By Faith

Sunday, August 12th, 2007
Eleventh after Pentecost
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA
Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16

1Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. 2Indeed, by faith our ancestors received approval. 3By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was made from things that are not visible. …8By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to set out for a place that he was to receive as an inheritance; and he set out, not knowing where he was going. 9By faith he stayed for a time in the land he had been promised, as in a foreign land, living in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. 10For he looked forward to the city that has foundations, whose architect and builder is God. 11By faith he received power of procreation, even though he was too old—and Sarah herself was barren—because he considered him faithful who had promised. 12Therefore from one person, and this one as good as dead, descendants were born, “as many as the stars of heaven and as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore.” 13All of these died in faith without having received the promises, but from a distance they saw and greeted them. They confessed that they were strangers and foreigners on the earth, 14for people who speak in this way make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. 15If they had been thinking of the land that they had left behind, they would have had opportunity to return. 16But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God; indeed, he has prepared a city for them.

“Truth or Dare?”

Even today, probably 30 years since I played that game the last time, hearing those words echoes with the weight of the near-absolute power that peer pressure carried with it in my adolescence. If you are familiar with the game, no explanation is necessary. If you are not, it involved making one of two choices, and following through on that decision no matter what the requirement.

The challenge question, “Truth or Dare?” was presented, and you had to choose one or the other. To choose the first, Truth, meant that you had to answer truthfully any question put to you by the challenger. To choose the second, the dare, meant that whatever you were challenged to do, you had to do … usually it involved kissing one of the girls. Oddly enough, it never seemed to be brought to anyone’s attention that that might be more of a challenge for the person RECEIVING the kiss than the person GIVING it.

We were bored preteens and teenagers, and when we got together, if the weather was such that we couldn’t be outside, there were only so many rounds of Spades, or Rook you could play.

In retrospect, the thing about the game was that you played with people you trusted, people you knew. When it came to be your turn, you had to know the person challenging you enough to know what they might ask of you – whether a truth question or a dare to do something. It’s funny, but even that game worked its way into the foundation of those relationships that are still there today. Although we may communicate only once or twice a year, in some cases even less frequently, my fellow MK’s and I formed a bond that allows us to pick right up from the last time we spoke and carry on as if no time has passed. It’s hard to describe, but it speaks to a sense of family that transcends the facts of time and distance.

I believe that was what the writer of Hebrews was pointing to in this recounting of the history of points of faith of Abraham that we find in the text today for the folks who were going to read this letter – both the direct recipients as well as those who’ve become the subsequent recipients over the ensuing centuries.

There is a commonality that we share with Abraham that transcends time and distance; that resonates with where we come from and where we are headed, and it comes directly from how much we act on – and in – faith.

We could ask ourselves, for example, what kind of faith it took for those one hundred and forty-four people to step away from the congregation at Farnham church and establish themselves as a separate congregation here?
In the act of separating, the reason being lost to history, even though it was probably painful in many ways, there was also a sense of hope in the future of that group, a willingness to take a risk and move forward, into uncharted waters, to see what God had waiting for them there.

What kind of faith did it take for those same folks to decide to build a new, larger sanctuary when the log building they were meeting in grew small? The log building was probably small to begin with, so it may well have been as much out of necessity as vision, but even in that necessity, there was, I imagine, a sense that God would continue to bless the faithfulness of God’s people.

We sometimes forget that Sunday School has not always been a part of our weekly tradition as Baptists. It is a relatively recent addition to the Sunday morning routine, having only come into common practice around the same time the Royal Oaks congregation constituted itself into a church, and the concept as a whole is only a few years older than the church itself, having been ‘invented’, if the word applies, by a man by the name of Robert Raikes in England, in 1780.

Who knows, the issue of a Sunday School may have even had a part in the formation of the church itself, and the subsequent decision to build the larger building.

What kind of faith was it that compelled the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of the original members to decide to expand that original building, add classroom space to the front and back of the white frame structure?

There’s a wonderful passage in verse 13:

“All of these died in faith without having received the promises, but from a distance they saw and greeted them.”

Can you hear the faith in those words? (Read again) – but from a distance they saw and greeted them. To greet something or someone usually implies an act of welcome, an acceptance of that person for who he or she is, or that THING for what IT is. Here we are seeing a promise made by God to God’s people, and it was one that at the time was as yet unfulfilled. But the fact that it was unfulfilled did not stop Abraham and Isaac and Jacob from still living in the reality of the promise, living in the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen …

There’s a beauty in those last few verses of the passage that speak of what MIGHT have been the case, what COULD have happened, if Abraham and his descendants had chosen to look back on what they could be thankful for and chosen rather to focus on THAT rather than FORWARD, on what was to come – reading on:

“They confessed that they were strangers and foreigners on the earth, 14for people who speak in this way make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. 15If they had been thinking of the land that they had left behind, they would have had opportunity to return. 16But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one."

We’ve talked of this before. How often do we remind ourselves in our youth that this earth is not, in truth, our home? It becomes easier to think of the earth in that sense as one grows older, and is facing one’s own mortality, but it is almost absent from our thinking when we are young and supposedly have our whole life ahead of us.

We DO have to suppose that we have most of our lives ahead of us, don’t we, in order to function in the life we have? But as Christians we need to always keep in the back of our minds the fact that our home is indeed away from here, with God.

Verse 15 caught me by surprise. As often as I’ve read this passage, it had not until now jumped out at me like it did this time: (read)

What do you suppose the writer meant in saying ‘They would have had the opportunity to return’? I think the writer is saying the story would have ended there.

We are creatures of habit, and we would much rather hang onto what we know than take on something new, something unknown. But what if that something is something that God can’t wait to show us? What if it is the next step in our walk of faith, in our “long obedience in the same direction”, as Eugene Petersen said?
Is our faith the same forward-looking faith as that of our forbearers? Is ours a faith that will accept the reality of the promise of blessing and presence and perseverance even if we can’t, from this vantage point, see it clearly?

Is that a TRUTH we DARE to embrace? Do we KNOW God enough, do we TRUST God enough, is our relationship TO God such that we won’t hesitate to open up to what it is God has planned for us, even if it makes us, in the short term, uncomfortable – because all new things do, after all?

The last phrase from verse 16 is both a promise and a warning.

"Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God; indeed, he has prepared a city for them."

Let it be so with us, to not be ashamed to follow God into this new and different land, into what we have not done before, or known before, because what is before us bears little resemblance to what has BEEN before.

We know human nature has remained unchanged, and we know also that the only true change in a person’s life comes through following Christ as Lord, and that MESSAGE will not change, but our method, our presentation of that message HAS to change if it is to be heard, if it is to be given an audience in the world that is changing around us every day.

Let’s pray.

Growing In Christ

Sunday, July 29th, 2007
Ninth after Pentecost
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA
Colossians 2:6-19

6 As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, continue to live your lives in him, 7rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving. 8See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the universe, and not according to Christ. 9For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, 10and you have come to fullness in him, who is the head of every ruler and authority. 11In him also you were circumcised with a spiritual circumcision, by putting off the body of the flesh in the circumcision of Christ; 12when you were buried with him in baptism, you were also raised with him through faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead. 13And when you were dead in trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive together with him, when he forgave us all our trespasses, 14erasing the record that stood against us with its legal demands. He set this aside, nailing it to the cross. 15He disarmed the rulers and authorities and made a public example of them, triumphing over them in it. 16Therefore do not let anyone condemn you in matters of food and drink or of observing festivals, new moons, or Sabbaths. 17These are only a shadow of what is to come, but the substance belongs to Christ. 18Do not let anyone disqualify you, insisting on self-abasement and worship of angels, dwelling on visions, puffed up without cause by a human way of thinking, 19and not holding fast to the head, from whom the whole body, nourished and held together by its ligaments and sinews, grows with a growth that is from God.

I don’t know the exact amount, but it was during my 15th year that I grew somewhere around three inches, maybe more in the span of THAT year. One of the lasting memories from that time, aside from seemingly outgrowing shoes and pants on a monthly basis, is the memory of lying in my bed and writhing in pain – at the aching and throbbing in my joints – especially in my elbows and knees – as I went through that growth spurt. I remember literally crying out for my momma late into the night to come do something – anything – whatever it is that only mothers can do to bring comfort to their children … and after a while, usually after Jimmy would get up out of HIS bed, which was between my bedroom and our parents’, and go tell momma that I was keeping him awake.

Obviously, I made it through. Any aches and pains I feel nowadays is due to a very different process from the one I was going through then, but that is another story for another day.

I’m afraid that before too long WE’LL be starting to hear OUR kids calling US for the same reason as I called my mother then. We’ve already had a few nights when Caleb has called out to us and, from his description of how he is hurting, he may be getting a head start on his growing pains.

