Hold Fast, Stand Firm

                   

Sunday, February 28, 2010

Lent 2C

Jerusalem Baptist Church (Emmerton), Warsaw VA

Philippians 3:14-4:1

Theme:  Remaining faithful through trials and tribulations

¹⁴ “I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.

¹⁵Let those of us then who are mature be of the same mind; and if you think differently about anything, this too God will reveal to you. ¹⁶Only let us hold fast to what we have attained.

¹⁷Brothers and sisters, join in imitating me, and observe those who live according to the example you have in us. ¹⁸For many live as enemies of the cross of Christ; I have often told you of them, and now I tell you even with tears. ¹⁹Their end is destruction; their god is the belly; and their glory is in their shame; their minds are set on earthly things. ²⁰But our citizenship is in heaven, and it is from there that we are expecting a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. ²¹He will transform the body of our humiliation that it may be conformed to the body of his glory, by the power that also enables him to make all things subject to himself.

4 Therefore, my brothers and sisters, whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, stand firm in the Lord in this way, my beloved.”

I have to ask myself – I HAVE to:  If the news had been different, what would I be saying now?

You’ve already heard me say before: we live in a broken world.  We live in a world where creation is groaning for the coming reign of God.  It just doesn’t often groan that close to home. 

So what do we do with this?  What is our response to it?  On one level we are relieved.  Three hundred sounds like a much better number than two hundred thousand, or two hundred fifty thousand a few years ago with the tsunami in Southeast Asia.  And yet, for those three hundred and their families, it is as devastating as any of the others that have been affected. 

Watching the scenes of destruction on either the computer screen or the television screen, there was a sense of disconnect yesterday with the reality that I had in my mind of those places.  Proud old buildings that are now crumbling dust and bricks; the terrible devastation of pan caked structures and highways and flipped trucks and cars, speak to a level of destruction that we never experienced in our years in Chile.  And yet, there is going to be a part of us that, just as after the tsunami and after the earthquake in January, is going to want to try to make sense of this, to lay blame, to point to maybe some other pact with the devil that resulted in this.

I would caution against that.  Leslie mentioned this morning that it is our response that is what counts, our response is what marks the event.  It is where our faith intersects with this present reality. 

We’ll see if I can tie this into the text as we move through.  As you may understand, this is coming from the heart. 

It was interesting throughout the course of the day yesterday, I kept getting emails and notices and notifications, from friends whom I’ve known over the last twenty five years, they kept saying “as soon as I heard I thought of you.  How’s your family?” or “do you still have family there?” and “Is everybody okay?” I took those, for better or worse, as prayers, because in a Christian context, I believe them to BE that. 

I gained an appreciation that I did not have for families of persons that are serving in the military.  Going day after day after day, trying to live your life and carry on with the daily activities, and not think about the harm that may come to your loved one.  My heart goes out to them. 

But we live in a broken world. 

We have this task before us, we have this mandate (if you want to call it that), and we have this example that Christ set, which Paul alludes to, that he actually spells out earlier in Philippians, of how we are to carry on, how we are to be in events like this. 

I read this morning that approximately two million people were affected by the earthquake in Chile.  I we correlate that, it’s roughly twenty percent of the population, no, more like 15 % … if we were to take a similar comparison, estimating that we are around 300 million here in the United States, how would we be … what would our conversation be if we were talking about some natural disaster that had affected … 40 million … right?  No … okay … 45 million US citizens?  Would we be overwhelmed?  Would we be scrambling to figure out what to do? 

I know… it’s coming up on two o’clock in the afternoon in Chile … I know, I know I know congregations gathered and worshipped, maybe under a tree in a central plaza, maybe out in the open, I know prayers were lifted and I know hymns were sung – and I know that my brothers and sisters in Chile are on task to figure out the best way that they can, to provide assistance, to provide comfort, and care and BE JESUS to their compatriots, their neighbors, their communities. 

As close as this is to my heart, and as obvious as I’m making it,  I hope that we would not respond any differently to this than we did to the disaster in Haiti, or to the help that we can be to those folks who have been affected by the storm in the Northeast over these last few days.  If we can channel, first and foremost, channel our prayers, as was mentioned this morning, prayers for strength, for endurance, for patience, for courage, especially.  But that we would seek active ways to be engaged in that incarnational ministry, in that fleshing out of the ministry of Christ on earth. 

