Covenants

Sunday, March 29th, 2009
Lent 5B
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA
Jeremiah 31:31-34
Theme: The Old and New Covenants between God and God’s people

“31 The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. 32It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt—a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the Lord. 33But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 34No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, ‘Know the Lord’, for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.”

The main thing I appreciate about contemporary praise music is the degree to which it lifts texts straight from scripture and puts it to music and makes it accessible to people like me who are otherwise memorizationally challenged. Hymns do that to a degree, but they carry more theology in them. Praise songs allow us to ‘breathe in’ the words directly, with little or no commentary in SOME cases.

The first time I heard the words of these four verses and they STUCK was the first time my family and I visited Third Baptist Church of Santiago, shortly after we moved there at the end of 1974. It would become our home church for the remainder of my time in Chile. The words stuck because they had been put to the music of a praise song that we sang during the first part of the service. Santiago was ‘the big city’, and much more up to date in the songs that were sung in churches compared to the ones we sang out in the outlying areas. I still remember being electrified by hearing the tune and the guitar strumming and the voices being lifted together in song. Ever since then, whether I read the words in English or Spanish, that song begins to play in my head. It has, in the same sense that the text speaks, been written on my heart.

Let me give a little context to the time and place when these words were written. It is during or shortly after 587 BC. Jerusalem has just been sacked and destroyed by the Babylonians. The mass transfer of survivors from Israel to Babylon has not quite begun. Jeremiah, who has dedicated his life to bringing God’s word to God’s people, is surrounded by the rubble and destruction of all that he held dear – except his relationship with God.
In the midst of that wandering, in the face of the desolation that was before the prophet and the people of Israel, God sends God’s word: and it is, in essence, this: “some day it won’t matter what the place is, or how the temple looks, because my relationship with you won’t depend on where you are or on what you bring. YOU will KNOW in your HEART that I AM YOUR GOD, and nothing can destroy THAT relationship – not even sin, because I will have forgiven it!”

To us, as Christians, to hear those words is … to hear the essence of the Gospel, and in that sense, they are nothing new, because we know, as followers of Christ, that our sins HAVE been forgiven, we know that the relationship we have with God DOESN’T depend on where our building is or on what it looks like, because we UNDERSTAND that to begin with, God calls us into an individual relationship – within a corporate context, but to a necessary degree, initially there HAS to be some sense of individual forgiveness of sins WE individually have committed – and THROUGH that forgiveness our relationship with God has been reestablished.

This passage has been called ‘The Gospel before the Gospel’; it is the earliest and closest approach to the New Testament faith in the Old Testament.

Four times in the four verses we read “says the Lord”. While the translation is correct, the literal translation is ‘whisper of Yahweh’. I love what that does to the picture I have of Jeremiah struggling over the rubble of the temple and looking out over the smoking ruins of Jerusalem and hearing the voice of God. We have these images, especially from the Hebrew Scriptures, courtesy of ‘The Ten Commandments’, of God either speaking in a booming voice from a cloud or a pillar of fire, or carving words into stone tablets with lightning bolts to communicate with the people of Israel. How often do we get to think in terms of a whisper from God communicating something completely new, something radically different?

When you whisper to someone, do you do it from across the field, or the park, or the street, or the room? No, you do it when you are right up next to them – a whisper is one of the most intimate manners of communication we USE. It is THE most personal form of conversation. And in the original Hebrew, God is using it with Jeremiah!

It was completely new and radically different because the old way, the old covenant, had collapsed because the people of Israel had – not occasionally or sporadically – but persistently broken it. As one scholar has put it, the covenant had been made with the nation, and the nation had crashed on the rock of God’s law. So the question arose: how can a holy God maintain a relationship with a sinful people?

The answer comes in the concept of a new covenant, guaranteed against failure.

This new covenant is a blend of the old and the new. In the same way as the old, it is still based on the Law of Moses – the Torah – and it will still be for the house of Israel, but it will transcend the national entity – it will broaden the scope of who belongs to the house of Israel. The individual becomes the focus of the covenant – but never apart from the group. Rugged individualism in religion is not biblical.

In a new way, this new covenant is radically different from the old: old covenants were made, this covenant is promised. To make a covenant in the old sense is more along the lines of making a business contract – with stipulations, and articles, and points, addendums, what have you … to make a covenant in the form of a promise raises the stakes immeasurably. It PERSONALIZES the agreement in a way that the old covenants never did, though they intended to.

