Shall Flee Away

Sunday, December 12, 2010

Advent 3A

Jerusalem Baptist Church (Emmerton), Warsaw VA

Isaiah 35:1-10

Theme:  The Improbable Good News.

The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad, the desert shall rejoice and blossom; like the crocus ²it shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice with joy and singing. The glory of Lebanon shall be given to it, the majesty of Carmel and Sharon. They shall see the glory of the Lord, the majesty of our God. ³Strengthen the weak hands, and make firm the feeble knees. ⁴Say to those who are of a fearful heart, “Be strong, do not fear! Here is your God. He will come with vengeance, with terrible recompense. He will come and save you.”

⁵Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; ⁶then the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy. For waters shall break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert; ⁷the burning sand shall become a pool, and the thirsty ground springs of water; the haunt of jackals shall become a swamp, the grass shall become reeds and rushes. ⁸A highway shall be there, and it shall be called the Holy Way; the unclean shall not travel on it, but it shall be for God’s people; no traveler, not even fools, shall go astray. ⁹No lion shall be there, nor shall any ravenous beast come up on it; they shall not be found there, but the redeemed shall walk there. ¹⁰And the ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with singing; everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.

Note to the reader:  While I will continue to put manuscripts together, I am going to be trying to step away from them more intentionally.  I will use them as a way to put thoughts down in words as they come to me, and hopefully to organize them as they may need to be.  They may or may not reflect what and how the messages are delivered on Sunday mornings. 

Christmas used to be so simple.  It was about the presents.   Even growing up in a home where the Christmas story was THE Christmas story, where we would wait to open our gifts because first Daddy had to read the passage from Luke and then we would always have a family prayer, even in that context, at least as a boy, IT WAS ABOUT THE PRESENTS. 

I DO remember that, even from a relatively early age, it wasn’t ONLY about what we got, but also about giving.  There were a couple of years as a young teenager when that went by the wayside somewhat, but from what I can remember, it really WAS as important to give as it was to receive.  I would encourage you to check that against the memories of my family, though, as their memories are likely different than mine. 

One thing I do remember, distinctly, and it is something that has persisted to the present day, was the feeling of frustration that came with the business of Christmas – the busy-ness of it.  The sense of near-desperation that came from spending time doing something that I increasingly found distasteful – shopping.  Not just dealing with the crowds, but dealing with the feeling of inadequacy when it came to finding ‘that perfect gift’ for whomever it was I was looking for.  You wanted to find something nice, but … maybe not TOO nice … something that seemed more expensive than it actually was.  You wanted to impress, but not break the bank in the process.  The exception was our Christmas engagement.  But that is just what it was – an exception. 

One exception to this was a couple of Christmases ago when we purposefully gave to an organization – Heifer International – in the name of the kids’ teachers as Christmas gifts – gifts that provided either chickens or goats or some such thing to families in developing countries that would then enable them to … improve their situation – their condition in life. 

But even in that circumstance, the prevailing culture had so insinuated itself into our sense of what Christmas is about that it still felt like something was missing. 

It’s been in the light of that that I’ve realized just how hard it is to swim against the stream.  Especially when that stream is supposedly celebrating something you AGREE with – that you in fact celebrate yourself!

I don’t want you to leave here thinking that I am the Grinch, or that Scrooge and I are interchangeable.  It’s not that I don’t like Christmas.  I do.  I really do.  I love the idea of celebrating – especially as the winter deepens and as we move into a new year – both the church year and the secular one. 

I like the idea of blessing people with unexpected gifts … sometimes even overwhelming them.  We’ve been on the receiving end of that, and knowing how it feels makes me want to try to do it as often as we can for others.  I like the idea of celebrating in spite of the circumstances.  We’ve lived through Christmases that have followed both personal and family losses, but being able to celebrate regardless of what has happened, or of what we are in the midst of suffering, helps me to lift my eyes to the hills, as it were, and see from where my help comes.  It gives me a sense of perspective and helps me remember that there is more going on than just what is happening in my life at the moment, and that it’s not all about me.

And that was the first step in my discovery that Christmas … that Christ’s Mass, wasn’t at all about exchanging gifts … but about receiving the greatest, the best gift of all.

And that is where the music from the last Christmas Cantata begins to swell in your head and you tune out the rest … and you fill in the words to the songs you’ve sung all through the years during this season … and it all begins to sound … plastic. 

But let’s focus in on something that isn’t plastic, that was real, that happened. 

I heard an excellent message a couple of days ago, preached by Bruxey Cavey, teaching pastor at The Meeting House, which is a church made up of a network of six different congregations in the Toronto, Canada, area.  They belong to the Brethren In Christ denomination.  He was the guest speaker at Woodland Hills church in St. Paul, Minnesota, last Sunday. 

