Sermon: I Believe in the Church

Here’s the sermon I’m preaching tomorrow as I continue the 13-week series on The Apostles’ Creed.  Tomorrow we come to the phrase, “I Believe in the Church.”  I hope your Sunday is a great one!

I Believe In The Church

¹³When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say the Son of Man is?”

¹⁴They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”

¹⁵“But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?”

¹⁶Simon Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”

¹⁷Jesus replied, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven. ¹⁸And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. ¹⁹I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”  — Matthew 16:13-19 NIV

Down To Earth Faith

We have come to that part of the Apostles’ Creed concerning the Holy Spirit.  Last Sunday we looked at the statement, “I believe in the Holy Spirit…” and noted that the Creed is divided into three sections.  The first section affirms our belief in God the Father; the second section, our belief in Jesus Christ, God’s only Son, our Lord; and this section affirms our belief in the Holy Spirit.

The statements in this section are brief, to the point, and packed full of meaning.  Today we come to the statement about the church.  If we pick up the “I believe” part from the opening words of this section, we would affirm, “I believe in…the holy, catholic church; [and] the communion of saints…”

That’s it –  four words for the church, and four more to describe the indescribable relationship of all God’s people, the communion of saints.

But what we also need to notice here is that the scene shifts.  Our attention moves from the past to the present.  From heaven to earth.  From that which is other-worldly, to that which exists now.  We move right down here where we live, to the church.

And, when we say we “believe in the church” we do not mean that in the same way as when we say, “I believe in God the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ, his only, son our Lord.”  We do not even mean it the same way as our affirmation that we “believe in the Holy Spirit.”

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are the Persons of the Trinity.  By affirming our belief in them, we affirm they exist, they are unique, and they are worthy of our worship, obedience, and love.  But our belief in the church is different.  When we say we believe in the “holy, catholic church” — or even just “the church” — we are affirming God’s gathering of the church, Jesus as head of the church, and our place in the church here and now, and in the age to come.  This affirmation also means we share a common belief, a common family, a common place with others in the present and coming Kingdom of God.

To say I believe in the church is to say I believe in the people of God, I believe in family, I believe in those who are with me now, those who have gone before, and those who will come after in this crazy, patchwork quilt of humanity touched by God we call the church.  We are not affirming belief in some idea of the church, some abstraction, but in the real church, with all its messiness, failure, and struggle.  We are affirming that God is at work in this church, and in all of God’s churches wherever they are, and whatever they look like.

Some Hints About the Church

We get some hints about the church from this passage we just read today.  Jesus’ ministry is well underway.  The initial euphoria of being with Jesus has faded, and he and the disciples are now in the day-to-day mission of announcing the Kingdom of God with both words and deeds.

But not everyone gets it.  Some have followed for the food.  Some have sought out Jesus for healing, either for themselves or others.  Many have been amazed by his teaching, only to drift back into the routine of their lives without changing what they do.

Others have expressed and acted out their opposition, none more vehemently than in Jesus’ own home town of Nazareth.  There they heard him proudly until he began “puttin’ on airs” and sounding likely a phony, if not dangerous, messiah.  There they ran him out of town.

Of course, the rumor mill was working overtime, as they say.  Imagine life in a community without television, radio, newspapers, magazine, telephone or the internet.  How did people communicate?  Well, they communicated the same way we do today — they talked to each other about one another.  They gossiped, they discussed, they expressed opinions, they drew conclusions, and they sized up the situation.

Jesus, of course, was well aware that people were talking about him.  So, he asked the disciples what they had heard:

“Who do people say the Son of Man is?”

And the disciples gave Jesus the answers he was looking for:

“Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”

In other words, people believed that Jesus was somebody extraordinary.  Somebody special.  They said Jesus was a John the Baptist come to life; an Elijah returned as they expected; or a Jeremiah because of the plain, straightforward way he put things.  But, whoever they thought he was, they knew he was somebody special.

But then Jesus asked, “What about you?  Who do you say I am?”

Apparently this put the disciples on the spot because nobody answered immediately.  Maybe they don’t want to hurt Jesus’ feelings because they know Jesus is not John the Baptist because John is dead.  They know he’s not Elijah the Old Testament prophet who was expected to come before the Messiah came.  They know he’s not Jeremiah the fiery Old Testament prophet.  So, they’re at a loss for words.

If they say, “Hey, Jesus, come on.  We know you’re not John the Baptist, or Elijah, or Jeremiah” that sounds they don’t think as highly of Jesus as total strangers do.  But, they can’t figure out what to say, or what Jesus really means by the question.

Of course, brash, talkative, impetuous Simon Peter has an answer.  Peter blurts out –

“You are the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of the Living God.”

The Bible doesn’t say this, but I am sure all the other disciples are embarrassed for Peter, who has stuck his foot in his mouth again.  “Okay,” the disciples are thinking, “Jesus is a great guy, a terrific teacher, and he does amazing things — but the Messiah?  Come on, Peter, this is way over the top!”

But then Jesus breaks the embarrassed silence.

“You’re right, Peter.  You’re exactly right, and you’ve said more than you even know.  God revealed this to you, not any person.”

Imagine now how all the other disciples feel.  Pretty small.  Kind of like when you were in school and someone answered the teacher’s question with what you just knew was the wrong answer.  But then the teacher says, “Exactly right.  Good work.”  And then you felt like a dope.  Now you know how the other disciples felt.

What Does This Have To Do With Church?

Okay, so that’s a great story, and we can put ourselves right there with the disciples because we would not have done any better than they did playing Jesus’ version of Jeopardy.  But, what does this have to do with the church?  Listen to what else Jesus says to Peter:

¹⁷Jesus replied, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven. ¹⁸And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. ¹⁹I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”

Without even knowing everything that this means, even the beginner Bible student can figure out Jesus is telling Peter some good stuff.  But, let’s take a moment and figure it out.

First, Jesus tells Peter that “you are Peter and upon this rock I will build my church.”  In English, this can be confusing.  Why is Jesus dragging in a rock?  Where did that come from?

How many of you like a good pun, also known as a “play on words?”  It’s kind of like the helpful phrase I remember the teacher telling us in the third or fourth grade when we were trying to learn when to use the word “to” and how to spell it correctly.  The teacher reminded us that there are “three tos” in the English language.  Which is a pretty cute way to remind yourself to use the right “to,” too!  Okay, enough of that.

Well, this business about “you are Peter” and “upon this rock” is a play on words.  Peter’s name would have been spelled P-E-T-R-O-S — “Petros.”  The word for rock in Greek was  spelled p-e-t-r-a, and pronounced in a similar manner, “petra.”

So, Jesus was really saying, “You’re name is Rock, and on this rock I will build my church.”  Rock, rock — get it?  Okay, I didn’t say it was a funny play on words, but it is one nonetheless.

The main point here is that Jesus will build his church on the rock of Peter’s confession — Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God.

Of course, our Roman Catholic friends believe that this passage proves that Jesus chose Peter to be the first pope.  Neither history, nor scripture support that assertion.  It would not be until about the third century that the Bishop of Rome would gain ascendancy over the Bishops of Jerusalem, and Alexandria, among others.

And of course, Peter was not a rock.  Peter will deny Jesus, not once, but three times when Jesus is arrested.  So, it is not Peter, or Peter’s faith, or even faith like Peter’s that Jesus was affirming, but Peter’s statement, “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.”