What the new covenant DOES do is it creates a new person through a new divine deed; God will now write God’s law – the revelation of God’s order for Life for God’s people – not on tablets of stone, but on the heart – the inner being of the individual.

This is radically different from what was before – God will put God’s will straight into our hearts, so that the necessity of communication through external methods – sacrifices and offerings – is bypassed.

You see, in this new relationship, humanity is brought back into relationship with God. But we need to understand, in Jeremiah’s context, what HE meant when HE said ‘to KNOW God’. One can know the law in a formal sense and not know God. To know God one must refrain from wrongdoing and practice righteousness, justice, and love. To know God, one must have a pure and regenerate heart that turns to God in loyal obedience. To KNOW God is not a formal affair, but a direct, dynamic, intimate, personal fellowship with God which controls the course of one’s life. This doesn’t come through liturgy or ceremonies, but through contact – through communion in the relational sense of the word – through hearing the whispers that God is speaking to us.

What does this mean for Jerusalem Baptist Church at Emmerton?

It means that our task, our calling, our invitation, is to live in a relationship, not a religion. What we as followers of Christ have the opportunity to do as witnesses TO that relationship is to extend the … range … the scope of it. When we offer a helping hand, an encouraging word, a gentle offer of reconciliation in the name of Christ, we are, in effect, introducing someone to the one who has reconciled us to God. The downside to that is that when we DON’T, we are in effect perpetuating the Old Testament concept of meeting the requirements of the Law in order to gain righteousness, which has, as God God’s self recognized, required this new way to be provided – through the life and sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

Let’s pray.

This is the Judgment

 

Sunday, March 22^nd, 2009

Lent 4B

Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA

John 3:14-21

Theme: Do we love the light of the world more than we love the darkness of it?

 

“¹⁴And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, ¹⁵that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. ¹⁶“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. ¹⁷“Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. ¹⁸Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God. ¹⁹And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. ²⁰For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed. ²¹But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God.”

 

If I were to ask for a show of hands from anyone here who over the last week committed a random act of kindness – something relatively minor, nothing extravagant or sensational, how many would, perhaps reluctantly, but with some sense of justified humility, just kind of briefly be willing to raise their hand for just an instant … maybe just one of those passing motions of the hand that could be taken as simply adjusting your sleeve if you didn’t want the person near you to realize that you were in fact raising your hand …

 

On the other hand, if I were to ask for a show of hands from those of us here who at some point over the last week committed an act of which we are … ashamed – something, again, that might not seem to be such a big deal, but which we nevertheless recognize as being out of the bounds of behavior that would characterize someone who claims to be a follower of Christ, something we KNOW goes against the grain of what it means to be a Christian, something that tears at our souls and undoes the healing that God’s Holy Spirit has wrought in our lives.    

 

This darkness and light business tends to get under your skin.  Especially when you really take a REALLY CLOSE look at yourself, at your thoughts, your motivations, at your use of time and resources.  

 

To read in today’s passage what was probably the first verse of scripture many if not all of us memorized, and hear it echo down the halls of memories of Sunday School classes and Bible Sword Drills, and feel the bedrock foundation that it is for our faith in so many ways, and then to go on to read the equally inspiring words that “God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him” and absorb the comfort and assurance found there, but just one verse further down to come to these words:

 

“And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. ²⁰For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed.”

 

That one just kind of leaves us hanging, doesn’t it?  If we are honest with ourselves, if we examine our hearts, our thoughts, in our deepest moments, we seem to always be able to come up with something that we would really rather not be brought out in public, we’d really rather it just be kept between you, me, and the fencepost.  If that is where we were to stop reading, we would get a pretty pessimistic view of scripture, especially something that started so beautifully!  

 

But thankfully, that is not where the text ends.  It goes on.    

 

²¹But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God.

 

It is an interesting turn of phrase – ‘done in God’.  It isn’t ‘done FOR God’, or ‘in front of God’ or ‘so that God could take note.’  Nope.  It’s a much more integrated idea – doing something ‘in’ God means that what is being done is both by and THROUGH God, not in any way apart from or outside of God. 

 

You see, God is more than just an observer in our lives.  God is more than a scorekeeper. 

 

God is our advocate, our defender, our … redeemer!      

 

And that doesn’t change from one end of the text this morning to the other.  