In it, he stated something that really resonated with me, and it was this:  The world is full of pain and suffering.  That is a fact.  In the nativity, God was running towards our suffering, to come alongside us and share in it – to be with us in that suffering.  God chose to enter into our existence in order to show us how much he loves us. 

We may not admit to it, but I think there are times when we tend to lean towards the idea that, because of all the suffering in the world, that God must be at a remove from us.  But he is anything BUT that.  He has drawn close, he has entered into our own lives, through the person of the Holy Spirit, to make us aware of that otherness that exists, that may not be evident, and unfortunately frequently ISN’T, but that DOES come into existence whenever we model Christ’s behavior and life to the world around us.

And this is where it gets hard.

It’s hard not just because we are swimming against the current and because the current in our particular instance claims to be generally flowing in the same direction of our faith tradition, but hard because it gets down to being open with each other, to being willing to admit faults and failures, and to ask for – and hopefully receive – a gift that Christ himself modeled in his ministry:  forgiveness. 

Part of being a part of a community of faith – a family of faith – is being accountable, being willing to share in our struggles, in our shortcomings, as well as our victories. 

I stand here this morning to ask for your forgiveness.  Whether by accident, or a confluence of circumstances, or by reluctant intent, there have been instances in the last few weeks and months where I have not been the pastor that I needed to be to you.  Times when I stood here and preached on the importance of being Christ’s presence and ended up being absent for the most part from your lives. 

For the most part, you’ve been models of grace to me in the wake of those times.  You’ve understood the demands on my time from other responsibilities, and have allowed for that.  And while I am profoundly grateful for that, you need to know that I understand that it is not something that I would allow to go on, that I am mindful of what it means to BE with you, alongside you, sharing with you.

So it is in the hopefulness of Advent that I come to the place where it started, to the manger, and ask God to prepare my heart once again to receive the Christ Child.  The hay here is still a little damp, a little musty, and being that, it reminds me that the circumstances of the world didn’t change just because Christ came into the world.  The potential for the world to change went through the roof, but the actual circumstances remained … imperfect.  Jesus was born, and Quirinius was still governor of Syria.  Herod was still in the palace.  The Romans still occupied – and terrorized – Palestine. 

But the world was ready for Christ.  That was the perfect time for his coming. 

So this handful of hay is my imperfection, my clumsy attempt to be what Christ wants me to be, and this manger is my life, my heart, and I want to make myself ready for what God would have me do, even as I know he has led me this far, with this I’m saying to him, whatever comes next, whatever you ask, with your help, I will do it. 

As we close this morning, I would invite you to come forward, if you want to do it during the hymn of response, that's fine, or if you'd rather wait and do it after, on your own, that's okay as well, and take a handful of hay and place it in the manger, by way of saying ‘Yes, Lord, prepare my heart. May it be your resting place, your home.”

Let’s pray.        

All, All, Everything, All, All

Sunday, November 21, 2010

Christ the King Sunday

Jerusalem Baptist Church (Emmerton), Warsaw VA

Colossians 1:9-20

⁹For this reason, since the day we heard it, we have not ceased praying for you and asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of God’s will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, ¹⁰so that you may lead lives worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, as you bear fruit in every good work and as you grow in the knowledge of God. ¹¹May you be made strong with all the strength that comes from his glorious power, and may you be prepared to endure everything with patience, while joyfully ¹²giving thanks to the Father, who has enabled you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the light. ¹³He has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son, ¹⁴in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. ¹⁵He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; ¹⁶for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—all things have been created through him and for him. ¹⁷He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together. ¹⁸He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything. ¹⁹For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, ²⁰and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.

Today is the last Sunday of the year. 

Seriously. 

It is the last Sunday of the year – the traditional CHURCH year.  Next Sunday is the first Sunday of Advent, and according to the traditional liturgical calendar, it is the first Sunday of the New Year.  We will observe our New Year by celebrating our hanging of the green service, so please plan to come and participate in a beautiful service that sets the stage – literally – for our walk towards Christmas and the coming of the Christ Child. 

But today we focus on the fact that this is the LAST Sunday – and we look to what this past liturgical year has brought us.  This is known as Christ the King Sunday or The Reign of Christ Sunday, because it serves to remind us of Christ’s place, not simply in our lives and in our community, but on the whole broad stage of the Cosmos – the Universe. 

Next Sunday we will begin the walk towards Bethlehem, and that will take us to the place where God became flesh and dwelt among us.  We will begin his life where he did, as the newborn son of Mary and Joseph, with hands and feet and a nose and eyes and hair, everything that we each share as members of the human race was also shared by God in his incarnation, but while he was fully human, he was more.  And in today’s passage, Paul underscores just how much more Jesus IS the Christ.    

