While We Were Yet Sinners

Sunday, March 14th, 2004
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA
Psalm 51:1-13, 17

1 Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions. 2 Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. 3 For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. 4 Against you, you alone, have I sinned, and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are justified in your sentence and blameless when you pass judgment. 5 Indeed, I was born guilty, a sinner when my mother conceived me. 6 You desire truth in the inward being; therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart. 7 Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. 8 Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that you have crushed rejoice. 9 Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities. 10 Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me. 11 Do not cast me away from your presence, and do not take your holy spirit from me. 12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and sustain in me a willing spirit. 13 Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will return to you. 17 The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.

It seems to be an excellent opportunity. One of the most famous movie stars in the world, on national and, I’m sure, international television interview shows, saying, “the fact of the matter is, that it wasn’t the Jews or the Romans who killed Jesus. Jesus died because of ME, Jesus died because I killed him” and to make the point (no pun intended), though he does not appear in the movie, there is one critical place in which PART of him DOES appear: it is Mel Gibson’s hand that holds the nail that pierces Jesus’ hand when he is nailed to the cross.

The message in that statement and subsequently, in that scene, whether you’ve seen the movie or not, is simple to those of us who, like Mr. Gibson, and like King David, in the text we’ve just read as a congregation, find ourselves realizing just how guilty we really and truly are. Guilty of sins as dark and bloody as those of the chief priests and Caiaphas, and Judas, and King Herod, and Pontius Pilate. Our sin is as heartbreaking as that of Peter, and Judas, and Paul, and James and John, and all the other apostles, and as most surely damning as that of Hitler, or Mussolini, or Pol Pot, or Stalin.

Our sin may not be as obvious as theirs, but it is just as effective, in the end.
That is the message Mr. Gibson is trying to convey. At least I hope he is.

While I am generally trusting, and quick to take people at face value, in dealing with anything coming out of Hollywood, I’m beginning to be less inclined to let things go at that. There is always this tiny little whisper in the back of my head saying “yeah, it’s all good, but it is HOLLYWOOD, after all. And when all is said and done, it is just a movie.”

Let me backtrack a little. Not really, but let me explain that statement. What I am trying to say is this: in going to see a movie, there is usually what is considered an unspoken agreement between the movie maker and the audience member. It’s a three-word term: the Suspension of Disbelief. In other words, the filmmaker is saying “give me money, and I’ll entertain/enlighten/challenge/enrage you by what you are going to see onscreen for the next hour and a half to 2 hours.” You, as a member of the audience, tacitly agree that, during that time period, you will ignore the fact that, if it is a staged movie, every single thing you see on the screen is fake.

That doesn’t take away from the effectiveness of the message of the movie, in fact, that is the premise on which a movie’s effectiveness is BASED. That is what makes movies such a powerful medium in our culture. We understand that movies are a depiction of events, and to the degree that the intent of the filmmaker was attempting to be true to life, the reliving of the experience through the viewing of the movie brings about the same reaction that viewing the actual experience would.

Now, back to the issue: Mel Gibson, and, and I hope, each of us here in this sanctuary today is aware of how his or her own sin put Christ on the Cross.
I don’t think I need to emphasize that much beyond the simple statement of the fact. When we as followers of Christ say ‘Christ died for our sins’ we are saying this:

God loves humanity.
Humanity broke that relationship.
God made it possible for that relationship to be reestablished through faith in Christ, and acceptance of him as a sacrifice in our place.

What that last statement means is this: the consequence of sin is death. Death of the self that God intended us to become, death of the relationships that God intended us to have, death of the good that God intended us to have done in this world. What sin does is, it puts itself above all else. Whatever that sin is, IT becomes, maybe not always, but it doesn’t have to be always … in fact, the most dangerous sins are those that only occasionally rear their head … we are fooled into thinking we are less guilty if we’ve only committed a sin once or twice, right? As a matter of fact, it’s not really a sin if we only thought it, but didn’t act on it … or is it? I suggest you take a few minutes to read Matthew 5:21-28, where Jesus talks about murder and anger and adultery. So the wages of sin is death. We’ve heard that, if you’ve been raised in church, all our lives. That death is graphically portrayed in the movie. A physical representation of the spiritual reality that is far more lethal.

The only one who truly KNOWS our hearts is God. As we have read, in the midst of his crying out to God, in what must have been heart-rending sobs, David begs, “10 Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me. 11 Do not cast me away from your presence, and do not take your holy spirit from me. 12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and sustain in me a willing spirit.” King David was aware that his sin, in this case, the adultery committed with Bathsheba, put him out of fellowship with God, as well as those around him.

His cry to God is for reconciliation, for a renewed relationship. In the text I read from the New Revised Standard version, verse 5 of Psalm 51 highlights just how far from God David felt he was – so far that he couldn’t imagine ever having been sinless “born guilty” – in our responsive reading, it goes further, “I was a sinner when my mother conceived me.” Have you ever felt so low, so distant from God, so unworthy, that you thought that?

What we are confronted with is the mystery of the Gospel: Paul speaks of it in Romans, chapter 5, verse 8:

But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us.

Christ, in taking our place in death, is making it possible for us to renew a relationship that was once there but has been torn apart. During this season of Lent, and as we approach Holy Week, let us always keep in mind that what Christ suffered in the body, we will suffer in the spirit, unless we accept the life he offers.

It is, after all, life that Christ offers. That was the main problem I had with the movie. The reason Christ came to earth was not ONLY to die in our place, but to teach us, by word and example, what it means to be fully in that relationship with God. To put numbers to it: 289,080 hours in 33 years. Taking the last 12 hours of Jesus’ life – or .00004153 of the full lifespan, is to miss a lot of the rest of his life. That doesn’t mean that those last 12 hours were pivotal, or of utmost importance, but we cannot take just those 12 hours and assume that that was all Christ came for. We can’t lose site of what came before and I feel, what came after. He came that we might have LIFE, and that, more abundantly.

What does all this mean for Jerusalem Baptist Church at Emmerton?

Brian McLaren, Pastor of Cedar Ridge Community Church in Maryland outside of Washington DC, wrote a review, not of the movie, but of the buildup that preceded the opening. Specifically, about that … marketing, for lack of a better term, that was aimed at evangelicals.

“The music,” He starts off by saying, “was appropriately dramatic: bass strings, heavy and resonant, with a mezzo-forte attack and building to fortissimo from there. Then, against a stark black background, a promotional slogan appeared in bold white capitals. It grew, filling the screen's full width: PERHAPS THE BEST OUTREACH OPPORTUNITY IN 2,000 YEARS.”

He goes on to explain that he winced at the slogan, and explains that it defines a frontier between two worlds.
“In one world, modern American Christians can be trusted to bounce and bound like golden retrievers from one silver-bullet "outreach opportunity" to the next—seeking single source shortcuts to complete our mission, which we hope to finish as soon as possible, I guess so we can all get to heaven so the world and its troubles are left behind™. Maybe it's a boxed set of books and videos, mass rallies, radio/TV/satellites, the Internet, PowerPoint, or seeker services. Or else it's adult contemporary praise music, electing Republicans, or a new booklet or tract. Maybe it's candles! Or a new model (take your pick from traditional-modern, contemporary-modern, or postmodern-modern) for "doing church." Or a new film.
In the other world—which many of us are calling the emerging culture (post-Enlightenment, post-Christendom, post-colonial, etc.)—we are watched with amusement, pity, cynicism. There they go again, emerging culture people say about us, unimpressed.
…
Emerging culture people are, no doubt, as sensitive as anyone else to dramatic, multisensory, rational-plus-emotional presentations. Special effects can impress them. But they're also suspicious of the whole business. They're looking for something that can't be "produced" but which can only be created: Authenticity. Reality. Honesty. Fruit.
That last word, of course, has special resonances to the teachings of Jesus and the apostles. Think of the difference between produce (like fruit) and products (like films, radio broadcasts, boxed programs, etc.). Think of something that must be the organic outgrowth of genuine health and vitality versus something that can be produced with money and technical savvy.
Jesus didn't say it was by our clever outlines, memorable mnemonics, snazzy programs, and special effects that we would be known as his disciples, or that he would be known as sent from God. Rather, he said, it was by our love that we and he would be known, and by our fruit: our good works that shine in darkness and inspire all to glorify God.
No doubt, Mel G's film will be powerful and will help many—millions, I hope—for it is a sincere labor of love about the ultimate labor of love. But it's not the greatest outreach opportunity in 2,000 years, at least, not for the emerging culture. I'll tell you what is.
Actually, I won't, because there isn't one thing. Rather, there are uncountable great outreach opportunities. For example, there are millions of people, precious to God, dying of AIDs. And their orphans too. Do you want the emerging culture to sit up and take notice? Don't show them another movie, however great it is. Show them Christians around the world (starting with those who have been given the most: us) who care and give and love and move to serve.
There are millions of poor Muslims who see the West as decadent, strident, arrogant, selfish, careless, and pugilistic, and of course, they are right. Can you see how offering them a fine movie could just make things worse? Instead, why don't we show them some Christians (in the West but not of it) who are honest, upright, peacemakers, compassionate, humble, and generous?
Our world is torn by ethnic, class, and religious hatred. Don't show the emerging culture a movie about Jesus: show them a movement of people living like Jesus—people who like him love the different, even the enemy, whose doors are open and tables are set with welcome.”

