Peace! Be Still!


Sunday, June 25th, 2006
Pentecost 3
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton
Mark 4:35-41

35 On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, “Let us go across to the other side.” 36 And leaving the crowd behind, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. Other boats were with him. 37A great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped. 38 But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke him up and said to him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” 39 He woke up and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” Then the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm. 40 He said to them, “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?” 41 And they were filled with great awe and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”

Our text this morning picks up where we left off last week – the very next verse. The setting changes, and there are, of course, different events taking place: Jesus is not telling a parable, he is dealing directly with the disciples, you remember, the ones of whom 4 were professional fishermen, familiar with the water they were crossing, accustomed to the unexpected perils that could strike at any time while they were out on the water. And we see them caught in a sudden windstorm; one so bad that even these weathered fishermen tremble alongside the accountant among them in the face of the wind and waves. And what do we find Jesus doing?

Sleeping.

Yeah, he’s sawing logs in the back of the boat on some cushions while everyone else is busy scribbling down their last wills and testaments in the face of their apparently all-too-certain impending death.

A couple of explanations for Jesus’ snoring come to mind. The first is pretty easy. Being a minister means being available – providing presence as much as being present. Let me explain. Say someone is taken to the emergency room. The minister is called, and he or she comes, and sits with the family outside in the waiting room. The church member is in the back, being put through a series of tests, being poked and prodded, given doses of this and that, being asked to give samples of this and that, you know, the usual stuff. At some point the minister makes his or her way back to the bedside. For a brief few minutes the two are able to carry on a conversation, and have a quick word of prayer together; a prayer for comfort, for rest, for peace, and for swiftness in treatment and release. There’s nothing unusual or out of place with the sequence of events, except that the call came at midnight, and minister drove half an hour or an hour to be with the family and at the bedside. That’s an example where being present in a situation provided a sense of the presence of God with the family as well as the member. It is not equating the minister with God, but it is recognizing the fact that in their being present, the ministers serve as a concrete representation of the spiritual reality of God’s presence.

Speaking as one who has received a few of those calls, and please understand, this is not complaining, nor am I limiting it to ordained ministers, I fully realize that these kinds of calls go out to trusted friends and extended family who respond in exactly the same way with exactly the same results, but it can be a very draining experience. The day or two after an event like that can be spent in something of a fog as your body catches up on rest and you try to continue to function as close to normal as possible.

So the first response that comes to mind when Jesus is sleeping in the back of the boat is one we sometimes use with the boys when we look back at them in the back of the van and they are sound asleep: “he’s tuckered out!” Jesus had just finished teaching hundreds if not thousands of people – he’d been healing folks and performing miracles, so I can imagine how worn out he must have been.

I fully believe in the divinity of Christ. I also believe Jesus was fully human, and his body needed rest and food just like the rest of us. There have been times when I’ve been sitting in a waiting room with someone, waiting for the doctor to come in, and have nearly fallen asleep sitting straight up in the chair I was in. There’s a degree of exhaustion beyond which you have little control over what your body is going to do on it’s own in terms of shutting down and resting. As much as you try to will it to remain alert and active, you find yourself nodding off in situations that would otherwise call you to full awake status, Including a storm-tossed boat on the Sea of Galilee.

The other reason is a subtler one, maybe a little harder to define.

For me, there are three places where I can sleep peacefully regardless of when I am there or what might be going on around me. The first is in my own bed. The second and third places are in my parent’s home in Louisville and in the home of my in-laws in Virginia Beach. I realize that as soon as I say that, I am walking into any number of smart-alec jokes come lunchtime, mostly surrounding the phrase ‘why stop there?’, but my point is this: you sleep best where you are comfortable. And that comfort doesn’t always mean a nice bed, or a soft pillow. It means environment. It has to do with feeling safe, with feeling … loved, cared for, watched over.

It’s the same response that I see in babies when they begin going through their immunizations. They are in a strange place, a doctors, office, with nurses and other people who are speaking a language they are not used to hearing, PEOPLE they are not used to SEEING, and suddenly their legs are pierced by these needles, and this stuff is pumped into them that HURTS – and so they do what anyone would do, given the circumstances, they cry!

The nurses, though, are well trained. They know how to give the shots quickly and to move out of the way as quickly as they swooped in. They invariably tell the mommy to pick the child up. And it’s amazing what happens. The place where the injection was given more than likely still stings, and the baby is still unhappy with the surroundings, but almost as soon as they get into their mother’s arms they quiet. They rest their head on mommy’s shoulder and in an astonishingly short time, they fall asleep.

