Scriptures: Genesis 25:19-34,
Romans 8:1-11 Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23
(Note: This sermon includes a brief tribute to Emanuel UCC's former pastor, the Rev. Dr. Eugene Grau, who went home to be with the Lord on July 8.)
Today’s reading from Matthew’s Gospel gives us one of the more familiar of Jesus’ parables. The parable and its interpretation seem fairly straightforward – a sower tosses seed onto varying kinds of soil, some favorable to the growth of the seed and some unfavorable. The seed falling on the varying kinds of bad soil – stony, shallow, weedy – either doesn’t sprout at all, dies early, or is choked and fails to produce fruit. The seed falling on the good soil, by contrast, produces a bumper crop. In Matthew’s interpretation, the seed is the gospel, and the varying kinds of soil parallel varying responses to the Gospel. The parable is so straightforward that it seems difficult to say anything new about it – it says what it says, and that’s that. But it sometimes happens that when we are confident we know what a Scripture says, we may later find that what appeared to be a straightforward Scripture has layers of meaning we’d never considered. If we are too quick to turn off our hearing aids in response to familiar Scriptures, we may miss a message God has waiting in the text for us.
For example, the sower’s methods may seem, to us, a bit odd. If we’re planting tomatoes in our garden or rows of corn on some patch of land we own, we would likely first take time to prepare the soil by plowing it to break up the hard surface and by pulling weeds. And we might be careful in spacing out the seeds, roughly estimating some number of inches between each seed, lest we plant them too close together and in competing for nutrients, they crowd each other out. That’s what we would do, but the sower in our story behaves very differently. The sower tosses handfuls of seed here, and there, and everywhere, so that some seeds land on the hard path, others amid the rocks, others under a thorn bush – and yes, the sower does manage to get some of them inside the garden, onto the soil that’s known to be good. If you’re trying to conserve a limited number of seeds and wants the greatest return on that limited investment, you won’t do what the sower in Jesus’ parable did. But in the framework of the parable, the seed is the Gospel – God’s good news – which is unlimited, boundless. There’s no threat of running short or running out of Gospel – with God, there’s always good news in abundance. So, if the sower has an unlimited, self-replenishing supply of seed – well, then the sower can afford to take a more expansive view of sowing, tossing seed onto the soil that’s known to be prepared and fertile, as well as giving the less desirable ground a chance to nourish the seed. And that’s what God does with us, offering the Gospel to those prepared for it, but also to those whose hearts truly aren’t prepared to act on it – or at least not prepared to act on it at that moment. God gives everyone a chance to respond.
Why did the early church record this parable of Jesus? Perhaps they were perplexed that despite their best efforts, so many seemed unresponsive to the Gospel. Various teams of disciples would enter a town, find their way to the town square, and proclaim the message of Jesus. While some would respond, often with extravagant joy, others would be indifferent and some would be openly hostile. How could so many turn away from Good News? For those early disciples, hostile reactions to the gospel must have seemed as baffling as hostile reactions to ice cream would seem to us. And then the early church remembered this parable and reflected that Jesus never expected everyone to respond – or at least not to respond immediately.
Which brings me to another point about this parable that caught my interest. In the framework of the parable, the sowing of the seed, or the sowing of the Gospel, is something that happens once. Either the seed sprouts, or it doesn’t. You snooze, you lose. But one parable can’t say everything there is to say about God’s saving acts in the world, and in our experience, the seed is sown not once, but many times, over and over. The seed is sown every Sunday here at Emanuel and other churches, is sown in words of hope and deeds of kindness throughout the week. And our lives may contain all sorts of soil, some areas receptive to the Gospel and other parts, not so much. As Alexander Solzhynistan wrote, the line between good and evil runs, not between countries or between political parties, but through every human heart, through each of our lives. I can think of any number of times when I heard some word of godly exhortation, that at the time I heard it, either didn’t make sense or seemed downright offensive. But while nothing much may have happened at the time, that seed, that word, exactly because it annoyed or bothered me, got tucked away in the back of my mind until some later point in my life when, with more life experience – that is to say, more experience of God’s grace - under my belt, I was ready to respond. In this way, I’ve changed my mind on lots of topics over the course of my life. I suspect each of you have too. I believe God is constantly tilling the soil, constantly preparing our hearts for the gospel. Those parts of our lives that are hard like trampled-over ground or crowded with the weeds of conflicting priorities - God will eventually get around to plowing and weeding even this unpromising soil. Those parts of our lives that in the past may have seemed untouched by Good News – jobs that drain us, difficult relations with family members, our use of our time and money – will finally be prepared to respond to God’s word of grace.
And what a response! Jesus said that when the seed of the word falls into fertile ground, it will bring forth fruit in abundance, 30 times as much, or 60 times, or 100 times as much. No matter how beaten-down we may feel, we may find ourselves amazed by the fruit of God’s work in our lives. In this connection, I think of my predecessor, Emanuel's former pastor, the Rev. Dr. Eugene Grau, who went to be with his Lord late last week. His was an amazing life, including missionary service in Ghana, leadership positions in the Philadelphia Association and the Pennsylvania Southeast Conference, and faithful pastoral service for more than six decades, including more than a decade here at Emanuel. We at Emanuel knew Rev. Grau when he was in his 80’s and 90’s – but I’d ask us to remember that once upon a time, long years ago, Rev. Grau had been a baby, had been a young child, had been a little boy named Eugene Grau. I would love to know – who planted the seed of the Gospel in Eugene Grau’s life? His parents? His home church? Whoever planted that seed, there’s no way they could have known how fruitful for the Lord Gene’s life would become. Truly in Rev. Grau’s life, the seed of the Gospel brought forth fruit a hundred fold, a thousand fold even. Who can know how many lives were touched by the seeds of the Gospel planted by Rev. Grau over the course of more than nine decades on this earth.
Rev. Grau was an outstanding example of a life well lived for the Lord, and not all of us can point to accomplishments like his. But all of us can respond to the Gospel in our own way, with words of kindness and deeds of love, taking the fruit of the Gospel in our lives and planting them as seeds in the life of others. Those who respond to the Gospel can affirm, with Paul, “There is now no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus our Lord.” With Paul, we can cry to God, “Abba! Father!” even calling God “Daddy” – that’s what “Abba” means in this context, knowing that it is the Spirit of God bearing witness with our Spirit that we are children of God. With Paul, we can affirm that in Christ, God is able to do in our lives what we are unable to do for ourselves. May this good news of the Gospel bear abundant fruit in our lives, and may that fruit of the Gospel be life-giving to all with whom we come in contact. Amen.
Sunday, July 10, 2011
Lighten Up!!
(Scriptures:
Genesis 24:34-67 Song of Solomon 2:8-13
Romans 7:15-25a Matthew 11:16-19,25-30)
Jesus’ words near the end of our Gospel reading are among the most comforting in Scripture. Jesus invites all who labor and are heavy laden, all those weighed down by the cares of life, to come to him. Jesus promises that his yoke is easy, and his burden lighter than the burdens we impose on ourselves.
This message of Jesus runs counter to the message of our society, and counter to our own attempts to manage our heavy loads. In our culture, we draw much of our identity from our work. If I meet someone for the first time, I may ask them, “well, where do you work?” or just “what do you do?” Since the Industrial Revolution, our society has used machinery to reduce the need for brute force, and more recently computer technology has reduced the need for mundane, repetitive mental labor. The hope has always been that this technology would introduce an age of leisure, with machines and robots tending to our every need. The outcome, however, has not been a reduction of work, but rather a change in the nature of work. While there is indeed less need for physical strength or certain forms of mental drudgery in the work place – it’s been a long time since I’ve had to add up long columns of numbers by hand - the work force seems divided between those who have difficulty finding work, because of limited demand for their skills, and those who are employed and are working longer and longer hours to keep up with the demands of management, or working two and three low-pay, no-benefits part-time jobs – want fries with that? - to keep up with the bills. We have not, thank goodness, yet reached the point of Japan, where the cultural expectation to work weekends and overtime has led to the Japanese national phenomenon of karoshi, death by overwork. But our culture’s overemphasis on work leads to strain on families, lack of sleep, and, for many, an ongoing sense of feeling drained, spent, used up.
In the church, we may find expectations that may be different, but just as daunting. A sense of obligation can lead us to take on more and more responsibility at church – as if everything depends on us, and the entire place will fall apart if we don’t show up, if we don’t stand and deliver. Guilt and shame – whether over specific failings or a general sense of failure – may block out the light of God’s love and joy from our lives. Our attempts to deny and hide from our sins and limitations can make it hard to be honest with those around us. If we carry a false image of a God who is angry, endlessly demanding, vengeful, we can tie ourselves up in knots trying to appease the wrath of the great Taskmaster in the sky.
In our reading from Romans, Paul gives us a vivid description of his struggles with sin and his thanksgiving for God’s grace. As Saul, trying to please God apart from the saving work of Jesus, he tied himself up in knots and tore himself to shreds. Remember that when, as Saul, he persecuted the church, he did it precisely because he thought it was what God wanted. After his Damascus road encounter with the Risen Christ, he learned that those he thought were detestable sinners were instead God’s beloved, that his best, most fervent attempts to please God were instead sin, were instead precisely an offense to God. The law declares God’s will, and Paul wants to do God’s will, but because of the power of sin finds himself instead doing what he detests. Like an addict, the compulsion of sin drives Paul to do what makes him sick at heart. For Paul, the law acts as a mirror, and gazing into that mirror, Paul is horrified by what he sees. He feels himself locked away from light of God’s grace, staggering under his burden of guilt. “Who will rescue me from this body of death?” Paul asks. And then Paul answers his own anguished question with words of gratitude and praise – “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!”
We may find ourselves described in Paul’s words. We affirm that, in baptism, our sinful nature has been put to death, and we rise out of the water in the new life of Christ. These are God’s promises – but the fulfillment of these promises comes over the course of our lives. The power of sin, though ultimately broken, still stubbornly hangs on. The new life in Christ, begun in baptism, is only fully realized in the life to come. Our future is with God, but the past, represented by sin working through our flesh, is still very much with us. But thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord, for despite our stumbles in this life, by God’s grace, we are assured that the new life begun in baptism will become eternal life with God. For now, Paul says in Colossians 3:3, our lives are hidden in Christ – the true selves that God would have us be, the true selves that in the future we will be, for now are hidden in Christ. When we feel weighed down with guilt, we can have faith that sin and death do not have the last word. Though life in the present may be a very mixed bag, our true selves, the selves we are destined to become, are hidden in Christ. And we can rest in that. Every week we confess our sin, and every week we affirm that, in Christ, our sins are forgiven. This isn’t to say that God is indifferent to sin – indeed, human sin led Jesus Christ, God the Son, to the cross - but rather to affirm that the power of sin in our lives is broken, not by our own efforts, but by the saving work of Jesus Christ. Having been freed by Christ from sin, we are now freed to love and serve God and neighbor. Having broken the heavy yoke of sin under which we staggered, we are fitted with the easy yoke – the Greek calls it a good yoke or a kind yoke - offered by Christ.
What burdens are you carrying? Are these the easy burden of Christ, or the heavy yokes we lay on ourselves and each other. It is not Jesus who bids us to work ourselves to an early grave – remember that God commanded us to observe the Sabbath – that is, to rest – and in the Deuteronomy version of the 10 Commandments, God explicitly links the command of Sabbath rest to God’s liberation of Israel from the heavy servitude of Egyptian bondage, where there was no rest. Characteristically, the religious establishment of Jesus’ day turned the Sabbath itself into yet another burden, but it was Jesus who liberated the Sabbath, saying that the Sabbath was made for us, not us for the Sabbath. It is not Jesus who bids us to spend money we don’t have on things we don’t need to impress people we don’t like. It’s not Jesus who leads us to envy the lives of others. It’s not Jesus who calls us to pretend to be something we’re not, to project a false image of ourselves.
Indeed, the power of sin tries to project a false image of God – tries to depict our gracious God , our God of love, as a vicious, vengeful God, as a puritanical God who wants to stamp out every bit of pleasure in our lives. But in Scripture, God’s love and grace come through. Our Old Testament readings depict this experience of God’s love. After last week’s harrowing reading from Genesis, in which God narrowly averted Abraham from offering Isaac as a sacrifice, we have today’s somewhat long, but utterly lovely story of the coming together of Isaac and his wife, Rebekah. Human love, human caring, human tenderness, are gifts from God, gifts to be embraced, not shunned. This comes through even more strongly in our reading from the Song of Solomon, a collection of ancient love songs, one of the few such readings in the lectionary. If you think of Scripture as dry and didactic, a collection of “thou shalt nots”, if you haven’t read the Song of Solomon for a while, I’d encourage you to give it a look. It’s sensuous, it’s erotic – and it’s in the Bible. Later interpreters saw these songs as an image of God’s love for humankind – and if this is the case, God’s love is passionate, tender, God wooing and God pursuing humankind in love.
