Very Dear To Us

 

Sunday, October 26^th, 2008

Proper 25A/ Ordinary 30 A/ Pentecost +24

Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA

1 Thessalonians 2:1-8

Theme: sharing more than the Gospel – sharing our LIVES

 

 “¹You yourselves know, brothers and sisters, that our coming to you was not in vain, ²but though we had already suffered and been shamefully mistreated at Philippi, as you know, we had courage in our God to declare to you the gospel of God in spite of great opposition.³For our appeal does not spring from deceit or impure motives or trickery, ⁴but just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the message of the gospel, even so we speak, not to please mortals, but to please God who tests our hearts. ⁵As you know and as God is our witness, we never came with words of flattery or with a pretext for greed; ⁶nor did we seek praise from mortals, whether from you or from others, ⁷though we might have made demands as apostles of Christ. But we were gentle among you, like a nurse tenderly caring for her own children. ⁸So deeply do we care for you that we are determined to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves, because you have become very dear to us.”

 

We pick up where we left off last week, reading other people’s mail.  To review, Paul is writing to the folks he just barely got to know and teach for about three weeks while in Thessalonica before he had to leave in a rush because of an approaching crowd that was potentially going to beat and perhaps even kill him. 

 

He’s writing the letter for a couple of reasons.  First, he wants to encourage them to continue in the faith that they first received when he came to them and presented the Gospel to them.  Second, he wants to answer some of the accusations that were leveled against him by the people who were both angry at him and who incited the riot from which he had to flee, and also to head off some of the accusations he knew would be following his visit once the Judaizers – those who dogged his footsteps throughout his missionary journeys and were intent on making the gentile converts to Christianity become JEWISH in addition to being Christian – something Paul saw as nullifying the element of Grace in the salvation of the individual. 

 

What Paul starts out doing is reminding the Thessalonians of what it was actually like when he was there with Silvanus and Timothy – what they ACTUALLY did, as opposed to what they were being ACCUSED of doing.

 

One way to read this passage is as a response to one accusation after another based on what the response is. 

 

For example, we can posit that Paul and his companions were accused of futile efforts – their efforts being in vain – since his initial reply is that their visit was NOT in vain.          

 

They may also have been accused of only preaching the Gospel in situations that were convenient or easy, or welcoming to them, since he reminds the Thessalonians that they preached the Gospel in spite of great opposition. 

 

They had been accused of being deceitful, having hidden agendas, or being con men, since he is refuting each of those characterizations in turn. 

 

He goes on to deny that they only told the people what they wanted to hear in order to please and flatter them, looking to make a quick buck here or there, or that they went fishing for compliments to boost their egos. 

 

He also argues that they DIDN’T take advantage of the trump card they COULD have played – that of being an Apostle of the Lord, and therefore entitled to ask for room and board, time and probably monetary assistance with travel expenses. 

 

There is good cause to explore the particulars, the words, the forms, the details of the letters that Paul wrote.  There is much to learn in mining those riches in scripture.  But we DO run the risk of losing sight of the forest for all the trees we are focusing on. 

 

It is important to, every so often, step back a little from those minute details and take in the tone of the letter, the emotion, and the passion, with which Paul wrote to the people he was writing to.

 

What would have prompted him to do that?  How would WE write to people we only knew for three weeks but then had to leave?  If there is a deep connection that happens in the course of those few weeks, it is HIGHLY likely that we would continue to keep in touch, somehow, with people who have made a difference in our lives, don’t you think? 

 

Do you remember Jaime and Barbara and Mishael Castellanos?  They were the family that came with the youth group from Italy in the summer of 2006 and stayed with us for two weeks and worked in the sports camps alongside the youth from Thalia Lynn.  Though we don’t keep in CONSTANT contact, we are keeping in touch, sending each other periodic emails just to let each other know we are thinking and praying for each other.  Asking how the families are doing. 

 

There’s a shared experience to draw on that connects, but there is an awareness that goes deeper than that.  Understanding our roles as servants of the Lord, and followers, there is a sense of joy that we can readily identify with.  There are also frustrations and challenges that can be shared, but that is a topic for another conversation at another time. 

 

I don’t have any hard and fast statistics to share with you about the frequency or extent to which travel was a common practice in the first century.  I suspect that there was a small minority of people, primarily sailors and merchants, soldiers and perhaps a few others, who made up the greatest part of the number of people who travelled on a regular basis at the time.  With the uncertainty of the weather, and even taking into account the Pax Romana, the peace of the Roman Empire, which ALLOWED for travel to begin in earnest without seriously reduced fear of getting robbed by bandits or attacked by pirates, thanks to the might of the Roman Imperial Army, travel was still a somewhat rare endeavor for the population at large.  It wasn’t done on a whim, and it wasn’t done quickly.  It took time to plan and to implement.  Nevertheless, Paul, in the space of a few years, undertook at least 4 major trips throughout the known world at the time.  The time he took on these trips was measured in years, not days or weeks. 

 

There is evidence to suggest that Paul was not terribly interested in drive-by evangelism on these trips.  That is, he wasn’t going to breeze into town, tap into the local synagogue, grab a few converts, start to meet with them, set up a church, and move on to the next town after washing his two changes of clothes, sharing a meal in each of the new families’ homes and then packing his bags and heading into the sunset.