 

What did verse 17 say? 

 

“God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”

 

Yes, there is an acknowledgment of being fallen, frail creatures of dust and in need of the saving work of Jesus Christ.  We are not only reminded of that with the imposition of ashes at the beginning of the Season of Lent, but on a regular basis by our own self-understanding, our own self-awareness, our own conscience, in light of our actions, or lack of action, our thoughts, our motivations, our omissions. 

 

But there is at the same time a recognition that God’s completing work to remedy that situation has been done, has been accomplished in the person and sacrifice of Jesus Christ, because it is not just the sacrifice that we are talking about as Christians.  Yes, we DO recognize it, we DO acknowledge it: the pain, the suffering, the humiliation, the innocence of the lamb prepared for slaughter… that is what Lent is all about; the fact that the one who bore the punishment in our place was not the one who was guilty of the sin that required that punishment, WE were.  WE were the ones that should, by rights, be crucified in whatever form that takes in this day and age… incarceration, flagellation, exile or execution. 

 

We all have our own forms of crucifixion that we’ve come up with.  We all, in some way, find a way to punish ourselves for something we’ve done or failed to do.  It can more often than not be through silent suffering – “if I put myself through this and don’t tell anyone, maybe that will make it right” – or maybe it is a more direct result of choices we make.  In many cases, decisions, choices we make end up hurting not only us but the ones we most love who are around us … in any case, what that suffering does can be significant for us in two ways.  It can beat us down, or it can build us up. 

 

Bearing suffering for Christ’s sake and for the Gospel is one form of suffering that would be in our favor … it is something that, while we don’t WISH it ON anyone or FOR anyone, there is value in being persecuted for righteousness’ sake.  It centers us down into what we truly believe and why.  It clarifies for us the reason we adhere to something – it bonds us, if you will, to the one who suffered in OUR place. 

 

The other type of punishment is … not quite so … fruitful… not quite so productive.  It is punishment brought on, if you will, in a justified way.  We make choices, we reap the consequences.  We choose selfishly, we choose irresponsibly, we choose unforgivingly or out of spite, and the consequences play themselves out in such a way that we reap those ‘rewards’ in the form of broken relationships, broken trust, lost friendships and distanced relatives and neighbors.  And we wonder why we are surrounded by pain and heartache, when all along we are at the center of the ring of concentric circles widening out.          

 

What does this mean for Jerusalem Baptist Church at Emmerton?

 

It means that our task, our mission, our calling, is pretty simple, but incredibly profound.  It is demanding – more demanding than anything – ANYTHING else we’ve ever attempted in our lives, but it is at the same time the easiest to do, because it is not PURELY dependent on us for it’s completion – it doesn’t depend on our strength, our faithfulness, our dedication, our givenness to the task – all those things help, but they are not central to the task.  What IS central to the task is our surrender.  In some ways, it is surrendering to the best part first and last: to the fact of being forgiven.  As people of faith, as people WITH a conscience, we carry a load.  We carry a sense of responsibility, a sense of duty, of weight about us that has to do with being better than we are, of doing more than what we’re doing, of loving more, of laughing more, of being present more, knowing what to say, knowing HOW to love when in many ways we are ourselves struggling with the concept of how to love ourselves, much less someone else.  So our struggle from the beginning is with being able to accept the forgiveness that   we   do   not    deserve.  

 

Reaching that point in our pilgrimage will hopefully free us from our own stone-blocked graves and lead us into glorious paths along which we can live out that forgiveness towards others in our lives – parents, siblings, relatives, friends, business associates, whoever it is who has wronged us we can not only for their sake, but for our sake as well, put the past behind us and press on to what lies ahead, as Paul writes, so that we may indeed live out this salvation that God has so richly blessed us with.  Let’s pray.     