And finally, in our reading from Matthew, Jesus responds to criticisms that he hangs out with the wrong kind of people. He’s seen as a party guy, hanging out and even eating with sinners. In Jesus’ time, the banquet table was seen as an image of the kingdom of God – if you invited someone to a banquet, you were in effect also saying that you’d like to sit at table with this person in the kingdom of God – and Jesus kept inviting the wrong people to the banquet. Again, God pursuing sinners, not dragging them off to a public flogging, but inviting them to a banquet.
In a few moments, we will gather to be refreshed at the Lord’s table, to share bread and wine, to remember Christ’s offering of his body and blood, in the assurance that in this act of eating and drinking together, Christ is truly present with us. So come to the table, not because you must, but because you may. Come to the table, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and Christ will give you rest. Amen.
Genesis 24:34-67 Song of Solomon 2:8-13
Romans 7:15-25a Matthew 11:16-19,25-30)
Jesus’ words near the end of our Gospel reading are among the most comforting in Scripture. Jesus invites all who labor and are heavy laden, all those weighed down by the cares of life, to come to him. Jesus promises that his yoke is easy, and his burden lighter than the burdens we impose on ourselves.
This message of Jesus runs counter to the message of our society, and counter to our own attempts to manage our heavy loads. In our culture, we draw much of our identity from our work. If I meet someone for the first time, I may ask them, “well, where do you work?” or just “what do you do?” Since the Industrial Revolution, our society has used machinery to reduce the need for brute force, and more recently computer technology has reduced the need for mundane, repetitive mental labor. The hope has always been that this technology would introduce an age of leisure, with machines and robots tending to our every need. The outcome, however, has not been a reduction of work, but rather a change in the nature of work. While there is indeed less need for physical strength or certain forms of mental drudgery in the work place – it’s been a long time since I’ve had to add up long columns of numbers by hand - the work force seems divided between those who have difficulty finding work, because of limited demand for their skills, and those who are employed and are working longer and longer hours to keep up with the demands of management, or working two and three low-pay, no-benefits part-time jobs – want fries with that? - to keep up with the bills. We have not, thank goodness, yet reached the point of Japan, where the cultural expectation to work weekends and overtime has led to the Japanese national phenomenon of karoshi, death by overwork. But our culture’s overemphasis on work leads to strain on families, lack of sleep, and, for many, an ongoing sense of feeling drained, spent, used up.
In the church, we may find expectations that may be different, but just as daunting. A sense of obligation can lead us to take on more and more responsibility at church – as if everything depends on us, and the entire place will fall apart if we don’t show up, if we don’t stand and deliver. Guilt and shame – whether over specific failings or a general sense of failure – may block out the light of God’s love and joy from our lives. Our attempts to deny and hide from our sins and limitations can make it hard to be honest with those around us. If we carry a false image of a God who is angry, endlessly demanding, vengeful, we can tie ourselves up in knots trying to appease the wrath of the great Taskmaster in the sky.
In our reading from Romans, Paul gives us a vivid description of his struggles with sin and his thanksgiving for God’s grace. As Saul, trying to please God apart from the saving work of Jesus, he tied himself up in knots and tore himself to shreds. Remember that when, as Saul, he persecuted the church, he did it precisely because he thought it was what God wanted. After his Damascus road encounter with the Risen Christ, he learned that those he thought were detestable sinners were instead God’s beloved, that his best, most fervent attempts to please God were instead sin, were instead precisely an offense to God. The law declares God’s will, and Paul wants to do God’s will, but because of the power of sin finds himself instead doing what he detests. Like an addict, the compulsion of sin drives Paul to do what makes him sick at heart. For Paul, the law acts as a mirror, and gazing into that mirror, Paul is horrified by what he sees. He feels himself locked away from light of God’s grace, staggering under his burden of guilt. “Who will rescue me from this body of death?” Paul asks. And then Paul answers his own anguished question with words of gratitude and praise – “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!”
We may find ourselves described in Paul’s words. We affirm that, in baptism, our sinful nature has been put to death, and we rise out of the water in the new life of Christ. These are God’s promises – but the fulfillment of these promises comes over the course of our lives. The power of sin, though ultimately broken, still stubbornly hangs on. The new life in Christ, begun in baptism, is only fully realized in the life to come. Our future is with God, but the past, represented by sin working through our flesh, is still very much with us. But thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord, for despite our stumbles in this life, by God’s grace, we are assured that the new life begun in baptism will become eternal life with God. For now, Paul says in Colossians 3:3, our lives are hidden in Christ – the true selves that God would have us be, the true selves that in the future we will be, for now are hidden in Christ. When we feel weighed down with guilt, we can have faith that sin and death do not have the last word. Though life in the present may be a very mixed bag, our true selves, the selves we are destined to become, are hidden in Christ. And we can rest in that. Every week we confess our sin, and every week we affirm that, in Christ, our sins are forgiven. This isn’t to say that God is indifferent to sin – indeed, human sin led Jesus Christ, God the Son, to the cross - but rather to affirm that the power of sin in our lives is broken, not by our own efforts, but by the saving work of Jesus Christ. Having been freed by Christ from sin, we are now freed to love and serve God and neighbor. Having broken the heavy yoke of sin under which we staggered, we are fitted with the easy yoke – the Greek calls it a good yoke or a kind yoke - offered by Christ.
What burdens are you carrying? Are these the easy burden of Christ, or the heavy yokes we lay on ourselves and each other. It is not Jesus who bids us to work ourselves to an early grave – remember that God commanded us to observe the Sabbath – that is, to rest – and in the Deuteronomy version of the 10 Commandments, God explicitly links the command of Sabbath rest to God’s liberation of Israel from the heavy servitude of Egyptian bondage, where there was no rest. Characteristically, the religious establishment of Jesus’ day turned the Sabbath itself into yet another burden, but it was Jesus who liberated the Sabbath, saying that the Sabbath was made for us, not us for the Sabbath. It is not Jesus who bids us to spend money we don’t have on things we don’t need to impress people we don’t like. It’s not Jesus who leads us to envy the lives of others. It’s not Jesus who calls us to pretend to be something we’re not, to project a false image of ourselves.
Indeed, the power of sin tries to project a false image of God – tries to depict our gracious God , our God of love, as a vicious, vengeful God, as a puritanical God who wants to stamp out every bit of pleasure in our lives. But in Scripture, God’s love and grace come through. Our Old Testament readings depict this experience of God’s love. After last week’s harrowing reading from Genesis, in which God narrowly averted Abraham from offering Isaac as a sacrifice, we have today’s somewhat long, but utterly lovely story of the coming together of Isaac and his wife, Rebekah. Human love, human caring, human tenderness, are gifts from God, gifts to be embraced, not shunned. This comes through even more strongly in our reading from the Song of Solomon, a collection of ancient love songs, one of the few such readings in the lectionary. If you think of Scripture as dry and didactic, a collection of “thou shalt nots”, if you haven’t read the Song of Solomon for a while, I’d encourage you to give it a look. It’s sensuous, it’s erotic – and it’s in the Bible. Later interpreters saw these songs as an image of God’s love for humankind – and if this is the case, God’s love is passionate, tender, God wooing and God pursuing humankind in love.
And finally, in our reading from Matthew, Jesus responds to criticisms that he hangs out with the wrong kind of people. He’s seen as a party guy, hanging out and even eating with sinners. In Jesus’ time, the banquet table was seen as an image of the kingdom of God – if you invited someone to a banquet, you were in effect also saying that you’d like to sit at table with this person in the kingdom of God – and Jesus kept inviting the wrong people to the banquet. Again, God pursuing sinners, not dragging them off to a public flogging, but inviting them to a banquet.
In a few moments, we will gather to be refreshed at the Lord’s table, to share bread and wine, to remember Christ’s offering of his body and blood, in the assurance that in this act of eating and drinking together, Christ is truly present with us. So come to the table, not because you must, but because you may. Come to the table, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and Christ will give you rest. Amen.
A Prophet's Reward
(Scriptures: Genesis 22:1-14 Jeremiah 28:5-9
Romans 6:12-23 Matthew 10:32-42)
Today the lectionary gives us an odd, and challenging, assortment of Scripture readings. We have the very difficult story of Abraham’s willingness to offer his son Isaac as a sacrifice before God stops him. We have Jeremiah’s response to a false prophet who promised a speedy end to Babylonian captivity. We have Paul’s ruminations about the power of sin and grace in our lives. And we have the tail end of a section of Jesus’ instructions to his disciples in preparation of sending them out on their first mission. He is very up front about how divisive his message will be – households will be set to disagreement about him, because Jesus makes an absolute claim for the primary loyalty of his disciples. Jesus said that those who would put even their own families above their commitment to Jesus are not worthy of Jesus.
We get a picture of what loyalty to God will mean in our very difficult reading from the Old Testament. We’re told that God tests Abraham by demanding that he offer his son Isaac as a sacrifice. In hearing this, we should remember that Isaac was Abraham’s only son by his wife Sarah, the son that God had promised Abraham and Sarah, the son for whom, in their old age, Abraham and Sarah had waited for so long. And now God was telling Abraham to offer Isaac as a sacrifice. And as we read, we wonder – how could God ask such a thing. It’s a barbaric request. It didn’t make sense. And the text heightens the unease within us when, in addressing Abraham, God explicitly refers to Isaac as “your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love.” Talk about twisting the knife!
Oddly, we’re not given any sense that Abraham hesitated. He makes the necessary preparations and calls Isaac to go on a walk with him. We’re not given access to Abraham’s thoughts during the long walk to the top of Mt. Moriah. We do learn that Isaac seemed to be getting some hint of what was to come, or at least was feeling increasingly uneasy about where this walk with his father might be leading, when Isaac observed that Abraham had brought everything but the sacrificial animal, to which Abraham said that the Lord would provide the sacrifice. And, of course, that’s just what happened: After Abraham had bound Isaac for sacrifice and raised his knife, the Lord stopped him just in time, Abraham saw a ram stuck in the bushes, and offered the ram as the sacrifice. God commended Abraham for proving that he would not withhold his own son from God. As awful as this story reads to us, it’s considered a holy moment in Jewish history; the mountain was called Yahweh-yireh or Jehovah-Jireh – the Lord provides. Through the years, as people would ask “how did this mountain get the name “The Lord Provides”, the community elders would recount this story. Many centuries later, King David offered a sacrifice on this same site to ward off a plague on his people, and it is thought that this is the same mountain where Solomon’s Temple was built. Also, this incident established once and for all that, unlike some of the false gods of the peoples surrounding Israel, Israel’s God did not demand human sacrifice as payment for the peoples sins.
It would be hard to imagine what the walk down the mountain was like for Abraham and Isaac. On one hand, both were alive to walk down the mountain, and that’s good. But what would the conversation have been like? Perhaps Isaac asked his father “what on earth were you thinking?” Isaac must have wondered if he could ever fully trust his father again. Both lived to tell of their encounter with the divine, and both were blessed for their faithfulness, but both were forever changed by the experience – it was a most costly blessing.
Now, in our Gospel reading, as Jesus is preparing his disciples for their first mission trip, Jesus is not asking his disciples to offer their families on altars as human sacrifice. But Jesus is asking his disciples potentially to sacrifice their relationships with their families, to put their loyalty to Jesus ahead of their loyalties to their families. Especially with the more conservative expressions of Christianity having become so identified with what they call “family values”, Jesus’ words here seem almost – dare I say it – unchristian. And so we may hasten to try to explain away Jesus’ words….surely he didn’t mean to say that! But if we read the Gospels with an open mind, without preconceived notions, with the blinders off, we will likely find that Jesus’ sense of family values was and is very different from the family values we hear about from the TV and radio preachers. On one hand, Jesus saw marital vows as binding, and left only narrow grounds for divorce. Jesus also condemned the tradition of his day by which one could avoid supporting their parents by designating portions of their possessions as items designated to donated in the future to the synagogue, and the writer of I Timothy says that one who fails to provide for their family is worse than an unbeliever. Divorced women and widows without support were very vulnerable in Jesus’ day, and Jesus didn’t want the Christian community to leave these vulnerable ones out in the cold, so to speak. On the other hand, Jesus was calling his followers into a family of faith whose ties were to be even stronger than those of our natural family. This is how Paul, in one of our readings from Romans that we’ll encounter in a couple weeks, could call Jesus the firstborn of a large family. This is how Jesus could say that his disciples who had left behind their families would receive a family a hundredfold. Indeed, once when Jesus was teaching and someone said his mother and brothers were outside the house, Jesus called his followers his true family, and left mom and the brothers standing outside. So it is in this sense that Jesus said he had come to bring a sword; the kind of Christian community he sought to build would inevitably intrude on families of birth or families of marriage, would leave non-Christian family members feeling like they, too, were shut out of some part of the lives of their Christian family members.