It is that statement, that belief, that affirmation that is the entry point, the foundation, for belonging to and believing in the church.  No one who does not affirm that “Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God” can be part of the church, for the church is the body of Christ.  She is not a club, or a civic organization, or a fraternal order, or a sorority of the like-minded.  The church is the Bride of Christ, the people for whom Christ died, and the presence within whom Christ now dwells.

What Can We Say About The Church?

So, the first thing we can say about the church is — the church is comprised of those who believe that Jesus is God’s Messiah, God’s Anointed One, the savior of the world.  It is not enough to believe that Jesus is  or was a great teacher; members of other religions believe that.  Muslims and Jews both add Jesus to their lists of great ethical teachers.

It is not enough to believe that Jesus was an extraordinary figure, a man-among-men, a uniquely gifted holy man, a mystic who could do strange and wonderful things.  While all of those things might be true about Jesus in some way, that is not why he came to earth, that was not his mission on earth, and that is not his continuing ministry to earth.

Paul said, “No one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except by the Holy Spirit.”  I Corinthians 12:3

But, now let’s move on to what else Jesus says about the church.  Secondly, Jesus says that “the gates of hell will not prevail against it.”  Now, usually we think that this means, “The devil can’t do anything to the church.  Hell can’t hurt the church.  The forces of evil cannot stop the church.”

That’s not at all what this means, although those statements are true.  Here Jesus is saying, “The gates of hell will not be able to stop the church on its victorious march.”

Do you remember the old black-and-white western movies?  Some of my favorites were movies like John Wayne’s Fort Apache, but it could be almost any western featuring the U. S. Cavalry, and Indians.  Of course, we now know that we were stealing the lands owned by native Americans, but that’s not my point.  My point is that in those movies, almost always there comes a time when the fort is under attack and they’re forced to close the gates.

And, for dramatic effect, as the gates are closing, the lone rider who many thought would be lost, comes riding in just in time to get inside the fort before the gates are closed.  Then, the Indians attack, but usually the gates hold and the Cavalry is victorious.

Okay, you’ve got that scene in your head.  Only imagine the fort is hell, hades, the world of the dead, and the church is launching an attack on the gates.  But this time, the gates don’t hold.  The church breaks through, death and hell are defeated, and God’s Kingdom is triumphant.

That’s what Jesus was saying.  The church, his church which he builds on the rock of confession, will triumph.  The church will win.

But Jesus goes on –

“I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”

The church, built on the rock of confession that Jesus is the Christ, will become a keeper of the keys to the Kingdom.  What are they?  We don’t know exactly and scholars have debated this endlessly.  But we can get some hints by just asking ourselves what keys do.  Keys unlock locks.  Keys open doors.  Keys allow access where before the way was barred.

So, the church holds the keys to the Kingdom of heaven.  For me that means that we have the great privilege and responsibility of opening doors that others cannot open.  We can open a way to God.  We can unlock the gift of eternal life.  We who are in the church hold the keys of life — keys that unlock shackles that bind; keys that unlock prison doors.

And, Jesus says, whatever we unlock on earth, God will consider unlocked in heaven.  In other words, we in the church are acting with the authority of Christ.  We are his representatives, his ambassadors, with full authority to act on behalf of our King.

That’s the church we believe in.  That’s the church universal, the church of all believers from all times and places.  That’s the church of Jesus Christ, with all its earthly imperfections, its faults and failures, that’s the church to which Jesus has entrusted the keys to the Kingdom.

What we do with those keys is up to us.

Filed under: Congregation, Sermon Illustrations, Sermons, The Apostles' Creed, Worship, christian history, matthew, sermon , bishop of rome, church, doctrine, faith, holy spirit, i believe, jesus, pope, simon peter, The Apostles' Creed, upon this rock

Foolproof evangelism program needs no budget or training

“Here’s a foolproof evangelism program that requires no budget, no training, and can be implemented immediately.”  That’s the way I introduced one of my seminars at The Billy Graham School of Evangelism last week.  Participants suspected there was some kind of catch, but showed up anyway.  Sure enough, there was some kind of catch.

But the catch is a good one — this program of evangelism comes from the words of Jesus, is not optional, and has eternal consequences.  Plus, it needs no budget, no training, and can be implemented immediately.  And, church size has nothing to do with its success or impact.  Any church can do it, and every church should.

What is it?  Doing good.  Helping others.  Showing we care.  The care of souls.  Social gospel.  Whatever you want to call it, it’s found in Matthew 25:31-46.  Here’s part of it:

³⁴“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. ³⁵For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, ³⁶I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

Jesus continues by saying that those who did not do this “will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”  Sounds pretty important to me.  Everybody can do this, and small churches can do it just as well as megachurches, maybe even better.

So, that’s it.  Doing good.  Helping others.  Meeting needs.  Because when you do you are doing it unto Jesus himself.  That’s the catch.

Filed under: Pastoral Care, bless the world, evangelism, matthew, outreach

Sermon: I Believe in God With Us

This is the fourth in a 13-week series using the Apostles’ Creed as the outline for examining the great teaching, or doctrines, of the Christian faith.

Why We Need The Apostles’ Creed – Part 4

I Believe in God With Us

Matthew 1:18-23

¹⁸This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit.¹⁹Because Joseph her husband was a righteous man and did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly.²⁰But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. ²¹She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.”

²²All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: ²³“The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel”—which means, “God with us.”  -Matthew 1:18-23 NIV

The Heart of the Apostles’ Creed

We looked last week at the affirmation in the Apostles’ Creed that states –

I believe in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord.

We explored the ideas that Jesus is God’s Christ — God’s messiah — and also God’s only Son.  And, that as messiah and the unique Son of God, Jesus is Lord, and our Lord in particular.  So we have looked at the confession of our belief in God; and our belief in His Son, Jesus Christ.

In the next five weeks we look at the life of Jesus.  We begin today with the Christmas story, then followed by Holy Week,  Easter, the Ascension, and the second-coming of Christ.  In other words, we look at those elements which the early church considered the essentials in the story of Jesus.

These passages in the Creed about Jesus are like when we tell stories about our families.  You’ve had that experience: gathered around the table at Thanksgiving, or around the tree at Christmas, a family member begins a “remember when” story.  And as the story moves along, someone will interject, “Don’t forget to tell about the year the Christmas tree caught on fire” or some similar anecdote.  What we’re saying when we say that is, “The family story isn’t complete if you leave this part out.”

That’s exactly what the Apostles’ Creed does — it says to us, “If you’re going to tell the story of Jesus, here are the essentials.  You must include all of these events for the story of Jesus to be complete.”

Today we are at the first of those essential events when we say –

Who was conceived of the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary…

Today is only September 13, so we’re early for Christmas, but that’s where this story begins.  That is also where the Christian Year begins — with Advent, or looking for the coming of the Christ.

Because this story is familiar, we might think we know it.  But what about the Christmas story without all the trimmings?  Without the carols, and decorations, and Christmas trees, and gifts, and shopping, and all that goes with our version of the Christmas story.  Because when we look at this part of Jesus’ story without all of our cultural and seasonal embellishments, it becomes something different altogether.  Well, maybe not altogether, but certainly different from the way we usually imagine it.