Foolishness

 

Sunday, March 15^th, 2009

Lent 3B

Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA

1 Corinthians 1:18-31

 

“¹⁸For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. ¹⁹For it is written, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.” ²⁰Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? ²¹For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, God decided, through the foolishness of our proclamation, to save those who believe. ²²For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, ²³but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, ²⁴but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. ²⁵For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength. ²⁶Consider your own call, brothers and sisters: not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. ²⁷But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; ²⁸God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, ²⁹so that no one might boast in the presence of God. ³⁰He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption, ³¹in order that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”

 

I don’t think anyone would accuse Bill Gates, the founder of the Microsoft Corporation, of being less than intelligent.  In fact, it would probably be the contrary that would be said of him: that he is one of the most intelligent men in the world, to say nothing of being one of the richest.  He was in on the very beginning of the computer revolution and he recognized the potential in providing a computer to every home in the country.  He had the ability – or at least the foresight – to envision a reality that was not yet apparent when he and his partner Paul Allen decided to work to create miniature computers that would be accessible to the home user, not massive, room-sized behemoths available only to large institutions and government agencies.  At the time, there must have been a solid number of critics who laughed at the possibility that that would become a reality.  Ken Olsen, President, Chairman, and Founder of Digital Equipment Corporation, that built minicomputers, stated flatly in 1977 that “there is no reason anyone would WANT a minicomputer in their home.”  To put this into perspective, DEC’s minicomputers were miniatures compared with the standard of the day – those room-sized machines that required specialized cooling systems and massive amounts of electricity.  The DEC minicomputers were comparable in size to two and a half refrigerators – truly a space-saving idea.  In his defense, it’s not that Olsen was not aware of personal computers; he just didn’t seem to LIKE them.  He could not, for the life of him, picture one in his OWN home.  So his statement may have had more to do with marketing and building up the demand for HIS product than anything else.    

 

There is an element of foolishness that is inherent in any new and unproven venture.  It comes with the territory.  That is why we so often see inventors portrayed as just a little crazy, just a little off plumb.  People who create something new have to fight the prevailing current CONSTANTLY.  They have to stand against all those around them who say “it’ll never work”, or “it’s never been done that way before.” 

 

It is really not that different when it comes to faith, to living it out and applying it to the way we live our lives.  William Willimon, a United Methodist Bishop and former Dean of the Chapel at Duke University, wrote in an article in ‘The Christian Century’ in 1982 that the point at which we should begin to worry as Christians is when the absurd starts to sound reasonable.  He goes on,

 

“Blessed are the meek. . . .”  “Thou shalt not kill.” “Love your enemies.” “Go, sell all you have and give to the poor.” Be honest now. Blessed are the meek? Try being meek tomorrow at work and see how far you get. Meekness is fine for church, but in the real world the meek get to go home early with a pink slip and a pat on the back. Blessed are those who are peacemakers; they shall get done to them what they are loath to do to others. Blessed are the merciful; they shall get it done to them a second time. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake; they shall be called fanatics.”          

Willimon makes the point that people get away with saying things on Sunday mornings that wouldn’t be entertained for a moment in the real world of Monday morning.  He asks the question “Is the world more like Sunday morning or Monday morning?” 

 

In other words, is what goes on here on Sunday mornings applicable to life as it IS on Mondays (or Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays … the rest of the week) as well? 

 

A friend of ours from Seminary began his faith journey as a Baptist, and as he has walked on his own pilgrimage, he is now a priest in the Eastern Orthodox Church.  I reconnected with him a few weeks ago, and browsed his church’s website, and as would seem necessary, especially here in the United States, there is a good bit of material there introducing and explaining just what the Eastern Orthodox Church IS.  The way it BEGINS to do that is by stating most emphatically what it is NOT.  I won’t quote directly from the text that is there, but the gist of the message is that it is not ‘the latest’, ‘the newest’, ‘the most popular’ … in short, it is not in the business of attracting the world on the world’s terms, but it IS in the business of presenting a vision of Christ to the world that the world would, by default, find anachronistic – out of place, literally, out of its chronological order. 

 

I was struck by that.  In today’s world, especially so in today’s American Christianity, it is the norm, it is the expectation that we worry about being relevant.  We debate over how best to present the message of Christ in a way that the world will understand it.  That has resulted in a not-entirely American phenomenon, though I would venture to say that the initial concept did come from here:  the mega church.  In an age of mass-marketing and size-matters mentality (bigger is obviously better), we have not only here but in fact around the world churches that are made up of thousands and thousands of members.  Lakewood Church in Dallas is one, Saddleback Community Church is another, Willow Creek Community Church outside Chicago is another.  But five of the ten largest mega churches are not in the United States, they are in South Korea.  The largest, Yoido Full Gospel Church, has, as of a couple of years ago, 830,000 members, and was growing at a rate of around 3,000 members a week.  At that rate, it’s current membership may well be over a million members.  It is truly hard to fit that into my brain.  We have friends who served as Missionaries and as Journeymen in Korea, and the stories they tell us of the faithfulness, the devotion and the fervor of the Christians of South Korea would put us to shame.  