Jesus ends this difficult, difficult section of teaching by saying that those who find their lives will lose them, while those who lose their lives for his sake would find them. At this point, Jesus’ demands likely were giving his disciples second thoughts…do we really want to hang around with this guy? Maybe when he sends us out, we should just keep walking. But then Jesus ends with a few verses about rewards – that those who provide hospitality for his disciples, it is as though they provided hospitality for Christ himself. Anyone who welcomes a prophet as a prophet receives a prophet’s reward, and one who welcomes a righteous person as a righteous person receives the reward of the righteous, and one who does as little as offer a cup of cold water to a new believer – whom Jesus called “one of these little ones” – would not lose their reward.
That phrase, “a prophet’s reward” struck me as having multiple layers of meaning. What is a prophet’s reward? On one hand, we know that prophets generally met with opposition – remember that Jesus called Jerusalem the city that stoned the prophets. Our brief reading from Jeremiah reminds us that false prophets like Hananiah, who told people what they wanted to hear, were welcomed, while true prophets such as Jeremiah, who told them difficult things that they needed to hear, were persecuted. And certainly those who openly welcomed and provided hospitality to a prophet, might risk bringing down on their own heads the persecution encountered by the prophet – a sort of guilt by association. On the other hand, by casting their lot with the prophet, and by extension, casting their lot with God, God would set their hospitality on the same level as the prophet’s faithfulness, and reward them accordingly. So prophets received contrasting rewards, if you will – persecution from the world; eternal life from God.
It would seem that, in these passages, God is making a whole lot of extreme demands. God asks much. Perhaps it seems that God asks too much. How can God possibly expect us to be willing to leave everything else behind to be disciples of Christ? When we start to think along these lines, we should remember that God is not asking anything of us that God did not do himself. Abraham was, finally, not asked to offer Isaac as a sacrifice, but God did offer his son Jesus as a sacrifice. As costly as Christian discipleship may be for us, it’s nothing compared to what God’s passionate, committed love affair with humankind has cost God. As today’s reading from Romans says, “The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord is the gift of God, free to us – but purchased by God at great price, the death of his Son Jesus. Similarly, while we cannot work our way into heaven or do anything to earn eternal life – truly responding to the message of Jesus will, over time, change our lives in radical ways. As Paul said in our reading from Romans, because of the saving work of Christ, we are freed from sin to be radically obedient to God, called from self-absorbed, self-centered isolation into the new community of faith. Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote of this in his book “The Cost of Discipleship” when he contrasted what he called “cheap grace” – the false view that because of the saving work of Christ, we can continue to do whatever we want and Christ will somehow clean it up in the end – with what Bonhoeffer called “costly grace” – grace that makes a radical change in our lives. And Bonhoeffer practiced what he preached: Bonhoeffer’s radical obedience to God at a time when the German church of his day was corrupted by obedience to Hitler, led him to his execution by the Nazis.
From Romans 11:22 – “Note then the kindness and the severity of God.” God’s great kindness led Jesus to the cross. God’s severity demands a response from those who would follow. In today’s readings, God’s severity may demand that we leave behind all that is familiar for the sake of the Gospel. By contrast, in God’s kindness, God will reward even those who offer a cup of cold water in the name of Jesus to the least of Christ’s disciples. May God’s radical kindness toward us lead us toward radical kindness toward our neighbors. May we at Emanuel always be ready to welcome those whom God sends us. Amen.
Romans 6:12-23 Matthew 10:32-42)
Today the lectionary gives us an odd, and challenging, assortment of Scripture readings. We have the very difficult story of Abraham’s willingness to offer his son Isaac as a sacrifice before God stops him. We have Jeremiah’s response to a false prophet who promised a speedy end to Babylonian captivity. We have Paul’s ruminations about the power of sin and grace in our lives. And we have the tail end of a section of Jesus’ instructions to his disciples in preparation of sending them out on their first mission. He is very up front about how divisive his message will be – households will be set to disagreement about him, because Jesus makes an absolute claim for the primary loyalty of his disciples. Jesus said that those who would put even their own families above their commitment to Jesus are not worthy of Jesus.
We get a picture of what loyalty to God will mean in our very difficult reading from the Old Testament. We’re told that God tests Abraham by demanding that he offer his son Isaac as a sacrifice. In hearing this, we should remember that Isaac was Abraham’s only son by his wife Sarah, the son that God had promised Abraham and Sarah, the son for whom, in their old age, Abraham and Sarah had waited for so long. And now God was telling Abraham to offer Isaac as a sacrifice. And as we read, we wonder – how could God ask such a thing. It’s a barbaric request. It didn’t make sense. And the text heightens the unease within us when, in addressing Abraham, God explicitly refers to Isaac as “your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love.” Talk about twisting the knife!
Oddly, we’re not given any sense that Abraham hesitated. He makes the necessary preparations and calls Isaac to go on a walk with him. We’re not given access to Abraham’s thoughts during the long walk to the top of Mt. Moriah. We do learn that Isaac seemed to be getting some hint of what was to come, or at least was feeling increasingly uneasy about where this walk with his father might be leading, when Isaac observed that Abraham had brought everything but the sacrificial animal, to which Abraham said that the Lord would provide the sacrifice. And, of course, that’s just what happened: After Abraham had bound Isaac for sacrifice and raised his knife, the Lord stopped him just in time, Abraham saw a ram stuck in the bushes, and offered the ram as the sacrifice. God commended Abraham for proving that he would not withhold his own son from God. As awful as this story reads to us, it’s considered a holy moment in Jewish history; the mountain was called Yahweh-yireh or Jehovah-Jireh – the Lord provides. Through the years, as people would ask “how did this mountain get the name “The Lord Provides”, the community elders would recount this story. Many centuries later, King David offered a sacrifice on this same site to ward off a plague on his people, and it is thought that this is the same mountain where Solomon’s Temple was built. Also, this incident established once and for all that, unlike some of the false gods of the peoples surrounding Israel, Israel’s God did not demand human sacrifice as payment for the peoples sins.
It would be hard to imagine what the walk down the mountain was like for Abraham and Isaac. On one hand, both were alive to walk down the mountain, and that’s good. But what would the conversation have been like? Perhaps Isaac asked his father “what on earth were you thinking?” Isaac must have wondered if he could ever fully trust his father again. Both lived to tell of their encounter with the divine, and both were blessed for their faithfulness, but both were forever changed by the experience – it was a most costly blessing.
Now, in our Gospel reading, as Jesus is preparing his disciples for their first mission trip, Jesus is not asking his disciples to offer their families on altars as human sacrifice. But Jesus is asking his disciples potentially to sacrifice their relationships with their families, to put their loyalty to Jesus ahead of their loyalties to their families. Especially with the more conservative expressions of Christianity having become so identified with what they call “family values”, Jesus’ words here seem almost – dare I say it – unchristian. And so we may hasten to try to explain away Jesus’ words….surely he didn’t mean to say that! But if we read the Gospels with an open mind, without preconceived notions, with the blinders off, we will likely find that Jesus’ sense of family values was and is very different from the family values we hear about from the TV and radio preachers. On one hand, Jesus saw marital vows as binding, and left only narrow grounds for divorce. Jesus also condemned the tradition of his day by which one could avoid supporting their parents by designating portions of their possessions as items designated to donated in the future to the synagogue, and the writer of I Timothy says that one who fails to provide for their family is worse than an unbeliever. Divorced women and widows without support were very vulnerable in Jesus’ day, and Jesus didn’t want the Christian community to leave these vulnerable ones out in the cold, so to speak. On the other hand, Jesus was calling his followers into a family of faith whose ties were to be even stronger than those of our natural family. This is how Paul, in one of our readings from Romans that we’ll encounter in a couple weeks, could call Jesus the firstborn of a large family. This is how Jesus could say that his disciples who had left behind their families would receive a family a hundredfold. Indeed, once when Jesus was teaching and someone said his mother and brothers were outside the house, Jesus called his followers his true family, and left mom and the brothers standing outside. So it is in this sense that Jesus said he had come to bring a sword; the kind of Christian community he sought to build would inevitably intrude on families of birth or families of marriage, would leave non-Christian family members feeling like they, too, were shut out of some part of the lives of their Christian family members.
Jesus ends this difficult, difficult section of teaching by saying that those who find their lives will lose them, while those who lose their lives for his sake would find them. At this point, Jesus’ demands likely were giving his disciples second thoughts…do we really want to hang around with this guy? Maybe when he sends us out, we should just keep walking. But then Jesus ends with a few verses about rewards – that those who provide hospitality for his disciples, it is as though they provided hospitality for Christ himself. Anyone who welcomes a prophet as a prophet receives a prophet’s reward, and one who welcomes a righteous person as a righteous person receives the reward of the righteous, and one who does as little as offer a cup of cold water to a new believer – whom Jesus called “one of these little ones” – would not lose their reward.
That phrase, “a prophet’s reward” struck me as having multiple layers of meaning. What is a prophet’s reward? On one hand, we know that prophets generally met with opposition – remember that Jesus called Jerusalem the city that stoned the prophets. Our brief reading from Jeremiah reminds us that false prophets like Hananiah, who told people what they wanted to hear, were welcomed, while true prophets such as Jeremiah, who told them difficult things that they needed to hear, were persecuted. And certainly those who openly welcomed and provided hospitality to a prophet, might risk bringing down on their own heads the persecution encountered by the prophet – a sort of guilt by association. On the other hand, by casting their lot with the prophet, and by extension, casting their lot with God, God would set their hospitality on the same level as the prophet’s faithfulness, and reward them accordingly. So prophets received contrasting rewards, if you will – persecution from the world; eternal life from God.
It would seem that, in these passages, God is making a whole lot of extreme demands. God asks much. Perhaps it seems that God asks too much. How can God possibly expect us to be willing to leave everything else behind to be disciples of Christ? When we start to think along these lines, we should remember that God is not asking anything of us that God did not do himself. Abraham was, finally, not asked to offer Isaac as a sacrifice, but God did offer his son Jesus as a sacrifice. As costly as Christian discipleship may be for us, it’s nothing compared to what God’s passionate, committed love affair with humankind has cost God. As today’s reading from Romans says, “The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord is the gift of God, free to us – but purchased by God at great price, the death of his Son Jesus. Similarly, while we cannot work our way into heaven or do anything to earn eternal life – truly responding to the message of Jesus will, over time, change our lives in radical ways. As Paul said in our reading from Romans, because of the saving work of Christ, we are freed from sin to be radically obedient to God, called from self-absorbed, self-centered isolation into the new community of faith. Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote of this in his book “The Cost of Discipleship” when he contrasted what he called “cheap grace” – the false view that because of the saving work of Christ, we can continue to do whatever we want and Christ will somehow clean it up in the end – with what Bonhoeffer called “costly grace” – grace that makes a radical change in our lives. And Bonhoeffer practiced what he preached: Bonhoeffer’s radical obedience to God at a time when the German church of his day was corrupted by obedience to Hitler, led him to his execution by the Nazis.
From Romans 11:22 – “Note then the kindness and the severity of God.” God’s great kindness led Jesus to the cross. God’s severity demands a response from those who would follow. In today’s readings, God’s severity may demand that we leave behind all that is familiar for the sake of the Gospel. By contrast, in God’s kindness, God will reward even those who offer a cup of cold water in the name of Jesus to the least of Christ’s disciples. May God’s radical kindness toward us lead us toward radical kindness toward our neighbors. May we at Emanuel always be ready to welcome those whom God sends us. Amen.
One in Three
(Scriptures: Genesis 1:1 – Genesis 2:3 Psalm 8
2 Corinthians 13:11-13 Matthew 28:16-20)
Today is Trinity Sunday, in which the church lifts up the doctrine of the Trinity, one God in three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, or in other language, God the Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer. Trinity Sunday is always the Sunday following Pentecost, when we celebrate the coming of that third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit.
Given the amount of thought the church has given to this doctrine and the amount of conflict the doctrine has produced – there have been numerous controversies, and even the split in around the year 1054 between the Eastern and Western church was related to the way in which the Holy Spirit relates to the other two persons of the Trinity – not to mention the much more recent and much more localized split in New England and elsewhere between the Trinitarian Congregationalists, who went on to become part of the UCC, and the Unitarians, who did not - it is striking that the word Trinity is nowhere found in Scripture. While readings such as today’s mention the persons of the trinity and there are other hints of the Trinity elsewhere in Scripture, the full-blown doctrine of the Trinity is not explicitly stated in Scripture. I say this to remind us that the doctrine of the Trinity is a human creation, a human attempt to understand that One God who is presented in three persons in Scripture. Inevitably it a human attempt to comprehend the incomprehensible, to define the undefinable – for any God within our ability to define is inevitably a God that we have shrunken and made over in our own image. And whenever we discuss human doctrine, no matter how venerable, we need to maintain some measure of humility, recognizing that while doctrine is – one hopes - derived from Scripture, it does not carry the weight of authority that Scripture does. Nonetheless, the doctrine of the Trinity is among the most venerable the church has to offer.
