Knowing Him

Sunday, April 18th, 2004
First after Easter
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA
John 14: 15-24

15 "If you love me, you will keep my commandments. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. 17 This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you. 18 I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you. 19 In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live. 20 On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. 21 They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me; and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them." 22 Judas (not Iscariot) said to him, "Lord, how is it that you will reveal yourself to us, and not to the world?" 23 Jesus answered him, "Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. 24 Whoever does not love me does not keep my words; and the word that you hear is not mine, but is from the Father who sent me.”

“Get out of my head!”

We said it at the same exact moment. But that’s how we are supposed to say it. Together. If we had been younger, you might have heard us say ‘Jinx, freeze jinx, you owe me a coke!’ Leslie and I were walking down one of the aisles at Food Lion this past Friday, and somewhere along the running commentary and conversation that we were carrying on, we both had the same thought at the same time, and it resulted in saying the same thing at the same time. It is not an uncommon occurrence, but it is rare enough that sometimes it catches us by surprise.

Jimmy, my brother who was visiting last weekend, and I found ourselves doing that when we shared an apartment in Louisville after I got back from Spain. We’d be fixing a meal in the kitchen, and would be doing different parts of the preparation, and it was almost eerie sometimes, how much we could read each other’s thoughts. I’d be at a certain place in the preparation, and realize I needed a particular spice, or was ready for the next ingredient, and Jimmy would be a little further down the counter, and without saying a word or even looking at each other, he’d reach for the needed item and hand or toss it to me. A couple of times, it was so in tune that we just looked at each other, shook our heads, and chuckled.

We experienced an echo of that during his visit last weekend. We were in Richmond eating supper, and Judson asked Jimmy if he had a pen to write with, so that he could draw on the placemat. Jimmy and I were sitting across from each other, with Judson on the end between us. Jimmy’s answer to Judson was that he didn’t have a pen, and before I could interject the smart-aleck comment about him being an academic, here with his PhD in Literature, and not be carrying a pen around, for Pete’s sake, he went on to say that he usually does carry a pen around, except when he is on vacation, which he was, and looked at me, and smiled. And we knew that he knew something I was getting ready to say.

Have you ever had that happen and it feels right? Have you ever heard it somewhere inside you, where knowing someone so well - or being known by someone so well - that they are able to read or anticipate your face or your thoughts is a comfort rather than an intrusion?

Last Sunday was the ‘High Holy Day’ for Christianity Worldwide. Easter is, besides Christmas, the day you expect to see the most people in church. It is a given among regular church goers that on those two Sundays you are likely to see people whom you do not see the rest of the year. It goes to show that even for those who have a passing familiarity with the faith; Easter still has a lot to say about what it means to be a Christian.

So what exactly DOES Easter say about the Christian faith? Simply this: Christ lived, Christ was crucified, Christ died, Christ was buried, and most importantly, Christ arose.

I use the term ‘simply’ in the broadest, most comprehensive sense of the word. To put it another way, the Gospel, and that is what those five statements make up, is at the same time simple and incredibly complex. It is simple enough for a child to understand, and yet complex enough to have provided fodder for theologians for the last 1800 years … but the question is not strictly an academic one. In fact, it is academic only in a secondary sense.

If we believe the Easter Gospel, believing entails more than simply attending church twice a year. It involves more than simply paying lip service on a semi-regular basis to what is, at least in this part of the country, a socially acceptable Sunday pastime. Believing the Easter Gospel means that we hold to be true the radical notion that after having died on the cross, Christ arose from the dead, and was again seen among hundreds of his followers for 50 days, and at the end of that time, he ascended into Heaven. It means that for several decades after that, there were people living and walking on this earth that had seen and heard, and spoken to the risen son of God. They were firsthand witnesses to his presence among them.

But does the Easter story mean anything different to us now, today, almost 2000 years later? Can we, as people living in the post-enlightenment age, approach and fully understand the meaning of the resurrection like the disciples did right after it happened? I think we are not that far removed from them.

Last Sunday morning, for the Sunrise Service, I referred to a passage that comes later in the book of John. Specifically, chapter 20, beginning in verse 24:
24 But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. 25 So the other disciples told him, "We have seen the Lord." But he said to them, "Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe." 26 A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you." 27 Then he said to Thomas, "Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe." 28 Thomas answered him, "My Lord and my God!" 29 Jesus said to him, "Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe."
That’s where we come in.

“Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe."

For those of you who are here today who were here at that service, I’ll be repeating a little bit of what I said. I trust you’ll agree with me that it bears repeating.

Why do we believe this Gospel? Paul speaks of it as ‘foolishness to the gentiles’ … we believe because on some level, we have experienced God in our lives, whether as individuals, as a family, or as a larger community, God has touched our lives in such a way that we are compelled to believe that what the Gospel says is the truth. We have seen God move in our midst, we have felt him move in our LIVES, we have experienced the love of Christ in such a way that there is no other explanation BUT that the Holy Spirit is alive and moving in us today.

So we are blessed because we have not seen, and yet have come to believe. Have we TRULY not seen? If we are talking about seeing the actual physical body of Jesus of Nazareth, then the answer is no, we haven’t. So if we believe then the fact that we are blessed does indeed follow.

However, if we are speaking of whether or not we’ve seen the risen body of Christ in the broader sense, that we have touched his hands, or tended to his wounds, or washed his feet … then the answer is a resounding YES!

To see him, all you need to do is look around you. Look into the eyes of your neighbor, your brother, your sister. Reach out, and in that moment, you are touching the risen body of Christ. Paul speaks of us as the body of Christ. Jesus spoke of us in similar fashion in the passage that I read from at the beginning of the message:

"Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.”

Christ has promised us that he will make his home with us, if we love him and keep his word.

So what does that mean for Jerusalem Baptist Church?

Are we living our lives … are we living our life as a congregation as though we are following a nice set of moral principles or as though we are following a risen savior?

Are we doing what is acceptable in the world’s eyes, or are we surprising the world with how we respond to it?

Can we catch a glimpse of the places where God’s Kingdom is breaking into the world, and is one of those places here, among us?

Do we know the risen Lord in such a way that we can anticipate his next thought, his next move? Do we know him in such a way that we can open our mouths and HIS words come out? Does he know us in such a way that we can catch ourselves looking at each other and smile and simply shake our heads … in communion so close that words need not be spoken, where actions are the mode of communication that speaks louder than any word, but at the prompting of a still, small voice?

Let’s pray.

Easter Sunrise Service Meditation

Sunday, April 11th, 2004
Easter
Jerusalem Baptist Church
Emmerton, VA

Christ is Risen! (He is Risen Indeed!) (repeat) 

It’s an interesting feeling, isn’t it? Some of us are used to being up at this hour, and some of us, probably MOST of us, are not. There is something about the break of day, especially during spring, that draws us … that makes it perhaps not so difficult to be up at this hour. Our voices are not yet awake, our mouths are still a little gummy still from sleeping … our eyes are still a little puffy, and since most of us just rolled out of bed and came here … we’ve not had a chance to ‘put on the day’, as it were. We’ll do THAT for the main service later on this morning … if we go to one, that is.

I like the idea that we haven’t had time or maybe haven’t taken the time to get ourselves all decked out. Though I’m REALLY looking forward to the service later on - I’m getting to wear a robe for the first time – the idea that we are here looking about as close to what we REALLY look like, is appealing … there’s an honesty in it that speaks to how we can approach God and how Christ approaches us.

I’ve always wondered what woke Mary Magdalene or the other Mary up that morning? How had they slept? Had they slept at all, might be a better question … with everything that had happened over the previous days, I can easily imagine them either STILL being too distraught, too shocked to sleep, or so exhausted that they may have fallen into the dreamless sleep of utter exhaustion … either way, I can imagine them both being a little bleary-eyed as they approached the tomb. Kind of like us here this morning, at least those of us who aren’t morning people. 

This is my first Easter, my first sunrise service, as a Pastor. To tell you the truth, I’ve been looking forward to today since June the 1st of last year, the day I was ordained. The funny thing is, as the day has drawn nearer, I began to have these little sniggly doubts … afraid I’d goof up the most significant day we as Christians celebrate. Afraid I’d not say the right thing, afraid I’d forget something, or stumble somewhere and drop something. I’m still a little leary of that happening, especially with the robe thing coming up – I tried it on last night, and it’s long … almost to my ankles, so I’ll need to watch my step… it would be awkward, it would be out of place, it would be … less than graceful to have something like that happen, wouldn’t it?

As I was thinking about that this week, I realized that this is ALL ABOUT awkwardness. This is ALL ABOUT being out of place, being less than gracious, at least in the world’s eyes.

