Ears, Feet and Hands

Sunday, March 27th, 2005
Easter
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA
Matthew 28:1-10, James 1(17- )22(-25)

1After the Sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb. 2And suddenly there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord, descending from heaven, came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. 3His appearance was like lightning and his clothing white as snow. 4For fear of him the guards shook and became like dead men. 5But the angel said to the women, ‘Do not be afraid; I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. 6He is not here; for he has been raised, as he said. Come; see the place where he lay. 7Then go quickly and tell his disciples, “He has been raised from the dead, and indeed he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him.” This is my message for you.’ 8So they left the tomb quickly with fear and great joy, and ran to tell his disciples. 9Suddenly Jesus met them and said, ‘Greetings!’ And they came to him, took hold of his feet, and worshiped him. 10Then Jesus said to them, ‘Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me.’

This is it. This is THE defining story of our faith.

This is what sets us apart. This is unique to Christianity.

We speak of Jesus’ death. More than that, we admit to it. But it’s not so much that we do it today. It is that it was done that way from the beginning. In first-century Palestine, it wasn’t … desirable to begin a new religion by proclaiming the actual human death of your Savior, much less, have the initial proclamation of that Savior’s resurrection be carried out by women. There is a radical-ness to that combination of events that is lost on us today, however entrenched we may be in a male-dominated somewhat chauvinistic society, that still finds it very easy to objectify women and belittle the relevance of faith to human existence, over the last 20 centuries we’ve gotten used to the story that women were the first bearers-of-good-news, the first evangelists. We’ve become immune to the unbelievableness of it.

That the four Gospels contain the story of the empty tomb is to be expected, but that they differ from each other makes the story even more tantalizingly believable. Think about it. Take, for example any given modern conspiracy, any given movie, or television crime drama involving a group of people involved in a crime and trying to hide it. What is the first thing the conspirators do when they decide to conspire? They get together on their story. The thinking is that if their stories all agree, it is more believable.

The Gospel writers couldn’t even get together on that. How many of us, if we were to all witness a car crash here at the corner of Mulberry and History Land Hwy, would all tell exactly the same story, down to the smallest detail? In the varying accounts, there’s a sense of them saying ‘I saw him first! No, I did!’

The Gospel of John has Mary as the only named woman coming to the tomb, and on finding it empty, running back to find Peter and “the other disciple” and then they all go to the tomb. Luke has two men in dazzling clothes meeting ‘them’, an unspecified number of women and men. Mark has three named women – Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome, going to the tomb, and there they encounter a single young man, dressed in a white robe, sitting “on the right side”. The amount of detail begs you to ‘remember with me, don’t you?’

Rather than weakening the story, it speaks more to independent traditions, and reinforces the likelihood that the details on which they DO agree are true.

Just as there is diversity in the telling of the appearances of the resurrected Christ, there is a corresponding diversity in the way we each experience Christ today. How we encounter Christ can change dramatically within each of our individual lives over the course of the years, much more so from one person to another.

Brian Stoffregen, pastor of Faith Lutheran Church, in Marysville, CA, writes:

There are those who experience Christ in a radical transforming, "born-again," event in their lives. There are those for whom Christ as been such a reality throughout their lives that they can't think of a moment when Christ wasn't present to them or when there was a great turning point in their lives. How the risen Christ comes to people differs from person to person.

And that’s where we come in. It is THE Gospel story, and in the beginning, all we can do is hear it. We hear it, of course, with our ears. And if the time is right, and the Spirit moves, we also hear it with our hearts. When we do that, it becomes OUR story. We each make this story our own, when we step into it, by stepping out on faith.

Mary Magdalene, and the other Mary (and Salome, and however many men there may have been with them) stepped through the early morning light and made their way to the tomb. The same feet that took them to what they thought would be a continuing point of sorrow in their lives became instead feet that ran them joyfully and fearfully back to tell the disciples and all who would listen that they had encountered the risen Lord.

So on a morning that may well have been very similar to this one, likely having had very little sleep if any, the story began to spread. So it is for us to take up the story and tell it.

We can use words, if we have to. But we don’t have to. Know this, however. Whether we verbalize it or not, we tell the story. We tell the story in the way we live out our lives. We are telling the story whether we realize it or not. We tell the story of what Christ means to us, what Christ has done for us, what Christ IS to us. Sting put together a set of phrases in a song several years ago, “every move you make, every breath you take, every claim you stake, and every vow you break”, the concluding phrase may be applied from a different perspective by us here today “I’ll be watching you” Sting has said of the song that it is a dark song about obsession, we can look at it today from the perspective that … we are the walking Gospel corporately, as the body of Christ, but also individually, our lives tell the stories that we believe.

The question is: what Gospel story is our life telling?

James speaks to that:

17 Every generous act of giving, with every perfect gift, is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. 18In fulfillment of his own purpose he gave us birth by the word of truth, so that we would become a kind of first fruits of his creatures. 19 You must understand this, my beloved: let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger; 20for your anger does not produce God’s righteousness. 21Therefore rid yourselves of all sordidness and rank growth of wickedness, and welcome with meekness the implanted word that has the power to save your souls. 22 But be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves. 23For if any are hearers of the word and not doers, they are like those who look at themselves in a mirror; 24for they look at themselves and, on going away, immediately forget what they were like. 25But those who look into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and persevere, being not hearers who forget but doers who act—they will be blessed in their doing.

We can sit and hear, but unless we go beyond that, the Gospel means precious little to us. Hearing, we believe, and believing, we act, and by acting, we either claim or disclaim the truth of the Gospel.

The question for us today is, if I truly believe the Gospel to be true, that God raised Jesus from the dead, and in so doing He vanquished sin, death and the devil. Does my life reflect that?

So we’ve heard the central story. Now for the central act that proclaims our faith. Maybe it would be better to call it the seminal act of our faith, the ‘seed-act’ of our faith. When we join together at the communion table, we are in fact proclaiming the Gospel. Because we are proclaiming Christ’s death until he returns.

The invitation is open. Your response is what will transform you.

Your ears hear the invitation, your feet will bring you forward, and your hands will take the bread and the juice to your lips.

May your ears always hear the invitation, may your feet always be ready to carry you forward, and may your hands always be ready to be put to work for the Kingdom.

(communion)

The Lord … Needs?

Sunday, March 20th, 2005
Palm Sunday
Jerusalem Baptist Church
Matthew 21:1-11

1When they had come near Jerusalem and had reached Bethphage, at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples, 2saying to them, ‘Go into the village ahead of you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her; untie them and bring them to me. 3If anyone says anything to you, just say this, “The Lord needs them.” And he will send them immediately.’ 4This took place to fulfill what had been spoken through the prophet, saying, 5‘Tell the daughter of Zion, Look, your king is coming to you, humble, and mounted on a donkey, and on a colt, the foal of a donkey.’ 6The disciples went and did as Jesus had directed them; 7they brought the donkey and the colt, and put their cloaks on them, and he sat on them. 8A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. 9The crowds that went ahead of him and that followed were shouting, ‘Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest heaven!’ 10When he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was in turmoil, asking, ‘Who is this?’ 11The crowds were saying, ‘This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee.’

“The Lord … Needs?”

If you think about it, it seems to be a contradiction in terms. “The Lord.” – means someone who is in control, one who has the power, who is ultimately able to do just about anything he wishes.

To say that someone like that ‘needs’ anything … would seem to be saying that it is a limited Lordship, and as such, no Lordship at all, if we’re going to get right down to the heart of the matter.

As Christians, we believe that Jesus Christ was God incarnate. We believe that God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit form the trinity. They are each both individual and one and the same. That is a core belief of the Christian faith.

And now, we come to the toughest and most glorious part of the story, beginning today and continuing through this coming Saturday we will be observing Passion Week. For the last 5 weeks we’ve been moving through the Season of Lent, which as we know, leads us to the cross, to Christ’s death and burial. Next Sunday we will celebrate Easter, we know that is coming, but right now, we remember Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem.

Palm leaves waving, people shouting, donkeys walking, colts too, and Jesus riding both … check it out, Matthew seems to have become so caught up in telling the story that he has Jesus riding both a donkey AND a colt (verse 7). It doesn’t matter so much how he came into the city, it matters more what he came to do and what happened over the course of the next week.

Before the first verse of chapter 21 is done, we have Jesus sending a couple of his disciples off to find the donkey and the colt.

Sending.

Jesus did that with the disciples, and he continues to do it with us. Just as God sent Jesus, Jesus in turn sends us.

To do what, you might ask? Well, that depends on what gifts and qualities God has given you to begin with, as well as what God has called you to do. Get used to the idea that we each have been called to do something for God, by God, through God.

I heard an interview with Henry Blackaby this week. He wrote “Experiencing God”. If you’ve not read it, let me know, and we can read it together. Something he said in the interview stuck with me. His point was that people can sometimes take their talents, those abilities with which they were either born or developed on their own, or through training and encouragement from others, and call them spiritual gifts.

He said natural talents are not the same thing as spiritual gifts. Being called to do something can SOMETIMES involve your using your natural talents and abilities, but it will always involve doing something that you could not otherwise accomplish without God’s help. Let me say that again: Answering God’s call to do something will always involve doing something that you could not otherwise do without God’s help. In other words, being called by God by definition means being at a loss on your own.