Because today, and in this passage in the Apostles’ Creed, we’re not focused on the babe in a manger.  No wisemen or shepherds or angels show up in the Apostles’ Creed either.  We’re talking about Jesus, and to do that, we walk back to how the Messiah became Jesus, because that’s what happened.  God became flesh and dwelt among us, as the scripture says.  Immanuel, God with us.

This Is Not A Science Lesson

I have 7 books about the Apostles’ Creed.  Seven.  I bought them as resources for preparation for this series of messages, and they are all written by outstanding Christian writers and scholars.  William Barclay, Wolfhart Pannenberg,Alister McGrath, Justo Gonzalez, Luke Timothy Johnson, J. I. Packer, and Roger Van Harn.

But in four out of seven books, the authors go to great lengths to explain why this business of the virgin birth of Jesus is not really necessary.  The bottom line seems to be that this is a metaphor for what God has done before — providing a child to a previously childless woman.

Those who take this position cite the stories of Abraham and Sarah, and the extraodinary birth of Isaac in their old age.  Sarah was 90, and Abraham was 100.  But God had promised to make Abraham the father of a great nation, and all the while they had no children.  But then Isaac is born in their old age, just as God promised.

Or the story of Hannah, who prayed earnestly for a son until finally she promised that if God would just give her a son, she would given him back to God.  That’s the story of how Samuel came to this world, and came to the service of God as the one who would anoint King David king over Israel.

Or the story of Elizabeth and Zechariah, parents of John the Baptist.  Advanced in years, and yet the angel Gabriel announces to Zechariah that Elizabeth will have a son, and they are to call his name John.  Their John becomes John the Baptist, the last Old Testament prophet even though he makes his appearance on the pages of the New Testament.  The forerunner of Jesus, the herald of the Messiah born to an old couple who had given up hope.

The only problem with the birth of Jesus being another example of God giving a baby to a woman who has not been able to have children is this — Mary was probably about 15.  She wasn’t married, she had not been trying to have a baby, or even hoping for one.  Certainly not at this time in her life.

So the idea that the “virgin birth” is a metaphor for God giving a child to a childless woman doesn’t fit.

I will agree that neither Matthew, nor Luke — the only Gospels where the story of Jesus’ birth are recorded — are trying to tell us “how” God did this.  They’re just reporting facts, and Luke hints that Mary may have told him these things directly herself.

So, while Matthew and Luke’s accounts are not concerned with the “how” of the virgin birth of Jesus, they are concerned to tell the story.  And it is clear that Mary has not been with a man, because in Luke’s version that is exactly what she says.  Her response to the announcement of the angel that she will conceive and bear a son is — “How can this be, since I have not been with a man?”  Even Mary is mystified at how this event can be possible.

Mary Is Not The Center of Attention Either

Not only is this not a scientific account of biological birth, it’s not a story about Mary, either.  You know this part of the story — the angel appears to Mary, telling her that she will bear a son.  The angel also appears to Joseph, her fiance, but we’ll get to Joseph later.

But it is at this point that sometimes we miss the point.  In contemplating the mystery of God choosing Mary, our tendency is to think “Mary must have been a wonderful, devout girl for God to choose her.”

Our Roman Catholic friends take this approach.  The teaching of the Roman Catholic church is that Mary was so special that not only was Jesus’ birth a virgin birth, but that Mary was also conceived and born supernaturally.  The doctrine of the Immaculate Conception in the Roman Catholic Church is not a doctrine about the birth of Jesus, but about the conception and virgin birth of Mary, making Mary a special person whom God chooses.

But, Mary was not chosen because she was special; Mary was special because God chose her.

It is the choosing by God that makes Mary unique and special.  Mary undoubtedly was a wonderful, conscientious girl.  She expresses concern about the angel’s message because she knows those things do not happen — “How can this be?”  she asks.

But with all her piety, and all her humility, and all her concern, Mary is not the center of the story.  Our Catholic friends think she is.  They believe that she is the Mother of God, a Co-Redemptrix with Jesus, and they believe in the perpetual virginity of Mary, and her bodily assumption into heaven at her death.

I can understand how that doctrine developed.  Early believers were looking for some way to explain why Mary was so special.  But Mary is special because God chose her.

God has a long history of choosing very ordinary and unlikely people.  God chose Moses, who had killed a man in anger, and who had difficulty speaking to stand before Pharaoh and demand that the nation of Israel be freed.  Moses knew he was not special, and so he asked God, “When Pharaoh asks ‘Who sent you?’ what shall I say?”  And God answered, “Tell him I AM has sent you.”  God is the main player, the I AM behind Moses’ “I can’t.”

When God selects David, he’s the smallest of Jesse’s sons, not built like a warrior, but David becomes a giant killer in the service of God.

When God chooses a spokesman for the day of Pentecost, we’re really not surprised that God chooses outspoken Peter.  Except that Peter had denied Christ 3-times, had run away from the crucifixion, had not believed the women who said Jesus was risen, and who was hiding in an secret location for fear of the Jews after Jesus ascension into heaven.  But when the Holy Spirit filled him, Peter spoke boldly and 3,000 were saved.

God has a history of choosing the unlikely, the unwilling, the unskilled to do His work.  Perhaps it is because God wants no doubt that in these divine-human partnerships, He is the senior partner.

Do you remember what it’s like to be chosen?

William Willimon is the former Dean of the Chapel at Duke University.  Willimon now serves as bishop of the North Alabama conference of the United Methodist Church, and as you can imagine gets invited to speak at a lot of churches.  Years ago, Willimon said he was invited to speak at an African-American congregation.

He said he got there a few minutes before 11 am, but the service really didn’t start until about a quarter past.  They began with four choir anthems, several praise songs joined by the congregation, took two offerings, and sang some more.  A little after noon, Willimon got up to preach.  He delivered his sermon, and the pastor said, “Let me add just a few thoughts.”  Those few thoughts lasted until one o’clock.

When the service finally ended, and they were standing in the parking lot, Willimon asked his friend, “Why do your people take so long to worship?”

His friend replied, “Why does worship take our folk so long?  Well, I’ll explain it this way.  Male unemployment is running about 20 percent in this neighborhood; young adult unemployment is higher.  That means that when my people get on the street, everything they hear is, ‘You are nothing.  You don’t have a big car or a great job.  You are nobody.’

So I get them in here on a Sunday and, through the words of the hymns, the prayers, the sermon, the Scripture, I try to say, ‘That’s a lie.  You are royalty.  You are God’s own people.  You were bought with a price.’ It takes me about two hours to get their heads straight.”  — Pastor: The Theology and Practice of Ordained Ministry, by William Willimon, pgs. 72-73.

We’re special because God chose us, chose to be with us in the person of Jesus, chose to be “God with us.”

Being Chosen Demands Courage

But, being chosen by God demands courage.  It sounds great when we tell the story — the Holy Spirit overshadowed Mary and when the time came, she gave birth to a baby boy whom she named Jesus — “God is our salvation.”

But in reality, Mary must have been terrified.  She was unmarried, she was young, she was in all probability poor.  Her fiance was a carpenter, they were from Nazareth, a wretched place by the best of descriptions.