That is, I think, the picture I’d rather keep in my head of Jesus sleeping in the back of the boat in the middle of the storm.

I think Jesus knew of the coming storm – the bigger storm that would ultimately end in his crucifixion, he understood that there were things he had to get done before that time, including crossing the Sea of Galilee to get to Decapolis, an area that was predominantly gentile territory – it was already out of their comfort zone for most of his disciples, and the fear they expressed in the boat in the storm may have been as much for their safety as for their … sense of understanding of how the world was – they had not contemplated the possibility that God might want the gospel shared beyond the borders of their own nation. It would certainly have been a challenge to find someone among them who understood what God’s charge to Israel to be a blessing to the Nations of the World was all about, but Jesus knew. And this crossing of the Sea of Galilee was just a first step in showing the disciples that they were going to be a part of.

What does that mean for Jerusalem Baptist Church at Emmerton?

Jerusalem has certainly weathered storms, as the history of most churches will show, there are storms that assail from the outside and there are storms that rage from the inside. As with the small boat and the few men that were caught in the open on the Sea of Galilee that day, there was a purpose in the journey that perhaps they could not entirely grasp, there is a guide to show the way, both in direction as well as manner.

Not to draw the analogy out too far, but wouldn’t it be wonderful if when we embarked on a perilous-for-our-comfort-zone-trip into a new area to which we sense God’s calling, we had enough peace about it that we would be able to figuratively sleep in the midst of the storm? How many of us have laid awake at night over some issue that has come up here, and fretted and worried and tossed and turned about it?

Jesus’ command, “Peace! Be Still” may not have only been directed at the wind and the waves that day, it may have just as readily been directed to the disciples, and by extension, to us here today.

1 God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. 2 Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change, though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea; 3 though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble with its tumult. Selah 4 There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy habitation of the Most High. 5 God is in the midst of the city; it shall not be moved; God will help it when the morning dawns. 6 The nations are in an uproar, the kingdoms totter; he utters his voice, the earth melts. 7 The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah 8 Come, behold the works of the Lord; see what desolations he has brought on the earth. 9 He makes wars cease to the end of the earth; he breaks the bow, and shatters the spear; he burns the shields with fire. 10 “Be still, and know that I am God! I am exalted among the nations, I am exalted in the earth.” 11 The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah

There are images that are not designed to comfort and give peace, to settle the spirit, because they are true to the situation in which we live. To a degree, the Northern Neck has missed SOME of those bullets, but certainly not all of them. I would invite you to read the headlines from this past week’s news to get an idea of how much we are a part of that hectic, hassled, noisy and violent world.

And in the middle of it all – in the middle of either kind of storm – those from within or those from without – God is telling us, offering us – giving us Peace! Be still – and know that I am God!

Let’s pray.

Explaining in Private, Living in Public


Sunday, June 18h, 2006
Pentecost 2
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton
Mark 4:26-34

26 He also said, “The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground, 27 and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how. 28 The earth produces of itself, first the stalk, then the head, then the full grain in the head. 29 But when the grain is ripe, at once he goes in with his sickle, because the harvest has come.”
30 He also said, “With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable will we use for it? 31 It is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth; 32 yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes the greatest of all shrubs, and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.”
33 With many such parables he spoke the word to them, as they were able to hear it; 34 he did not speak to them except in parables, but he explained everything in private to his disciples.

“My child arrived just the other day
He came to the world in the usual way
But there were planes to catch, and bills to pay,
He learned to walk while I was away
And he was talkin’ ‘fore I knew it, and as he grew,
He’d say I’m gonna be like you, Dad,
You know I’m gonna be like you.”

There are songs that just become part of you. The story that is woven in the combination of music and lyrics combine so powerfully that sometimes just hearing a few measures is all we need to have the entire song blossom in our mind.

Cat’s in the Cradle is one of those songs for me.

So is ‘Great is Thy Faithfulness’, for that matter.

I’m sure we all have songs that have had similar impact on our lives.

Harry Chapin’s words told us on a different level something we find in the passage this morning. We are all farmers. We just don’t necessarily know it. Whether we live surrounded by acres of fields, or acres of concrete, we are all in the business of sowing seeds and reaping harvests.

Our passage this morning has Jesus again presenting a picture of the Kingdom of God in a way that the people to whom he was speaking could easily grasp – the image was one with which they were intimately familiar, and in drawing the correlation between the Kingdom and something as ordinary as the act of sowing seeds and watching grain grow opened the eyes of his listeners to how often we find the Holy in the very routine of life.

