of Aphrodite, but who would just as soon roll over in bed and go back to sleep if at some point the religious holiday called for an early-morning trek to the temple at the top of the mountain overlooking Corinth. Think melting pot on steroids. Think people from both sides AND ENDS of the track meeting weekly if not more frequently for worship and to try to learn about what it means to follow Jesus.

The results were … in some ways predictable. Conflict, certainly. Cliquish behavior, yes. Lack of accountability to one another in the spirit of Christ: yes. Openly immoral behavior: sadly, yes.

What is interesting, though, is that, in spite of everything that is going on, all the sordid detail of it, Paul never stops calling the church in Corinth the body of Christ. They never lose that status. Even with all the infighting, with all the bickering, the shunning, the outright enmity, the presumption remains that the church is still the representation of Christ to the half million people of the city of Corinth.

As Raymond Bryan Brown puts it, “The Corinthians ARE the body of Christ. The church … exists through the work of Christ. The Corinthians do not create the body of Christ but manifest it because they confess Christ in obedient faith by accepting the benefits of his death and resurrection. The church is the body of Christ because it draws its life from him.”

In other words, we are not the body of Christ because of who we say WE are, we become the body of Christ when we are united in proclaiming – AND LIVING – who HE is.

There is a simple obviousness to the fact that there is diversity in this room. We can look around and see differences that are apparent – by the way we dress, by the way we act and speak; differences of origin – from around the country or around the world, in some cases. There are other differences we are aware of because we know each other – differences in education, training, employment. And yet, we gather together and sing the same songs together, read the same scriptures together, pray similar prayers together.

There are people who would look at us from the outside and call us, basically, a white anglo-saxon protestant church. I would hope we would bridle at the name. Not that we AREN’T basically that, but more at the fact that we KNOW OURSELVES to be much more multi-faceted than that. We know ourselves to be … shaded here and there with some pretty distinctive colors. The experiences of our lives that have colored our perception – that have in some cases enriched our existence and in others have tainted it. We find ourselves touched, infused, tinted with a whole rainbow of experiences that makes us much more three-dimensional than a simple name can describe.

What does this mean for Jerusalem Baptist Church at Emmerton?

What we come down to in the midst of that understanding, is that differences are there. They are, for better or worse, part of who we are as a family. We have either learned to live with them and love each other anyway or we have moved on. We have found that in that diversity there is strength. There is the strength and encouragement we can find when we have gone through something that we might at first believe ourselves to be alone in, only to discover that there are three other people who’ve gone through the same thing and survived. There is the understanding acceptance recognized when we are so deeply ashamed of what our lives have become and yet we long for a community to embrace us in spite of that, as we try to pull that dissolute life back together, and find ourselves among caring brothers and sisters who do not judge because THEY were not judged – or who perhaps WERE judged, and from THAT experience found the meaning in the biblical injunction against doing just THAT.

As a body, as the hands and feet and mouths of Jesus Christ in Emmerton, Warsaw, Richmond County, the Northern Neck, Virginia, the United States and beyond, we have it in our power to be a haven, to be a refuge, a safe place away from a world that would sooner serve as judge, jury and executioner when faced with the frailties of human existence; a world that would likelier scoff at sincere attempts to right the wrongs, straighten up, de-tox, clear the air, clear the name by someone who has recognized they are not who God created them to be, and are setting out on a journey towards redemption.

The question for us here this morning is, who will we invite along on the journey?

Let’s pray.

Whatever He Tells You

Sunday, January 14th, 2007
Epiphany 2
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA
John 2:1-11

1 On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. 2 Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. 3When the wine gave out, the other of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.” 4And Jesus said to her, “Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come.” 5His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.” 6Now standing there were six stone water jars for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. 7Jesus said to them, “Fill the jars with water.” And they filled them up to the brim. 8He said to them, “Now draw some out, and take it to the chief steward.” So they took it. 9When the steward tasted the water that had become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the steward called the bridegroom 10and said to him, “Everyone serves the good wine first, and then the inferior wine after the guests have become drunk. But you have kept the good wine until now.” 11Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.