For her apparent infidelity, she could have been killed — stoned to death in public by her own family to avenge their honor.  We get a glimpse of this later in Jesus’ ministry with the woman caught in adultery.

At the least, Joseph could have “divorced” her, which meant he could have broken the engagement, and sent her into hiding, away from prying eyes.  For the rest of her life she would live a solitary life, an outcast, the subject of ridicule and gossip.  We get a picture of that life from the woman at the well that Jesus talks with.

But instead, Mary embraces God’s call.  “Here I am, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.”  – Luke 1:38 NRSV

Joseph also faces ridicule.  His fiance will seem to all on-lookers as unfaithful to Joseph.  The angel says to Joseph, “Do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.”

God-with-us sounds like a wonderful idea, until we realize that God with us flies in the face of convention, and puts our own reputations at risk.

But isn’t that the point of God with us?  God here on this earth he created.  God present in our lives, walking the same streets we walk, eating the same food, drinking the same water, enduring the same hardships.

God-with-us means that nothing is the same, ever again.

As we said at the beginning of this series, the only thing we know about God is in His presence with us.  And so God’s Holy Spirit hovers over the young, unmarried girl Mary.  She is found with child, and is told to name the baby, Jesus.  Matthew says all of this was to fulfill what the prophet Isaiah had said some 700 years before –

“Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call him Emmanuel, which means, God with us.”

This Jesus, both God and man, both divine and human, is God with us.  God with us to suffer and die for us.  God with us to break the hold that death has on us. God with us to fight for His creation, to restore it to the glory intended.  God with us to save us.  God with us to heal us. God with us to teach us.  God with us to plant in our hearts the ability to love, and the desire to do so as well.

We tell this story at Christmas, but it is the story for all time, all seasons, all people.  For God came down to us, mysteriously, miraculously, incomprehensibly, to be with us, and to save us.

Filed under: Sermon Illustrations, Sermons, The Apostles' Creed, matthew, sermon, theology , apostles creed, chosen, courage, God, jesus, joseph, Mary, matthew 1:18-23, virgin birth

Sermon: I Believe in Jesus Christ, His Only Son, Our Lord

Why We Need The Apostles’ Creed:  I Believe in Jesus Christ, His Only Son, Our Lord

13When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say the Son of Man is?”

14They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”

15″But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?”  16Simon Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”

17Jesus replied, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven. 18And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. 19I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”

20Then he warned his disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Christ.  21From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.  22Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. “Never, Lord!” he said. “This shall never happen to you!”  23Jesus turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men.”

24Then Jesus said to his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 25For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it. 26What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul? 27For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father’s glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what he has done. 28I tell you the truth, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.” — Matthew 16:13-28

The Largest Section of the Apostles’ Creed

We’re continuing our look at the Apostles’ Creed, using this ancient confession of faith as our outline for the great teachings, or doctrines, of the Christian faith. Last week we looked at the opening statement of The Creed — “I believe in God the Father, Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth…” That brief line put us in good company.

First, for those who confess faith in God, we identify ourselves as theists, those who believe in a god; as opposed to atheists, those who do not believe in a god. But, that line also affirms that we believe not just in a god, but in the God who is Almighty, unequalled, unparalleled by any other so-called gods. We believe in God, who is Almighty, and who is the one Creator of all that exists.

But at this point we have merely joined the ranks of other theists who acknowledge a personal, powerful God. And so Christianity joins Islam, and Judaism as representatives of the world’s great monotheistic religions.

But with our declaration that we also believe “…in Jesus Christ, His only son our Lord…” we have now parted company with both Judaism and Islam. We as Christians now stand alone, unique in all the world’s religions. We believe that God has a son whose name is Jesus.

This line of the Apostles’ Creed is attributed to Andrew, the brother of Simon Peter. As we have noted before, this legend is more fable than fact, but perhaps Andrew gets the credit for this line because he was among the first to recognize who Jesus was, and then Andrew brought his own brother, Peter, to meet the Lord.

Most likely the Apostles’ Creed has three major sections — I believe in God, I believe in Jesus Christ, and I believe in the Holy Spirit — because the creed was usually said at the baptism of a new convert. Matthew records the instruction of Jesus that we are to “make disciples, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.” The creed was probably part of the baptismal ceremony, recited one line at a time by the baptismal candidate when asked the three questions –

– Do you believe in God? I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth.

– Do you believe in Jesus Christ? I believe in Jesus Christ, His only son, our Lord.

– Do you believe in the Holy Spirit? I believe in the Holy Spirit.

With that the candidate was baptized into the faith, and his or her confession of faith was called the “faith delivered” or “the symbol” of the faith.

Peter’s Confession of Faith

All of that brings us to our text today, found in Matthew’s gospel. Matthew presents the scene of Jesus and the disciples traveling through the countryside. They reach Caesarea Philippi, the home of the shrine to the pagan god, Pan.

In this pagan setting, Jesus asks the disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” By “people” we presume that Jesus means his fellows Jews because he has just had a confrontation with the Pharisees and Sadducees who asked Jesus for a sign from heaven. It is obvious that religious leaders do not think Jesus is any one special because they ask him to prove his divine connection with some type of indication from God.

After warning the disciples about the “yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees” Jesus asks them, not for their own opinion of him, but the opinion of others. The answers seem to come effortlessly because these 12 men have undoubtedly heard people talking about their Teacher, their rabbi.

The disciples respond — “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” We can gather a couple of things about these answers. The good news is that most people seem to think that Jesus is special. They liken him to John the Baptist, now dead. Perhaps he is John come back from the dead. Others say Jesus is Elijah. This is even more special because Elijah is the expected guest at every passover meal. An empty place at the table is reserved for Elijah, just as the widow made a place in her home for the prophet. Elijah, they thought, would come before the Messiah of God, so his coming was an important sign for the Jews. If Jesus was Elijah, then God had not forgotten his people in the midst of Roman occupation and persecution.

Others said that Jesus was Jeremiah or one of the prophets. Probably they thought this because Jeremiah railed against the corrupt religious figures of his day, just as Jesus had pronounced condemnation on the Pharisees and Sadducees in his day.

What Do People Say About Jesus Today?

All of these answers remind us of what many people say about Jesus today. Many will say that Jesus was a great teacher. Or that Jesus was a great ethicist who gave us new ways of relating to one another with his admonition to turn the other cheek, go the second mile, repay evil with good, and forgive one another. Even some Christian scholars have described Jesus as a mystic, a seer, and a spiritual pioneer.

None of the apostles ever described Jesus in those terms. While Jesus certainly was a great teacher, a moral ethicist who broke new ground in human relations, and one who had a mysterious relationship with God, none of the apostles ever described Jesus in those terms. The Jesus Seminar is the latest attempt by serious theologians to separate the historical Jesus from the Jesus they believe has become hidden by time and myth. The Jesus Seminar, and the other attempts to find the historical Jesus, do not come to Jesus in the manner of the apostles, however.

Our attempts to “explain” Jesus to the rational western mind betray our own limitations, rather than discover who Jesus really is and was.

Who Do You Say I Am?

Jesus follows up his first question — Who do people say I am? — with a logical next question: “But who do you say that I am?” This question puts us on the spot, and that was Jesus’ intent. It is not enough to repeat what others have said about Jesus, we must come to our own belief about who this carpenter from Nazareth is.