Everything that grows goes through changes. Richard, the leopard Gecko we own, periodically molts, sheds his outer layer of skin as he grows bigger. He develops these milky white patches that extend along his body, or around his middle and legs, and then one day he’s back to his regular coloring, and sometimes there will be a patch of skin still in the case he is in, but most of the time we don’t see it – since he eats it.

An interesting bit of information that I gathered while on vacation, do you know how much of our body humans replace in the course of a year? In terms of a cell that is in any given place in or on our body, 98% of those cells are replaced by different cells at the end of a year. Pretty amazing, huh?

The Christians at Colossae were growing as well. Epaphras, who brought the Gospel to them, Paul calls ‘our beloved fellow servant … a faithful minister of Christ on your behalf.’ There is little doubt that their initial introduction to the good news of Jesus Christ was a solid foundation.

What becomes clear in the reading of the letter, though, is that although that foundation was laid, there were some influences in the Colossian environment that began to tinge and twist the direction of the deepening understanding of the Gospel on the part of the Colossian Christians. While it is not explicitly spelled out for us, there are hints about what those influences might have been. The references to circumcision and the law would lead us to believe that some of the problems in the church were coming from Jewish Christians who were insisting that gentile persons who came to know Christ go through the necessary religious rituals to become JEWISH before becoming ‘fully Christian’. There are references to elemental spirits – earth, wind, fire, the sun, the moon – all those point to the possible influence from pagan or animistic religions that predated the Jewish presence in the city, and probably the Greek influence as well. References to ‘philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition’ could be understood to be a reference to that movement … really more of a mindset … that today we refer to in general as Gnosticism – a philosophy and a theology that combined Christian elements, pagan practices, Greek philosophical thought and even some mystical Jewish ideas into an amalgam of understanding that was apparently heavy on the thought side, but not so much on the action side.

The central point of the entire letter to the Colossians is found in the first two verses of our text this morning:

6 As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, continue to live your lives in him, 7rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.

He gets it out there early, and then drives it home point by point. Sometimes, in order to grow, especially in terms of knowledge, we need to hear something from a different person that we may have grown deaf to from someone else who has been telling us the same thing for the longest time.

Paul brings out the central tenet of the Christian faith – the divinity of Christ, first by simply naming Jesus that – in duplicate – notice how he says ‘As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord,’ the word Christ is from the derived from the word Kyrie, which MEANS “Lord” in Greek. So in a way he is saying ‘Lord Jesus the Lord’. After naming Jesus Lord, he then spells it out as plainly as it can be said in verse 9: “For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily,” in case there was any question about what he meant when he called Jesus Lord.

He then runs through the list of what seems to be all those things that are trying to distract the Christians at Colossae from their true faith and calling – making Jesus Lord of their lives.

What does this mean for Jerusalem Baptist Church at Emmerton?

You see, all these other things have their glamour, their interesting and even enthralling aspects, like the Shroud of Turin, or the remains of Noah’s Ark on Mt. Ararat, or the time and date of Christ’s return; ultimately, they are not at the heart of what it means to be a follower of Jesus. So while Paul called the Colossians back to the central truth of the Gospel, we here at Jerusalem are also called to remember that central truth of the Gospel that compels us to proclaim Christ as OUR Lord. That one act in which God in Christ redeemed us and gave us the chance to be children of God, inheritors of the covenant, and ‘little Christs’. We are called to LIVE OUT what we say we believe by truly making Jesus LORD of our lives.

(communion)

We are called to service and to sacrifice. That is why it is so important to remember that when we gather around the table that we remember that THAT is what it is all about.

Mellowed With Age

Sunday, July 2nd, 2007
Sixth after Pentecost
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA
Galatians 6:1-18

1 My friends, if anyone is detected in a transgression, you who have received the Spirit should restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness. Take care that you yourselves are not tempted. 2Bear one another’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. 3For if those who are nothing think they are something, they deceive themselves. 4All must test their own work; then that work, rather than their neighbor’s work, will become a cause for pride. 5For all must carry their own loads. 6Those who are taught the word must share in all good things with their teacher. 7Do not be deceived; God is not mocked, for you reap whatever you sow. 8If you sow to your own flesh, you will reap corruption from the flesh; but if you sow to the Spirit, you will reap eternal life from the Spirit. 9So let us not grow weary in doing what is right, for we will reap at harvest-time, if we do not give up. 10So then, whenever we have an opportunity, let us work for the good of all, and especially for those of the family of faith.
11See what large letters I make when I am writing in my own hand! 12It is those who want to make a good showing in the flesh that try to compel you to be circumcised—only that they may not be persecuted for the cross of Christ. 13Even the circumcised do not themselves obey the law, but they want you to be circumcised so that they may boast about your flesh. 14May I never boast of anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. 15For neither circumcision nor uncircumcision is anything; but a new creation is everything! 16As for those who will follow this rule—peace be upon them, and mercy, and upon the Israel of God. 17From now on, let no one make trouble for me; for I carry the marks of Jesus branded on my body. 18May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit, brothers and sisters. Amen.

Have you ever done something that at the time seemed terribly necessary, but in retrospect was a little – or maybe a lot – excessive?

As a sophomore in college, I had one year of being on my own under my belt, my parents were thousands of miles away back in Chile, and my closest sibling was three hours away in Louisville.

My college years were those crucial years when I began to figure out for MYSELF what I believed – about life, about interpersonal relationships, about society, government, faith, and God. I met and made friends with people vastly different from myself, engaged in ‘heavy deep and real’ conversations about all the topics I just mentioned, and basically began to hammer out what it was that was MINE – what *I* accepted, and stood for, and felt was worth defending.

In the process, as is likely to happen any time one is searching, I was initially drawn to the more strident voices – the revolutionary zealots, the black and white legalists, the folks who kept things clear and simple – those being the operative words – for the rest of us, who very quickly grew tired of the cacophony – the loud mix – of voices clamoring for our attention.

I wasn’t alone on my quest. My three or four or five roommates – depending on which year or which semester you ask me about – were also engaged in the same search. We pretty much all came from a Christian background, we were all raised to one degree or another in church, so we were all familiar with the language of salvation and redemption and sanctification and all that. What we were trying to work out was how our faith – and our growing awareness of its place in our lives – was going to AFFECT HOW we lived our lives day in and day out.

To us, at the time, the key term was HOLINESS. What did it mean to live holy lives, imitators of Christ, in the world but not of it? What it translated into was a series of steps taken to differentiate ourselves from ‘the rest of the world’. We had all been exposed to a complacent Christianity – the model whereby you went to church for what YOU could get out of it – where you were not terribly concerned with who or how many people were lost and dying so long as you had a comfortably padded pew and a heated or air-conditioned sanctuary to sit in while the preacher told you how wonderful, how blessed, how righteous, how superior you were. Our music of choice was by a man I’ve mentioned to you before – Keith Green. Our anthem was his song entitled ‘Asleep in the Light’. To just give you an idea of his style: a line from the refrain of the song:

“Jesus rose from the dead, and you, you can’t even get out of bed.”

We each had our music that we listened to. In those days it was still either Cassette tapes or records. And being recent teenagers, we’d accumulated a fair amount of music. At some point in the fall of 1982, I think it was, things sort of came to a head in terms of the significance of living for God. There was an “either or” choice to make. Christ words of either being FOR him or AGAINST him were ringing in our ears as we looked at the records we’d collected over our respective teen years.

I don’t remember exactly who it was that started it, but one of my roommates came back to the apartment from classes one afternoon and began to break and throw away all his ‘non-Christian’ albums. The fever spread pretty quickly, and before too long there was a fairly extensive collection of records in pieces in our living room.

I remember at the time having only slightly mixed feelings about what I was doing. There was an element of needing to be willing to do the extreme in order to do the ordinary things that might be required of us as followers of Christ, and in that sense I didn’t have a lot of problems destroying some of the better pop music from the 60’s and 70’s on the living room floor. On another level, I remember feeling separated from the event – watching it from a slight remove – as though it wasn’t me that was doing it, but someone else – someone I wasn’t yet sure I wanted to become.

At this point you might be asking “So, Kenny, what connection does this long autobiographical anecdote have to do with what Paul is saying to the Galatians at the end of his letter to them?”

Good question!

You see, the Galatians were dealing with newness. They were new to the Gospel … actually, at that point, it might be more accurate to say that the Gospel was still NEW to anyone who came in contact with it – anyone who heard it or even to anyone who was preaching or teaching it. The group of people who were first called followers of ‘The Way’ and who only later became known as “Christians” were still trying to figure out what the Gospel Jesus Christ brought meant to them and for them. Some of those followers locked onto the idea that the emblematic theme of the Gospel was freedom, like the folks in the church in Corinth, who Paul wrote to around the same time he wrote this letter to the churches in Galatia. Others tried to somehow fit the Gospel into their already-settled worldview – those who were raised in a long and strict tradition of obeying the law of God and following regulations that governed nearly every aspect of their lives couldn’t imagine something coming from God to be so outside the bounds of what they had come to equate with holiness with the weight of centuries behind it. It just didn’t seem possible that one could accept Christ as the Messiah and NOT adhere to the rules and regulations of the people with whom God had entered into covenant so many centuries before.

