The Imperative Tense

 

Sunday, January 25^th, 2009

Epiphany 3B

Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA

Mark 1:14-20

Theme: Christ’s call on our lives

 

“¹⁴Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, ¹⁵and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.” ¹⁶As Jesus passed along the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the sea—for they were fishermen. ¹⁷And Jesus said to them, “Follow me and I will make you fish for people.”¹⁸And immediately they left their nets and followed him. ¹⁹As he went a little farther, he saw James son of Zebedee and his brother John, who were in their boat mending the nets. ²⁰Immediately he called them; and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men, and followed him.”

 

The lectionary does some interesting skipping around here in these first few weeks of the year, with the Gospel readings.  We began the year in John’s Gospel, then bounced to Mark, then back to John, and now we are back in Mark, just a couple of verses from where we left off two weeks ago.  The contrast between the two presentations CAN be a little disconcerting, but it can ALSO serve to highlight what each is trying to do.  John’s is focused on the person of Christ; Mark’s is on his message.  Those are, admittedly, gross generalizations, but they give us a kind of thematic peg on which to hang our basic understanding. 

 

As we read into the Gospel according to Mark, the tone and the style of the writing has as much to do with understanding the message as does the content itself.  

 

The transposition of events between Mark and John also give us a sense of what in cinematic and literary terms would be a flashback or a flash-forward, depending on the case.  Our passage this morning is something like a prequel to last week’s passage in John.  You remember we had Jesus coming to Philip and Nathanael and getting them to follow him with just those two words, in Philip’s case – ‘Follow me’ and it was done.  Today’s passage is chronologically just before that event: Jesus’ very first disciple selection. 

 

In Mark’s telling, this scene begins right after Jesus has returned from the wilderness where he has been tempted with worldly power and wealth and glory and has denied his tempter at every turn. 

 

The connecting phrase between the two events is a pretty smooth transition.  If you back up a few verses, to verse 9, Jesus is baptized by John in the Jordan.  Then we have the Spirit immediately not just leading or moving, but DRIVING Jesus into the wilderness, and Mark telegraphs the wilderness temptation into a single verse – 13 – and then pops Jesus back to Galilee.  The scene of his baptism is, by Markan standards, an extensively written and descriptive passage – we have Jesus coming up out of the water, and seeing the Spirit descending like a dove, and God’s proclamation of his beloved son coming out of heaven. 

 

And what does the first verse of today’s passage say? 

 

“Now after John was arrested …”   

 

And what are Jesus’ first words of proclamation? 

 

“The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.” 

 

Did you hear it?  Did you hear the baton pass?  Who does he sound like – especially that second imperative?  Repent.  Who said that?  John!  Only he followed it with “and be baptized” … Jesus’ message involves something closer to the heart – “and believe the good news.” 

 

So we get a really clear picture … I have this image of a telephoto shot down a street – the perspective is foreshortened – there’s very little sense of depth, but you kind of know it is there.  From where we are, the telephone poles look like they’re pickets in a fence, when we know that there are dozens of yards between them.  Picture this:  John is walking towards the camera, and he’s got a pitcher of water that he’s carrying (bear with me, this is just for the movie audience …) as he’s walking, he’s preaching – looking a little ragged, and wearing the expected odd outfit, but he is preaching the baptism for the forgiveness of sins.  While he walks, people come up to him from one side or the other appearing in the frame, and he douses them with water from that pitcher, but doesn’t stop moving.  Then a little while into that, Jesus steps into the frame from one side … and John stops and says ‘you should be baptizing ME’ … to which Jesus replies ‘this has got to happen this way …’ and John agrees and douses Jesus … who then promptly steps out of the frame, is gone for a few minutes, and just before he reappears, John is grabbed from one side and pulled off screen, and just then Jesus steps in and starts walking directly towards the camera, just like John was before him, and he starts preaching … .    

 

“The time is fulfilled,

 

And the kingdom of God has come near;

 

Repent,

 

And believe in the good news.” 

 

But Mark doesn’t dwell on the message right here that much.  He mixes it up and adds some action to the story.   

 

Jesus is walking along the Sea of Galilee and runs into Simon Peter and Andrew, his brother, and they’re standing on the shore casting nets into the sea … for some reason Mark chooses to add what would seem to be an unnecessary comment “for they were fishermen” … I suppose there has always been some level of fishing done for recreation as well as sustenance, but I suspect that in first century Palestine, if you fished you fished mainly for trade or for food – in other words, to sell or to eat.  Life may have had its pleasant moments – I’m sure it did, we can find ourselves in the most difficult conditions and still find pleasure in some seemingly insignificant thing – I remember while working my very first job at Opryland – hauling trash – smelly, messy, sticky, nearly nauseating garbage – out of the trash cans and loading the bags into the carts that we then had to haul across the park to the nearest dumpster or compactor – to that point it was the hardest physical work I had ever done, but I remember being able to stop even in the middle of pulling that cart behind me and feeling a cooling breeze blow through the trees and hear the birds chirping or watch the butterflies flutter around and marvel at the pleasure it brought just to watch them – or to feel that breeze cool the sweat on my face and neck – my point is, why would Mark point out that they were fishermen when it would be an automatic assumption made by his readers that that was what Simon Peter and Andrew WERE – by virtue of the fact that they are introduced in the act of fishing. 

