Do As I Say …

Sunday, October 30th, 2005
Pentecost + 24
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA
Matthew 23:1-12

1 Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples, 2 ‘The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat; 3 therefore, do whatever they teach you and follow it; but do not do as they do, for they do not practice what they teach. 4 They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on the shoulders of others; but they themselves are unwilling to lift a finger to move them. 5 They do all their deeds to be seen by others; for they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long. 6 They love to have the place of honor at banquets and the best seats in the synagogues, 7 and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces, and to have people call them rabbi. 8 But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all students. 9 And call no one your father on earth, for you have one Father--the one in heaven. 10 Nor are you to be called instructors, for you have one instructor, the Messiah. 11 The greatest among you will be your servant. 12 All who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted.

To open the Bible and to read it with a humble heart and an open mind is to invite scandal into your life.

Half the time, you draw comfort from what you are reading. Passages flow into you that reassure and sooth, that give you courage and encourage you and give you something to smile about or something to ponder, something to enrich your life, but that’s only half the time. You read it, and you hear God saying ‘from where you’re sitting it may not look like it, but someday, if you continue to do the right thing, someday it WILL be rewarded, and justice will flow down, but there’s still the other half of the time.’

The rest of the time, if you are honest with yourself, you find yourself on the short end of the stick. You are more likely to identify with or be identified as the one in the story who DIDN’T GET it to begin with, the one who isn’t shown in the best light in the parable, the one who God is speaking against – who Jesus is speaking AGAINST. It’s not necessarily a reflection of what your sense of self-esteem is doing at the moment, it is more a matter of realizing that for all your good and potentially good qualities, there are most definitely some qualities in you that deserve the withering blast that Jesus levels in today’s passage.

One of the most common excuses given for why someone doesn’t go to church is that ‘church is full of hypocrites’. I suspect most all of us have heard it at some point in our lives, perhaps even thought it ourselves. I remember distinctly being so fed up with my perception of what the membership consisted of in the big Baptist church in my college town in Kentucky that I very nearly stopped going altogether, and contemplated going in one of two directions: withdrawing from the faith community altogether, or heading out on my own, me and my roommates, just doing our own thing, being as true to the Gospel as we could be. And although it can be an either-or proposition, in some ways it ends up being both things. In my endeavor to go deeper, to understand more what it means to be a follower of Christ, to be as zealous, as honest as I could be about faith, it caused me to do what I mentioned the Pharisees did themselves. You withdraw from community, you withdraw from fellowship, and so you’re left with this “thing” that you are trying to bring back together.

I looked up the origin, the etymology of the word “Hypocrite” last night. It is a transliteration of the Greek word hypokrites, which means "actor on the stage, pretender." So I was encouraged to know that at the tender age of 7, Caleb is a bona-fide, card-carrying hypocrite. As Leslie mentioned earlier, he is in the Westmoreland Players’ production of ‘A Christmas Carol’. So he is, by definition, a hypocrite. He is pretending to be a schoolboy, the son of a coal miner, and the personification of ‘ignorance’. Others in the play are being hypocrites pretending to be Bob Cratchitt, Tiny Tim, Ebenezer Scrooge, and any number of other characters.

Interesting, isn’t it, when you use a word in its original sense rather than it’s acquired sense? It seems that the word’s original meaning quickly became applicable to not only those who exercised a craft onstage, but to those who exercised a similar craft on their own stage, in life.

The critical difference between the hypocrites we call actors and the hypocrites for whom we have NOT changed the name is another actor’s term: motivation. With an actor, it is an understood tenet of the agreement between audience and actor that it is UNDERSTOOD that the actor is PLAYING a part. It is generally NOT the case that the actor is trying to actually BE the character he or she is representing onstage IN REAL LIFE. But the term STUCK for those who practice the craft in their daily life.

What I find myself asking each time I come to this passage and the rest of the chapter, is ‘what side of the conversation am I on? Is Jesus talking TO me or ABOUT me? Am I, right now, one of the Pharisees, or one of the poor souls Jesus says the Pharisees are loading down with all the unnecessary baggage?’ And I’ve felt like both.

It’s a process that has taken on a different dynamic since I’ve been in full-time ministry.

Used to be, since I wasn’t standing here on Sunday mornings, it was much easier to sit back and put my hands behind my head and say ‘He’s not talking about ME. I’m not even in the same ballpark with those guys. I’m not pretending to be something I’m not.”

But the question always comes back, regardless of whether I’m up here or sitting down there. Am I TRULY NOT trying to be something I’m not? It was and continues to be a nagging question. If there is a key piece to the puzzle of what it means to live as a follower of Jesus Christ, it is to be genuine, to be AUTHENTIC: to be true to God, to be true to Jesus, and to be true to yourself and to your brothers and sisters in Christ. And that can be terribly hard sometimes.

Especially in a culture such as ours, and by that I don’t mean the American culture, I mean the southern, protestant, white, Anglo-Saxon BAPTIST culture, where there are heavily traditional expectations of what a pastor should say in any given situation, what a Pastor should do and how a pastor should speak. Those expectations are, to be fair, changing. There is a move away from the slick-haired, Bible-waiving, stentorian-voiced preacher, with a ready joke, and an outgoing-to-the-point-of-being-overbearing personality, and a move towards allowing Pastors to be people too; to have real problems and weaknesses, deep struggles and hardships that are seemingly as hard to get through and over for THEM as for anyone else.

And it is none too soon for the change, if you ask me. But even for me, even welcoming the change, it carries with it an element of risk, of radicalism apart from the obvious. It is actually what drew me that final step into the ministry. I’d known pastors who were from both camps – those who never let you see their true selves, and those who did nothing other than that; those who would take the Sunday Sermon to hit you up ‘side the head with a two-by-four and those who took the Sunday morning time to walk with you through a passage or thought in the Bible. To illustrate how the passage fits into the greater Gospel message of Grace & forgiveness.

Jesus looks at our hearts. We’ve seen it time and time again. He’s said it time and time again.

The phylacteries that are mentioned, I’m sure you’ve studied in the past, were and are in some traditions of present-day Judaism, little leather boxes that carry inside them a couple of passages from the old testament, written on velum – on sheepskin – Exodus 13:9 and Deuteronomy 6:8-9 they are strapped to the forehead and the left arm, the fringes were blue twisted tassels worn on the four corners of the outer garment, both served as reminders of the place that God’s word should have in our lives. If that were all they had remained, Jesus wouldn’t have had a problem with them in the least.

It was what they had become that he had a problem with. The phylacteries had slowly grown in size, as had the fringes in length, so that anyone could see them from across the room, or across the square. They stopped being for the individual and started being for show. They started getting bigger and bigger, and of course, size matters, so if it is bigger, then that MUST mean that you are holier, or more righteous. How does that translate into how we live out our faith today? If we have a bigger building, a taller steeple, a bigger organ, a bigger screen, would that make us better Christians? I think not.

Jesus is going for what is of meaning, what is of essence, in following him. Jesus doesn’t want anything for show. He’s looking for honesty, whatever that honesty entails. The verse of that song came up, and I couldn’t get through it, what was it? ‘Women of faith, sing from broken hearts?’ (Stand and sing to broken hearts) – That’s where it is! It could’ve gone a lot smoother up to this point. Thankfully, we still have power. I could have skipped a slide, I could have moved the slide a little slower at one point, but that’s not what makes our worship. Our worship comes from here, from our hearts. That is what Jesus has always wanted. That is what we bring. That is what he longs for.

So what does this mean for Jerusalem Baptist Church at Emmerton?

It means that we need to be constantly checking ourselves. We need to be constantly … going back to the actor analogy, we need to be checking what our motivation is. Where are we living? Are we on a stage acting, or are we down in the meat of life, in the daily existence, are we learning how to live, how to apply, how to be Jesus in daily life, or are we just pretending? It’s not an answer I can give you. It’s an answer we each give ourselves.

So the invitation this morning is to check. To find out why we’re doing this, why we’re here this morning? Are we here in obedience and worship, or are we here because if we weren’t, people would talk about us? Are we here because WE need to see who’s here, to check on THEM? Can we find strength, can we find comfort? Can we find family, here? MY answer for MYself is a solid ‘yes!’ I hope it is for all of us.

Let’s pray.

Hang the Law and the Prophets!


Sunday, October 23rd, 2005
Pentecost + 23
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA
Matthew 22:34-46

34 When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, 35 and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. 36 “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” 37 He said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the greatest and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” 41 Now while the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them this question: 42 “What do you think of the Messiah? Whose son is he?” They said to him, “The son of David.” 43 He said to them, “How is it then that David by the Spirit calls him Lord, saying,
44 ‘The Lord said to my Lord,
“Sit at my right hand,
until I put
your enemies under your feet”’?
45 If David thus calls him Lord, how can he be his son?” 46 No one was able to give him an answer, nor from that day did anyone dare to ask him any more questions.

Have you ever been witness to or been involved in a paradigm shift?

There’s another term that might be more familiar to you; a sea change.

There are several that have occurred over the last 40 to 60 years: the way and frequency with which we travel for pleasure. Used to be, pleasure travel was reserved for the wealthy. In the last 4 or 5 decades it has become commonplace for anyone with an automobile or the means to purchase an airline ticket to travel just about anywhere they want.