Let’s pray.

Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff

Sunday, March 7th, 2004
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA
Romans 15:1-7

Today’s is the last in the series of messages from Romans, which has coincided with our study of Paul’s letter that we’ve been following on Wednesday nights. Please know that we’ve only scratched the surface of the letter, and you will most probably be hearing more from it before too long. There is just too much there to not come back to it again and again. And now, in this reading of Holy Scripture, listen for God’s word for your life.

1 We who are strong ought to put up with the failings of the weak, and not to please ourselves. 2 Each of us must please our neighbor for the good purpose of building up the neighbor. 3 For Christ did not please himself; but, as it is written, "The insults of those who insult you have fallen on me." 4 For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, so that by steadfastness and by the encouragement of the scriptures we might have hope. 5 May the God of steadfastness and encouragement grant you to live in harmony with one another, in accordance with Christ Jesus, 6 so that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. 7 Welcome one another, therefore, just as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God.

We had driven past the new Spanish restaurant on Bardstown Road many times. I had stopped in while it was still under construction and met and talked to the owner, who was from Valencia. I had been back in the States less than a year at the time, and he seemed a friendly enough man. That late spring afternoon my brother Jimmy, another friend and I were out for a walk, just enjoying the day and being outside. It was hot, and we were dressed comfortably in summer shirts, shorts and sandals. We decided on the spur of the moment to stop in for some ‘tapas’ – small plates of various snack items, some hot, some cold, that are well-known as a mainstay in the cafes and bars that you find almost literally on every street corner in Spain. As we stepped inside, we noticed that though few in number, some of the other patrons were dressed more formally than we. The host’s first question to us was if we had reservations. He did not say we needed them when we told him we had none, but showed us to a table. There were furtive glances from the other people in the restaurant as we sat and joked and laughed. It was several minutes before we realized that no menus had been brought out, nor had we been asked if we’d like something to drink, much less been offered water. After another several minutes, the host came up to us and asked us if we’d decided what we’d like to order. We told him we’d not yet been shown any menus, and he turned and walked away. I noticed the wife of the owner in the back of the restaurant. She was an American, and she was standing looking towards our table. I got up and walked back to her and asked her if there was a problem with our being there. Her response was that they were very busy. It was obvious that there was a subtext to what she was saying. Barely half the tables were occupied. Though she didn’t say anything explicitly, the message was clear.

You’re not welcome here.

It might be best if you found somewhere else to go.

Please leave.

I still remember how horrible I felt walking back to the table and telling my companions that we should probably leave. Though there have been opportunities to do so, I’ve never set foot back in that restaurant.

I remember reading several years back, about a teacher, a fourth grade teacher, who decided to teach her children about bigotry. She divided the class into two groups, the brown-eyed children and the green- and blue-eyed children.

On the designated day, the green and blue-eyed children were given special privileges, choices that the brown-eyed children were denied. They were allowed to play games and in areas where the other children were not, they were first in line at lunchtime, in short, they were the favored group all that day. As the day went on, their treatment of the brown-eyed children reflected their position. The reaction of the students was, unfortunately, predictable. There was a demeaning attitude, a lack of caring for the feelings of the brown-eyed students. The brown-eyed students were not allowed to complain either. They were instructed to not speak up against how they were being treated.

At the end of the day, the teacher advised the students that the next day, the roles would be reversed. On THAT day, it would be the BROWN-EYED students who would be the favored crowd. THEY would be the first in line, the first called on in class, the first to go to recess; they would have the day to themselves.

The reaction of the green- and blue-eyed students was of anxiety. Knowing how they had treated their classmates, they braced for the retaliation that was sure to come the next day.

When they arrived the next day, they were subdued, and more than a little nervous about what the day would bring.

As the day began the oddest thing happened. The brown-eyed children treated them differently, yes, but not in the expected way. They were kinder and more considerate to their blue- and green-eyed classmates. They went out of their way to let them have turns; they ceded their place in lines so that their classmates could participate just as they had before.

They had taken the previous day’s events and learned how NOT to treat others. Having been on the receiving end of injustice, they chose, when it was their turn at the wheel, NOT to return injury for injury, they chose instead to apply the golden rule.

And the lesson was learned.

Paul, in his letter to the Church in Rome, is trying to teach the same lesson. The church was made up of those who had the ‘inside track’, Jews, of whom Jesus was one, and those who were … well, let’s use a term that is familiar to all of us … ‘come heres’, gentiles, not the chosen people, and yet, they all professed faith in Christ. That did not, apparently, eliminate the human propensity to divide ourselves into the ‘us’ and ‘them’. As I mentioned some months ago, it is a natural developmental step that comes along at about the age of 4 or 5, that in forming identity, the human being wants to belong to a community or a group, and in wanting to ‘belong’ you establish or identify a group that doesn’t belong.

The continuing issue in the first century church, which we find Paul constantly fighting against, was to put it in as few words as possible, Law vs. Grace. The Law argued that in order to establish and maintain a relationship with God, one had to follow the Law, meaning 627 rules and regulations that covered everything from what to do to a baby boy 8 days after he was born, to how and what to eat, to how far you could walk and what you could and could not pick up on any given Saturday. The point of the law was that strict observance of those 627 rules would make you righteous, and therefore worthy to be in relationship with God.

Paul’s argument for salvation – or the establishment of a relationship with God – through Grace actually predates the Law, in that God entered into relationship with Abraham before giving the Law to Moses on Mt Sinai, and that relationship was based on … faith. The Law, his argument continues, has for its purpose to expose our unworthiness, our unrighteousness, and in THAT, both Jew and Gentile are in the same boat. Paul uses himself as an example, we read last week in the chapter 7 where Paul was confessing that he, the most zealous observer of the Hebrew Law, did what he didn’t want to do and DIDN’T do what he knew he SHOULD do.

So far, Paul has exposed BOTH the gentile AND the Jewish Christians at the church, letting them know in no uncertain terms that they are ALL sinners, worthy of the worst punishment. Thankfully, he didn’t stop there, but went on to tell of what God has done in Christ, when we had no recourse, literally, no chance in Hell of getting back in touch with God.

In this passage he is drawing the letter to its conclusion. The preceding chapter has been dedicated to discussing a short list of topics that, for a first-century observant Jew, would be considered deal breakers – eating foods that may not have been prepared in compliance with the kosher laws and the observance of the Sabbath. In the 5th verse of the 14th chapter, Paul tells the members of the church ‘Let all be fully convinced in their own minds’ – essentially, he’s saying ‘YOU work out what YOU believe’.

But he doesn’t stop there. He goes to the heart of the matter – what is behind the arguments and disagreements over these issues – belonging. Simply, people on either side are saying – you either eat like I do, practice what I practice, rest when I rest, or we can’t be considered part of the same family.

Paul cuts through all the posturing and tells them to “Welcome one another, therefore, just as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God.” He reminds them of just how serious this is – and of whose lead they need to be following.

His calling one group, the followers of the Law, the weaker of the two, is by association naming himself as a member of that group, since he is an observant Jew, though he does in a later section explain his position as considering those big issues to be ‘small stuff’. It is in this last section of the letter that we truly get a sense of perspective from Paul. His earlier letters, Thessalonians, and Galatians, are written early in his ministry, and they revolve around critical issues that speak to the heart of what the Gospel message is about – we see and hear Paul’s fiery rhetoric in its full undiluted fury. To hear these words come from the mouth of a once-zealous Pharisee is stunning, to say the least.

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

What do we consider deal breaker issues? What is it we hold so dear, but which have no bearing in truth to the message of the Gospel of Jesus Christ? Are we willing to examine ourselves and let go of what might hold us back from reaching people in our community who would otherwise just as soon not darken the doors of this building unless they were coming to vote?

It is an unsettling proposition, to say the least. The Jewish Christians at the church in Rome were looking at over a thousand years of tradition and history being reinterpreted. Jerusalem would be looking at something under 200 years of traditions, if we followed suit. The question is; whose lead are we going to follow?

Let’s pray.

We come to a time of invitation at the end of each Sunday morning worship service. Sometimes the invitation is more explicit than at others.

Today’s invitation is, as always, first and foremost, an invitation to enter into that relationship with God through the Lordship of Jesus Christ. It is within your grasp to have that same relationship with God that Abraham had, that Paul had, that so many others – the cloud of witnesses, as Paul calls them, have had through the centuries.

If you already have that relationship, and are looking for a church home, where, to honor God, we would accept and welcome you into our midst, please know you are welcome.

If you are already a member of this family of faith, your invitation is to self-examination, to ask yourself what can I do, or what can I do differently, to remove barriers that I may not even realize are there, in order that God may be able to reach my community through me.