Mark’s reason comes in the very next sentence in Jesus’ words: 

 

“Follow me and I will make you fish for people.”   

 

You see?  There IS a style to Mark’s writing after all – it’s not ‘just the facts, only the facts, and nothing BUT the facts’- he is using metaphors and balancing one phrase against another – fishermen evokes the image in our minds of someone with a rod and reel in their hands.  Fishers OF men … of PEOPLE … well … what kind of an image does that bring up in our minds?  The same rod and reel?  Maybe at first, but then our minds reject it, because we understand the task of pursuing a PERSON is going to be arguably, I think – if we were to ask some of our resident fishermen – quite a bit more challenging than pursuing a fish … so the same tools will not apply. 

 

We are given a hint of just what tools they would be using in the way they answered Jesus.  What did they take with them?         

 

“And immediately they left their nets and followed him.”

 

It would seem an unusual thing to do, to abandon one’s livelihood on nothing more than ten words from a total stranger.  And yet, they did. 

 

Most sermons I’ve heard preached on these verses concentrate on the authority with which Jesus spoke – that all he had to do was open his mouth, and the same voice that commanded demons to depart and winds and waves to be still, and Lazarus to come up out of his grave later in his ministry was used to command his disciples to follow him here, at the beginning of it. 

 

While I fully acknowledge the authority with which Christ spoke, I also understand that God endowed us with free will, and does not force us to do something we don’t want to do, but rather invites us to join in the ongoing work of breaking in the Kingdom of God on earth, and will only accept us when WE choose – yes, prompted by the Holy Spirit, but the choice IS ours.  We can sit and discuss the finer points of doctrine regarding how able we might be to resist that invitation, but when it comes down to it, it IS an invitation … though it may SOUND like a command – the imperative tense – there is always going to be another element to consider in how Christ’s call on our lives affects us.  And that is the question of WHEN we receive it. 

 

You remember I mentioned that I’ve gotten set up on Facebook a couple of weeks ago?  And about how through that I’ve been getting reacquainted with friends from childhood and college, people whom I thought I would never see or hear from again?  I reconnected with a friend of mine from Junior High and High School this past week.  His name is Dave Edmondson.  He stands out in my memory as one of the better athletes in our school.  We spent a little time together, but I wasn’t a jock, and though we had some friends in common, we didn’t spend a lot of time getting to know each other. 

 

Part of the facebook page that you set up allows you to put up a picture of yourself as an identifier for people who may want to connect with you or with whom you want to connect, and the picture I have up most of the time is one that was taken last summer, here during worship, wearing the robe, standing behind the communion table, holding the loaf of bread and the cup while serving communion.  After our initial exchange, and giving each other time to review the other’s profile – where you can give an update on your life – your education, work history, show family pictures, talk about your hobbies and interests and things, Dave said that it was neat to see how God has been working in my life, and then went on to say that he became a Christian in 1991; that he went from being an agnostic, completely ignorant of Christ as a historical figure, much less anything spiritual or religious.  After asking about a couple of fellow MK’s – we had all been in school together, he closed by asking how I ended up in vocational ministry.

 

I answered in a pretty extensive summary of the last 29 years of my life.  When I asked him to share his story, he directed me to a recording of his speaking at a Christian Businessman’s luncheon in Colorado in September of last year.  It was him giving his testimony.  He shared about growing up the son of alcoholic parents, who traveled around the world, living in a country for two or three years at a time and then moved on to a new post.  His father worked in embassies with their communications systems. 

 

In listening to his story, I was moved to tears more than once for the experiences that he went through, but as his story went on, I came to realize that I was becoming acutely aware of the fact that, if I had been a little more intentional, a little more mature in sharing MY faith while we were in high school, there may have been an earlier change in Dave’s life.  I was compelled to ask him for forgiveness for failing to do that. 

 

His response was gracious and truthful.  He said that he was enough of a Calvinist to understand that he had to go through what he went through in order to GET to the time when he DID accept Christ as his Lord and Savior.  That it happened at the right time and through the right circumstances.  His answer reassured me, and DID remind me that we can never forget the factor of God’s timing in the events in our lives. 

 

What does all this mean for Jerusalem Baptist Church at Emmerton, on Baptist Men’s Day, 2009? 

 

First of all, the meaning drawn is NOT simply for the men in our family of faith.  We are all faced with Christ’s call on our lives.  From the time we first begin to understand the fact that we are not simply physical and emotional beings, but spiritual ones as well, I believe God begins to work through the Holy Spirit on our hearts. 

 

Depending on the choices we’ve made in other areas of our lives, we may or may not hear that call clearly.  For some of us, our first exposure to that invitation resonates and draws us in at a relatively early age.  For others, we find that there are so many other things clamoring for our attention that we are initially oblivious to that still small voice. 