Most of you have heard at least some part of the story of Leslie and Hannah’s trip to Hueyotlipan, Tlaxcala, Mexico at the end of November of last year to help out as well as to participate in the celebration of the 15th birthday of the daughter of one of the men we work with through the associational ministry to the Latino community here on the northern neck. Hueyotlipan is a small town; it sits on a hillside at a bend in the road in a rural part of the state. There are smaller hamlets around it, and further off, some larger towns and cities. Hueyotlipan itself has a population of about 5000 people, and ten percent – 500 of them – were invited to the celebration for Berenice, Mundo and Carmen’s daughter. Quinceañeras, the birthday celebration – it’s more than just a party – are a BIG deal in Mexican culture. This one was already in the planning stages when we first met Mundo back in 2003. Today, we are reading about an event that was even bigger than this Quinceañera. Marriages in first century Palestine were arranged years in advance, so there was plenty of time to work on the guest lists, arrange for the catering, order the flowers, reserve the halls … well, none of that probably factored in to the REAL weddings in Cana, but … you get the picture. They didn’t have television, or movies back then, few people could read, so there were precious few ways to really have a good time. The party that accompanied a marriage ceremony was a BIG deal, and this one was on the point of heading south quickly and catastrophically.

This past Wednesday evening, in our mid-week Bible study, we had as our text the transfiguration of Jesus from the Gospel according to Luke. It is found in the 9th chapter, beginning in verse 28 and continuing through verse 36. We find there a telling of the events that Peter, James and John witnessed on a mountain one night while Jesus was praying. Most of us are familiar with the story to some degree – Jesus is praying, he begins to change – his clothes turn brilliant white, his face shines, and he is suddenly accompanied by two other glorified beings – Moses and Elijah. It is a pivotal moment in the lives and faith of those disciples, in that what they have been slowly becoming aware of over the course of the public ministry of Jesus is made patently, physically clear to them – which is that Jesus is in fact God incarnate – the Son of God – come to the world to redeem us and draw us to God’s self in the ultimate act of self-giving.

The events we’ve read about this morning are somewhat on the other end of his public ministry. The transfiguration is linked to the week of Christ’s passion and death, THIS miracle, the turning of the water into wine at the wedding feast of Cana, is the inaugural sign of Christ’s ministry, following his ‘encounter’ with John the Baptist. I say ‘encounter’ for a reason; an interesting side item; John’s gospel is the only one that entirely omits a DIRECT reference to the actual baptism of Jesus, though it does have all the elements of the other Gospels included in the scene – John and his disciples out in the wilderness, people flocking to him to be baptized, and a meeting with Jesus, just no baptism per se. No dove descending, no voice from heaven declaring ‘this is my son, in whom I am well-pleased’. It presents an interesting question into how the author of the Gospel viewed and wanted to portray Jesus – he DOES have John the Baptist delivering the story himself – HE witnessed the dove descending from heaven, HE explains the reason for baptizing Jesus – “that he might be revealed to Israel” and John the Baptist twice testifies as to who Jesus really is – the son of God, and the Lamb of God (in chapter 1, verses 34 and 35).

There is a theme that is woven into the Gospel narrative of John – a juxtaposition of presentation and rejection – in other words – something happens, a miracle, a healing, a changed heart and life, a sign, a confrontation in which it is made clear (in hindsight) who Christ is and what his purpose is here on earth, followed by a rejection, a turning away of just the people to whom he has come – and it is present even here, at the wedding at Cana.

What’s interesting about the miracle of the water being turned into wine is that there is no big … what’s the theological term for it? … oh, yeah: no big HOO-HAH over the fact that Jesus turns about 180 gallons of plain old well water into the best wine the guests at the banquet had ever tasted. There is a logistical element to this – a lack of publicity, if you will. The mother of Jesus (did you notice she is never named in the story?) mentions that they are out of wine. Jesus turns to her (some would say ‘on her’, and says something that can be taken several different ways on several levels – he calls her ‘woman’, not ‘mother’ or ‘mo-om’ or ‘momma!’, but ‘woman’. It could be read with a cold inflection, or a distanced one, but the fact of the matter is, the word could be used with infinite tenderness, as Jesus himself uses it in chapter 19 verse 26, when he commended John to his mother and his mother to John as he was on his way to the cross. Just as he did then, he is also doing here – he’s redefining a relationship, but this time, it is a more personal one – one that is closer to home for him. He IS talking to his own mother, but in addressing her as ‘woman’, one commentator puts it, he is telling her that “in order to gain him as a savior, she would have to lose him as a son.” (William E. Hull, Commentary on John, Broadman Press, Nasvhille, 1970)

So Jesus rebuffs his mother’s efforts to get him to do something – pretty blatantly turns her down, tells her he doesn’t have anything to do with it.