 

The point of our friend’s church’s website and explanation was this:  if that is what you are looking for, don’t expect to find it here.  If you are looking for tradition that can be traced back to the earliest churches in Palestine and throughout the Middle East, if you are looking for an expression of the Gospel that intentionally lives a counter-cultural life based on BEING indifferent to the prevailing culture, then we may be what you are looking for.           

 

That actually sounded very appealing to me.  That clarity of being able to say “if you are looking for something in here that you can observe for a couple of weeks and then plug into because you’ve seen how it is done ‘OUT THERE’, you’re not going to find it – the boldness of that statement, the way they unapologetically stated that they are about NOT conforming to the world struck a deep chord in me.  Don’t worry; I don’t plan on becoming an Eastern Orthodox priest anytime soon.  I like the robe, but I like it simple.  And incense gives me a headache.  (Just kidding.) 

 

But that is the same point that Paul is making in his letter to the Corinthians.  What we preach, what we believe, what we live in the hope of and in wait of is a reality that is foolishness to the world.  Love your enemies?  Pray for those who persecute you?  If a man hits you on one cheek, offer him the other?  That is not, and I will be bold enough to say, nor will it ever be, the way to get ahead in the world – on the world’s terms. 

 

The nice thing about this is, we don’t live by the world’s rules any more, once we choose to follow Christ.  That decision to become a Christ-follower begins a process of renewal, of replacing the old with the new, of re-learning what life is all about. 

 

What does this mean for Jerusalem Baptist Church at Emmerton? 

 

It means that we remind ourselves that it is a conscious decision, a deliberate choice made to turn our backs on what the world would have us do and say, while at the same time remain face-to-face WITH that same world, always keeping the door open, keeping the conversations going, always sharing the love, the kindness, the generosity, of the life of Christ, that calls to the world THROUGH us to draw people to him. 

Let’s pray.     

Take up Their Cross

 

Sunday, March 8^th, 2009

Lent 2B

Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA

Mark 8:31-38

Theme: Living a life of sacrifice

 

“³¹Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. ³²He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. ³³But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”  ³⁴He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. ³⁵For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. ³⁶For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? ³⁷Indeed, what can they give in return for their life? ³⁸Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.”

 

I believe that we as humans are, with a few exceptions, optimistic beings.  We have to be, in order to go about the business of everyday life, engaging in relationships, planning for the future, scheduling appointments, activities, events, our LIVES …

 

That is why there is something fundamentally jarring about receiving news to the contrary of those plans – news that a loved one is going to die, or that a special event has been cancelled, or that the expected schedule of the day or of the week has been dramatically rearranged.  We experienced some of that this week with the snowstorm and cancellation of school and other activities throughout our community. 

 

If you are sitting with a loved one who receives a diagnosis that spells out that in a certain amount of time, the chances of their living beyond that timeframe is unlikely, your mind begins to play through a whole series of scenarios.  Multiple possibilities – all laden with hope, with an intrinsically optimistic notion that this might be the exception to the rule.  It establishes the constant backdrop of ‘but it might not happen to … THIS person’. 

 

And depending on how the diagnosis plays itself out, with greater or lesser speed, with more or less effect on the life of the person involved and those who surround them, that hope, that optimism will reinstate itself repeatedly.  And it is all the more present when one feels deeply for the person involved. 

 

I can only imagine that that must have been what prompted Peter’s response to Jesus’ beginning to teach him and the other disciples that he was going to undergo great suffering, that he was going to be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and that he was going to be killed.  I’m pretty sure that if I had been following Jesus around for nearly three years, had been listening to him preach and teach, had watched how he dealt with people, and with powerful people especially, if I had heard those words come out of his mouth, I would have stopped listening at ‘killed’, and completely missed the ‘and after three days rise again’ part. 

 

And yet, we need to step back from identifying so closely with Peter for a minute.  For all the good intentions that he most definitely had, Jesus’ response to PETER is one that puts in stark perspective the choices that we are faced with not just at momentous occasions in our lives, but throughout the day, in seemingly inconsequential decisions we make that color our perspective and lull us into an illusion of comfort and safety that is simply not to be expected as followers of Christ. 