 

It is safe to assume that Simon Peter and Andrew, James and John grew up not only tending their nets and setting their boats out on the Sea of Galilee, but that they also, as men who practiced their faith, tended to their spiritual nourishment as well.  I believe that it was through that preparation of their souls that they recognized the voice of the one who called to them that day by the seashore. 

 

My hope is that we here at Jerusalem will provide that same nourishment to our children as they grow, as well as to those who come through our doors who are already grown, but who, like Dave, have never encountered the living Christ.                 

 

Let’s pray.  

Greater Things Than These

 

Sunday, January 18^th, 2009

Epiphany 2B

Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA

John 1:43-51

Theme: Wonders of God – both in creation and in our hearts

 

⁴³ The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, “Follow me.” ⁴⁴Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. ⁴⁵Philip found Nathanael and said to him, “We have found him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth.” ⁴⁶Nathanael said to him, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Philip said to him, “Come and see.” ⁴⁷When Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him, he said of him, “Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit!” ⁴⁸Nathanael asked him, “Where did you get to know me?” Jesus answered, “I saw you under the fig tree before Philip called you.” ⁴⁹Nathanael replied, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!” ⁵⁰Jesus answered, “Do you believe because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree? You will see greater things than these.” ⁵¹And he said to him, “Very truly, I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.”

 

First Baptist Church of Orange, Texas is by all standards, a landmark.  Organized in 1879, First Baptist merged with the Eighth Street Baptist church and began working towards building a new building big enough for both of them.  The sanctuary was built, not unlike Jerusalem’s, through the efforts of its members – through cooking lunches, selling bricks for 15 cents a piece, and eventually through public subscription.  That Sanctuary was completed and dedicated in September of 1915.

 

Through the years, First Baptist grew, birthed 5 daughter churches in the area, sponsored mission work and missionaries around the world.  Its members and ministers nurtured children in their first steps towards faith, and sustained and strengthened the adults in the congregation through their hard times as well as their easy times. 

 

Then along came Hurricane Rita, in September of 2005, and caused considerable wind damage to the exterior of the building and destroyed some storage buildings owned by the congregation.  Thankfully, their insurance allowed them to rebuild and restore the building.  Over the next couple of years, the church continued to grow and the folks they were reaching were people who lived further away from their downtown location.  The church voted to begin to make the necessary motions to sell the property and move out to where the majority of its membership – and the people they were reaching out to live.  That was in the summer of last year. 

 

Then in September, Hurricane Ike hit.  Most of downtown Orange received 8 to 10 feet of floodwater.  First Baptist Church had insurance to cover wind damage, but none to cover damage due to flooding.  The basement was devastated, as was most of the above ground educational space in the adjacent building.  The building, unsold, became unusable.  While some reclamation projects have taken place, the church body is meeting in a local High School for worship and children’s Sunday School.  Youth and Adult Bible studies take place at various times and places during the week, depending on what each one has found to best suit their needs. 

 

The church is still in transition, obviously, probably still to some degree in shock from the traumatic experience of last September, but they have reiterated their decision to move from the downtown location.  The challenge has been that that move will probably take place without the income from the sale of the historic landmark property, or at least not the amount that the property was originally worth.  The congregation and the city of Orange are working out an agreement for the city to purchase the old property. 

 

In the words of one former member, our sister in law Janet Maccubbin, who visited with us right after Christmas, she writes, “If I were a member of First Baptist Orange today, the biggest question in my mind would be, “what does God really have in store for our future?  Everything seemed so crystal clear before the Hurricane and here we are today, still a church, but with no building and most likely no resources to build one.  It seems so different than where we thought God was taking us.” 

 

ه  ه  ه

 

 

As we read about the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry, we are presented with events that to us seem a little disjointed, a little awkward.  We have no point of reference for the statements made other than their face value. 

 

We read where Jesus finds Philip and tells him “follow me.”  Period, end of sentence, end of scene, move to the next.  We continue reading, and find out that Philip was from Bethsaida, the same town from which Andrew and Peter hailed.  Enough background, on to the next scene.  Philip finds Nathanael, and tells him “We have found him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth.”  To us, coming out of the Christmas season, it sounds perfectly normal, perfectly acceptable, to have this statement introduce someone to Jesus of Nazareth.  But we are coming to the scriptures with two thousand years of historical conditioning built into our readings as good, churchgoing Christians.  We have no sense of what it would have been like to hear someone tell us the same thing if we were there and were of that time. 

 

To give you an idea, if Jesus had not come yet, and, with apologies to the residents there, I were to come up to you and tell you that “we have found him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Joe-bob the son of Elmer from Possum Trot Kentucky.”  Would you begin to get a sense of the exchange that took place between Philip and Nathanael?

 

We move on. 

 

Obviously, Nathanael is going to need a little convincing.   But Philip wisely chooses to not do that himself.  He tells his brother simply “come and see.”  So he does. 

 

This next scene needs to be unpacked a little, explored a little.  We need to peel this onion to get down below the skin of it and see what was happening.