We don’t know yet what plans have been made, in fact, I think we are still waiting to hear from the organizations and the churches and the communities in Chile as to what they need.  I know the governmental response has been “We’ve got things under control”, and I don’t doubt that that’s an overstatement.  I think that it’s an accurate statement on their part.  I would HOPE that they would still receive assistance as they see necessary, because watching suffering and pain like that and NOT doing something takes away from our sense of the common bond of humanity. 

I promise, ‘Hold Fast and Stand Firm”, when I decided on that title, another earthquake was not anywhere in my mind… and yet, the tie-in, the stories I read of folks waking up when they were thrown to the floor from the bed, just underscores how suddenly our life can change.  If there is a lesson to be learned both from the text and from the experiences of the last 48 hours, it is that we are not free from that possibility.  We are just as likely to suffer something that devastating.  And our question to ask ourselves is “How would WE respond if we were in the midst of that?”  Not just sitting here comfortably … our hearts going out, yes, but still, just sitting here, being able to go along with our lives.  Being able to turn on the water faucet, turn on the light at the switch, to stay warm. 

I would invite us as we pray … to pray first and foremost … I’m going to put two priorities to this:  For those who are suffering.  For courage and the courage of our convictions – to step into what God wants us to do, and for wisdom to discern what it is. 

 

Would you pray with me?

Lord it has not been so long since we suffered a disastrous weather event, and rallied together, linked arms as a community of faith, and cared for each other, and checked on each other, and visited, and shared, and were your presence to each other.

So even as we know of those who are hundreds and thousands of miles away – and tens of miles away – who are going through their own tragedies.  Even as we become aware of those experiences, we ask, Lord, that you first make yourself known, but that then you would make your will known to us, in how to respond.  We ask for generosity of spirit, we ask for strength and endurance, we ask for your Spirit to dwell in us richly, and call us to your service. 

Through him who gave himself for us, even Christ our Lord.

Amen.

An Opportune Time

Sunday, February 21, 2010

Lent 1C

Jerusalem Baptist Church (Emmerton), Warsaw VA

Luke 4:1-13

¹”Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, ²where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing at all during those days, and when they were over, he was famished. ³The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become a loaf of bread.” ⁴Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘One does not live by bread alone.’” ⁵Then the devil led him up and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. ⁶And the devil said to him, “To you I will give their glory and all this authority; for it has been given over to me, and I give it to anyone I please. ⁷If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours.” ⁸Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.’” ⁹Then the devil took him to Jerusalem, and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, saying to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, ¹⁰for it is written, ‘He will command his angels concerning you, to protect you,’ ¹¹and ‘On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.’” ¹²Jesus answered him, “It is said, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’” ¹³When the devil had finished every test, he departed from him until an opportune time.”

I couldn’t begin to tell you how many lessons, Bible studies, and messages I’ve heard on the temptation of Christ.  They all run together.  That is not so much a criticism of the folks who either taught the lesson or Bible Study or the person who preached the sermon as much as it is a confession as to my frame of mind while hearing them.   

Basically, the lesson from the temptation story falls into one of two categories:  the one that focuses on the fact that the temptations Jesus endured are the same – on one level or another – to ANY temptation WE might undergo today, if you boil each of them down to their essential components; or the other, which focuses on the WAY in which Jesus overcame those temptations – his strategy, if you will – usually ending up summarized as this:  He trusted God. 

If you’ll pardon the pun, the temptation in approaching the message today, especially after such a long hiatus, thanks to the Men of Jerusalem, the WMU of Jerusalem, and to the weather these last few weeks, was to fall back on those two interpretations, summarize their points and arguments, and be done with it.  It would at least serve to get back into the swing of things, back to the routine. 

I’m not going to stray too far from that, in case you’re wondering, because I happen to believe that those two ways of looking at this text are absolutely valid, and helpful, and worthwhile.  I believe we CAN draw parallels between the temptations Jesus faced in the wilderness and any given temptation we could name today if we took each of them and peeled away all the outer layers, the contexts of time, society, values, opportunities and struggles and got right down to the heart of them, we would find a direct correspondence between turning stones into bread, putting something ELSE in the place of God as the object of ultimate importance in our lives, and testing God in order to confirm that God is there when WE need him. 