We are here, bleary-eyed and all, because we choose to proclaim that 2000 years ago a man was born who was more than a man, he was God, choosing to come live among us, as one of us. He spent a little more than 30 years living with us, and the last 3 years of his life were the years that he spent … publicly speaking, traveling, a little … though not widely, relatively speaking. At the end of those three years he was killed … in one of the worst ways imaginable. He was killed because what he brought to the world, the world did not understand. We know the story doesn’t end there, at his death. There’s more. He was killed on a Friday, and sometime between sundown on Saturday and dawn on Sunday he rose from the dead. I love it that the first people to spread the news of his resurrection were women. At that time, in the society they lived in, women were barely considered human, much less competent to carry the message that Christ had risen.

So it was an awkward situation. First, there are all these followers of Jesus who just watched their leader get crucified and die. Then, they all go hide. Then the WOMEN go to tend to the body instead of the men. (Some things haven’t changed, have they?) Then the women come running to tell this incredible story of Jesus having risen from the dead. You’d think it wouldn’t be such a surprise to them, if they had been around when Jesus raised Lazarus … no? There’s a point at which someone probably said, this is just too much. I ain’t believing this! Oh … someone did. Thomas. He said that he wouldn’t believe it until he saw the nail prints and stuck his hand in Jesus’ side; where the spear went in … guess what? The story is in the gospel of John … Jesus appeared to Thomas and TOLD him to ‘put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.” It didn’t take all that for Thomas to believe and call Jesus ‘my Lord and my God’ … what did Jesus answer Thomas? "Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe."

So here we are … those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.

Why do we believe this Gospel? Paul speaks of it as ‘foolishness to the gentiles’ … we believe because on some level, we have experienced God in our lives. Whether as individuals, as a family, or as a larger community, God has touched our lives in such a way that we are compelled to believe that what the Gospel says is the truth. We have seen God move in our midst, we have experienced the love of Christ in such a way that there is no other explanation BUT that the Holy Spirit is alive and moving in us today, just as he was 2000 years ago at Pentecost. But that is another holiday.

Today, we celebrate the risen LORD!

Let’s pray.

BENEDICTION:

Depart now,
In the fellowship of God the Father,
And as you go, remember;
In the goodness of God
You were brought into this world;
By the grace of God,
You have been kept
All the day long,
Even until this very hour;
By the love of God,
Fully revealed in the face of Jesus,
You are being redeemed.

Organization or Organism?

Sunday, March 28th, 2004
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA
1 Corinthians 12:4-14

4 Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; 5 and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; 6 and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone. 7 To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. 8 To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, 9 to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, 10 to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the discernment of spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. 11 All these are activated by one and the same Spirit, who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses.
12 For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. 13 For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit. 14 Indeed, the body does not consist of one member but of many.

“Whoever dies with the most toys, wins!”

The epitaph is in jest. But as with most jokes, there is at its core, a nugget … a statement that contains a kernel of truth, or supposed truth, that makes the whole thing funny to begin with.

Can you tell me in one word what best defines success in American popular culture?

Is it “Richer”? That seems to be the most common denominator when it comes to the measure of how successful someone or something is – how much money do you (or did it) make? How big is your budget? What was your profit margin? Though that one IS prevalent in American popular culture, we can honestly say that wealth is not a uniquely American litmus test for success. Throughout the ages, wealth has been a law unto itself, giving those who have it the ability to do rather just as they pleased.

Is it “Bigger”? For a while, it seemed as though American Popular Culture took notice of the limited nature of vast natural resources the world has and decided to start building cars, for example, that would stretch, if not minimize the use of those resources. But in recent years, the culture has reared its ugly head and made it worthwhile for the auto industry to produce the Excursion and the Hummer successfully. Bigger might be the most blatant example of disregard for the Edenic entreaty to be good stewards of the world and all that is in it.

Is it “Stronger”? We are bombarded with it every week on television. ‘Fear Factor’, ‘Survivor’, and now we also have ‘Family Fear Factor’ … I’m really not sure how to say how I feel about these shows. To be honest, I’ve only watched a couple of episodes of ‘Survivor’, and that was in it’s first or second season … and have never watched a full episode of ‘Fear Factor’ … the whole concept that this is ‘reality television’ is preposterous to me. I’m sorry if you enjoy watching them, if you take them as purely escapist entertainment, then perhaps it isn’t so bad. But if that is reality, then I’m the majority stockholder of General Electric.

