The Good Confession

Sunday, September 26, 2010

Ordinary 26C

Jerusalem Baptist Church (Emmerton), 

Warsaw, Virginia

1 Timothy 6:6-19

⁶Of course, there is great gain in godliness combined with contentment; ⁷for we brought nothing into the world, so that we can take nothing out of it; ⁸but if we have food and clothing, we will be content with these. ⁹But those who want to be rich fall into temptation and are trapped by many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. ¹⁰For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, and in their eagerness to be rich some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pains. ¹¹But as for you, man of God, shun all this; pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance, gentleness. ¹²Fight the good fight of the faith; take hold of the eternal life, to which you were called and for which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses.

¹³In the presence of God, who gives life to all things, and of Christ Jesus, who in his testimony before Pontius Pilate made the good confession, I charge you ¹⁴to keep the commandment without spot or blame until the manifestation of our Lord Jesus Christ, ¹⁵which he will bring about at the right time—he who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords. ¹⁶It is he alone who has immortality and dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see; to him be honor and eternal dominion. Amen. ¹⁷As for those who in the present age are rich, command them not to be haughty, or to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but rather on God who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. ¹⁸They are to do good, to be rich in good works, generous, and ready to share, ¹⁹thus storing up for themselves the treasure of a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of the life that really is life.

It is increasingly interesting to me that in reviewing Church history, one of the goals of those who would reform the church has nearly always been a reconnection to the ‘early church’ – that first band of believers who, led by the apostles, lived in harmony and shared all they had, were a radically loving and giving community, and ‘turned the world upside down’, as we like to believe. 

They DID,

BUT …

  

Where does this image come from?  A few short verses in Acts – itself a self-proclaimed attempt to present this newborn faith practice in the best light possible in order to convince a Roman person of note that at worst it is worth allowing and at best it is worth becoming a part of. 

What does the rest of the New Testament Canon tell us about the early church?  That it was not so different from us. It still had the conflicting interests, the ego wars and the power-and-influence-peddlers that plague us to this day.  In that sense, there truly is nothing new under the sun.  It says something about human nature that we can read scripture that is nearly two thousand years old and place ourselves squarely in the context that is being written of. 

So we hold up that ideal and say to each other:  “this is what we aim for.”  I would invite us to consider another possibility:  that the ideal for which we are to aim is one that has not yet been seen on earth.  Even in those early years of the newborn church, while there might have been glimpses of the kingdom established on this terrestrial plain, it was very much a work in progress, an incomplete project, very much like what we have today in the church around the world:  a work in progress, an incomplete project.

The issue at hand in this particular section of Paul letter to his protégé Timothy is how to relate to material possessions. 

He first brings home a point that bears unpacking:  “There is great gain in godliness combined with contentment.”  Paul reminds Timothy of a basic fact:  we enter and exit this world under exactly the same conditions: we bring nothing into it and we take nothing out of it.  In the interim, he says, here and elsewhere in his letters, to be content in whatever circumstance we find ourselves. 

As Christians, we readily agree with that statement and move on to the next lesson.  As American Christians, and maybe in a broader context, as Christians in a global society based largely on consumerism, I suspect we have a slightly harder time with it.  You see, our predominant culture here in the States tells us that to strive – for more, for newer, for the latest – is a noble and worthwhile pursuit, that it is a reflection of God’s grace and blessing to have an abundance of material possessions – to be wealthy. 

That is not something we find in the New Testament, nor in this passage. 

What is contentment?  Contentment is being satisfied.  The root of the word itself is one that is translated into Spanish as ‘pleased’ or ‘happy’, so it is inextricably tied in with our sense of wellbeing. 

What do we base our contentment on? 

Do we base it on not having to worry about where our next meal comes from?  Do we base it on knowing where we will sleep tonight?  Do we base it on what we will be doing tomorrow, or the next day, or the next? 