There are, of course, variations on the theme. Thanks to my friend Mera Cossey Corlett from Louisville: From a Pastoral Care perspective:

“[Jesus] didn't go it alone.  He surrounded himself with encouragers and supporters who (though they did not fully understand His call) traveled with him, praying and ministering to him.  He relied on scripture. He knew it "by heart" so that it could be an ever-present, dynamic force in his own life.  He knew his "trigger" points – in addiction terminology, those are those events or combination of circumstances that, when they are present, allow the subconscious mind to take over the conscious one, and leads to addictive behavior – to giving in to a temptation.  Satan – the Tempter – knew those points as well – but Jesus fixed His sights [on God –] a Higher Power not unlike folk who wrestle with the temptations of addictions.  And he always "saw the big picture." Rather than getting caught up in individual failings or glories, he continued to weave it all together in grace recognizing that it all made for the Kingdom of God."    

Another friend – from my high school – Greg Frey – put it this way:

“It’s not rocket science, just the HUMAN CONDITION … All our temptations, limitations and failings, individual and collective, point to the fact that without a fully integrated relationship with YHWH, we are helpless [screwed was the original term]. So all our trials are really a blessing (like...poor in spirit maybe?) as they point to our need to awaken to our spiritual selves (or be born of spirit) and put that FIRST in our lives. Thank you CHRIST for making that message very clear. Now, if we could carry that simple, beautiful message without all the hoopla [and BS] that gets attached to it, people may actually consider it. Even intelligent people."

Mera has worked as a Chaplain in a Psychiatric Hospital in Louisville, for a little over 20 years.  Greg owns and runs an art Gallery inside the Rio Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada, and has been doing that for about the last 10 years or so.

My conversation with Greg stretched out over a couple of hours, and Mera’s lasted nearly that long.  I appreciated the perspective that they provided.  Though they are both people of faith and profound spirituality, the phrasing they use departs from what we are accustomed to hearing in church, and just to hear a familiar story interpreted with different language gives us a chance to explore it, to engage it from a slightly different angle.

How ready are we to share our temptation struggles with our community?  Would we be willing to identify – or maybe acknowledge might be a more appropriate word – our “trigger” points – those things that set us off – that cause us to give in to that temptation to strike out, verbally or physically, to give in to that selfish desire and draw back, to separate ourselves from the community, to put our own interests and desires ahead of the common good? 

Are we able to think in terms of a “fully integrated relationship with YHWH,” like Greg said?  “Fully integrated” means “completely a part of” – Do we live our relationship with God and with Jesus through every aspect of our lives, or do we compartmentalize our faith and allow God to be present in only a select few areas, those we deem ‘presentable’, and the rest we keep hidden away, in the darker recesses of our personalities? 

Can we view struggles and hardships – and temptations – as markers, pointers that remind us of the fact that we DO need to be born of the Spirit and put that relationship in it’s rightful place – FIRST – in our lives in order to be able to hold everything else in proper perspective? 

The temptation story mirrors our every day.  I feel confident in saying that each of us, at some point in each of our days, is confronted with a choice to make in the face of some temptation.  Sometimes we are aware of it, and other times we are completely oblivious.  That is the subtle skill of the Adversary, to lull us into a sense of complacency with who we are, allowing us to assume that that dark aspect of our being is ‘not that big a deal’, or ‘not harming anyone’, or even ‘my cross to bear’, when in fact, it is being used to successfully keep us from being the person God created us to be. 

Our call this morning, and over the next few weeks as we journey through Lent, is to study, to examine, to uncover and to give up those things in our beings that are not of God, that are not of the Spirit, that hinder us from fully giving ourselves to God’s PULL on our lives. 

If that means telling our trigger points to a friend or two, to be that vulnerable and open with each other, so be it.  If that means coming to a clearer understanding of what it means to be fully integrated – in our relationship with YHWH, completely GIVEN to the Lordship of Christ, then that is what needs to happen.

Your choice, your response, is what both God and the adversary are waiting for.    

Let’s pray.