The way we communicate has probably seen one of the most drastic changes. It has evolved in our lifetime, from mailed letters and expensive shortwave radio equipment to phone calls to faxes and emails to instant or text messaging on your cell phones. If you have one particular company, you can now use your phone as a walkie-talkie throughout the United States, Canada, and several South American countries. The part in our congregational benediction about the world now being “too dangerous for anything but truth” is becoming truer and truer. In the middle of campaign season, I think it is great that there’s a website, factcheck.org, which dedicates itself to the sole purpose of confirming or correcting what politicians say in the course of interviews, speeches, and campaigns. It keeps people on their toes. I wonder if there’s one for preachers. J

Jesus came to Jerusalem to check the facts that the Sadducees and Pharisees had been dishing out for hundreds years. And, to put it mildly, they didn’t like it.

As we’ve seen happen over the last few weeks, the religious leaders are at it yet again. Trying to trap Jesus and discredit him – undercut the authority with which he had been preaching and teaching for the previous three years. So they send out a lawyer – the person described in the text as a lawyer would today be known as a religious scholar – also called a scribe, and a member of the Pharisaic sect.

Let’s digress for a minute. This passage – The Greatest Command, is found in all three of the synoptic Gospels – here in Matthew, Mark, which I quoted from last week, and Luke. There are slight differences in the wording in each of them, The Gospel according to Mark – 12:28 and following – presents the exchange in an almost-conciliatory way – first Jesus states the commandments, then the scribe repeats them back to him, affirming what Jesus said, then Jesus says to the man ‘you are not far from the Kingdom of God”. Not exactly the same emphasis that Matthew places on the exchange, though they do both end with the same ‘no one dared ask any more questions.’

The Gospel according to Luke has the passage in an entirely different place in the ministry of Jesus. We find it in Chapter 10, beginning in verse 25. The intent is still the same, to test Jesus, but the question is posed differently. The question is ‘what must I do to inherit eternal life?’ Jesus’ answer is to ask the scribe to quote to HIM what he finds in the Law that is required to inherit eternal life. The scribe quotes the passages from Deuteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus 19:18 as a single piece. Jesus affirms the response, but the conversation keeps going, in response to the second commands’ ‘love your neighbor as yourself’ the scribe asks Jesus to define for him who his neighbor is.

I know we’ve spoken about how the term ‘Christian’ was originally a pejorative term – a term meant to actually make fun of those who followed Jesus Christ, and accepted him as their Lord. Did you know that the Pharisees received their name the same way? The term ‘Pharisee’ means ‘Separatist’. As they became a movement of their own within the Jewish faith, their purpose was to maintain their holiness and righteousness, but in order to do that they had to pull away, to withdraw, and to separate from those who were ritually unclean, in order to establish an order that maintained its ritual cleanliness – and they did it zealously.

Just as the term ‘Baptist’ was originally a way to make fun of those who practiced immersion baptism, so were the terms ‘Pharisee’ and ‘Christian’.

Jesus answered the scribe’s question about who his neighbor was with the parable of the Good Samaritan.

The name Pharisees called themselves was another word: ‘Haberim’.

Would anyone care to venture a guess as to what that word means?

It means ‘Neighbors.’

Imagine calling yourself a ‘neighbor’, and asking a question with a very specific, very restricted set of people in mind, and having the very term you use to define yourself turned inside out like that … would YOU be able to come up with another question for Jesus?

What is intended in each passage is the whole self given to God and to others. Mechanical precision was not a goal important to biblical writers.

****
The Pharisees had quantified the Law of Moses into 613 commandments: 365 prohibitions (DON’T do this) and 248 positive (DO do this) commandments. Though they allowed for an occasional summary statement in one or a few commandments here and there, Pharisees held firmly to the principle that each commandment was as important as the others, the ‘light’ commandments being just as important as the ‘heavy’ ones, hence, the strictures to follow each and every law to the letter.

Jesus redirects them to the spirit of the Law: Love. Jesus makes love not only the great commandment, but also the essence and fulfillment of the law and the prophets – our Old Testament. The earlier version of the Revised Standard Bible translated the word ‘Krematai’ as ‘depend’, and it DOES apply. It DOES get the point across.

But the word, literally translated, is what the later, New Revised Standard has; ‘hang.’ It paints a more vivid picture. The image is of two hinges, and a door. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself. Hang the law and the prophets on that, and you’ve opened the door to everything it is that God expects of and can do through you.

The expectation is not lightened when we interpret the law through Love. It is heightened and deepened. It is a heavier demand, much more so than legalism. Love both liberates and binds. It freely gives and yet requires the whole of oneself for God, neighbor, and oneself. Jesus didn’t come to do away with the law, but to fulfill it, and it is in this passage that we see what that fulfillment involves. Jesus began a sea change in how people perceived God. It is a paradigm shift that continues to this day.

We are still caught in a mindset that we have to please God in order to attain salvation, that we have to DO something to make ourselves better than we were, somehow make ourselves acceptable to God, when in truth, Jesus is the only way we can be that.

The Gospel doesn’t end there. It doesn’t stop at ‘Love God.’ It continues through ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’

We are called to love God, of course. That is a given. But how that love is expressed is critical to how we truly believe what we say we believe. How we live out what our faith IS.

What does that mean for Jerusalem Baptist Church at Emmerton?

It means that we should constantly be reevaluating what the term ‘neighbor’ means to us. Have we settled into thinking of ourselves only as ‘Haberim’?

Do we, consciously or subconsciously, stratify our community, divide people into categories, those who are okay to help, those who are not, those who are worth spending time with, and those who are not, those whom we would greet readily if we saw them on the street or in the store, and those we’d not go out of our way to greet?

It’s an easy trap to fall into. We are wired that way. There are always going to be people that we feel less comfortable around, people who suck away our energy, people who don’t seem to respond the way we’d like them to. But a paradigm shift means that the basis for how you view the world shifts, so everything shifts. Jesus is calling us to not only think outside the box, but to think outside ourselves. To see the world through God’s eyes, to hear the world through God’s ears, to hold the world in God’s own heart, and make his heart our own.

That is what makes the expectation heavier. That is what makes the task one that we cannot do as individuals, but must do as community. We must come together in purpose and in spirit.

And that spirit, that unity, can only come through the law of Love.

Let’s pray.

To Each His Own

Sunday, October 16th, 2005
Pentecost + 22
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA
Matthew 22:15-22

15 Then the Pharisees went and plotted to entrap him in what he said. 16So they sent their disciples to him, along with the Herodians, saying, ‘Teacher, we know that you are sincere, and teach the way of God in accordance with truth, and show deference to no one; for you do not regard people with partiality. 17Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?’ 18But Jesus, aware of their malice, said, ‘Why are you putting me to the test, you hypocrites? 19Show me the coin used for the tax.’ And they brought him a denarius. 20Then he said to them, ‘Whose head is this, and whose title?’ 21They answered, ‘The emperor’s.’ Then he said to them, ‘Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.’ 22When they heard this, they were amazed; and they left him and went away.

What belongs to God and what belongs to … the world? At heart, that is the question in this passage.

We are again picking up right where we left off last week. As we’ve seen over the past few weeks, Jesus is in Jerusalem with his disciples during the Passover that preceded his crucifixion, and as we move through the week, we’ve seen the tensions escalate between Jesus and his followers and the religious and political leaders of the nation.

Over the years, I’ve heard many sermons preached on the text, and the single bit of information that stands out time after time is the mastery of Jesus’ response to a question that was intended to entrap him.

The tax in question was a ‘head tax’, what we would recognize as a poll tax – one which every male over the age of fourteen and every female over the age of twelve had to pay using the coin in question – a special silver denarius minted for just that purpose, until they were 65. The coin bore the likeness and name of the reigning Caesar, which in and of itself violated the law and conscience of the Jewish people against idolatry.

In fact, it was this very tax that caused a revolt in Palestine when Jesus was barely a toddler. The question was not a general interest, “just asking because we’re curious” kind of question. The feelings that generated the revolt three decades earlier, and which would play a significant part in prompting the revolt, uprising and war that would ultimately result in the destruction of Jerusalem a little more than three decades later were still very much present.

The Jews were under occupation by a foreign power. To make matters worse, the foreign power was polytheistic. In other words, the rulers and oppressors of the Jews, who were monotheistic – worshipped one God and did not allow for the existence of multiple gods – were reminded every day of their subjugation to a government that not only allowed for the existence of a single God, but in fact encouraged the worship of a multitude of gods, to the point that the very emperor of Rome was worshipped as a god himself. The issue at hand was this: to be a good Jew, you needed to find a way on some level to express your disagreement, your righteousness, as it were, in the face of that polytheism by either refusing to pay this tax using a coin that proclaimed Caesar to be a deity, or to do it under duress.

The rub comes into today’s scene with the presence of the ‘Herodians’, or followers of Herod the great and his descendants, into the crowd that is listening to the exchange. The Herods were dependent on the Romans for their position as Kings over the years, so they naturally supported the tax about which Jesus was asked. The trick of the question was that, if Jesus had answered that the tax should be paid, he would have failed the test of the Pharisees, who believed it to break Jewish law, and was a blatant and sometimes painful reminder of the subjugation they lived under.