Over the last two weeks we’ve been made aware of that being highlighted in Jesus’ ministry as well. With the man born blind, and with the death of Lazarus, Jesus’ healing of the one and resurrecting of the other were both examples of God’s power being made known – of God’s Kingdom breaking into the world. Both miracles went against the natural (broken, but natural) process of life as we know it.

‘But that was Jesus,’ you might say. ‘We’re not Jesus.’

You’re right. We’re not, in the full sense of who Jesus was. But we are his disciples, his ambassadors, his representatives. On one level, we ARE Jesus. When we take Jesus as Lord of our lives we begin to act, speak, think, and feel like him. Sometimes in infinitesimal increments, and often times it’s a matter of two steps forward, one step back. Some days we fail miserably at the task of becoming more and more like him. Some days we do better.

And here’s the sometimes scary part: We will find that, some days, we are the only Jesus others will ever see.

In the most recent issue of the Ministry Messenger, a quarterly newsletter published by the BGAV, John Upton, the Executive Director, says the following:

“One of my favorite passages in the Bible is Isaiah 40 where God says to His people, “Lift up your voice. Lift is up, be not afraid. Say to the people, ‘Here is your God.’” What a challenge by God. Of all people, he asks us, as inadequate as we are, to be bearers of His message of Good News. Our ignorance is monumental. We are often wrong-headed and wrong-hearted, and we can be more than a little bit foolish. Our lives aren’t worthy of the words we’re asked to carry.

But here is the thing to remember. Whose words, after all, are they? And if the Word bids us to be instruments of it, how could our inadequacy possibly matter? Our only part is to open our mouths, our hearts, our arms and our lives and let the words pass through us like breath through a pipe organ. Ready or not, we just give ourselves to it, and our lives are a good enough voice.”

So what does the Lord need, exactly? What is it that he’s asking of us?

Is he asking us only to worship him? To lift the palm branches and wave them and proclaim ‘blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord?’ Or is he asking us to lay down our cloaks, our robes, our best, so that he can walk over them towards his death? Or is he asking us to run an errand, to find the donkey, or the colt, to speak to the owner and tell him that the LORD needs them …

The truth is that he is asking for it all. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German Pastor and theologian who was killed in WWII for fighting the Nazi regime, wrote “when Jesus calls, he bids us come and die.”

The Lord needs … company. God craves communion. That it is the almighty creator of the universe coming to us, his creation, is a mystery, and yet, that is what God has shown us through Christ to be God’s own nature.

He’s asking us to walk alongside, to follow, to imitate, however you want to phrase it, you’ve heard me say it before, and you’ll keep hearing me say it -- to BE his presence in a world that is hurting in unimaginable ways.

God has met and surpassed our needs. God did that through Christ. That is what we will be celebrating next Sunday. For now, the question becomes, how will you respond to the Lord’s need?

Let’s pray.

Falling Asleep

Sunday, March 13th, 2005
Lent 5A
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA
John 11:1-45

1Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. 2Mary was the one who anointed the Lord with perfume and wiped his feet with her hair; her brother Lazarus was ill. 3So the sisters sent a message to Jesus, ‘Lord, he whom you love is ill.’ 4But when Jesus heard it, he said, ‘This illness does not lead to death; rather it is for God’s glory, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.’ 5Accordingly, though Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus, 6after having heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was. 7Then after this he said to the disciples, ‘Let us go to Judea again.’ 8The disciples said to him, ‘Rabbi, the Jews were just now trying to stone you, and are you going there again?’ 9Jesus answered, ‘Are there not twelve hours of daylight? Those who walk during the day do not stumble, because they see the light of this world. 10But those who walk at night stumble, because the light is not in them.’ 11After saying this, he told them, ‘Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going there to awaken him.’ 12The disciples said to him, ‘Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will be all right.’ 13Jesus, however, had been speaking about his death, but they thought that he was referring merely to sleep. 14Then Jesus told them plainly, ‘Lazarus is dead. 15For your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.’ 16Thomas, who was called the Twin, said to his fellow disciples, ‘Let us also go, that we may die with him.’ 17 When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days. 18Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, some two miles away, 19and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them about their brother. 20When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, while Mary stayed at home. 21Martha said to Jesus, ‘Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. 22But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him.’ 23Jesus said to her, ‘Your brother will rise again.’ 24Martha said to him, ‘I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.’ 25Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, 26and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?’ 27She said to him, ‘Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.’ 28When she had said this, she went back and called her sister Mary, and told her privately, ‘The Teacher is here and is calling for you.’ 29And when she heard it, she got up quickly and went to him. 30Now Jesus had not yet come to the village, but was still at the place where Martha had met him. 31The Jews who were with her in the house, consoling her, saw Mary get up quickly and go out. They followed her because they thought that she was going to the tomb to weep there. 32When Mary came where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt at his feet and said to him, ‘Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.’ 33 When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. 34He said, ‘Where have you laid him?’ They said to him, ‘Lord, come and see.’ 35Jesus began to weep. 36So the Jews said, ‘See how he loved him!’ 37But some of them said, ‘Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?’ 38Then Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. 39Jesus said, ‘Take away the stone.’ Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, ‘Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead four days.’ 40Jesus said to her, ‘Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?’ 41So they took away the stone. And Jesus looked upward and said, ‘Father, I thank you for having heard me. 42I knew that you always hear me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me.’ 43When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, ‘Lazarus, come out!’ 44The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, ‘Unbind him, and let him go.’ 45 Many of the Jews therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what Jesus did, believed in him.

My earliest memory of Uncle Babe was hearing momma tell stories of how he used to play jokes on her and my aunts as children growing up outside Nortonville, Kentucky. The memory that stands out the most in my memory though, apart from those stories related to Uncle Babe was hearing Momma read a letter from my grandmother, received over 30 years ago, telling us that Uncle Babe had had multiple bypass surgery.

On some level, I suppose I was expecting the call that came last Tuesday ever since then. Years might go by, but always, if I thought about it, I wondered when we’d get that call. As it turned out, Uncle Babe outlived Grandma and Uncle Floyd, his older brother, by a little more than 15 years. We almost lost him a couple of years ago, but he rallied, and over these last two years the family – both immediate and extended – to whatever degree we were able to, had come to grips with the fact that Uncle Babe would be gone from us sooner rather than later.

So the gathering that took place on Thursday in La Center, KY was in very few ways unexpected.

Uncle Babe had done many things throughout his life; he was a State Trooper, a Salesman, he was elected County Judge-Executive, and when he wasn’t re-elected, he retired and became a pig farmer. There wasn’t a lot that he hadn’t tried. I don’t remember seeing Uncle Babe in uniform, though I may have as a young child, and I don’t remember his … identity being framed by what he did – ever. Even being elected to county office didn’t change that. Uncle Babe was just ‘UNCLE BABE.’ You knew he did SOMETHING for a living, but it wasn’t the ‘something’ that stood out, it was the living.

As I prepared to travel to Kentucky, I reread the text for today, knowing that I would be … perking the sermon while in the midst of visiting with family, sharing stories, and getting and giving hugs and using up tissues.

What I found was a deep sense of comfort in the events surrounding Lazarus’ death and subsequent resurrection. There’s a sense of purpose that Jesus expresses, in his deliberateness in waiting … in understanding as those who were around him could not, that there was a greater purpose to be displayed through Lazarus’ illness and death. The text echoes last week’s story of the man born blind in that instance – do you remember Jesus’ disciples asking him why the man was born blind, because of his parents’ sin or his own, and Jesus’ response – ‘So that God’s works might be revealed in him.’

Here we have a similar response:

4But when Jesus heard it, he said, ‘This illness does not lead to death; rather it is for God’s glory, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.’

In that sense, John, the Gospel writer, is intentional in how he presents the story of an event in Jesus’ ministry. There is a difference in the Gospel of John that is not as evident in the other three Gospels – John is self-consciously theological in the retelling of Christ’s ministry. The writer makes it a point, for example, to have the people around Jesus call him Lord instead of Master, or teacher, in this passage. It isn’t so much a term of respect as it is a declaration of faith – some of the earliest evidence of the early church’s belief in the divinity of Jesus. To call him Lord even while he was on earth was a radical statement among a people who were known for reserving that term for Yahweh, in our language, God.

If we’ve been raised in church, with the stories of the Bible told to us from childhood on, going into this we automatically fill in the blanks with additional information – we know that Mary, Martha and Lazarus were Jesus’ “hang out” friends. Whenever he came to visit Judea, he stayed with them. Their house was his. He felt at home, he was welcomed. The introduction seems a little out of place, when we read that ‘a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany’… what we have is a non-chronological insertion by John.

The purpose of the Gospel of John is to instill and nurture faith – “so that you might believe”. The other three, on various levels attempt to present the ministry of Christ chronologically. John does not. This is one of those places where it is not. Later on we get to meet Mary and Martha and Lazarus, or in the other gospels, but here the purpose of the story is to … highlight the power of God to transform our lives just like Lazarus’ life was transformed.

True resurrection … does not just prolong life but transforms our entire being. The resurrection is spiritual. It begins when faith moves a person to become open to receiving God’s life.
There are elements within the story that stand out. Jesus hearing of Lazarus’ illness and waiting. The word we read as ‘stayed’ carries a couple of meanings, if you will – tarried, as in … waited, intentionally … and suffered – in other words, Jesus knew that Mary and Martha and Lazarus were suffering, and even though he loved them, he held back … he knew there was a greater event coming.