And then does exactly what was probably in her mind to begin with. It does seem odd. But if you think about it, it’s not a singular event. At the beginning of chapter 7, Jesus’ brothers suggest he go to Jerusalem. He rejects the proposal, but then goes. At the beginning of chapter 11, Mary and Martha the sisters of Lazarus send for Jesus to come before Lazarus dies, and he doesn’t, but then a couple of days later he DOES. What is going on? Is Jesus being wishy-washy?

The correct answer is, of course, no.

Jesus is working on a threefold determination in responding to these situations: first, he is not to be guided SOLELY by human pressures, even when based on genuine need, he has to relate the problem to his understanding of the will of God in a given situation, and deal with the situations and the issues at hand on a MUCH deeper level than those who are IN trouble can imagine. He wasn’t indifferent to even the most common or even misguided requests. He was quick to discover creative ways by which to set those concerns being expressed in a redemptive context – that would, if you will, bring out the lesson of his being there in the first place – of what God is doing and is WILLING to do.

So what deeper purpose would be served in providing wine for a wedding party in Cana, once all the other stuff had been finished off?

There are three words at the beginning of verse 2 that can clue us in to the reason. It says Jesus had also been invited to the wedding, but not by himself – Jesus AND HIS DISCIPLES are there.

This was as much a lesson for them as it was a pleasant surprise for the other wedding guests.

Wine, in the Hebrew tradition, is closely associated with Joy. It was a good gift of God to gladden the heart in Genesis 27:28 and Psalm 104:15. When the land was devastated and the vineyards destroyed in Hosea 14, Jeremiah 31, and Zechariah 10, the joy that wine brings became a future hope. In the new age spoken of in Isaiah 25, the Lord was expected to make a feast of wine on his holy mountain.

This is why Jesus compares the Kingdom of God to a banquet or a wedding feast in Matthew chapters 8, 22, 25 and 26, or refers to his followers as friends of the bridegroom in Mark 2:19 or just a little bit later, in John 3:29. To the consternation of the religious establishment, he openly celebrated the joy of God’s salvation with tax collectors and sinners in Matthew 11. At Cana, the disciples saw that when Christ intervenes, humanity is surprised by Joy.

Closely connected to this joy, in fact, linked to the image is the idea of abundant joy. The prophet Joel wrote repeatedly about wine being sent as a divine gift, one which would be present in large quantities, to the degree that the mountains themselves would drip sweet wine (2:19, 2:24, 3:8, respectively).

But it is also true that wine was not only associated with abundant joy, but with sorrow and suffering as well. Its color suggests blood; in its production, grapes are crushed in a winepress, and according to Psalm 60:3 and 75:8, drinking the dregs of the wine of suffering was a form of divine punishment. Jeremiah combines this image with the kindred concept of the cup, so we end up in Jeremiah 25:15 with the phrase ‘cup of the wine of wrath.’

Even here, at the beginning of his ministry, Jesus is signaling what the other end of his ministry would entail; his suffering and ultimately his death.

The joy that was experienced at Cana was short-lived. It was the anticipation – a brief glimpse into the enduring joy which we will know only when we ‘drink new in the kingdom of God’ (Mark 14:25).

Mary told the servants to do whatever Jesus told them to do. She didn’t put words in his mouth, she didn’t presume to. She simply trusted that he would fulfill his purpose. And the servants responded as she asked them to. They did exactly what Jesus told them to do. Senseless as it may have seemed, there was no hocus-pocus wand waving performed over the jars. Jesus simply told them to fill them up with water, and then told one of them to take a ladle and draw from one of them and take it to the steward, who drank of it and tasted the riches of the kingdom without even realizing it.

What does this mean for Jerusalem Baptist Church at Emmerton?

The wedding guests didn’t realize what they were in for when they showed up for the celebration. Do we? And are we willing to do what Jesus asks us to do, no matter how unusual it might seem? Are we willing to do the unexpected for the celebration to really kick into gear?