It is with that in mind, then, that we acknowledge that today is the day we recognize the fathers in our midst, the fathers in our lives. It is sometimes with ease that I am able to speak of God in masculine terms. I do that mostly out of habit, since that was – and to a great degree continues to be – our tradition. There are times, however, when it is not so easy.

I received a call last night from a woman who was asking me to help communicate to the sheriff’s deputy whom she’d called that the reason she had called was that her husband had gotten off work earlier in the afternoon and again had gotten drunk, had driven their car into something and smashed it up, and was threatening to beat her and their 15 year-old son, the oldest of 9 children.

In those instances, I cringe when I hear God spoken of in purely masculine terms – terms that lock out half the attributes of God, terms that can lock in or lock out in someone’s mind the image of either a loving, compassionate God or a vengeful, wrathful, arbitrary God. Those chickens come home to roost all too often in my mind when I look at how I’ve been doing as a father on my own.

This parable sounds familiar, doesn’t it? It echoes the parable of the sower that’s found just a few verses before this passage, at the beginning of the chapter, in fact. Why do you think Jesus might have practically repeated himself so soon? The description of the Kingdom in THIS parable, although using essentially the same elements, isn’t quite the same as the earlier one – there’s no reference to the rocky, weedy, shallow, or fertile soil, but rather, a focus on the whole picture, including the sower himself – to the effect that highlights the fact that the sower has no control over the rate of the growth of the plants that come from the seed that is scattered.

We could stop here and think about how that might apply to our lives as fathers and parents, couldn’t we? Think about how what we say within range of little ears can sometimes come back and haunt us, to not say ‘bite us’?! Think about how whether or not we recognize it or not, what we do and say within sight of our children becomes for them a model for them to follow?

“When you comin' home dad?
I don't know when, but we'll get together then son
You know we'll have a good time then”

At the end of each chorus, the line repeats, and as the songs moves forward, you begin to realize that it’s not simply quoting the father, in a way, it’s an indictment.

Though it is the case that, as farmers, if we are dependent on the weather for crops to ripen, we are much more aware of the LACK of control we have on the eventual outcome of a seed planted, it is in some ways similar when we begin to talk about the seeds planted in the lives of those around us – particularly children – and most especially, our OWN children. We do not have as much control as we would like to have.

There is an element of blindness when we deal with our own children … sorry; this is an instance where I need to be speaking in the first person, not in the corporate plural. There is an element of blindness when I deal with my own children which make me deeply grateful to God for Leslie’s presence in my life, because what I don’t see she does, and she is not afraid to point out when I am standing behind a curtain, or when I am parading around making a spectacle of myself and the kids see right through me, or when … well, I suspect we can each fill in some instance of having done something less than admirable to or in front of our child or children, for which we might gladly welcome a time machine in which we could go back and change some word spoken, or some hand raised.

So the Kingdom is like a man who plants seeds, and leaves them, and comes back and watches to see if they are growing, and comes back again and again to his field, and finally, when the harvest is ready, he comes in with his sickle and gathers the harvest.

It’s a pretty scene, isn’t it? Nothing to do but sit back and watch the grain grow – the stalk comes up, then the head, then the full head of grain in the head…

But what if the seed we plant is discord, or rage, or disdain, or pride, or discontentment, selfishness, irresponsibility, or laziness?

My son turned ten just the other day
He said, "Thanks for the ball, Dad, come on let's play
Can you teach me to throw", I said "Not today
I got a lot to do", he said, "That's ok"
And he walked away but his smile never dimmed
And said, "I'm gonna be like him, yeah
You know I'm gonna be like him"

The song inexorably moves through the life of the boy. Each time the father is unable or unwilling to take the time to be a part of the boy’s life, the son seemingly shrugs it off, and goes on, moves on.

Well, he came home from college just the other day
So much like a man I just had to say
"Son, I'm proud of you, can you sit for a while?"
He shook his head and said with a smile
"What I'd really like, Dad, is to borrow the car keys
See you later, can I have them please?"

So we begin to see the outcome of the years missed, the opportunities squandered, the dates forgotten.
If there is one thing Jesus was telling both his disciples in private and the people of Palestine in public, it was ‘PAY ATTENTION!!’