There is, as is commonly found, a subtext to this waiting – if you are not familiar with the customs and practices of first century Palestinian Hebrews. It was commonly believed that after death, the soul of a person lingered around the body for two or three days. Hence, Jesus waiting for the additional two days before going to the tomb. There was no question on whether or not Lazarus was dead when Jesus finally showed up. In case there were, John takes pains to point out that the smell of a decomposing body was already being noticed.

Where are we in the story?

Do we identify with Lazarus, who is known more for what Christ did for him than for what he did for Christ? Or are we like Martha, the kitchen-maven, who gets the intellectual approach from Jesus, a mini-sermon on resurrection. Or Mary, the scholar willing to break gender stereotypes to receive the instruction she needs, gets the emotional approach from the depths of Jesus troubled spirit.

There is a connectedness in their responses – and in Jesus’ responses to them, that carries through to today.

We are, all, facing life with the shadow of death looming. What God offers us in Christ is Life. True life. Abundant life.

When Jesus tells the people to unbind Lazarus, he is literally telling them to destroy what holds him down. Send him forth free.

That is our call today. We are Christ’s presence in this community. We are called to set people free – through Christ – of the stench of death and sin.

Let’s pray.

Work the Works

Sunday, March 6th, 2005
Lent 4A
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA
John 9:1-41

1As he walked along, he saw a man blind from birth. 2His disciples asked him, ‘Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?’ 3Jesus answered, ‘Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him. 4We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming when no one can work. 5As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.’ 6When he had said this, he spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva and spread the mud on the man’s eyes, 7saying to him, ‘Go, wash in the pool of Siloam’ (which means Sent). Then he went and washed and came back able to see. 8 The neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar began to ask, ‘Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?’ 9Some were saying, ‘It is he.’ Others were saying, ‘No, but it is someone like him.’ He kept saying, ‘I am the man.’ 10But they kept asking him, ‘Then how were your eyes opened?’ 11He answered, ‘The man called Jesus made mud, spread it on my eyes, and said to me, “Go to Siloam and wash.” Then I went and washed and received my sight.’ 12They said to him, ‘Where is he?’ He said, ‘I do not know.’ 13 They brought to the Pharisees the man who had formerly been blind. 14Now it was a sabbath day when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes. 15Then the Pharisees also began to ask him how he had received his sight. He said to them, ‘He put mud on my eyes. Then I washed, and now I see.’ 16Some of the Pharisees said, ‘This man is not from God, for he does not observe the sabbath.’ But others said, ‘How can a man who is a sinner perform such signs?’ And they were divided. 17So they said again to the blind man, ‘What do you say about him? It was your eyes he opened.’ He said, ‘He is a prophet.’ 18The Jews did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight until they called the parents of the man who had received his sight 19and asked them, ‘Is this your son, who you say was born blind? How then does he now see?’ 20His parents answered, ‘We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind; 21but we do not know how it is that now he sees, nor do we know who opened his eyes. Ask him; he is of age. He will speak for himself.’ 22His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jews; for the Jews had already agreed that anyone who confessed Jesus to be the Messiah would be put out of the synagogue. 23Therefore his parents said, ‘He is of age; ask him.’ 24So for the second time they called the man who had been blind, and they said to him, ‘Give glory to God! We know that this man is a sinner.’ 25He answered, ‘I do not know whether he is a sinner. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.’ 26They said to him, ‘What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?’ 27He answered them, ‘I have told you already, and you would not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you also want to become his disciples?’ 28Then they reviled him, saying, ‘You are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses. 29We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know where he comes from.’ 30The man answered, ‘Here is an astonishing thing! You do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes. 31We know that God does not listen to sinners, but he does listen to one who worships him and obeys his will. 32Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a person born blind. 33If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.’ 34They answered him, ‘You were born entirely in sins, and are you trying to teach us?’ And they drove him out.
35 Jesus heard that they had driven him out, and when he found him, he said, ‘Do you believe in the Son of Man?’ 36He answered, ‘And who is he, sir? Tell me, so that I may believe in him.’ 37Jesus said to him, ‘You have seen him, and the one speaking with you is he.’ 38He said, ‘Lord, I believe.’ And he worshiped him. 39 Jesus said, ‘I came into this world for judgment so that those who do not see may see, and those who do see may become blind.’ 40Some of the Pharisees near him heard this and said to him, ‘Surely we are not blind, are we?’ 41Jesus said to them, ‘If you were blind, you would not have sin. But now that you say, “We see,” your sin remains.

I’m a bedtime reader.

I don’t mean I read to the kids at bedtime … though I DO, sometimes, I mean that when I go to bed at night I have to at least open a book and read a few paragraphs in order to go to sleep.

As far back as I can remember, lying down in bed hasn’t been about going to sleep as quickly as I can, but about curling up with a good book. As a result, I have a stack of books next to my side of the bed, in, on, or under the nightstand, as well as on the floor.

Over the years the variety of books has broadened. I’m a science fiction fan, so for a long time that was all you could find in the stack. But lately, I’ve expanded the options. I’ve got Herman Wouk’s “War and Remembrance” next to the bed, as well as a couple of bestsellers.

I also have a book co-written by Tony Campolo and Brian McLaren, entitled Adventures in Missing the Point, How the Culture-Controlled Church Neutered the Gospel. In it, Campolo and McLaren address issues facing the Church today, under three main subheadings: God, World, and Soul. Under each, they address various sub-issues. Under God, they speak about salvation, theology, the Kingdom of God, the End Times, and the Bible. Under “World”, they touch on Evangelism, social action, culture, women in ministry, leadership, seminary, environmentalism, and homosexuality. Under “Soul, they speak on Sin, Worship, Doubt, Truth, and on Being Postmodern. Each has his own ‘take’ on the issue, and each responds to the other’s essays – a good example of good dialogue around a given subject.

I bought the book in September or October, I think, and I’ve only gotten a few chapters into it. Campolo and McLaren posit an argument that the Church has been co-opted, that we are too … influenced by our culture, rather than the other way around, to bring about the radical changes that the Gospel of Jesus Christ can make happen.

I’m not talking about making change happen by controlling the legislative process and effecting those changes through laws. I’m talking about individual, life-altering, face-to-face contact that ends up transforming both participants.

We’ve just finished reading the ninth chapter of the Gospel of John. Besides the length of the reading, is there any single event in the passage that stands out most for you?

Are you struck by the way everyone seems to keep trying to pass the buck when they are asked about Jesus, or more by the way the Pharisees keep asking all these questions all those questions, or by the way the neighbors supposedly couldn’t say for sure if the man who could now see was the same man they’d known all their lives?

In some ways, it can almost read like a keystone cops episode, if the subject weren’t so serious.

Here’s what we have: Jesus is walking along with his disciples and they run into a man who is blind. The disciples ask Jesus why the man is blind, is it because of HIS sins or the sins of his parents? It is telling that they already had what seemingly were the only two answers they would consider as plausible in their heads when they asked the question. It is indicative of the reactions we read of throughout the rest of the chapter from all parties. People were not used to thinking outside the accepted norms of society. And that society at the time was controlled by the Pharisees. Well, by the Romans, I suppose, ultimately, but in first-century Palestine, the day-to-day stuff was left up to the locals themselves. The Romans knew that they – the locals - were MUCH better at micromanaging than the Romans were, except where circumstances demanded direct intervention. That would come later.

Anyway, Jesus tells the disciples that it was neither his own nor his parent’s sins that caused the man to be born blind, but rather he was born blind so that God’s works may be revealed in him. We must work the works of him who sent me. In other words, there was a greater purpose … a deeper reason for which this happened. Watch!

What does he do? Jesus spits on the ground, makes mud, spreads it on the man’s eyes, and sends him off to the pool of Siloam to rinse off. And when the man does, he opens his eyes and he can see. The healing takes all of two verses out of the 41 into which the chapter is broken up. That part of the narrative ends at verse 8. For the next 33 verses the arguments go back and forth, about who Jesus was, if he was a sinner (because he’d healed on the Sabbath), if the man actually was who he said he was, talking to the neighbors and the PARENTS about who the man was, then arguing back and forth about who might or might not be a disciple of Christ, likening him to a disciple of Moses … the litany seems endless. There is so much talk filling the rest of the chapter that by the time we get to the end, we almost forget what started the whole argument in the first place: a man was healed by the power and the love of God through Jesus Christ.

The Pharisees missed the point. They were so caught up in the fact that the Sabbath had been violated, they couldn’t get past the fact that Jesus had, in their minds, sinned. It didn’t fit in their heads that God might actually do something outside the strict parameters they had set for themselves by codifying those 613 laws.

Richard Lischer, professor of Homiletics at Duke Divinity School, writes the following:

‘The question of origins pervades the Gospel of John. In our story we have the ancient version not of Who's on First? but of Where's He from? The authorities sink to the oldest of all debate tactics: assail the source of your opponent's argument. Poison the well. Where is this Jesus from? What rabbinical school did he attend? Where did he learn to break God's law? The formerly blind man replies, "He restored my sight. Where do you think he's from?"

Does this story mean that you must possess special knowledge to be a follower of Jesus? Must you see the way God sees?

No -- not knowledge, but acknowledgment.