One way in which the Trinity is understood is in terms of function: God the Father as creator, who created the world, and not just our world, but the cosmos, all that is, God the Son as the redeemer, who proclaimed the reign of God and by his death and resurrection liberated us from sin, and God the Holy Spirit as sustainer, God within us, God among us, giving us strength for each new day, praying in groans to deep for words when our human thoughts and words fail us. Yet all acts of creating, redeeming, and sustaining are done, not by three separate gods, but by our one gracious God.
However, the doctrine of the Trinity speaks, not of one God with three functions, but of one God in three persons. So there is an image of intimacy, fellowship, among the three persons of the trinity. This intimacy is defined under the Greek word “perichoresis”, meaning mutual interpenetration and mutual indwelling, beside which the deepest human intimacy appears only as the faintest of shadows. We get some sense of this in John’s Gospel in Jesus’ farewell address to his disciples, when he says such things as “I am in the Father and the Father is in me, and you are in me as I am in the Father. This only mentions two persons of the Trinity, Father and Son, but it’s no great leap to extend the metaphor to include the Holy Spirit in this image. Perichoresis – peri means “around”, and “choresis” comes from the same root as choreography – so we can think of the three persons of the Trinity in a continual, eternal, never-ending choreography or dance of mutual love. All of which is to say that we worship a God who is relational, both within Godself and in always reaching out in love to humankind, with a depth of relationship, of passion and yearning, that human beings can, at best, only barely begin to glimpse.
Our reading from Genesis shows our Triune God at work. As God speaks the universe into being – “let us create” – we remember that John’s Gospel affirms that Son, the Word made flesh, was present from the beginning, and we feel the Spirit moving over the face of the waters.
During the coffee hour last Sunday, we read the creation story, as we read it this morning. We noted that there’s something different in the creation of humankind than from the other parts of creation, that humankind is said to be created in God’s image. It’s the only part of the creation story where we read this affirmation – in God’s image God created them, male and female God created them. Certainly, we share much in common with animals – we have bodies, internal organs, and such. We have much of the same fight or flight instincts they do, what evolutionary biologists call our “lizard brains”. But as we think of the ways in which humans differ from animals – in having consciousness, a soul, the ability to think, to plan, to relate, to love – to name just a few – we can affirm that in these elements, humans resemble God in a way that animals do not. We’ve spoken of the dance of mutual love among the persons of the Trinity, and given that joy, we may well wonder, with the Psalmist, “what are humans that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them.” – and yet the Psalmist also affirms that God has created us a little lower than God, and crowned us with glory and honor. The miracle is that, even though God has no particular need of us, yet in his grace he passionately cares for us, whom God created in God’s image. Certainly sin has deeply marred that image of God within each of us, but the resemblance is still there, however faint. This is important to remember when we’re inclined to abuse others, to oppress others, to dismiss others, to use others for our own purposes – and we are all guilty at times of the sin of loving things and using people, instead of the other way around – that those whom we abuse, oppress, dismiss, and use – are, like us, bearers of the divine image, however deeply buried under the wreckage of sin, and passionately beloved by God.
Our Gospel reading today is the last four verses of Matthew’s Gospel, commonly called the Great Commission. It is one of the very few places in which all three persons of the Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, are named together…..appropriate for Matthew’s Gospel, as, among the four Gospels, Matthew’s Gospel includes the most developed language relating to the church. However, we should remember that our reading is not called the Great Theological Summit, but the Great Commission – the focus is not on theological reflection, but on action, on mission. There are two uses of the word “all” that are noteworthy. The Risen Jesus says that “all authority in heaven and earth has been given to me” and “go and make disciples of all nations.” – and we are to make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything (or “all”) that I have taught.
This is all-encompassing language – Christ has all authority – not just over our Sunday mornings, but over all things; therefore we are to make disciples of all nations – which involves going way, way, way outside our comfort zones - and teach them to obey all that Jesus has commanded. But with this broad claim of authority and the broad mission statement comes an equally broad promise: I will be with you always”. Not just now and then. Not just on Sunday mornings. Always. Always.
Amid all that is mysterious about the Trinity, Jesus is the best revelation we have of the character of God. Remember that, in John’s Gospel, Philip asked Jesus to show the disciples the Father, to which Jesus replied that since they had seen Jesus, they had seen the Father. And so if we want to know what God is like, the best way to do that is to look at Jesus as presented in the New Testament, especially the Gospels. Jesus who came preaching good news to the poor, liberation of the captive, the reign of God, Jesus who ate and drank with those whom society scapegoated as sinners and confronted those who used their positions of power to oppress, Jesus who cast out demons and healed diseases, Jesus who, while we were yet sinners, died for us – this is the best image we have of what God the father is like. And as followers of Jesus, we are to live in the same way, going forth into all the world to make disciples and baptize and teach, so that through our words of caring and deeds of love, our neighbors nearby and our neighbors far away come to know this same Good News. May God use our congregation, Emanuel Church, to bring this good news to our neighbors down the block and our neighbors around the globe. Amen.
2 Corinthians 13:11-13 Matthew 28:16-20)
Today is Trinity Sunday, in which the church lifts up the doctrine of the Trinity, one God in three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, or in other language, God the Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer. Trinity Sunday is always the Sunday following Pentecost, when we celebrate the coming of that third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit.
Given the amount of thought the church has given to this doctrine and the amount of conflict the doctrine has produced – there have been numerous controversies, and even the split in around the year 1054 between the Eastern and Western church was related to the way in which the Holy Spirit relates to the other two persons of the Trinity – not to mention the much more recent and much more localized split in New England and elsewhere between the Trinitarian Congregationalists, who went on to become part of the UCC, and the Unitarians, who did not - it is striking that the word Trinity is nowhere found in Scripture. While readings such as today’s mention the persons of the trinity and there are other hints of the Trinity elsewhere in Scripture, the full-blown doctrine of the Trinity is not explicitly stated in Scripture. I say this to remind us that the doctrine of the Trinity is a human creation, a human attempt to understand that One God who is presented in three persons in Scripture. Inevitably it a human attempt to comprehend the incomprehensible, to define the undefinable – for any God within our ability to define is inevitably a God that we have shrunken and made over in our own image. And whenever we discuss human doctrine, no matter how venerable, we need to maintain some measure of humility, recognizing that while doctrine is – one hopes - derived from Scripture, it does not carry the weight of authority that Scripture does. Nonetheless, the doctrine of the Trinity is among the most venerable the church has to offer.
One way in which the Trinity is understood is in terms of function: God the Father as creator, who created the world, and not just our world, but the cosmos, all that is, God the Son as the redeemer, who proclaimed the reign of God and by his death and resurrection liberated us from sin, and God the Holy Spirit as sustainer, God within us, God among us, giving us strength for each new day, praying in groans to deep for words when our human thoughts and words fail us. Yet all acts of creating, redeeming, and sustaining are done, not by three separate gods, but by our one gracious God.
However, the doctrine of the Trinity speaks, not of one God with three functions, but of one God in three persons. So there is an image of intimacy, fellowship, among the three persons of the trinity. This intimacy is defined under the Greek word “perichoresis”, meaning mutual interpenetration and mutual indwelling, beside which the deepest human intimacy appears only as the faintest of shadows. We get some sense of this in John’s Gospel in Jesus’ farewell address to his disciples, when he says such things as “I am in the Father and the Father is in me, and you are in me as I am in the Father. This only mentions two persons of the Trinity, Father and Son, but it’s no great leap to extend the metaphor to include the Holy Spirit in this image. Perichoresis – peri means “around”, and “choresis” comes from the same root as choreography – so we can think of the three persons of the Trinity in a continual, eternal, never-ending choreography or dance of mutual love. All of which is to say that we worship a God who is relational, both within Godself and in always reaching out in love to humankind, with a depth of relationship, of passion and yearning, that human beings can, at best, only barely begin to glimpse.
Our reading from Genesis shows our Triune God at work. As God speaks the universe into being – “let us create” – we remember that John’s Gospel affirms that Son, the Word made flesh, was present from the beginning, and we feel the Spirit moving over the face of the waters.
During the coffee hour last Sunday, we read the creation story, as we read it this morning. We noted that there’s something different in the creation of humankind than from the other parts of creation, that humankind is said to be created in God’s image. It’s the only part of the creation story where we read this affirmation – in God’s image God created them, male and female God created them. Certainly, we share much in common with animals – we have bodies, internal organs, and such. We have much of the same fight or flight instincts they do, what evolutionary biologists call our “lizard brains”. But as we think of the ways in which humans differ from animals – in having consciousness, a soul, the ability to think, to plan, to relate, to love – to name just a few – we can affirm that in these elements, humans resemble God in a way that animals do not. We’ve spoken of the dance of mutual love among the persons of the Trinity, and given that joy, we may well wonder, with the Psalmist, “what are humans that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them.” – and yet the Psalmist also affirms that God has created us a little lower than God, and crowned us with glory and honor. The miracle is that, even though God has no particular need of us, yet in his grace he passionately cares for us, whom God created in God’s image. Certainly sin has deeply marred that image of God within each of us, but the resemblance is still there, however faint. This is important to remember when we’re inclined to abuse others, to oppress others, to dismiss others, to use others for our own purposes – and we are all guilty at times of the sin of loving things and using people, instead of the other way around – that those whom we abuse, oppress, dismiss, and use – are, like us, bearers of the divine image, however deeply buried under the wreckage of sin, and passionately beloved by God.
Our Gospel reading today is the last four verses of Matthew’s Gospel, commonly called the Great Commission. It is one of the very few places in which all three persons of the Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, are named together…..appropriate for Matthew’s Gospel, as, among the four Gospels, Matthew’s Gospel includes the most developed language relating to the church. However, we should remember that our reading is not called the Great Theological Summit, but the Great Commission – the focus is not on theological reflection, but on action, on mission. There are two uses of the word “all” that are noteworthy. The Risen Jesus says that “all authority in heaven and earth has been given to me” and “go and make disciples of all nations.” – and we are to make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything (or “all”) that I have taught.
This is all-encompassing language – Christ has all authority – not just over our Sunday mornings, but over all things; therefore we are to make disciples of all nations – which involves going way, way, way outside our comfort zones - and teach them to obey all that Jesus has commanded. But with this broad claim of authority and the broad mission statement comes an equally broad promise: I will be with you always”. Not just now and then. Not just on Sunday mornings. Always. Always.
Amid all that is mysterious about the Trinity, Jesus is the best revelation we have of the character of God. Remember that, in John’s Gospel, Philip asked Jesus to show the disciples the Father, to which Jesus replied that since they had seen Jesus, they had seen the Father. And so if we want to know what God is like, the best way to do that is to look at Jesus as presented in the New Testament, especially the Gospels. Jesus who came preaching good news to the poor, liberation of the captive, the reign of God, Jesus who ate and drank with those whom society scapegoated as sinners and confronted those who used their positions of power to oppress, Jesus who cast out demons and healed diseases, Jesus who, while we were yet sinners, died for us – this is the best image we have of what God the father is like. And as followers of Jesus, we are to live in the same way, going forth into all the world to make disciples and baptize and teach, so that through our words of caring and deeds of love, our neighbors nearby and our neighbors far away come to know this same Good News. May God use our congregation, Emanuel Church, to bring this good news to our neighbors down the block and our neighbors around the globe. Amen.
Friday, June 17, 2011
That's the Spirit!
(Scriptures: Numbers 11:24-30 Acts 2:1-21
I Corinthians 12:1-13 John 20:19-23)
Today we celebrate Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit came upon the believers and empowered them for ministry and proclamation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Pentecost is also often called “the birthday of the church”. Before the coming of the Holy Spirit, Christ’s followers were a frightened huddle, meeting behind closed doors, uncertain what the future held for them. After the coming of the Spirit, they were united into the church, the body of Christ, empowered and equipped to proclaim and to serve.