How many times do we find ourselves looking BACK on a situation, only to realize too late that there was a golden opportunity for WHATEVER reason – missed in the passing of the moment, through distraction or inattention, never to be captured again? How are we supposed to begin to be aware of those holy moments that are sprinkled throughout our days in a way by which we can take advantage of them?

I've long since retired, my son's moved away
I called him up just the other day
I said, "I'd like to see you if you don't mind"
He said, "I'd love to, Dad, if I can find the time
You see my new job's a hassle and kids have the flu
But it's sure nice talking to you, Dad
It's been sure nice talking to you"

And as I hung up the phone it occurred to me
He'd grown up just like me
My boy was just like me

The regret that we live with as fathers who have missed those opportunities to influence our children for the GOOD is something that I do not look forward to living with. That is why it is so important to be a family to each other, as a community of faith, we are called to hold each other accountable to the call of God on our lives to be present, to be embracing, to be nurturing, faithful, loving, caring, to BE expressive of the love of the Father for his children.

Can we do that together? Are we willing to weave our lives together – in a healthy, caring, sustaining way, so that grace will abound? So that we can look back together and see how at those times in the lives of our young ones, where I dropped the ball, someone else was there and caught it and carried it, or vice-versa, where someone else skipped a beat, and the person following along beside or behind didn’t miss the beat, but kept right on going? There is something to be said for consistency in the way we live out our faith.

There is almost a tag at the end of today’s passage – “he did not speak to them except in parables, but he explained everything in private to his disciples.” It is interesting to me that there are not more of those ‘explanations’ detailed in the Gospel record. We have a couple of instances where Jesus is explaining, but mostly what we read about is how he lived out those private explanations in public. There was no disconnect between what he lived in public and what he said in private. Can we say that for ourselves? Can we say that for Jerusalem Baptist Church at Emmerton?

We admit – we confess if you will – that we don’t always. It is a given of our existence – both as individuals and as a congregation – that our public and private lives do not always coincide. As you’ve heard me say before, it is, in a way, a function of our humanity. We are not perfect, though we are striving towards the perfection of life in Christ, we do not expect to attain it while here on earth. But we do not let that hold us back, we do not let that awareness or knowledge of incompleteness defeat us. We do not live under the law, as Paul said; we live in a state of grace. There is enough blame to go around, mostly from ourselves, if we are honest, but I’m sure from the eyes of our children and perhaps our spouses as well.

The question for Jerusalem Baptist Church today is this: are we willing to allow grace to suffuse our lives – to shine through – in such a way that THAT will be what people see in us, enough so as to overcome, if not eliminate those times when we are less than gracious? Can we operate, can we practice our faith, can we live out the Gospel in such a way as to make it OBVIOUS that we are children of God?

What are our challenges? Are they those that are outside of us or are they ones that we find hidden inside ourselves? Which are more damaging, more debilitating, and more hurtful to our spirit, more grievous to the Spirit of God? I would venture to say that those within us are the more dangerous to our efforts. Challenges we find outside ourselves are just that – OUTSIDE – visible, sometimes palpable, but always present in such a way as to be identifiable. It is when we are confronted with those demons we find inside that we are rendered near helpless – because we don’t always know how to rally against them.

Don’t ALWAYS know.

That’s where being a part of a family of faith comes in. Being a part of a community centered on Christ’s love gives us the incredible opportunity to take advantage of forming those bonds of friendship and love that allow us to walk beside each other and to support each other – through triumph and adversity, through joys and sorrows, through successes as well as failures. We cannot understate the richness and the value of being able to live lives that are not isolated from each other. God calls us to reflect the kingdom TOGETHER.

Let’s pray.

Seeing The Kingdom


Sunday, June 11th, 2006
Trinity B
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton
John 3:1-17

1 Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews. 2 He came to Jesus by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God.” 3 Jesus answered him, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.” 4 Nicodemus said to him, “How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?” 5 Jesus answered, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. 6 What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. 7 Do not be astonished that I said to you, ‘You must be born from above.’ 8 The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” 9 Nicodemus said to him, “How can these things be?” 10 Jesus answered him, “Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things? 11 “Very truly, I tell you, we speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen; yet you (all) do not receive our testimony. 12 If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? 13 No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. 14 And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15 that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. 16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. 17 “Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

Who are we trying to kid?

Honestly, seriously.

Who do we think we are? We claim to follow the teachings, in fact, we claim to LIVE the life of a man who lived almost two thousand years ago, who reportedly died on a cross and was buried and supposedly rose from the dead a couple of days later, and ascended to heaven some weeks after that.