As I’ve shared with you before, the church year is a little different from the … for lack of a better term, the secular year.  And that is as it should be.  We NEED to be a little different from the rest of society – wherever that society happens to be.  We read and hear about the Chinese New Year, and it is out of synchrony with our current calendar, and we can easily see and say “that is a different way of … being, a different way of counting, that is expressed in the fact that the Chinese have a traditional calendar that is maintained outside the … one that is more universally accepted and used.” 

Being out of step with celebrating our ‘New Year’ reminds us that we DO march to the beat of a different drum, that we DO answer to a higher call, that we DO listen for another command than the rest of the world that surrounds us, that we ARE called to be different, to be distinct, to stand out.    

That’s not to say that we are to be so far removed from it that we are unable to engage, to interact, and to enter into relationship with it.  We DO have that responsibility, and it is more than a responsibility, it is … a calling. 

When we use that word, ‘calling’, in our context, it needs to be understood that a calling is received from one who has authority over our lives.  For us to even be able to invoke that terminology implies that we understand and accept that one’s position to be able to PLACE that call on our lives. 

If I say, “I’ll call you”, what is the first thing that pops into your head … a phone call, right? 

You don’t immediately jump to the conclusion that what I am talking about is a call on your LIFE – something that you’ll dedicate the rest of your life to – no.  And that’s because it is me Kenny, saying, “I’ll call you”.  In our context here, in Emmerton, on this next to the last Sunday of November, the Sunday before Thanksgiving, at a time when the majority of the adult population and a sizeable and sometimes troubling portion of the youth population has a mobile phone, “I’ll call you” has a very ordinary connotation.  It simply means that I am saying that I would like to talk to you, so I’ll call you – from my phone to yours – and we’ll talk then.  No major life-changing decision to be discussed, usually, nothing more than maybe planning a meeting at some point in the next couple of weeks. 

Paul is writing to the Colossians to remind them of just who it is they serve – who they pledged to love and lives to, and from whom they might have been straying.

The language in this passage is … astounding in it’s scope.  The ancient world was blatantly polytheistic.  That is, there were multitudes of gods, with their accompanying temples, rituals and followers.  We may think we’re an overchurched society, with a sanctuary every few miles, try every few yards. 

In truth, I sometimes wonder if that hasn’t changed that much in the intervening centuries.  We still tend to create our own gods, we just keep it on the ‘down low’… it’s a much more subtle presence through which these … contemporary and not-so-contemporary gods make themselves known.  We still can find the god of the senses – in our hedonistic pursuits of immediate pleasures, regardless of consequences.  We can still find the god of mammon, alive and well in the measure of our worth through the size of our bank accounts.  We can still find the god of fear and power in our willingness to wield power over and against our fellow humans who speak, act, live and think differently from us.  

To understand the radical notion that Paul is putting forth, we have to first understand that he is speaking in these terms about one who stood on NONE of those titles in order to make himself known. 

Jesus did not descend in a fiery chariot from the sky and summon Caesar to an audience.  He did not speak and strike down the power structure that was in place at the time – neither the Roman nor the Hebrew.  He did not zap the fishermen from Galilee and make them follow him as he wandered around the countryside for those years of his ministry. 

¹⁵He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; ¹⁶for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—all things have been created through him and for him. ¹⁷He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together. ¹⁸He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything. ¹⁹For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, ²⁰and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.

You would think that if someone was that powerful, that all-encompassing, that awesome, that it would only be RIGHT for that power to be exercised, to be wielded, to be USED. 

Trouble is, that is the way the world uses power.  Not God. 

Think about it.  God creates the universe, the world, everything; sets things in motion, designs, springs them into being out of nothing; however you want to understand it, God created.  Then God, who having created, is OUTSIDE creation, chooses to come into creation, into the now broken and sometimes so wretched world that we live in and become subject to the vagaries of human existence, and does that up to and including being put to death. 

What does that tell us about the power of God? 

It tells us that God does not use power in the same way humanity uses it. 

We COULD argue that God chose to not use God’s power at all, because if God had, the outcome would have been radically different. 

But I think we miss the picture if we say that, because we’re still coming at this whole incarnation of the King of Creation from a human perspective. 

Knowing and understanding power from a human perspective presupposes that power to be used … to be the motivator for a response that is desired from another – whether an opponent or a friend is not important.  It is the fact that that power is there that prompts the response.

God’s example in Jesus Christ was to dispose of the coercive aspect of the human understanding of power completely, and come not in the form of a King, but a servant … a homeless preacher and teacher who spent no time building up his reputation, or a movement to fight the existing power structure on IT’S terms, but on God’s terms. 

And those terms were these: through the blood of his cross

What does this mean for Jerusalem Baptist Church, in downtown Emmerton?