Today’s Scriptures give us a variety, a kaleidoscope of images associated with the Holy Spirit. Our reading from the book of Numbers comes at a time when Moses was feeling overwhelmed by the burden of leading the Israelites through the wilderness. Moses told God that he’d rather that God killed him right there where he stood, than have to put up with the peoples’ complaints. Instead, God tells Moses to choose 70 elders that would help to share Moses’ leadership burden. God took some of the Spirit that was on Moses and gave it to the 70 elders. This is fairly typical of the Old Testament – it was not given to everyone to receive the Holy Spirit. Generally, when God wished to equip kings, prophets, and other leaders of the people, God gave the Spirit to them to provide the special stamina and insight needed for their special tasks. Likewise, when God had a special message that God wished to proclaim, God’s spirit would come upon the prophet or person God designated to carry the message. In our Numbers reading, we get the striking image of the Spirit falling upon the two elders who had stayed behind in the camp, so that they prophesied where they stood. Joshua is horrified and wants Moses to make them stop, but Moses responds that he wished the Spirit would fall on everyone. As it happens, Moses’ wish came true in our reading from Acts.
Our readings from John’s Gospel and from Acts give us two contrasting images of the coming of the Spirit. John’s image is quiet, almost unnoticed – Jesus breathes on the disciples and says “receive the Holy Spirit”. With that Holy Spirit comes the power to forgive sins. But John gives us none of the ecstatic behavior we see in Acts. In Acts, between the Ascension of Jesus and Pentecost, the disciples more or less mark time. They deal with organizational housekeeping matters – they felt a need to find someone to fill the position held by Judas, and choose Matthias for that role. But there were no mighty acts from them until the coming of the Spirit on the day of Pentecost. The 2nd chapter of Acts gives the image we usually associate with the coming of the Spirit – the rush of a mighty wind, divided tongues of fire on the heads of the disciples, and the disciples declaring the Gospel in the languages of the many foreign pilgrims who were in Jerusalem.
Nowadays, we usually associate Pentecost with…..Pentecostals, whose manifestations of the Holy Spirit include “speaking in tongues”, “being slain in the Spirit” and other forms of ecstatic experience. Indeed, Paul’s letter to the Corinthians indicates that speaking in unknown tongues was a divisive issue in the church at Corinth. But in the Acts account of Pentecost, the disciples were speaking in tongues unknown to themselves, but known to those listening. While “speaking in tongues” was a divisive issue for Paul’s followers – and is still an issue that divides churches today – in Acts, the speech of the apostles was not intended to divide, but to unite; not to confound, but to make clear the Gospel to those present. It was sort of the Tower of Babel story in reverse: in Genesis, human beings were united in their hubris in trying to build a tower so they could climb up and look in on God – in modern terms, to climb up to heaven so they can walk up God’s sidewalk, ring the doorbell, and say ‘howdy’ - and God confused their language. On Pentecost, through the Holy Spirit, persons of many different languages who normally would be unintelligible to one another, were able to understand what the apostles were saying. Human initiative and human overreaching resulted in division and confusion. Divine initiative resulted in mutual understanding among humans.
In reading these passages together, we may be left with a question: why was the experience of the Holy Spirit opened up to so many. In the Old Testament, the Spirit was uniquely bestowed on select individuals gifted for ministry. And this appears to be the model in John’s Gospel as well – just as God had anointed Moses, David, and others with the Spirit in preparation for their leadership responsibilities, in John’s Gospel, Jesus bestowed the spirit on his disciples in preparation for the work they were to do. But in Acts, it is such a dramatic, open display of the Spirit, by contrast with the other readings. Why is this account seemingly different?
Part of this is because it is expected that, in the church, all believers, not just a select few, would be carrying out the ministry of the Gospel in various ways. Our reading from Acts, quoting the prophet Joel, says that in the last days the Spirit would be poured out on all flesh – sons and daughters, young and old, even slave and free alike – and everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. I Peter 2:9 speaks of the church as “a holy nation, a royal priesthood” – and as ministers, those in the church – all believers - would need to be baptized with the Holy Spirit in order to be prepared for their duties. In his letter to the church at Corinth, the Apostle Paul goes to great lengths to describe the different gifts – wisdom, knowledge, faith, healing, miracles, prophecy, speaking in tongues, interpretation of tongues – given to equip the church by the one Spirit. In the words of a newer hymn that we sang earlier in the service, “Many gifts, one Spirit, one love known in many ways.”
However, the point I want to underline is that, while in our reading from Acts the Spirit is more widely distributed, the purpose has not changed. The gift of the Holy Spirit is to prepare us for ministry, for worship and service. This was the case in the Old Testament, in John’s Gospel, in I Corinthians, and in Acts. The Spirit is not given to us for our own gratification. While the Spirit acts as our Advocate before God, interceding for us before God with sighs to deep for words when we ourselves cannot find it in ourselves to pray – it is there not only for us, but rather to make us more able to be there for others. This is where the Corinthian church went off track – those with the more flashy gifts, such as speaking in tongues, felt that this gift conferred some special merit on those who practiced speaking in tongues, lacking in those who did not. And this is where some modern-day Pentecostal churches may go wrong as well, if they see their speaking in tongues as something that sets them above and apart from others. But in Acts and in Paul’s letters, quite the opposite is the intent – tongues and other gifts of the Spirit are intended, not to divide, but rather to bring us together as the Body of Christ.
What does the coming of the Spirit look like in Bridesburg? What does it look like here at Emanuel Church. What are the signs of the Spirit here? Our congregation will not likely be mistaken anytime soon for what is commonly called a Pentecostal church. Anyone coming to Emanuel church to see people speaking in tongues, dancing in the aisles, falling to the ground, slain in the Spirit as the saying goes, will walk away sadly disappointed. The Spirit has not endowed Emanuel Church with those gifts. But look at the gifts the Spirit has given us. Here we bring together our Bridesburg neighbors with those who live in other neighborhoods. Here we are equipped to view our daily work not just as a way to earn a living, but as vocations dedicated to God’s glory. Here those who are weighed down with life find new hope and strength. Here the members of a small church “pray big”, remembering persons and situations all over the greater Philadelphia and New Jersey region. Like the small frightened huddle of disciples emerging from their locked rooms to go forth and minister across the known world of their day, we through our partnerships with the Bridesburg Council of Churches and the United Church of Christ send our prayers and our offerings to join with those of others to bless struggling people outside our door and around the globe.
As I said at the beginning of this sermon, Pentecost is called the birthday of the church. So, as we prepare for Communion, let me say, “Happy birthday, church.” As we prepare to approach the table, may we open our hearts to the Spirit’s prompting. Amen.
**************
Please join us for worship on Sundays at 10 a.m. at Emanuel United Church of Christ. We're on Fillmore Street, just off Thompson. www.emanuelphila.org
I Corinthians 12:1-13 John 20:19-23)
Today we celebrate Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit came upon the believers and empowered them for ministry and proclamation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Pentecost is also often called “the birthday of the church”. Before the coming of the Holy Spirit, Christ’s followers were a frightened huddle, meeting behind closed doors, uncertain what the future held for them. After the coming of the Spirit, they were united into the church, the body of Christ, empowered and equipped to proclaim and to serve.
Today’s Scriptures give us a variety, a kaleidoscope of images associated with the Holy Spirit. Our reading from the book of Numbers comes at a time when Moses was feeling overwhelmed by the burden of leading the Israelites through the wilderness. Moses told God that he’d rather that God killed him right there where he stood, than have to put up with the peoples’ complaints. Instead, God tells Moses to choose 70 elders that would help to share Moses’ leadership burden. God took some of the Spirit that was on Moses and gave it to the 70 elders. This is fairly typical of the Old Testament – it was not given to everyone to receive the Holy Spirit. Generally, when God wished to equip kings, prophets, and other leaders of the people, God gave the Spirit to them to provide the special stamina and insight needed for their special tasks. Likewise, when God had a special message that God wished to proclaim, God’s spirit would come upon the prophet or person God designated to carry the message. In our Numbers reading, we get the striking image of the Spirit falling upon the two elders who had stayed behind in the camp, so that they prophesied where they stood. Joshua is horrified and wants Moses to make them stop, but Moses responds that he wished the Spirit would fall on everyone. As it happens, Moses’ wish came true in our reading from Acts.
Our readings from John’s Gospel and from Acts give us two contrasting images of the coming of the Spirit. John’s image is quiet, almost unnoticed – Jesus breathes on the disciples and says “receive the Holy Spirit”. With that Holy Spirit comes the power to forgive sins. But John gives us none of the ecstatic behavior we see in Acts. In Acts, between the Ascension of Jesus and Pentecost, the disciples more or less mark time. They deal with organizational housekeeping matters – they felt a need to find someone to fill the position held by Judas, and choose Matthias for that role. But there were no mighty acts from them until the coming of the Spirit on the day of Pentecost. The 2nd chapter of Acts gives the image we usually associate with the coming of the Spirit – the rush of a mighty wind, divided tongues of fire on the heads of the disciples, and the disciples declaring the Gospel in the languages of the many foreign pilgrims who were in Jerusalem.
Nowadays, we usually associate Pentecost with…..Pentecostals, whose manifestations of the Holy Spirit include “speaking in tongues”, “being slain in the Spirit” and other forms of ecstatic experience. Indeed, Paul’s letter to the Corinthians indicates that speaking in unknown tongues was a divisive issue in the church at Corinth. But in the Acts account of Pentecost, the disciples were speaking in tongues unknown to themselves, but known to those listening. While “speaking in tongues” was a divisive issue for Paul’s followers – and is still an issue that divides churches today – in Acts, the speech of the apostles was not intended to divide, but to unite; not to confound, but to make clear the Gospel to those present. It was sort of the Tower of Babel story in reverse: in Genesis, human beings were united in their hubris in trying to build a tower so they could climb up and look in on God – in modern terms, to climb up to heaven so they can walk up God’s sidewalk, ring the doorbell, and say ‘howdy’ - and God confused their language. On Pentecost, through the Holy Spirit, persons of many different languages who normally would be unintelligible to one another, were able to understand what the apostles were saying. Human initiative and human overreaching resulted in division and confusion. Divine initiative resulted in mutual understanding among humans.
In reading these passages together, we may be left with a question: why was the experience of the Holy Spirit opened up to so many. In the Old Testament, the Spirit was uniquely bestowed on select individuals gifted for ministry. And this appears to be the model in John’s Gospel as well – just as God had anointed Moses, David, and others with the Spirit in preparation for their leadership responsibilities, in John’s Gospel, Jesus bestowed the spirit on his disciples in preparation for the work they were to do. But in Acts, it is such a dramatic, open display of the Spirit, by contrast with the other readings. Why is this account seemingly different?
Part of this is because it is expected that, in the church, all believers, not just a select few, would be carrying out the ministry of the Gospel in various ways. Our reading from Acts, quoting the prophet Joel, says that in the last days the Spirit would be poured out on all flesh – sons and daughters, young and old, even slave and free alike – and everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. I Peter 2:9 speaks of the church as “a holy nation, a royal priesthood” – and as ministers, those in the church – all believers - would need to be baptized with the Holy Spirit in order to be prepared for their duties. In his letter to the church at Corinth, the Apostle Paul goes to great lengths to describe the different gifts – wisdom, knowledge, faith, healing, miracles, prophecy, speaking in tongues, interpretation of tongues – given to equip the church by the one Spirit. In the words of a newer hymn that we sang earlier in the service, “Many gifts, one Spirit, one love known in many ways.”
However, the point I want to underline is that, while in our reading from Acts the Spirit is more widely distributed, the purpose has not changed. The gift of the Holy Spirit is to prepare us for ministry, for worship and service. This was the case in the Old Testament, in John’s Gospel, in I Corinthians, and in Acts. The Spirit is not given to us for our own gratification. While the Spirit acts as our Advocate before God, interceding for us before God with sighs to deep for words when we ourselves cannot find it in ourselves to pray – it is there not only for us, but rather to make us more able to be there for others. This is where the Corinthian church went off track – those with the more flashy gifts, such as speaking in tongues, felt that this gift conferred some special merit on those who practiced speaking in tongues, lacking in those who did not. And this is where some modern-day Pentecostal churches may go wrong as well, if they see their speaking in tongues as something that sets them above and apart from others. But in Acts and in Paul’s letters, quite the opposite is the intent – tongues and other gifts of the Spirit are intended, not to divide, but rather to bring us together as the Body of Christ.
What does the coming of the Spirit look like in Bridesburg? What does it look like here at Emanuel Church. What are the signs of the Spirit here? Our congregation will not likely be mistaken anytime soon for what is commonly called a Pentecostal church. Anyone coming to Emanuel church to see people speaking in tongues, dancing in the aisles, falling to the ground, slain in the Spirit as the saying goes, will walk away sadly disappointed. The Spirit has not endowed Emanuel Church with those gifts. But look at the gifts the Spirit has given us. Here we bring together our Bridesburg neighbors with those who live in other neighborhoods. Here we are equipped to view our daily work not just as a way to earn a living, but as vocations dedicated to God’s glory. Here those who are weighed down with life find new hope and strength. Here the members of a small church “pray big”, remembering persons and situations all over the greater Philadelphia and New Jersey region. Like the small frightened huddle of disciples emerging from their locked rooms to go forth and minister across the known world of their day, we through our partnerships with the Bridesburg Council of Churches and the United Church of Christ send our prayers and our offerings to join with those of others to bless struggling people outside our door and around the globe.