 

Based on the external evidence alone, you’d have to say that Nathanael dove in based on little more than a kind of spiritual parlor trick:  Jesus claims to have seen Nathanael sitting under a fig tree even before Philip went to go get him.  The fact that Jesus seemed to know that was a neat trick, but not exactly the most startling thing in the world!  Still, it was enough for Nathanael to sign on even as it motivated him to declare openly that near as he could tell, Jesus was the Son of God and the king of all Israel.  It must be the Spirit of God that moved in him and prompted that confession.   But there is, as they say, more here than meets the eye. 

When Jesus says of Nathanael “Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit!” to us it sounds like Jesus is simply being a good judge of character.  On the face of it, he is identifying Nathanael as someone who is, at the very least, honest. 

 

While that may be, to someone reading or hearing this passage in the first century, especially someone of the house of Israel, reading this would send up recognition flares, because there is an allusion to one of the biggest names in the history of Israel.  The word that is translated here as ‘deceit’ in the original Greek means ‘guile’ – which is close enough to deceit as to be interchangeable.  But it is a subtle reference to the one character in the history of Israel who is best KNOWN for the guile by which he lived:  Jacob.  If you remember his story, he lived by his wits.  He tricked his brother Esau out of his birthright, he also spent nearly twenty years maneuvering his Uncle Laban out of most everything he owned, and he wound up spending a good deal of time on the run because of it as well. 

 

For some reason that we can’t quite fathom, God liked Jacob.  At one point while he was running, God gave Jacob a dream in which he saw a ladder climbing all the way to heaven, and angels were going up and down the length of it.  Jesus, by the way, is alluding to Jacob again when he mentions the dream in verse 51.  Through the dream God assures Jacob that in spite of all the stunts he’s pulled, God has been with him.  God even promises to bring Jacob back to the Promised Land one day, even though he is on his way AWAY from it at a dead run at the moment. 

 

Then comes the pivotal event in Jacob’s life.  The night by the River Jabbock.  Jacob is finally out of places to hide, and is on his way to meet his brother Esau, when he is attacked by a stranger in the darkness on the banks of the river.  You’ve heard the story… they fight.  They wrestle all night, and they are seemingly too evenly matched for one to overwhelm the other.  But close to dawn there comes a moment when it seems like Jacob has finally gotten his opponent pinned down… until the stranger, with supernatural ease, wrenches Jacob’s hip out of its socket.  He lets Jacob know that the whole night’s fight had been rigged, it had been a carefully crafted plan – not unlike many of the plans that Jacob himself had arranged.  But out of that experience, what happens?  Jacob comes away with both a new name – Israel – and a new attitude, a new outlook on life.  Jacob came away from the shores of the Jabbock with an understanding that the best things in life come not by wit, or cunning, or force and strength, but through grace. 

So that is who Jacob was, and that is who Jesus is comparing Nathanael to when he sees him and says something more like “Here comes an Israel who is not Jacob”, meaning that Nathanael was an example of the straight-shooting honest Israel, of the new man who emerged after God knocked Jacob flat with grace, not the pre-wrestling match trickster.

 

It seems all the more kind, since Nathanael had just finished pretty much dissing Jesus’ hometown.  So if we follow the reasoning, Jesus says that Nathanael is an honest man, Nathanael just said that Nazareth was a town of questionable repute, and Jesus confirmed it. 

 

Jesus was telling Nathanael “You’re right!  I’m not much to look at, but I’ll let you in on a little secret:  I’m the one!” 

 

And this is the moment of Grace in this setting.  Nathanael, in his straightforward, no-frills, hold no punches way, speaks the confession that will ring through the centuries just as Peter’s will later - “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!”

 

And in response Jesus first questions his faith – asks, basically, “Is that all it took?  Me telling you I saw you under the fig tree?  Get ready; you’re going to see greater things than these!” 

 

And what greater things was he talking about?  Healings? Yes. Raising people from the dead?  That too.  Walking on water, yes; the feeding of thousands of people from five loaves and two fish, check.  But what was the greatest thing Nathanael would see?  

 

It was the same thing we see and experience when we come together around this table, when we share this bread and this cup.  It was that moment when God gave God’s self in the person of Jesus up in our place – where God covered our debt for us.  And welcomed us into the body of Christ – both to live and to serve.   

 

I don’t think Nathanael nor Philip had any idea what was in store for them, just like the members of First Baptist Church, Orange Texas don’t have any idea where God is taking THEM – but the call is not to SEE what lies ahead, that is not ours to claim.  The call is to faithfulness and to obedience.

 

We may not have the ability to say “this and this and this is going to happen, but it doesn’t matter, because that is not in our hands.  What we do have is the ability and the responsibility to serve, to confess, to live out that self-giving love that Christ calls us to — that God modeled in the person of Jesus. 

 

In the Hebrew tradition, when Passover was shared, it was not simply a repeating of what happened when the Israelites fled Egypt.  It was actually a re-living, a re-experiencing of the event.  On the surface, yes, of course, it is much more cleaned up, I guess you could say, but in the exchanges, in the remembrances, there is a depth of meaning that calls even people today, to understand what the festival was for them on that first night. 