Simon Peter speaks first, which is neither unusual nor a surprise. Saying more than he knows in his head, Peter’s mouth responds –

“You are the Christ, the son of the living God.”

Jesus quickly tells Peter he is blessed because he has not made that confession because of others, or because of his own intellect, but because God has revealed it to him.

But what did Peter actually say? First, Peter confesses Jesus as the Christ. In our reading of this text and others where the name Jesus Christ appears, we might mistakenly get the impression that Christ is Jesus second name, like Chuck Warnock, or John Smith.

But Christ is the Greek word that means Messiah, or the Anointed One. The big deal about that is the Messiah, or God’s Anointed, is the one the Jews were looking for. They were  looking for the Messiah to come and save them. And, their idea of being saved is less spiritual and more political.

The Roman army occupies the land of the Jews in the first century. Antonio’s Fortress, the Roman garrison, shares a common wall with the most sacred site in Jerusalem for Jews, the Temple. The Jews consider themselves exiles in their own land, captives to an empire which allows them to practice their religion as long as it does not interfere with the goals or peace of the empire.

Their civil and religious leaders are puppets of the Roman regime, and the Roman eagle parades with impunity in the streets of the city of David. This is an outrage for the Jews, and they look to God to deliver them. The Jews believe their current bondage is no different from the 400 years they spent in slavery in Egypt; and no different than the 70 years of the Babylonian captivity.

Already many self-proclaimed messiahs have come and gone. Most gathered small bands of insurrectionists, and all were defeated before their plots could hatch.

Now Peter has identified Jesus as God’s Messiah. The Anointed of God, the One who will save God’s people from their sins, not to mention the Roman empire.

I Believe in Jesus Christ

So, when we say, “I believe in Jesus Christ” we are pronouncing our faith in both the historical figure, the carpenter from Nazareth, and in the fact that Jesus is God’s Anointed. Paul would say later that God has made him “both Lord and Christ.”

To believe in Jesus the man, the carpenter from Nazareth, means that we believe in a real person, who lived a real life, in a real first century world. But we’re making that confession 2,000 years later. The amazing thing is that the followers of Jesus, the apostles, believed in this Jesus during and after his death and resurrection. They were eye witnesses to the historical events of his teaching, his miracles, his compassion, his praying, his companionship, and his friendship. They lived with this man, ate with him, walked dusty roads together with him for three years. For them, he was real.

John as he begins his first letter says,

1That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. 2The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us. 3We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. 4We write this to make our[a] joy complete.

So, this Jesus was not a figment of their imaginations, nor a figure so lost in the recesses of time that he no longer bore any resemblance to a man. He was real, they had seen him, and now they were telling the story. But they also recognized him as the Messiah. Certainly in the day of his confession, Peter said more than he knew. But on the day of Pentecost, Peter stands and boldly declares –

22″Men of Israel, listen to this: Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders and signs, which God did among you through him, as you yourselves know. 23This man was handed over to you by God’s set purpose and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men,[a] put him to death by nailing him to the cross. 24But God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him. — Acts 2:22-24 NIV

The book of Acts tells us that they were “cut to the heart” and 3,000 of those who heard Peter acknowledged Jesus as their Messiah, too.

His Only Son

But, the creed, and the story, don’t stop there. John will proclaim that God so loved the world that he sent his only son, that whosoever believes in him might be saved. Jesus is not just “a” son of God, he is the only son of God. Now we don’t even have time to begin today to unpack all the meaning in that phrase. Peter said Jesus was not only the Messiah, but “the son of the living God.”

Now there is a sense in which all of us are sons and daughters of God. At creation, God breathed into mankind the breath of life, made us in God’s own image, and stood us up in fellowship with Him.

But Jesus is different. Jesus is God’s only son. God has lots of children, but only one son, and his name is Jesus. But it doesn’t stop there.

The Bible says that this only son of God is also God himself. Paul in that great hymn to Jesus in Philippians 2 wrote:

5Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:  6Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,  7but made himself nothing, taking the very nature[b] of a servant, being made in human likeness.

The phrase the NIV translates “being in very nature God” is more directly translated, “Who being in the very form of God,” In other words, this Jesus, whose name means “God is our salvation” is God Himself.

He is God’s only Son, co-equal with God the Father and God the Spirit. Now, if that hurts your head, don’t worry. You join a long line of folks who have been puzzled by the Trinity — the Three-in-One. We’re going to talk more about that later in this series, so hold those thoughts for another Sunday.

The point is — Jesus Christ is God’s unique revelation of himself to all humanity.

Jesus is unique in his beginning — he doesn’t have one.

Jesus is unique in his end — he doesn’t have one of those either.

Jesus is unique in his sovereignty — he is King of kings and Lord of lords.

Jesus is unique in his sacrifice — he died so that you and I might live.

Jesus is unique in his resurrection from the dead — God raised him first, so that we might follow.

Jesus is unique in his place in history — we mark time from before and after his birth. And even scholastic attempts to take Jesus out of history by substituting BCE and CE for BC and AD, even those markers revolve around his place in history.

We could go on to talk about the uniqueness of his love, and of his coming again, but we’ll deal with those later in this series. But now we move on the the part of the confession that makes all the rest of it real — “our Lord.”

I Believe in Jesus Christ, His Only Son, Our Lord

The confession of Peter that day was that Jesus was God’s Messiah, that Jesus was the Son of the Living God. But read the rest of this passage, for it betrays Peter’s heart. Listen to the words from Matthew’s gospel:

21From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.  22Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. “Never, Lord!” he said. “This shall never happen to you!”  23Jesus turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men.”

Peter was quite willing to acknowledge Jesus as Messiah, for that meant God was going to save his people. And, Peter was quite willing to recognize that Jesus was the unique, one and only Son of God. After all, Peter has seen Jesus heal people, feed people, and even raise some from the dead.

But, Peter struggled with acknowledging Jesus as Lord. Peter could not bear the thoughts of Jesus’ suffering and death. And he had little understanding at all of what Jesus meant when he said he would be raised to life on the third day. Peter was determined that none of those things would happen to his friend, his teacher, and so he objected to Jesus. “Never, Lord,” Peter said.

And right there is the problem. Those two words — never and Lord — cannot go in the same sentence. The only response we can make to Jesus is “Yes, Lord.”

So, Jesus went on to explain that anyone who followed him must take up his cross, give up his life, and deny himself and follow Jesus. That’s what Lord means.  A life devoted to serving the Master in whatever ways we can serve him.  Sometimes we make the Lordship of Christ about us — our obedience, our choices, our lives.  But Jesus is Lord, our only choice is to make him our Lord.

When my brother died on Monday, July 27, I was at home sitting in our den. Our granddaughters had just gone to bed, and the phone rang. The person on the other end identified herself as an investigator with the Fulton County Coroner’s Office. She told me that my brother had been found deceased that evening. I asked as many questions as I could think of, then hung up and called my father. I told him that Dana had died, and shared the few details I knew.

It was a call I knew would come some time, we just didn’t know when. As we made preparations for his funeral, we wondered what had taken his life. The autopsy results were “inconclusive” they said, and toxicology and histology tests had been ordered. My first thoughts were that he died of an overdose of something because he had come close to death several other times from overdoses.