As I said at the beginning of this sermon, Pentecost is called the birthday of the church. So, as we prepare for Communion, let me say, “Happy birthday, church.” As we prepare to approach the table, may we open our hearts to the Spirit’s prompting. Amen.
**************
Please join us for worship on Sundays at 10 a.m. at Emanuel United Church of Christ. We're on Fillmore Street, just off Thompson. www.emanuelphila.org
Saturday, June 11, 2011
Going and Coming
(Scriptures: Acts 1:1-14, Ephesians 1:15-23,
Luke 24:44-53)
Today’s reading from Luke and Acts remind us, if nothing else, that Acts is a sequel to the Gospel of Luke. Luke’s Gospel tells of the acts of Jesus during his earthly ministry, and Acts tells us about the acts of the Apostles, of the early church – the acts of Peter, of John, the acts of Philip, James, etc. - and after the account of Paul’s conversion, the focus rapidly shifts to the acts of Paul.
Acts is a sequel to Luke, and so Acts basically picks up where Luke begins. Luke tells us that Jesus led them out as far as Bethany, and as he blessed them, he was taken up from them. Acts begins by retelling and to some extent expanding and reshaping the narrative at the end of Luke. In Acts, Jesus’ “blessing” sounds more like a “challenge”. In today’s reading, Jesus is spending his final moments with his disciples before ascending to heaven. And as usual, the disciples are out to lunch, oblivious to what Jesus is telling them. “Now will you restore the kingdom to Israel?” they ask. Jesus is about to leave them, and they’re still caught up in their parochial, tribal, nationalistic concerns.
Jesus, even in his last minutes on earth, is to the last a master teacher. Jesus was unwilling to engage the explicit question the disciples asked, but he realized that behind their explicit question was an implicit question, sort of a “question behind the question”, which went as follows: “Where do we go from here, Jesus?”. Jesus’ response is worth noting. He redirects them from the specific question they did ask – which they had no business asking – to the implicit “question behind the question”– which Jesus answered graciously. He responds to their explicit question by basically telling them to mind their own business – “it’s not for you to know the times the Father has set by his own authority” – but then answers their “question behind the question” – “where do we go from here” - by going on to say that they will receive power to be Christ’s witnesses in Jerusalem, in Judea and Samaria, and the whole world. Jesus gives them an expanded frame of reference, a greatly expanded mission field. The disciples prematurely want to declare “mission accomplished”, hoping that they can bask in the glory of having been by Jesus’ side as he restored independence to Israel. By contrast, Jesus is telling them that their adventures in faith, far from being over, were really just beginning. Like a loving parent caring for toddlers, Jesus had walked beside the disciples and held their hands through the course of his earthly ministry. Like tuckered-out toddlers, the disciples thought it was high time for milk and cookies and a nice nap. But instead, Jesus would now be ascending to the Father, and, like growing children, they were going to have to learn how to look both ways and cross the street on their own. It must have been a jarring conversation for the disciples.
It may also be a jarring conversation for us. Listening to the disciples may be like looking at ourselves in a mirror. Like the disciples, we may define our faith in ways that are narrow and self-centered. We may define our faith primarily in terms of “I” and “me” and “my” – Am I saved? What will happen to me when I die? Will I get to heaven? Will I see my family again? And there is a time and a place for these concerns. They’re very important concerns. When we’re grieving the death of loved ones, when we or our family members are on beds of pain and illness, when we or our family members faced with our own mortality, our faith can become a great source of personal strength and comfort. Truly, what a friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and grief to bear. What a privilege to carry everything to God in prayer. As the saying goes, when we’re at the end of our rope, it’s time to tie a knot and hang on…and we do that by leaning on the everlasting arms of God.
But if we define our faith in Christ primarily in those terms – what’s in it for me? – we’ve greatly truncated the mission Jesus laid out for his disciples. Sort of like that movie from a few years ago, ‘Honey, I shrunk the kids.’ - ‘Honey, we’ve shrunk the mission.’ We’ve shrunk the mission of witnessing to the Gospel in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, and the whole world into “Well, at least I’m saved” or “Well, at least my family will be together in heaven. Us four, no more. Everyone else can fend for themselves.” No wonder we may latch onto to those who huckster and traffic in myths about the end times. After all, we and our families are saved….what else is there to do? Mission accomplished! Time for milk and cookies and a nice nap. I think part of the reason so many get caught up in the end-times mania is that the mainline churches haven’t done what Jesus did for his disciples in our reading from Acts, haven’t done a good job of helping their congregations understand their mission, understand why we’re here. Because of this lack of a big picture focus, we’re prone to focus on ourselves, prone to declare “mission accomplished” when in fact our mission has hardly begun. Peter and Paul and the rest of the apostles didn’t sit around obsessing about their own salvation – come to think of it, they didn’t sit around much, period - they had much bigger things on their minds.
Because the mission that Jesus defined for his disciples – “you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in Judea and Samaria, and the whole world” – still stands. It’s an ongoing mission. Think of it this way: everytime a baby is born, surprise! - there’s a new person who hasn’t heard about Jesus. So the mission field is ever before us.
Another way to think of it is to go back to the Luke narrative – Jesus led the disciples out to Bethany, from whence he ascended. Bethany, where Jesus visited Mary and Martha and Lazarus, and where he was hosted by Simon the Leper. While there are some disputes as to the meaning of the name Bethany, most authorities interpret the name as meaning “house of pain, house of suffering” – “Beth” means “house”, and “ani” or “anya” means “pain” and “affliction”. Some think there may at one time have been an almshouse or poor house there. So, before his ascension, perhaps Jesus gave the disciples not only verbal instructions, but visuals as well – a place of suffering, a place which needed the good news of Christ.
I suspect that, at this point, we may be feeling a little exhausted at the thought of witnessing to Jesus in Jerusalem, in Judea and Samaria, and the whole world. Me too. If it’s only up to us, we’re not going to get very far. We’ll feel worn out, feel like settling down for milk and cookies and a nap. Hey, I feel worn out after a morning of handout of Emanuel church flyers in Bridesburg. We’ll want to declare “mission accomplished” prematurely, want God to fast forward to the 2nd coming. And so here’s where it’s appropriate to lift up another part of Jesus’ words – “you will receive power when trhe Holy Spirit comes upon you.” God isn’t asking us to do all this on our own. God will send the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit will empower us to do far more than we could ask or think. One of the fascinations of Luke-Acts is watching how the disciples, who, as in the other Gospels, are about as clueless as can be, suddenly become powerful preachers and teachers and evangelists. Think of Peter, who, when he walked alongside Jesus during Jesus’ earthly mission, never missed an opportunity to put his foot in his mouth. After the coming of the Holy Spirit, Peter once again opened his mouth – and three thousand people were saved. Same disciples. Very different results. The difference is the coming of the Holy Spirit, having God’s spirit planted within them, empowering them and guiding them and directing their paths.
Next Sunday, we will celebrate Pentecost, the coming of the Holy Spirit on the church. The Holy Spirit can empower and direct us, if we allow, if we get out of the Spirit’s way. Like the apostles, we may find that we have to set aside our own agendas. Like the disciples, we may find that if we are left with unanswered questions, it may be because they’re not the questions God would have us ask. We may be asking God the wrong questions.
I’ve taken beginners Spanish courses several times – despite which I’ve never really learned Spanish beyond a handful of phrases. I really don’t have an aptitude for language, and my brain forgets the unfamiliar phrases almost immediately. My middle-aged brain’s attempts to absorb Spanish is like a brick attempting to soak up water. But the last time I took Spanish, I remember our teacher telling the class that we need to learn to tune our ears to understand Spanish. And that phrase stuck with me. I remember when I visited Cuba with the Penn Southeast Conference, at first the conversations going on around me were just background noise, babble. But as the days went on, I could start to pick out a word or a phrase here and there. By the last day, I understood much of what was being said around me, and could even put in a few words of my own here and there. (Of course, when I got home, it all went out the window by the time I’d gotten home from the airport.) But in the same way I tuned my ears in Cuba for at least a few days to understand at least a little Spanish, we may need to tune our spiritual ears to hear the whisperings of the Spirit, in the midst of all the background noise – including all the religious background noise. We need to tune our ears to pick out the voice of the Good Shepherd, amid the voices of all the hirelings and hucksters that would lead us off course, who at best seek to fleece us, and at worst may seek to destroy us.
Having tuned our ears to the voice of the Spirit, may we be like the church at Ephesus to whom Paul wrote, saying, “I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of the glorious inheritance among the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe, according to the working of his great power.” May Paul’s prayer for the Ephesians be answered for us as well, as in a few minutes we come to the table and share the communion meal, and in so doing experience the presence of Christ, now raised from the dead and seated at God’s right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name, not only in this age but in the age to come. May it be so for us, the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all. May it be so for us at Emanuel Church. Amen.
***************************
Please join us at Emanuel United Church of Christ on Sunday mornings at 10 a.m. We're on Fillmore Street (off Thompson). www.emanuelphila.org
Luke 24:44-53)
Today’s reading from Luke and Acts remind us, if nothing else, that Acts is a sequel to the Gospel of Luke. Luke’s Gospel tells of the acts of Jesus during his earthly ministry, and Acts tells us about the acts of the Apostles, of the early church – the acts of Peter, of John, the acts of Philip, James, etc. - and after the account of Paul’s conversion, the focus rapidly shifts to the acts of Paul.
Acts is a sequel to Luke, and so Acts basically picks up where Luke begins. Luke tells us that Jesus led them out as far as Bethany, and as he blessed them, he was taken up from them. Acts begins by retelling and to some extent expanding and reshaping the narrative at the end of Luke. In Acts, Jesus’ “blessing” sounds more like a “challenge”. In today’s reading, Jesus is spending his final moments with his disciples before ascending to heaven. And as usual, the disciples are out to lunch, oblivious to what Jesus is telling them. “Now will you restore the kingdom to Israel?” they ask. Jesus is about to leave them, and they’re still caught up in their parochial, tribal, nationalistic concerns.
Jesus, even in his last minutes on earth, is to the last a master teacher. Jesus was unwilling to engage the explicit question the disciples asked, but he realized that behind their explicit question was an implicit question, sort of a “question behind the question”, which went as follows: “Where do we go from here, Jesus?”. Jesus’ response is worth noting. He redirects them from the specific question they did ask – which they had no business asking – to the implicit “question behind the question”– which Jesus answered graciously. He responds to their explicit question by basically telling them to mind their own business – “it’s not for you to know the times the Father has set by his own authority” – but then answers their “question behind the question” – “where do we go from here” - by going on to say that they will receive power to be Christ’s witnesses in Jerusalem, in Judea and Samaria, and the whole world. Jesus gives them an expanded frame of reference, a greatly expanded mission field. The disciples prematurely want to declare “mission accomplished”, hoping that they can bask in the glory of having been by Jesus’ side as he restored independence to Israel. By contrast, Jesus is telling them that their adventures in faith, far from being over, were really just beginning. Like a loving parent caring for toddlers, Jesus had walked beside the disciples and held their hands through the course of his earthly ministry. Like tuckered-out toddlers, the disciples thought it was high time for milk and cookies and a nice nap. But instead, Jesus would now be ascending to the Father, and, like growing children, they were going to have to learn how to look both ways and cross the street on their own. It must have been a jarring conversation for the disciples.
It may also be a jarring conversation for us. Listening to the disciples may be like looking at ourselves in a mirror. Like the disciples, we may define our faith in ways that are narrow and self-centered. We may define our faith primarily in terms of “I” and “me” and “my” – Am I saved? What will happen to me when I die? Will I get to heaven? Will I see my family again? And there is a time and a place for these concerns. They’re very important concerns. When we’re grieving the death of loved ones, when we or our family members are on beds of pain and illness, when we or our family members faced with our own mortality, our faith can become a great source of personal strength and comfort. Truly, what a friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and grief to bear. What a privilege to carry everything to God in prayer. As the saying goes, when we’re at the end of our rope, it’s time to tie a knot and hang on…and we do that by leaning on the everlasting arms of God.