If Jesus had answered that the taxes should not be paid, he might have gained a temporary measure of respect from his enemies, the Pharisees and Sadducees, but would have given the Herodians and the Romans ample reason to arrest, imprison, and torture and probably kill him immediately, since he would be advocating the stopping of paying taxes to Rome, which was considered treason, which was, of course, punishable by death.

So in responding the way he did, Jesus did again what he does best. He put things in perspective not only for those who were listening to him then, but to us hearing his words again for the umpteenth time here this morning.

His response could be read as almost dismissive. Imagine him shrugging and saying “If the coin belongs to Caesar, let him have it. So what? It’s only money.”

It’s the second part of his answer that I think bears dwelling on this morning. Give “to God the things that are God’s”.

If I were to ask the question “what belongs to God?” In this context, in the middle of a sermon during a worship service in a Baptist church in rural Virginia, I suspect that everyone answered that question immediately in their minds with a single word: ‘Everything’. It is the expected answer, the correct, the church answer to the question. The answer seems clear in our minds when we think about it here.

The issue becomes somewhat less than clear when we leave this place. It is not surprising. We are surrounded by a society that rates success and achievement in direct proportion to the acquiring of material possessions. Therefore you are a successful business if your business grows and gains more and more clients each year. Your church is a successful church if you grow bigger and bigger each year. YOU are a success if you get a new car every couple of years, and move through progressively larger houses throughout your life.

Being successful in the context of our society is no sin in and of itself. There’s nothing wrong with a business ‘booming’. There’s nothing wrong with a church gaining new members. There’s nothing wrong with being able to afford a new car every couple of years. Technology is improving day by day, and in order to be good stewards of the earth’s resources, we would probably do well to step up to more efficient transportation. What IS at risk is the possibility of that becoming the focus of our existence. That all we occupy our minds with is the mindless accumulation of wealth in order to meet the expectations of a society that is not exactly focused on the higher truths of existence. What TRULY makes us valuable? What do WE truly VALUE? What is, in fact, lasting? Is it our possessions, or is it our relationships with each other?

So what does that mean for Jerusalem Baptist Church at Emmerton?

Brandon Harcum and I are going through a series of studies for his Cub Scout badge focusing on God and Family. This morning’s lesson was talking about foundations, and brought out the foundational passage in Deuteronomy 6:4-5, for the people of Israel, the “Shema” – “Hear Oh Israel, the Lord your God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and might.” And the New Testament passage in Mark 12:29-31, where Jesus repeats the Shema, and then expands on it in two ways – by engaging our minds, and by equating the love of neighbor with the love of God.

We are, throughout our lives as we grow as Christians, learning what it means to follow Christ, what it means to be obedient, what it means to put our faith into action. Jesus is telling us in Matthew that all we have belongs to God, and we are giving BACK to God what belongs to God, not that we are giving God something that belongs to us FIRST. That is, our hearts, our minds, and as Paul calls them, our bodies as living sacrifices. God HAS given us that, and calls us to freely, willingly return them to God’s service. Jesus is telling us in his restatement of the Shema that the only way to live out the love for God that we have is through living out that love in our relationships here on earth, with each other. Not just those who are in this room now, but with everyone we come in contact. Jesus expands the definition of family to include the family of humanity. He did not qualify his definition of neighbor. The words of the hymn are exactly right: “We are called to be God’s people, showing by our lives his grace” not only his Grace in OUR OWN lives, but through us INTO the lives of everyone around us. We are simply and profoundly called to be Christ’s presence in the world today.

Let’s pray.

Everyone You Find


Sunday, October 9th, 2005
Pentecost + 21
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA
Matthew 22:1-14

Once more Jesus spoke to them in parables, saying: 2 ‘The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding banquet for his son. 3 He sent his slaves to call those who had been invited to the wedding banquet, but they would not come. 4 Again he sent other slaves, saying, “Tell those who have been invited: Look, I have prepared my dinner, my oxen and my fat calves have been slaughtered, and everything is ready; come to the wedding banquet.” 5 But they made light of it and went away, one to his farm, another to his business, 6 while the rest seized his slaves, mistreated them, and killed them. 7 The king was enraged. He sent his troops, destroyed those murderers, and burned their city. 8 Then he said to his slaves, “The wedding is ready, but those invited were not worthy. 9 Go therefore into the main streets, and invite everyone you find to the wedding banquet.” 10 Those slaves went out into the streets and gathered all whom they found, both good and bad; so the wedding hall was filled with guests. 11 ‘But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing a wedding robe, 12 and he said to him, “Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding robe?” And he was speechless. 13 Then the king said to the attendants, “Bind him hand and foot, and throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” 14 For many are called, but few are chosen.’

Last night, we ate supper with a friend of ours and her family. We’ve been trying to get together for almost a month, but schedules had not permitted, and although we had everything worked out last week to get together, towards the middle of the week we realized that our friends Doug and Lea and their daughter Karen were fast running out of time available to visit with friends and family before flying out today to return to Hungary, so I sent our friend an email asking if it would be possible to postpone our dinner until last night. Her response was quick and easy. There was no problem. Having explained the reason for the request, she fully understood, and would have done the same thing had she been in our situation. It was an understanding among equals that there was no intention to show disrespect or belittle the person making the invitation; it was simply a matter of time constraints and encroaching separation. Our dinner last night was as enjoyable as it might have been earlier, with no repercussions from having postponed it twice before it actually took place.

The parable Jesus presents us with today does involve an invitation to a banquet, but the similarities stop there.

The invitation is offered, in the story, by a King. And the folks receiving the invitation reject it for a number of reasons. Remember, Jesus is facing down the Pharisees and Sadducees in Jerusalem in his last week of mortal life on earth, and following the previous two passages we’ve gone over the last two weeks, this one in some ways is a culmination of a progression of indictments that Jesus is leveling at the leaders of the religious establishment of his day.

As we move through these passages towards the end of the Gospel according to Matthew, we are faced with Jesus telling everyone around him what is about to happen to him and trying to describe to them how God is going to respond. Always in human terms, familiar terms, regular day-to-day images, but with outcomes or events being described that strain the imagination. The depth of the depravity, the coldness and arrogance and defiance described is one that just cannot seem to BE real. It can’t POSSIBLY exist, can it?

The sad truth is that it does and always has, since nearly the beginning, existed within the human spirit. It is one of the aspects of having a free will that makes for horror stories of atrocities committed in the name of race, religion, ethnicity, class, age, sex, and any number of other distinguishing factors. And the scary truth is that we find it not ONLY in a society that generally ignores the fact that there is a God who loves all of humanity and longs to be in relationship with all of us, but that we also find it hidden away – and sometimes not so hidden – within our own psyches, within our own hearts. settled in and making a home for itself as though everything it believes is normal, understood, and obvious, and not totally contrary to the teaching of the gospel.

There’s something wrenching in reading of the offer to attend a wedding banquet. The offer comes from not just anyone, but from a KING. It is understood that the party will not be a run-of-the-mill one. Royalty are expected to have more, do more, and be more… They can do, be and have because they are ROYALTY, by virtue of their position they have access to so much more than a regular person would have.

This would’ve been an obvious understanding to the hearers of the parable in the temple that day. They lived in a society where the King lived a life so far removed from the daily, desperate struggle of the men and women in the streets that they were practically a different species.

One of the professors at Southern, a New Testament Scholar who has since passed away, was in the process of writing a book about a singular aspect of the parables of Jesus. That is, the fact that in most all of Jesus’ parables, there is a predictability to the story that draws the listener into the story, but at a certain point, something happens in the story, either a character is introduced, or an action is taken, or a response is given, that causes that listener to rear back and go “WHAT??!!” … or more accurately, “HUH??!!” in reply.

That happens in this parable. Note that this one is different from the last few parables we’ve been studying over the last couple of weeks. Those didn’t have “the kingdom is like” at the front of them, remember? Jesus was presenting situations that were antithetical – completely opposed – to what the Kingdom was supposed to be like. Here, AFTER having gone through those, he comes back and introduces this parable with the familiar formula: “the kingdom of heaven may be compared to …”

The wrenching comes in at the same point where the listeners would have reared back with the shocked look on their faces: in verse 5, we read that in response to the King’s second attempt to invite the people to his wedding feast, “they made light of it and went away, one to his farm, another to his business, 6 while the rest seized his slaves, mistreated them, and killed them.”

They are not exactly up on Emily Post’s book of etiquette, are they? To reject a King’s invitation is to not only be rude, but it is an affront to the King’s authority. Jesus has been dwelling on that theme for the last three weeks, since that was the issue that the religious establishment was challenging him on.

It was becoming increasingly obvious to both the regular people as well as the temple leadership that was listening to him that the characters in the parables that were either mistreating or outright killing those sent from or by the king – whether in this passage or in the previous passages we’ve read – were the folks who more than anyone else considered themselves deserving of a place in the Kingdom of God. After all, they were the best of the best, the purest of the pure, and the most obedient of all.

Jesus’ whole thrust with them was to try to make them realize that it wasn’t about what you looked like or said on the outside – it was who and what you were like on the inside that TRULY determined what your relationship to God would be.