 

His pace was DEFINITELY more measured.  He spent time with the people he reached.  He got to know them, lived with them, found out about them, their likes and dislikes, their fears and hopes, their dreams, their families.     

 

Paul gives us a little more than glimpse into his heart when we get to verses seven and eight.    

              

But we were gentle among you, like a nurse (maid) tenderly caring for her own children. ⁸So deeply do we care for you that we are determined to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves, because you have become very dear to us.

 

What does that mean for Jerusalem Baptist Church at Emmerton? 

 

What Paul is speaking about goes beyond the doctrinal issues he was addressing in the letters – whether this one or any of his others.  What prompted his writing was not so much that he wanted to bring closure to the time he had with any given group of people, perhaps a little more so would be his need to address a particular subject with them, but even at that, underlying his teaching or exhortation, correction or rebuke, was a love that came from considering those who were receiving his letters as his very own children in the faith.  PAUL LOVED THESE PEOPLE.  He spells it out ‘you have become very dear to us.’ 

 

The Radical nature of Christian community is that we are called to voluntarily enter into relationship with people with whom we have no blood relations, and that we are to consider those relationships AS important as those we have with immediate family – in some cases where the immediate family is distant or estranged or nonexistent, even MORE so.  It is that pure and simple.  You may say it is neither, and at times I would agree.  It is hard enough dealing with the dynamics within ONE family system, MUCH LESS TWO. 

 

But that is ultimately what God is calling us to enter into – familial relationships with people whose primary connection to us is ONLY through the spilled blood of his son Jesus Christ.  We are part of the New Covenant established BY that blood.  And THROUGH that blood, we are entering into a familial relationship with God as Abba, as Poppa.

 

In a culture that encourages us to be self-reliant, be independent, self-sufficient … I’m not saying that those are bad, they are what they are.  In a culture that encourages us … that PROVIDES us on a daily basis, if not an hourly basis, to isolate ourselves from each other by driving by ourselves in our cars, by watching television instead of engaging in conversation with each other, by living apart, it is counter-cultural to explore this calling, and to affirm this calling to BE in this close a community.  It’s risky behavior.  Our culture tells us to have the attitude “That’s none of their business.”  Think that way:  you have your life, they have their life.  Christ’s call is to shared life.  He calls us to worry at those barriers that we put up between ourselves.  ‘Worry’ in the sense of ‘gnaw at’, ‘pick away at’.

 

It’s a risky call.  It’s an uncomfortable call.  But it is still THE call.         

 

Lets pray. 

Not in Word Only

 

Sunday, October 19^th, 2008

Proper 24A/ Ordinary 29 A/ Pentecost +23

Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA

1 Thessalonians 1:1-10

Theme: Faith making a DIFFERENCE in our lives

 

 “¹Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy, to the church of the Thessalonians in God the Father and (/even) the Lord Jesus Christ: Grace to you and peace.

²We always give thanks to God for all of you and mention you in our prayers, constantly ³remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ. ⁴For we know, brothers and sisters beloved by God, that he has chosen you, ⁵because our message of the gospel came to you not in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction; just as you know what kind of persons we proved to be among you for your sake.

⁶And you became imitators of us and of the Lord, for in spite of persecution you received the word with joy inspired by the Holy Spirit, ⁷so that you became an example to all the believers in Macedonia and in Achaia. ⁸For the word of the Lord has sounded (echoed/trumpeted/ been broadcast /thundered) forth from you not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but in every place your faith in God has become known, so that we have no need to speak about it. ⁹For the people of those regions report about (around) us what kind of welcome we had among you, and how you turned to God from idols, to serve a living and true God, ¹⁰and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead—Jesus, who rescues (present tense) us from the wrath that is coming.”

 

Imagine you are Paul: kind of short, balding, thorn in your side, the whole nine yards. 

 

You are on your second missionary journey, you started out from Jerusalem, went through Salamis and Antioch in northern Syria, then on to Derbe, Lystra, Iconium, Antioch of Pisidia, then on to Troas and along the Aegean seacoast to Neapolis and Phillipi, and you finally land in Thessalonica – a city that has the distinction of being a ‘free’ city – one of relatively few so designated – and so trusted – by Rome in the first century as to be allowed to govern itself. 

 

Thessalonica is on the Egnatian Way, the main land route across the north of Greece, close to halfway across modern-day Greece.  There is a significant Jewish presence, enough for the Jewish merchants to have an influence on the local government, as well as to attract God-fearers – people who admired the monotheism (the worship of one God) and high moral standard of the Jewish faith, as compared to the confusing mix of polytheism and varying degrees of moral standards among the other religions being espoused around the city. 

 

As is your custom, you first stop in at the local synagogue and spend several days presenting your case to the leaders there, trying to convince them of the fact that Jesus was the expected Messiah – that he HAD to suffer and die in order to bring about the new covenant.  You have mixed results.  Some of those God-fearers, gentiles who were attending but had not yet converted to Judaism, are persuaded, even a few of the Jews become convinced, along with some of the leading women in the city – that is significant because women enjoyed a higher esteem than was the norm in other areas of Greece.  The freedom that the Gospel of Christ presents appeals to the unconverted but believing gentiles, to those who were already converted, and to people off the street. 

 

You begin to meet with them separately; teaching them about the good news of Jesus Christ and seeing others come to faith as well. 

 

Predictably, as has been the case in other places, this upsets the synagogue leaders, and, according to Acts chapter 17, they incite a riot and you get word of the crowd coming after you and get away just in time. 