I talked with Dana’s roommate by phone, and he promised to be at Dana’s funeral on Sunday afternoon, August 3. My father’s Sunday School class had prepared lunch for the family, just like we do here. Relatives from both my mother’s family and my father’s gathered in the fellowship hall for lunch. Dana’s roommate, Kip had made the drive from Atlanta, arriving just in time for lunch.

During the hour we had for lunch, Kip told us about Dana’s life in those last days. He and Dana enjoyed each other’s company, but Dana continued to go out on the streets of Atlanta at night. We all knew he was looking for some type of drugs, and Kip said he would ask Dana, “What are you looking for our there, Dana?”

But then Kip shared another story that confirmed our hope in Dana’s faith. Kip said that he had grown up in the church, had sung in the youth choir, and later the adult choir. But he said, he had never made a profession of faith in Christ in all those years. Kip talked about how he and Dana discussed history and the Bible on many occasions. Dana graduated from Mercer University with a BA in history, and from Southwestern Seminary, with a Masters in Religious Education.

But Kip also said that Dana talked to him about his faith, about his love for God. Kip said that it was after those long discussions with Dana, that he himself became a follower of Jesus, professing his faith in Christ for the first time.

Kip’s story was a great comfort to us because it confirmed for us that in the midst of his own struggles and despair, Dana still believed in God, and in Jesus Christ his only Son, our Lord. His inability to conquer his own personal demons did not prevent his faith in God.

At the funeral, Dana’s daughters had several verses of scripture printed and handed out. They were translations from a child’s edition of the Bible, which belongs to my great niece, Dana’s granddaughter. The first verse said — “You don’t have to be good at being good for God to love you.”

That is the God we believe in, the God who loves us, the God who in Jesus saves us, the God who reaches out to us when we are not capable of reaching back. I believe in Jesus Christ, God’s only Son, our Lord. Amen.

Filed under: Sermon Illustrations, Sermons, The Apostles' Creed, Worship, matthew, sermon, theology , apostles creed, christ, Christianity, church, doctrine, faith, matthew 1:13-28, peter, religion, sermon, sermon illustration, Sermons, son of God, Worship

Sermon: Criticism – Why Don’t They Like Us Anymore?

Here’s the sermon I’m preaching tomorrow.  It’s the sixth in  the series, “Seven Cultural Challenges Every Church Faces.”  I hope your day is wonderful!

Seven Cultural Challenges Every Church Faces
#6 — Criticism: Why Don’t They Like Us Anymore?

Matthew 10:5-16
⁵These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions: “Do not go among the Gentiles or enter any town of the Samaritans. ⁶Go rather to the lost sheep of Israel. ⁷As you go, preach this message: ‘The kingdom of heaven is near.’ ⁸Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy,^[b]drive out demons. Freely you have received, freely give. ⁹Do not take along any gold or silver or copper in your belts; ¹⁰take no bag for the journey, or extra tunic, or sandals or a staff; for the worker is worth his keep.

¹¹“Whatever town or village you enter, search for some worthy person there and stay at his house until you leave. ¹²As you enter the home, give it your greeting. ¹³If the home is deserving, let your peace rest on it; if it is not, let your peace return to you. ¹⁴If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, shake the dust off your feet when you leave that home or town. ¹⁵I tell you the truth, it will be more bearable for Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for that town. ¹⁶I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves.

The End of The World As We Know It

I grew up during the golden age of Southern Baptist life.  I was five when the Southern Baptist Convention launched the ambitious outreach and evangelism program called “A Million More in ‘54.”  Although we didn’t add 1-million new members that year, Southern Baptists added almost three-quarters of a million, the highest number of new members our denomination had added to that point.

But Southern Baptists weren’t the only ones benefitting from the post-war baby boom.  Just about every major denomination started new churches in the new suburban communities springing up across our nation.  As America fell in love with the automobile, families could drive to the church of their choice, not just their local neighborhood church within walking distance.

Robert Schuller saw the mobility the automobile created and opened his drive-in church in at the Orange Drive-in Theater in Garden Grove, California in 1955.  America was a nation on the move, and on Sundays the nation piled in the family station wagon for the trip to church.  Church nurseries overflowed with baby boomer kids, and churches quickly added lots of programs for children.

I’m a good example.  Before I was born, Cradle Roll workers from First Baptist Church in Griffin, Georgia had enrolled me in the Cradle Roll.  Upon my arrival, I started going to church in the Nursery Department, then moved up to the Beginner Department during my preschool years.

I went to Sunbeams, a mission organization for kids that met on Wednesday afternoons at our church.  I sang in the children’s choir, went to the Junior Department in Sunday School as I got older, and then when I became a teenager, graduated into the Young People’s department, the youth choir, and all the other activities there were for teens at that time.

But something changed beginning in the 1960s.  Perhaps it was the Civil Rights struggle, or the assassination of President Kennedy in 1963, or the Viet Nam war in the decades of the 1960s and 70s.  Perhaps the assassinations of Dr. Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy contributed to the loss of innocence in America.  The resignation of President Richard Nixon for the crimes of Watergate seemed to seal20-years of disappointments and loss of confidence in America’s institutions.

Church wasn’t immune to that loss of confidence.  In 1961, theologian Gabriel Vahanian published his book, The Death of God.  In it, Vahanian argued that “modern secular culture had lost all sense of the sacred, lacking any sacramental meaning, no transcendental purpose or sense of providence. He concluded that for the modern mind “God is dead”. — Wikipedia, “Death of God theological movement”

The April 8, 1966 cover of Time magazine picked up on the “God is Dead” theme, and suddenly all of America realized that everything we had taken for granted about church and faith in the 1950s no longer worked in the 1960s. And no institution was spared critical review, including marriage and the family.  The women’s movement that had emerged in the early part of the 20th century which secured women the right to vote, reinvented itself in the women’s liberation movement of the 1960s.

Then along came the hippies, and the youth culture of Haight Asbury, Woodstock, the anti-Viet Nam war protests, civil disobedience in the streets, and a nation divided over the trustworthiness of its core institutions — government, education, business, home, and church.

The Results We Live With

After the turmoil of the 1960s and early 1970s, America turned in new directions.  In government we turned from the big government programs of FDR, to the conservatism of Ronald Reagan.  In education, we turned from liberal arts to computer science because that’s where the jobs were.  In business, we turned from staid blue chip companies to the risk-taking financiers of Wall Street. In home life we became a nation of two-paycheck families. And at church, we slowly discontinued the programs of the 1950s, and began a soul-searching quest for a more authentic relationship with God.

The most popular Christian book of the 1970s was a little paperback titled, How To Be A Christian Without Being Religious.  While well-intentioned, the author, Fritz Ridenour, inadvertently gave readers permission to seek fulfillment of their spiritual lives outside the institution of the church. And thus began the noticeable decline in church membership and attendance.

Church attendance, down from a reported high of 40% of the population in the 1950s, now struggles to reach 17%.  According to David T. Olson’s book, The American Church In Crisis, church attendance will continue to decline until U. S. church attendance approximates that of Europe — about 7% of the population.

What happened?  How did church fall out of favor with the American public?  Why did a generation of kids who grew up singing “Jesus Wants Me For a Sunbeam” fail to pass on those happy childhood memories to their children and their grandchildren?  How did we, in less than 50 years, change from being a nation where almost everybody went to church, to becoming a nation where less than 1-in-5 darkens the church house door today?