 

And we draw on that tradition when we share this bread and this cup. 

 

We share unleavened bread because there was no time to let it rise.  Jesus took the bread and broke it and said take and eat, this is my body, which is broken for you.  And after dinner he took the cup and poured it and said this is my blood of the new covenant shed for you.  As often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, Paul writes later, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes. 

 

We share one cup, we share one loaf to remind us that we are one body.  Participating, joining together in this sharing is making a statement both about what it means to be a part of this body of Christ, Jerusalem Baptist Church, as well as a part of the body of Christ on earth.  The breaking reminds us that we are not exempt from suffering, the poured juice reminds us that we may be called to shed our blood, as seemingly unlikely that would be for us sitting her in Emmerton Virginia on January 18^th, 2009. 

 

We are called to sacrifice, and that can happen in very many ways. 

 

I would invite you to come forward, tear a piece of bread off and dip it in the juice, and proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.                      

 

(Communion)

 

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

 

Just as we have on some level re-lived, re-experienced Christ’s sacrifice, we take that into our own lives, we follow that example, we follow that guidance, that leading, that spirit.  We pray for the courage to live our convictions, we pray for the wisdom to discern those moments when we can share, when God is asking us to share.  And if necessary, use words. 

 

Let’s pray.  

My Son the Beloved

 

Sunday, January 11^th, 2009

Epiphany 1B

Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA

Mark 1:1-11

Theme: introductions

 

(Note:  As is usually the case, I was working on the manuscript Saturday evening, and … it was coming … but with difficulty … there came a point where I had to step away from it, which was at that point where I ask “what does this mean for Jerusalem Baptist Church at Emmerton?”.  Sunday morning came and the morning was unusually hectic.  I sometimes have about a half hour during the Sunday School hour where I can review and/or re-center my thoughts on the message, but that didn’t happen this past Sunday.  I knew something different was ‘brewing’, so that when the time came, the manuscript went by the wayside, for the most part, and this is what came out.)

 

¹ The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

² As it is written in the prophet Isaiah,
‘See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you,
   who will prepare your way; 
³the voice of one crying out in the wilderness:
   “Prepare the way of the Lord,
   make his paths straight” ’, 

⁴John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. ⁵And people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him, and were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.⁶Now John was clothed with camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. ⁷He proclaimed, ‘The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals. ⁸I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.’ 9 In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. ¹⁰And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. ¹¹And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.’

 

Transcript

 

Over the last few weeks I have been engaged in a new online activity.  I am becoming familiar with the ins and outs of social networking.  I’ve set myself up on Facebook, a web service that allows me to upload pictures and information about myself, tell people what I am doing at any given moment in the course of my day – or what I am getting ready to do if I am leaving the house – and basically keep people informed about what is going on in my life.  I was able to let folks know of events in the church family in December as well as last week, and I also told people that we were in Virginia Beach welcoming the New Year in with Leslie’s family. 

 

The neat thing about the site is that I have been able to connect with people that in truth I didn’t ever expect to reconnect with for the rest of my life – childhood friends from Chile, classmates from middle school, high school, and college, a few people from seminary … it’s been a wonderful experience, both of Leslie’s brothers refer to it as ‘Crackbook’, because it is addictive … and it CAN be … there was a comment from a friend of Leslie’s from seminary who posted, “I detect a pattern:  why is it that when I have laundry to do I always stop and say, “just let me check in on Facebook for just a COUPLE of minutes …”

 

But it has opened up what was a world that was only in my memory and has turned it into not just a virtual reality, but an ACTUAL reality – people post pictures minutes after they’ve taken them.  I’m seeing the daughter of one of my fellow MK’s who is now 16 and a junior in high school, who the last time I saw her was MAYBE 3 or 4 …

 

It has made it necessary for us all in some ways to reintroduce ourselves to each other.  We know who we were back then, and depending on how far back you go, the who you were wasn’t quite formed, or was in the process of forming.  I’m not saying I’m done forming, please!  But it has been enlivening, it has been in some ways worrying – to see how some people are struggling, but in other ways it has been encouraging and rewarding to watch and see how well people are handling their lives. 

 

So what does that have to do with Mark, you ask? 

 

The Gospels each, as I mentioned last week, endeavor to introduce Jesus Christ as the Messiah.  In some cases to a Jewish community, in other cases to a Hellenistic, a Greek community, in other cases to a mixed community.  And the way they are each presenting their stories is tailored to their audience. 

 

We find in Mark’s gospel particularly – actually this characterizes the entirety of the Gospel – it is spare.  It is not excessively wordy.  It packs all the necessary information into just a few words.  What is interesting is that Mark completely skips the birth narrative.  There is no Christmas story in Mark.  But there is, right there at the beginning, the baptism story.  Matthew and Luke are the only Gospels that include the Christmas story, but all four Gospels, AND Romans AND Acts include the Baptism of Christ.  It makes you think that maybe the early church viewed the baptism of Christ as maybe a little more significant than the birth. 