(Communion)

Let’s pray.

Fellow Heirs

Sunday, January 7th, 2007
Epiphany
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA
Ephesians 3:1-12

1 This is the reason that I Paul am a prisoner for Christ Jesus for the sake of you Gentiles— 2for surely you have already heard of the commission of God’s grace that was given me for you, 3and how the mystery was made known to me by revelation, as I wrote above in a few words, 4a reading of which will enable you to perceive my understanding of the mystery of Christ. 5In former generations this mystery was not made known to humankind, as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit: 6that is, the Gentiles have become fellow heirs, members of the same body, and sharers in the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel. 7Of this gospel I have become a servant according to the gift of God’s grace that was given me by the working of his power. 8Although I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given to me to bring to the Gentiles the news of the boundless riches of Christ, 9and to make everyone see what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all things; 10so that through the church the wisdom of God in its rich variety might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. 11This was in accordance with the eternal purpose that he has carried out in Christ Jesus our Lord, 12in whom we have access to God in boldness and confidence through faith in him.

If you would, please, everyone, close your eyes. This is not for prayer as such, though it might turn into a prayer, depending on where we end up. What I’d like us to do, as we sit in our seats, is to let our minds wander through the faces and names of people we’ve seen in town, or at Wal-Mart, or on a trip, especially on a trip, or on television, in news reports or on one program or another – keep it to actual, real-life people … and narrow it down to the one person or couple of people whom you would least expect to run into HERE, at church. Do you have them picked out?

Okay, Now, I want you to take them out of the context in which you saw them, wherever and whenever it was, and keep them just as you saw them – whatever they were wearing, however their hair was, and pick them up, spin them around a little, and land them sitting in the pew next to you.

Don’t open your eyes yet. Keep them closed. Imagine first, YOUR response to THEIR sitting beside you. You are both simply sitting next to each other. No words have been spoken, no greeting has been exchanged, no “good morning” has been offered, no hand extended, no comment about the weather, yet. You are frozen in a moment in time. You have all the time in the world to study it.

Oh, no, sorry. You have a week, or a month, maybe a little longer, maybe a little less. Maybe it’s happening to you right now.

Okay, you can open your eyes now. What questions were going through your mind? Let’s set aside for the moment the ones that have to do with HOW they ended up next to you, and walk through some of OUR feelings and responses and thoughts about their being here. Remember, up to this point you are only SITTING next to each other. Nothing else has happened.

Were they sitting in someone’s regular spot? How were they dressed? Did they seem uncomfortable? Were they sitting quietly or were they acting otherwise? Were you surprised to see them? I guess that might be an unnecessary question, since I asked you to imagine the person you would LEAST expect to run into here. But still, what was your reaction? Did their simple presence make you uncomfortable? Did you find yourself worrying about how they would respond to the service, if they would know when to stand, when to sit, when to read out loud, when to bow silently and wait?

Okay. Hold that image and those emotions in your minds for a few minutes, and let’s turn to the passage for this morning. Paul is calling the gentile members of the church in Ephesus ‘Fellow Heirs’. If you didn’t catch it, he’s talking to them as very much a Jewish follower of Christ. From the point of view of someone who comes from the “Chosen People of God – The People of Israel, Descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, A Member of One of the Twelve Tribes”. All those words are capitalized, by the way. There is no doubt in Paul’s mind that his lineage was entrusted with the mystery he’s referring to – the secret to what it takes to be in relationship with God the Creator of the Universe – ‘access to God’, he calls it – or that they still hold a unique and privileged place in humanity’s relationship to the Creator, but now he is going and calling these gentiles, these outsiders, ‘Fellow Heirs.’

Are we all clear on what an heir is? By definition, an heir is the legal inheritor of something – somebody who receives or who has by law the right to receive the property, position, or title of another, usually (on a human level) when that first person dies.

Here’s the property, position, or title the People of Israel held in relation to God: Children; Sons and Daughters. And Paul is calling Non-Israelites ‘Fellow Heirs’. He’s calling them brothers and sisters.