I’m faced with a dilemma. In the position I held at what was then Bell Atlantic, the structure of the company was very well defined, and there was an obvious hierarchy built into the corporate structure. I knew who my supervisor was, and who his or her supervisor was in turn, and who was above them and so on and so forth until I got to the chairman and CEO of the company, who made ‘the big decisions’ and made more money in a month than I will probably make in my entire life. Though I had some input in some minor things, there was a clear sense of being a part of a huge, generally faceless structure, a cog in a wheel in a machine, a tiny part of a massive company that stretched from Maine to Virginia at the time and which has since grown to be, if I’m not mistaken, the largest telecommunications company in the country. What we as 20th and 21st century citizens of the United States have come to understand as success has been … imprinted on us by the culture we live in.

There are those who would say that the United States is a Christian Nation, or if not an outright Christian nation, at least a nation that was founded on Christian Principles. I would disagree with the first notion and question somewhat the second notion.

You need to know that this is me coming off an overnight retreat in a monastery in Newport News. We may all look back on today’s message in a couple of months (hopefully not in 15 minutes) and say ‘what was I THINKING??’ But bear with me. There are some points that I’d like to go over which I’d like to unpack a little more.

The reason I would disagree with the two earlier statements is this: while we as a country have historically been able to grow faith among our people, and have had the freedom to do so, we have so intertwined that faith with the culture, that in the melding of the two, our faith culture, that culture that we should find most clearly within these walls, and which should be evidenced outside these walls, what we could call the Kingdom Culture, is not that radically different from what we find in the prevailing culture of our society. It might be slightly countercultural, but maybe not what Jesus had in mind … and maybe not what Paul had in mind either in the passage we just read. If our Kingdom culture were to be as dramatically and radically different from the prevailing culture as Jesus said it should be – and in this I mean the way he was speaking to his followers, and the crowds of people that seemingly followed him everywhere, as well as the religious leaders of the day, then the values we present to the outside world – that is, the world outside our national borders, not just the world outside this building – should be so easily distinguished from those of the NATION as a whole, that we would be considered almost a nation within a nation.

My dilemma is this: if Paul speaks of the Church as the body of Christ, as he does in this passage, how do we reconcile that to the reality that the structural model we find most often in our churches here in the States? Granted, Jerusalem Baptist Church isn’t a large church by most standards, but to the degree that it is, we find ourselves settling into functional structures found most often in the business world of the prevailing culture. Committees, departments, divisions. I’m not criticizing committees and departments as such. The structures we have in place have allowed for Jerusalem to be, to exist, to grow, and to continue to spread the good news of Jesus Christ here and across the world for over a hundred and fifty years. But there is an inherent hierarchical structure that we must be wary of. There is a … I’m not sure how else to describe other than a flow of authority that comes into play that is somehow based on our position OUTSIDE the church, and it carries into the church.

In the best of all circumstances, that is because the person carrying the authority has wielded it well in one arena and can be trusted to wield it well in the kingdom culture.

But there is a danger to that. Jesus said ‘the last shall be first and the first shall be last … whoever wants to be the greatest among you must be the servant of all’, and carried that out – in humbling himself, in the words of the Philippian hymn – ‘and became obedient to the point of death – even death on the cross,’ a death that we are approaching daily as we move through the season of Lent.

The danger is that we will rely on skills ONLY rather than gifts, on the human person rather than the maker and giver and sustainer of life. It can sometimes be a fuzzy line. To distinguish where God is leading and where we would naturally want to go, since it seems so much the right thing to do.

Paul’s letter to Philemon is an entreaty to a slave holder to take back a runaway slave, Onesimus, as a brother in Christ. The implied request is to free him from his status as a slave, and work alongside him for the Kingdom. Philemon, being the slaveholder, had every right to do as he wanted to with Onesimus. The prevailing culture would have probably even allowed Philemon to put Onesimus to death. It would have been the right thing to do.

My question to you this morning is this: in which direction is the flow of authority going? Is it coming IN these doors from outside, or is it going OUT the doors from in here?

In the same vein, where is the authority in your LIFE coming from? Do you bring it in with you through the doors, or do you take it OUT with you? Let me put it another way: are you in your life being led by what happens inside or outside this building? Are the principles that govern your life Kingdom principles or prevailing culture principles?