Paul contrasts for Timothy what leads to true contentment as opposed to false or illusory contentment:  false contentment is alluded to in verses 9 and 10.  If we determine our status based on what we own, what we can acquire, and how much control we have over our lives, then that is what will consume our every waking moment: do we have the latest technology, the newest automobile, the most money in the bank?  Do we have to wonder about how we will pay for something we want to buy or can we just go out and buy it?  If we base our importance in the grand scheme of things on how we are regarded by the society in which we live, that society will determine our value to ourselves.  Paul’s statement in verse 10 is often misquoted:  ‘The love of money is a root of all kinds of evil’.  We sometimes hear: Money is the root of all evil.  That is not what Paul says.  Money and wealth in and of itself is not evil.  It is morally neutral.  What Paul is saying is that if our preoccupation with the acquisition of money and wealth and power and influence takes up our time and energy, then that preoccupation – that ‘love’ has become our idol, and has replaced God in our search for meaning and value.

Paul follows this image of people wandering from their faith and even causing themselves harm by pursuing riches with the image of what a person who is seeking God is to do: “pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance, gentleness. ¹²Fight the good fight of the faith; take hold of the eternal life, to which you were called and for which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses.”

   Go down that list with me:  righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance, gentleness.  Can any of those things be quantified on a spreadsheet?  Is there a way to measure our righteousness, our love, our gentleness?  Can we show receipts for the amount of godliness or endurance we’ve displayed in the last week?  People may have tried, but it is a losing proposition. 

What matters in the eternal is immeasurable in the finite. 

Paul’s use of the phrase ‘fight the good fight’ at the beginning of verse 12 is athletic imagery – a wrestling term – but one that describes a desperate struggle between two adversaries:  it is not a friendly contest when we are pitting the eternal against the mundane, nor is it a matter of first and second place.  It is a matter of victor and vanquished. 

Taking hold of eternal life, as he continues, is something that begins here, on earth, on this plane of existence.  Remember: Jesus’ portraits of what the Kingdom of God looks like, in almost every instance, were represented by images of life HERE, on earth.  While it described a vision of life that is foreign to what we generally experience here, he was describing a life that was being lived out as God intended it to be lived – not in the midst of the brokenness of the world, but in the midst of the world being mended.  And we, his followers, are commanded to mend. 

That ‘Good confession’ that Paul mentions that Timothy made in front of many witnesses, almost certainly refers to the confession of faith he made at his baptism, and it is one that we proclaim when we observe the ordinance of Baptism here or at the river:  ‘Jesus is Lord’.  It is both the earliest confession of the church and the simplest and most direct statement of the place that we are giving Jesus in our lives, and that position is in relation to every aspect of our lives:  our dreams, our goals, our wishes, our desires, our hopes, our vision. We are making Jesus – and his call on our lives – the arbiter – the one who determines what is to be important in our lives. 

What does this mean for Jerusalem Baptist Church at Emmerton?

It means that we hold fast to that same confession that has marked Christ followers since the beginning.   That we do not live by the standards of a society that tells us the value of a person is determined by their wealth, but adhere to the standard that the value of a person is determined by how much God loves them, and in that acknowledgment we understand that the love of God is equal for ALL of humanity and THAT is the value we place on our lives here in this community as well as on the lives of all those we come in contact with. 

Let’s pray.  

      

Huh?!

Sunday September 19 2010

Ordinary 25 C

Jerusalem Baptist Church (Emmerton), Warsaw VA

Text: Luke 16:1-13

Theme: deciphering parables

Then Jesus said to the disciples, “There was a rich man who had a manager, and charges were brought to him that this man was squandering his property. ²So he summoned him and said to him, ‘What is this that I hear about you? Give me an accounting of your management, because you cannot be my manager any longer.’ ³Then the manager said to himself, ‘What will I do, now that my master is taking the position away from me? I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg. ⁴I have decided what to do so that, when I am dismissed as manager, people may welcome me into their homes.’ ⁵So, summoning his master’s debtors one by one, he asked the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’ ⁶He answered, ‘A hundred jugs of olive oil.’ He said to him, ‘Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it fifty.’ ⁷Then he asked another, ‘And how much do you owe?’ He replied, ‘A hundred containers of wheat.’ He said to him, ‘Take your bill and make it eighty.’ ⁸And his master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly; for the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light. ⁹And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into the eternal homes. ¹⁰“Whoever is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much; and whoever is dishonest in a very little is dishonest also in much. ¹¹If then you have not been faithful with the dishonest wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches? ¹²And if you have not been faithful with what belongs to another, who will give you what is your own? ¹³No slave can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.”