Why Worship?

Sunday, February 29th, 2004
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA
Romans 8:35-39

35 Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? 36 As it is written,
"For your sake we are being killed all day long;
we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered."
37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

'Great is Thy Faithfulness’ is my ticket to worship, if there is such a thing. I remember singing it in Spanish as much as I do in English. The words speak to a place inside me that is always raw, vulnerable, and ready to recognize my shortfall and God’s overallness.

You probably won’t find that word in any dictionary, but I think I can define it for you. There is a Psalm that will echo what I am going to say, Psalm 139. When I can’t, God can. When I won’t, God will. When I fall, God picks me up and we keep walking alongside each other. When I am, in the words of the Psalmist, in Sheol, God is there. When I am on the mountain peak of spiritual experiences, God is there … you get the general idea. That is where ‘Great is Thy Faithfulness’ takes me. But there are other songs that speak as powerfully to me.

I remember the exact moment when the hymn “When I survey the Wondrous Cross” joined the ‘short list’. I was in college, it was my junior year, and Billy Orton was the Minister of Music at First Baptist Church, Bowling Green, KY.

The service was going along as usual. I had always liked the hymn, but it didn’t stand out any more than any other. Then we started singing it. there was an ensemble that played accompaniment when we sang hymns at First Baptist. First Baptist was, as is fairly common in that part of Kentucky, the biggest show in town. I don’t mean that in a negative way. It just happened to be the biggest church around. It had and continues to have, I hope, a dynamic, multifaceted ministry, fueled by a large, energetic congregation that is focused on being a part of the breaking in of the Kingdom of God. It is one of the leading churches in Kentucky, both in size and actual leadership.

But back to the service: it wasn’t a huge thing, there were no crashing drums or clanging cymbals, there was no flash of lighting, just a bridge and a key change before the last verse. Billy Orton, who went on to become the Minister of Music at Columbia Baptist, up in Arlington, turned to the congregation, and through his cues, the congregation knew that something was coming. When we finished singing the 3rd verse, he turned to the ensemble and they went into the bridge, and the key change, and the organ swelled to a … majestic tone … and we started singing …

Were the whole realm of Nature mine
That were a present far too small
Love so amazing so divine,
Demands my soul, my life, my all.

That was back in 1984.

That was in the still relatively early days of contemporary Christian music. Michael W. Smith was synthesizing the airwaves, and Amy Grant was bigger than anyone ever dreamed a contemporary Christian artist could be. Petra and Stryper were about as wild as you could get. There were a couple of songs that stood out, Michael W. Smith’s ‘Great is the Lord’, Amy Grant’s ‘Sing Your Praise to the Lord’, and her version of Michael Card’s ‘El Shaddai’ became the most popular praise songs on contemporary Christian radio… and were pretty popular in church services as well.

This isn’t a review of the contemporary Christian music of the early 80’s. The point in mentioning those songs and those singers is that somehow they touched a chord in the heart of a vast number of folks who went to church. I say ‘that went to church’ only because I don’t know that the songs did a lot of ‘chart hopping’. They pretty much stayed on the Contemporary Christian side of the music world. The words expressed, in contemporary language, a joyous, almost overwhelming sense of love, honor and worship that spoke from our hearts to God. El Shaddai was a more reflective song, but it still brought home the uniqueness of how God has provided for us through Jesus Christ.

Lets jump forward again to today. There’s a group out there called ‘Mercyme’. They are also a group that plays contemporary Christian music. They have a song that’s been out a couple of years called ‘I Can Only Imagine’ … the background to the song is that the lead singer, if I’m not mistaken, lost his father to cancer at the age of 18. And this song is him trying to come to terms with that loss. The chorus is a cry directed towards God -

Surrounded by your Glory, what will my heart feel? Will I dance for you Jesus, or in awe of you be still,
Will I stand in Your presence, or to my knees will I fall?
Will I sing hallelujah, will I be able to speak at all?
I can only imagine, I can only imagine …

What has become a phenomenon is that the song has crossed over. It is not only playing on Christian radio stations, but it is playing on mainstream stations as well. It seems the song touches that place inside each of us who has experienced the passing on of someone close to them. It raises the question of what things will be like when we are in the presence of the almighty. What exactly will that be like?

In the two chapters preceding this morning’s text, Paul has been talking about what the Christian life is like. Chapter 7 seems to be focusing on the hardship confronting new Christians. He goes into a sometimes dizzying litany of doing what he doesn’t want to do while not doing what he wants to do. The whole tone of the chapter is one of some confusion and disheartened struggle. It is made that much more poignant by Paul’s using the first person singular – he is talking about himself. This pillar of the church, the great missionary to the gentiles, is essentially confessing that he is what he spent the first 3 chapters of the letter laying out the members of the church in Rome as being: sinners, and here he joins them, he fully identifies himself with anyone that they might bring to him. He culminates this self-immolation with the cry, ‘What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?’ … then comes the worship: ‘Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!

It is in those moments when we are most aware of our greatest need that we are most able to worship in the purest sense of the word. It is when we recognize that all we CAN do IS worship that we are able to then begin TO worship.

Not only these songs, the more recent ones, but the sometimes centuries-old hymns we know by heart, carry the same impetus – ‘my richest gain I count but loss, and pour contempt on all my pride’ – from ‘when I survey the wondrous cross’ – doesn’t that sound a lot like ‘what a wretched man I am’?
That hymn was written by Isaac Watts at the end of the 17th century and it still speaks to us today.

The act of worship and the form of worship are not the same thing. The act of worship has been going on for almost 2000 years. The form of worship has been changing constantly. At the risk of stating the obvious, while it is not limited to the music of a service, there are differences even within contemporary American culture that can be found in how we go about worship. Just compare a regular Sunday morning service at Mulberry Baptist Church down the road with our own services … or Rappahannock Church of Christ with St. John’s Episcopal.

We have a couple of friends, Kathy & David Arnold, who were Baptist at one time but several years ago joined the Greek Orthodox Church. Kathy has said that what stands out in that tradition for them is that the service, the litany of worship is exactly the same every single Sunday. What changes, what is changed, is what they as individuals bring to that service. It is a direct reflection on the unchanging nature of God – God’s faithfulness, in our lives.

The point is this: worship is not found in the form at all. It is found in the act and in the heart. It is a direct reflection of the richness of God’s grace that there are so many different ways in which we can find a place to worship. Even within a lifetime, different forms speak to different ages. What I found moved me into the presence of God 25 years ago doesn’t take me there today, and what I found repetitive and flat I now find to be a reflection of God’s constancy.

What does this mean for Jerusalem church?

In the words of the Psalmist, “God inhabits the praise of his people’. God is present in our worship, but we are changed through worship. We are made more aware of who we are, who God is, and WHOSE we are.

Why worship? Because when we find ourselves in the presence of God, it is our only response.

Let’s pray.

The Good Part

Sunday, February 22nd, 2004
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA
Romans 3:21-30

Before the reading of today’s text, I’d like to first read the last verse from last week’s text, which is the 20th verse of the 3rd chapter of Romans. Think of it as ‘previously, from Jerusalem’s pulpit’

20 For "no human being will be justified in his sight" by deeds prescribed by the law, for through the law comes the knowledge of sin.

And now, for today, in this reading of Holy Scripture, listen for God’s word to you:

21 But now, apart from law, the righteousness of God has been disclosed, and is attested by the law and the prophets, 22 the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction, 23 since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; 24 they are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God put forward as a sacrifice of atonement by his blood, effective through faith. He did this to show his righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over the sins previously committed; 26 it was to prove at the present time that he himself is righteous and that he justifies the one who has faith in Jesus. 27 Then what becomes of boasting? It is excluded. By what law? By that of works? No, but by the law of faith. 28 For we hold that a person is justified by faith apart from works prescribed by the law. 29 Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, 30 since God is one; and he will justify the circumcised on the ground of faith and the uncircumcised through that same faith.

Shhhh! This is the good part!

I can almost hear it now. The story is so familiar, the children have it memorized. They’ve all heard it before and yet, each step is savored, each event recounted, each detail touched on, before moving on to the next place in the story. Heaven forbid you should skip anything, because it is all necessary. You’ll quickly be corrected if you miss even the slightest detail. Whether it is a story read to them or a familiar Disney or Veggie Tales movie, there is a purpose in the sequence.

It’s that way with all of us, isn’t it? Don’t we all have family stories that are told at most if not all gatherings and even though we may roll our eyes at the beginning of them, NOT telling them would somehow lessen the event? They don’t necessarily have to have a point, either.

Emma Key, my maternal grandmother, visited us twice while we lived in Chile, once in 1967 at my brother’s birth, and the second time in 1975, when my sister Karen went back for a visit. It was during that visit that she accompanied us to Mission Meeting, held that winter at a former monastery south of Santiago tucked into the edge of the Andes Mountains, called ‘La Leonera’ – “The Lion’s Den”

One evening at supper, the dessert was … if I remember correctly, a pudding or custard, served in a brandy … bath, I suppose you could call it … and this was brandy that hadn’t been lit on fire! So it was … um … in its natural state. Grandma Key really enjoyed the dessert. So much so that she had a second helping.