Paul spends the bulk of his letter upbraiding the folks in the churches about what it means to HIM to call himself an apostle of Christ and what it means for THEM to be FOLLOWERS of Christ – apart from the rule of the Law of Moses. And it is in these last two paragraphs that in some ways he gets down to nuts and bolts. He’s argued the theology up until now, but he’s getting down to what it means ‘hands on’ to be a follower of Jesus.

His first entreaty – his first request – could actually be put at the opposite end of the spectrum from which he spent most of his letter --

1 My friends, if anyone is detected in a transgression, you who have received the Spirit should restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness.

If you take a few minutes and read through the letter to the Galatians in one of the more expressive translations, or versions, or adaptations of scripture, you’ll get a sense of the language Paul uses in talking to the Galatians, and in places it is anything BUT gentle.

And yet, Paul comes to the end of the letter, and his words take on a tone like that of a father speaking to his grown children – a more … subdued tone – a calmer tone even – where he begins to simply list ways the folks he introduced to the gospel can continue to live true to that gospel. Bear one another’s burdens, don’t let yourselves become too proud – too ‘big for your britches’, as we might hear around here. Take an honest look at yourself and what YOU’VE accomplished before you go judging what others have done. If you learn something from someone, show your appreciation to them by helping them out. Don’t get tired of doing what is right. Work for the good of ALL, especially those of the community of faith.

Isn’t that interesting? At a time and coming from a place where any given religion would preach that the good you do should primarily be kept within “the family”, so to speak, here Paul says don’t be exclusive with the good you do. Spread it out. INCLUDE the community of faith, but don’t LIMIT it to them.

And in that final paragraph we see one of the most personal notes in the New Testament -- See what large letters I make when I am writing in my own hand! As was generally practiced, up to this point Paul had been dictating his letter, but he came to a place where he wanted to make as heavy and deep and real an impression as he COULD on the folks he was writing to – and in order to do that he made it plain to them that HE was the one from whom the letter was coming – he makes a note about those who are demanding that the new followers of Christ fit into the mold they have created for themselves of what it means to live a Holy life – the outward signs that one is ‘right’ with God.

How does this relate to the life of Jerusalem Baptist Church at Emmerton on this, the 8th of July of 2007?

Here is where we and the Galatians can end up figuratively sitting next to each other in the pew or the choir loft or in one of these mini-pews up here behind me.

It is so easy to make our faith into something about the outward stuff – our appearance, our dress, our hair, whether or not we have pierced … WHATEVERS, or a tattoo here and there … our skin color, the car we drive, how we talk, what Bible we carry, where we work, what songs we prefer to hear … we are prone to dispose of those who do ANY of those things differently and relegate them to ‘outsider’ status, or we are determined to make them comply with how WE think faith should be expressed when in reality it is God’s own incredibly varied and imaginative life that can be expressed in as many ways as there are people on the earth that we have to allow for. Paul boils it down to this:

14May I never boast of anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. 15For neither circumcision nor uncircumcision is anything; but a new creation is everything!

Do we hear what he is saying here? Paul is saying that it isn’t about ANY of the outward stuff – whether it is the lack of or presence of a foreskin or the lack of or presence of a suit, or a bonnet, or a skirt it is irrelevant. What matters is whether or not we are a NEW CREATION in Christ – whether or not we have taken the gospel to heart – and let IT transform US – that is everything, and ultimately, the ONLY thing that matters!

Let’s pray.

There is no Longer

Sunday, June 24th 2007
Fourth after Pentecost
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA
Galatians 3:23-29 (Theme: Our ‘Oneness’ in Christ)

23 Now before faith came, we were imprisoned and guarded under the law until faith would be revealed. 24Therefore the law was our disciplinarian until Christ came, so that we might be justified by faith. 25But now that faith has come, we are no longer subject to a disciplinarian, 26for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. 27As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. 28There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. 29And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise.

This past week, ours wasn’t the only Vacation Bible School. The Family Development Center was holding its Vacation Bible School each morning, for the children who attend day care there. Nancy Taliaferro had asked me several weeks ago, as she has each year since we’ve come, to take part in their program and bring a “Missions Moment” each day – a short devotional thought on what it means to be a missionary.

On Thursday morning I asked the children if they could imagine what the world would be like if those first twelve disciples HADN’T begun to spread the Good News of Jesus Christ around the world. What would our world look like if they had simply faded into the lost pages of history as a tiny footnote to the Roman Empire?

We talked about how there wouldn’t be any churches – Christian churches, at least – and about how people might not be as kind to each other. There are other things that came to mind that the children didn’t bring up. Universities – do you realize that most of the institutions of higher learning that got started before the mid 19th century were started as church-related institutions? The same could be said for hospitals and orphanages, schools and museums.

We can ask ourselves if these institutions would have come into existence had the influence of faith not been present, and there is a pretty good likelihood that they would have. But the puzzle would be what form would they have taken had that influence NOT been present?

I do not want to present a revisionist view of history this morning. Yes, there were – and are – excesses and abuses, and terrible, terrible things that came about because of the power struggles within the church as well as from the simple fact that the church – in whatever denomination you would care to name – obtained worldly power. You’ve heard me say it before; there is a terrible track record that we as the current body of Christ in our local community have to face up to, OWN up to, and work to undo when we claim to be representatives of the Lord Jesus Christ. In some ways, the deck is already stacked against us before we even start.

Those who would rather keep their preconceptions as just that – preconceptions – and not open that prejudice to what might actually BE a vastly different reality – will be our harshest critics – that is, AFTER we ourselves are done. Or at least I HOPE that is the way it would be. We DO, as people of faith, live in a state of grace, but even in that existence, we must be open-eyed when it comes to admitting fault, or wrongdoing, or shortcomings. Whether outside our family of faith or inside, we must always be prepared to ask for and extend forgiveness when we DON’T do as Christ would have done.

But it is precisely FOR those who HAVE their mind made up about us that we are even MORE compelled to show them the radical – the ROOT DIFFERENCE – which the Gospel confronts this world with.

You see, what we see and hear and observe every day is a world based on a binary system – that is, a system made up of two parts – THEM, and US. And it is EVERYWHERE. Do you rent or own? Do you eat in or dine out? Do you shop for name brands or go to the thrift store? Do you drive a foreign or domestic car?

Or let’s think in a slightly different way; do you sing hymns or praise songs in worship? Do you read from the King James or the NIV, NRSV, TEV, The Message … THAT list can go on for some time… do you wear jeans or suits to church? Do you sit quietly or stand and yell ‘amen’ during the preaching? Do you pray long or short? Do you use big words or plain speech? Do you …?

Well, you get the picture, I think.

It’s funny. As a people who are who we are based on the understanding that it isn’t through anything we’ve done or brought to the table except for faith – and even THAT did not come from us, but was drawn out through the Holy Spirit’s presence – we sure do like to set up walls.

The first century world understood all too well what this binary system involved – maybe even better than WE do – here’s the list:

Circumcised / Uncircumcised
Jew / Gentile
Free / Slave
Male / Female

The radicalness of what Paul is saying here and what Jesus was preaching is this: Jesus wasn’t in the business of moving us from one side of that list to the other – it wasn’t about putting us in the more favored slot. It was about doing away with the distinctions altogether. It was about realizing that the true measure of our worth is ONLY to be found in the light of Christ.

And if in that light of Christ we are ALL made Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise, then there IS NO OTHER VALID DISTINCTION that we can, should, or NEED to stand on in order to distinguish ourselves one from another.

What does this mean for Jerusalem Baptist Church at Emmerton?

Sometimes we make statements that, though stated as fact, have within them more than a little wishful thinking.

“He’s going to get better,” “I think they are going to pull this one off,” or “Jerusalem will end with a winning season this year.” There is one statement in the passage this morning that at first struck me as though it might be something like that. It is found in verse 28 – the very last phrase:

“For all of you are one in Christ Jesus.”
It comes at the end of that list of opposites; Jew/Gentile, slave/free, male/female; and serves to UNDO that opposition between each side.

Or at least that is what it is SUPPOSED to do. The question for us here today is: are we TRULY living as though we are one in Christ?