The formerly blind man did not know all the correct religious phrases with which to interpret his salvation. He was not pious in the traditional sense or even respectful of his elders. What he knew for sure was that once upon a time he sat in darkness, and now the whole world was drenched in sunlight. And he acknowledged that.

"One thing I know," he said. And as he makes his witness to Jesus, we realize that the man blind from birth has a multitude of sons and daughters with their own stories to tell. "One thing I know," one of you might say (sounding like the Samaritan woman in John 4), “is that when I was going through my divorce I hurt so much I couldn't sleep or eat, and I was so filled with hate I couldn't think, but somehow I got through it, and I've come to recognize that the somehow was Jesus."

"One thing I know." How is that for ironic understatement? As if the only teensy little thing you happen to know is -- who saved your life! No, you start not with special knowledge but with acknowledgment. You may begin not with a public profession but with a prayer to the Light of the World.

The man's profession has a terrible consequence for him and for all of us. He is cast out of the synagogue. He is cut off from Torah, family, the sweet--smelling incense of the Sabbath, the certitude of the Law -- all because he looked deeply and directly into the Light.

If J. Louis Martyn and other scholars are right, this story reflects the historic parting of the ways between the synagogue and the Jews who believed in Jesus. We were once so close. Just how close we still are can be seen in those moments when we acknowledge our dependence on God, and place no limits on who and how God saves in Jesus Christ. If we read this story as an ironic comedy and nothing more, we miss the loneliness of its final scene in which Jesus and the man converse outside the synagogue. But if we catch its underlying pathos, we will see this story for the tragedy it really is, and wait upon God to write a new ending.’

So the question for us today, here at Jerusalem Baptist Church at Emmerton is this: Are we limiting the way we are viewing God’s work in the world, are we blind to the radically unexpected nature of the Gospel, are we ONLY looking for God to work in a certain way, through certain people, in a certain timeframe, in a certain sequence, or are we ready to acknowledge that God can and does work in ways we never even knew existed?

Can we be open to those unexpected ways in our own hearts, in our own lives, seemingly insignificant coincidences that turn out to be God-things?

What happened this week in your life? Looking back, was there something that struck you as odd, something you maybe couldn’t quite put your finger on, that now, looking back on it, seems to have been one of those instances, one of those thin places where you could catch a glimpse of the Kingdom shining through? If it DID happen, share it with a friend, or a family member. It is in those events that we find our hope and our courage … and the ability to recognize and to continue to work the works that God has for us to do.

Let’s pray.

Conversations at the Well

Sunday, February 27, 2005
Lent 3A
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton
John 4:5-42

5So he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon. 7A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, ‘Give me a drink.’ 8(His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) 9The Samaritan woman said to him, ‘How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?’ (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.) 10Jesus answered her, ‘If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, “Give me a drink,” you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.’ 11The woman said to him, ‘Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? 12Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?’ 13Jesus said to her, ‘Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.’ 15The woman said to him, ‘Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.’ 16Jesus said to her, ‘Go, call your husband, and come back.’ 17The woman answered him, ‘I have no husband.’ Jesus said to her, ‘You are right in saying, “I have no husband”; 18for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!’ 19The woman said to him, ‘Sir, I see that you are a prophet. 20Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.’ 21Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. 24God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.’ 25The woman said to him, ‘I know that Messiah is coming’ (who is called Christ). ‘When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us.’ 26Jesus said to her, ‘I am he, the one who is speaking to you.’
27 Just then his disciples came. They were astonished that he was speaking with a woman, but no one said, ‘What do you want?’ or, ‘Why are you speaking with her?’ 28Then the woman left her water jar and went back to the city. She said to the people, 29‘Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?’ 30They left the city and were on their way to him. 31Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, ‘Rabbi, eat something.’ 32But he said to them, ‘I have food to eat that you do not know about.’ 33So the disciples said to one another, ‘Surely no one has brought him something to eat?’ 34Jesus said to them, ‘My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work. 35Do you not say, “Four months more, then comes the harvest”? But I tell you, look around you, and see how the fields are ripe for harvesting. 36The reaper is already receiving wages and is gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. 37For here the saying holds true, “One sows and another reaps.” 38I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor.’ 39Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, ‘He told me everything I have ever done.’ 40So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them; and he stayed there two days. 41And many more believed because of his word. 42They said to the woman, ‘It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Savior of the world.’

What moves, motivates, enthralls, engages, and generally affects us more than anything? What convinces, persuades, perplexes, challenges, and frustrates us most? Words.

Granted, there are, among us, those who are mostly unaffected by words, but more so by actions. And we all strive to strike a balance between the two.

There is an inherent danger in swinging too far in one or the other direction. When we are too caught up in words, we lose the sense of what it means to put actions behind the words, and when we are too involved in DOING things – be they all noble and worthwhile, we can lose the perspective gained by examination and reflection provided by words.

I remember sitting in classes in college, and I remember sometimes lively discussions, engaging professors, and challenging classmates. But the most significant events – the most powerfully moving moments I remember about those four years were in the midst of the conversations I had with my roommates, usually too late at night, and too far off the subject we were supposed to be studying, but that’s another story. The conversations would sometimes go on for days or weeks, stopping and then picking back up several times over that time. As we thought of new issues related to the subject, or questions arose that we’d not thought of before, the thread of the conversation continued. To some degree, they are still going on today. When we got together in Louisville Christmas before last, there were a couple of times when all it took was a single comment, and the conversation that we began back in 1983 picked right back up.

The same goes for seminary. I remember being even more enthralled in the classes than I had been in college – we were studying the stuff of LIFE. We were learning about and reflecting on exactly what it meant for faith and life to intersect … more often than not, we ended up finding that it’s not so much an intersection as a shared lane, depending on how you approach it.

While the subject matter in class was different from those in college, the most significant moments in seminary again came in the form of conversations, and not necessarily conversations in a classroom, but in an apartment, or in the library, or the cafeteria, or the post office. There used to be a couple of bulletin boards, that were a kind of no-mans’ land. They were primarily used to post notes about stuff you wanted to sell, or buy, or apartments for rent, or looking for a roommate signs, that sort of thing.

But they were also an open forum. They were the precursor to the internet chat rooms we have today. People would post letters, or messages, intentionally leaving room for people to post replies – or even if they didn’t leave room, people would find a space to jot down some sort of response.

It used to be one of my favorite pastimes: going to check my mail, and stopping to read the latest post. There were some pretty significant events noted on those boards. A lifelong friend of mine, also a student at the seminary, announced that he was homosexual, and that he was leaving seminary. People would post accusations and counter-accusations, others would throw in a comment to try to make light of a situation, and others would then jump on THAT person for not taking things seriously enough.

Southern at the time was a relatively healthy mix of views and ideas, of thoughtful opinions and interpretations of the usual hot-button issues, along with a growing number of stridently closed individuals who would in the end strengthen their grip on the institution to the point where the interchange of ideas is mostly in one direction: from the administration to the student. That is probably an unfair statement. But comparing the then and now is to compare two institutions with radically different approaches … and to some degree, objectives.

There are moments we savor for what has happened in them. Moments where we are caught up in what is being done – in the action of the moment -- that leaves a lasting impact. Building a house for someone, if you’ve ever been involved in a habitat for humanity project, that can be a life-imprinting event. If you’ve ever been involved in disaster relief, that can be as well. If you’ve ever been involved in saving someone’s life, or in averting an accident, things like that don’t happen and then fade quickly into memory. YOUR life is changed, not only the life of the other person.

We have a little of both in the passage today.

The words spoken at the well, the conversation between Jesus and the Samaritan woman hold some of those first moments, where the sparking of ideas and the point-counterpoint of the questions and answers engage the Samaritan woman’s mind as well as our own.

What’s the difference between the Samaritans and the Jews? Why does one claim Jerusalem’s temple as ‘the’ place to worship, while the other claims Mount Gerizim, next to where they were carrying on the conversation, as ‘the’ place? Those were questions SHE raised then.

Christ’s response to her then and to us now is the same. The time is coming when it won’t matter so much WHERE you worship, as much as it will matter that you worship in Spirit and in Truth. We can become so wrapped up in the formalities of worship, can’t we? Jesus was saying it’s not about the formalities; it’s about where your hearts are. it’s not about how you sing, or if you follow a set pattern, it’s not about how it looks to others, it is about US – YOU and ME being in communion with each other. THAT is what it’s about. If you’re not in communion with me inside your heart, what difference does it make which four walls you stand inside of on any given Sunday?

The conversation continues, and what results is action. That happens today even as it did nearly two thousand years ago in Samaria. Jesus never engaged someone in conversation to have them walk away unchanged, somehow unaffected, or ignorant of the significance of what just took place.

In this case, after Jesus tells the Samaritan woman who she really is – confronts her, as it were, with her true self, she is compelled to run into town and tell her neighbors and the rest of the townspeople who she’s been talking to at the well.

THEIR response, in turn, is to be … drawn out to HIM. There’s always the possibility that it happened to be a slow day in town – nothing showing on TV, all of it reruns … but it’s also true that the story the woman at the well was sharing was pretty … compelling … we are so easily intrigued by people who can tell us things about ourselves that sometimes even WE are afraid to admit… I wonder how many of the people who ran out to meet Jesus were approaching him thinking “there’s no WAY he’ll be able to guess so-and-so about me.”