Later the next week, at the family night, the older MKs, including Karen, sang a song whose verses were made up of events that had happened that week – some of you may be familiar with the tune – ‘Boom Boom, Ain’t It Great To Be Crazy?’ … and you thought missionaries spent all their time in prayer and Bible Study … 

One verse was as follows:

“It seems the thing/to do this year/is grab your partner by the ear/Allison began this fad /we think she learned it from her dad!” (At the time, Allison might have been 5)

But the one that stuck with us, and which we as a family find ourselves humming occasionally, goes like this:

“The other night we had a strong dessert/everybody ate it with a slurp/ Mrs. Key, she had a lot/ she left the room with a bippity-bop!”

It is in the stories of our families that we find comfort, a sense of identity, a connection with our past, however recent or distant it might be, however far removed we may be in time and space. It is through the telling and retelling of these stories that we reconnect with who we are, with what and who has made us who we are.

Paul, in his letter to the church in Rome, is retelling our collective family’s story, and it is one that the church has been telling and retelling throughout the almost-2,000 years since it was first told, beginning at the empty tomb.

Paul is presenting a kernel of the story in these verses. A detail piece without which the story would be incomplete, it wouldn’t sound right.

There is a purpose in the sequence Paul has used. First, he establishes that no one is better than anyone else, Jew is no better than Gentile, Gentile is no better than Jew. This is what is considered ‘the rough part’, at the beginning of the letter.

What he begins in verse 21 of chapter 3 is ‘the good part’. It is beginning here, I believe, that what has made Romans such an influential letter is beginning to be uncovered. He touches on what he made obvious earlier in verse 23 – in the NRSV the wording is (READ FROM BIBLE) ‘since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; the King James version is probably the wording by which most of us may have memorized it – (READ FROM PEW BIBLE) ‘for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.”

Paul is reiterating a point – we are unable, through our own righteousness, to obtain reconciliation with God. Indeed, Paul’s whole point is that even as a believing, practicing, observant, zealous Jew, there was no possibility, outside of purely having faith in Jesus Christ, through which we can regain communion with God.

So what is the good part? The good part is this: even though there was no way we were going to be able to regain that communion on our own merits, God made a way, through the sacrifice … through the atoning sacrifice, of Jesus Christ.

‘Atoning sacrifice’ is a term that makes me a little uncomfortable. For someone raised away from the practice of offering blood sacrifices in religious rituals, which would probably include most of White Anglo-Saxon Protestant Christianity, I think the whole concept of sacrifice is something that is to a greater or lesser degree foreign to us.

On the surface, it is understandable enough. We can wrap our brain around the words. Webster’s New World Dictionary that sits on the bookshelf in the study has the root word, ‘atone’ defined as ‘to make amends’, and in parentheses to the side, we find: (for wrongdoing).

‘Atonement’ is defined as ‘amends; expiation.’ Then it gets into a little more detail- there is even an additional qualified definition in reference to the term used in theology: ‘the redeeming of mankind through Jesus’ death.’

There it is. A non-biblical reference putting in 7 words the same detail of the Gospel that Paul is spelling out here in these verses. That is what it boils down to. God redeemed the world to God’s self through the death of Jesus. Unfortunately, that is ALL it says. We cannot, as an Easter people, speak of one – the death of Jesus – without speaking of the other – the resurrection of Jesus. If we were to mark the Christian Calendar and follow it more closely, I would hesitate to speak of the resurrection at any great length before Lent and before Easter, but it is kind of hard to get away from … in fact, I don’t know that I really want to get too far away from Easter when speaking about sin and death.

Let’s get back to atonement for a moment. We are, in fact, approaching that season of the Christian calendar during which we are called on to reflect on that very thing. Our sinfulness, our utter lack of recourse in resolving our sinfulness were it not for the expiatory, atoning, amending work of God in Christ. That is what atonement is about. That is the good part of the good news. That is the Gospel. That is the message. Verse 29 concludes the thought: (READ FROM THE BIBLE)

29 Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, 30 since God is one; and he will justify the circumcised on the ground of faith and the uncircumcised through that same faith.

We are presented with the simplicity of the Gospel, being spelled out based on the faith of the man whom God first approached. Abraham. It was based on his faith that he was reconciled with God, not on his being able to keep the law. Paul’s argument is that his relationship with God – God’s relationship with him PRECEEDED the law, based not on that law, but on love.

And that is where we meet the story. That is where Jerusalem joins the conversation and begins to add to the story. Relationships based on love and nothing else. Love between the members of this congregation, love between this congregation as a corporate entity and God, and love between each of us as individuals and God.

It is this that makes the story come alive. That we can read words penned centuries ago, thousands of miles away, and through the presence and guidance of the Holy Spirit, that life becomes in us the life of Christ, the body of Christ. We are a “local body of believers” – there is a reason we are called a ‘body’ – it is because we are in a very real and palpable sense the body, the voice, the eyes of Christ to the world.

The challenge for us is, will the world recognize Christ in us?

Let’s pray.

Sinners or Saints?

Sunday, February 15th, 2004
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA
Romans 3:1-20

1 Then what advantage has the Jew? Or what is the value of circumcision? 2 Much, in every way. For in the first place the Jews were entrusted with the oracles of God. 3 What if some were unfaithful? Will their faithlessness nullify the faithfulness of God? 4 By no means! Although everyone is a liar, let God be proved true, as it is written, "So that you may be justified in your words, and prevail in your judging." 5 But if our injustice serves to confirm the justice of God, what should we say? That God is unjust to inflict wrath on us? (I speak in a human way.) 6 By no means! For then how could God judge the world? 7 But if through my falsehood God's truthfulness abounds to his glory, why am I still being condemned as a sinner? 8 And why not say (as some people slander us by saying that we say), "Let us do evil so that good may come"? Their condemnation is deserved! 9 What then? Are we any better off? No, not at all; for we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under the power of sin, 10 as it is written: "There is no one who is righteous, not even one; 11 there is no one who has understanding, there is no one who seeks God. 12 All have turned aside, together they have become worthless; there is no one who shows kindness, there is not even one." 13 "Their throats are opened graves; they use their tongues to deceive." "The venom of vipers is under their lips." 14 "Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness." 15 "Their feet are swift to shed blood; 16 ruin and misery are in their paths, 17 and the way of peace they have not known." 18 "There is no fear of God before their eyes." 19 Now we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. 20 For "no human being will be justified in his sight" by deeds prescribed by the law, for through the law comes the knowledge of sin.

“It scares me,” he said.
“The gap between what I know I should be doing and what I actually do … knowing that I am being looked on as a role model and knowing at the same time that I am so not anywhere near who I want to be … it scares me.” He went on to give a list of what he’d like to change about himself, all with the sole purpose of becoming more like the authors of the books we were studying, giants of the faith, men and women like Hudson Taylor, Lottie Moon, Adoniram Judson, Anne Hasseltine Judson, Billy Graham, Henrietta Hall Shuck and Dietrich Bonhoeffer. People who spent their lives serving God and taking the gospel of Jesus Christ to a world that had never heard of him. Last Sunday we heard the life stories of the women I just mentioned. Each one of them literally spent their lives for Christ, serving as missionaries in far away lands, and each of them was buried in the country they’d been called to.
My friend’s self-questioning, if not self-condemnation, was very Pauline. In fact, later in this very same letter, Paul is struggling with the same issue: chapter 7, verse 15, we find one of the better-known passages:
15 I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.
In that sense, I suppose, he WAS emulating a giant of the faith, but perhaps not in the way he’d hoped. We can ALL make that same claim. It is an inescapable fact: there is not a single person among us who is not a sinner. Not a single one among us who has not, at some point in their lives, fallen short of the glory of God.
Paul has begun his letter to the church in Rome with one of the most gloriously strident statements in all the New Testament:
“For I am not ashamed of the Gospel; it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who has faith”(1:16 NRSV)
In our study on Wednesday nights, Mark Olson calls that, along with the next verse, Paul’s thesis statement, which summarized in a couple of sentences what he then goes on to spell out in detail in the rest of his letter. It is those details that we are going to spend a few minutes studying this morning.
The passage I read a couple of minutes ago, chapter 3 verses 1-20, are at the conclusion of what can accurately be called a ‘diatribe’. Though the tone at the beginning of the letter is positive, which would seem to make sense, since Paul is writing to people some of whom he knows, but most of whom he does not know, so at least at the beginning there is a semblance of … politeness, if not propriety. But it only goes so far. Verse 18 of the first chapter is where the gloves come off:
“For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and wickedness of those who by their wickedness suppress the truth.” (1:18 NRSV)
What follows is a blanket condemnation of both the Gentiles and the Jews who would be hearing the letter read. It is not a suggestion, or a hint, or a ‘read between the lines’ kind of thing. It is a literary two-by-four aimed right at their heads. Let’s just touch on some highlights of the first two chapters, shall we?