 

Unable to find you, the crowd attacks the home of Jason, where you and your friends had been staying.  You find out later that Jason and a group of other believers, who probably happened to be meeting there at the time were hauled before the authorities and accused of treason – of claiming there was a king other than Caesar; namely, Jesus.  They are made to post bail, and then are released. 

 

Total time spent in Thessalonica: maybe as little as three weeks.  Total number of converts:  few enough to be able to name them all.  Probably less than were here last Sunday (28 in worship). 

 

You continue on your journey, walking as quickly as you can, occasionally looking behind you to see if anyone is chasing after you from Thessalonica.  You carry on semi-breathless conversations with Silvanus and Timothy, taking advantage of the time you have as you walk the miles between cities, occasionally stopping to rest at the wells that are the rest areas along the road that the Romans built that have been so helpful to you as you’ve travelled around over the last few years … and you finally arrive in Corinth, another booming metropolis. 

 

You meet a couple, already believers, who happen to be tentmakers just like you – it’s what you do to support yourself on these trips.  Their names are Priscilla and Aquila, and you just CLICK with them.  Aside from the more profound sharing you have in calling Jesus Lord, you laugh at the same jokes, you like the same foods, you end up at the same tentmaker hangouts … you get the picture.  But when you FIRST meet, a funny thing happens; when you introduce yourself, they look at each other and then back at you and say “you’re the guy from Thessalonica!” … and they begin to tell you about what happened to Jason and the other believers, how they stood up in court and didn’t cave to the folks who had dragged them in or to the governing authorities, and how they took the opportunity to proclaim the Gospel even there, and it’s just been a few days since you had to run to get away from the riot!

 

Then they introduce you to some other believers who are passing through town coming from other cities, and THEY do that same double take when they hear your name.  And all you can do is stand in wonder at how the Thessalonians received the Gospel and how they are living it.  So your heart swells with love and with pride, and with Joy, and you decide to sit down and write them a letter.  You want to tell them what you’ve heard over the month or so since you had to get out of Dodge, and to encourage them and lift them up … and to maybe try to put some other things to right – things you didn’t quite get to tell them when you were face-to-face, since you left so suddenly, and you realize that, in the business you are in, you may not get a chance to get back there – period. 

 

So this is your letter.  Your time with Jason and the other believers was short but incredibly sweet – made all the more so by what you have been hearing.  You saw some go from worshipping idols in one or more of the multitude of temples to worshipping and praising THE one true God through the Lord Jesus Christ … a transformation so radical that you have almost – ALMOST, but not QUITE gotten used to seeing it … even in yourself when you sit back and think on what the last several years have been since that day on the road to Damascus. 

 

You talk about how it feels to hear about what they are doing, you praise them for their dedication and their faith, for the way they have not fallen away and renounced their faith in your absence, and especially in the face of persecution.  You work on remembering what you had told them, what you had taught them, and try to touch on those things that are most central, most critical. 

 

So you pray again that God’s peace would continue to be with them, regardless of what they are going through, and you share with them that you’ve been astounded at what you have heard about them from people they don’t even know – that the stories of THEIR faith and THEIR courage, THEIR strength in the face of trials has ALREADY spread throughout the area.  And then you get to what you wanted to get to:  that no matter what they are facing, no matter what persecution might come their way, God’s action on the cross through Jesus Christ did, is and will continue to rescue them from not just the superficial, temporary persecution they did suffer or might suffer, but ultimately, that perpetual movement of God to overcome evil in the world … to heal the sick, to make the broken whole again, to free the captives, and proclaim the freedom that is found in Christ.      

 

You pace as you dictate the letter, and Silvanus has to stop you over and over and over again just so he can get everything you are saying so quickly down on papyrus.  Timothy is sitting in the windowsill, watching the people go by outside, and here and there interjects a correction of how you said something, or to give you a name of a place or a person, and he keeps chuckling as Sylvanus is getting more and more frustrated with you for going so fast, until finally he just stops writing and you go on for several sentences before you realize that he’s just looking at you with this completely exasperated look on his face, and you just stand and stare at him for several seconds, until you realize the humor in the situation, and you start to chuckle, then shake with laughter, then you all burst out laughing and keep laughing until tears are streaming down your faces.   

 

What, you may ask, does this mean for Jerusalem Baptist Church at Emmerton, nearly a full 2000 years from the date of the letter? 

 

We treasure scripture.  We hold it to be Holy.  We consider it to be inspired; we go to it for all kinds of guidance, and correction, for reflection, for illumination in our darkest times. 

 

When we take words that were written thousands of years ago, and put them beside other words that were written centuries before THAT, we have a natural inclination to let the passage of those centuries do what would happen to anything preserved in desert monasteries and clay jars in Cliffside caves around the world – we let them dry out.  We need to be reminded every now and then that, when it came down to it, people like you and me were sitting down and putting God’s thoughts, working through their minds, down in ink and sending what they wrote to OTHER people JUST like you and me, who had their own quirks and warts, funny views and flawed lives, but who all, one way or another, were figuring out what it means to serve God and the Lord Jesus in real, tangible, significant ways – and putting that into practice in ways that have touched people’s lives all over the world.     

 

“Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy, to the church of the Emmertonians in God the Father and (/even) the Lord Jesus Christ: Grace to you and peace.”