And yet, Paul tells us there will come a day when all our secret thoughts will be shouted from the mountaintops… for all to hear.

A little unsettling isn’t it?

I wonder how many of the other townspeople continued their conversations with Jesus around that same well over the next two days.

How many looked him in the eyes and realized they were looking into the face of an infinitely compassionate God, who SO wanted to be a part of their lives that he came to earth to live among them … how many hearts sang back when they heard the melody of God’s voice singing to them by name across the way?

How many of us have let the thread of our conversation with the Savior … drop for far too long? How long has it been since we engaged in the conversation that is our working out our salvation with fear and trembling? How long has it been since we raised that question that has been on our mind with our fellow pilgrims?

There’s room at the well for all of us.

Let’s pray.

Salt and Light

Sunday, February 20th, 2005
Lent 2A
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton (WMU Missions Emphasis Sunday)
Text: Matthew 5:13-16 (not from the Revised Common Lectionary)

“Let me tell you why you are here. You’re here to be salt-seasoning that brings out the God-flavors of this earth. If you lose your saltiness, how will people taste Godliness? You’ve lost your usefulness and will end up in the garbage.

Here’s another way to put it: You’re here to be light, bringing out the God-colors in the world. God is not a secret to be kept. We’re going public with this, as public as a city on a hill. If I make you light-bearers, you don’t think I’m going to hide you under a bucket, do you? I’m putting you on a light stand. Now that I’ve put you there on a hilltop, on a light stand—shine! Keep open house; be generous with your lives. By opening up to others, you’ll prompt people to open up with God, this generous Father in heaven.”
(From The Message )

The life marked by the beatitudes is not to be lived in isolation.

We often assume that these inner qualities can only be developed or displayed in isolation from the world; but Jesus wants us to live them out before the world.

That’s why we were called to the Northern Neck by the Rappahannock Baptist Association and by Jerusalem Baptist Church, to live out our faith before the world that we find in Essex, Richmond, Westmoreland, Northumberland and Lancaster counties.

Jesus points to broadness in the impact of the disciples that must have seemed almost ridiculous at the time; how could these humble Galileans salt the earth, or light the world? But they did!

We were faced with the impact we could make – as individuals, as a congregation, and as an association, through the ministry to the migrant and Hispanic community on the Northern Neck very soon after meeting and getting to know the people we work with FROM that community.

Within a couple of months of meeting them, we had already been extended an invitation to come visit them in their homes in Mexico. At the time, it honestly didn’t seem to be anything more than a dream. Time constraints and other demands and commitments seemed to confine us – in the best sense of the word – to the work we are involved in on a day-to-day basis both here at Jerusalem and in the Hispanic community that is here at any given time of year. So we went on about our business … the business of the Kingdom, we hoped.

Back to the passage: Notice that Jesus does not challenge us to become "salt" or "light"; He simply says that we are - and to put it bluntly, we are either fulfilling or failing that responsibility.

Salt as a picture of the Christian

In Jesus' day, salt was a valued commodity; Roman soldiers were sometimes paid with salt, giving rise to the phrase "worth his salt". Salt was used to preserve meats, and to retard decay; Christians being salt points to their preservation of society.

And as today, salt was used to add flavor - Christians should be a "flavorful" people. However, salt must keep its "saltiness" to be of any value; it is rightfully trampled under foot; in the same way, too many Christians lose their "flavor" and become good for nothing.


****

On the 5th day of our visit to Mexico, we were sitting in Isidra and Norberto’s living room, having just gotten up from an afternoon nap that they insisted on, after having traveled from Tlaxcala, where we’d spent the first part of our trip with Mundo Perez and HIS family, visiting the men who work in White Stone and their families. Isidra began to talk about how much it means to her to be able to worship with us when we have our gatherings. She said she feels the presence of God when we are together.

She spoke about how she doesn’t practice the veneration of saints, and freely tells others who do that they don’t need to be praying to saints, but directly to God through Jesus, that it is through faith in HIM that they are receive salvation. She spoke about her local priest coming to her house and leading a study on the importance of studying scripture, of understanding how it can impact their lives, and how important it is to seek daily communion with Christ. She went on to say that the priest still talked to the group of women about the importance of observing the sacraments, and how critical they were to carrying out their faith, so there was no question about where she stood in relationship to the Roman Catholic tradition, but she still looked straight at us and said ‘There needs to be a Baptist presence here.” I came across a Baptist Church not too far from here several years ago, and I’ve not been back by that area since then, but I think we need to go to see if it is still there, and at least establish contact with the Pastor and the people who attend there.’

This was a devout Catholic telling us that there needed to be a Baptist presence in her city. It made me wonder what we had shown her Baptists to be. I honestly wondered if we were presenting her with a true portrait of what Baptist believe … and the longer I’ve thought about it, the more I’ve realized that I think she came away with exactly the impression … that God wanted her to have. I don’t mean that we were necessarily that attuned to what God wanted to come out of the encuentros, though I hope we were more attuned than not, but I think that we were tuned ENOUGH to what God has been trying to say through the ministry and the heart of the Rappahannock Baptist Association, and Jerusalem Baptist Church in particular, to where the Hispanic Community that has chosen to JOIN with us is coming to understand that though there may be differences between us, we have at the heart of what we believe a common bond, the Lordship of Christ, and that that is a starting point for all the rest.

*****

Back to the passage:

Light.

The purpose of light is to illuminate and expose what is present; therefore light must be exposed before it can be of any value - if it is hidden under a bucket, it is no longer useful. It goes against the very nature and purpose of light for it to be hidden - so a Christian is truly fighting himself and the Holy Spirit by never letting his light so shine before men. Even as lamps are placed higher so their light can be more effective, we should look for ways to let our light shine in greater and broader ways.

Jesus gives the Christian both a great compliment and responsibility when He says that we are the light of the world; He claimed that title for Himself as He walked this earth (John 8:12 and 9:5).

The purpose in letting our light so shine by doing good works is so that others will glorify God, not us.

*****

That same evening, Isidra and Norberto convinced us to go with them to see if we could find that Baptist Church she’d seen so many years ago. By then it was nighttime, but still relatively early in the evening. We walked down to the main street, about 2 or 3 blocks down from their home, and hailed a taxi.

Taxis in Mexico are not like taxis here in the States. They are mostly, though not exclusively, Volkswagen Bugs, with the front passenger seat pulled out, to make exiting and entering the cars easier. Picture this: there were 4 of us, two of us pretty tall. Occasionally you’d see a larger model taxi go by, but not very often. One finally did stop, but it was the standard VW Bug. Isidra, Leslie and I piled into the back seat, and Norberto squatted in the front, beside the driver, where the passenger seat would have been had it been left in. Isidra explained to the taxi driver where to go, and as we got closer, the conversation got more specific about what we were looking for. We finally came out and asked the driver if he’d seen a Baptist Church around, as he was driving his fares back and forth. He thought a minute and finally said “I’m not sure. I think there may be one at ‘such-and-such a place, but I can’t be certain.” He proceeded to take us to a couple of churches, one where there was no meeting going on, and the other where there was. Both were Pentecostal. As we pulled away, Isidra tried to explain what a Baptist Church was like. She finally drew it down to the point of saying “Baptists are just like Catholics.”

The part of me that studied Baptist history in the face of state-sanctioned religious institutions cringed every time she said that. But the part of me that longs for a world where, rather than tearing each other down, or spending more time telling you why you should belong to this or that denomination, and how much better one’s chosen tradition is than others, denominations could recognize a common purpose, a shared GOAL, THAT part of me was thrilled to hear her say that.

Don’t get me wrong. I am proud to be a baptist, to stand for historic baptist principles of soul competency, local church autonomy, and religious freedom, but at the same time I long to join with other traditions and agree to disagree on some things but still maintain a common union … under the Lordship of Christ.

As the taxi ride got longer and longer, the conversation with the driver got deeper and deeper into the subject of why there are so many denominations. I finally spoke up in the midst of the expressions of some confusion and a little frustration, to say that I thought it was a good thing that there are so many denominations, that everyone needs to find a place where they are comfortable expressing their faith as they understand it, even though that results in differences, and sometimes arguments, my hope was that there would come a day when all our different traditions could be seen for what they are – a reflection of the wonderful varieties God has gifted us with – varieties of thought and understanding, varieties of styles and presentations, varieties of song and praise.

*****

A key thought in both the pictures of salt and light: distinction

There are, of course, any number of distinctions between Baptists and Catholics. But those distinctions disappear in the face of someone who has no faith, no inkling of what it means to have a relationship with God, who has never experienced that redeeming and welcoming love in the faces and words and actions of a congregation wholly given over to the task of being Christ’s presence in this world.

Salt is needed because the world is rotting and decaying; if our Christianity is also rotting and decaying, it won't be any good. Light is needed because the world is in darkness; if our Christianity imitates the darkness, we have nothing to show the world.

To be effective we must seek and display the Christian distinctive; we can never affect the world for Jesus by becoming like the world. So how will we be different?

The passage ends with a short, but beautiful picture at the end:

“Keep open house; be generous with your lives. By opening up to others, you’ll prompt people to open up with God, this generous Father in heaven.”

What was so overwhelming to us over the course of those 7 days in January, was that everywhere we went, everyone we greeted and hugged and sat down and talked with, all the families of those we’ve sought to minister to here, showed us what it is like to be on the receiving end of that gift – and prompted us to open up with God.