He spent roughly three years walking around Palestine, gathered and taught a bunch of followers, and upset the establishment – both the political and the religious establishment – and THAT resulted in their condemning him to death.

And here we are, roughly two thousand years later, and we try to stand on those claims … you know, the ones where we are to be known by our love, or that if we are to be followers of Christ we are to be servants of all. We are to visit the sick and those in prison, we are to feed the hungry, clothe the naked; and sometimes we do and sometimes we don’t quite make it. And still, we continue to lay hold of those claims.

We live in a nation that claims to be Christian, but has the highest murder rate of any of the world’s most economically developed countries. We claim to have the highest standard of living, and yet there are millions of children who go to bed hungry each night within our borders. We claim to have the best medical care in the world, and we do, for those who can afford it. As a nation, our number one killer is heart disease brought on by terrible habits, not the least of which is one of the most sedentary lifestyles in the world, as well as a diet that is rich in calories and heavy on saturated fat, and short on the healthier stuff.

Sometimes I think we’d be better off dropping the claim to be a ‘Christian’ nation. I don’t mean that in the sense of rejection, I mean that in the sense of admission. I’m not so sure that the continuing move on the part of some who have gained and consolidated power over the last twenty-five years to impose on the rest of the population policies and statutes which I would immediately adhere to VOLUNTARILY but which are being made compulsory are going to turn the nation around.

I’ve studied our history, and though there are some events in the life of our country that signaled the change, I don’t know that there is really any single event that marked the turning away from a foundation of faith.

And yet, here we are, living in the knowledge that Hollywood seems to carry more influence around the world – in terms of what people perceive us to be through movies and television – than anything that might come out of any given church body.

So that would seem to make our job as Christians even harder – aside from our own frailties and shortcomings – we are working against the perception that American Christians are selfish, narrow-minded, provincial, and not interested in the fate of the rest of the world as long as we are warm (or cool, depending on the season) and fed and rested.

How are we going to counteract that? What are we up against? WHO are we up against?

Let’s look at our passage a little more closely. This exchange between Nicodemus and Jesus is one of the most extensive – and profound – conversations recorded in any of the Gospels. There is a wealth of information if we just take the time to uncover it.

Some scholars have suggested that Nicodemus was coming on his own – for his own purposes – since he came to Jesus by night. Others point to his use of the term ‘we’, as in ‘WE know that you are a teacher of the law’, to indicate that, though he might have had personal interest in approaching Jesus, in this instance he was coming as a representative of the established hierarchy – one that had become preoccupied with a rising young Rabbi who had acquired a following and, had already begun to upset the established order – along with the tables that belonged to the money changers in the temple. Most notably in the Gospel of John, Jesus cleanses the temple at the BEGINNING of his public ministry – the story is related just prior to this one, beginning in verse 13 of chapter 2.

A lot can be said in a few words – a title, especially, can tell you a lot about a person. In our own society, terms like ‘Doctor’, ‘Your Honor’, ‘Mr. President’ or ‘Reverend’ can say a lot in just one or two short words. Nicodemus is referred to as ‘a man of the Pharisees’, ‘a ruler of the Jews,’ and, later, by Jesus himself, as ‘a teacher of Israel’.

By calling him ‘a man of the Pharisees’, those who first heard the Gospel of John read to them, or read it themselves, would have understood that he belonged to the most deeply religious brotherhood in all of Judaism. As a ‘ruler of the Jews’, he sat on the supreme judicial body permitted by the Romans, the Sanhedrin, entrusted with the spiritual and moral leadership of the nation. As ‘a teacher of Israel’, he was a trained theologian concerned with the true understanding and teaching of the revelation given by God.

So we can figure out that Nicodemus was not a fly-by-night wanderer, who just happened by and made for a convenient object lesson through dialogue for the writer of the Gospel to fill out more of Jesus’ message. No, he really was after the heart of the Gospel. And it was in the dialogue that the differences between Nicodemus and Jesus – the old and the new – become apparent.

Nicodemus comes into the conversation as a pragmatist – a practical man – trained and educated and carrying on in the realm of the intersection of the divine and the mundane, but nonetheless, a realist – who focuses on the here and now, what he can see in front of him and what he can touch and feel with his own hands. Between verses 2 and 9, the Greek word that is translated for us as ‘can’ appears six times. His last question to Jesus ‘How can these things be?’ One scholar, William E. Hull, wrote: ‘They are the hallmark of a practical realist who was cautious, if not skeptical, of all efforts to transform human nature in the midst of this present life.’ (Broadman Bible Commentary, 1970, Vol 9, p. 239) It seems Nicodemus was not that different from us, then. We strive to understand what it means to live by faith, to walk in faith, and to trust in faith, and to trust the changing power of that, but … what percentage of the time do we fall back on our own understanding? Sixty percent of the time? Seventy? Eighty? Ninety? And how likely are we to allow for the unimaginable to happen?