So we have Jesus declaring that those invited to the wedding feast are turning the invitation away. On a larger scale, Jesus isn’t talking only of the temple leadership; he is speaking of the people of Israel. They have been tested and found wanting. Their response to Jesus himself has been mixed at best. Though there are those who have committed themselves to him, there are more who have pitted themselves against him – not JUST the temple leadership, but the population as a whole. From history – and we’ve seen this to some degree in our studies on Wednesday nights through the book of Acts – there was almost from the beginning of the church a growing tension between the Hellenist and Judaist branches, if you will, of the emerging Christian faith – those who came from a Gentile background and those who came from a Jewish one. We also know from history that the same people who welcomed Jesus at the beginning of this week during which he told these parables with shouts of ‘blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord’, ended the week with shouts of ‘give us Barabbas!’

Calling and election (or chosen, in the words of verse 14) … roots in God’s grace, not in a person’s merit. The wedding hall will be filled, whether or not those most privileged respond. The picture is one of a generous grace that opens and spills beyond the accepted bounds of society and seeks to include EVERYONE YOU MEET in the invitation. It is both a blessing and warning. It is a blessing to the newly invited, since they would have otherwise had no chance, perhaps, of BEING invited, had those first invitees accepted the invitation, and a warning to the originally invited – to be aware that the invitation does not last forever.

We find a parable within a parable in verses 11-14.

A man is found at the party not wearing a wedding robe. At first reading, it would seem somewhat arbitrary for the King to have this man bound and gagged and tossed out just because he’s not wearing appropriate dress. The truth goes deeper than simple clothing.

The Wedding robe referred to was probably not so much a particular piece of clothing, but it had more to do with the condition of the clothes being worn. God’s free gift of salvation is often pictured as ‘garments of salvation’, or ‘a robe of righteousness’ (Isaiah 61:10) In rabbinical interpretation of Ecclesiastes 9:8, “let your garments be always white,” the robe stands for repentance. In Revelation, a white robe is symbolic of purity or repentance (3:4, 5, 18; 19:8). So here, the wedding robe may symbolize God’s gift of salvation, or specifically, repentance and righteousness. Salvation is offered to Tax collectors, prostitutes, and Gentiles, but it is not indulgence. It is gift and demand.

When asked to explain what right he had to enter (not HOW he got in) without the garment, the man was speechless. Presumably he had no excuse. The point may be that his defiance of authority was greater even than that of those first invited who spurned the invitation. They defied the King’s authority by refusing to attend the feast. This man defied that authority in a more arrogant way, by trying to attend on his own terms.

God is inviting us, yes, and always. And we are free to accept or reject that invitation. The issue is that when we accept it, the invitation is on God’s terms, not ours. Yes, Jesus meets us where we are, but he doesn’t leave us there. His call on our lives is to a life of commitment, of service, of love, of giving, of sacrifice, of care, and of reconciliation.

And that is what the invitation is this morning. To the table that represents Christ’s own sacrifice in our place. It is for all who would come. But it comes with a price. That price is your life for Christ, as was Christ’s life for yours.

(communion, prayer)

Being Church, Doing Church


Sunday, October 2nd, 2005
Pentecost + 20
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA
Matthew 21:33-46

33 ‘Listen to another parable. There was a landowner who planted a vineyard, put a fence around it, dug a wine press in it, and built a watchtower. Then he leased it to tenants and went to another country. 34When the harvest time had come, he sent his slaves to the tenants to collect his produce. 35But the tenants seized his slaves and beat one, killed another, and stoned another. 36Again he sent other slaves, more than the first; and they treated them in the same way. 37Finally he sent his son to them, saying, “They will respect my son.” 38But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, “This is the heir; come, let us kill him and get his inheritance.’ 39So they seized him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him. 40Now when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?’ 41They said to him, ‘He will put those wretches to a miserable death, and lease the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the produce at the harvest time.’ 42Jesus said to them, ‘Have you never read in the scriptures: “The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; this was the Lord’s doing, and it is amazing in our eyes”? 43Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that produces the fruits of the kingdom. 44The one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; and it will crush anyone on whom it falls.’ 45When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they realized that he was speaking about them. 46They wanted to arrest him, but they feared the crowds, because they regarded him as a prophet.

”If the preacher don’t step on my toes, don’t tell me what I’m doin’ wrong, then I don’t want to hear him. I won’t go back. That’s what I go to church for, to be told what I’m doin’ wrong!” this, from a man just this past week, in a conversation following my being introduced AS ‘the preacher from Jerusalem’.

The comment prompted the thought, “do I do that enough?” quickly followed by, “Do I WANT to do that more?” It goes without saying that there are a multitude of views of what a Minister or Preacher is supposed to do when he or she gets up to preach on Sundays. But I think we can all agree that the primary purpose is to bring God’s word to God’s people. And we find it all, don’t we? We run the gamut, from praise and encouragement to … pretty severe tongue lashings. Today’s passage is a continuation of Jesus giving the Pharisees and Sadducees as severe a tongue lashing as they ever received.

Remember from last week, we’ve jumped ahead into Jesus’ last week in Jerusalem before his crucifixion, and as the week progresses, the confrontations between Jesus and the religious leaders grow more pointed and more heated. Note, there is no ‘the Kingdom is like’ at the beginning of this parable, just as there wasn’t at the beginning of the parable of the two sons in last week’s parable. Jesus isn’t presenting an image of the Kingdom, he is presenting one of the day in which he was speaking, and to this day as well.

Jesus was using everyday language and imagery – terms and characters that ANYONE could understand and identify with – to get his message across. Vineyards were a common sight in first century Palestine. Most everyone knew what was involved in setting up a vineyard, knew that a fence was needed, knew about the pit to be dug, and the tower to be built, and landowners and tenants. That is even familiar to us today. Edward Markquart, a Lutheran Pastor in Des Moines, Washington, summarizes it like this:

The meaning of today’s parable was clear in Jesus’ day: That is, the religious leaders killed God’s prophets in the Old Testament and soon would kill God’s own Son. The kingdom will be taken from those who do not produce good fruit (righteousness, goodness, mercy, gentleness, self-control) and be given to those people who do (the tax collectors and prostitutes we read and heard about in last week’s passage.)

The meaning of this parable is also clear for our lives today. That is, nowadays people often silence the messengers of God, in order that we can live our lives the way we want to, in order to pretend that the vineyard is ours. We want to run OUR vineyard the way WE want to. We human beings often silence God’s messengers, including the voice of his Son, in order to live a lie that it is MY vineyard and that MY vineyard belongs to ME.

As we do so, we often do not produce good fruit or healthy lives of loving service to others. The Lord God says that he/she will find people who live a life of loving service to others and THEY will become God's people.
Pastor Edward F. Markquart, Grace Lutheran Church, Des Moines, Washington 98198

http://www.sermonsfromseattle.com/

How much harder and more pointedly can you step on someone’s toes than to tell them that they will be responsible for God passing their people by if they don’t grasp the concept of true righteousness and a repentant, loving heart, and teaching it and, much, MUCH more importantly, LIVING it?

Today’s message comes from the Gospel of Grace, but it is a heavy word for us if we are on the wrong side of the parable.

So here’s the (hard) word of the Lord for today: each of us, are, have been, or will be on the wrong side of this parable at some point in our lives. That is what it means to have a hard heart. It is what happens when we settle into the idea that we know and understand EVERYTHING about what God is all about, WHERE God is going, and WHAT God is doing. We must learn our lesson from those Pharisees and Sadducees of Jesus’ day, and those who would be the modern-day Pharisees and Sadducees, who would tell us that they alone guard and hold the truth of scripture, those who sit and make pronouncements on where God is and where God is not, what God is blessing and what God is not blessing.

Last night we had supper with Doug and Lea and Karen Coppage, who will be returning to Hungary a week from today, to continue working with the deaf population there. In the course of the evening’s conversation, Lea mentioned a joke that she’d been reminded of, and it seems appropriate to mention it here.

The Cowboy and Church

One Sunday morning an old cowboy entered a church just before services were to begin. Although the old man and his clothes were spotlessly clean, he wore jeans, a denim shirt and boots that were very worn and ragged. In his hand he carried a worn out old hat and an equally worn out Bible.

The Church he entered was in a very upscale and exclusive part of the city. It was the largest and most beautiful church the old cowboy had ever seen and the people were all dressed in expensive clothes and accessories.

As the cowboy took a seat, the others moved away from him. No one greeted, spoke to, or welcomed him. They were all appalled at his appearance and did not attempt to hide it. The preacher gave a long sermon about Hellfire and brimstone and a stern lecture on how much money the church needed to do God's work.

As the old cowboy was leaving the church, the preacher approached him and asked the cowboy to do him a favor. "Before you come back in here again, have a talk with God and ask him what He thinks would be appropriate attire for worship." The old cowboy assured the preacher he would.

The next Sunday, the cowboy showed up for the services wearing the same ragged jeans, shirt, boots, and hat. Once again he was completely shunned and ignored.

The preacher approached the man and said, "I thought I asked you to speak to God before you came back to our church." "I did," replied the old cowboy. "If you spoke to God, what did He tell you the proper attire should be for worshiping in here?" asked the preacher.

"Well, sir, God told me that He didn't have a clue what I should wear. He says He's never been in this church!"