Most of us have heard it since we were children, sometimes not so often, sometimes seemingly way too often.  This whole business of the sacrifice doesn’t sit well with our current sensibilities.  I agree wholeheartedly.  It doesn’t.  We struggle with the idea that, in order for there to be a reconciliation between the Creator and the creation, there had to be, on some level and in some way, a sacrifice made for that … atonement … to heal that broken relationship between God and humanity.  I struggle with that, sometimes in more profound ways than I realize, when I see the state of the world around me, and wonder if there was any sense to it at all. 

Ultimately, though, I keep coming back to this: in history – ALL of history, ALL of creation, EVERYTHING and EVERYONE that God has made; even with ALL the brokenness and ALL the turning away that has been the sad hallmark of humanity’s relationship with God, God has been the one to come back to us from a place of … love.  Like a loving husband, who despite his wife’s flirtations and falls, keeps after her; like a foolish shepherd who leaves the ninety-nine sheep and goes after the one that was lost; like the obsessive homemaker who turns her home upside down looking for a single coin, like the every-loving, every-welcoming father who misses his youngest son so much that he waits and watches for him every day after he leaves, and then runs to him and falls on his neck and welcomes him home with kisses ALL over his face …

THAT is the image of God that comes through.

In this season of Thanksgiving, may we find our hearts lifting hymns of gratitude for the one who will not, no, will not, no, will NEVER desert us.

Let’s pray. 

        

     

Great In Your Midst

Sunday, November 14, 2010

Ordinary 33

Jerusalem Baptist Church (Emmerton), Warsaw

Isaiah 12

You will say in that day: I will give thanks to you, O Lord, for though you were angry with me, your anger turned away, and you comforted me. ²Surely God is my salvation; I will trust, and will not be afraid, for the Lord God is my strength and my might; he has become my salvation. ³With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation.

⁴And you will say in that day: Give thanks to the Lord, call on his name; make known his deeds among the nations; proclaim that his name is exalted. ⁵Sing praises to the Lord, for he has done gloriously; let this be known in all the earth. ⁶Shout aloud and sing for joy, O royal Zion, for great in your midst is the Holy One of Israel.

The socialists have taken over! 

They are going to run this country into the ground!  Thank God for the Tea Party coming through to stop them!

Muslims are going to impose Sharia law in Dearborn Michigan! 

First an Islamic Center, next a mosque at Ground Zero!

Illegal immigrants are taking away our jobs, raping our women, selling drugs and doubling the crime rate!! 

The fat cats on Wall Street put us in this economic crisis, took the bailout money, and have YET to invest in creating jobs and getting our economy back and running.

That is by no means a comprehensive list of sound bites and headlines that I’ve seen and heard over the past few months, but you get the idea. 

Depending on the station we tune into, there is no shortage of voices that are more than willing to point out things that are wrong – or going wrong – with our country. 

Indeed, if it’s not wrong, it doesn’t seem to be news.  But that is the nature of the business of media news outlets.  First and foremost, they are a business.  And good news doesn’t sell, doesn’t, by definition, cause as much anxiety, or cause us to run to the nearest sane-sounding voice – even though it may be the furthest THING from sane – and find in that person’s words a semblance of comfort. 

If things are bad, they are going to get progressively worse.  That will keep you coming back for more, keep you updated on the latest scandal, the latest terrible decision, the latest abuse and it will … what?

Keep you in the loop?  Help you know what to expect?  Give you a heads-up on what the next major tragedy to befall our nation will be, or better yet, give you the information you need to AVOID that terrible disaster, while letting all the unsuspecting masses suffer? 

As you’ve heard me say before, human nature has not changed appreciably in the last several thousand years.  We still worry.  We still plot and plan, we still look for our best outcome, we still tend to shy away from problems that are not easily solved.  We still would rather choose to put on a happy face and hide our pain and our sorrow and our withered spirits rather than take the time to engage in the conversation that would reveal our true state of mind and heart. 

"I will trust, and will not be afraid"

These words in verse 2 were spoken by the prophet Isaiah to the people of Judah and Jerusalem more than twenty seven hundred years ago, when the Assyrian Empire was the dominant power, and Judah lived in the shadow of its might.

Foreign invaders, political instability, and crises of one kind or another formed the context of Isaiah's proclamation. The people to whom he was sent and those for whom this book was originally composed lived in a world that was unpredictable and out of their control. 



The front page of the newspaper and the crawl at the bottom of the television newscast suggest that in many ways our own world is quite similar to theirs. To be sure, the details are different – the Taliban was not a threat to Judah in the days of Isaiah, and Assyria does not dominate our own headlines – but the news of the day reminds us that always there are events happening on a scale far beyond our reach and our ability to control them.

Whether the threat is widespread, such as the worldwide economic crisis, or whether it is personal, such as illness, the loss of a job or the death of a loved one, it is no small thing to stare the menace in the face and say, "I will trust, and will not be afraid."


