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.