As I mentioned at the beginning of the message, we had our Vacation Bible School this week. It was a smaller group than it has been in the past, but it was a precious time. And speaking totally objectively … nah … can’t do it. Not with this: the folks from Jerusalem really outdid themselves this time. It wasn’t just the labor and the time involved, it was the willingness to do it all outdoors each evening. It was rough those first two nights, when the temperatures were in the 90’s, but we caught a break the last three nights, with cooling breezes and then cooler temperatures.

What I have always enjoyed about VBS here on the neck is that it ends up being a joint effort between churches. It’s always been the case to see KIDS from one church go to another church’s VBS, but there were folks from at least two if not three other congregations who pitched in and helped in some way with the organizing and carrying out of the VBS.

It seemed to be the case, for this week at least, that we really WERE living as though we are one in Christ, and for that we can give thanks.

But the question is – and will always be a challenge as well as a question – can we live like that EVERY DAY?

Let’s pray.

Scandalous Behavior

Sunday, June 17th, 2007
Third after Pentecost
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton
Luke 7:36-8:3
Rev. Leslie Park, preaching

How many of us would consider ourselves to be a good judge of people? Within a few minutes of meeting someone, we have them “figured out” and can sum up who they are, what they are about, and what they might want from us. Many times this takes place without any exchange of conversation. We size them up, we look at how they are dressed, how their body is shaped, how they come across, how they move. We construct narratives in our mind about the person based on shockingly inadequate information. And this information is collected as much from our preconceptions of them as from what is actually said in a conversation. Yeah, I am a pretty good judge of people. And sometimes I think that is a good thing.

But you know what I cannot stand? I cannot stand when people think they know all about me without getting to know me. They have preconceptions about who and what I am because I am a woman, because I am an ordained woman, because I am in my forties, because I am a preacher’s wife, because I am Southern Baptist. So, basically what I am saying is that I can’t stand to be treated the way I treat other people…

In today’s passage that Lindsey read, we have three main characters: a Pharisee named Simon, Jesus, and “a woman in the city, who was a sinner.” Before we even begin, we have some preconceptions about at least two of the people in this passage.

Simon, being a Pharisee, was a lay leader in the church who was constantly concerned with upholding the letter of the law. Pharisees do not have a positive track record throughout the Gospel narrative. More often than not, they are involved in proving Jesus inept in the keeping of Mosaic law, inadequate in teaching people how to follow God, and inconvenient in the context of their religious obsession with keeping the status quo. I mean, he eats with tax collectors and sinners, for goodness sake! Look in the passage just before our text today. In v. 34 “The Son of Man has come eating and drinking, and you say, ‘Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’” My goodness, he insists on eating with all the wrong people… and here we find him at the home of Simon the Pharisee.

The next person that enters the story is the woman. She is described as “a woman in the city, who was a sinner.” Well, that can only mean one thing. She was a prostitute. And everybody at Simon’s house that night new exactly what she did for a living. She was disgusting to those who found their salvation in keeping the law. They might not have known her name, but that didn’t matter. They knew what she did. They knew her complete disregard for propriety. They knew how she lived her life everyday. Now, here she was, in Simon’s house, blatantly crossing that line of propriety by exposing them all to her uncleanliness. Isn’t that just like a woman in the city who is a sinner.

We have our perceptions about Simon the Pharisee. We have our perceptions about the sinful woman. But let’s get into the story and see how each of these then perceive Jesus. Look at verse 39.

“Now when the Pharisee who had invited him saw it, he said to himself, ‘If this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what kind of woman this is who is touching him – that she is a sinner.”

Before even a word is spoken in this passage, we have Simon making the claim that Jesus must be clueless. If he really knew what was going on, he would have nothing to do with this woman. If he really was a prophet, he would know who and what she was and he would never have allowed this to happen.

The question then occurs to me, “Why did Simon invite Jesus to his house for supper?” Was it to scope him out? Had he heard him teach? Did he see him heal the widow’s son at Nain? Was he looking for proof that Jesus was a fraud? Maybe at some point, deep down inside he had hoped that this was the one promised to God’s people in Isaiah. But now, after this incident, he realizes that if Jesus cannot even perceive what is directly before him, how can he possibly understand things of God? Basically, Simon writes Jesus off. Notice that Simon is speaking to himself here. There has been no verbal exchange between the three of them yet. This by itself is a powerful lesson indeed. People write each other off; they dismiss each other even before a word is said. External appearances matter so much for us, and many of us are so quick to rush to judgment, that we will cut off a person even before the person has uttered one word. That is what the Pharisee has done here, to both Jesus and the woman.

There is an alternative perception of Jesus that comes out of the story, and that is how the woman perceives him. Her actions, though incredibly intimate, are not driven by erotic desire. She is not looking to get another “customer.” She genuinely pours out her heart to Jesus, perceiving in him someone who can make her life whole. Do you think she was naive about who and what she had become? Don’t you think she knew how she would be treated in the home of Simon the Pharisee? In this Gospel she joins the ranks of those outsiders who experience Jesus’ healing power like the centurion, the paralytic, the leper, and the Gerasene demoniac. Did Jesus have her in mind when he said in Luke 5:31-32, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I have come to call no the righteous but sinners to repentance”? Ironically, Jesus was answering a question posed by the Pharisees and scribes about why he and the disciples eat and drink with… you guessed it… tax collectors and sinners!

What truth is Luke suggesting here? Those who think that they are secure, those who have arrived, those who have perceived the world in ways that lead to their superiority and comfort… Those are the ones that are least able to be open to the word of Jesus to them. By acting on my own preconceptions, have I placed myself in a position of not being open to the word of Jesus for me? Hmm… not a very comfortable place to be.

As we keep reading in the passage, we see a delicious irony unfold. The more that Simon thinks that Jesus is clueless to what is going on, the more Jesus not only sees the woman for who she is, he sees Simon for what he is. When the passage was read, did you wonder why Simon did not extend the traditional practices of hospitality toward Jesus? Why didn’t he offer water for Jesus to wash with? Why didn’t he greet Jesus with warmth when Jesus entered his home? Was he more concerned with treading a fine line? Maybe he wants to make sure all of his bases are covered. If it is true that Jesus is a fraud, then Simon can safely say that he never "really" accepted Jesus, despite having him over to dinner. If it is true that Jesus is the "real deal," from Simon's perspective, he can claim that he was the first to have Jesus over to dinner. Simon is trying to have it both ways, but Jesus nicely slices and dices him to show that he has it neither way. He simply is a bad host. And, as the parable shows, he is a bad host who doesn't know the value of forgiveness.

But Jesus doesn’t stop there. He does something rather incredible. After he tells the story of two debtors, which Simon seemed to understand, in one of the most striking features of the passage, Jesus speaks to Simon but turns toward the woman. When addressing Simon about the woman's behavior, Jesus faces the woman. He says to Simon, "Do you see this woman?" (v. 44). But stop and think for a second. He is facing her, seeing her, looking into her, as he speaks to Simon. It is almost as if he is saying, "I am looking at her. Do you really see her, Simon?" She is one whom Jesus will say has loved much (v. 47). Jesus knew that beneath her seemingly vulgar display resided a heart of faith and love. She is the one who has shown great love, because she realized how much she had been forgiven. It is as if Jesus is saying to Simon, "Can't you see that, Simon? Are you, the one who thinks he is so perceptive about the world; are you really that blind to reality?"

All these contrasting perceptions ought to make us ask the question of what we perceive as we look at people. Are we ones who jump to conclusions? Do we judge primarily or simply by the externals? Will we be smart enough to know how to undermine those who think they perceive a lot without dishonoring them? Jesus has a remarkable way of dealing with the woman and Simon. This passage challenges us to rethink how we perceive the world and people.

But what about the parable? Jesus sees Simon's rush to judgment and wants to point out to Simon how this rush to judgment actually damages his own soul. But how do you do that? How do you tell someone that what they are doing is hurtful? Do you just tell the person, "Simon, you are such a jerk! Can’t you realize what is happening!" Well, Jesus doesn't do this. What Jesus actually does takes lots of insight, patience, and love. To tell a story to illustrate your point reflects a higher order of intelligence than merely to criticize a person for his conduct. To tell a story means that you respect the other person and that you let him interpret it in his own way. So, Jesus will honor Simon's independence of mind while, at the same time, telling a story which allows him "space" to repent and change his life, or not. Could that be another lesson for us?

The story Jesus tells relates to debtors and creditors. Jesus doesn't just pull this story "out of the hat." The theme of release of debtors is central to his message in Luke’s gospel. What anchors Jesus' message in Luke is the image of the Jubilee year of release of debts in the Old Testament. Indeed, Jesus has the disciples pray: "Forgive us our debts, as we forgive those indebted to us." Certainly there is a "spiritual" interpretation of that passage, but Luke has a grittier Jesus in mind.--he will actually challenge the system of ethics in his day by calling for the total forgiveness of debts. So, when Jesus tells the parable of the debtor and the creditor in this passage he is infusing it with language and concepts derived from his whole orientation to ministry. His ministry is about liberation of the oppressed, about the canceling of debts, about the acceptance of unacceptable people into the central places in the Kingdom of God.