But if we define our faith in Christ primarily in those terms – what’s in it for me? – we’ve greatly truncated the mission Jesus laid out for his disciples. Sort of like that movie from a few years ago, ‘Honey, I shrunk the kids.’ - ‘Honey, we’ve shrunk the mission.’ We’ve shrunk the mission of witnessing to the Gospel in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, and the whole world into “Well, at least I’m saved” or “Well, at least my family will be together in heaven. Us four, no more. Everyone else can fend for themselves.” No wonder we may latch onto to those who huckster and traffic in myths about the end times. After all, we and our families are saved….what else is there to do? Mission accomplished! Time for milk and cookies and a nice nap. I think part of the reason so many get caught up in the end-times mania is that the mainline churches haven’t done what Jesus did for his disciples in our reading from Acts, haven’t done a good job of helping their congregations understand their mission, understand why we’re here. Because of this lack of a big picture focus, we’re prone to focus on ourselves, prone to declare “mission accomplished” when in fact our mission has hardly begun. Peter and Paul and the rest of the apostles didn’t sit around obsessing about their own salvation – come to think of it, they didn’t sit around much, period - they had much bigger things on their minds.
Because the mission that Jesus defined for his disciples – “you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in Judea and Samaria, and the whole world” – still stands. It’s an ongoing mission. Think of it this way: everytime a baby is born, surprise! - there’s a new person who hasn’t heard about Jesus. So the mission field is ever before us.
Another way to think of it is to go back to the Luke narrative – Jesus led the disciples out to Bethany, from whence he ascended. Bethany, where Jesus visited Mary and Martha and Lazarus, and where he was hosted by Simon the Leper. While there are some disputes as to the meaning of the name Bethany, most authorities interpret the name as meaning “house of pain, house of suffering” – “Beth” means “house”, and “ani” or “anya” means “pain” and “affliction”. Some think there may at one time have been an almshouse or poor house there. So, before his ascension, perhaps Jesus gave the disciples not only verbal instructions, but visuals as well – a place of suffering, a place which needed the good news of Christ.
I suspect that, at this point, we may be feeling a little exhausted at the thought of witnessing to Jesus in Jerusalem, in Judea and Samaria, and the whole world. Me too. If it’s only up to us, we’re not going to get very far. We’ll feel worn out, feel like settling down for milk and cookies and a nap. Hey, I feel worn out after a morning of handout of Emanuel church flyers in Bridesburg. We’ll want to declare “mission accomplished” prematurely, want God to fast forward to the 2nd coming. And so here’s where it’s appropriate to lift up another part of Jesus’ words – “you will receive power when trhe Holy Spirit comes upon you.” God isn’t asking us to do all this on our own. God will send the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit will empower us to do far more than we could ask or think. One of the fascinations of Luke-Acts is watching how the disciples, who, as in the other Gospels, are about as clueless as can be, suddenly become powerful preachers and teachers and evangelists. Think of Peter, who, when he walked alongside Jesus during Jesus’ earthly mission, never missed an opportunity to put his foot in his mouth. After the coming of the Holy Spirit, Peter once again opened his mouth – and three thousand people were saved. Same disciples. Very different results. The difference is the coming of the Holy Spirit, having God’s spirit planted within them, empowering them and guiding them and directing their paths.
Next Sunday, we will celebrate Pentecost, the coming of the Holy Spirit on the church. The Holy Spirit can empower and direct us, if we allow, if we get out of the Spirit’s way. Like the apostles, we may find that we have to set aside our own agendas. Like the disciples, we may find that if we are left with unanswered questions, it may be because they’re not the questions God would have us ask. We may be asking God the wrong questions.
I’ve taken beginners Spanish courses several times – despite which I’ve never really learned Spanish beyond a handful of phrases. I really don’t have an aptitude for language, and my brain forgets the unfamiliar phrases almost immediately. My middle-aged brain’s attempts to absorb Spanish is like a brick attempting to soak up water. But the last time I took Spanish, I remember our teacher telling the class that we need to learn to tune our ears to understand Spanish. And that phrase stuck with me. I remember when I visited Cuba with the Penn Southeast Conference, at first the conversations going on around me were just background noise, babble. But as the days went on, I could start to pick out a word or a phrase here and there. By the last day, I understood much of what was being said around me, and could even put in a few words of my own here and there. (Of course, when I got home, it all went out the window by the time I’d gotten home from the airport.) But in the same way I tuned my ears in Cuba for at least a few days to understand at least a little Spanish, we may need to tune our spiritual ears to hear the whisperings of the Spirit, in the midst of all the background noise – including all the religious background noise. We need to tune our ears to pick out the voice of the Good Shepherd, amid the voices of all the hirelings and hucksters that would lead us off course, who at best seek to fleece us, and at worst may seek to destroy us.
Having tuned our ears to the voice of the Spirit, may we be like the church at Ephesus to whom Paul wrote, saying, “I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of the glorious inheritance among the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe, according to the working of his great power.” May Paul’s prayer for the Ephesians be answered for us as well, as in a few minutes we come to the table and share the communion meal, and in so doing experience the presence of Christ, now raised from the dead and seated at God’s right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name, not only in this age but in the age to come. May it be so for us, the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all. May it be so for us at Emanuel Church. Amen.
***************************
Please join us at Emanuel United Church of Christ on Sunday mornings at 10 a.m. We're on Fillmore Street (off Thompson). www.emanuelphila.org
Love and Obey
(Scriptures: Acts 7:55-60, 1 Peter 3:13-22, John 14:15-21)
In this morning’s Gospel reading, Jesus and his disciples are celebrating the Last Supper, and Jesus is continuing his farewell address to his disciples. Jesus has been preparing them for the reality that he will not be with them much longer. Of course, the disciples are full of questions: where are you going? Why can’t we come? Are you coming back? Perhaps most pressing, how will we be able to live when you’ve gone away. As I considered how the disciples must have been feeling, a Laura Branigan song – or maybe the Michael Bolton remake, depending which version you’re familiar with – started playing in the back of my mind – “How am I supposed to live without you....” and the disciples may well have been thinking something very similar. How are we supposed to live without you, Jesus? How are we supposed to carry on, when you, who are all that we’ve been living for will soon be gone?
Jesus assures them that he will not leave them orphaned. Jesus’ words are mysterious: even though “in a little while” he’ll be going away, still, Jesus says, “I am coming to you.” “In a little while” Jesus says, “the world will not see me, but you will see me.” Jesus tells the disciples how they’re supposed to carry on, how they’re supposed to live: “Because I live, you also will live.” The earthly Jesus, the man of Nazareth with whom the disciples had walked for three years, would be with them no longer, but Christ’s spirit would continue to be beside them, even within them. Jesus tells them that he will ask the Father for “another Advocate”, whom Jesus calls “the spirit of truth” who will abide with us and be with us forever.” The original Greek word, “Paraclete” – means “someone along side us” – as an Advocate – like our attorney at trial – or as an intercessor, someone to go to God on our behalf – or a Helper - or a Comforter, one to strengthen us in difficulties. The world cannot see or receive the spirit of truth, because the world is not open to the truth. But Christ’s disciples will receive this Spirit. Two Sundays from now we will celebrate Pentecost, the story of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the early church.
Of course, I’m considering the text in light of last weekend’s excitement about Harold Camping’s false predictions about the Rapture. It was certainly interesting, if that’s the word, to hear Camping’s last-minute elaborations on his predictions – on May 21, there would be earthquakes at 6 pm in each time zone around the world, and the graves would be opened, the righteous would be Raptured, caught up in the clouds, and the bodies of any unsaved people would be thrown on the ground to be shamed. And, of course, the members of the VFW and legion posts visit our cemetery on the Sunday of Memorial day weekend every year…and we surely couldn’t have them seeing open graves and century old corpses and such. I’m only one person, 50 years old, overweight, short of breath and out of shape….How would I ever get all that mess cleaned up in time for the visitors from the VFW and the Legion and such later today?
OK…I’m being a little tongue in cheek. But, amid the laughter, I think that there’s some truly sad commentary to be found underneath the silliness. We may shake our heads wondering how on earth people can get caught up in Camping’s silliness, or the silliness of other End Times preachers that are just as off-base. People run around here, and there,
and everywhere, looking for Jesus’ second coming in glory, at the end of time – and it is indeed part of our tradition that Jesus will come again in glory, though we don’t know when this will happen - but, if we take today’s Gospel reading seriously, we realize Jesus never left. Jesus never left. Jesus said that, “in a little while, the world will no longer see me, but you will see me.” We live in an in-between time: Indeed, the earthly Jesus ascended to the Father – we’ll be considering the Ascension next Sunday – and Jesus will come again in glory at the end of time – but in between the Ascension and the Second Coming, this in-between time in which we live, Jesus said “I am coming to you. I will send another Advocate, the Spirit of truth.” And in two weeks we will celebrate Pentecost, when Jesus’ promise to come again to his followers, to send the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete, the Advocate, the Spirit of Truth, was fulfilled. Jesus specifically said, “I will not leave you orphaned.” I will not abandon you. And Jesus did not abandon us. Why do we sometimes find ourselves acting like orphans, acting as if we’d been abandoned, acting as if God has left the building?
Where will we find Jesus? One place to find Jesus is in church. Jesus said, “where ever two or three are gathered together in my name, there I am in their midst.” But it’s easy, especially in a small, struggling congregation like Emanuel, where I’m sometimes sending up prayers at 9:30 that more than 2 or 3 show up, to wonder some weeks if anything worthwhile is going on. We show up, greet each other, stand and sit for the various portions of the liturgy, hear some stirring organ music – or some hit or miss guitar playing – and sing some hymns, and take up the offering, and listen to Pastor Dave natter on in the pulpit – once a month we come forward for our cube of bread and cup of wine, and at the end hang around for coffee and cake and maybe a Bible lesson – and if we think that’s all that’s going on, no wonder we’re feeling empty at the end of the service. If we miss the presence of Christ in our midst, no wonder we feel let down. If all we expect to find the coffee and cake, or Ralph’s organ playing, or heaven help us my guitar playing, or the sermon, or even the fellowship, no wonder we leave feeling hungry. No wonder we feel leave feeling empty. No wonder we feel a need to look for someone or something that can help us feel more a more vivid, tangible connection to God.
I recently read part of one of Martin Luther’s sermons that seemed to speak to our present situation. Of course, Luther was preaching in the 1500’s in very different circumstances, and yet in some ways, the more things change, the more they remain the same. Luther’s sermon dealt with those in the Roman Catholic church of his day who advertised various religious relics, such as articles of clothing worn by various saints, which people would travel long distances to see, while missing God’s presence in their own churches and their own homes, missing God’s presence right in front of their noses. Here’s a few words from Luther:
“In times past we would have run to the ends of the world if we had known of a place where we could hear God speak. But now that we hear this in sermons, we do not see this happening. You hear at home in your house, father and mother and children sing and speak of it, the preacher speaks it in the parish church – you ought to lift up your hands and rejoice that we have been given the honor of hearing God speak to us through the Word. Oh, people say, what is that? What do we get out of it? All right, go ahead, dear brother, if you don’t want God to speak to you every day at home in your house or in your parish church, then be clever and look for something else: in Trier is the Lord God’s coat, in Aachen are Joseph’s britches, go there and squander your money. You have to go far for these things and spend a lot of money, leave house and home empty….all the while anyone can go to Baptism, the Sacrament, and the preaching-desk! How highly honored and richly blessed we are to know that God speaks with us and feeds us with the Word, gives us Baptism, and all the rest! But people say: What, baptism? Sacrament? God’s Word? – Joseph’s britches, that’s what does it!”
These days folks who are, in Luther’s words, being clever, no longer travel here and there to see religious relics. Joseph’s britches are no longer much of a draw. These days, instead of traveling to view relics, we clamor for people to tell us about the End times. And these days we don’t have to travel at all – we can stay home and turn the dial on our radio and TV for spectacular predictions of the End Times, one after the other, the more over-the-top, the more outlandish, the better. Reading the various predictions of end-time prognosticators is like listening to the old radio show, “Can You Top This?” Yet we forget that, for the prophet Elijah, God was not in the earthquake or the windstorm – not in the spectacular - but in the still, small voice that followed. We can find God right here, right now at Emanuel Church, in the sacraments of baptism and communion, in hearing the Word preached, and in the love we find when Christians gather. We, you and I can experience God’s presence here – both comforting us and challenging us - week by week, in worship, in hearing the Word, in the sacraments, in Christian fellowship. Like Jacob, having wrestled with the angel, we can say, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven!” Having experienced God’s presence here at church, our eyes and ears will be tuned and our hearts opened to God’s presence elsewhere in our lives, as we see God’s hand at work in our lives, the lives of our families, our communities – and if we are open to it, we’ll see God at work in all manner of unexpected places. And having experienced God’s presence, we can share that presence in our homes, our offices, everywhere we go.
There is one part of Jesus’ words that always brings me up a little short: “If you love me, you’ll obey my commandments.” As protestant Christians we believe in salvation by grace through faith, not by works, that we should boast. And yet Jesus speaks of obeying his commandments. Is Jesus saying we need to earn his love by our works? If so, boy are we in deep trouble! Jesus’ words could also could come across sounding manipulative, like a spouse telling us, “If you love me, you’ll take out the trash.”