It’s funny, isn’t it, unless we feel more like the preacher or the parishioners than the cowboy? If on some level we identified with THEM rather than the outsider, then we have SOME idea of how the Pharisees and Sadducees felt when Jesus started telling these parables and it was clear to everyone present that THEY were the bad guys.

Jesus told THIS parable in the same sitting as he did the ones we heard last week – about the two sons, and the comments about the prostitutes and tax collectors. There was no mincing around. The truth he spoke to the religious leaders facing him then is the same message he has for us all now, here, today.

What does this mean for Jerusalem Baptist Church in Emmerton?

We are, by virtue of our presence here this morning, religious leaders. Because we choose to be here, we stand in the tradition that has been carried out for centuries and centuries. We mark the week by dedicating at least a portion of this first day to God, and to the public practice of faith. So here is the rest of that message from Jesus: if being a religious leader is defined simply by those two acts – BEING here and going through the ritual – following the order of service in our worship bulletin, and then going home and living the rest of our week as if we’ve done our duty, then someone else is going to get the baton, because although this is an important part of what it means to be a Christian, it means NOTHING unless the faith we speak of, the love and grace and joy and suffering and sharing we sing about or read about or hear about gets demonstrated on the outside.

The title for today’s message, “BEING Church, DOING Church” contains a couple of implied questions. They’re not “either-or” questions. They are “both-and” questions.

As a family of faith, how well are we ‘BEING’ church? This speaks to how we are … ‘internally’. How are we “being” loving to each other, lifting each other up in prayer, recognizing, respecting and honoring the presence of Christ in each other? These are about how WE are individually, in our heart of hearts, growing to be more like Christ.

The next question is now more outward, but it doesn’t start down the road, once we get into town, or across the Rappahannock, it doesn’t start beyond a certain point in either direction up or down route 3, it doesn’t start outside the walls of this building. It starts on the other side of our skin. Some things are admittedly easier to do in a small congregation like ours than they would be in a larger congregation. Let’s recognize those, acknowledge and celebrate them, but at the same time, realize that we are probably more challenged to do those things that make us uncomfortable; the outreach, the speaking kindness to strangers, the open invitation to receive from us what service we can offer. When someone asks why we do this, many times I have stammered something along the lines of ‘Oh, we just want to help’. A church in South Korea, in extending the blessing by offering help and assistance to members of their community, realized they needed to have a more complete answer ready when someone asked them why they were doing these intentional acts of kindness. Here’s how they answer the question:

“I am a disciple of Jesus. I am serving him by serving you, because that’s what HE came to do.”

So how do WE answer the question? Is our Christianity about being a member here, or being a witness outside ourselves? Is our faith a combination of words and motions that are simply part of the routine of being a church member, or is it an expression of what Christ has done in our lives and continues to do on a daily basis in us and through us?

Remember the quote from Frank Stagg last week:

“Radical demand and limitless mercy come together in the teaching and manner of Jesus”

So we are again faced with that radical demand from Jesus: to follow, to serve, to submit and take his yoke. To take his cross and follow him.

How will we answer?

Let’s pray.

Living Questions


Sunday, September 25th, 2005
Pentecost + 19
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA
Matthew 21:23-32

23 When he entered the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came to him as he was teaching, and said, ‘By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?’ 24 Jesus said to them, ‘I will also ask you one question; if you tell me the answer, then I will also tell you by what authority I do these things. 25 Did the baptism of John come from heaven, or was it of human origin?’ And they argued with one another, ‘If we say, “From heaven,” he will say to us, “Why then did you not believe him?” 26 But if we say, “Of human origin,” we are afraid of the crowd; for all regard John as a prophet.’ 27 So they answered Jesus, ‘We do not know.’ And he said to them, ‘Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things.
28 ‘What do you think? A man had two sons; he went to the first and said, “Son, go and work in the vineyard today.” 29 He answered, “I will not”; but later he changed his mind and went. 30 The father went to the second and said the same; and he answered, “I go, sir”; but he did not go. 31 Which of the two did the will of his father?’ They said, ‘The first.’ Jesus said to them, ‘Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you. 32 For John came to you in the way of righteousness and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him; and even after you saw it, you did not change your minds and believe him.

It was a valid question.

Coming from the standpoint of the Chief Priests and Elders of the people, the combined ruling class (apart from the Romans) of the people of Judah, they were entirely justified in their minds to be asking Jesus by whose authority he did what he did.

Today’s passage skips ahead 3 whole chapters from where we were last week. We’ve moved into Easter territory. If I didn’t know it was the end of September I’d be looking for blossoms on the trees…

I’m not familiar enough yet with the background on the lectionary to be able to explain to you why the readings are set up the way they are, but there you have it.

The passage for today jumps in AFTER the triumphal entry, AFTER the cleansing of the temple, AFTER the Sadducees and Pharisees had already joined forces in recognizing that they had to get rid of Jesus. This is one of their initial attempts to derail him. In the coming few weeks, we’ll see other examples of their attempts to trip Jesus up, but we will get to those then. For now, we study the text at hand.

The issue is authority. Coming from the ruling authorities, it was not an idle question. It seems straightforward enough. “Jesus, tell us, by what authority do you come in here and get crowds clamoring at your entrance, and then come into the temple and run amok with our vendor/partners? Who gave you the right to do those things?”

In his response, Jesus demonstrates for us that he knew whom he was dealing with – and more than that – he knew where THEY were coming from, what was motivating their question, and he asked the precise question that exposed that motivation.

What is fascinating about the exchange is that, within a few deft sentences, Jesus pulls the situation into perspective for us. It’s been about three years since his cousin John was murdered, but the message he preached is still at this point, very much alive in the lives of the people. They have not forgotten what John preached and practiced.

Jesus asks the priests and elders, ‘did the baptism of John come from heaven or is it of human origin?” Admittedly, there are times when the Gospels present what can sometimes come across as an almost-cartoon version of the characters involved in the story of the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, especially when it comes to the disciples. In this case, we catch a glimpse into part of the reason WHY the Elders of the people and the Chief Priests WERE who they WERE.

They were not naïve. They were not intellectually challenged. They understood the world they lived in. They had a lot to do with why it WAS the way it was. The thought process is spelled out, again, in just a few words, from the second half of verse 25 to the first half of verse 27.

‘If we say, “From heaven,” he will say to us, “Why then did you not believe him?” 26 But if we say, “Of human origin,” we are afraid of the crowd; for all regard John as a prophet.’

Here we have their discussion – certainly among themselves – it would be interesting to know HOW Matthew got the scoop on what they were saying, wouldn’t it be? Perhaps an elder who later became a follower of Christ, or a temple priest who, like Saul, at some point later on came face to face with the risen Lord. In any case, here’s their dilemma. Jesus has them coming and going. There is no way they can answer this question and come away winners. The polling data is not coming back in favor of either answer.

You see, that was their whole point in asking THEIR question. They didn’t REALLY want to know the answer to the question they were asking, they simply wanted to trap Jesus into (in their eyes) blaspheming, or showing himself to be a delusional egomaniac. To the innocent passers-by, the general public, their question would be an acceptable one, and to not answer it would ALSO make Jesus look bad in the eyes of the people who had been indoctrinated into believing that everything the Sadducees and Pharisees and Elders and Chief Priests said could well be AND SHOULD BE taken to be the proclamation from the Lord God of Hosts, the Almighty himself. After all, they WERE the leaders and the scribes, were they not?

What they DIDN’T count on was Jesus knowing their hearts better than they did.

When the Priests and Elders come back at Jesus and refused to answer, he also refused to answer their question. The confrontation is a draw, sort of.

Jesus goes on to drive the point home.

He tells a story.

A man has a vineyard, and two sons. He asks one son to go out and work the vineyard. The son, who is probably sitting on his bed engrossed in reading the latest Harry Potter book, answers somewhat insolently, “I don’t want to.” And the father goes on about his business, maybe shaking his head and wondering what today’s kids were growing up to be. He comes upon his second son, who is playing a video game in his room. “Son, can you please go out to the vineyard and work it for me?” The second son answers “Sure Dad!” with an eager smile on his face, “be right there!” and turns back to his game and promptly forgets what he just said as he tries to get Mario to jump up to that next level…

Meanwhile, son number one has had time to think about how he answered his Dad, and realizes he really should go out and work the vineyard after all. He marks the page, sets the book down, and heads out to do the work requested.

Jesus’ question is simple: Which one of the sons did what his father asked? The one who said “no,” and then DID, or the one who said “yes” and then DIDN’T?

The answer was obvious to everyone there. Even though he initially refused, the first son to be asked obeyed. His actions spoke louder than words. The second son’s actions spoke louder than HIS words as well, only in a DISobedient manner.

I can see Jesus shaking his head and looking at the men standing in front of him. They just answered the question, but they are totally missing the point of the story. Even though they answered it correctly, they could not fit their brains around the notion that THEY were like the SECOND son, who paid lip service to his father, but in truth couldn’t care less for what his father expected of him, and chose rather to do things HE wanted to do.

They just didn’t get it.

Jesus tries to make them understand one last time – to shock them into awareness – in bringing up the tax collectors and the prostitutes who recognized their unrighteousness, sin, and separation from God and chose to follow him. Admitting their need.