In other words, why don’t they like us anymore?

What “They” Are Saying About The Church

Church is no longer the place to be, or the organization to belong to.  Young people especially see little need for church.  Jeffrey Arnett, professor at Clark University, studies “emerging adults” — adults 18-29.  While “a strong majority of emerging adults believes that God or some higher power watches over them and guides their lives,”….”participating in a religious institution is unimportant to most of them.”  Emerging Adulthood, p. 167

Several books in the past 4 years have addressed the problem of what people don’t like about the church.

George Barna’s book, Revolution, is subtitled “Finding Vibrant Faith Beyond The Walls of the Sanctuary.”  The book documents the amazing rise of house churches, and other informal networks of Christians who have abandoned the institutional church for a freer, more personal faith community.

Dan Kimball’s book, They Like Jesus But Not The Church, is a case-study of several young adults Kimball interviewed.  Basically, they consider themselves to be spiritual, but not religious — just like our famous book from the 1970s.  But here’s what they don’t like about the church.  These are the actual chapter titles in Kimball’s book  –

• The church is an organized religion with a political agenda.
• The church is judgmental and negative.
• The church is dominated by males and oppresses females.
• The church is homophobic (meaning, the church fears and/or hates homosexuals)
• The church arrogantly claims all other religions are wrong.
• The church is full of fundamentalists who take the whole Bible literally.

Quite an indictment, but we have to plead guilty to much of what these young adults say about us and those like us.

In the same year that Kimball’s book came out in 2007, David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons published their book, unChristian: What a New Generation Really Thinks about Christianity…And Why It Matters. Listen to the chapter titles in unChristian.  Have you heard this before?

• Hypocritical
• Get Saved!
• Antihomosexual
• Sheltered
• Too Political
• Judgmental

Sounds pretty much like Kimball’s book, doesn’t it.  Yet unChristian was compiled from surveys of hundreds of young adults, not just interviews with a handful.  As they say at NASA, “Houston, we’ve got a problem.”

What We’ve Done Wrong and How We Can Fix It

If the church is to reach this new generation, we must listen to their perceptions of what we have done, and fix what is wrong.  Rather than seeking the halls of power, we need to serve the “least of these.”

Rather than being judgmental and negative, we need to get back to telling the “good news.”  The reason it’s called the good news is because it’s…well, good news.  Not judgmental news, not critical news, not “I’m going to tell you what you’re doing wrong news.”  It’s called the good news — the euangelion — because it is a good message from God to God’s creation.

Rather than being a “good ole boy” fraternity, the church must embrace the words of the Apostle Paul, that “There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”  And, rather than have individual churches where everyone looks alike, we need to seek diversity in our community not only of gender, but of class, and ethnicity.

In other words, we need to live into the promise of Revelation — “And they sang a new song: “You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, because you were slain, and with your blood you purchased men for God from every tribe and language and people and nation.”

In this process, the church, and I’m including our church here, will have to deal with difficult issues.  Young people today see nothing wrong with those who are homosexual, those who engage in intimate relationships before marriage, or those who live alternative lifestyles.  While the church must remain “a contrast community” in an unbelieving world, our attitudes towards others who are different in lifestyle, ethnicity, cultural background, economics, education, and class must first of all reflect God’s love, not our own bias.

When Jesus sent the disciples on their first solo journey, he did so with careful instruction.  One of his comments to them was, “Be as wise as serpents, but as harmless as doves.”  That’s our task today, to be wise in how we deal with those who do not know Christ, and harmless in our encounters with them.

Like The Man Who Planted Trees

I ran across a wonderful animated film this week based on the short story by Jean Giono titled, The Man Who Planted Trees. Giono tells the story of a young man in 1913, who while on an extended hike through desolate countryside, becomes desparate to find water.  Passing an abandoned village, he finds the well there dry.  He continues to walk until he sees figure in the distance.  Hoping for help and water, the young man approaches this figure, a shepherd with his flock high in the hills of this scruffy, hilly terrain.

The shepherd offers him water, invites him to his home for supper.  There the young man learns that the shepherd, Elzeard Bouffier, has lost both his only son and his wife.  He has taken to this remote, barren wilderness for solitude and peace.

After dinner, the young man notices Elzeard take a bag of acorns, empty them out on the table, and begin to examine each one carefully.  He discards some, but then groups the rest into groups of 10, until he has 100 acorns.  These he places back in the bag, and then places the bag in a pot of water to soak overnight.

The next day, our young man follows Elzeard as he leads his herd back up into the hills.  But, leaving the flock to the guidance of his dog, Elzeard takes his iron walking stick, and begins to poke holes in the ground in regular intervals.  Into each hole, he places one acorn.  Elzeard explains to the young man, who has now joined him in his work, that since he lost his wife and son, he has devoted himself to restoring the land.  The problem, he says, is a lack of trees.

Elzeard says he has planted 100,000 acorns in the past 3 years.  Of those, most did not make it.  Of the approximately 20,000 that did, disease, drought, and animals took half.  So, 10,000 trees have begun to spring up through the soil as tender oak saplings.

The young man leaves the region, spends 5 years in the infantry in World War I, but then returns to see how Elzeard has survived the war.   Amazed at the green mist that appears to float over the hillsides, the young man realizes as he approaches that these are the trees Elzear planted, now larger than he is.

The young man commented, “I never saw him waver or doubt, though God alone can tell when God’s own hand is in a thing.”

For the sake of time, I’ll skip forward to 1933, when a government forestry man happens upon this valley of forest, now about 7-miles long and 3-miles wide.  Astounded at the “spontaneous growth” of the forest where previously there had been nothing, the forestry man cautions Elzeard not to build any open fires because they might endanger “the natural forest.”

In 1935, a delegation of government officials arrives to see the first-known example of a forest spontaneously replanting itself.  Now, not only are the trees towering 20-30 feet in the air, smaller plants have filled in the forest floor, wild life has returned, the winds have scattered seeds into new meadows that are blooming with wild flowers.  Even the politicians are amazed.  Speeches are made, and the speech-makers talk of all that needs to be done.

Fortunately, nothing is done except the government decree that declares the forest a protected reserve, and bans charcoal-making from its wood.

More time passes, and our young man, now in his 50s, finds Elzeard for the last time in 1945.  Another war has come and gone, but Elzeard, now 87, sees the fruit of his labors of the past 30-plus years.  A bus now makes regular trips to the valley, bringing visitors and new residents to the once-abandoned village of Vergons.

The village fountain is flowing again, and young families with small children have torn down the old houses and built new sturdy houses with brightly-colored gardens.  Groups of villagers walk the forest paths, greeting each other as their children run circles around their parents.  Farmhouses dot the countryside where farmers raise livestock, grown lush fields of vegetables, and live quiet and peaceful lives.

All because one man decided to plant some trees.  The story goes that Elzeard Bouffier died in 1947, content that he had done what his heart led him to do.

We who are followers of Christ need to be like people who plant trees, not people who seek power.  Because it is in our work with God, not our work for God, that we will win the hearts of those who may not even know that there used to be a desert where now the tall trees grow.