This passage – the twelfth chapter of Isaiah – is composed of two songs, each beginning with the phrase, "You will say in that day" (12:1, 4): "that day," when the pride of everyone shall be humbled and the Lord alone will be exalted as we find in chapter 2, verses 11 & 17; "that day," when people will throw away their idols of silver and gold, as we see in chapter 2, verse 20; "that day," when God will bring judgment against the women and men of Zion as we read in chapter 3, verses 16-26, or when those who remain are called holy, which we find in chapter 4 verses 2 & 3. "That day" is a day of judgment and salvation, a day that calls God's people forward, beckoning us to live into its reality in the present moment, no matter the circumstances.

The first song in this passage (verses 1-2) is sung by an individual offering thanksgiving for deliverance by the God who is "my salvation".  The "you" addressed in verse 1 is singular, as are the pronouns in both verses one and two.   Although the individual is not identified, the end of the song hearkens back to the deliverance from Egypt, quoting Exodus 15:2: "The Lord God is my strength and my might; he has become my salvation" (verse 2b; cf. Psalm 118:14).  Some scholars wonder if the individual could be Isaiah himself, whose own name means "God is salvation."

The image is one of a great warrior, one who is strong enough to defeat even the armies of Pharaoh in order to free the people from slavery in Egypt. To anyone who is caught up in fear, this echo from the Exodus and all the events attending it is a reminder that earthly powers cannot defeat the power of God. 



The second song offers a refrain of Thanksgiving to the "Holy One of Israel", the one whose "name is exalted" and who "has done gloriously". Isaiah calls on the people to lift their voices in praise to God: "Give thanks...sing praises...shout aloud and sing for joy!" This is a communal song ("you" is plural, as are the verbs in this section), as if a whole choir has joined voices with the soloist who sang in the first two verses. No longer is there a lone voice singing out against fear, as though whistling in the dark, but rather a chorus of voices offering praise for all that the Lord has done. "Make known his deeds among the nations," they will sing, and "[the Lord] has done gloriously; let this be known in all the earth".

This reminder of past experience with God, how the Lord has already acted for the benefit of God's people, is a strong defense against the grip of fear. So, also, is our association with a community of faith that witnesses to God's saving deeds. How much easier it is to "trust and not be afraid" when a whole community is present to join together in the refrain!



The verse that ties these two songs together is addressed to the gathered community: "With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation" (verse 3). In its historical setting, the verse probably refers to a ritual activity, most notably during the Feast of Tabernacles. As it connects the two songs, however, verse 3 is a reminder that God's salvation is fundamental to life, as basic to survival as the water that falls from the sky and springs forth from the earth.

God's offer of salvation is what the Lord "has done gloriously" to be made "known in all the earth"; it is this saving power that makes it possible for God's people to choose a stance of trust instead of fear when the day brings situations and events beyond their control (cf. Isaiah 41:17-20). The "wells of salvation" suggest an abundant supply, spilling over to soothe tongues that are parched from fright, moistening lips so that they might sing melodies of praise to "proclaim that [the Lord's] name is exalted".

What does this mean for Jerusalem Baptist Church at Emmerton?

The question can be boiled down to a fairly simple one:  with whom are you joining in chorus? 

Are you wailing and gnashing your teeth in fear and panic at the situation of the world that we are being presented with, or are you proclaiming that the Lord’s name is exalted? 

Are you being swayed by the voices that clamor for your attention, that would have you listen to THEM rather than to trust in God and God’s deliverance – God’s salvation – that transcends any given human condition? 

I’m not minimizing the human condition – those struggles and hardships, those sorrows and pains and frustrations and seemingly insurmountable obstacles are REAL.  We HAVE to deal with them. 

My question this morning is HOW? 

Will we deal with them from the standpoint of a people who are at the mercy of the powers and principalities of this earth, or from the standpoint of a people who are fully trusting; resting in the knowledge that the one who holds us in his hand is the one who will lead us through whatever circumstance we find ourselves in; not around it, or under it, or over it, but THROUGH it? 

If God himself did not avoid suffering while walking and living amongst us, who are we to attempt to avoid it? 

May we be found faithful.

Let’s pray.

With deep gratitude to Audrey West, 

Associate Professor of New Testament
Lutheran School of TheologyChicago, IL 

     

Hope On Christ

Sunday, November 7, 2010

All Saints C

Jerusalem Baptist Church (Emmerton), Warsaw VA

Ephesians 1:11-23

Theme: Resting in the sufficiency (and the Glory) of Christ

¹¹In Christ we have also obtained an inheritance, having been destined according to the purpose of him who accomplishes all things according to his counsel and will, ¹²so that we, who were the first to set our hope on Christ, might live for the praise of his glory. ¹³In him you also, when you had heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and had believed in him, were marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit; ¹⁴this is the pledge of our inheritance toward redemption as God’s own people, to the praise of his glory.