 

Lets pray. 

Rejoicing in…Whatever

 

Sunday, October 12^th, 2008

Proper 23A/ Ordinary 28 A/ Pentecost +22

Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA

Philippians 4:1-9

Theme: holding on to the joy or our salvation

 

 “¹Therefore, my brothers and sisters, whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, stand firm in the Lord in this way, my beloved. ²I urge Euodia and I urge Syntyche to be of the same mind in the Lord. ³Yes, and I ask you also, my loyal companion, help these women, for they have struggled beside me in the work of the gospel, together with Clement and the rest of my co-workers, whose names are in the book of life. ⁴Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. ⁵Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. ⁶Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. ⁷And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. ⁸Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. ⁹Keep on doing the things that you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, and the God of peace will be with you.”

 

You know how I lots of times draw to the end of a message on a Sunday morning and ask the question “what does this mean for Jerusalem Baptist Church at Emmerton?”  Well, in case you were wondering, I didn’t come up with that question on my own.  It’s right here at the beginning of chapter 4, verse 1 of Paul’s letter to the Philippians, right there where he says “stand firm in the Lord in this way”.  It’s the same thought that Paul is expressing in a slightly different way.  He’s going to the application of what he’s been talking to the folks he loves so much in the church at Philippi. 

 

First, he’s trying to help settle a dispute between two of the leaders of the Church – Euodia and Syntyche.  Notice, he doesn’t dwell on the details of the argument.  They were, in the grander scheme of things, unimportant.  What Paul DOES consider to be MORE important is that they be of one mind in the Lord.  The phrasing he uses echoes the phrasing at the beginning of chapter 2, when he asks the Philippians to have the same mind in them that Christ had in him.    

 

He’s also commending them to each other – see how he first starts with the two women – Euodia and Syntyche asking them to be of one mind, and then he widens it to include his “loyal companion” – literally, the term that is translated as loyal companion is “yokefellow” – it makes for a very clear image of what the person he is speaking to or about has been to Paul in the ministry together.  But there is a possibility that it is not only a description of the person, it could also be the NAME of the person – just as we have Baker and Smith and Farmer families whose ancestors performed those tasks and had the name stick, this could well be a similar situation.  Nonetheless, the term could go either way.  And then he widens the commendation to an even larger group – to include Clement and the rest of his co-workers, “whose names are in the book of life.” 

 

There is a sense that these are people who are not only obviously precious to Paul, but precious to each other.  There are relationships there that have been formed in the crucible of persecution – times when they could have been imprisoned – or worse – simply for being Christ followers, as well as in the deep joys that come from living a life of faith. 

 

It is in these closing verses that we realize we are reading someone else’s mail.  Paul is speaking words of benediction to the people he is writing.  He is blessing them and lifting them up – just as we do at the end of each worship service here, we understand that what we are about is only PARTLY about what happens here on Sunday mornings, it is MOSTLY about what happens outside these walls the rest of the week.

 

And Paul is giving the folks a heads up on what they will be coming in contact with.  In that list of “Whatevers”, there are some interesting pieces of information.  Whatever is true, honorable, just, pure, pleasing, commendable – those are words that in those forms are found almost nowhere else in Paul’s writings.  They come from a list of characteristics that Greek Ethicists, philosophers who were focused on coming up with a series of traits that, if practiced, if LIVED, if incorporated into the fabric of daily living, would result in what they hoped would be a society that was more … all those things … true, honorable, just, pure, pleasing and commendable … aiming for Utopia, I suspect – the Greek word for Heaven. 

I think it might have been a little jarring for the Philippians to read what they would have probably immediately recognized as that list of terms they would have associated with non-faith origins … Paul was encouraging them to keep an eye out for what God was doing – wherever God might show up. 

 

And that might be the word for us today.  We are commended to discover what God is doing, wherever God is working.  Paul tells the Philippians to rejoice regardless of the circumstances they may find themselves in.  They were dealing with pressures from outside the church as well as conflict from within, and yet Paul tells them to rejoice.  I don’t know about you, but rejoicing when times are easy is a lot easier for me than when times are … NOT so easy.  If I’m facing hardships, if my wife is sick and in the hospital, if I’m struggling with my OWN health issues, if I’m not sure I’ll have a job tomorrow, if I’m wondering what the economy is going to do, or what is going to happen after the elections, or if the crops are going to come in, there are any number of things that I can be distracted by. 

 

What is significant about what Paul is saying is that in telling the Philippian congregation to not worry about anything, he is pointing them to where their peace will come from.  It is a vivid image that he offers them – where he says ‘and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.’ – the word ‘guard’ is the one used to describe a sentinel – someone who stands watch at night – in the darkest times of our lives – God’s peace is standing watch for us – over us.      

 

We observe the ordinance of communion – we remember the evening on which he was betrayed, Jesus took the bread, blessed and broke and gave it, and said, ‘take and eat, this is my body, broken for you.’  And after supper, he took the cup and said, ‘this is the cup of the new covenant in my blood.  Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.’ 

 

“For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.”           

 

Lets pray. 

I Want To Know

 

Sunday, October 5^th, 2008

Proper 22A/ Ordinary 27 A/ Pentecost +21

Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA

Philippians 3:4b-14

Theme: Setting priorities as followers of Christ

 

 “^4bIf anyone else has reason to be confident in the flesh, I have more: ⁵circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless.