I have a friend from seminary, Laura Hord-Albovias, who has time and again reiterated the need for there to be a font – a style of print – a typeface – that communicates sarcasm- it is desperately needed, especially in this age of instant communication and text messages on our mobile phones or instant messages online.  Any of us who have had the misfortune of having our messages misinterpreted due to the LACK of that particular font understand how easily it can happen – we do things to try to communicate the ‘tone’ of the comment – a wink and a smile, a pursed-lips smile, or a between brackets to show that we are not being serious, but one way or another, the message is misunderstood, and lengthy explanations must follow.

The same holds true for text that is maybe not so instant – as is, for example, our text this morning, and the lack of that font is part of the reason for the title of the message this morning- “Huh?!” which was my initial response to the parable as a whole, but especially to verse 9. 

First, a brief contextualization:  the writer of the Gospel according to Luke places this parable in line after the three in chapter 15 – the parable of the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the prodigal son, and just before the parable of the Rich man and Lazarus.  The running theme in all of the parables has to do with how God values and what God values, over and against how humans value and what humans value.  While Jesus is telling some of the parables to the religious leaders of the temple, others he is addressing to his disciples, but the religious leaders are still within earshot, and the points he is making are directed at times to one group and at times to the other. 

To summarize it, Jesus tells the story of a manager who has been caught red-handed pilfering from his master’s wealth.  The way the story is presented, it is a given that he is guilty of the charge.  We are given a peek into what this manager does when he is discovered… we hear his thoughts: “I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg. I have decided what to do so that, when I am dismissed as manager, people may welcome me into their homes.” 

And what he does is this:  he calls in the folks who still have outstanding debts to his master, and he reduces those debts – significantly in one case, partially in another… estimates are that a jug of oil held between 8 and 9 gallons, so to reduce a debt of 100 jugs by half meant that somewhere around 438 gallons of oil were written off… and with the wheat, a container of wheat held between 10 and 12 bushels, so reducing 100 containers to 80 translates into roughly 220 bushels… a not insignificant amount in an age when the pressing and the harvesting was all done by hand, or with minimal mechanical assistance.

Up until this point, the text seems to be an example of a pretty ordinary parable … surely this manager is getting ready to receive his ‘reward’ … but just when  we expect to read of that punishment, we read instead,

“And his master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly; for the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light.

That’s the first ‘Huh?!’ for me. 

The next comes in the very next verse:

“And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into the eternal homes.”

What the…?  If we were to leave this parable as it comes to us today – somewhat independent from the surrounding text, it would be something of an enigma, don’t you agree?  Here we have Jesus breaking into the story at the end and telling his disciples to make friends by means of dishonest wealth so that they will welcome you into the eternal homes … what’s he talking about??  

Is Jesus really telling us to do that?  To emulate the actions of the dishonest manager and his master, who, in the end, commends his servant for the shrewdness with which he acted in his own self-interest, even though it was at the master’s considerable expense?

It is here that we need to take a step back and gain a little perspective.  Jesus used parables in different ways.  Some parables were allegorical.  That is, the characters within the story being told represented individuals or groups in the real world.  In other instances, the story was told to exaggerate and highlight a point Jesus was trying to make.  In yet others, the story being told is designed to underscore the contrast – the differences between the point Jesus was making and the reality described in the story. 

This parable is an example of the last case.  Jesus tells the story.  The dishonest manager is crooked at the beginning of the story, is crooked in the middle, and remains crooked at the end.  His master, aware of his dishonesty, nonetheless commends him, congratulates him for his … shrewd handling of the situation.  The Master understands the manager’s motivation – understands that he is not in any shape to take up manual labor and is too proud to become a beggar, and recognizes that what he did with the debtors – these two are only examples – was designed to secure a soft landing once he got booted out the door, as well as created a no-win scenario for the Master, in that it would now be impossible for him to go around to those debtors and tell them that no, they actually DID owe the original amount.  Even though both the master and his debtors knew that the manager was operating outside his authority in reducing the debt they each had, it was a matter of maintaining appearances. 

One commentator stated that it is very likely that Jesus, being aware of what was going on around him and knowing what was going on in the lives of his audience, very probably took an example of something that was taking place or had taken place in the immediate past and was using it as an example … of HOW NOT TO BE. 