Let’s pray.

Temptation


Sunday, February 13th, 2005
Lent 1
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA
Matthew 4:1-11

Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. 2He fasted forty days and forty nights, and afterwards he was famished. 3The tempter came and said to him, ‘If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.’ 4But he answered, ‘It is written, “One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.”’ 5Then the devil took him to the holy city and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, 6saying to him, ‘If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down; for it is written, “He will command his angels concerning you,” and “On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.”’ 7Jesus said to him, ‘Again it is written, “Do not put the Lord your God to the test.”’ 8Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor; 9and he said to him, ‘All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.’ 10Jesus said to him, ‘Away with you, Satan! for it is written, “Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.”’ 11Then the devil left him, and suddenly angels came and waited on him.

‘Paso de eso” …

My friend Juan looked at me in an entirely benign manner. We’d been talking, at his initiative, about differences between the Catholic and Baptist traditions, and the differing understandings of scripture. When he came out with that phrase, it was to emphasize for me that he didn’t really believe all things espoused by the Roman Catholic Church, and yet in the next breathe, he freely admitted that, although there were aspects of the Baptist tradition that he appreciated, he could never even consider becoming a Baptist because his father would simply disown him. His parents freely admitted that even they didn’t agree with much if any of the Roman Catholic Church’s strictures, imposed on them under the nearly 40 years dictatorship of Francisco Franco in Spain, which at the time had ended a little less than a decade earlier, but nonetheless, they had made it clear to him that if he (Juan) were to join up with a splinter sect such as we Baptists were still viewed as being at the time, he would be summarily disowned. And that was something he couldn’t even consider.

‘Paso de eso” …

Literally, “I’m past that”. In contemporary language, “I’m OVER it.”

It was the phrase I most often heard in conversations with Spaniards about matters of faith while serving as a missionary journeyman there back in the 80’s. It was the single most disheartening factor with which I was confronted in the two years I was there.

Having come from a background that was grounded in faith, breathed faith, and tried to live faith, day in and day out, over the previous 22 years, it was the first time I was confronted with that radically different a world view from my own. I would have expected a gap in understanding if I would have met a person of a different faith altogether, but on some level, whether I am conversing with a Jew, a Muslim, a Hindu, or a Buddhist, there is a core element of faith … an awareness of the divine … granted, within that shared awareness there are VERY different ideas, but there is an underpinning of knowledge in being aware of something greater than ourselves among people of faith. That is what allows interfaith dialogues to at least begin.

This was RADICALLY different, meaning, at the very root, there was no commonality. “I’m over that”, implying that I’m beyond that, I’m above that, I’m better than that … a sense that matters of faith are all but useless, if not harmful.

Where do you begin to respond to that? Where do you begin to build a bridge that says “I know we see differently here on this issue that is critical for me, but trivial for you … lets find a way to continue to carry on this conversation and neither of us feel like we’re wasting our time.”

I remember the last conversation I had with Juan, the day before I left Oviedo. He told me he envied me the assurance I found in faith, and I told him that I wished that same assurance for him.

What was so overwhelming about that being ‘over’ it was that it was so prevalent. It wasn’t just a few people here and there, intellectuals and cynics and artists, or communist party activists or militant atheists who were saying it; it was the vast majority of the general population that I came in contact with.

Last August, when we were on vacation in Kentucky and had a chance to visit with our friend Claude, he told us about his trip to Europe earlier that summer. He told me of the people he’d met, and the conversations he’d had with friends who had moved there and THEIR friends who were from there, and at the end of it, he surprised me by saying “with all their shortcomings, I would much rather have an Evangelical Protestant Fundamentalist in power than one of the folks over there – at least THEY BELIEVE in something!”

So let’s turn to the text for a bit. I’m sure most of us have heard some message on the temptation of Christ before. It only took me a couple of minutes of searching to find the traditional interpretations of the temptations that Christ faced in the wilderness:

1. Turning stones into bread: Jesus had been in the wilderness fasting for 40 days up until that point. Being tempted to feed himself after going hungry for over a month would seem to be a low blow, but it is at out weakest that we are confronted with what most beguiles us. Jesus was being tempted to put his own needs first – to be self-serving.
2. Bow down to Satan in order to rule all the world highlights the human lust for power and dominance. Jesus knew going into his ministry that he was going to be proclaiming a Kingdom different from that which the people were expecting. Here he was turning away from a final attempt to go about his ministry in the expected fashion.
3. To jump from the pinnacle of the temple in order to be caught by God’s angels before striking his foot on the ground is an appeal to … vanity, when it comes down to it. An appeal to that part of us that longs to be noticed or valued. To get our 15 minutes of fame, as it were. Jesus knew that was all it would be; a temporary flash in the pan, and he knew that the consequences would be eternal.
We can all, to some degree, identify with each of those temptations. We’ve all experienced moments when we would’ve gladly given in, and perhaps some of us may have even YIELDED, but this is a Gospel of grace, of forgiveness, and of reconciliation.

We give in because we’re human. Though we can help it at times, we are flawed creatures, “frail children of dust,” as Bill Hendricks used to address all of his classes at seminary. We can live in regret for what we’ve done and dwell on it, or we can move on in the sure and certain knowledge that God can use us despite ourselves at our worst.

But the lesson of the gospel today also goes in a different direction. Temptation is, unfortunately, rarely as obvious as if Satan himself were standing next to you with horns and a pitchfork asking you to conjure up a Big Mac with fries and a coke because you’re hungry. Temptation rarely offers us the opportunity to discern it from the good we might do, from the good we might BE, if we choose one way or the other.

In the film ‘The Last Temptation of Christ’, Willem Dafoe as Jesus is confronted with his last temptation, coming down from the cross, marrying Mary Magdalene, and going on to live a ‘normal’ life of anonymity and child rearing, working in his carpenter’s shop and providing a quiet living for his family.

At their heart, temptations pull us away from our walk with God, this continuing relationship that develops as we each get to know each other. It is ultimately why God created us: for companionship. Our greatest temptation each day is to live the day as though God didn’t matter, to go about our regular daily activities without a hint of God’s presence or movement in our lives. God’s deepest sorrow is found when we walk away from him. His greatest joy is found when we run to him, like children eager to show our heavenly father what we’ve discovered, in creation, in ourselves, in our families or our family of faith that reflects him and his love for the world.

What does this mean for Jerusalem Baptist Church at Emmerton?

Simply this: it is for us to resist with all our might the subtle, silent … temptation to go through a day – or any part of a day- without acknowledging that it is by the goodness of God that we were brought into this world, that it is by the grace of God that we are being kept all the day long, even until this very hour, and that it is by the love of God, fully revealed in the face of Jesus, that we are being redeemed.

Let’s pray.

Blessed Are …

Sunday, January 30th, 2005
Epiphany 4
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton
Matthew 5:1-12

1When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain; and after he sat down, his disciples came to him. 2Then he began to speak, and taught them, saying: 3 ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 4‘Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. 5‘Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. 6‘Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. 7‘Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy. 8‘Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. 9‘Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. 10‘Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 11‘Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. 12Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

Blending hope and blessing to sooth the aches and pains of those who are, by most worldly standards, the ones least likely to succeed: the poor in spirit, mourners, the meek, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, those who are persecuted for Christ’s sake. The beatitudes. They are the quintessential preaching points of the Christian faith.

There is, as always, a danger with a passage of scripture becoming too familiar to us. We tend to overlook things we wouldn’t otherwise. To begin with, there’s the unspoken question of the converse of the list – what happens to those who ARE rich in spirit, those who … rejoice, those would seem to be qualities that would be desirable, would they not? In a sense, the first two beatitudes are directed to people for whom we would all have some measure of compassion. The next group, though, would be less an object of compassion and perhaps more a cause for distress: the assertive, to not say aggressive, those who DO NOT hunger and thirst for righteousness, who see no need to get to know their softer side, as it were, those who are ruthless, those whose hearts are full of impure motives? It would seem to be self-evident that they would not be so blessed. So we can pack that point up and move on, can’t we? We can, unless we find ourselves counted among the second group rather than the first.

Where do we stand? Truth be told, none of us are permanently on one side or the other of these qualities. Human nature is changeable, and we sometimes find ourselves being rich in spirit and at other times poor, merciful and ruthless, meek and aggressive, hungering for righteousness one day and indifferent the next.

Jesus knew that. He knew who he was talking to, both then and now. That is what makes this Sermon on the Mount so dynamic. It moves with the time it is in. Regardless of when and where it is read, it applies. It speaks to the eternal nature of the word of God.

So do we leave it at that? At being a listing of those who are blessed, draw what comfort and strength we can from that, and move on? Or is there another way to read this, to apply this, to incorporate this into how we live out our faith?

Can we read the beatitudes as challenges? Can we reread the beatitudes as Jesus telling us how we should be, how we should act, how we should live? There’s a phrase you may have heard Leslie or me use at some point – “don’t should on yourself.” The resemblance to the … less than properly worded alternative is intentional. The parallel thought is assumed. There’s a point at which we hear that in Jesus’ words throughout the gospels. It’s the reason the word ‘sermon’ has acquired something of a negative connotation. In today’s popular culture, we tend to shy away from accountability. There’s an almost-immediate reaction against anyone telling us we should or should not be doing something. ‘Don’t tell me what to do!’ is a phrase we would all at some point resoundingly affirm, regardless of who we heard it from.