Jesus' parable is straightforward enough. The debtor who is forgiven more will love the creditor more. Simon has easily gotten the right answer. But does he see the point? We never really know if he does. But the open-endedness of the text is no problem for us, because it means that Jesus' question to Simon still rings in our ears today.

So whose behavior is scandalous? Is it the woman’s behavior that is scandalous? Is it how she makes her living? Is it scandalous daring to enter the home of a Pharisee and risk contaminating all that are gathered around the table? Not to mention letting her hair down in the presence of men and offering hospitality that was seemingly overlooked by the host in such an intimate and familiar way?

Or is it Simon whose behavior is scandalous, only concerned with his preconceptions and how other people keep the rules that he failed to see himself for the sinner that he really was?

What about our behavior? Do our preconceptions of people stand in the way of us entering into relationship with them? Do we place ourselves in the position of missing out on God’s amazing grace by focusing only on the color of someone’s skin, their inability to speak the English language, their faith tradition, what they wear to church? Do we discount relationships that can show us how true forgiveness and great love have the power to transform even the most narrow of minds and the hardest of hearts?

If we truly pray the way that Jesus taught us to pray, “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors…” then there is only one question left for us to answer:

“What kind of debtor am I?”

Let us pray.

As Often As

Sunday, June 10th 2007
Second after Pentecost
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA
1 Corinthians 11:23-32

23 For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread, 24 and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” 25 In the same way he took the cup also, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” 26 For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes. 27 Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be answerable for the body and blood of the Lord. 28 Examine yourselves, and only then eat of the bread and drink of the cup. 29 For all who eat and drink without discerning the body, eat and drink judgment against themselves. 30 For this reason many of you are weak and ill, and some have died. 31 But if we judged ourselves, we would not be judged. 32 But when we are judged by the Lord, we are disciplined so that we may not be condemned along with the world.

In case you’re wondering, it isn’t a communion Sunday. We didn’t accidentally forget to prepare the elements and lay them out on the table. The flowers are supposed to be there.

What I’d like to speak to you about this morning is the nature of sacrifice.

I had an idea yesterday on my way back from Richmond; an idea of how to bring this message to life in a different way – a very CONCRETE way. It was going to involve some heavy lifting. I was going to have a couple of you help me move the communion table up and put it over here covering these steps up to the platform, and then ask someone else to help me move this little pew back here and move it across these OTHER steps over HERE. Then I was going to move these two platform chairs and the two larger ones that are down there and line them up across the edge of the platform here… effectively setting up a sort of barricade, in case someone wanted to try to … say … come up and get close to, oh, I don’t know … Jesus, here in the baptistery painting – he IS extending his hand out in a gesture of invitation, after all.

So I ran the idea by my … editor, and, though at first it seemed to be a pretty good thing, the more we thought about it, the more it had the potential for becoming too distracting, to have people leave the service wondering why all that furniture was being moved around, to say nothing of running the risk of having someone pull a muscle, or worse. So we decided to keep it in the realm of the imagination for the time being and spare my back and theirs.

But I DO want you to imagine it, and hold that image in your minds – of all this furniture up here being lined up like an obstacle course across the front here, with no real easy way to get UP to the painting on the baptistery wall – to reach Jesus, as it were.

A couple of weeks ago our nation celebrated Memorial Day, and we held our Worship Service here incorporating the program of the VFW’s Local Chapter. We were reminded then of the sacrifice – or rather, the sacrifices – plural – that Memorial Day is dedicated to: those of the men and women who gave their lives for their country. We have that fresh in our memories. But what other forms of sacrifice can we envision? What other sacrifices have we benefited from, either personally or as a congregation, and what PROMPTED those sacrifices to begin with?

We would probably do well to further narrow the scope of our thinking. We are, after all, speaking in relation to the church, and our part in the life of the church.

I want us to do some memory exercises. Think back, as far back as you can, to the first person outside your immediate family – if you were raised GOING to church, if not, the question still stands – the first person you remember by name KNOWING in church. Was he or she a Sunday School teacher? A preschool or nursery worker? A youth or children’s worker or leader?

Now in thinking about that person – was their impact on you positive or negative? Did knowing them – or knowing that you would probably be seeing them again the next time you went to church something you looked forward to or something you dreaded?

Now think, if the person you thought of initially was a positive influence, can you think of anyone who was not that positive an influence on your choice to return or not to church? And if the first person that came to mind WAS a negative influence, can you think of someone with whom you came in contact LATER in life that influenced you in the other direction?

It may seem a little strange to ask you to think of people who dissuaded you from coming to church. As well as those who encouraged you TO come to church, but there’s a reason for that.

First, I bring it up because it needs to be addressed. We do as much harm to ourselves by the attitudes that escape us that are not in the spirit of love as any outside influence or temptation or outright antagonist. We need to hold ourselves accountable and not give in to the temptation of finding fault everywhere but … here. (point to self)

Second, to name that person or perhaps that event that turned us OFF to church and YET to be sitting here today HEARING this is to grant that in spite of that, we are STILL here, or we are BACK here. We still have a longing and a desire to be in community with a family of faith.

Third, I think it is safe to say that we have all – MOSTLY all – lived through situations that in and of themselves would easily have been enough to make us stop going to church altogether. You’ve heard me tell of a couple of those times in my own life. And yet, here I am, and here YOU are.

So let’s examine what it is that brought us back.

I’d like for us to think of what it was. Was it in the form of a person? Was it some prompting in another form? I can tell you almost the precise instance when it happened for me – in a service during a message about the prodigal son – I’ve shared it with you before – to have the image of a loving God who is running towards ME to welcome me back home was probably one of the most transformative moments – in the long run – in my life. But it wasn’t an isolated event – THAT in itself WAS a single event, but it took place in the context of a surrounding community of faith in which that message was received. The acceptance I felt from that church family reinforced for me what I had heard that February morning in 1988. I saw and felt their love and acceptance as an extension of that love and acceptance that the Pastor had spoken of.

Is there anyone who would like to share briefly either simply the name of a person, or in a few short sentences an event that drew you into or back into a family of faith?

‘The Painted Veil’ is the story of a young couple, a British Doctor and his new, spoiled and selfish wife trying to move on with their lives after the discovery of infidelity on her part. They arrive in the middle of an outbreak of Cholera in a small town in the interior of China and are barely on speaking terms. He becomes engrossed in the work of trying to identify the source of the outbreak and how to stop it. She ends up finding work in the local orphanage, run by French nuns to occupy her time, since she literally has nothing else to do.

In one of the most poignant scenes in the movie, she and the Abbess – the Mother Superior – are in a conversation about love and duty, and the Abbess speaks longingly of the time when she was young and in love with God – that was why she took her vows – but in the ensuing years and decades, she says, she and God have had their arguments, he has disappointed her, she has failed him, they have come to a place in their relationship where they exist in a state of studied indifference. It is a terribly sad statement. But she goes on to speak of that being the difference between doing something out of love versus doing something out of duty. Her concluding comment is something like this:

“To do something you love out of passion burns bright, but only for a short time. To do something out of duty can last, but easily becomes drudgery. But when love and duty are one, ah, then grace is within you.”

Thinking back on those people we mentioned or who came to mind a few minutes ago, do you think their influence was born out of a sense of duty, or love, or that grace-filled blending of both?

Today’s question is not what does this MEAN, but what does this have to DO with Jerusalem Baptist Church at Emmerton?

In your worship bulletins this morning there was an additional sheet. It is the Church and Sunday School Service Sheet. It heralds the beginning of the process whereby the nominating committee begins its work. Over the next couple of months the committee will meet, and meet again, and in between the meetings will be contacting different members of the congregation to see if they would like to participate in the life of the church in a more hands-on way. What that sheet has on it is a list of those roles and responsibilities that are available within the church and help this body of believers function and fulfill its duties day in and day out throughout the year.

And recognizing that we are frail children of dust and fallible human beings, there are also blanks to be filled in if you have seen a need that is unfulfilled, or have an idea for something new and different that we haven’t thought of already, or would like to volunteer to do something that might spark a new fire in others in this family of faith. New ideas are welcomed and encouraged.

So let’s get back to that imagined blockade up here. The question is first going to be a discomforting one: do we find that at some point we became more of a blockade to someone’s getting to Jesus? Did we at some point say something – or NOT say something – that resulted in the distance between that person and Christ GROWING – not SHRINKING?

The second question is the question that brings grace with it: are we willing to join hands – together and with Christ, to break down the barrier, remove the barricade, and open a way for someone to get closer to Christ?