⁷ Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ. ⁸More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ ⁹and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith. ¹⁰I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, ¹¹if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead.

¹² Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. ¹³Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my own; but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, ¹⁴I press on towards the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.”

 

What are we truly willing to give up for the sake of the gospel? 

 

It is easy for me to say that I would give up wealth and power, because, at least in comparison with the more affluent members of our society, I have neither.  It’s easy for me to say I would give up my position and authority because, in the grander scheme of things, I have neither.  But ask me to give up my family, my name, my heritage?  That’s another matter. 

 

What is it we perceive we have, or own, or have in our background; that makes us stand a little taller in a crowd; that prompts us to make comments to ourselves when certain things happen around us, comments that we wouldn’t voice out loud except for in the MOST trusted of company …

 

What is it that we understand sets us apart from the rest of the general population of the Commonwealth of Virginia?  Or is it THAT?  That we are citizens of Virginia?  That we belong to the State that has birthed the most Presidents for our nation?  Or maybe it is that we live within miles of the birthplace of the Father of our nation, or of Robert E. Lee’s birthplace, or any number of other figures from our nation’s history?  It is no coincidence that our address is on History Land Highway.  There’s a reason the terms ‘come-here’ and ‘from-here’ mean something when speaking about where one is from.      

 

We love to set ourselves apart, to distinguish ourselves from those around us – by valid methods of distinction, such as heritage, or lineage, but sometimes, by whatever means are within reach.

 

The people of Israel had the trump card of all trump cards to pull out and throw on the table when it came to distinguishing themselves from the rest of humanity.  They had a covenant with God, an agreement to be God’s people.  In Exchange, God would be “their” God.  They could lay claim to worshipping the one true God.  It was a pretty nifty arrangement.  But one that landed them in trouble time and time again.  Even when they got it right, they didn’t quite get it.  And from the look of it, they didn’t always get it right.  Far from it.  There were nearly as many bad choices made as good ones. 

 

And Paul came from a long line of right choices.  When he goes through and enumerates those characteristics of his heritage and his upbringing which at one time set him apart from the rest of ISRAEL, much less the rest of the world, he’s not doing it in a derogatory way.  There was a purpose, a REASON for each of those separations – to be closer to God, to be more holy, to be purer. 

 

But where does he end up?  He counts it all as … loss, as rubbish.  Those are polite words for the original Greek, which is skubala, which can be translated as refuse, dung or excrement. And those are the NICE words.  The popular use of the term in the first century was probably something that we would not repeat in mixed company, if you get my drift.  And Paul uses the term four times!  Once in verse 7, and then three times in verse 8.  In the NRSV the same word is translated as loss and as rubbish.  Something else in the NRSV, the phrase that is translated as ‘for his sake I have suffered the loss of all things’, gives the impression of passive regret over what he has lost … Paul is doing nothing of the sort – what he is doing is making a statement AFFIRMING that he has voluntarily renounced those things for the sake of gaining Christ. 

 

What is interesting is that in voluntarily renouncing them, he is not denigrating them – not making them worthless – in and of themselves.  They still hold value, but in comparison to the value he has gained in knowing Christ Jesus as Lord, they pale in comparison – to the degree that he can call them excrement or worse seemingly without flinching. 

 

It would be as if I were to stand here and tell you that my upbringing as a missionary kid, my extended family of missionary aunts and uncles, my ‘cousin’ MK’s, the experience of living as a trans-cultural person in a world that is becoming more trans-cultural by the minute, but which was not at the time – if I were to assert to you that all that that FORMED me as an individual, as a person, as a child of God, is so much … crap … in light of the understanding that, over and above all of it, that so far beyond the deepest reaches those experiences and those people who have a hold on my heart and have influenced my life – that NONE of that even comes CLOSE to being as meaningful to me as it is TO KNOW CHRIST – I still treasure and value each and every one of those things – the life experiences, the relationships that have meant so much to me through the years, the identity I have developed BECAUSE of those experiences and those relationships, but it is so much MORE important to me to KNOW my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ that the rest of it simply dims next to it. 

 

What does this mean for Jerusalem Baptist Church at Emmerton? 

 

We may not think it, but we are a rich congregation.  I’m not speaking necessarily in monetary terms, thought comparatively speaking, for our size, we are holding our own, but in terms of heritage and history.  We just celebrated 175 years of being a witness for Christ last year.  The families in this congregation are families that for the most part have generations on generations of forbearers who stand behind them as a cloud of witnesses to what has been and what is to come.  So the question is, again, what are we willing – truly willing – to give up for the sake of the Gospel of Jesus Christ?  More specifically, what comfort – or comfortable notion – are we willing to question and even give up in order to make both our worship and our life’s worship – how we live our faith – more representative of the Kingdom of God? 

 

For the first century Hebrews, the biggest hurdle was opening their services to those who up until then had been disqualified by virtue of THEIR heritage, their ancestry, or by the fact that they had NOT followed all the necessary protocols for becoming a member of the house of Israel – through adoption rather than lineage. 