¹⁵I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, and for this reason ¹⁶I do not cease to give thanks for you as I remember you in my prayers. ¹⁷I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, ¹⁸so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints, ¹⁹and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe, according to the working of his great power. ²⁰God put this power to work in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, ²¹far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the age to come. ²²And he has put all things under his feet and has made him the head over all things for the church, ²³which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.

We were a bunch of college students, most of us coming from a very protected childhood, venturing out into the world of urban missions.  The previous day we had boarded two 15-passenger vans in the parking lot of First Baptist Church, Bowling Green, KY, and driven northeast for a bit and then directly north along the Indiana-Illinois line until we reached Chicago.  We pulled into our hotel parking lot, looking out the windows with sometimes more than a little apprehension as we drove into and through the Uptown neighborhood, where we were going to be spending the next 2 or 3 days doing door-to-door canvassing, and inviting people to come to our host church, Uptown Baptist Church, for services. 

We got up the next morning and drove the few blocks to the church to have breakfast before heading out into the community.  We brought our own breakfast – nothing fancy – cereal and milk, some fruit, coffee, of course.  Then we were given a brief tour of the church’s facilities.  The Church, a relatively young congregation, had decided to rent an existing building, and it was big, but it was also run down and aging, drafty, and in need of repairs.  I remember the young man giving the tour talking about the plans and the vision that the church had for using their space.    

The final stop in the tour was the sanctuary.   We dutifully took our seats, and this young man, an associate pastor of the church, who I believe was in seminary at the time, shared a brief devotional with us.  He read to us from the same passage we just heard.  He underscored verses 18-19:

¹⁸so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints, ¹⁹and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe, according to the working of his great power.

At the time I was 19 going on 20, and was just beginning to come to grips with the fact that I was needing to work out what I believed and why I believed it for myself – what I’ve shared with you before as the transformative time in my faith pilgrimage that began in college and lasted through … well, that is still going on today, actually.  But when he read those words – so that with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe…  it resonated with me in a way that it had never done before.

His words were words of encouragement as we set out to canvas the neighborhood surrounding the church, to find out what needs there were, what kind of response there might be to the idea of a relatively new church starting in what was apparently one of the roughest areas of the city.  What remained with me through those subsequent days of walking and visiting and knocking on doors and talking to the other folks in the group was that sense of the wonder of what we were carrying around and were saying we wanted to share …

It was springtime, and the nights were still cool, but the days were getting warm, so it was a good time to be walking around outdoors.  The Uptown neighborhood had, at some point in the past, been a thriving cultural area of the city.  There were stately old homes and old apartment buildings, as well as housing projects.  I never felt unsafe, and the people we met were all friendly and generally helpful and attentive, but they were also a little distant.  We were obviously NOT from the city – NONE of us.  And coming from Kentucky, a fair number of us drew smiles simply by opening our mouths and saying “good morning”. 

As we continued through the neighborhood canvassing, those phrases, the riches of his glorious inheritance, and the immeasurable greatness of his power kept running through my head. 

Since then, every time I’ve read that passage, I remember that morning, shivering in an old drafty sanctuary, getting ready to step way out of my comfort zone and talk to strangers about their faith. 

Paul’s letter to the Ephesians is unique in one particular way.  Some of the earliest manuscripts of the letter do not have the specific opening greeting to the church at Ephesus.  It simply reads ‘To the Saints who are faithful in Jesus Christ’, rather than ‘to the Saints who are in Ephesus and who are faithful in Jesus Christ’.  Some scholars believe that it may be a true circular letter – one intended from the beginning to be read to MANY congregations in a given region – to be passed from one church to the next, or copied and forwarded from one church to the next. 

In many ways, this holds up.  Its themes are, if not universal, at least general and common for the time and the area.  Paul speaks to how they should treat each other, with kindness, with gentleness. He speaks to how children should be with their parents, as well as parents with their children and with each other.  He speaks of how the faithful should stand in the face of idolatry and immorality; Ephesians is where we find the armor of faith passage in chapter 5, as well as those passages that speak to how the church is blessed by different people having different gifts in chapter 4.  Ephesians is replete with practical advice about the life of faith: a kind of nuts and bolts listing of … tools in the toolbox, but not quite so formulaic, not quite so cut and dried.

But it all starts … well … at the beginning.  There may be some disagreement as to whether Paul was a task theologian or a systematic one.  That is, did Paul think through what his theology became apart from the circumstances he was confronted with, which would be a systematic approach to theology – to ‘thoughts about God’ – or did he let the circumstances he found himself in inform his understanding of the movement of God and what God was about – a task orientation? 