22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools; 23 and they exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling a mortal human being or birds or four footed animals and reptiles.

Can we reread those two verses again?

“Claiming to be wise, they became fools; and they exchanged the glory of the immortal God for … what shall we insert here? Wealth? Security? Presence in the house of God substituting for a relationship WITH God?”
Keep reading: chapter 1, verse 28:

“And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind and to things that should not be done. They were filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, covetousness, malice. Full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, craftiness, they are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, rebellious toward parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, and ruthless. They know God’s decree, that those who practice such things deserve to die – yet they not only do them but even applaud others who practice them."

Whew! Let’s pause for a minute and catch our breath. I have to be honest with you. These verses are some of the hardest to read for me. There is an unrelenting character to them that is … discomforting. At the same time that I say that, I have to acknowledge that there is a really good reason for that discomfort, and it is that to some degree or another, that list could apply to me … some days less than others, but overall, there is nothing listed that hasn’t insinuated it’s way into my life at one point or another.
We spoke Wednesday night about that – having an awareness of our own sinfulness, our own fallen nature, well, I did of MINE, anyway. Since I’m the one standing up here, it would be best to stick to speaking for myself, when it comes to some things.

Let’s skip down a little – chapter 2, verse 4 … but first, an editorial note: beginning with chapter 1 verse 18, Paul is swinging the two-by-four at the gentile members of the church in Rome. Now, beginning with chapter 2, he turns and begins to swing the stick at the Jewish members of the congregation, who had probably, up until then, been sitting relatively comfortably, watching the gentiles squirm, since what Paul was speaking of were sins that were either being committed or had been committed by the non-Jewish believers before they became Christ-followers. It bears noting that, just as the reading of the text caused discomfort here, it could only have caused that much more discomfort in the people who first heard it read… ANYWAY … back to chapter 2 verse 4:

Or do you despise the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience? Do you not realize that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?

How many of us would have considered recognition of God’s kindness to be something that is intended to lead us to repentance? What is it about kindness that would elicit such a response? If the person to whom you are showing kindness has just shown YOU a kindness, then there is an instant community – a connection that is formed when two like spirits meet. If, however, the person receiving the kindness has just finished … say … cutting in front of you in line at the grocery store, and you respond by pulling out your MVP card and letting them use it when they discover they’ve forgotten theirs, the reaction can be predicted … what is it? Discomfort. I speak from experience. You really don’t want to be caught in that situation on the receiving end of that kindness. There is no worse feeling. No more humbling, shaming feeling than when harshness is repaid with kindness. Human nature is revealed further down in the letter, chapter 12, we find this, you’ve probably heard it before:

19 Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God; for it is written, "Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord." 20 No, "if your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink; for by doing this you will heap burning coals on their heads."

So here we are, in chapter 2, and Paul lets into the Jews, who have been ‘amening’ him for the last chapter – and he slams them just as much: beginning in verse 12 and going through verse 16, 2nd chapter:

All who have sinned apart form the law will also perish apart from the law, and all who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law. For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous in God’s sight, but the doers of the law who will be justified. When Gentiles, who do not possess the law, do instinctively what the law requires, these though not having the law, are a law to themselves. They show that what the law requires is written on their hearts, to which their own conscience also bears witness; and their conflicting thoughts will accuse or perhaps excuse them on the day when, according to my gospel, God, through Jesus Christ, will judge the secret thoughts of all.

God, through Jesus Christ, will judge the secret thoughts of all.

That is an unsettling thought. That at some point, God will judge the secret thoughts of all of us. if you want discomfort, there it is.

It boils down to this;

9 Now we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. 20 For "no human being will be justified in his sight" by deeds prescribed by the law, for through the law comes the knowledge of sin.

Through the law comes the knowledge of sin.

Paul is telling the Jews and the Gentiles the same thing in ways that each can understand: whether you are being confronted with Christ from a background that has no point of reference with Judaic law or whether you are steeped in that law and can therefore identify any and all sins committed by omission or commission, YOU ARE STILL GUILTY and in need of Christ, through whom God was reconciling the world to God’s self.

What do we do with that? How do we, Jerusalem Baptist Church, take that message to the world without the world saying ‘forget you’, or something perhaps far more explicit?

We can take our queue from Paul himself. Let’s back up to Paul’s own greeting at the beginning of the letter. He opens, as was the custom, identifying himself as a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, set apart for the Gospel of God. The next 5 verses are … a synopsis of what he is going to spell out in the rest of the letter. The meat of the letter is summarized in those 5 verses, but I think the conclusion of the letter is there as well. It is where he states to whom the letter is addressed:

“To all God’s beloved in Rome, who are called to be saints; Grace to you and peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.”

We might be able to condense the study of Romans into those first 7 verses. It would make for a considerably shorter winter Bible Study … but here it is. After all is said and done, Paul does return to the Gospel – which is God drawing the world back to God’s self through the person of Jesus Christ.

Through him we are called to be Saints while still being sinners. How is that possible? Aren’t the two mutually exclusive?

Thomas Merton, a Trappist monk who wrote extensively on the contemplative life, says in his book New Seeds of Contemplation,

“True holiness is not found by striving or in our own efforts, or by competing with others. Indeed, true holiness cannot be created by us at all. True holiness is only found by losing ourselves in Christ, as we are transformed by the Love of God living and working in us and through us in all that we do.”

“A man becomes a saint not by conviction that he is better than sinners but by the realization that he is one of them and that all together need the mercy of God!”

In that, we follow Christ’s example, found in Philippians 2;

“He became human and dwelt in the flesh among sinful human beings. In fact, he too was considered a sinner. This was his holiness, his sanctity. It should be ours as well.”

Let’s pray.

A Servant of Christ

Sunday, February 1st, 2004
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton
Romans 1:1-7

Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, 2 which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy scriptures, 3 the gospel concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh 4 and was declared to be Son of God with power according to the spirit of holiness by resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord, 5 through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith among all the Gentiles for the sake of his name, 6 including yourselves who are called to belong to Jesus Christ, To all God's beloved in Rome, who are called to be saints: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Hello! Thank you for allowing me to come to your fellowship. My name is Paul of Tarsus, but you probably already knew that from my accent. I was born and raised there. As a boy I would go down to the docks and watch the ships come in and unload all sorts of treasures from all over the world; spices, fine wines and oil, and fine linen from Egypt. I can still close my eyes and smell the bay and the oceanfront, and hear the sea gulls’ cries as they tried to steal a fish or two as the fishermen unloaded their nets.

But I couldn’t spend all my time at the docks. As the son of a well-to-do Jewish family, I was made very aware that we lived in a city that was not itself one that honored God, and I took my task of showing righteousness to the gentiles VERY seriously. It was thus my responsibility to study Torah, and I did so under Gamaliel, a wonderful teacher, a HARD teacher, who taught me to love the word of the Lord with all my heart, with all my soul, with all my strength, and with all my mind.

I memorized what needed to be memorized in record time, and could tell you what law you had broken the second I saw you break it, as well as what you needed to do to redeem yourself, what sacrifices, what prayers, what rituals. Anyone could come to me and I could answer with chapter and verse. It was simple, really. I was a guardian. I relished the responsibility of monitoring the activities of the Diaspora community in Tarsus and making sure that our righteousness before God was never really in question. We had a clear set of rules, and keeping them would bring us closer to God. The Gentiles of Tarsus were, if you’ll pardon the expression, not worth the bother. I don’t mean anything personal, but … well, I was one of the chosen people, and I had to watch out for my own.

As a young man, I heard of a prophet, a teacher named Y’shua Bar-Joseph, a carpenter, making the rounds in the region of Galilee, and occasionally heard from a traveler from that region, who spoke of a man who could command the waters and the wind to be still, who could turn water into wine and could heal, who could cast out demons, make the lame walk and the blind see … I was intrigued, for I heard that in one of his sermons he said he came not to abolish the law, but to fulfill it. That phrase alone predisposed me to cautiously accept this man as a righteous prophet in the same spirit as Ezekiel and Samuel, Jeremiah and Isaiah, to name a few. Fulfilling the law certainly could only mean keeping it.

As time passed, however, I began to hear troubling things about this Y’shua, this Jesus of Nazareth. Things that more and more, convinced me that he was not a true prophet at all, but rather a dangerous heretic, who needed to be stopped. He ate with sinners, prostitutes and tax collectors; he even spoke to a Samaritan woman. He performed acts forbidden on the Sabbath. Granted, some good may have come from a healing, but couldn’t it have waited until just a few hours later?? If you start making exceptions, you quickly find yourself on a slippery slope, and then what good does it do you to know the letter of the law down to every jot and tittle?