That’s where Jesus was coming from in the conversation. Nicodemus was concerned with that which was possible, the human element; Jesus is coming from the point of view of one who knows about divine authority, over and above human ability.

Nicodemus began by admitting that Jesus COULD do signs, and stated that he wouldn’t be able to do them apart from the presence of God. And what is Jesus’ reply? ‘No one can see the Kingdom of God without being born from above,’ which walks them into the rest of the conversation almost talking past each other. Nicodemus is stuck in the material – how can someone go back into their mother’s womb and be born again? Jesus’ answer: “you’ve got to be born of water and of the spirit. What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit” To that, we hear Nicodemus scratch his head and ask ‘How can these things be?’

The essential absence of allowing for the possibility of what God might do was the hurdle that Nicodemus had to wrestle with. He was part of that religious brotherhood that, in it’s beginnings, was considered a radical upstart movement that emphasized personal holiness in a way that was foreign to the PREVIOUS religious establishment – Pharisees were the Jesus People of their day – the loose cannons, the young idealists, the mavericks.

Human nature hasn’t really changed that much in two and a half millennia. We go through cycles. We figure out what works, we adopt it, we live with it, sometimes for a long time, until things change and it stops working as well, or works, but only for a few of us, and then someone comes along and suggests some ways to change, and we look at the possibilities, and act on some, discard others, and it goes back to working again.

Are we allowing for the possibilities of what God might do, if we just let God DO – through us, with us, and in spite of us?

What does that mean for Jerusalem Baptist Church at Emmerton?

Next year we will be observing and celebrating our 175th anniversary as a congregation. Imagine what it would be like if Elder Thomas Braxton were to come back and walk through the front door of the sanctuary on any given Sunday Morning. Do you think he might be surprised by anything he saw? Would he turn around and leave the service because of it? How much has the worship and life of Jerusalem changed in the last hundred and seventy-four years?

Or do you think he would stop, take it in, and nod, saying ‘We’re keeping in touch – we’re speaking the language of the people.’ In preparing over the last couple of weeks, I discovered that when Jesus first read from the scroll of Isaiah, he read it in Hebrew, which even though it was the official language of the land, was not the language that you’d hear on the street or in day to day conversation. After the reading was done in Hebrew, it was then translated into Aramaic – the common language – a form of Hebrew – by either the person reading or by the attendant who brought the scroll out.

In some ways, that is what the church has had to do all along – the original message has remained unchanged – in the original language of Love and Faith, so to speak. But it has been translated into the vernacular – ‘the language of the day’ – time and time again. From Greek and Hebrew to Latin, or to English and Spanish, from 15th and 16th century English and Spanish to 19th century forms, and from there to more contemporary versions.

So how do we translate the truths of the Gospel into language that people today will understand? We can bemoan the fact that faith has taken a back seat in people’s lives, beat ourselves or someone else up over who is responsible for that, or we can put our minds together and figure out a way to speak so that people will listen.

Jerusalem has a good record of doing that – of speaking through action – through involvement in activities in the greater community, through food pantry donations, through meal preparation and deliveries, through making our facility available as a polling place, but what about the way we speak – actually speak about God and Jesus Christ? The terms and phrases we use are ones that most of us – having been reared in the church – are familiar with and can understand – but what about someone who was not raised in a faith tradition? How would they understand the invitation? How would they understand ‘giving your heart to Jesus, making him Lord of your life’ would they ask ‘how can these things be?’ just like Nicodemus?

How would we answer them?

The disciples came from a lifetime of practicing their faith in one set way, and in knowing Jesus they opened themselves up to a radically different way that completely changed not only their point of view, but how they lived their day to day lives. Knowing Jesus will do that. It’s a risky, discomforting thing, to contemplate so much change.

The question is, are we willing to open ourselves up to that possibility in order to let others see the Kingdom of God?

Let’s pray.