That is what serving the community of faith means – opening a way to Christ. Sometimes this whole business of figuring out what it means to believe in Jesus, to accept him as Savior, to follow him as Lord, to love your neighbor, to pray for your enemies, to give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s, to love the Lord with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength can get pretty involved, pretty complicated, pretty disheartening, pretty isolating even.

Serving in any of these capacities – however seemingly trivial, opens you up to an opportunity to have a positive or a negative impact on the life of someone who is looking for God and might only be exposed to that possibility through that one, brief contact with US.
So the question now becomes, as it often does; how will we respond?

The invitation right NOW is to do something very concrete, very exact: pick up a pencil or a pen and go over the list, fill in your name and phone number, and check off or fill in something that you feel God leading you to do. I use those words, “God leading you to do”, in the assumption that we all know what they mean – and I think we do, for the most part, but it can sometimes be frightening to PUT it in those terms – so let me say it this way: if there is something on those lists that catches your eye, that stirs your heart, that peaks your interest … that for some unexplained reason draws your attention more than the rest of the stuff … please be open to the possibility that that is God’s Spirit moving you to step out in faith to do something you might not ever have considered doing before – believe me, sometimes doing something completely out of your comfort zone is the best thing to prove to you that it isn’t YOU that is doing it, but CHRIST in you!

The invitation, beyond, beneath and before that is first and foremost to follow Christ. If it manifests itself through serving in one of these capacities, all the better, but we don’t expect that at first. We DO invite you to JOIN us if you are ALREADY in relationship with Christ to deepen and strengthen that relationship, to walk alongside us as fellow pilgrims on the way.

And now, if you are already ‘all of the above’ – if you HAVE that relationship with God in Christ, if you ARE a member of THIS family of faith, the invitation is a little more of a challenge. You already understand that in a small congregation, members sometimes wear multiple hats, sometimes as members of multiple committees, sometimes as CHAIRS of multiple committees. The challenge and invitation is to, THROUGH that dynamic – THROUGH that wearing of multiple hats, BEING here as often as you are asked to come – two or three nights a week for meetings, SERVING in multiple capacities – the invitation is to find the confluence of love and duty that speaks to what it means to follow Christ and serve his body, all at the same time.

Let’s pray.

Much More Surely

Sunday, June 3rd 2007
Trinity Sunday
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA
Romans 5: 1-11

1 Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. 3And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us. 6For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. 7Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die. 8But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us. 9Much more surely then, now that we have been justified by his blood, will we be saved through him from the wrath of God. 10For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more surely, having been reconciled, will we be saved by his life. 11But more than that, we even boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

It’s the word ‘Therefore’ that we need to stop on for just a moment. It clues us into the fact that what is to follow is tied to what has been said earlier. It’s no different here with Paul. In broad strokes, the overriding theme of his letter to the Christians in Rome was regarding justification and salvation of a fallen people in the face of a God who is Holy. So we’re jumping into the middle of an argument here. Just wanted to remind you of that up front.

This is one of those passages that begs to be broken down into its component phrases and sentences and thoughts and ideas. Some Biblical scholars and theologians will argue that Paul was primarily a ‘systematic’ theologian – who sat down and, through the study of scripture and by the leading of the Holy Spirit, sort of ‘mapped out’ the ideas of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. They will point primarily to the epistle to the Romans because it, more than any of the other epistles lays out in a clear, rational, one-thought-leads-to-another way what Paul’s understanding of the Gospel was. This approach is seen as a ‘Top-down’ theology, where an abstract issue is presented, discussed, argued and the conclusion drawn seemingly apart from what might or might not be happening in the life of that community of faith. Especially since Paul had never been to Rome at the time he wrote the letter.

Other Scholars and theologians will argue that Paul was primarily a ‘task theologian’, evidenced by most if not all of his other epistles – notably the letters to the church in Corinth, Galatia, Thessalonica and Ephesus. In each of THOSE epistles Paul addresses specific issues that have come up in the lives of each of those congregations, and so is engaged in theological reflection prompted by the situations and circumstances being faced by those Christians in those churches. It could almost be called a ‘grass roots’ theology, originating in the concrete, everyday lives of the congregations rather than from what you might call an ivory tower of pure thought – even though that ivory tower may well have been a prison cell in Ephesus.

I would suggest to you that Paul and for that matter, any other Christian who finds him or herself pondering issues of faith, whether independently or not of what they are living through in their life at that moment is BOTH a systematic theologian AND a task theologian. The determining factor is time – how much time do we have available to us to dedicate to reflection on a particular theme or idea? If we have a lot of time, we become systematic theologians. If we don’t have a lot of time before the next thing comes up, we tend to be task theologians.

We are rational beings – for the most part – after all, and we almost instinctively try to find a pattern if there is one present in things. We look for patterns in rocks and call them strata; we look for patterns in the stars and call them orbits; we look for patterns in sounds and call it speech. We look for patterns in fabric and call it plaid (just kidding!). There is something to the predictability of a pattern that gives us reassurance. It is in the knowing what comes next that we find some strength and security.

So is it any wonder that we would WANT to find and understand the rational sequence of meaning within the Gospel in order to be able to understand and expect what comes next? There is more than enough on this planet, much less this universe, that we DON’T understand to make us shudder and fall back onto that which we DO grasp and DO understand and ARE able to predict.

But, lets step back a minute and recap what the Gospel’s central claim is: God in Christ died on the Cross and rose from the dead, and through that – the paying of the price – death – for OUR sins, offered US a way to salvation – in other words – made a way for us – and anyone who would claim that offer – to eternally remain in communion with God God’s self, what Paul calls “peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,”

So, while there IS an internal – and Eternal cohesion to the gospel, we need to acknowledge that from the get-go there is a break with what the world would consider a predictable order. As we’ve said before, the concept of resurrection, while integral to our understanding of faith as well as some other faiths, is not something that fits into the everyday existence we would observe with our physical eyes.

So here we are, in the middle of Paul’s argument about being justified by faith – and he’s getting to the bit about suffering. And he goes through this striking litany

… suffering produces endurance, 4and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.

We’ve talked about suffering before. While it is not something we WISH for ourselves or anyone else, we recognize that it is part of what defines our existence. We are not exempt from it by virtue of having faith in Christ, and we are no more or less likely to avoid it BY holding that faith, yet it is THROUGH this suffering – whatever form it takes – that Paul is speaking of. Notice that he doesn’t specify the suffering. Although in HIS particular case there is a fair level of certainty that he was speaking of the suffering and persecution he had experienced on his missionary journeys – don’t forget, he was probably writing this letter from prison, awaiting transport to Rome for an audience with Caesar himself.

The way Paul constructs his argument is beautiful and powerful at the same time. He goes on to say,

6For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. 7Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die.

I think I’ve shared this with you before; in college, Joe Trafton, my professor of New Testament, spoke of the single most compelling reason to believe the Gospel – and that was the witness of the Apostles. They were the ones who would be in a position to confirm or deny the reports of Jesus’ resurrection, and they all went to their deaths proclaiming a risen Lord. This statement ties in with that this way: people will die for something they believe in, but they WON’T die for something they KNOW to be a lie. The Apostles would have KNOWN if the resurrection accounts had been lies. And none of them recanted. None of them said ‘stop the bus, I’m getting off. It was all a spoof. We wanted to see how far it would go.’ They all lived the rest of their TRANFORMED lives proclaiming that Christ had risen indeed.

Paul then goes into the final stage of THIS part of his argument:

8But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us.

It’s a foundational statement. A definitive statement – in other words – a statement that ends up defining something. In this case, the nature of God and how God feels toward humanity. It sets a precedent in terms of what we can expect from God.

So he sets that groundwork and comes to this point:

9Much more surely then, now that we have been justified by his blood, will we be saved through him from the wrath of God. 10For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more surely, having been reconciled, will we be saved by his life.

It’s an interesting phrase, isn’t it, “Much more surely”? We would probably say ‘Even more so’ in today’s language – Paul is trying to make a clear point even more emphatic – not only in using the phrase, but in using it twice in as many sentences.

He’s building on the argument he’s presented so far – BECAUSE we’ve been justified – saved – by his (Christ’s) blood – we will NOT bear God’s wrath (or separation from God), because if God gave God’s self for us and reconciled our relationship while we were APART, how much MORE will God’s salvation be effective if we are living in GOD GOD’S self (Through Christ)!

And we come to the conclusion of the passage:

11But more than that, we even boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

What does this mean for Jerusalem Baptist Church at Emmerton?

Paul is saying that the only ground we have to stand on is the offering and the gift and the grace of God in Christ Jesus. Period.

It comes with suffering, it comes with endurance, it builds character, and yes, it infuses us with hope. And that is central to the Gospel, because hope speaks of the promise we have in Christ Jesus. It speaks of the assurance of presence with us, regardless. It speaks of the power of the Holy Spirit to guide and comfort, strengthen and uphold us in our times of sorrow and our times of laughter. It speaks of communion and fellowship, found in many different ways in many different places, but always with the same spirit.