I remember the day I heard he was, himself, forgiving sins. Why, the NERVE … the sheer … chutzpah, believing yourself to be capable of forgiving sins when we all knew that the only one who is able to forgive sins is the Lord God Almighty, and then only after an acceptable sacrifice on the day of atonement … that was the greatest heresy to date. He had to be stopped. Shortly after that I heard of a terrible commotion at the Temple during Passover, and I must tell you that I was not surprised when I heard it was this Jesus who was responsible. He even called himself the Messiah. When I heard that, I knew then that he would not last much longer. To call yourself ‘King of the Jews’ when the Jews already had a King, and that one appointed by Caesar, well, he had overstepped his bounds, and as many who went before him, his days were numbered. I have to say, I breathed a sigh of relief when I heard he’d been crucified. I shuddered a little, for to die on a tree is to die a cursed death, one from which there is no redemption. I thought there might have been some good to his teachings, but that last detail, the way in which he died, so unclean, so humiliating, so painful, so public … so final.

I was a little saddened, if only because his actions and death reflected on the Jewish people in the eyes of the heathen people of the world, and they could not see that we held the truth to how to please God, by following his commands and keeping his laws, this Jesus’ teachings were a threat to the purity of our way of life. Nonetheless, I knew that with his death, his followers would disperse, and we could get back to the business of monitoring and keeping ourselves clean and holy.

I was astounded when I heard rumors, then reports that this Jesus had supposedly risen from the dead! Our teaching had always been that, yes, there IS a resurrection, but it is one to come at the end of time, a general resurrection of ALL the faithful, not just of a single individual. When we finally heard it from the lips of one of his followers, one named Stephen, we could not contain our fury, and I gladly held their coats while the man was stoned to death outside the city walls, as it should be.

So disturbing were the reports that he appeared and had spoken to the women and to his disciples … the women who were as much a part of his band of followers as the men (that was another thing, by the way … he paid way too much attention to women …), so infuriating were the continued proclamations in the synagogues and in the streets that I became obsessed with the need to cleanse the chosen people of these parasites, these impurities, these heretics, and took it upon myself to begin to ferret out these followers of ‘The Way’ myself by searching door to door in Jerusalem and bringing them bound and throwing them in jail until they recanted what they had been proclaiming and turned back to the pure way.

I heard that there were followers of The Way outside of Judea in other nearby cities. When they were reported to have been seen and heard in Damascus, I went to the leaders and chief priests of the temple in Jerusalem and asked for a commission, a letter giving me authority to find, detain, and return to Jerusalem any followers of The Way that I found there, and it was quickly granted to me.

I left early in the morning on the day after the Sabbath, knowing myself to have been purified and confident in my mission and knowing what to look and listen for, knowing what questions to ask these followers of Jesus, so as to catch them in their deceit and heresy. We walked hurriedly; there was no time to waste. I had traveled the road to Damascus many times, and we were coming around one of the last bends in the road, around a low hill outside the city, when I saw him.

To say ‘he appeared to me’ does nothing to encompass what the event was, and barely begins to describe it. I could tell you what he was wearing (a simple robe). I could tell you how his feet looked (a little dusty), and how he moved his hands gently, and with purpose), but it still wouldn’t get across to you what I felt. We came around the bend, walking fast; he was standing there, looking straight at me, on a low rise right next to the road, where it cut close to the hillside, so he was a little above me. I had seen him at a distance a couple of times in Jerusalem, before he was crucified, and I thought he looked familiar.

‘Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?’

I was UNDONE. I was stunned, amazed, shocked, all those words and more rolled up into a single emotion. It felt like an almost physical blow, I could not breathe, and I felt myself falling to the ground. The light around me grew brighter and brighter, until I could not keep my eyes open. I knew who he was, of course; I had seen him from a distance a couple of times in Jerusalem, before he was crucified. But I asked anyway:

‘Who are you, Lord?’

His answer came back:

‘I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. But get up and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do.’

Those who were with me said they could hear a voice, but could not see him. I’ve thought so much about that over the years, and I’ve come to the conclusion that they couldn’t see him for one of two reasons, either they weren’t looking for him, or he wasn’t speaking to them … yet.

In that instant I knew that the Jesus whose followers I persecuted was in fact who he had claimed to be. That he was standing there and talking to me proved beyond a shadow of a doubt to me that he did indeed rise from the dead, and confirmed all that he’d said – and equally as importantly – done during the time he was teaching and traveling around Galilee.

In an instant, he opened my eyes to how blind I’d been. I could feel my eyes, they were open, but I couldn’t see anything at all. Funny, in a way, it made it gave me a chance to realize in an all-too-real way what it was like before, to have my eyes open but to not see what was right in front of my face all along.

- I realized I’d been wrong about the resurrection.
- I realized how sinful we ALL are, even the most righteous of us all, especially ME.
- I realized that his crucifixion WAS that perfect and acceptable sacrifice for ALL of us, for the sins of the world, not his own, for he was without sin.
- I realized how twisted my understanding of salvation had been, that it COULDN’T be based on strict obedience to the law, because all the law does is show how UNrighteous we all are. That keeping the law was not the way to salvation, but that it is by FAITH that we are saved, it is a gift from God.
- I realized that the way we live our lives here on earth is not to be guided by a set of laws, by keeping separate from the world, despising gentiles as sinners and unclean, but to be guided by the Love of God and showing that love to our neighbors, and to be guided by the Holy Spirit.

I realized most of all that Jesus Christ, my Lord and Messiah, came not only for the Jew, but for the Gentile, and that was where I stepped in. Jesus showed me that I was the person whom he had decided would be the one to bring his message to the Gentiles. And I myself was going to live out and understand what it means to put the requirements of the law to the test and find them lacking. To realize in my heart of hearts that nothing I do, nothing I strive to accomplish, will make me any more worthy of salvation, that it is by God’s grace alone that I am saved, and what I do is in response to that.

Let’s pray.

First Things First

Or
The Gospel according to Peter Pan

Sunday, January 18th, 2004
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA
Revelation 21:1-5, Philippians 1:21-25

1 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. 2 And I saw the holy city, the New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them; 4 he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away." 5 And the one who was seated on the throne said, "See, I am making all things new."

Captain Hook pushes his face an inch closer to Peter Pan’s, wiggles his sword, which is crossed with Peter’s, and sneering, says,

“Pan, prepare to die”

In response, Peter gently smiles,

“To die would be a wonderful adventure.”

Of course, the movie doesn’t end there. In fact, it’s barely begun; it seems to be only about 15 minutes into it at that point. The pace of children’s movies has definitely increased. If you are familiar with the story by James Michael Barrie, the movie follows it’s general storyline: Peter escapes Hook’s attempt on his life in the first go-around, flies off to introduce Wendy to the lost boys, where she becomes their mother (based solely on her ability to tell stories), saves John and Michael from the pirates, and generally makes the movie nonstop action. Like I said, the pace of children’s movies has definitely increased. I was struck by the pause in that scene. The pace seemed to momentarily slow to a crawl to allow for the thought to sink in: “to die would be a wonderful adventure”

Most of you know by now that we laid Mary Jane Headley to rest this past Thursday after she passed away on Monday evening. I visited with her Monday afternoon, and at that point, all I could do was read from Psalms and pray with and for her. When we were last able to actually speak, a week ago Thursday, she let me know then that she wanted me to do her funeral. I can’t tell you how humbling it is to hear that from someone, and it was both an honor and a privilege to be able to fulfill her request. At one point in that visit she told me that sometimes she prayed “just to go to sleep and wake up in heaven”.

I think it is safe to say for any of us who’ve lived through extreme hardship, especially the loss of health, that that is not a thought that is foreign to us. We find Mary Jane’s thoughts echoing Paul in his letter to the Church in Philippi.

Traditionally, the setting for Paul’s writing the letter to the church at Philippi has been while in prison in Rome, awaiting an audience with Caesar. The date of the letter: between 61 and 63 AD, give or take. Since the traditional date for Paul’s martyrdom is between 64 and 67 AD, during Nero’s persecution of the Roman Christians, and first century prisons anywhere, even in Rome, were notorious for bringing about their own death sentence on the inmates, regardless of the sentence which they had received, death was probably very present in Paul’s thought, if not his daily life. He had just nursed the man who brought him news from the Philippians, Epaphroditus, back to health.

We are more familiar with the passage as it begins in one of the more traditional versions, and in each of them it reads virtually the same:

“For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain.”

I’d like to read that verse, 21 of the 1st chapter, and the next 4 verses from Eugene Petersen’s ‘The Message’ – In which Petersen is going for a thought-for-thought correspondence rather than word-for-word, he writes:

21 Alive, I'm Christ's messenger; dead, I'm his bounty. Life versus even more life! I can't lose. 22 As long as I'm alive in this body, there is good work for me to do. If I had to choose right now, I hardly know which I'd choose. 23 Hard choice! The desire to break camp here and be with Christ is powerful. Some days I can think of nothing better. 24 But most days, because of what you are going through, I am sure that it's better for me to stick it out here. 25 So I plan to be around awhile, companion to you as your growth and joy in this life of trusting God continues.