When presented with a decision, do you ask yourself “what would Jesus do” or “what would Donald Trump do?” It’s a fairly stark contrast, and I would submit to you that the contrast is one that has not changed drastically, as much as we’d like to think it has, in the two thousand years since we had the opportunity to SEE “what Jesus would do.”

The church, the body of Christ, will always stand in opposition, in contrast to the prevailing culture.

We can be thankful that we live in a culture that engages kingdom values, and makes it sometimes easier to PRACTICE kingdom values, but let us never lose sight that in the end, the motivation for the world and the motivation for the kingdom are radically opposed to each other.

Let’s pray. (Prayer)

Invitation:

Your invitation today is to stand in that opposition, to be that contrast …

Your invitation is to live out Kingdom values in such a way as to create discord in your own life – we don’t WANT that, granted, but just as Christ did, we are called to take up OUR crosses and follow him.

(Hymn)
(Benediction)

Steadfast, Immovable, Always Excelling

Sunday, March 21st, 2004
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA
I Corinthians 15:50-58

50 What I am saying, brothers and sisters, is this: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. 51 Listen, I will tell you a mystery! We will not all die, but we will all be changed, 52 in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.53 For this perishable body must put on imperishability, and this mortal body must put on immortality. 54 When this perishable body puts on imperishability, and this mortal body puts on immortality, then the saying that is written will be fulfilled: "Death has been swallowed up in victory." 55 "Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?" 56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. 57 But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. 58 Therefore, my beloved, be steadfast, immovable, always excelling in the work of the Lord, because you know that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.

“If you’re shipping international, you have to call FedEx.”

It’s a commercial I’ve only seen once, but it did its job: it stuck in my head. If you’ve not seen it, the basic premise is this: you have one great idea in your life, and you spend the REST of your life reliving that single event.

The opening scene is some sort of business meeting, where the discussion topic is how to transport ‘the product’ internationally. The camera is set on a medium close up of the main character in the commercial, a somewhat geeky, skinny man with reddish hair, who finds it in himself to speak up and say the tag line: ‘if you’re shipping international, you HAVE to call FedEx.’ There’s a pause as the comment sinks in, and the room doesn’t exactly explode in pandemonium, but the sense is “of COURSE, that’s the answer we’ve been looking for all along!”

The funny part of the commercial is what follows. There are 3 or 4 ‘clips’ from the life of this man as the years progress, and in each one he’s recounting the initial event. In one scene, he’s sitting at a bar with some other men – it’s unclear if they are friends or just happen to be ‘within range’. In the next scene, he’s riding in a golf cart, and telling the man who is driving the cart about the same meeting. The last scene is at the man’s funeral, and the man who is giving the eulogy is saying “and how can we forget the time that he said …’

Let’s pull out a couple of words from the text: ALWAYS EXCELLING.

Always. It denotes a continuing action. The Greek is perisseuvonte" (Perisseúontes). It can otherwise be translated this way: Give Yourselves Fully (to the work of the Lord).

These last two weeks have been full ones. There’ve been conferences to attend both of the last two weekends. Youth functions, an Encuentro, there have been visits to make and errands to run. There’ve been books to read and papers to write, meetings to attend, and conversations to have. And there’s been a family to take care of. They have both been unusually heavy in terms of activities related to the Hispanic work. I had to make several trips to the Oyster and bait plant in White Stone and to the Free Health Clinic in Kilmarnock.

There’s a nighttime routine we go through with the kids at bedtime. Leslie or I will go into their bedrooms and help them into bed, or tuck them in. The routine is this: sometimes earlier in the process, sometimes later, when we first broach the subject of going to sleep, Judson will usually be the first to ask “can you sleep with me?” it used to stop at that, but lately it has become “can you sleep with me and can you sleep with me first?” “Sleep with me” in this context means you turn on the lullaby CD, and lay down on top of the covers for one, two or more songs, depending on what negotiation has taken place or what time it is or if you fall asleep within the first few measures of the song. On Hannah’s bed it’s easier, because there’s no bunk bed to crouch under. With Judson sleeping on the bottom bed of a bunk bed, it’s a little harder. There’s a crouching and turning and bending that has to happen in kind of a horizontal windmill move, where you lean forward, then bring your legs up onto the bed, then swing the upper part of the body back over to the left before settling onto the edge of the mattress.