 

What is it that happens at OUR baptism?  What do we say? We are baptized into a family of faith – or words to that effect.  We are baptized into becoming a new creation – we are buried in death, raised to new life.  Is that what was going on with Jesus?  After all, he WAS God incarnate.  He was one that probably didn’t need to be baptized for his sins, first of all, and second, didn’t need to be baptized into new life in himself, that would have been kind of redundant. 

 

It poses an interesting question.  It was a signal event in the ministry of Christ.  It was a proclamation, on John’s part, of who Jesus was. 

 

The fact that John is included in each of the Gospels as well, as part of the baptism story echoes the tradition of prophetic foretelling – prophetic presentations of the word of God.  Prophets in the Old Testament, if we read, ‘The word of God came to Moses, came to Jeremiah, came to Ezekiel…’  John had the distinct privilege of being present when the Word of God came to him in the flesh.  And through that event came to all of us. 

 

(Long pause – then, a deep breathe, a sigh, and to Leslie: “I’m going to jump … it’s okay (heeheehee)” (here’s where I really didn’t know what was going to come out next) … and stepping down from the pulpit onto the floor)

 

When I was first … there have been cases where someone has approached me about being baptized, and I’ve agreed to talk with them about what it means, what is involved, what it means for that person.  By and large those conversations have uncovered an understanding of baptism that is relatively clear, that it is a statement of faith, that it is a point beyond which one has agreed to be associated, if that is a mild enough word, to be related to Jesus Christ.  There have been a few instances where those conversations have begun and it has become fairly clear that the understanding is that the baptism is viewed more as a … more as a thing where it is “Let’s get this over with so I can be saved and I can get on with my life,” regardless of what the baptism means, what the story of the gospel means.  If we take our example from Christ, baptism initiates us into a life of faith that involves hardship, and struggle, and journey, and suffering for God’s sake.  

 

If we view baptism as a ticket to heaven, I think we may be a little off base.  In agreeing to baptism we agree to whatever God has for us.  WHATEVER God has for us, whether it is facing the trials of the mission field, whether it is facing persecution, whether it is facing the ridicule of family or the trial of chronic illness; there are no guarantees that our life will be, in the earthly sense any easier when we choose to follow Christ.  

 

I think that’s what the Gospels and Mark in particular – in leaving his ending open-ended (we’ll get to that later) – but there is a … there is a way in which Mark presents the story of Jesus that is almost staccato – it’s almost like “and then he did this, and then he did THIS, and then THIS happened, and then they went HERE,” and it builds to a final face-off with the ruling authorities. 

 

Did you all see the marquis at that Baptist church across from Hardee’s in town?  They just changed it in the last couple of days.  I drove by it yesterday, and read it for the first time.  It says “If you got paid for being a Christian, would you starve?”  And that got me to thinking.  How well off WOULD we live if we got paid for living like a Christian? 

 

I have to confess, there might be weeks when we might be eating beans.  And there would be other weeks when, gloriously, we would have … chicken.    J

 

This Sunday in the lectionary is the Baptism of Christ, of course.  I would invite us all to reflect on our own baptism, in whatever form it was, and how that baptism speaks to our life of faith today. 

 

If we live in the reality that that statement made a difference in how we carry on our lives on a daily basis, or if it was an event that is marked on a calendar and is left there. 

 

You hear me say this again and again.  The Gospel is something that we do not simply state, that we do not simply SPEAK, but that we LIVE, that we put into practice every time we walk out our door, every time we get out of bed, every time we speak to our children or our spouses, or our friends and relatives, or strangers.  It MAKES A DIFFERENCE.

 

Let’s pray. 

 

For lifting us out of the waters of baptism, we give you thanks O God,

For plunging us under them as well, for offering us new life, for offering us fullness of life through your son.  We ask, O God, that that fullness would be constantly renewed constantly lived out.  Lord we ask you to walk alongside, to be in us, to change us to your image, to your likeness.  Lord make us slaves to your Spirit.  Through him who gave his. 

Amen.    

 

Manuscript

 

This is what I had put down the night before …

 

Over the last few weeks I have been engaged in a new online activity.  I am becoming familiar with the ins and outs of social networking.  I’ve set myself up on Facebook, a web service that allows me to upload pictures and information about myself, tell people what I am doing at any given moment in the course of my day – or what I am getting ready to do if I am leaving the house – and basically keep people informed about what is going on in my life.  I was able to let folks know of events in the church family in December as well as last week, and I also told people that we were in Virginia Beach welcoming the New Year in with Leslie’s family. 

 

The neat thing about the site is that I have been able to connect with people that in truth I didn’t ever expect to reconnect with for the rest of my life – childhood friends from Chile, classmates from middle school, high school, and college, a few people from seminary … it’s been a wonderful experience, but it has required me to reintroduce myself to them, to some degree, depending on how much time has passed since we last communicated… in some cases, I am a totally different person from the one they knew.  It’s been an interesting exercise in discovering how I want to present myself – introduce myself – to people who are in many ways more like new acquaintances than old ones … since our initial contact was from a time when neither one of us had formed much of an idea of who we each were …

 

This morning we are continuing the thread from last week – about introductions. 