Over the centuries, the direction in which the people of Israel had moved in their relationship to God, called worship, was to a practice of exclusivity. That is, of keeping people OUT by way of a set of legal requirements that HAD to be met in order for someone to be considered worthy to approach the temple and the Holy of Holies, the dwelling place of the Most High God.

It was a position of privilege, you see. The world population at the time was somewhere around a little more than HALF of what the population of the United States is today – about 170 Million people – WORLDWIDE. Though there is no consensus among historians as to the population of first century Palestine, estimates range anywhere from 1 to 6 million people, and not all the inhabitants of Palestine were practicing Jews. Let’s say that half of the population was, so 3 million people practicing temple worship according to the laws of the Hebrew Scriptures. If I entered the numbers in my calculator right, that translates into roughly just over one and three quarters percent of the entire world population having “access to God” – quite an exclusive club by any standard. If we went with the lower number – that is, a total Palestinian population of 1 million, and still assume that half the population was not practicing the Hebrew faith, that percentage changes to just over one half of one percent being on the inside when it comes to being able to communicate with God.

Do you get the picture? To quote a modern-day advertising campaign that you might have seen in a magazine along the way: ‘Membership has its privileges’. And Paul is giving those privileges away to EVERYONE. Or rather, Paul is saying that CHRIST is giving that privilege away to everyone – whoever will call on him as Lord and Savior – they become ‘members of the same body, sharers in the promise’ – they take their seats right next to the folks who’ve been “guarding and protecting” that body, that promise, for all those centuries … how do you think THEY felt? Our exercise in imagination this morning was designed to try to make us understand the response.

The New Testament is full of how they felt about it. We were studying Luke on Wednesday evenings before Advent, and as we get back to it, remember what Luke was trying to speak against as one of the principal focuses in the Gospel? The Judaizers – those who were trying to make the new followers of Christ practitioners of the Hebrew religion BEFORE they could be called and accepted as followers of Christ.

The letters of Paul to most of the churches he started deal with the same problem almost universally. It was the deepest schism in the early church, and the one that was the most troublesome to it. Those who WERE on the inside trying to figure out the newcomers who don’t know how things are “done.”

What does this mean for Jerusalem Baptist Church at Emmerton?

Okay, back to the folks sitting next to you in the pew. Not the ones who are actually there, but the ones whom we were imagining a few minutes ago: but this time, with a change.

Now, they are standing next to you and, somewhat hesitantly at first, and off-key, and stumbling a little bit here and there, they are singing the hymns or choruses along with you.

Now they are participating in the Responsive Reading with you.

Now, they are bowing their heads in prayer next to you.

Now, they are reciting the Lord’s Prayer with you.

Now, they are listening to the choir, and to the preaching, and to the invitation hymn with you.

Now, they are greeting you at the end of the service, with a big smile, and a hug, and thanking you for inviting them.

Because you see, that’s really the only way they will probably come. People almost NEVER just pull into a church parking lot on Sunday Morning and walk through the door out of the blue. It happens, but it is so unusual and unlikely that the probability of Jerusalem seeing someone come through the door in that manner is almost zero.

It is through relationships developed OUTSIDE this building that people will most likely end up INSIDE this building – and more importantly, inside this FAMILY. And in this case, I’m using the word ‘relationship’ in it’s loosest sense – it might be someone you see only on Saturdays at Food Lion, maybe the cashier, or the stocker, it may be the attendant at the gas station where you fill up once a week, or the person you rent your movies from, or the person who drops off your newspaper, or the mail. These don’t have to be lifelong friendships that you are calling on to come to join you in worship. The fact that you are acknowledging someone’s PRESENCE, in speaking kindly to them, calling them by name, greeting them and thanking them for what they’ve helped you with – that simple act initiates a relationship – however tenuous it might be – on which you can begin to build. And if the building of that relationship moves from where they work or where you run into them to a place where you come together to worship God, there is no telling where and to what depths God will take that brotherhood or sisterhood, that fellow-heirness … if I can make that term up and understood.

Will we dare to open our hearts and arms to those people who just a short while ago we couldn’t even imagine we’d ever be seeing inside this building?

The invitation this morning is for us ALL to extend this invitation on behalf of Christ just as he first extended it to us – to anyone and everyone who would, to become fellow heirs of the incredible riches we have IN Christ.

Let’s pray.