Jesus’ comment at the end of the parable, in verse 9, is essentially saying ‘yeah, go ahead and make friends this way, they are the ones who are REALLY going to be able to welcome you into your homes that ultimately matter – your eternal homes’ … the point being, that it was obvious that those fair-weather friends WEREN’T … and for us today, AREN’T the ones who are going to make a hill of beans’ difference in the eternal scheme of things. 

Verses 10 through 13 are another summary, a compendium, if you will, of statements that telegraph for his hearers what Jesus is trying to communicate about the perils of allowing riches and material possessions become your god.  It is simply a contrast between worldly wealth and heavenly treasures.  The little consists of the material goods for which a person is responsible in the use of which he must prove that he can be trusted with much – that is, the eternal riches that God will give him.  Dishonest wealth is the false, illusory wealth of the world in contrast to the true riches that God bestows on faithful stewards beyond this life.  An individual’s earthly existence is thought of as the testing ground in which his character is revealed.  A basic test is his attitude toward material possessions. 

There is one parallel in the parable between the earthly and the heavenly reality and that is in regards to the true owner of the wealth.  In the parable it is the master.  In our reality, the true owner of all that we have been entrusted with is God.  We are entrusted with the care of what we have during our time here on earth, but God remains the ultimate owner.  

A person’s concept of the values of life is determined by the master which he or she serves.  The verb translated “serve” in verse 13 is literally ‘be a slave to.’  The principal is that no one can be enslaved to two masters at the same time, that is, we cannot give our ultimate allegiance to two persons at the same time.  We do not have the privilege of deciding whether we will be a servant – that is determined by the fact that we are created beings and are therefore not masters of our lives.  We are only free to decide which master will receive our ultimate allegiance.

What does this mean for Jerusalem Baptist Church at Emmerton? 

At the risk of sounding too simplistic, life can go in one of two directions, but it can’t go in both at the same time.  We can find our values and goals within the narrow limits of birth and death and in the things that are definable by vision, taste, and touch.  On the other hand, we can give ourselves to goals that transcend the demands of body and ego.  If we make things our gods, we will very likely spend our lives and energy acquiring, guarding, and selfishly using them.  But if we make the Creator of all things our God, we will be freed to devote ourselves to higher and more meaningful values.    

May we be so faithful.

Let’s pray.

    

Counting the Cost

Sunday, September 5, 2010

Ordinary 23C

Jerusalem Baptist Church (Emmerton), Warsaw

Text: Luke 14:25-33

²⁵Now large crowds were traveling with him; and he turned and said to them, ²⁶“Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple. ²⁷Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple. ²⁸For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not first sit down and estimate the cost, to see whether he has enough to complete it? ²⁹Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it will begin to ridicule him, ³⁰saying, ‘This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.’ ³¹Or what king, going out to wage war against another king, will not sit down first and consider whether he is able with ten thousand to oppose the one who comes against him with twenty thousand? ³²If he cannot, then, while the other is still far away, he sends a delegation and asks for the terms of peace. ³³So therefore, none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions.

Does he really mean that?  Did he really just say, straight up “If you want to follow me, you have to hate your father and mother, wife and children, even life itself”?

There’s a danger in reading everything in the Gospels literally.  There really is.  Just as we do today, in first century Palestine, teachers and speakers used different forms of speech when they were trying to make a point: allegories, irony, generalizations, exaggerations and hyperbole were all part and parcel of the practice of speaking and teaching.  It is disingenuous – in other words, it is less than honest - to claim that Jesus’ words in the Gospels can ONLY be read in their literal sense, that there is no other alternative explanation, no other motivation behind his words.  While it IS SIMPLER and EASIER to do that, it sets aside God’s call to love God with all our MINDS in addition to all our heart, soul and strength. 

An initial question I would ask as we approach today’s text is this: what is Jesus framing with this statement?  What is he addressing? 

He is continuing the thought that was so ably addressed last Sunday by Reverend Daniel Mochamps (by the way, remind me to not let so much time pass before I ask him to come back).  Jesus had just told the parable of the great dinner, where none of the guests who were originally invited deigned to show up, so the host sent his servant out into the streets to bring in anyone he could find; beggars, slaves, anybody. 

We have to start from that imagery and see where Jesus is going with this. 