 

A few weeks ago a man came over to the house from the parking lot over here, and explained that he was here to meet another man to sell him some crabs, but that he had no way to call the man to tell him he was here.  He gave me the number, and I called and told the man who was going to buy the crabs that the first man was here, and asked if he’d like to come down and meet to buy the bushel or two that they’d talked about.  The man selling the crabs was white.  The man who came to buy them was black.  I got into a conversation with both of them, and in the process, invited both of them to visit whenever they could.  The man selling the crabs smiled and said he would certainly try to find a day to come, but the other man, was a little taken aback by the invitation – he looked at me and said “I thought this was a white church!”  I told him that yes, for the most part it is, but that doesn’t mean that we don’t welcome everyone through our doors and into worship.  He seemed genuinely surprised that I meant the invitation. 

 

My hope is that he’ll take me up on it one of these days.   

 

Let’s pray. 

At Work In You

 

Sunday, September 28^th, 2008

Proper 21A/ Ordinary 26 A/ Pentecost +20

Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA

Philippians 2:1-13

Theme: Letting God change you

 

 “¹If then there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy, ²make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. ³Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. ⁴Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. ⁵Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, ⁶who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, ⁷but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form,⁸ he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death— even death on a cross. ⁹ Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, ¹⁰so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth,¹¹and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.  ¹²Therefore, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed me, not only in my presence, but much more now in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; ¹³for it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure.”

 

As some of you know, the first part of this week I attended a preaching and worship conference at the Baptist Theological Seminary in Richmond.  From Monday evening through Wednesday midday I was able to hear some wonderful speakers and engage in breakout sessions dealing with anything from how to welcome visitors to how to be a missional pastor – that is, one who engages the local church – the local congregation – in mission opportunities in addition to connecting to those established missions efforts that we as part of a denomination have engaged in so well and effectively over the years. 

I was able to reconnect with a few friends from my past, as well as meet new friends.  One, Jim Everette, who is Associate Pastor for Missions at First Baptist Church, Wilmington, NC, I met after the breakout session on being a missional pastor.  In the course of the session, I had mentioned that I had been on the receiving end of that ‘well-organized and prayed for mission effort on the denominational level’ as the son of missionaries.  When Jim and I began to talk afterwards, he asked where I had been an MK.  When I told him that I’d grown up in Chile, his eyes lit up, and he asked me if I knew Clara Huff, a retired missionary to Chile.  Growing up I knew her as Aunt Clara Brincefield.  She lived in Temuco, in southern Chile, and focused on working with the WMU’s in the churches in her area, as well as (I think) teaching in the Baptist School that has been established in Temuco since 1922. 

 

As Jim described everything Aunt Clara was into – Hispanic ministry, outreach, all kinds of activities and mission trips, he basically said that you really can’t keep up with her – which tells me that she hasn’t changed a BIT since I knew her as a child! 

 

There has always been a joy in Aunt Clara, a ready laugh, a joke.  We could always count on her to bring the house down at the Talent Show at the end of our Mission Meetings.  She either had a song, or a skit, or something that ended up with people rolling in the aisles.  Her joy is infectious.  You feel better when you are around her, more alive, more able to DO things and present things in a way that makes it clear that why you are doing them is because of the joy of the Lord in you.    

 

We pick up this morning right where we left off last Sunday.  Paul is continuing in his exhortation to the church at Philippi.  He continues to call them to unity, and he continues to break down what that looks like – what that CAN look like, in a community of believers who are intentional about following the example of Christ.  And it is there, with Christ, that Paul settles, as it were, in describing the ultimate example – but what is interesting about the passage is that in his wording, Paul is being redundant – he is telling the people of the church at Philippi that they already HAVE what he is telling them to GET.  In the English translations, it doesn’t come across quite as obviously, but in the Greek, he is, in fact saying “have this mind in you that you already have because you are in Christ Jesus” – it’s a little clunky, but I hope you get the idea.  Paul is basing his plea to the Philippians on the fact that they ARE indeed IN Christ – and by inference,   that Christ is in THEM.  In fact, that is the whole point Paul is trying to make – that it is because of the fact that we have Christ in us that we are able to now take on Christ’s mind as our own. 

 

But is it an easy task?  Not at all.  Paul describes what Jesus did in the Philippian hymn – called the Kenosis Hymn – from the Greek ekenosen – which we translate as ‘he emptied’ – in speaking of Christ’s emptying himself – of being obedient and lovingly submitting to the will of God the Father and making himself, first, a human, and second, a slave – to the Father’s will – and third, submitting to the death on the cross. 

 

The image the Philippians were presented with was laced with wording by Paul that evoked the need to serve one’s community – in this case – the Christian community in Philippi – as part of one’s duty as a member of the body of Christ primarily – but in a subtle way, Paul colors his language with the language of the civic duty expected of a citizen.  Yes, he is specifically speaking of that being carried out by those who were members of the body of Christ, but he was using words that they, as citizens of a Roman colony, and most likely proud Roman citizens – proud at this point more of their citizenship and the standing it brought than of what being a citizen of the empire meant for them in terms of the allegiance they were expected to uphold. 

 

Paul was calling on these proud Roman Citizens to do what goes completely against the grain of what they had up until then understood to be the duty of a Roman citizen – they were to follow Jesus’ example and empty themselves – to in no way claim the rights and privileges that they were assured as citizens of the empire – to in fact SHUN that privilege – in order to be in fellowship and communion with each other.  It is pretty much a given that the church was made up, as most of the churches that formed early in the expansion of the followers of Christ – of people from all walks of life – Jew and Gentile, slave and free, male and female.  In ways that we cannot fully comprehend, the body of Christ cut across barriers and boundaries that had been in place for centuries, and in a very real way, shook Roman Society – and the existing structures of the day – to their core. 