 

We find in Mark’s Gospel an introduction that is spare, but that packs all the necessary information into a few words… why do you think it was so important for Mark and Luke to include John so early in the story?  Matthew does as well, after slogging through the genealogy of Jesus and the story of the birth and the wise men… Luke also, after going through the birth narrative, along with the story of Jesus’ visit to the temple when he was 12, includes John in the introduction of the Gospel – ALL the Gospels include John – he is an integral part of the story because he was the one who baptized Jesus.  He was the one who first proclaimed that Jesus was the Messiah.  He was the voice crying in the wilderness … out of sync, out on the fringes of acceptable society, out – just OUT. 

 

So why, do you think, was it so important for ALL the Gospel writers, along with Paul in writing to the Romans, and Luke, writing again in Acts, to relate the story of Christ’s baptism? 

 

Was it to make a point that Jesus was Baptist? 

 

I don’t think so. 

 

Was it to elevate the importance of John as a prophet? 

 

I don’t think that either. 

 

What was it then?  Why is the story of Jesus’ baptism in all four gospels and two additional epistles, when the BIRTH story – the telling of Jesus’ BIRTH ITSELF, is only found in Matthew and Luke?

 

I think it has to do with definitions – or defining events.  Everyone is born.  In that sense, Jesus was like every other human being on the planet.  The birth story can be “dolled up”, it can be embellished, detailed, described, but it is, after all is said and done, the story of a woman having a baby; actually a pretty routine event, even considering the difficulties surrounding their circumstances. 

 

Not everyone is baptized, or has the heavens torn open, and a dove descending on them while the voice of God is heard to say “this is my son, the beloved, with you I am well pleased.”  It’s just not an everyday occurrence.

 

Remember, the gospel writers were intent on making a point.  Their FIRST goal, over and above all else, was to make people understand that the person they were talking about, the main character in the story, was more than a Galilean carpenter, more than a philosopher, a teacher, a prophet, a healer, and a rebel, he was and is God incarnate. 

 

That was why John the Baptist or John the son of Zechariah, as Luke names him, plays such an integral role in the Gospel narrative.  He is the first to name Jesus as who he was publicly after Simeon and Anna in the temple shortly after his birth.  Mary and Joseph knew at his birth, but they kept it kind of quiet.  He was the one who shouted it, so to speak, from the mountaintops – from the wilderness … he was the one who acknowledged his position before Christ as an example for all of us to follow – in not being worthy to untie the thong of his sandals …

 

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

 

It means that we take John’s lead in recognizing who we are, and in recognizing who Jesus is – but more than simply recognizing, we are called to obedience, and faithfulness, and trust.  You see, if we don’t live out what we say we believe, it’s just words. 

 

Let’s pray. 

 

In the Beginning

 

Sunday, January 4^th, 2009

Christmas 2B

Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA

John 1:1-18

Theme: Getting things right from the start

 

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

⁶There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. ⁷He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him.⁸He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. 

⁹The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. ¹⁰He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. ¹¹He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. ¹²But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, ¹³who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God. ¹⁴And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.

¹⁵(John testified to him and cried out, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks ahead of me because he was before me.’”)¹⁶From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. ¹⁷The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. ¹⁸No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.

 

You only get one chance to make a first impression. 

 

Of the four Gospels, I think John takes the prize for best opening line. 

 

Only Mark’s “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God”, even comes close to having the same impact as John’s opening phrases, compared to Matthew’s stilted but serviceable “An account of the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham” Or Luke’s self-consciously historically framed “Since many have undertaken to set down an orderly account of the events that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed on to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the word, I too decided, after investigating everything carefully from the very first, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, …” 

 

John and Mark, at least in their English translations, convey a sense of the expectation wrapped up in the story of the Gospel from the very beginning. 

 

That is why we read the first passages of John as part of the Advent readings and the Christmas story – because there in those opening words is where we find the majesty that came to us as a baby – it is where we are introduced to the person of God in human flesh – in Jesus Christ. 

 

You see, that is John’s primary focus in writing his account – the good news according to John – of the life of Jesus Christ – is to underscore, to make it clear, in case there were any doubts, as to who exactly Jesus was and is. 

 

So, just as I would introduce someone I knew to you first by name, then by some connection other than that – where they are from, who they might be related to, or what role they play in MY life – either as a relative, a friend, or whomever, John is doing the same thing here for Jesus. 

 

John begins with the BIG picture – REALLY big.  So big, that it goes beyond time – to before time and space even existed, and THAT is where he BEGINS to introduce us to Jesus.  He doesn’t start at the birth of the baby Jesus, but comes out and boldly confesses that Jesus was preexistent, that he was the one through whom all creation came to exist.  If you want to think of it this way, he gives us the biggest pill to swallow FIRST.  Once we get that one down, we’re good – we’re ready – for the rest of the story.