And at the beginning we find this wonderful reminder of the preciousness of what we are carrying inside – what we are recipients of – and what we have access to as Christ followers:  the riches of his glorious inheritance and the immeasurable greatness of his power.

What does this mean for Jerusalem Baptist Church at Emmerton?  

I wonder how much of our life of faith is lived in the full knowledge of just what it is we hold within us?  I know I don’t always live in that fullness, that assurance of the inheritance that is so glorious.  I am distracted by wavering convictions, doubts, and worries that pile up sometimes on a daily and sometimes on an hourly basis.  Even knowing this passage, even having committed it to heart, I need that reminder to ‘reset’ my uncertainty.  It is a constant struggle, and it is one that I am resigned to be dealing with for the rest of my life. 

But even in the periodic absence of that wonder, I stand on Christ’s promise of presence.  On the promise that we – that I – would never be alone.  So my faith does not rest on how I am feeling on any given day, but on the assurance that God has provided for me – for us – to live out his life in such a way as to magnify him, to glorify him, to reflect him into the world.  And that is why I can step out of my comfort zone – in the faith that I know Christ showed – and make myself available to him for what he has for me to do. 

It is in that way that we can live with our hope on Christ, and not on anything else. 

Let’s pray.   

Lost

Sunday, October 31, 2010

Ordinary 31C

Jerusalem Baptist Church (Emmerton), Warsaw VA

Luke 19:1-10

He entered Jericho and was passing through it. ²A man was there named Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was rich. ³He was trying to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd he could not, because he was short in stature. ⁴So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore tree to see him, because he was going to pass that way. ⁵When Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, hurry and come down; for I must stay at your house today.” ⁶So he hurried down and was happy to welcome him. ⁷All who saw it began to grumble and said, “He has gone to be the guest of one who is a sinner.” ⁸Zacchaeus stood there and said to the Lord, “Look, half of my possessions, Lord, I will give to the poor; and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will pay back four times as much.” ⁹Then Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because he too is a son of Abraham. ¹⁰For the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost.”

This is on of those stories that I can’t remember NOT knowing.  It’s mixed right in there with Adam & Eve, Noah’s Ark, Moses and the parting of the Red Sea, and the Nativity … yes, of course there are other stories from the New Testament that are also on the list, but not all of them come with their own song – with motions – you know, “Zacchaeus was a wee little man and a wee little man was he” … , or as I first learned it: “Zaqueo era un hombre muy chico, muy chico era el, subió por un sicomoro para ver a Jesús, para ver a Jesús, y cuando Jesús lo vio…” well … you get the picture … I love … I treasure the fact that I have that heritage … that history that I carry inside … in some ways, I feel like it connects me to the oral tradition of the Hebrew people that we mention when we study the scriptures.

There is a feeling that carries through from things like this that we learn in childhood, things are comforting, familiar, welcoming.  The thing is, it’s different approaching this passage as an adult, with a critical mind, a questioning spirit, and a slightly skeptical attitude.  It’s not that I truly doubt the events, but I approach it from a different perspective – I want to find out what Luke wants us to pick up from his telling of the story.  After all, he is the only one that included this particular story in his rendering of the Gospel. 

I read an interesting observation on the story that I’d like to share with you, especially with the events coming up this week: 

Some translations of the text do not have Zacchaeus saying "Look, half of my possessions, Lord, I will give to the poor; and if I have defrauded anyone of anything I will pay back four times as much." But instead "Look, half of my possessions, Lord, I give to the poor; and if I have found that I have defrauded anyone of anything, I pay back four times as much."

The Greek could be translated as “will continue to”, so it does make a difference in the tenor of the story, doesn’t it?

The difference is a crucial one.  In the first, Zacchaeus is promising to do something he has never done before.  In the second he is describing something he already does. The first he is a man who has been changed by the acceptance that Jesus has shown him.  The second shows Zacchaeus not so much as a contrite agent of extortion, but rather that he was someone who was living as best he could in a very complex situation.  In fact, it may be that he held this position so that someone less scrupulous could not. 

The difficulty I find with this story is that I honestly don’t know which version to believe.   Both sound equally plausible. I can well imagine Zacchaeus as a rich and selfish bully who has allowed his greed to harden his heart and reap the rewards of his position.  Equally I can see him as a moral and generous man aware of the economic effects of military occupation; aware he is detested but prepared to do a dirty job to ensure the best deal for those from whom taxes were collected.

Jesus may have known of this wealthy man, as someone who was a greedy extorter or as someone who redistributed his wealth.  Or he may have known nothing of him.

This confusion over Zacchaeus feels similar to the confusion that many people feel about our political leaders.  Which ones genuinely care for the plight of the poor as Zacchaeus says he does?  Which ones are corrupt and taking everything they can get as the crowd accuse Zacchaeus of?  In what ways are each of them a more inconvenient mixture of both?