Here’s where we get into the issue that is at the heart of the Christian faith: authority. You may have heard it referred to as the counterpoint of serving God and Mammon, or in contemporary language, being selfish versus being selfless. What it boils down to is this: if we as Christians claim Jesus Christ as Lord of our lives, that word, LORD has to mean something. Among other things, it means being subject, being accountable, being submissive to what the Lord requires of us. The passage from Micah is beautiful both in form and function:

“What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” (Micah 6:8)

We’d like to leave it at that, and in many ways we can, even as a Gospel people, reading the Old Testament through the lens of Easter, there is completeness in the Micah text that sums it up for us. That’s what we like about bumper stickers, isn’t it?

What Jesus is doing is fleshing that out. He gets into specifics. He fills in the blanks. He answers the question: What does that mean?

We would rather live in generalities, as a people, leaving the specifics to each individual. In fact, that is a hallmark of Baptist theology – we call it Soul Competency. Each individual has the capacity to sense, discern and respond to the movement of God in their lives through the Holy Spirit. The corollary to that tenet is that there is a … need … a requirement to know the source as well as possible in order to be able to do that discerning, that sensing … that … following … so we put a lot of emphasis on scripture. We believe Jesus did too. He was constantly quoting scripture – to his disciples, to the crowds that gathered, to the religious leaders of the time, and interpreting it for them in the way it should have been from the beginning. There’s that word again – SHOULD.

So we need to get over being told what to do. Not because we should accept anyone telling us what to do, but because of WHO is telling us. If we believe that Jesus is who he said he is, then we need to listen to what he is telling us. Who BETTER to do so?

The tricky part is, how do we distinguish the message from the messenger? I could step up to this pulpit with an agenda, a preset list of issues to discuss and present and might be capable of presenting the message in such a way as to convince you that the way I see it is what Jesus was saying. In some ways, that’s my job in preaching. As Pastor I am charged with the responsibility to care for the spiritual wellbeing of the congregation as a whole and as individuals. And I will confess to you that I am aware that I interpret the Gospel in a certain way by nature – in other words, I’m drawing from the Gospel what I see through the lens of MY life and experience. But I want it to be clear that if and when I present that … view, that version, as it were, it is an exercise in self-awareness. What I would hope is that it would not be, as it says in the blurb in the announcement about the messages being online, taken as dictation, but rather as the beginning of a conversation. That is a responsibility that I do not believe I am called to - to interpret FOR you, to delineate, to define for you what the Gospel means. That is a responsibility that we each carry as Children of God. It is in the conversation that we are opened to thoughts we might not have had, to ideas we might not have considered, to views we could not have held, had we not been in community, and in that context, had we not been sensitive to the leading of the Holy Spirit.

That is the reason for our congregational benediction – the part about “May God take your minds and think through them, may God take your lips and speak through them” is not JUST about being God’s presence in the world, but it is about being in dialogue within this family of faith. To not be afraid to risk something big, how we see, how we believe, how we live, and present it to our brothers and sisters for something good – a deeper understanding, an ‘aha!’ moment, an epiphany of ‘I never thought of it like that before’.

So, blessed are those who search and hunger for righteousness, who can be poor or rich in Spirit, who mourn and rejoice, who are meek and not so meek, who are reviled for HIS sake, who gather here. We are blessed, but we are called. We are challenged to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters, to lay them down for our Lord, to seek – to live – the way to the truth and the life. We are one and the same. And we are called to more, we are challenged to more, by our Lord Jesus Christ.

Let’s pray.

Shifting Alliance

Sunday, January 16th, 2005
Epiphany 2
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton
John 1:29-42

29 The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him and declared, ‘Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! 30This is he of whom I said, “After me comes a man who ranks ahead of me because he was before me.” 31I myself did not know him; but I came baptizing with water for this reason, that he might be revealed to Israel.’ 32And John testified, ‘I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him. 33I myself did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water said to me, “He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.” 34And I myself have seen and have testified that this is the Son of God.’ 35The next day John again was standing with two of his disciples, 36and as he watched Jesus walk by, he exclaimed, ‘Look, here is the Lamb of God!’ 37 The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus. 38When Jesus turned and saw them following, he said to them, ‘What are you looking for?’ They said to him, ‘Rabbi’ (which translated means Teacher), ‘where are you staying?’ 39He said to them, ‘Come and see.’ They came and saw where he was staying, and they remained with him that day. It was about four o’clock in the afternoon. 40One of the two who heard John speak and followed him was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother. 41He first found his brother Simon and said to him, ‘We have found the Messiah’ (which is translated Anointed). 42He brought Simon to Jesus, who looked at him and said, ‘You are Simon son of John. You are to be called Cephas’ (which is translated Peter).

Josh and Sam have been friends since college. They went through Law school together, and both became quickly disenchanted with the corporate law jobs they landed out of school. They made a promise to each other that if one of them ever came across ‘the real thing’ he would go find the other, and they would both fall in behind the one they found. There was a recklessness in the promise, a ‘damn the torpedoes’ sense of abandon. They would know. They just knew it.

Then one day, it happens. Sam is sitting in a meeting between his Law firm partners and their corporate client, a multinational shipping firm, discussing the details of how to avoid being penalized for operating unsafe tankers in order to maximize profits, when Josh shows up at the door. It’s a glass door. Sam glances over and sees Josh, and the look on Josh’s face is enough to tell Sam all he needs to know. He tries to excuse himself politely, but is pressed by his boss to stay. He looks at Josh again, and this time, he doesn’t ask permission. He stands up and takes a step towards the door, towards Josh, and simply says ‘I have to do this’, and walks out.

If you are a fan of ‘The West Wing’, I don’t need to fill in the blanks. If you are not, Josh Lyman and Sam Seaborn became the Deputy Chief of Staff and Deputy Communications Director, respectively, in the White House of the fictitious Josiah Bartlett administration.

The story and characters may be fictitious, the dynamics and truths of the human condition they speak to are not.

What does it mean to take a step of faith?

How big does that step have to be in order to qualify AS a step of faith?

A few weeks ago in our Wednesday night study in the book of Mark, we read about the young man who ran up to Jesus and fell to his knees and asked him what he needed to do to be saved. The other Gospels have made the man better known as the rich young ruler. Mark doesn’t present him that way.

The earliest and shortest Gospel presents him simply as a young man with an earnest desire to find what it was that was missing in his life. Though the presentation of the event is slightly different in Mark, Jesus ends up giving the man the same answer we have in the other Gospels: “go, sell your possessions, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me." (19:21b)

Even though there is a conclusion to the scene, in the man going away grieving, because he had many possessions, the story doesn’t end there. Mark doesn’t tell us what happened with the rest of that man’s life.

Did he in fact take the step of faith that Jesus told him he needed to, and sell all he had and donate the proceeds to the poor? DID he come back after that and become a follower of Jesus?

Those hanging endings are not uncommon to find in the Gospels. I believe they are intentional. They allow us an opportunity to turn the questions raised on ourselves. What would *I* have done in that situation? How would *I* have responded? That’s part of what brings the scriptures to life.

In today’s text, we are treated to a story with something of an ending … it doesn’t leave us hanging in the same way as Jesus’ encounter with the rich young man.

Here we have John the Baptist, the biggest name in wilderness –wandering prophetic voices of the day in first century Palestine, doing what HE does best – calling. This time, he is recognizing Jesus for who HE is – the Lamb of God. The baptism has already taken place. We went over that last Sunday. John has already protested that Jesus should be the one baptizing HIM, and Jesus politely refutes him and they proceed with the original plan. As we read last week, when Jesus came up out of the water, the Spirit of God descended on him like a dove, and he heard a voice from heaven speak, saying, “this is my son, the beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” I wonder what it was like for John, to one day have crowds coming to him to be baptized by the hundreds, and then to be face to face with the messiah, who turns out to be his cousin.

I’ve got several cousins … one works in the telecom industry, another is a narcotics police officer, and another is a Pastor, another runs his own business, and another works for a large agricultural supply firm. I’ve got others, but I’m not close enough to them to know what they do … I love them all, and they are all Godly men, as far as I know, but if one of them walked through that door and I realized that in that walking in they were the Messiah, it would take a dove from heaven and the voice of God to convince me that it was true.

I have to wonder what it was like for John. It is interesting that the narrative in John doesn’t include the actual baptism of Jesus, for that we had to go to Matthew’s gospel last week, but it seems to weave its way around the event, speaking more to the importance and the meaning of it rather than dwell on the particulars of it … and picks up right after … the next day, in fact, which is where the text begins for today.

It says something about the nature of John the Baptist to have him still carrying out his duties, as it were, even after the Messiah has been revealed to him. He still has followers, disciples, as it were, who were following him around. The first paragraph covers two days’ time, and have in them two encounters between Jesus and John the Baptist.

Jesus says nothing in either of them.

John does all the talking. Rather, all the declaring, the proclaiming. Testifying is the term used in the text. John testifies “I saw the Spirit descending” … there is a willingness to … direct those who are listening to him towards him whom HE has been looking for and proclaiming all HIS life, even to his seeming detriment.