 

There is a radical aspect to the call of the Gospel, to the example of Christ, that we are hard pressed to identify with – especially here, especially now, in 21^st century still for the most part accepted-as-the-norm Christian America.  I know there is a general movement in our culture away from the mores and teachings of the faith, but in all honesty, that was to be expected.  I heard a quote from Stanley Hauerwas, professor of Theological Ethics at Duke Divinity School, where he said “the world has gone back to being the world.  The church can now go back to being the church.” 

 

We have, for too long, been co-opted by virtue of being ‘accepted.’  You’ve heard me say before, the worst thing that can happen to Christianity is that we gain a position of power in the world.  Jesus could have thrown his weight around as the son of God, but didn’t.  He COULD have rallied the people of Israel and formed an army alongside angels to overthrow the empire that was oppressing them, but he didn’t.  He could have gone straight to the halls of power and shown the men sitting in those seats that he was the incarnate God, capable of miracles and wonders, of creation as well as destruction, but he didn’t. 

 

What he DID do was what they call ‘play against type’ in the acting trade.  He presented himself as the antithesis of who he truly was.  Equal with God, yes, but was born as a baby in a backwater village in a backwater country in a far-flung end of the known world, far from the centers of power and culture.  Remained for the most part obscure, except to the folks in the immediate surrounding area, and only kept a small group of followers close to him throughout a brief, three year period of time during which he itinerantly preached around the country he was born in. 

 

He knew, as the time drew close that he was going to wind up arrested, beaten, and most likely killed by the authorities.  He saw it coming and yet didn’t do anything to stop it.  Didn’t stop preaching the Gospel, didn’t stop facing down injustice, and tyranny, greed and hypocrisy in those who set themselves up as worthy of being emulated – copied – even to the end.  And he never stopped touching lives in the most significant way possible – on a personal, intimate, one-on-one level, not only with his twelve disciples, but also with lawyers, scholars, leaders of the Sanhedrin, and, at the other end of the societal spectrum, Samaritan women and despised tax collectors.       

 

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

 

You’ve heard the illustration of a frog in water – if you throw a frog into a pot of boiling water, it will immediately jump out.  The abruptness of the change alerts the frog to something being wrong, and it takes action to get away from the danger.  But if you place a frog in a pot of room-temperature water, and then put the pot on a low burner, the frog will stay in the pot until it is too late, and it will die. 

 

We live in a culture that has become known for its greed and rampant materialism.    Understand me when I say that even though I believe there is still much that is good and noble and honest and worthy of upholding in our society, it does not take much to unravel that goodness and render it ineffective for the purposes of maintaining a witness for Christ in the world. 

 

So we are called to do that on both an individual and a congregational level.  I will go out on a limb here and say that I don’t believe can go much further beyond that and maintain our effectiveness in our witness.  Perhaps on a state association level, MAYBE, but on a national level we lose our power to influence, to convince, to persuade on an individual basis – which is how Jesus Christ did it.  Yes, we DO belong to entities, as I mentioned a couple of Sundays ago, that go beyond what we do locally, but that does not exempt us from DOING locally what we participate in on a larger scale … oddly enough – even in participating on a large scale as we do with missions funding, what that reverts to is at the other end, a personal, individual one-on-one engagement with people on the ground – through people like Aunt Clara, through people like Alma Hunt, or Lottie Moon, who emptied HERself just as Christ emptied himself.  I know we’re a little early to talk about Lottie, but it speaks to the point being made. 

 

We are, as a church, as members of THIS church, as members of the body of Christ meeting here and now, called by Christ to follow his example, to adopt his mind and make it our own – in giving of ourselves no matter where we are, no matter who we are with.  And to do it in such a radical, against-the-grain way, that the radical selflessness of the Gospel of Christ will change that part of the world that we happen to be living in and touching right here, right now.  And we do it through letting God work through us.   

 

¹²Therefore, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed me, not only in my presence, but much more now in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; ¹³for it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure.”

 

Think about that.  It is God who is at work in us.  God!  who came to earth in the person of Jesus, who created the universe, who raised Jesus from the dead, who knows us down to the very core of our beings – God is at work in us – and working out our salvation with fear and trembling is part of what that … partnership involves.  God is enabling us to will and to work for his good pleasure.   Let’s pray. 

In A Manner Worthy

 

Sunday, September 21^st, 2008

Proper 20A/ Ordinary 25 A/ Pentecost +19

Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA

Philippians 1:21-30

Theme: Owning the life of Christ – and living it

 

 “²¹For to me, living is Christ and dying is gain. ²²If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me; and I do not know which I prefer. ²³I am hard pressed between the two: my desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better; ²⁴but to remain in the flesh is more necessary for you. ²⁵Since I am convinced of this, I know that I will remain and continue with all of you for your progress and joy in faith, ²⁶so that I may share abundantly in your boasting in Christ Jesus when I come to you again. ²⁷Only, live your life in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that, whether I come and see you or am absent and hear about you, I will know that you are standing firm in one spirit, striving side by side with one mind for the faith of the gospel, ²⁸and are in no way intimidated by your opponents. For them this is evidence of their destruction, but of your salvation. And this is God’s doing. ²⁹For he has graciously granted you the privilege not only of believing in Christ, but of suffering for him as well— ³⁰since you are having the same struggle that you saw I had and now hear that I still have.”