First we have, in the first verses of the chapter, Jesus healing a man who suffered from dropsy – which is swelling due to abnormal fluid retention – and he does it on the Sabbath, in front of lawyers and Pharisees … and he asks them point-blank: Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?  Luke’s Gospel records that they could not reply.  It brings to mind Leslie’s message to the children Sunday before last, about getting bent out of shape because of a rule being broken, while completely losing sight of the fact that the PEOPLE and the RELATIONSHIPS are more important than the rules.

What Jesus engages in these two examples, the man preparing to build a tower, and the King facing the prospect of a fight against an army twice as big as his, is an entreaty to his disciples – not just the twelve, but any who would choose to follow him – to understand exactly what is involved in following him.  At this point in the Luke, Jesus is already aware of the rumblings that are beginning to be heard among the religious leadership… he is already sensing where this is going to end… and though it will end in ultimate good, it will not be without pain and suffering – and death.  HIS death. 

So Jesus is acutely aware of the fact that being a disciple of his will not be a cakewalk.  In telling these stories, he’s not discouraging people from following him, he’s discouraging them from following him without first counting the cost.

For his immediate disciples, counting the cost of following him meant accepting the likelihood – the probability – that they would eventually lose their lives – literally – for the Gospel.  What they began preaching after Jesus’ resurrection was simply too radical and too anti-establishment and anti-institutional to be readily accepted by folks who had become more interested in maintaining the institutions they belonged to than in helping to break in the Kingdom that God had intended from the beginning. 

Alyce M. McKenzie, Professor of Homiletics, Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University, puts it this way:

“Counting the cost doesn’t mean we have to pay up, that we have to come up with enough renunciation and enough pain to earn our way into Jesus’ good graces. Jesus is not saying that we must earn divine love by hating our family or by holding a contest to see whose cross contains the most pain.

Robert H. Stein, in his Introduction to the Parables of Jesus points out that “the kingdom of God is offered graciously by God to all” (112). God’s love provides us with the perseverance and energy to follow Jesus as we live in and into that kingdom. We need to view this passage in the context of Luke’s gospel, which repeatedly emphasizes the compassion of a God who seeks out and saves the lost, who stands ready to forgive the sinner. Stein Says, “We aren’t excluded from God’s kingdom because it’s too hard to earn entrance. We exclude ourselves when we willfully reject God’s gracious invitation” (112) Luke 14:15-24).

The grace of God is not cheap grace. It requires a response. Says Stein “one can only receive the grace of God with open hands, and to open those hands one must let go of all that would frustrate the reception of that grace. Jesus refers to this letting go as repentance…It is foolish and damning to answer the invitation if one is not willing to repent” (Stein, 112). Half hearted disciples RSVP to the messianic banquet and then find excuses not to attend (14:18-10).”

What Jesus is trying to convey to his followers – those who have been with him from the beginning as well as those who just found out he was in the area and decided to tag along, is that there is more to following him than simply agreeing with his teachings.  It is more than a simple philosophical agreement to live with the knowledge of a certain understanding of what it means to be in relationship with God. 

It means to put that knowledge, that understanding, that RELATIONSHIP on display and into action in the way we live as followers of Christ. 

What does this mean for Jerusalem Baptist Church at Emmerton?   

Admittedly, it would seem to be a little more of a challenge for US to try to ‘count the cost’ of following Christ.  I mean, after all, we DO live in a country and at a time where following Christ – or at least calling yourself a Christian – is more the norm for THIS area than not, right?  So it should be easier to be a Christian in a place where we’re not really at risk of being thrown to the lions for SAYING we’re Christians …

The risk is in losing sight of exactly what it means to BE a Christian where it is presumed to be the norm. 

It is dangerous for faith to be co-opted, to be subsumed into a culture when that culture simply resorts to calling itself by that faith name, when there is actually very little IN that culture that could be identified as belonging to that faith.  I would dare say that, if Jesus were to come to the United States today, he would be astonished that the country calls itself a ‘Christian Nation’, or that a portion of the world would consider it to be that. 

I think he would still find communities in which he would feel at home.  Small, tightly-knit groups of people who work to do as he taught, to live as he lived, to love God and love their neighbor as he commanded…

My prayer is that this church called Jerusalem would be one of those places.

Let’s pray.