But maybe Jesus was not manipulating, not coercing, but just observing, just describing how his followers would act. If you love me, you’ll keep my commandments. And Jesus summed up the commandments in the two Great Commandments; Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and Love your neighbor as yourself. And Jesus also said, “A new commandment I give you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.” We can’t do this on our own. It is only by having God at work within us, that we can love God and neighbor. But with God at work within us, we will more and more live into being able to love God and neighbor more fully. We can’t please God on our own by trying to will ourselves to love. We can only love because God first loved us, and because God’s love is within us. But because God’s love is in us, we can carry out Jesus’ commandment to love – a love that’s not just about warm fuzzy feelings – heaven knows my feelings aren’t always warm and fuzzy, and yours may not be either – but in Christ’s love we’re can work for the good of others, even those we may not like very much.
Keeping Jesus’ commandments is not easy. It can be dangerous, showing God’s love to folks who may not necessarily be ready to receive it. We’ll need God’s help to do it. In Acts, we read the account of the martyrdom of Steven, the first Christian martyr, who was killed for proclaiming the Gospel of Christ. Stephen’s obedience cost him his life. But Stephen was granted a vision of Christ in glory. We also, when we’re struggling to be faithful, may find Christ’s spirit to be present, giving us strength to carry on. Likewise, our reading from I Peter tells us that we should be willing to suffer, for Christ also suffered for sins, once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring us to God. We need not despair over our weakness against sin and suffering, for, as Jesus told the Apostle Paul, God’s strength is made perfect in human weakness.
We may suffer, but we will not suffer alone. We have the community of the church to support us, to carry us when we can’t carry ourselves. And we have the love of God in Christ. Remember Christ’s words: On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. It sort of sounds sort of like a big cosmic group hug, doesn’t it? – an embrace that begins with our baptism, as we are washed from our sin and clothed with Christ.
As disciples of the Risen Christ, we are Easter people, expecting life where the world only sees death. We know that life, not death, has the last word. As we journey together in the Spirit, because the Paraclete, the Advocate, the Comforter from God is among us, we can comfort and advocate for one another in our needs and in our tragedies, and remind one another that whatever road we walk, however painful, however long, however seemingly lonely, we do not walk alone, for God’s spirit, the Comforter, the Advocate, walks with us. Amen.
*****************
Please join us at Emanuel United Church of Christ for worship on Sundays at 10 a.m. We're on Fillmore Street just off Thompson St. www.emanuelphila.org
In this morning’s Gospel reading, Jesus and his disciples are celebrating the Last Supper, and Jesus is continuing his farewell address to his disciples. Jesus has been preparing them for the reality that he will not be with them much longer. Of course, the disciples are full of questions: where are you going? Why can’t we come? Are you coming back? Perhaps most pressing, how will we be able to live when you’ve gone away. As I considered how the disciples must have been feeling, a Laura Branigan song – or maybe the Michael Bolton remake, depending which version you’re familiar with – started playing in the back of my mind – “How am I supposed to live without you....” and the disciples may well have been thinking something very similar. How are we supposed to live without you, Jesus? How are we supposed to carry on, when you, who are all that we’ve been living for will soon be gone?
Jesus assures them that he will not leave them orphaned. Jesus’ words are mysterious: even though “in a little while” he’ll be going away, still, Jesus says, “I am coming to you.” “In a little while” Jesus says, “the world will not see me, but you will see me.” Jesus tells the disciples how they’re supposed to carry on, how they’re supposed to live: “Because I live, you also will live.” The earthly Jesus, the man of Nazareth with whom the disciples had walked for three years, would be with them no longer, but Christ’s spirit would continue to be beside them, even within them. Jesus tells them that he will ask the Father for “another Advocate”, whom Jesus calls “the spirit of truth” who will abide with us and be with us forever.” The original Greek word, “Paraclete” – means “someone along side us” – as an Advocate – like our attorney at trial – or as an intercessor, someone to go to God on our behalf – or a Helper - or a Comforter, one to strengthen us in difficulties. The world cannot see or receive the spirit of truth, because the world is not open to the truth. But Christ’s disciples will receive this Spirit. Two Sundays from now we will celebrate Pentecost, the story of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the early church.
Of course, I’m considering the text in light of last weekend’s excitement about Harold Camping’s false predictions about the Rapture. It was certainly interesting, if that’s the word, to hear Camping’s last-minute elaborations on his predictions – on May 21, there would be earthquakes at 6 pm in each time zone around the world, and the graves would be opened, the righteous would be Raptured, caught up in the clouds, and the bodies of any unsaved people would be thrown on the ground to be shamed. And, of course, the members of the VFW and legion posts visit our cemetery on the Sunday of Memorial day weekend every year…and we surely couldn’t have them seeing open graves and century old corpses and such. I’m only one person, 50 years old, overweight, short of breath and out of shape….How would I ever get all that mess cleaned up in time for the visitors from the VFW and the Legion and such later today?
OK…I’m being a little tongue in cheek. But, amid the laughter, I think that there’s some truly sad commentary to be found underneath the silliness. We may shake our heads wondering how on earth people can get caught up in Camping’s silliness, or the silliness of other End Times preachers that are just as off-base. People run around here, and there,
and everywhere, looking for Jesus’ second coming in glory, at the end of time – and it is indeed part of our tradition that Jesus will come again in glory, though we don’t know when this will happen - but, if we take today’s Gospel reading seriously, we realize Jesus never left. Jesus never left. Jesus said that, “in a little while, the world will no longer see me, but you will see me.” We live in an in-between time: Indeed, the earthly Jesus ascended to the Father – we’ll be considering the Ascension next Sunday – and Jesus will come again in glory at the end of time – but in between the Ascension and the Second Coming, this in-between time in which we live, Jesus said “I am coming to you. I will send another Advocate, the Spirit of truth.” And in two weeks we will celebrate Pentecost, when Jesus’ promise to come again to his followers, to send the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete, the Advocate, the Spirit of Truth, was fulfilled. Jesus specifically said, “I will not leave you orphaned.” I will not abandon you. And Jesus did not abandon us. Why do we sometimes find ourselves acting like orphans, acting as if we’d been abandoned, acting as if God has left the building?
Where will we find Jesus? One place to find Jesus is in church. Jesus said, “where ever two or three are gathered together in my name, there I am in their midst.” But it’s easy, especially in a small, struggling congregation like Emanuel, where I’m sometimes sending up prayers at 9:30 that more than 2 or 3 show up, to wonder some weeks if anything worthwhile is going on. We show up, greet each other, stand and sit for the various portions of the liturgy, hear some stirring organ music – or some hit or miss guitar playing – and sing some hymns, and take up the offering, and listen to Pastor Dave natter on in the pulpit – once a month we come forward for our cube of bread and cup of wine, and at the end hang around for coffee and cake and maybe a Bible lesson – and if we think that’s all that’s going on, no wonder we’re feeling empty at the end of the service. If we miss the presence of Christ in our midst, no wonder we feel let down. If all we expect to find the coffee and cake, or Ralph’s organ playing, or heaven help us my guitar playing, or the sermon, or even the fellowship, no wonder we leave feeling hungry. No wonder we feel leave feeling empty. No wonder we feel a need to look for someone or something that can help us feel more a more vivid, tangible connection to God.
I recently read part of one of Martin Luther’s sermons that seemed to speak to our present situation. Of course, Luther was preaching in the 1500’s in very different circumstances, and yet in some ways, the more things change, the more they remain the same. Luther’s sermon dealt with those in the Roman Catholic church of his day who advertised various religious relics, such as articles of clothing worn by various saints, which people would travel long distances to see, while missing God’s presence in their own churches and their own homes, missing God’s presence right in front of their noses. Here’s a few words from Luther:
“In times past we would have run to the ends of the world if we had known of a place where we could hear God speak. But now that we hear this in sermons, we do not see this happening. You hear at home in your house, father and mother and children sing and speak of it, the preacher speaks it in the parish church – you ought to lift up your hands and rejoice that we have been given the honor of hearing God speak to us through the Word. Oh, people say, what is that? What do we get out of it? All right, go ahead, dear brother, if you don’t want God to speak to you every day at home in your house or in your parish church, then be clever and look for something else: in Trier is the Lord God’s coat, in Aachen are Joseph’s britches, go there and squander your money. You have to go far for these things and spend a lot of money, leave house and home empty….all the while anyone can go to Baptism, the Sacrament, and the preaching-desk! How highly honored and richly blessed we are to know that God speaks with us and feeds us with the Word, gives us Baptism, and all the rest! But people say: What, baptism? Sacrament? God’s Word? – Joseph’s britches, that’s what does it!”
These days folks who are, in Luther’s words, being clever, no longer travel here and there to see religious relics. Joseph’s britches are no longer much of a draw. These days, instead of traveling to view relics, we clamor for people to tell us about the End times. And these days we don’t have to travel at all – we can stay home and turn the dial on our radio and TV for spectacular predictions of the End Times, one after the other, the more over-the-top, the more outlandish, the better. Reading the various predictions of end-time prognosticators is like listening to the old radio show, “Can You Top This?” Yet we forget that, for the prophet Elijah, God was not in the earthquake or the windstorm – not in the spectacular - but in the still, small voice that followed. We can find God right here, right now at Emanuel Church, in the sacraments of baptism and communion, in hearing the Word preached, and in the love we find when Christians gather. We, you and I can experience God’s presence here – both comforting us and challenging us - week by week, in worship, in hearing the Word, in the sacraments, in Christian fellowship. Like Jacob, having wrestled with the angel, we can say, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven!” Having experienced God’s presence here at church, our eyes and ears will be tuned and our hearts opened to God’s presence elsewhere in our lives, as we see God’s hand at work in our lives, the lives of our families, our communities – and if we are open to it, we’ll see God at work in all manner of unexpected places. And having experienced God’s presence, we can share that presence in our homes, our offices, everywhere we go.
There is one part of Jesus’ words that always brings me up a little short: “If you love me, you’ll obey my commandments.” As protestant Christians we believe in salvation by grace through faith, not by works, that we should boast. And yet Jesus speaks of obeying his commandments. Is Jesus saying we need to earn his love by our works? If so, boy are we in deep trouble! Jesus’ words could also could come across sounding manipulative, like a spouse telling us, “If you love me, you’ll take out the trash.”
But maybe Jesus was not manipulating, not coercing, but just observing, just describing how his followers would act. If you love me, you’ll keep my commandments. And Jesus summed up the commandments in the two Great Commandments; Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and Love your neighbor as yourself. And Jesus also said, “A new commandment I give you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.” We can’t do this on our own. It is only by having God at work within us, that we can love God and neighbor. But with God at work within us, we will more and more live into being able to love God and neighbor more fully. We can’t please God on our own by trying to will ourselves to love. We can only love because God first loved us, and because God’s love is within us. But because God’s love is in us, we can carry out Jesus’ commandment to love – a love that’s not just about warm fuzzy feelings – heaven knows my feelings aren’t always warm and fuzzy, and yours may not be either – but in Christ’s love we’re can work for the good of others, even those we may not like very much.
Keeping Jesus’ commandments is not easy. It can be dangerous, showing God’s love to folks who may not necessarily be ready to receive it. We’ll need God’s help to do it. In Acts, we read the account of the martyrdom of Steven, the first Christian martyr, who was killed for proclaiming the Gospel of Christ. Stephen’s obedience cost him his life. But Stephen was granted a vision of Christ in glory. We also, when we’re struggling to be faithful, may find Christ’s spirit to be present, giving us strength to carry on. Likewise, our reading from I Peter tells us that we should be willing to suffer, for Christ also suffered for sins, once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring us to God. We need not despair over our weakness against sin and suffering, for, as Jesus told the Apostle Paul, God’s strength is made perfect in human weakness.
We may suffer, but we will not suffer alone. We have the community of the church to support us, to carry us when we can’t carry ourselves. And we have the love of God in Christ. Remember Christ’s words: On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. It sort of sounds sort of like a big cosmic group hug, doesn’t it? – an embrace that begins with our baptism, as we are washed from our sin and clothed with Christ.
As disciples of the Risen Christ, we are Easter people, expecting life where the world only sees death. We know that life, not death, has the last word. As we journey together in the Spirit, because the Paraclete, the Advocate, the Comforter from God is among us, we can comfort and advocate for one another in our needs and in our tragedies, and remind one another that whatever road we walk, however painful, however long, however seemingly lonely, we do not walk alone, for God’s spirit, the Comforter, the Advocate, walks with us. Amen.
*****************
Please join us at Emanuel United Church of Christ for worship on Sundays at 10 a.m. We're on Fillmore Street just off Thompson St. www.emanuelphila.org
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