The temptation to vilify or idealise any one person because of their occupation is very real but ultimately oversimplifies and dehumanises. We should examine what they do, principally with money, but the example of Jesus is to continue to pursue a relationship that see past the rumours and the stigma to the person.

Regardless, risk is at the heart of this meeting.  Risk for Jesus – as he approaches Jerusalem, he risks losing some of his supporters.  This champion of the poor and liberator of the Jews has just taken up with someone who they believe exploits the poor and is a traitor to his people. Risk for Zacchaeus as he comes down to the same level as everyone else and aligns himself with Jesus as the most dangerous part of the story is about to begin.

In the company of Jesus, zealots walk with tax collectors, Jew with Gentile, men with woman.  Who do we wish to be separate from? Who do we draw circles round and call “out” of the club?  Who do we not want to be ranked with? Perhaps in one of his final moments pre-Jerusalem, Jesus is demonstrating how wide his circle is.     

How uncomfortable does that make us; the thought that Jesus would associate with folks that we would normally consider to be outside the ‘in’ crowd?  Or is that a factor in our thinking?  Are we troubled by the idea that Jesus would welcome someone with no preconditions?

What is most arresting about Jesus’ meeting with Zacchaeus and its’ outcome is the lack of preconditions that Jesus puts on the meeting.

Traditionally, yes, what I grew up with and what I suspect those of us who DID grow up in church with was the idea that Zacchaeus was greedy and hard-hearted, and his meeting with Jesus changed him.  In our minds we fill in the events … we hear Jesus GIVING him those conditions over supper: stop cheating, stop stealing, stop this and that … yada yada … when in fact, there is no indication in the text that any of that conversation took place before Zacchaeus made his statement about repayment and restitution.  The question of whether he was continuing to do what he had already been doing or was going to begin to do something he’d never done before are set aside, because the idea that an encounter with Jesus would be so transformative as to cause someone to completely redirect their lives to that degree would seem to come naturally if we were used to hearing those dramatic transformation and conversion stories. 

It becomes a little more nuanced, a little harder to caricature, if we consider the possibility that Zacchaeus was already doing something good in the middle of a bad and complicated situation.  That would force us to look elsewhere, to the crowd, specifically, for the point that Jesus was making in his statement about having come to save the “lost”.  If Zacchaeus was doing good in the middle of a bad and complicated situation, then that means that the crowd, the entire population of Jericho, was at fault for having judged him so harshly. 

And that, by extension, makes us, as observers in the scenario, accomplices in that judgment.  That makes US the targets of Jesus’ comments about coming to save the lost. 

But we knew that already, didn’t we? 

It bears noting that, in the preceding passages, Luke has Jesus encountering the rich young ruler who asks him what he must do to have eternal life, to which Jesus’ replies, keep the commandments; don’t commit adultery, don’t murder, don’t steal, don’t bear false witness, honor your father and mother … interesting that he should include lying right in there with the ‘biggies’: adultery, murder and stealing … and the very next passage has Jesus entering Jericho and being assailed by the blind beggar, who asks Jesus to have mercy on him and give him his sight.  In that instance, Jesus heals him with the words,  “receive your sight, your faith has saved you.”

Then we come to the Zacchaeus story.  And there’s this issue with the wording… it is easier, isn’t it, to simply know that Zacchaeus was the bad guy, crooked and hard-hearted, and that purely by the act of inviting himself into Zacchaeus’ home, Jesus began the transformation of his life. 

Except that it might not have been so clear-cut.  Of all the Gospels, Luke seems to be the one that pays most attention to the way words are used and placed and composed.  Luke is the one that does more to show that Jesus was a master at showing the “established righteous” just how unrighteous they truly were.

What does this mean for Jerusalem Baptist Church at Emmerton?

So with whom do we identify in this story?  Are we the greedy, hard-hearted chief tax collector of Jericho, or are we the one struggling to make a good in a bad situation, or are we part of the crowd keeping our distance and pointing the finger and shouting ‘sinner’?

Who among us has not felt lost at one time or another, as we wrestle with making sense of the call that Jesus places on our lives?  Makes me wonder if we can ever truly relinquish that title? 

As followers of Christ, it is incumbent on us to never forget where we stand in our relationship to God – we stand not on our merits, but on grace, on love, resting fully in the arms that sustain us.  And those arms take on a physicality that is real – they are the arms of our brothers and sisters in this family.  They are the ones that share the meals, that pick up the phone and call, that open the car door, start the engine, and come and visit, that drive us to appointments, they weave themselves into our lives and into our hearts.

They are Christ’s presence in our life, calling us to him, calling us to go and do likewise.

Let’s pray.