 

It would seem to be a contradiction, on the face of it. 

 

We believe a Gospel of salvation by grace – a salvation which we can DO nothing to obtain, but which all we have to do is ask for – confessing and believing, first that God was in Christ reconciling the world to God’s self, and that Christ’s dying on the cross was for us – each of us, all who have been and all who are to come. 

 

We also believe that upon receiving that salvation, our lives are SUPPOSED to start to change.  There are those who believe that it is possible to attain near-perfection in the conduct of our daily living – in our Christ-likeness.  I happen to believe that it is a moment-by-moment variant as to how well we’re doing in the Christ-likeness department.  I DO believe that our salvation – and how it reflects in our daily living – is a process more than an event. 

 

Yes, there IS a moment in our lives, whether we remember it or not, where we became aware of the love of God, through a mother or father, a grandmother or grandfather, a Sunday School teacher, or a Pastor … but more than that, we became aware that God loves US – as individuals – that God cares for us and wants to be in relationship WITH us.

 

That realization can be overwhelming.  That is why it is, in many cases, a signal event in our memory.  For me, it was, as I’ve shared before, on the eve of my tenth birthday at a camp in west Tennessee.  For Leslie, it was when she was eight, under the preaching of Junie Foster at Thalia Lynn Baptist Church in Virginia Beach.  Incidentally, on that same Sunday, Donald, Leslie’s dad, at the age of 43 or 44, walked to the front of the sanctuary and asked to be baptized and to become a member of Thalia Lynn at the same time as Leslie.  He has stated that his real growth as a Christian began from that point on, even though he believed and was baptized in a sister tradition at the age of twelve. 

 

I imagine if we went around the room, many of us could name the place and time when we came to that same place in our faith walk.  It doesn’t HAVE to be that way, of course.  Many people I know came to that realization gradually, over the course of many weeks or months … or even years.  It was in looking back over their pilgrimage that they recognized the call of God on their lives – drawing them nearer and nearer to God’s self.  Even for those of us who DID make our decision public at an early age, in retrospect we can see evidence of God’s presence and guiding and molding when we look back on our experiences and who God put in our lives as we grew. 

 

So we have this offer of the free gift of salvation on the table – literally remembered, when we celebrate communion – and it is ours to take up or reject.  If we choose to take it up, it is a most precious gift – THE most precious that we could ever receive in our lives – because it IS the gift of life.  But in the receiving of the gift, we then become Disciples of Christ – that is, students, apprentices, learners.  And what we learn from our master is that, having received the gift of salvation carries a responsibility with it.  That having gained our lives by giving them over to God, we now understand Jesus’ words in the Gospel of Mark (chapter 8) when he said “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. ³⁵For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel,^* will save it.”  To put it another way, even though this is presented as a win-lose situation, the rules that would normally be understood to apply DON’T.  Yes, we DO lose our SO-called lives when we turn them over to the Lord, but in doing that, we discover that what we held dear, or as important, or meaningful is either put in correct perspective as secondary, or made all that much MORE precious through the eyes of faith.  What would SEEM to the world to be a win-lose proposition is in reality a win-win one. 

 

Paul was near the end of his life when he was writing to the Philippian church.  He wrote it during the two years he was in Rome waiting to present his case before Nero, who was emperor at the time.  I suspect that on some level, he was aware that his earthly life could end at any time.  He could almost see, can almost taste the glory to come.  And yet, he was struggling with still wanting to be here on earth, present with his brothers and sisters, sharing with them in their journeys, in their growing faith, in their sharing of the Gospel or letting go and going on.  And he ends up choosing to stay – to be with them, to continue to lose his life by giving it away.  The way he puts it: “I will remain and continue with all of you for your progress and joy in faith”                    

 

So what does that progress and joy in faith mean?  Paul actually describes it pretty specifically: “standing firm in one spirit, striving side by side with one mind for the faith of the gospel” That is nice and simple, isn’t it?  It means being unified and working together.  So living our lives in a manner worthy of Christ means doing that, period. End of sentence.

 

But … you see??  It doesn’t JUST end there.  To take those two phrases and apply them to our lives implies letting them infuse ALL of our lives – how we talk, how we treat each other, how we treat strangers, how we carry ourselves in the world.  At its core, at its heart, living a life of faith is not coasting along for however long after one receives salvation.  Living a life of faith has everything to do with engaging in a life FULL of action – full of learning and loving and giving, sharing and holding … we speak of serving a risen Lord, but we run the risk of serving a building if we lose sight of the fact that the church is what Cliff showed us last Sunday – and what most of us probably learned as preschoolers – here’s the church, here’s the steeple, open the doors, and see all the people.  The Church is not the bricks and mortar, it’s not the pews and carpeting, it’s not the painting over the baptistery, or the beautiful cross stitch of the Lord’s Prayer that is standing in the hall through these two doors to my right.  WE are the church.  I understand how over the years we’ve telegraphed the phrase ‘the church that meets in the building located at the corner of Mulberry Road and History Land Highway in Warsaw, and now we just say ‘Jerusalem Baptist Church’.  But there is a real danger in losing the connection with the central truth of our faith that says that the body of Christ is not built on blocks and girders, but on the hearts and shoulders of men and women who stood together in one spirit, and worked side by side with one mind for the faith of the Gospel.

 

Lets pray.