Salvation doesn’t depend on what we have done or left undone. It doesn’t depend on how we are feeling on a given day. It doesn’t depend on whether or not we followed the letter of the law or the spirit of the law. It depends on God in Christ, and understanding THAT is what frees us up to proclaim a risen Lord in the face of a world that would try to deny a reality that goes against ‘the system’, that goes to the heart of what ‘the task’ God was about the business of completing in reconciling the world to God’s self.

Let’s pray.

Love Songs

Sunday, May 20th, 2007
Seventh of Easter
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA
Psalm 97

1The Lord is king! Let the earth rejoice; let the many coastlands be glad! 2Clouds and thick darkness are all around him; righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne. 3Fire goes before him, and consumes his adversaries on every side. 4His lightnings light up the world; the earth sees and trembles. 5The mountains melt like wax before the Lord, before the Lord of all the earth. 6The heavens proclaim his righteousness; and all the peoples behold his glory. 7All worshipers of images are put to shame, those who make their boast in worthless idols; all gods bow down before him. 8Zion hears and is glad, and the towns of Judah rejoice, because of your judgments, O God. 9For you, O Lord, are most high over all the earth; you are exalted far above all gods. 10The Lord loves those who hate evil; he guards the lives of his faithful; he rescues them from the hand of the wicked. 11 Light dawns for the righteous, and joy for the upright in heart. 12Rejoice in the Lord, O you righteous, and give thanks to his holy name!

In the movie ‘Music & Lyrics’, Hugh Grant plays a self-professed has-been music star from the 80’s. While he is an excellent musician, he is not nearly so confident when it comes to writing lyrics, and so ends up hiring Drew Barrymore, who waters plants for a living, but has a knack for putting words together, to help him write a song he’s been hired to complete in 48 hours. Long story short, by the end of the movie, he and she are in love, he finally writes his song for her from his heart, sings it to her in front of a massive crowd, and wins her over for good, and they live happily ever after.

It’s a typical Hollywood romantic comedy. It doesn’t take itself too seriously, and neither do the actors, which was nice.

But this isn’t a time for movie reviews, is it?

What connected the theme of the movie with our passage this morning, this enthronement psalm, technically speaking, is that in its own way, it is a love song to God.

How many of you, as young people, wrote or received notes or letters, poems, or love songs, or songs dedicated to you by the one who loved you?

Leslie will tell you I don’t write the love poems I used to write her NEARLY as often as I used to. But it is true, believe it or not, I DID write them.

Expressing our love for someone in words or songs is nothing new. And it was not new in ancient Israel either. They are what have become for us today our hymns and praise songs that we sing in our services, or in meetings, or on our own driving down the road with a CD or cassette or radio station playing over the speakers. Sometimes we’ve even been heard to be singing them on our own with no music playing at ALL!

What is it about songs and singing that reaches down deep inside us and touches our emotions so? What is it about words set in a pattern, a tempo, that reach through our intellect and wrap themselves around our hearts?

The cabin where Leslie and I spent our honeymoon is nestled in the hills by a small lake outside of London Kentucky, and the owner had been given a calligraphy print of a poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay, entitled God’s World – here it is:

O WORLD, I cannot hold thee close enough!
Thy winds, thy wide grey skies!
Thy mists that roll and rise!
Thy woods, this autumn day, that ache and sag
And all but cry with colour! That gaunt crag to crush!
To lift the lean of that black bluff!
World, World, I cannot get thee close enough!

Long have I known a glory in it all,
But never knew I this;
Here such a passion is as stretcheth me apart.
Lord, I do fear thou'st made the world too beautiful this year.
My soul is all but out of me,
—let fall no burning leaf;
prithee, let no bird call.

I took a picture of the print and have it framed still to this day.

There is power in words, and that power lies in how they can evoke in us both thoughts and emotions that in turn allow US to express how WE feel or THINK about someONE or someTHING.

Last Sunday morning, in the wake of the deaths we experienced within this family called Jerusalem, we still gathered, and the first song we sang, at the beginning of the opening assembly for Sunday School, was ‘Because He Lives’ – and speaking for myself, I can tell you that even before we began to sing, the emotions were pouring out. That song has a deep resonance with me as I suspect it does with many of you on many levels. Not the least of which is found in the beauty of the lyrics themselves – affirming a faith and a hope in a risen Christ no matter what circumstances we happen to be facing on any given day.

We find that same sentiment as we read through – or sing through – the Psalms.

There were days while Leslie and I were still courting on which I was overwhelmed at the beauty of her – inward AND outward – and sometimes the only way I COULD express to her how I felt was through verse in some form. I don’t think I ever actually wrote a SONG for her, but that was due mainly to my insecurity in my musical talents than in my inability to put words together.

It happens today, sometimes on a regular basis, when we turn to God. We want to express our love for God, and while some of us are able to express it through the spoken word, others of us find the purest expression of our love for God through the singing of those hymns that we’ve known since … well, forever. We don’t remember not knowing them. They have always been part of the way we express our worship. ‘It is Well With My Soul’, ‘Amazing Grace’, ‘Great Is Thy Faithfulness’ … ‘In The Garden’, as well as ‘To God Be The Glory’ and ‘Love Lifted Me.’

Ultimately, I think that is what the psalms are. Yes, there are ‘types’ of psalms, imprecatory, enthronement, whatever you want to call them, and they DO have a historical setting that we do well to take into account when we read and especially when we study them – this one actually intentionally uses light and dark imagery – the lightning and the dark cloud, the flame going before God – that would at the time have normally been used in the worship of or the description of Baal – using that same imagery on purpose wasn’t a case of the writer saying “oh, that’s a good way to put it, I’ll use it when I speak of Yahweh!” it is a way for the psalmist to say ‘The true God is more than you Baal worshippers believe your god to be and more!”.

The psalms DO bring the full range of human emotion to bear on the worship of God, but when all is said and done, they are putting into verse form what is coming from our hearts in response to what God has done for us – whether God has delivered us FROM the enemy, or seems to be delivering us TO the enemy; whether we are feeling like we could take on the WORLD with one hand tied behind our back and STILL win or whether we are at the weakest, lowest, most vulnerable point of our existence.

What does this mean for Jerusalem Baptist Church at Emmerton?

It means that we can feel free to bring whatever it is we are feeling to the worship of God. We already know, perhaps even on an unacknowledged level, that God KNOWS us and knows what we are going through, as our responsive reading spoke of earlier (from Psalm 139). It means that, just as in a normal, healthy human relationship, we can feel free to express ALL the range of emotions that we CAN feel TOWARDS God and have the full confidence that God will be able to handle it. And if the God that we have in our heads can’t, then as Dave McNeely shared with us during our revival, that God should die, and the God who is INDEED author and creator of the Universe, as well as of our salvation, WILL remain – and will remain worthy of our love and our praise.

Let’s pray.

Cause For Praise

Sunday, May 13th, 2007
Sixth of Easter
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA
Psalm 67

1May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face to shine upon us, Selah 2that your way may be known upon earth, your saving power among all nations. 3Let the peoples praise you, O God; let all the peoples praise you. 4Let the nations be glad and sing for joy, for you judge the peoples with equity and guide the nations upon earth. Selah 5Let the peoples praise you, O God; let all the peoples praise you. 6The earth has yielded its increase; God, our God, has blessed us. 7May God continue to bless us; let all the ends of the earth revere him.

Given any other Sunday, after these last couple of days, it would seem to be an appropriate time to read a Psalm of sorrow rather than a call to worship as our text.

There are times when it simply doesn’t seem to be in us to be able to lift our voices in song and praise God. But I think that comes from a misperception of what we’ve come to exclusively equate praise and worship with – and that is Joy.

Yes, of COURSE, when we are feeling joyful we praise God. It’s easy to do that at THOSE times.

Especially on days like today, when our surrounding culture celebrates motherhood, it comes easy to our lips to thank God and Praise God for God’s gift of mothers.

There’s no way to overstate the importance of them in our lives – whether they be our actual mothers, our adoptive mothers, those women in our lives who have stepped into that role for us in the absence of our biological mothers, or even those women who for even a short time became mothers to us.

But what of those who might be in our midst who were NOT blessed with a mother like Diane, or like Gladys? What of those whose mothers were abusive, or emotionally or even physically absent, those mothers for whom the day a child turned 18 and could be ushered out the door could not come soon enough? How will THOSE people find a way to worship on a day like this, when we read this particular call to worship, extolling God’s blessing on not only the nation of Israel, but by association, on the individuals who make UP that nation?