Breathe Upon These Slain


Sunday, June 4th, 2006
Pentecost
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton
Ezekiel 37:1-14

1 The hand of the Lord came upon me, and he brought me out by the spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. 2 He led me all around them; there were very many lying in the valley, and they were very dry. 3 He said to me, “Mortal, can these bones live?” I answered, “O Lord God, you know.” 4 Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones, and say to them: O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. 5 Thus says the Lord God to these bones: I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. 6 I will lay sinews on you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live; and you shall know that I am the Lord.” 7 So I prophesied as I had been commanded; and as I prophesied, suddenly there was a noise, a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone. 8 I looked, and there were sinews on them, and flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them; but there was no breath in them. 9 Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, mortal, and say to the breath: Thus says the Lord God: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.” 10 I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood on their feet, a vast multitude. 11 Then he said to me, “Mortal, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say, ‘Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely.’ 12 Therefore prophesy, and say to them, Thus says the Lord God: I am going to open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people; and I will bring you back to the land of Israel. 13 And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people. 14 I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you on your own soil; then you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken and will act,” says the Lord.

To see something that’s never been seen before. To DO something that’s never been done before, to EXPERIENCE something that no one has been through before … does that appeal to you?

I suspect that there might be one or two in the room who would eagerly nod “Yes, Please!” to the question. But most of us, I think, would be a little more hesitant to answer.

In part, I imagine, our hesitation would be due to the underlying question ‘IS there any such thing?’ – let’s allow for a minute that at some point, perhaps in the near future, we will once more venture into space and the likelihood of there being something out there that has not been seen before increases exponentially as we move away from the earth.

But, IS there something outside THAT realm – in other words, here on earth, that’s TRULY never been seen, or done, or experienced before?

One of the things that really hit me while living in Spain was the sense of history about the land. The first year I was there I lived in the northern part of the country, in Oviedo, Asturias, in the foothills of the Cantabrian Coastal range of mountains – the ones that keep the clouds and moisture from crossing into the central plains from the North Atlantic. The two missionary families I worked with had developed a routine over the years. Fridays were free days – ‘off’ days – at least the afternoons and evenings. Weather permitting, that almost always translated into an outing of one kind or another, either to the mountains or to the beach – not necessarily to go swimming – the water was pretty much constantly too cold for that – but just to be outdoors. Several times we went on hikes – serious hikes – into the mountains, and there never failed to be a reminder that where we were walking people had been walking and hiking for hundreds if not thousands of years. The rocks that protruded along the trail were worn smooth by the passage of tens if not hundreds of thousands of feet of … hikers … over the centuries.

During my second year, in Denia, on the Mediterranean coast, the road I walked to get to the retreat center and the home of the missionary family I worked with THERE was 700 years old. The ruins on the little hill in the middle of town date back to Roman times. Denia has been an inhabited location since at least 4000 BCE. The name of the town itself derives from the name of the Roman Goddess of the hunt, Diana. Her Greek counterpart, Artemis, was the same Goddess we learned about in our study of Acts, when Paul was in Ephesus his proclamation began to cut into the income of the artisans who made their living off selling figurines of the goddess, since Ephesus was the center of worship for her.

All that to say, you’ve heard the saying “the seven last words of the church are ‘we’ve never done it that way before,’” and to be honest, Virginia has a rep of being somewhat … shall we say, “Traditional” in its outlook. There’s a joke I heard shortly after we moved here: How many Virginians does it take to change a light bulb? Five: one to change it, and four to talk about how much better the old light bulb was. I think I’ve shared that with you before. If I have, please forgive the rerun. But it applies, doesn’t it? J

The point is this: Virginia has one of the longer histories of the states of the Union; certainly one of which to be proud for many, many reasons. We are, after all, getting ready to celebrate the four hundredth anniversary of the first settlement at Jamestown next year, so we do like to refer to ourselves as the Old Dominion. There is something to be said for carrying a sense of self from where we’ve come. Having that, we can tend to venerate it a little too much. Yes, there’s a place for tradition, but it needs to be a PLACE, not the center.

And there’s almost always a downside. While there are things to be proud of in our history, there are likewise things we would prefer not to be reminded of from the same source, things, we’d rather leave unmentioned in the history books. And to a degree, that happens. It is, after all, the victors who write history. We would rather not dwell on the treatment of the Native Americans who inhabited these lands centuries before the English and other settlers arrived, or the treatment of slaves and former slaves before, during, and after the civil war. Or, for that matter, the racism that lingers even today in our society. History has another name: Legacy. It is that part of our past that directly affects us. We also use the term to refer to what WE leave for those who come after US.

Legacies can be good or bad, invigorating or debilitating, uplifting or a heavy burden.