As we’ve seen before, tax collectors and prostitutes were the epitome of what the Priests and Pharisees wanted NOTHING to do with. They were categorically unclean, beyond redemption, and therefore not worthy of attention, or time, or addressing, to say nothing of sitting down to a meal together.

That was, if you recall, what Jesus had gotten in trouble with so often before. For having treated people as … PEOPLE, regardless of what they’d done. His ‘socializing’ was what scandalized the self-righteous pillars of the community. The completely missed the fact that in engaging EVERYONE, Jesus called them into obedience to the heart of God. He did not leave wrong as wrong. He didn’t tell the woman caught in adultery ‘go on about your business’, he told her ‘this way your living is going to kill you … it almost DID, just now. Go and sin no more.’

Frank Stagg, New Testament professor at Southern Seminary, put it this way:

“Radical demand and limitless mercy come together in the teaching and manner of Jesus”

Radical demand. The word ‘radical’ means ‘root’. Think “Root canal”, think “radical change”, “the root of the problem”. Jesus is not playing around with window dressing when he deals with our lives. He is not making cosmetic changes so we will appear more acceptable to society… or to other churchgoers. He is dealing with our hearts, our innermost being.

So what does this mean for Jerusalem Baptist Church at Emmerton?

What is our response to Jesus’ question? After all, Jesus is asking us the same questions today. That is why they are living questions. They are being asked of us today, and have been asked of every believer over the last two thousand years.

Who has the authority in your life? Are we going to pay lip service to the father, put on the good face, say we’re going to do this and that, eloquently describe what it means to be children of God, be a light to the nations, be a factor of change in our community, and then just come and sit on Sundays?

Or are we going to put our words into action, recognizing that we have failed and will fail time and again, but that isn’t the point. The point is that we are and can all be recipients of God’s limitless grace if we only ask for it! The message of the story is that it doesn’t matter what’s come before. There is a second chance and a third chance and a fourth chance for all of us. God’s grace does that.

God wants us obedient, not pretty.

Let’s pray.

Wages

Sunday, September 18th, 2005
Pentecost + 18
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA
Matthew 20:1-16

1‘For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. 2After agreeing with the laborers for the usual daily wage, he sent them into his vineyard. 3When he went out about nine o’clock, he saw others standing idle in the marketplace; 4and he said to them, “You also go into the vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.” So they went. 5When he went out again about noon and about three o’clock, he did the same. 6And about five o’clock he went out and found others standing around; and he said to them, “Why are you standing here idle all day?” 7They said to him, “Because no one has hired us.” He said to them, “You also go into the vineyard.” 8When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his manager, “Call the laborers and give them their pay, beginning with the last and then going to the first.” 9When those hired about five o’clock came, each of them received the usual daily wage. 10Now when the first came, they thought they would receive more; but each of them also received the usual daily wage. 11And when they received it, they grumbled against the landowner, 12saying, “These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.” 13But he replied to one of them, “Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage? 14Take what belongs to you and go; I choose to give to this last the same as I give to you. 15Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?” 16So the last will be first, and the first will be last.’

The cartoon that came this week was pretty funny. It’s from the lectionary comic strip “Agnus Day”, a play on the latin words that mean ‘the year of our Lord’, only Dei D-E-I, meaning Lord, is spelled D-A-Y for the strip. I get a weekly email that draws it’s inspiration from one of the passages to be read for today.

The two sheep, Rick and Ted (Rick's the one with the dark nose and the cup of coffee) are talking to each other, commenting on today’s Gospel reading.

“Let me get this straight.” Says Ted, “The last guys get paid the same as the first who thought they’d get more?”

“Yes,” says Rick.

Ted continues, “And Jesus is saying that this is a picture of life with God?”

“Yes,” Rick says again.

“Is it okay,” Ted asks, “to say that God is bonkers?”

“No” Rick responds.

And that’s where the strip ends. It’s rarely more than 3 or 4 frames.

But I have to tell you, since I first read that parable, I ALWAYS thought the same as Ted. On the one hand, I can understand the justification on the part of the landowner. It IS his money, his land, his property, and he is perfectly entitled to spend it as he wishes.

It’s the justice issue that I had to struggle with. The fairness issue: how can a JUST and FAIR God give the same reward to those who’ve done so little in relation to those who’ve done so much?

Any way you turn this story, it STILL seems unfair. Even allowing for the right of the landowner to do as he pleases. You see, IN that allowing, there is a human sense of disgruntledness. It’s a way of acknowledging, but still not agreeing with, what has happened. It is fundamentally unfair to pay someone who has spent a full day working the same amount as one who has only spent an hour working.

How can we reconcile that with our vision of a just God? How can we relate that response of “isn’t that what we agreed to?” to an extravagantly loving God, who gave himself for us in a way that it will take us our entire lives and MORE to understand?

As we saw last Sunday, it all depends on whom you identify with in the story. There are laborers who were hired early – at 6 and then at 9 O’clock in the morning, and there were others who were hired at noon, another group at three and another group at five.

For as long as I can remember, I always identified with the 6 O’clock or the 9 O'clock group. After all, I can’t remember a time when I DIDN’T go to church as a child. Neither can my parents, and I would venture to say that their parents before them were the same way.

The point is, as humans, we think in terms of the span of our lives and measure things in relation to that. So, our lifetime seems a long time. There’s an understanding, of course, at least on an intellectual level, that in the grander scheme of things, our lives AREN’T that long, but it is only on rare occasion that that piece of information truly sinks in and we grasp it. While our heads can understand the concept, it is not so easy for our hearts to do so.

I’ve thought that maybe a few of my friends who chose to follow Christ as teenagers might identify with the nine o'clock or the noon crowd. They understand the struggle of coming into a situation where there’s little or no common background to fall back on. Especially at that age, when so much other stuff is happening in and around them, to have to deal with becoming a Christ follower in the midst of all those other changes is definitely a daunting task.

Then there’s the three O’clock crowd. These we could identify with if we were to have come to faith as an adult. A goodly portion of our life has already gone by. We might have had some involvement around the edges of faith, or in the church, but nothing lasting, nothing true, until somehow, someway, Jesus came by, looked us straight in the eye and said ‘Come, follow me.’ If we live an average lifespan, there’s a chance we might be able to spend the second half of our life for Jesus, but there’s an equal chance that it might be considerably less time than that which we’ve already lived. So it goes.

Finally, we get to the five O’clock loafers. These are the folks who’ve just been hanging out all day. Not really doing anything, and just as the sun starts to get low in the sky, the man comes around and calls them into the vineyard to work. These are the lucky ones. The ones who get the nine o’clock crowd most disturbed when they find out they are all being paid the same wage. And rightfully disturbed! Bonkers! That’s a great word for it, don’t you agree?

But here’s where we get to the heart of the matter. What are we talking about, when we talk about the laborers who begin working in the fields at 6 or 9, and those who begin to work the fields at 5? What work is it, exactly? And what wage? What landowner?

I realized as I was going over this in my mind that as I was identifying myself with the workers who began working at nine, there was an unspoken word that sat at the back of the room and whispered to me “you DESERVE more because you’ve DONE more.” It’s that same voice that also can be heard to whisper “you’re BETTER than they are…” “you’re worth more, you count more, you’re respected more, you’re a more valued member of society … than they are …” it’s that insidious thought that ties in with our desire to EARN our way into the kingdom. That IS what the 9 o’clock workers were saying, after all, when they said, “These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.”

There we go again, wanting to create barriers where God is trying to break them down. There is something in us that wants to create these distinctions between people that simply are not there in the eyes of God. We want to be paid more, be recognized more, be valued more, be treated differently, than others. How else can we establish our worth?

How else indeed?

Let’s try this. Let’s recast the story, retell it, and this time, intentionally place yourself in the place of one of those 5 o’clock workers.

You are a day laborer. You get up, get your shower, get the kids up and dressed and ready for school, and then jump on a bus that is supposed to get you to the pick-up site, only it gets caught in traffic, there’s a big wreck on the interstate, and you end up getting there AT NOON. There’s still a huge crowd. Some people get picked up just as you get there, you wait a couple of hours, and another bunch get picked up ridiculously late in the day, it’s probably not even going to be enough work for them to be able to pick up something to eat on the way home, but they go anyway. Then, just as you start to look for the bus home, the man in the truck swings by again, and asks if you want to work, and you say yeah, of course. It’s going to put you home late if it turns into an evening project, but the kids have fended for themselves before, they know the drill.

You get to the vineyard, and get to work. It seems like just a few minutes later you are called in along with everyone else. You realize that the day is over. And you wonder how there’s any way that this is going to end up being worth your time and frustration, what with the bus and traffic and all … and you’re told to get at the head of the line, since you were the last to be hired.

You walk up to the foreman, and he hands you a Hundred and fifty dollars. You are stunned along with everyone else. Because everyone else, as they go through the line, gets the same amount. Those who you can tell from looking at them that they’ve been out in the hot sun all day, and those who are a little – only a little – less worn out – who’ve been there since noon, and then those who are only a little more rumpled than you are … and then there’s the rest of the group YOU came in with. You’ve hardly broken a sweat, and you look at each other and sheepishly grin, trying to hide the smile.