Picture if you will, Paul is in prison, clothes, if he had any, were the ones he wore in or which someone brought him. Food, if any, is what has been brought in specifically for him, since meals were not provided by management. Unheated, unventilated, and probably overcrowded, with no medical attention, such as it was. Paul would have every reason to expect death to be more of a release from his present circumstance than anything else. He admits that he longs to be able to ‘break camp’ and be with Christ, but in the same breath realizes that there is more to do before that happens – and I really like the way the thought is conveyed by Petersen in verse 25: “So I plan to be around awhile, companion to you as your growth and joy in this life of trusting God continues.” How many of us could truthfully say that what is keeping us here is to be in community and to watch God move, and to watch our trust in him increase, what the New Revised Standard Version translates “for your progress and joy in faith”?

I imagine the passage from Revelation is familiar to most of us. It is, of course, most often used at funerals and at the graveside, and appropriately so. The image of a place where God will wipe every tear from our eyes, where death will be no more, where there will be no more mourning and crying and pain does, as Paul said, create a powerful desire to be there rather than here. How can it not?? But let’s stop on the next phrase: “for the first things have passed away.”

What are the first things the loud voice from the throne is talking about? Let’s back up a little further and read again beginning with verse 3, the second part –

"See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them;”

Is the speaker talking about the future, or about a possible present?

We have just finished celebrating Christmas, the coming of the Christ Child, and during the Christmas season we repeatedly made reference to what Christ’s coming meant: it meant that God came to earth to live among us, that Emmanuel; “God with us” was in the person of Jesus Christ.

Perhaps we need to really take a close look at what Jesus meant when he spoke of the Kingdom of God.

Yes, there is a brokeness to the world as we know it. It manifests itself every day: in a car bomb going off in Baghdad, sending the death toll of US citizens in Iraq to over 500, and an untold number of Iraqi citizens, rampant HIV in Africa, earthquakes in Iran, a plane crash in Egypt, it can all be overwhelming, making you want to run screaming from the room and be done with it.

And yet …

Hook seems to be winning. He actually succeeds in flying, with the necessary aid of some pixy dust and ‘happy thoughts’, though in this instance, happy has become a relative term. While he and Peter are engaged in their last battle, he is constantly stabbing – not only with his sword, but with his words as well … it brings to mind ‘the accuser’, ‘the father of lies’, his insinuations and barbs are tearing at Peter’s spirit to the point where he ends up on his back on the deck of the Jolly Roger, with no will left to fight, much less to live. Wendy pleads with Hook to let her give Peter a ‘thimble’. He scoffs at her “silly girl”, and shrugs her off, letting her near. She lays down beside Peter, and tells him she is sorry she has to leave and grow up, but she says that he will always be welcomed to listen to her stories, and that she will always hold him in her heart, and gives Peter her ‘thimble’, which turns out to be a kiss, and he bursts back to life and wins the day. Hmmm … sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

At the end of the movie, Peter is saying goodbye to Wendy as she leans out her window, and he looks at her, smiles, and says,

“To live, yes, to live would be a wonderful adventure!”

First things first: the words of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount:

"But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. (Mt 6:33)

How does that translate for Jerusalem Baptist Church?

Like this:

1. Unity in diversity: This coming Wednesday, we will hold our regularly scheduled business meeting, an event that can run smoothly or otherwise. Let it not be a meeting of cliques or special interest groups, but a meeting of brothers and sisters, sharing in love the purpose of furthering the Kingdom.

2. Visiting the sick, bereaved and lonely. It is what builds us up that will build others up – being in community. This afternoon we have an opportunity to carry this out, by visiting the residents at Farnham Manor at 2 PM. Anyone is welcome to join us.

3. Letting Love be our rule, and Christ be our head and our heart.

Let’s pray.

Your invitation is similar – to come and live in the Kingdom – in what is to be and what can be even in the midst of all the madness and stabbing and tearing that the world can throw at us. We are about living life as it should be lived – in the glory of the love found only in Jesus Christ.

Our hymn of invitation is number 426 – O Master Let Me Walk with Thee

Benediction:
May the Lord bless you and keep you.
May the Lord make his face to shine upon you
And be gracious unto you.
May God give you
Grace
Never to sell yourself short;
Grace
To risk something big for something good;
Grace
To remember that the world is now
Too dangerous
For anything but truth
And
Too small for anything but Love.
So may God take your minds
And think through them;
May God take your lips
And speak through them;
May God take your hearts
And set them on fire

Through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Invitation

Sunday, January 11, 2004
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA
1 Corinthians 11:23-26

23 For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread, 24 and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, "This is my body that is [broken] for you. Do this in remembrance of me." 25 In the same way he took the cup also, after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me." 26 For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.

‘Come see us’.

Those three words were all that made up the note at the bottom of the card. In the midst of the hustle and bustle of the season, and travels, and subsequent settling back in after those travels, the time has yet to come when we can respond to the invitation, but that time WILL come.

This last week we had guests for dinner two evenings. On Tuesday, Valentin, Lucio and Domingo, three of our Mexican friends who are working in White Stone, stopped in late in the afternoon, and we invited them to stay and share our spaghetti with us. We had a wonderful time. Lucio and Domingo are brothers to Mundo, who has 3 children of his own, who correspond in age roughly to our three, and while I was here meeting with the constitution committee, they were over in the parsonage basement attempting to play ‘Twister’ with the kids … while Leslie and Valentin got on the internet upstairs and tried to hunt for a car for Lucio. When I got back home, shortly after 9, we spent some more time laughing and visiting and just being with them.

On Friday evening, we had one of the area Pastors and his family over for supper. There is something about sharing a meal together, about sitting around a table and breaking bread, that draws you into communion with one another like nothing else. Our time together was relaxed and laid-back. It was 11 O’clock before we turned around twice. Lee and Kim have become good friends over the course of the last year, especially in the spring, when they opened their home to us as we were commuting from Virginia Beach to do the Hispanic work, or meet with the WMU, or the Associational Missions Committee, or, occasionally, a certain Pastor Search Committee. Over the course of the fall, with our shifting schedules, we’d not had many opportunities to spend time with them, and Friday was a welcome re-grouping.

I can imagine that some similar conversations might’ve taken place during the supper in the upper room so long ago. These men had gotten to know each other as well as they could. They had spent almost every waking moment together. The disciples had accepted Christ’s invitation 3 or so years earlier to come, follow him, and learn- learn to be fishers of men, learn to heal, learn to confront sin and injustice and Satan and stop them in their tracks.

That night, Christ was inviting them again to join him. But it would seem a bit odd. They’d been permanent fixtures of each other’s lives for so long, where else could he invite them to be, that they hadn’t already been with him?

Previously, his invitation had been to learn from him. That night, as it is today, his invitation was and is to DO. ‘Do this in remembrance of me’.

Leslie and I were talking over some ideas yesterday about the message for today, and she pointed out to me that throughout advent, I seem to have paused on themes of suffering and pain with each message. I’m afraid today’s message is no different in that respect.

Christ extended the bread and the wine and said ‘this is my body, which is broken for you; this cup is the new covenant in my blood’. The mention of blood in conjunction with a covenant only meant one thing: a sacrifice. Christ was speaking of nothing if not his coming death. In that sense, Jesus was inviting the disciples to join him in his passion. It always struck me, the reference to Holy Week as ‘passion week’. In a little over a month, a film will be released that brutally details the last 12 hours of Jesus’ life. It’s title: “The Passion of The Christ”. The root word is “Pati”, the Latin word for “suffer”. As Christians, we must not, ever, ignore pain and suffering. Our response to the brokenness in the world is where Christ shines through most plainly.

My word processing software’s list of synonyms for “passion” includes fervor, ardor, obsession, infatuation, excitement, enthusiasm, zeal, and craze. Odd, isn’t it? There is no mention of the root meaning: suffering. I like the last one: delight. It echoed so many passages – I’ll just mention two, and they bracket the book of Psalms: 1:1-2 and 149:1-4:

Ps 1:1 Blessed is the one who obeys the law of the LORD.
He doesn’t follow the advice of evil people.
He doesn’t make a habit of doing what sinners do.
He doesn’t join those who make fun of the LORD and his law.
Ps 1:2 Instead, he takes delight in the law of the LORD.


Ps 149:1 Praise the LORD.
Sing a new song to the LORD.
Sing praise to him in the community of his faithful people.
Ps 149:2 Let Israel be filled with joy because God is their Maker.
Let the people of Zion be glad because he is their King.
Ps 149:3 Let them praise his name with dancing.
Let them make music to him with harps and tambourines.
Ps 149:4 The LORD takes delight in his people.

So it seems to work both ways. We have a passion for God; God has a passion for us. We delight in him, he delights in us.

But just what is Christ inviting US to? What is Christ inviting Jerusalem Church to? Is it a life of luxury, a life of plenty? Or is it a life of service and struggle? Is it a life of perpetual suffering, or of perpetual joy, and are the two mutually exclusive? Is it freedom from want, or freedom from need? Is it a life free from illness and pain, or a life as fraught with pain and suffering as the person who has never heard of a God who became human and dwelt among us?

As I’ve said before, I believe Christ’s invitation is an invitation to communion, an invitation to enter into relationship with him. And in that relationship we are faced with a choice. Will our communion with Christ be reflected inwards or outwards?