This past Monday or Tuesday night, Judson had asked me to sleep with him. I don’t always. If I say ‘not tonight’ both Hannah and Judson just say ‘OK’ and go on, only rarely reiterating the request. This time I agreed. It had been, for some reason, a hard day between me and Judson. One of those days when I felt like I’d been anything BUT a good daddy. I agreed partly because of that and because it is SLOWLY starting to sink into my thick skull that in those situations, bedtime snuggles and quiet conversations can be a source of reconciliation and grace. That night, Judson was quiet for a little while (Hannah is usually the one to ask questions or talk about her day), and then he took my hand and held it up and looked at it. I remember doing the same thing with my father’s hands as a boy. At first I thought he was just going to look at it up close for a minute or two and then put it down. He didn’t. He took his right hand and closed it in a loose fist and turned it to where my hand was cupping his, and then he lowered both to his chest. After a pause, he brought up his left hand and moved it in next to his right hand, so that both his hands were nested in mine. He turned his face to me, gave me a quick smile, and then settled in and closed his eyes to go to sleep. A few minutes later, the song ended. I stayed a little longer, then he turned and I said “Goodnight, I love you”, gave him a kiss, got up and walked out of the room. Getting up is always a lot easier for me than getting down, I just drop off the side of the bed, into a crouch and stand up. That night, I wouldn’t have minded being the one to fall asleep first.

Paul, in the text, is defending the belief in the resurrection. If you’re keeping track, I touched on this same section of Corinthians back in September, right before Isabel paid us a visit. The first 7 verses of our passage this morning are the conclusion of his argument.

“Flesh and Blood versus the Kingdom, perishable versus imperishable, mystery … we will be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet … the perishable body must put on imperishability, the mortal body must put on immortality … Where O death is your victory? Where is your sting?”

It is a hymn. Paul is coming to the point, and his language takes on an eloquence that is perfectly matched to the subject at hand. After all this talk of mystery, of the perishable and imperishable, of the victory we have over sin and death in Christ, he comes out with the application: "Now, my brothers and sisters, in the light of these sublime truths, be steadfast in doing the Lord's work, knowing that he will reward you at his coming."
The point is this: doing the Lord’s work is not something you come up with once, and then recount for the rest of your life. Doing the Lord’s work is a lifetime commitment. It is a lifetime of learning, of figuring out just exactly what it means to be a follower of Christ.

Maria Teresa Palmer, a friend from Southern Seminary who is now pastor of a small Hispanic church in Raleigh NC, led a conference yesterday morning on the role of the pastor in not only Hispanic congregations, but congregations in general. A point she made almost in passing was that we, as followers of Christ, are to be about the business of reconciliation. If “God was in Christ, reconciling the world to God’s self,” then what better way to demonstrate … to flesh out … to LIVE out the reality of Christ in our lives than to be agents of reconciliation?

What does that mean for Jerusalem Baptist Church at Emmerton?

It means this: it means taking on a task that is more often than not difficult at best, and nearly impossible, at worst, at least in human terms. Being about reconciliation means looking life square in the face, understanding that we live in a broken world that is characterized by broken relationships, broken spirits, broken hearts, broken dreams, broken EVERYTHING, and STILL reaching out, across the breaks, across the hurtful and hateful words that have spilled out of our mouths or into our ears and cannot be recalled or blocked out, across the bruises that we have inflicted or sustained, reaching out to each other in forgiveness and in love and embracing each other as brothers and sisters, children of God, in desperate need of healing, of a re-connection with God, which we must find in how we care for and about each other.

It means picking up stakes and moving thousands of miles away, to work on providing aid and clean water to a people devastated by years of tyranny, and a brutal war – waged both against them and for them. It might even mean losing your life in the process.

It means sharing meals. It means visiting the sick and the lonely. It means inviting a stranger into a conversation with a friend. It means going out of your way. It means NOT being part of the ongoing disengagement we find rampant in our society, where neighbors don’t know neighbors, and brothers don’t speak to brothers, where mothers and fathers live just a few blocks away but could just as well live a few STATES away. It is by our connections that we figure out what it means to live in community. It is in the strength of those bonds that we find that shared community is our greatest source of strength. It is where we find that community means family.

It is where we learn to hold each other by the hand, sometimes resting our hands inside the hand of our father, and sometimes letting his hand rest on us.

Let’s pray.

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.