So what exactly are we talking about again?

Salvation, of course. Salvation and grace, here and now as well as there and then. The gift of life – true, abundant life – that God gives us freely. And here’s the secret to the parable:

Everyone came to work at five.

Paul reminds us in his letter to the Ephesians “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God— not the result of works, so that no one may boast.” (2:8-9)

There’s a sense of entitlement that creeps into our thinking when we first read the passage, a sense of just rewards that’s supposed to be followed in the parable. It’s ingrained in us, isn’t it? Even as … or especially as moral beings, it is right and appropriate to expect that to happen.

There are those of us who have seemingly worked long and hard all our lives for the landowner – for the Kingdom – and there’s something deep down inside that is telling us that because we did that, we should get a greater wage – a greater reward.

But we need to remember what we are talking about. If this WERE an earthly master, with workers in a field, then it would be understandable to expect that scaled pay – more pay for more work, less pay for less work.

But we’re not talking about an earthly master, are we? And we’re not talking about wages for working in a field. We’re speaking of eternity. We’re speaking of a God who is transcendent – whose thoughts are not our thoughts, whose ways are not our ways. We are speaking of an eternally loving, giving, suffering God who does not see our shortcomings and failures, but rather sees his beloved children and desires to give them ALL the most precious gift of all.

What does this mean for Jerusalem Baptist Church at Emmerton?

It means that we have work to do. But the work we are to be about is the work of letting all the other laborers know that even though we’re starting work at 5 o’clock, even though we have done nothing to earn it, the landowner is paying everyone the same wage.

There is no room in God’s economy to stand on what we have done, what we’ve accomplished what we’ve added to the kingdom, because it hasn’t been our doing. Yes, we have been and are instrumental in that spreading of the kingdom, but we are not rewarded for that. We are rather rewarded for the love of God – BY the love of God – for us all.

And that is the heart of the Gospel. That is the gospel of Grace. That is the message we can bring. It’s not about whose been here the longest. This isn’t a race, and it’s not a contest. We’re not doing a fundraiser for the kingdom. If you get 174 or more converts you get a personal DVD player. Nope. This is a family. And we are all on the journey together. Supporting each other, encouraging each other, sustaining one another in humility and love. And the greatest reward of all is waiting for us all.

Let’s pray.

From Your Heart

Sunday, September 11th, 2005
Pentecost +17
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA
Matthew 18:21-35

21 Then Peter came and said to him, ‘Lord, if another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?’ 22Jesus said to im, ‘Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times. 23‘For this reason the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his slaves. 24When he began the reckoning, one who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him; 25and, as he could not pay, his lord ordered him to be sold, together with his wife and children and all his possessions, and payment to be made. 26So the slave fell on his knees before him, saying, “Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.” 27And out of pity for him, the lord of that slave released him and forgave him the debt. 28But that same slave, as he went out, came upon one of his fellow slaves who owed him a hundred denarii; and seizing him by the throat, he said, “Pay what you owe.” 29Then his fellow slave fell down and pleaded with him, “Have patience with me, and I will pay you.” 30But he refused; then he went and threw him into prison until he would pay the debt. 31When his fellow slaves saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their lord all that had taken place. 32Then his lord summoned him and said to him, “You wicked slave! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. 33Should you not have had mercy on your fellow slave, as I had mercy on you?” 34And in anger his lord handed him over to be tortured until he would pay his entire debt. 35So my heavenly Father will also do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother or sister from your heart.’

Where do we begin to talk about forgiveness in the Christian faith?

Do we go back to the Old Testament and begin there, with the multitudes of times that God forgave the children of Israel – sometimes with some prodding from Moses – for wandering not only through the wilderness but also away from Him?

Or do we move forward, and begin with God and King David, who time and time again let his lower instincts get a hold of him, and yet, God still reckoned him a man after God’s own heart even at the end of his life?

Or should we go no further back than John the Baptist, preaching repentance for the forgiveness of sins to the people of Israel shortly before Jesus came on the scene?

What about only going so far back as the Crucifixion, with Jesus asking God to forgive them, because they don’t know what they are doing?

How many different places in scripture do we find forgiveness? How often is forgiveness the central point of the story, such as in today’s passage?

The events in the story in the text never actually happened … Jesus is again presenting a parable of the Kingdom. See there in verse 23, Jesus says, “For this reason the kingdom of heaven may be compared to…” That’s our clue to the fact that Jesus is again painting a picture of what God’s Kingdom is like.

So what do we have? We have a King, and a slave who owes him 150,000 years’ worth of salary. A talent, in some conversion tables, was the equivalent of 15 years’ wages. In short, Jesus wasn’t telling the story in a way that people could actually conceive of it truly happening – REALLY happening – in their context. It’d be as if I owed Governor Warner 4 Billion, 800 Million dollars, roughly. Give or take a few bucks. He was using exaggeration to make the point. The figure is an unreal sum, for an individual.

The central issue quickly becomes the actions and attitudes within the story. The King demands his repayment, the slave falls on his knees begging the King for more time to pay, the King takes compassion on him, and forgives the debt. He doesn’t work out a payment plan, he doesn’t reduce the debt, he voids it, eliminates it completely, erases it entirely.

Now remember, Jesus is painting a picture of the Kingdom for us. People are already assigning roles and names to each character in the story. Folks are listening in, cruising along, they’ve got their pens in hand, with their notebooks, and they’re jotting down the notes as they listen to the story.

The King, of course, is God.
Check.
The slave who owes him more than can even be imagined is … me.
Check.
Fearing the wrath of God for the debt owed, is DEFINITELY me.
Check.
Begging for time to pay it off, that’s gotta be me as well.
Check.
The King forgiving the debt? THAT debt?!
Wow.
If that’s what God is like, then yeah!
Check! I want that !

Unfortunately for us, the parable doesn’t end there. We follow the slave who has just had this huge weight lifted off his shoulders out of the palace, where he runs into another man who owes HIM twenty bucks.

We’d like to think that, having just experienced a once-in-a-lifetime releasing from an obligation that was going to be impossible to repay any other way, the man may have gained some perspective, may still be glowing from the magnanimity, the graciousness and generosity of the King, and would react almost instinctively in the same manner in which he had just been treated.

Not so.

What we have instead is someone who responds from a point of total disconnect with what he’s just lived through. He seemingly received the forgiveness, and then left the palace with the weight lifted, but his actions betray his heart, and show that what tears he may have shed were crocodile tears, never truly sincere.

So we come to the shadowside of the parable. The part that always makes me uncomfortable, because I don’t – I simply do not enjoy reading of the wrath of God.

Listeners at the time would be be-bopping along, checking off the items as they heard and identified them, and then they’d get to this part.

Slave runs into other slave who owes him money.
Check. Yeah, I can think of a couple of people who owe me.
Maybe not money, but certainly an apology.

Slave beats the one who owes him a couple of bucks and has him thrown in jail.
Oops.
Would I really do that?

What are we talking about?

Forgiveness. What are we talking about forgiving? Anything. Everything. Whatever.

There’s no qualifier. The parable mentions money, but the enduring truth in the story is the action, the attitude of forgiveness. And we find that, though this first slave received forgiveness from HIS master, he didn’t understand the concept, even having been the recipient of it.

Understanding the concept means that we are able to grasp the significance, the impact, the difference it has and will make in our lives and pass that on.

You see, forgiveness is not something that we just receive; it is something we extend as well. It is part of what we DO as Christians. It is not something we keep track of, either. That was the whole purpose of the parable. Not to tell us that we are to forgive … to a point, beyond that, we are not responsible for continuing to forgive. It is, again, an example of a counterintuitive aspect of the Gospel, something that doesn’t mesh with how the world works.

Here’s the thing. We need to decide, and it is the most important decision we will ever make. We have Kingdom behavior on the one hand, and what the world tells us to do on the other, and we are always going to be faced with the question ‘which will I choose?’

We can sit in relative comfort in this sanctuary and talk about it and listen to the issue being discussed, and nod in agreement with the ‘correct’ or ‘biblical’ answer, but what happens when we leave the room? When we walk out of the building and are confronted with:

A woman who climbs behind the wheel of her car drunk and slams into another car, killing an entire family?

A man who regularly beats his wife and children?

A man who sells drugs to addicts, and flaunts the law in the process?

Men who regularly declare that the United States is the great Satan, and maneuver and organize a concerted attack in which over 3000 people are killed.

A man with whom you had a disagreement in the midst of what turned out to be a heated meeting, and you ended up raising your voices and stomping out.

A woman who said some things about you that were hurtful and untrue.

A family that you befriended, but who later, for some unexplained reason, pulled away.

What is the Christian’s response to that?

According to Jesus, it is forgiveness. But not forgiveness for forgiveness’ sake alone.

Peter was asking his question from a literal by-the-book legalistic reading of scripture. Jesus turned the law around. In Genesis 4:23-24, the reference is established by which the number is invoked. Lamech is quoted as telling his wives, if one man was killed to avenge Cain, then seventy-seven will be killed to avenge me.

It seems to have established a pattern that is still followed to this day in the middle east. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. If you are identified as having perpetrated a terrorist attack on an Israeli, your family’s home will be bulldozed to the ground.