 

We’ve heard it before.  Peter’s telling Christ ‘This talk of you being killed is nonsense, you are destined to lead Israel back to it’s former glory as in the days of King David’ uncovers for us that, even this late in his ministry, the disciples had not yet grasped the fact that Christ’s Kingdom was of the now and not yet variety, not the here, beginning as soon as we kick the (Romans, Assyrians, Greeks, Egyptians, Babylonians, Communists, Secular Humanists, Protestants, Catholics, Democrats, Republicans, Liberals, Fundamentalists) out.  The inclination to set ourselves against those with whom we might disagree on one level of existence and call THEM the enemy and wish THEM to fail is easy, expedient, and usually clearly definable; much more so than naming and defining something WITHIN OURSELVES as just as corrosive, just as lethal, just as anti-Christlike as anything we would find OUTSIDE ourselves might be. 

You see, Jesus was not just ticked off at Peter’s assumption that he was going to transform, just as he had a short while before, from an itinerant preacher, travelling from town to town, talking to people and healing them of their sicknesses both physical and spiritual, into some phenomenal military and political leader, able to rally the forces of a pitiful little backwater outpost to defeat a world power, but I think he was as upset at the fact that those were the only terms in which Peter understood what power – even transformative power – was. 

 

We can become so locked into this physical worldview, the one that tells us that power equals might.  That the ability to crush the enemy is the only way to understand what it means to hold – and wield – power.  We live in a world that is built solely on that premise.  With a few notable exceptions, exceptions that could be counted on one hand, our history is one of conflict and bloodshed based on the premise that the one who dies loses.  Christ tells us there is another way: the way of suffering. 

 

There is no indication in scripture that the suffering was to ONLY be borne by Jesus.  While it was his and his alone to go to the cross, his affirmation that we are to be prepared to suffer as he did, with a purpose and an end in sight, is one that we need to take to heart not only individually, but as a community as well.      

 

Jason Patrick, Pastor at Menokin Baptist Church, opened his message this morning with these words:   

 

“Mark Twain, a better theologian than most give him credit for, once remarked concerning the Bible, “Many people are troubled by those passages of Scripture that they cannot understand, but as for me, I always noticed that the passages in Scripture that trouble me the most are those that I do understand.” The hard or difficult words of Jesus Christ do not perplex us because we do not understand them but because we do understand them and we find them so difficult to follow and obey.”     

 

Why would it be so difficult for us to follow these words of Jesus?  Why do we NOT take his words to heart and apply them to our lives?  Just as Christ’s suffering birthed the church, this community of faith charged with living out his life and breaking in his Kingdom on earth, so our suffering must be centered on creating … on extending, on introducing and inviting others to become a part of this body, made up of flawed, sinful people who are in the process of being redeemed through the suffering of the one who called each of us by name, who knows us and loves us despite those flaws and those sins, and who calls us to change.

 

What does this mean for Jerusalem Baptist Church at Emmerton?

 

Jesus’ rebuke of Peter had more to do with knocking some sense into Peter than with exposing and rejecting him for speaking what are ultimately satanic words about the destiny of Christ.  Jesus didn’t kick Peter out of the band of disciples for what he said.  He kept him in and kept teaching, kept communicating to him, kept that connection between them that ultimately resulted in the transformation of Peter into the fearless miracle worker we read of in Acts.  Peter allowed Christ to radically redefine his life.

 

Following Christ means allowing him to radically redefine for us here at Jerusalem what life – TRUE life – really is.  It is not about acquiring wealth and being comfortable, it is not about having the security that we will be here tomorrow, much less in a year or two years.  Following Christ redefines security in terms of what redemption brings – a sure and certain hope that we will be in the presence of Christ no matter what happens to us.  While Jesus redefines life for us, he also gives us the freedom to interpret that true life into real and tangible ways that WE can grasp, that WE can understand, that WE can engage and act on.

 

Jason gave another illustration:  

 

Mother Teresa heard of a family whose nine members were starving to death. She hurriedly obtained some rice and went to the family, giving them enough rice to prepare a meal. But the woman divided the rice into two piles, placed one in a bag and started to leave. Mother Teresa asked where she was going. The woman said she was going to visit another family who she knew was starving also. This starving woman, who was likely a Hindu, is a much better follower of Jesus Christ than I am—and I am so brave to say, a much better follower of Christ than are most people sitting in church pews at this very moment. God sent His only Son into the world because there is something drastically wrong with the world. There is something very wrong about the fact that we can eat three meals a day and not feel and act upon the conviction that people are starving.     