He (John) has a couple of his own disciples with him on the second day. When he sees Jesus that time, he doesn’t seem to hesitate, but tells them “you know who I’ve been talking about all this time? THAT’S THE GUY! THAT’S HIM!!!” I can almost see him pushing the two disciples away from himself toward Jesus after he’s gone past, and can you picture the looks on the faces of the two men as they hesitantly take those first steps towards Jesus? Their body language that says ‘but, John, we’ve gotten used to following YOU around … you really want us to go follow … him???”

Isn’t it the case that one’s importance is determined by the size of one’s following, by one’s popularity? You certainly wouldn’t want to lose followers, much less encourage them to leave, would you?

Again, that was John. He knew what he was here for.

HIS alliance didn’t shift, but because it didn’t, his disciples’ alliance HAD to. All along, he was the one preparing the way – the voice of one crying in the wilderness, ‘make straight the way of the Lord’.

His disciples, though hesitant, did take that step of faith … from following John, to following Jesus. When Jesus noticed they were following him, his question was ‘What are you looking for?’ It’s a question with several layers of meaning, and one that he continues to ask US here today. Their answer is a foreshadowing of the next three years. They think in concrete terms: do you have a place to stay? The question behind the question is, of course, less interested in where Jesus is resting his head and more interested in where THEY may rest theirs … ‘if we follow you, will WE have a place to stay?’

It seems we can never entirely loose ourselves of the routine concerns of daily life. Will we have a roof over our heads? Will we have food on our table? Will we have clothes on our backs?

They are all valid concerns, but ones that we must, nonetheless, place in their proper place.

Any time I begin in on this subject, I feel entirely inadequate. I live in a beautiful house, have more than enough clothes, food, and other provisions to make me one of the richest people on earth – I don’t mean in strictly financial terms – but in comparison to the rest of the world population, I am wealthy beyond measure.

What we are speaking of this morning is alliance – allegiance, if you will – submission - to whom or to what are we giving our lives? Do we fill our days in pursuit of wealth? Jesus has a word for us in the story of the rich young ruler. Do we fill our time seeking position? Jesus has a word for us in his response to the request his disciples made to sit at his right and left hand in Glory. Do we seek wisdom? The Psalmist tells us the beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord. Do we seek our fulfillment in work? The parable of the rich farmer who dies with full granaries gives us an idea of where God is calling us.

God calls us to action, but not if in the acting we lose sight of who we are acting for. God calls us to be rich, but rich in spirit, in love, and in grace. God calls us to seek our position – but God also tells us that the greatest of these will be the least – to be servant of all. God calls us to be wise – to be in love with him – and all else will follow. God calls us to be about his work, and that work can and is radically different from what the world would consider work.

For us here this morning at Jerusalem Baptist Church: where is our allegiance? Whom are we submitted to? Are we trying to steer our own path? Are we here simply as a formality, because we’ve always been here at this hour on Sunday mornings, and it would be unseemly to not show up? Are we here because at some point in our past we felt God stir in our hearts, but that stirring has long since quieted, and we continue to come, hoping that something will happen, that someone will say something that will stir us again?

We can hold an alliance to tradition, to formality, to continuing to do things the way they’ve always been done, and lose sight of the one who needs to hold our ultimate loyalty.

So the question this morning is a hanging one; an open ended question, and we each must answer it for ourselves, and go from there. The rest of our lives have yet to be written.

Who or what holds your ultimate allegiance, and does it need to shift?

Let’s pray.

I Have …

Sunday, January 9th, 2005
(Third after Christmas)
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton
Matthew 3:13-17; Isaiah 42:1-9

Matthew 3:13-17

13 Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan, to be baptized by him. 14John would have prevented him, saying, ‘I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?’ 15But Jesus answered him, ‘Let it be so now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.’ Then he consented. 16And when Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. 17And a voice from heaven said, ‘This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.’

Isaiah 42:1-9

1 Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights; I have put my spirit upon him; he will bring forth justice to the nations. 2He will not cry or lift up his voice, or make it heard in the street; 3a bruised reed he will not break, and a dimly burning wick he will not quench; he will faithfully bring forth justice. 4He will not grow faint or be crushed until he has established justice in the earth; and the coastlands wait for his teaching. 5 Thus says God, the LORD, who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spread out the earth and what comes from it, who gives breath to the people upon it and spirit to those who walk in it: 6I am the LORD, I have called you in righteousness, I have taken you by the hand and kept you; I have given you as a covenant to the people, a light to the nations, 7to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness. 8I am the LORD, that is my name; my glory I give to no other, nor my praise to idols. 9See, the former things have come to pass, and new
things I now declare; before they spring forth, I tell you of them.

We’re still at the beginning of the year, in relation to the calendar. So it seems entirely appropriate to be reading of the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry. The event marked by his Baptism in the Jordan River. Most often it is quoted in the context of a service which includes a Baptism or two. My friend Jay Voorhees is doing just that this morning at Antioch United Methodist church in Nashville. He’s drawing the parallels between how we approach Baptism and how the Jewish faith celebrates Yom Kippur; as a dedication of the upcoming year to God. Again, an entirely appropriate and meaningful parallel. There are some differences in how Methodists and Baptists approach the act of Baptism, but one thing that he noted made me sit up and think.

What we read in the text is that after Jesus came up out of the water, “the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the spirit of God descending like a dove.” As Baptists, we traditionally emphasize the fact that following Christ in the waters of Baptism is a sign of obedience.

It is.

We should “so seek to follow Christ ourselves” that that would be a step we can take willingly and joyfully, an act that reminds us of the death, burial, and resurrection not only of Christ, but of ourselves – to our old life, and of being reborn in the newness of life in Christ. Our focus is on the responsive nature of our action. In other words, we do it in response to what God has done in our lives. But let’s try this morning to look at it from another angle.

Baptism is a powerful thing. To be honest with you, when I first met Father Duffy, the priest at St. Timothy’s over in Tappahannock, I was surprised. In the course of our conversation, he mentioned a man who was attending church there and wanted to join the parish. This man had apparently been a member here at some point in the past, and Father Duffy wanted to confirm if the man had been baptized here. His reason was simple. The Catholic Church does not re-baptize anyone if they’ve already been baptized in another Christian tradition.

What surprised me about that was that there really is more going on in the act of baptism than simply an obedient response on the part of the person being baptized. It is somewhat foreign to me, this idea that there’s more going on … I’m not always comfortable with anything that smacks of mysticism, but I have come to the realization that in order to embrace faith, there is a mystic element to the practice of faith that MUST be present in order for us to allow for the movement of the Holy Spirit in our lives, in our hearts, and in our work. Consider for a moment that the act is not just one of obedience, but that it is also a signal, a marker to us that God is at work in our lives from then on – and usually BEFORE the – on.

A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings tells the story of an angel that is blown down to earth by a violent rainstorm, while on an errand from God. A peasant couple, Pelayo and Elisenda, find him. They are shocked when they find him, but they never falter, or question his existence. In THAT sense, they take the fact that they came across a heavenly being on their walk through the country completely in stride. “Before the arrival of the angel, they are a simple, poor family with a dying son. Once the angel is captured, the son recovers and the family uses the angel for financial gain. Marquez shows us true human nature. An incredible being falls to the Earth and the humans use it to make a fast buck.” [1]

Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the Colombian author, uses the hallmark of his style of writing – what has come to be regarded as a genre unto itself – ‘Magical Realism’, throughout the story.

"Magical realism expands the categories of the real so as to encompass myth, magic and other extraordinary phenomena in Nature or experience which European realism excluded"[2]

I’m not proposing we should adopt a form of literature to provide the guideline for how we should live our lives, but we could take a hint from it.

If we hold God’s incarnation in Jesus Christ, and the presence of the Holy Spirit in the world today to be central and true to our faith, then we can live every day with a Magical realism that far surpasses any literary attempt to put it into words.

I was looking through a promotional brochure last night for a young adult conference, and the tag line was ‘blur the line between faith and life’.

I’m thinking there should be no line – blurry or otherwise – between faith and life. I can understand what the promoter was trying to say, but I’m not so sure we should allow for any distinction between how ‘faith’ operates in our lives and how we live our regular, day-to-day lives. It gives the impression that we can appropriately separate the two.

We can of course. It’s easy if you miss the point. The question is, is that something you WANT to do, or something that just happened without your realizing it?

If our example is Jesus, and he is, then there was no compartmentalization going on in his life and faith. For him, to breath was to be in communion with God. To confront the Pharisees and Sadducees, and to heal the lepers and the paralytics were all just as much acts of worship as they were events that found their way in to the run-of-the-mill daily occurrences in the lives of the people of Galilee and Judea. He didn’t save the good stuff for Sundays.

Let’s jump to the Isaiah passage. It picks up where the passage in Matthew lets off. In it, God continues to extol the virtues and acts of the Messiah. (Read).

Notice the shift from the second person (he will bring forth justice, he will not cry, he will not break …), to the first person (I have called you, I have taken you, I have given you …).

In those few sentences we see the whole movement of the Gospel: from the distant to the immediate, from impersonal, to the personal. From the other, unknowable God, to the God who walked among us. From the vengeful, angry, jealous God, to the God who would invite us each to gather around the table and join him in the feast, and walk with him in relationship, in love, and in discipleship.

And so we come to the table, at the invitation of the most high God.

Let’s pray.


[1] Gabriel García Márquez, eds. Bernard McGuirk and Richard Cardwell, p 204.
[2] Ibid, p 45