It is a cycle of violence that has been perpetuated for centuries, had been already in Jesus’ time. And Christ is calling us to break the cycle of violence. Because the purpose of forgiveness is to move beyond the event and seek RECONCILIATION.

How we forgive is a direct reflection of how we have perceived God’s forgiveness of our own lives. How we respond is a direct manifestation of how WE respond to God’s calling us to reconciliation to him through Christ.

That is where our heart comes into play.

If we have truly accepted God’s forgiveness in our hearts, it will show in our actions and attitudes towards others. We will seek justice, and not allow injustice to continue. We will seek peace, not war. We will seek harmony, not strife. We will seek reconciliation, not revenge.

What does this mean for Jerusalem Baptist Church at Emmerton?

It means that we HAVE TO start here. The pattern of the great commission is just that, the pattern to follow. In Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the uttermost parts of the earth.

So we start close to home, close to our own hearts, where it is sometimes the hardest. Let’s examine ourselves. Examine our hearts. The Psalmist writes ‘search me, O God, and know my heart’ and that must be our prayer today. God, uncover in me anything that I might have been hiding all these many years, and let me come clean. Give me the courage to speak in love to my brother or sister and seek forgiveness, in order to come to a reconciliation. Because it is only in being reconciled HERE that I will be reconciled with YOU in Heaven.

Let’s pray.

Wherever


Sunday, September 4th, 2005
Pentecost + 16
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA
Matthew 18:15-20

15 ‘If another member of the church sins against you, go and point out the fault when the two of you are alone. If the member listens to you, you have regained that one. 16 But if you are not listened to, take one or two others along with you, so that every word may be confirmed by the evidence of two or three witnesses. 17 If the member refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if the offender refuses to listen even to the church, let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. 18 Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. 19 Again, truly I tell you, if two of you agree on earth about anything you ask, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven. 20For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.’

Again with the hard reads.

After a week that has been marked – and marred – by an almost-surreal viewing and experiencing of what the underside of our society is capable of, I was hoping for a chance to stand before you this morning and dwell on one of the nicer aspects of the Gospel. Circumstances and events over the last 6 days have proved that an impossible task. We go with what we have before us, and hope for the promise of redemption in the midst of desperation and sorrow.

The title of today’s message refers to that portion of this passage that I, at least, often quote in prayers. “Wherever two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.” I don’t think I’m the only one that does that, but it is always good to be reminded of the context in which a phrase appears before we spend too much time quoting it by itself.

So what is the context of this phrase? It is at the conclusion of a passage where Jesus is explaining how a congregation should deal with someone in it’s midst that is out of … sync … out of step … I don’t exactly like the sense that those two words convey, that we MUST somehow conform to a preset idea of what we are to act, speak, and think like. I am too much of an individualist to do that comfortably. There is no expectation that we be cookie-cutter Christians. In fact, I believe the opposite to be true. God made us as individuals, unique and special in our own way, and there is cause for celebration within that diversity. It is a direct reflection of the richness of God’s grace and creativity. But there IS a unity of purpose that we are to exemplify, a unanimity in agreement about what we are to be about if we are to be considered a single body of believers. So we do need to study what Jesus is saying in order to understand where he was coming from and where he was going.

Jesus’ concern for the individual is evident. He described four options in dealing with a wrongdoer in the Church. None is motivated out of a legalistic sensibility, or in a punishment “mode,” but the main concern is to salvage and strengthen, not to expose, or dispose of someone who has done wrong.

Before getting into the steps described, it bears noting that Jesus expected the one who INITIATES the reconciliation, or the ATTEMPT at reconciliation to be the one who suffered the wrong, not the one who committed it. It goes against the grain of our culture, doesn’t it? To expect the victim, as it were, to bear the responsibility for correcting the wrong? Usually it’s the other way around. The one wronged has little to do but sit and wait for the one in error to (eventually) come and beg forgiveness. But then, this is the Gospel, the Kingdom of God, not the world. The very fact that the one who committed the wrong COMMITTED it leaves them impaired from recognizing the wrong they’ve done. Another way of saying it is that the person is not aware of the wrong they’ve committed for the simple reason that they don’t see that they did anything wrong. It’s an obvious answer to a sometimes vexing question. Why hasn’t he asked forgiveness? Because he simply doesn’t know he needs to.” Going to someone who has wronged you and letting him or her KNOW what wrong has been committed is the quickest and most direct way to get the issue resolved.

If that doesn’t work, the text goes all Baptist on us and says ‘take one or two others along with you’ – in other words, form a committee! If there is some resistance on the part of the one who committed the wrong to recognize the wrong, then bring a couple of people along who saw the same thing you did, and see if the corroboration from people other than yourself brings the realization home to the offender.

If THAT doesn’t work, THEN take the issue to the church, and have the church as a body address it. Frank Stagg, longtime professor of New Testament Interpretation at Southern Seminary, put it this way: “Concerned discipline is not antithetical (out of character) to the nature of the church, but proper to it. It is to be assumed that the same motive and spirit would govern the church as should govern the individual or committee (in reference to the small group of 2 or 3 coming in the second attempt) in seeking to gain the brother.”

Lastly, if even after the body as a whole has confronted the person and he or she remains … entrenched in denying any wrongdoing, then there comes a point when the church doesn’t so much withdraw from the individual, as it is that the church recognizes that the individual has withdrawn from the congregation, that there is no fellowship left there.

At first read, the comment Jesus makes about treating that person as a gentile or a tax collector seems harsh, and on some level, it is. It reflects the fact that Jesus spoke and lived and moved about in what was primarily a Jewish society. One occupied and governed by gentiles, but one in which the principal cultural ‘poles’ were the gentile and Jewish ones. But think about it. All things considered, it may not seem so harsh if we break it down.

First of all, three steps seeking reconciliation are presupposed. In other words, this is after some pretty exhaustive attempts have been made to reconcile with the person.

Secondly, it’s not so much an exclusion on the part of the church as it is a refusal on the part of the individual to ‘belong’ to the church.

Third, how DID Jesus treat gentiles and tax collectors? With kindness and openness. There was never a closed door when a gentile came to Jesus. Zaccheus comes to mind. The way Jesus treated gentiles and tax collectors more often than not got him in trouble BECAUSE he was kind and open with them.

For the church to recognize that one who refuses to listen is already an outsider does not close the door to his or her reception when he or she is willing to be received as a brother or sister.

Here’s the sequence: each of us is responsible for each other. The whole church is responsible for each member, and each member is responsible to the whole church. We are never more a part of a family than when we voluntarily become accountable to each other in love.

Verse 18 echoes what we heard Jesus tell Peter just a couple of weeks ago, but this time, he’s speaking to the church as a whole, not a single individual, but all of us. The emphasis is on the agreement between what is happening here on earth and what would happen in heaven. It’s a … testimony to that unity of spirit – UNDER the GUIDANCE of the Holy Spirit – that reassures us that if we are truly acting IN the spirit, we’ll ‘get it’. We will understand, we will agree. And God will honor that agreement, God will bless that agreement, that unity of spirit, that one-ness of purpose.

So we get back to the ‘two or more’ phrase. It comes by way of a discussion of what it means to be a member of the body of Christ on earth, and what that entails. The responsibilities are not easy. We are called to be a part of each other’s lives, not in a nosy, snoopy way, but in loving concern for our collective spiritual growth.

This morning we had a commissioning of our Sunday School workers and teachers. Some of you may have gotten out of the habit of coming to Sunday School. If the idea strikes you as childish, then think of it as – or call it – Sunday Morning Bible Study instead. Coming to worship is important, it might even be critical. Not to your salvation, but to your growth as a Christian. But if worship is important, what happens in Sunday Morning Bible Study is even more so. It is where you develop relationships with your brothers and sisters in Christ that, however long we make it, the Jerusalem hand of welcome doesn’t give you time to do. Besides, the choir starts singing and we have to get on with the service. Sunday morning Bible Study is where you develop your spiritual muscles and learn to be part of the community. It is where you exercise your brain and engage your heart, where you wrestle with the questions that this style of worship doesn’t always lend itself to allowing. We could try that sometime, but that’s a discussion for another day.

And what about that word, Wherever?

It’s a comprehensive word. There are no exclusions under wherever. Wherever means WHEREVER. If your Sunday Morning Bible study happens on Tuesday nights, more power to you. If it happens on Saturday afternoons, go for it. The thing is to be involved in a small group that readily and eagerly engages with the word of God and draws out of it meaning and relevance for living in today’s world.

What does this mean for Jerusalem Baptist Church at Emmerton?

It means that we can think outside the box. Wherever can be just that. And the promise still holds. We gathered this morning and learned of the Conely family in our community having lost everything in a house fire. Things are already in motion to help them get back on their feet. As a congregation, we voted to send aid – above and beyond the individual contributions collected – to disaster relief efforts in the states affected by hurricane Katrina. Jerusalem may be a small church in numbers, but we are big at heart. When we gather, sometimes it’s not that many MORE than two or three … and the promise still holds. As a part of the Baptist General Association of Virginia, we join with over 1300 other churches across the commonwealth, in the name of Jesus, and the promise still holds.

You, as a Sunday School teacher, may have only one member show up on some Sundays. But remember: the promise still holds.

Let’s pray.