 

So what does our cross look like?  What form does our particular charge, our specific responsibility take today?  And will we bear it as faithfully as Christ did?

 

Let’s pray.     

Gentleness and Reverence

Sunday, March 1st, 2009
Lent 1B
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA
1 Peter 3:13-22
Theme: Our attitude – Christ’s attitude

“13Now who will harm you if you are eager to do what is good? 14But even if you do suffer for doing what is right, you are blessed. Do not fear what they fear, and do not be intimidated, 15but in your hearts sanctify Christ as Lord. Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you; 16yet do it with gentleness and reverence. Keep your conscience clear, so that, when you are maligned, those who abuse you for your good conduct in Christ may be put to shame. 17For it is better to suffer for doing good, if suffering should be God’s will, than to suffer for doing evil. 18For Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, in order to bring you to God. He was put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit, 19in which also he went and made a proclamation to the spirits in prison, 20who in former times did not obey, when God waited patiently in the days of Noah, during the building of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were saved through water. 21And baptism, which this prefigured, now saves you—not as a removal of dirt from the body, but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, 22who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers made subject to him.”

The concept I grew up with of sharing the Gospel was of one person, the witness, having total command of the situation. There was no question this person couldn’t answer. There was no scripture this person couldn’t quote. There was no obstacle or objection that this person couldn’t overcome.

It was always an intimidating image for me, and it was always way out of my comfort zone. I never felt ready to DO that. As some of you who have seen me in tense situations know, I tend to become flustered or simply quiet down and don’t say ANYTHING, when a situation presents itself and there are strong emotions expressed.
Some time ago there was a situation here at church, and a member asked to speak to me in private. When we sat down together, this person began to speak, and almost immediately was overcome by the depth of the emotions that were being felt, to the point where the voice quavered and the hands shook. The person was able to … move through the emotion and speak what was on their mind in such a way as to get across the point they were trying to make, and in the process I was moved to the point of tears myself – by simply being so aware of the depth of conviction with which this person was speaking.

That is in essence what happens to me when I begin to speak on a subject that is close to my heart when I am unprepared, and in the context of wanting to defend it, or argue about it. I forget to breath, and the lack of oxygen scrambles my thoughts and I’m left either with a blank stare or a silly grin on my face or worse.

So when I read this passage, I tend to focus on the first part of what it says –

Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands
from you an accounting for the hope that is in you;

I stop breathing right there, because that is where that image of the Superchristian fills my head. So, I wonder where that comes from.

Think for a minute about who we are supposed to idolize in our contemporary culture, and to one degree or another, we come up with someone who is a cross between a movie star like Charlton Heston, the president of the United States, a university professor and a brain surgeon. And throw in a heaping tablespoon each of Mother Teresa and Pope John Paul II for good measure. We generally look up to just such a person. Someone who is competent, in control, who can handle the most difficult situations with a cool head and clear thoughts, and who is, in truth, the farthest thing from a real person as there is. We tend to fictionalize the reality and make these people into caricatures – cartoons – of who they really are. And in the process, we set ourselves that much more at a remove from who WE are supposed to be when it comes to being genuine, caring emissaries of Jesus Christ.

Part of the difficulty in this reading is coming to terms with the words into which the Greek has been translated. “be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting” those terms – defense, demands, an accounting – they are not exactly words that conjure up an image of a warm and fuzzy conversation between friends. In truth, the words accurately conveyed the tenor of the confrontations that those early Christians the epistle was written to were facing. The thrust of the message of 1 Peter is to stand strong in the face of persecution. And if the writer had stopped there, we would expect a courtroom style drama to ensue. Lawyers arguing with a witness who puts up a solid front – again, the Superchristian rears his or her head.

But the entreaty to take up that defense does not end there. The next phrase completely changes the image we might have in our minds of what the event might look like.

Yet do it with gentleness and reverence

How many events can we point to where people of different faiths have sat down together to discuss differences or come to some common understanding and have done so with gentleness and reverence?