Last week, Tony’s Children’s sermon touched on what happens to light when it hits a mirror – it is reflected. His point raises the question here: in what direction will your mirror be pointing? Is our reflection going to be a life of closed community, where we spend our time together, side by side, facing inward, enjoying each others’ company, certainly, but to the exclusion of the world around us, or is the reflection going to be in the other direction, where we find ourselves, still side by side, but facing outward.

There’s a new addition to the wall in the study over at the parsonage, courtesy of the National Geographic Society. It came in yesterday’s mail. It is a map of the world. I have it up on the wall right above my desk; I face it as I’m sitting at the keyboard.

One of the best benefits of the internet is the ability to communicate across vast distances … and time, in a way. As I’ve mentioned in the past, I’ve been able to connect with childhood friends, and my college roommates, and just this week I reconnected with Breena Paine, whom I first knew as Breena Kent, an MK from Paraguay, who is now married, has two kids, and is serving with her husband in Chiang Mai, Thailand, the same city that Scott and Erica Riddell are serving in as missionaries. My last contact with her was almost 19 years ago, at the candidate conference for the Journeyman group of which I became a part. All that to say this: communion means so much more than simply communing with each other in this context (here within these walls). Communion means recognizing community across the room as well as across the street, the county, the river, the state, the country and the world and CELEBRATING IT.

We say we celebrate the Lord’s Supper, and in that sense the word celebrate means ‘to observe’ but in a real sense, Christ’s invitation is to celebrate communion with him in whatever context you find yourself in. It is a solemn occasion. It recalls for us just that which Jesus was predicting to his disciples: his suffering and death. But as we know, and as we can testify to, we are a resurrection people. We view the event in light of the resurrection: Christ’s triumph over death, in a way, his foreshadowing of how we can and will overcome the darkest shadows of human existence to one day draw in that breath of heaven. In that sense, we celebrate – festively- the joy of the resurrection.

What is Christ inviting you to? There are as many answers to that question as there are people in this room.

Whatever that means, wherever that takes us, individually or as a congregation, Christ is with us. He has promised us the companion – the Holy Spirit. And it is in and through the Spirit that we now gather around the table.

Will the deacons please join me at the table?

24 and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, "This is my body that is [broken] for you. Do this in remembrance of me."

25 In the same way he took the cup also, after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me."

Hymn of invitation: 369 ‘Purer in Hear O God’

Benediction (on cover of bulletin)

‘Blest be the tie that binds’

Beginnings

Sunday, January 4, 2004
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA
John 1:1-5; 3:1-5

1:1-5

1In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being 4 in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

3:1-5

1Now 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.

I don’t know about you, but this past week’s New Year’s celebration was exceptionally quiet for us.

Part of it, I’m sure, had to do with the fact that we pulled into the driveway at about ten minutes to midnight on New Year’s Eve, after leaving Louisville at 9, we were pretty tired. The other part of it was that, at midnight, we were still in the midst of unloading the minivan, so our new year’s wishes were more in the manner of “huff, puff, (groan) oh, happy new year …” than a rousing boisterous well-wishing. We did celebrate, but it was a very small celebration, with a couple of close friends who have become family to us since we moved here, sitting in front of the fire, and basically exchanging small talk and good wishes.

So the New Year was ushered in in the midst of other activity. In some ways, it felt like just another Wednesday night, the only difference being that we had been on a trip.

In truth, to some degree the celebration was anticlimactic; the previous week had been a full one. Our time in Kentucky had been rich with events – a Christmas Eve service at my sister’s church, Highland Baptist, which was the first ever (I think) which the entire family attended – including all in-laws and grandkids, then a Christmas day full of family – not just immediate family, but the additional presence of a Chilean friend and HER family, who are living in Dayton Ohio and who drove down to spend the better part of the day with us—she repeatedly commented on how our house in Santiago was ‘always open’ … it was a precious time of reconnecting with our Chilean family. On Friday we gathered with several MK friends and THEIR families – again, people we’d not seen in several years, and on Tuesday, my 3 college roommates and our ‘adopted roommate’ Sue (though she lived in Louisville, while we were two hours south in Bowling Green), and I gathered with all of our families for the first time – counting my sister Becky and her family, 12 adults and 16 kids … it was chaotic and crowded, noisy, when all the kids came inside, but the time together was sweet. I found myself standing on the edges of the den, watching everyone. They’d not changed that much, except for the kids tagging along … but that in itself was a huge change. It was wonderful to see how … settled … in the best sense of the word … everyone was. People finding themselves in the midst of doing what they love doing. What they are gifted to do, what they are willing and able to do.

It made for a lesson in thanksgiving – I’d like to quote from a note one of them made on his website – Jay is Pastor of Antioch United Methodist Church, outside of Nashville, and said this about the gathering:

It is a bit pretentious to say so, but our experience in Bowling Green … was an experiment in Christian community ... We shared similar values. We shared financially -- because we didn't have any other choice. We prayed together, sang together, worshipped together, broke bread together, and yelled and screamed at each other. It was a place of authenticity for us, and I think led us into a relationship that can easily pick up from where we left it the last time we were together … it represents one model of life together in the body of Christ. Perhaps much of my striving in church is to regain that sense of community that we felt …

What I touched base with on Tuesday was that which had a huge impact on who I am and who I’ve become over the last 20 years.

I know the first scripture passage was at the beginning of John, but let’s deal with the second passage first.

We find Nicodemus attracted to something like that community. Here he is, a member of the Sanhedrin, the ruling council, he was nothing if not part of the establishment in first-century Jerusalem. Jesus is nothing if not the antiestablishment. He and his disciples are constantly getting into trouble for breaking the Sabbath and eating with sinners.

And yet, Nicodemus sees something. He approaches at night, which says something about who he was mindful of …

"Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God”

His salutation is courteous, even respectful; Rabbi was a term of respect as well as a title. The fact that Nicodemus addresses Jesus by the title says something about how he saw Jesus. I somehow doubt that he was trying to butter Jesus up … being in a position of power himself, there doesn’t seem to be a reason for that to be happening. His question is seemingly interrupted by Jesus’ reply to his greeting … the question, if any, is implied – the reference to “these signs” that “no one can do apart from the presence of God”.

As usual, Jesus cuts right to the chase – “no one can see the Kingdom of God without being born from above” – he is asserting that even admitting to the miraculous acts that Jesus was performing as being from God doesn’t accord one the right to be a witness to - or perhaps even a participant in the Kingdom – that can only come from the Spirit – by being born from above – a term that has been translated and popularized as being ‘Born Again’.

Nicodemus’ response can be taken a couple of ways -
At first sight he appears to be quite materialistic in his attitude, thinking that Jesus was advocating what was impossible--a second physical birth. On the other hand, perhaps he meant, "How can a man whose habits and ways of thinking have been fixed by age expect to change radically?" Physical rebirth is impossible, but is spiritual change any more feasible?

Yesterday we held a memorial service for Diana Svara, Soozin’s brother in law’s sister, who had been living with the Loudenslagers up until the Saturday after Christmas. After the service we gathered with the family at Cliff and Soozin’s to eat and share a little more in memories of Diana with them. Leslie and I sat in the kitchen with Jean, and she shared with us some of the same feelings that Diana had had before making a decision for Christ. Diana’s response to a question about her relationship with the Lord had repeatedly been “I’m not good enough; I’ve done too many bad things in my life to be saved”. Jean’s response (and I have to say here that it was the Holy Spirit that was speaking through her lips) was “if you were able to be good enough to be saved, then there’d be no reason for Jesus to hang on the cross!” Jean said it was like a light went off in Diana’s head.

So why am I relating a conversion experience on the first Sunday of the year?

Here’s why.

Let’s not lose sight of the incredible gift we’ve been given by God in allowing us to welcome another year into our lives. As the first verses of the Gospel say, God was in the beginning. God is into beginnings. Jesus was saying to Nicodemus and says to us all – to really see what is going on, you have to see the world with new eyes! You have to go through a change so profound that it is as though you’ve been born again – you must be born of the Spirit!

Yes, you may be set in your ways, you’ve got a way of looking at the world that has shaped what you believe and what you expect. Jesus shows us again and again to expect the unexpected. God is in the most unlikely places. In the house of a tax collector, in a jar of perfume broken over his feet, in a conversation with a woman who would give Elizabeth Taylor a run for her money…

What can we look forward to in 2004? In a few short words; God, moving in – and more importantly, THROUGH- our lives, and the life of THIS community of faith, this family, Jerusalem Church at Emmerton.

I can hardly wait!


Let’s pray.



Benediction


Now--

May the Lord Christ go before you—to prepare your way;

Christ beside you be companion to you, everywhere you go;

Christ beneath you, strengthen and uphold you – when you fall—or fail;

Christ behind you, finish and complete what you must leave undone;

Christ within you, give you faith and courage, love and hope;

But mostly --

Christ above you, bless and keep you, now and evermore!

Amen!