So we come to the realization, just as Ezekiel did, that the task before us is one that cannot be initiated, cannot be engaged, and cannot be completed, apart from intervention on God’s part. Anything less will mean that the bones of our ancestors will continue to be just that – dry bones. We may dress them up in flesh and skin and perfect hair, and dress them well, but unless the spirit of God moves through these bones, they remain a rattling, white cage.

Today we celebrate Pentecost, the commemoration of the coming of the Holy Spirit on those disciples and followers of Christ who were gathered in Jerusalem 50 days after the resurrection and shortly after his ascension.

In that one event, the followers of Jesus began to realize exactly what ‘newness of life’ truly meant. We read in the second chapter of Acts that people from all across the Roman Empire were present in Jerusalem for the feast of Pentecost, and when the Spirit came upon the disciples and other followers, they began to speak to each in their native language.

Can you imagine what it must have been like to be present on that day?

Imagine the city teeming with people, many more times the people who would normally be there, and as you walk through the crowd, you hear conversations in so many different languages that you simply lose count. It is almost too much to take in. There’s a part of you that wants them to all just go away. For things to go back to being the same people who are there year in and year out, the same faces, the familiar ones, the ones who talk and act and think like you. But it just isn’t like that anymore. Since travel became so much more DO-able – fewer bandits on the roads and pirates on the seas, with Rome’s ever-present punishing presence lurking around every corner and in every cove – people have been coming in droves to the annual feasts and high holy days. While on the one hand you can certainly understand that the people coming from hundreds and thousands of miles away are coming for the same reason as the folks who live just down the hill from the city, it is still more than a little discomfiting to have so many new people to keep showing up. They may be a fellow pilgrim, but they are SO different!

Then, in a rush, this THING happens. You’re not sure what to call it, but it’s something you’ve never experienced before, something you’ve never seen before, something you’ve certainly never DONE before. You find yourself talking to the man in front of you about what amazing things God has done in your life – about Jesus, and what he’s been teaching and showing you, and about life – NEW life – life unencumbered by the expectation of following the same rules you and everyone else in your family had followed since the time of your grandfather’s great grandfather’s ancestors, so many years, so many rites. And you suddenly realize that for the last several minutes you’ve been talking to him, this is a man with whom you’d not been able to communicate at ALL just an hour ago.

And you stop for a moment and look at each other and the realization dawns in each of you that this is truly something new.

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

Jerusalem is still a part of that Pentecost. The language we worship in was most likely NOT one of the ones spoken on that day. In fact, the vast majority of the languages of the world were not represented at Pentecost. So how is it that the Gospel is preached in over 200 languages around the world on any given Sunday?

It was in the sharing on that first Pentecost that the followers of Christ realized that what they had was a message for the whole world, not just for their brothers and sisters in Jerusalem. Jesus had told them shortly before that they were to go into Jerusalem and Judea. They were probably expecting that. But then he extended the command to Samaria, which was not where anyone DECENT would even WANT to go, and then to the ends of the Earth. Who knows WHAT you would find THERE?

So Jerusalem is looking around at the ends of the earth. That’s us. That’s where we are. We’re not at the center of the universe. We are, admittedly, the center of OUR universe, almost by default, but we dare not lose sight of the fact that there is a world out there waiting for us to bring the Gospel to them, UNKNOWINGLY waiting, maybe UNAWARE of the need. Aware of the emptiness and loneliness, but not sure how to fill it. That’s where we come in.

It’s not a question of THEM finding their way HERE, it’s a question of OUR stepping out THERE to meet them, to speak their language, to communicate in terms that don’t sound stilted or dated, that would cause an almost immediate shut-off of the hearing mechanism in the brain.

If God was willing to go from communicating through a high priest and the ritual sacrifice of animals to communicating face to face through God’s incarnation in Christ Jesus, it’s the least we can do to consider changing the way we speak to the world today so that we will be understood.

We have the capacity, we can modify all kinds of things – our music, our dress, even our language, if needed, but do we have the will?

The message will remain the same. The Gospel is the same – God is seeking to reconcile the world to God’s self through Jesus Christ. That will never change.

Will you pray with me and seek God’s direction in how Jerusalem can look at an old story in a new way? As we move into our invitation, let the invitation become a dialogue over the next few weeks, one where we will work together and pray together to follow God’s leading – to explore new ways of doing things – to treasure the past, to find that which we want to keep, and find that which we want to risk – that BIG thing that we will risk for something good.

Let’s pray.