There is a subtle yet persistent falsity that we, as part of the church, have allowed to infuse our understanding of the way God works, and that is that God is primarily out to make us feel good and be happy. Having said that, we DO stand on the passage in Jeremiah 29 where God tells us,

11For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope.

but what we are faced with is a world where children – young or not so young – lose their mothers just before mother’s day. Where husbands lose their wives and where grandchildren lose their grandmothers, where women who more than anything WANT to BE mothers yet are unable to do so, and where young women choose to stop a life within because the father has moved out of their lives, where husbands beat their wives and send them to the hospital with a concussion, and still we are being asked to praise God and to thank God for all the blessings we’ve received from God.

How do we reconcile the two? CAN we reconcile the two realities?

To be honest, I’m not sure we are supposed to, at least not on THIS side of the grave. Someone may be able to. I cannot. I believe God HAS our best interests at heart. I also believe God and God’s … movements … are not something we are going to be able to understand 100 % of the time. We’re going to be talking about that as we move through the book of Habakkuk on Wednesday evenings, by the way. In case you might be interested in joining us.

As I mentioned last week, the truthfulness of the Psalms with regard to the human condition is deeply comforting to me. The fact that if we look for it, we can find a Psalm coming from just about any emotional place we can name and ending up somehow, someway at the same place – worshipping and praising God.

What does this mean for Jerusalem Baptist Church at Emmerton?

It means that we begin to learn that we worship God through our singing and our laughter, yes, but that we also worship God through our tears – not ‘in spite of’, not ‘regardless of’, not ‘ignoring’ our tears, but THROUGH our tears. It is the song coming from a heart so overwrought with grief and sorrow that the words are barely able to form on emotion-tightened lips telling of the majesty, the holiness, the goodness and the blessings of God that speak and sing the truest psalms from our purest, most honest selves.

What will mark us as followers of Christ is not ONLY that we laugh and celebrate life’s blessings with each other, but that we ALSO acknowledge, that we also support and love one another through the darkest times of our lives – that we stand together – for mutual support, but also to bear witness to a God who knows and understands our sorrow and our pain because God incarnate – God in the person of Jesus Christ – came and walked this world beside us, and taught us about being our most pure and honest selves.

So if there is an invitation this morning it is to find THAT in us – the purest, most honest expression and let our voices ring out and proclaim that God is a good and loving and holy – and wholly – completely – other.

Let’s pray.

Songs in the Midst of all the Rest

Sunday, May 6th, 2007
Fifth of Easter,
A Service of Worship under a brush arbor on the site of the old sanctuary.
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA
Psalm 148

1Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord from the heavens; praise him in the heights! 2Praise him, all his angels; praise him, all his host! 3Praise him, sun and moon; praise him, all you shining stars! 4Praise him, you highest heavens, and you waters above the heavens! 5Let them praise the name of the Lord, for he commanded and they were created. 6He established them forever and ever; he fixed their bounds, which cannot be passed. 7Praise the Lord from the earth, you sea monsters and all deeps, 8fire and hail, snow and frost, stormy wind fulfilling his command! 9Mountains and all hills, fruit trees and all cedars! 10Wild animals and all cattle, creeping things and flying birds! 11Kings of the earth and all peoples, princes and all rulers of the earth! 12Young men and women alike, old and young together! 13Let them praise the name of the Lord, for his name alone is exalted; his glory is above earth and heaven. 14He has raised up a horn for his people, praise for all his faithful, for the people of Israel who are close to him. Praise the Lord!

What is it about the Psalms that stands out to you? What is it that you LIKE about the Psalms? What is it that you DON’T like about the Psalms, if anything? It’s okay, by the way, to not like some parts of scripture – AND to admit it. That tells me something very important. It tells me that first, you READ scripture, and second, it tells me that you THINK about scripture. The ‘not liking it’ part is secondary. Important yes, in the sense that it indicates that you are not simply skimming the words, but that you are actively applying yourself to the task of working out what the scriptures mean for your life, and sometimes, FREQUENTLY, that can be hard. We wrestle with scripture like Jacob wrestled with God. We may spend all night doing it, and we may walk with a limp thereafter, but at least we have engaged the divine word.

So we have this Psalm, and it seems to be a fairly … standard Psalm. It is a Psalm of Exhortation – that means it is a song to encourage others … if you read through it, it actually calls on not only PEOPLE, but animals, and plants, and mountains, and hills, and trees, and even the weather to Praise the Lord God almighty.

The call to praise and worship is a call directed towards creation – towards the EARTHLY creation – as well as to the heavenly beings – it is a call that covers the entire spectrum of existence – from what we can see – THIS creation – that is all around us, and that part of creation that we cannot see – the hosts of heaven and beyond.

If you flip through the psalms, you’ll find that they are not all this loftily themed. There are psalms that urge God to kill the enemies of David, or the enemies of Israel. There are psalms that express some of the deepest remorse and sorrow that can be expressed in human terms. There are psalms that express anger – some would even say hatred – towards something or someone. There are even psalms that call for the killing of women and babies in very graphic terms. Remember what I said about there being parts of scripture that you don’t like? That’s one of them for me.

But before I go off and throw the baby out with the bathwater, claiming that if there’s room in scripture for THAT, then I’m not sure I WANT to engage scripture at ALL, I HAVE to examine what role the psalm plays in the bigger picture – what part it has in telling me more of who God is, and what God has done.

So we’re starting today with a psalm that is much like the psalms that surround it—psalms of praise and worship. In that sense it isn’t terribly unusual. After all, when we think of the book of Psalms, we think primarily of just THAT – psalms of praise and worship, and not the other kinds of psalms.

And it is just that countering action that I’d like to discuss today – why it IS that we DO find those OTHER psalms – the ‘down and dirty’ ones, mixed in with the ‘high and holy’ psalms.

Think about it. Our call is to worship the Lord – in all we do – word, deed, whatever. Do we? Or maybe I should ask that: do WE? See? We may get on a streak, and go for, what? Five, six, seven? Eight? Maybe even nine or ten … what? Years? Months? Weeks? Days? Minutes? Where we are more or less doing that, but then comes that hammer to the thumb, or that especially annoying person that you run into on the ball field, or that neighbor that just doesn’t seem to understand what you’ve been trying to politely tell them for lo these many years … and your praise and worship psalm suddenly turns into one of those ‘other’ psalms.

It’s not necessarily a GOOD thing, but it is a TRUE thing – insofar as it is true to the human condition on THIS plane of existence. It comes from us because it is a product of our fallen nature, our frail humanity, and our weakness.

And to see those qualities reflected in scripture is a sign of hope. It tells us that in spite of that, God still worked in and through this man, or that woman, or that people, and continues to do so.

I think it can even be read as a … journal. If you’ve ever kept a journal for any length of time, and then after an extended period have gone back and read over entries that you’ve made long before, you immediately gain a sense of perspective. You understand where you WERE and realize where you ARE.

We are surrounded by the graves of some of those original 143 people that formed Royal Oaks Baptist Church with Elder Thomas Braxton. Some are marked, and some are not. We are not standing on the spot where the original structure stood, that is just across Mulberry from here, but we ARE standing on the place where the longest-lasting building that housed Jerusalem Baptist Church stood – from the early 1840’s until 1978 – almost 140 years – that wooden building built by hand by the members of Jerusalem provided a place for instruction, for prayer, for fellowship, and for gatherings to celebrate weddings and funerals – and I’m sure, other family events. Over the years it was surrounded by the graves of those who moved from this existence into the heavenly existence. Those whose psalms were peppered here and there with the less-than-pristine calls to worship HERE, graduated to the place where their songs of worship joined the rest of the heavenly hosts in pure and uninterrupted singing.

And so we have chosen to honor them today. By naming their names, by placing a flower on their graves, we are simply expressing our gratitude for the way they have gone on before us, for the way they taught those who taught those who taught US what it means to live lives of sacrifice and of service.
What does this mean for Jerusalem Baptist Church now, today?

This last week I’ve had a couple of opportunities to speak to my mother on the phone, and each time we do, she tells me how much she’s looking forward to our visit with them that is coming up. There are actually two visits in the works – THEY may be coming to see US towards the end of June HERE, and WE are planning on seeing them during the second full week of July.

When she first mentioned it to me, it caught me by surprise, to speak so eagerly of something that in my mind is still pretty far off. But in thinking about it, I realized that the anticipation is purely an expression of the love she feels for us.

Can we speak in those same terms of our anticipation of being a part of a heavenly choir? Can we see ourselves being in the presence of God God’s self and being known completely, find ourselves loved and accepted to a degree that we can only imagine – and even then, only partially?

Do we look forward in eager anticipation to the day when our mortal shells will be laid to rest here, and we will become part of the legacy of Jerusalem Baptist Church, and have those who come after us speak of us with thankfulness in their hearts?

May it, through the grace of God, be so.

Lets pray.