We look at Bosnia Herzegovina in the early 90’s, and find that the history there was one of oppression and slaughter of the Muslims by the Christian community. We look at the unspeakable genocide that took place in Ruanda in the mid 90’s, and find that it was carried out by people who called themselves followers of Christ. In the Middle East, Muslims and Jews clash and Christians are caught in the crossfire. In Iraq, Sunni and Shi’a Muslims are attacking each other. In predominantly Hindu India, radical Hindus are attacking and killing Christians, to say nothing of being constantly on the brink of all-out war with their Muslim neighbor Pakistan; and in the countries of the former Soviet Union, the resurgent Russian Orthodox Church is supporting the political persecution of Christian religious minorities as well as other faith traditions. And even here, in the United States of America where hooded Protestant Caucasian men by night terrorize Catholic and Jewish neighbors (as well as fellow Protestants of other races), it’s not exactly a blueprint for a peaceful interaction between people of differing faith traditions.

There’s got to be a better way to do it.

Maybe it is Christ's way, according to the writer of the epistle.

The people being written to lived in a time of violence, of suffering due to religious persecution. The writer called upon his community not to bludgeon, not to make war, not even to crusade or convert, but to give a defense, to give an explanation, to make a witness for the hope that is within you and to do it with gentleness and with respect. And he based his call on Christ’s example.

“Keep your conscience clear, so that, when you are maligned, those who abuse you for your good conduct in Christ may be put to shame. 17For it is better to suffer for doing good, if suffering should be God’s will, than to suffer for doing evil. 18For Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, in order to bring you to God. He was put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit,”

So if they – and we – are to take our cue from Jesus, how is it that we are supposed to approach this business of being witnesses for Christ? Our first step is to gain a hearing. But in order to gain a hearing, we must, must, MUST stand for EVERYONE’S freedom to tell THEIR story. That is the only way that WE can then justifiably ask to be heard ourselves.

There was an interfaith conference several years ago where there were a variety of religious leaders present: Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim, Christian and Jew. The degree of politeness in the room was extreme. All any of them wanted to DO was listen. None felt comfortable SPEAKING. Finally, one of them spoke up and stated the obvious: “we must each be willing to TELL our own story, so that the others can receive it.”

And that is our challenge. We DO need to be willing to tell our story, but at the same time we must be prepared to receive another’s story. I would almost say being willing to hear the other story and engage it is the first thing we should be willing to do, because that allows us to enter into a relationship with that person, and entering into relationship gives us entry into each other’s lives, and it is in the sharing of our lives that we then have the opportunity to introduce someone to the life of Christ.

Because remember, we’re not talking about a religion here. We’re talking about a relationship.

What does this mean for Jerusalem Baptist Church at Emmerton?

Christ was never bothered trying to be someone he was not. If we are to follow his example, we must be as open and honest with others as we are with God. We can play at being Superchristians all we want, but I suspect that the people we run into, who have gotten to know us either through our shared history, through shared experiences, or as community-family, will be able to see through to the ‘real’ us pretty easily. So why try to put on a façade when the only people we’d be fooling is ourselves?

It is much more convincing and encouraging to stand next to someone in worship and know that they struggle with the same issues we do, who are just as disappointed by the week’s events as we are, who might be just as lonely, or depressed, or angry about something as we are, but whom we know feels just as strongly the need to come together with a family of faith where they will find, maybe not answers, but strength and courage and encouragement to keep on working out what they believe on any number of things – on God, on Jesus, on sin, on salvation, on baptism, on the bible or on the church.

Finding a place to be able to ask the questions that may not have answers HERE ON EARTH is as important as working towards those answers themselves.

Jerusalem can be and should be and I believe IS the sort of place where we welcome not only the questioners, but the questions; where we offer various points of view, yet can gather in worship, where we understand that we are all, servants of Christ and of each other. Richard Gillard put the thoughts into a beautiful hymn we’ve sung here before, but I would invite you to listen to the words of The Servant Song one more time:

We are travelers on a journey, fellow pilgrims on the road. We are here to help each other walk the mile and bear the load. I will hold the Christ light for you in the nighttime of your fear. I will hold my hand out to you; speak the peace you long to hear.

Sister, let me be your servant let me be as Christ to you; pray that I may have the grace to let you be my servant too. Brother, let me be your servantlet me be as Christ to you; pray that I may have the grace to let you be my servant too.

I will weep when you are weeping, when you laugh, I'll laugh with you.I will share your joy and sorrow, till we've seen this journey through.When we sing to God in heaven, we shall find such harmony, born of all we've know together of Christ's love and agony

Let’s pray.