 

Then he begins to make earthly connections. 

 

Jarringly, he interrupts the introduction of the Trinitarian Christ, the second person of the trinity, to mention John the Baptist.  It seems a LITTLE out of place, if you bracket out verses 6-8, there is an uninterrupted continuity between verses 5 and 9; the same theme, light, the same thrust – that it is an enduring light, not a temporary or fleeting light – and from one phrase to the next he connects that light with Christ.  He again makes this elemental connection – one that can be conceptualized in so many ways – between creation and Jesus. 

 

He even injects, in these opening sentences, a hint of what was to come at the end of Jesus’ earthly life.  Indeed, it was to be the rule, rather than the exception, for people to NOT recognize Jesus for who he was.

 

And it is at THAT point, where people DO recognize him for who he is, that the Gospel message begins to come through:          

 

¹²But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, ¹³who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God. 

 

That is where he makes the connection between Christ and ANYONE with whom he comes in contact.  He offers a reason to get to know him better, to spend time with him, to learn from him; not just his teachings, or his sayings, or his philosophy, though those are certainly worth learning and knowing, but even more than any of that, John offers us a reason to understand the LIFE of Christ – and I don’t mean just the one he LIVED while he was here on earth, but the one that is possible for him to live THROUGH US.

 

There is nothing about John that is shy, hesitant, or … reluctant in proclaiming Christ.  He lays it out for us and for all to see and know up front. 

 

So here’s the rub.  We live in a rational era.  Our society, our current civilization by and large is founded primarily on the idea that reason is foundational for all human interaction.  It is what allows warring factions to eventually come to cease fire agreements.  Even now it is what is being called for by the United Nations Security Council in light of the horrors that are occurring in the Gaza Strip at the hands of Israeli airplanes and in Southern Israel at the hands of Hamas militants with missile batteries.  It is what allows for peaceful transitions of power, it is what allows for commerce between cultures that are diametrically opposed in some fundamental ways – so much so that for people from one culture to live in the other they must be sequestered – kept apart from the general population of that other country – for fear of contamination or influence.  Reason and rationality are what allow us to live in a society where we can practice religions freely – or live apart from them freely as well. 

 

The rub is that in light of those things, to proclaim a God who became human and lived among us and who was crucified and killed, buried and rose from the grave after three days goes against the general tenor of our environment. 

 

How do we reconcile, then, a non-rational event – that is, one that cannot be readily explained or even after extensive study and thought, understood by the human mind and a rational existence? 

 

I don’t have a quick answer to that question.  I’m not sure I even have a slow answer to it.  I suppose if I had to give something in the form of an answer, I would have to say that that is where faith comes in.  That is where the mystical aspect of our faith steps in and provides us with that glimmer of certainty – not necessarily an overwhelming, all-encompassing knowledge that this is true, though it MAY present itself to us in that way on occasion,  but maybe just that little glimmer that plants that hope in us that we talk about salvation. 

 

You see, God made our minds the way they are.  In orthodox Christianity we have to stop and qualify that by stating that, though they are made by God, they have been altered, damaged, if you will, by the presence of sin in our lives, but in the fundamental aspect of purpose, in being beings who are curious, who are intent on figuring out why the world around us is the way it is, why processes happen the way they do, why plants grow where and how they do, how rock formations form, how the ocean currents interact with the atmosphere and what that means for weather patterns, or how our industrial products – both finished and byproducts – affect the environment in which we live, that curiosity is a part of our DNA … we’ve been to one degree or another, wired that way.  So that rationality is part of who we were created to BE. 

 

Please notice that I said that it is PART of who we were created to be – because we are not purely rational beings.  We are also capable of dreaming and imagining things that are fantastic – that are beyond the reality that we can see with our eyes or touch with our hands.  And it is through that imagination – through that ability to conceive of that which we cannot see that I believe God touches us in ways that are profound in different ways than all the already-profound ways God calls us through our senses – through the beauty of a sunset, or the wonder of a starlit nighttime sky.           

 

What does this mean for Jerusalem Baptist Church at Emmerton, on the first Sunday of 2009? 

 

In part, it means that we remember who it is we are introducing people to when we meet them for the first time.  We are not simply introducing ourselves, but we are also introducing them to the Christ who dwells in us – to the one who created us and who has chosen to live through us and make us Children of God.     

 

In part. 

 

The other part is one that we figure out individually.  It is one that cannot be stated clearly from up there (at the pulpit), because it is one that speaks from each of our individual experiences, and how our individual lives have connected to God and how God has connected to us.  It’s the incredible variety that God is capable of, and of God’s taking the individual threads that are our lives and weaving them into this beautiful tapestry that is the church. 

 

I would invite you, as we step into this year, to eagerly search for how it is God wants to be introduced to the world through you. 

 

A pointer that comes to mind, but that is not definitive, is to let that be from your place of deepest joy, because I think that it’s through our joy that God speaks most clearly.  It is in what puts a light in our eyes that people can see Christ reflected.     

 

Let’s pray.