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Easter Sunrise Sermon: You’re Not Alone

I realize that Easter is over, but here’s the Easter sunrise sermon I preached at 6:30 AM last Sunday.  The setting for our community sunrise service is spectacular — the Owen’s Farm.  The high hill where we stand faces east, and looks out over a magnificent valley where horses run across the pasture, the view stretches for miles.  Of course, this message is good anytime of year, and I hope it encourages you, too!

You Are Not Alone!
Matthew 28:1-10

¹After the Sabbath, at dawn on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to look at the tomb.

²There was a violent earthquake, for an angel of the Lord came down from heaven and, going to the tomb, rolled back the stone and sat on it. ³His appearance was like lightning, and his clothes were white as snow. ⁴The guards were so afraid of him that they shook and became like dead men.

⁵The angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. ⁶He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay. ⁷Then go quickly and tell his disciples: ‘He has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him.’ Now I have told you.”

⁸So the women hurried away from the tomb, afraid yet filled with joy, and ran to tell his disciples. ⁹Suddenly Jesus met them. “Greetings,” he said. They came to him, clasped his feet and worshiped him. ¹⁰Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid. Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me.”
On this Easter Sunday morning, we stand amazed with the women who see the angel at the empty tomb. The angel announces to them, “He is risen from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee.”

Often we think of the death and resurrection of Jesus as a past event.  “He was crucified, dead, and buried” is how the Creed says it.  And it goes on,

The third day He arose again from the dead;

He ascended into heaven,
and sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty;
from thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.

But between Jesus rising and his ascension, some wonderful things happen.  He goes before them, just as he has always done, showing the way.  He goes before them to lead them, to guide them, to encourage them.  Just as God’s presence in the Exodus went before Israel in the cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night, Jesus goes before his disciples, too.

And on this Easter morning, Jesus still goes before us.  If Easter is about new life, God’s new kingdom, a new beginning for all of creation, then Jesus still goes before those of us who celebrate his rising 2000 years later.

• Jesus goes before us in good times. At the wedding in Cana of Galilee, his first public miracle, Jesus rejoiced with a bride and groom, and showed that God saves the best for last.
• Jesus goes before us in lean times. When thousands gathered to hear him preach, staying long past the dinner hour, Jesus fed them.  Jesus feeding of the 5,000 and the 4,000 tells us that in God’s economy there is always enough and to spare.
• Jesus goes before us in sickness. He knew what it was to touch those thought to be broken and outcast by disease and illness.  He made lepers whole, opened blind eyes, healed with only a word. Jesus goes before us in our sickness and pain, offering the touch of his hand, the encouragement of his presence in the midst of our physical limitation.
• Jesus goes before us in conflict. He knew what it was like to be rejected by his own townspeople, but religious leaders.  He did not come for the purpose of creating conflict, but his presence was a threat to the systems of greed, corruption, and dead religiosity.
• Jesus goes before us in doubt. He welcomed Thomas with his doubts, and assured him of his place in God’s kingdom.  He was patient with disciples who did not understand, fled in fear, and acted as though three years with Jesus had never happened.
• Jesus goes before us when friends fail us. He knew what it was like, not only to be attacked by enemies, but to be abandoned by friends.  All the disciples fled, except Peter, and he denied he knew Jesus.
• Jesus goes before us in sorrow and death. He wept for Lazarus at his grave, then raised him to life.  He mourned for a city that would not listen, wept tears of grief at his impending death, cried out in agony from the cross, and suffered in silence before his accusers.
• Jesus goes before us to heaven. His death and resurrection breaks the hold of physical death on this world and ushers in the age of the inbreaking kingdom of God.  He goes to prepare a place for us, and if he goes, he will come again and receive us unto himself, that where he is we may be also.
• Jesus goes before us into hell. The Apostles Creed says, He descended into hell. Jurgen Moltmann, renown theologian from Germany, says that because we have a Savior who descends into hell, there is hope.

But Jesus does not just go before us, he invites us to meet him in Galilee.  Galilee, where it all started.  Where Jesus called fishermen and tax collectors, where he taught beside the sea, and where he would meet his disciples again for breakfast on the beach.

Galilee is a place of memories, but also a place of ministry.  Galilee is where the world was given a glimpse of the kingdom of God, a new kingdom established by love, empowered by the Spirit, and including all who follow the King.

Galilee, where Jesus lives a life of love before those who come to love him; where he puts before the world God’s great plan to make all things new.

Bennett Cerf, writer and social commentator, told this story one year at Easter:

A little girl was orphaned when her family was tragically lost.  She was placed in a foster home, where unfortunately the couple who was charged with her care was more interested in the check they got, than in the little girl.  While they provided for her basic needs, the atmosphere in that house was cold and impersonal, and the little girl was left for hours on end alone in her attic room.

With little to do and no friends, the little girl soon spotted a squirrel in the tree that rose up by the window in her room.  Each day she would greet her new friend, and managed to sneak small pieces of bread and fruit from the table to him.

One day, the woman of the house heard the little girl talking.  Thinking someone must be in her room, she burst through the door, only to find the little girl at the open window, talking to the squirrel who was perched on a nearby tree limb.

Furious, the woman slammed down the window, and ordered the little girl never to do that again.  She left the room and waited on the stair for what she knew would be an angry outburst from the child.  Instead, nothing happened.

Peeping through the crack in the door, the woman saw the little girl bent over her desk, writing carefully in large block letters.  She watched as the little girl finished her writing, folded the note tightly several times, and them pulled on her coat.

The woman hid in the hall as the little girl made her way from her room, down the stairs, and out the backdoor of the house.  Quickly she pulled herself up on a low-hanging limb, and pushed the folded note into a fork on the tree.  Then, she came back inside, and went to her room.

The woman had watched the little girl carefully.  When her husband got home, she told him the story, and badgered him until he got the step ladder and retrieved the note from the tree branch.

The woman opened the note and to her amazement, read what the little girl had written:

“Whoever finds this, I love you.”

And that’s what God has done.  Sent Jesus, filled with God’s love, sent him ahead of every difficulty we might have in life, sent him into a world that did not receive him, turned on him, and killed him.  Sent him to say, “Whoever finds this, I love you.”

Filed under: Lectionary Yr A, Sermon Illustrations, Sermons, The Story, Worship, matthew, sermon , easter message, easter sermon, easter sunrise sermon, lectionary year a, matthew 28:1-10, resurrection story

Lent: Seeking the desert

I’m away from my pulpit this weekend, but here’s a link to a lenten meditation I preached last year titled “Sent Into The Desert.” I hope you find it helpful.  May you find the wildness of God in the desert during this season of reflection. – Chuck

Filed under: Lectionary Yr A, Resources, Sermon Illustrations, Sermons, Worship, matthew, sermon , desert, lent, meditation, reflection during lent, wilderness

Sermon: The Greatest Commandment (corrected)

I tried to post this from Google Docs but ran into formatting issues.  Here’s a better posting, I hope.  

The Greatest Commandment

 

Matthew 22:34-46

 

34Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. 35One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question:

 36“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”37Jesus replied: ” ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ 38This is the first and greatest commandment. 39And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

 41While the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them, 42“What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is he?” 
      ”The son of David,” they replied.

 43He said to them, “How is it then that David, speaking by the Spirit, calls him ‘Lord’? For he says, 
 44” ‘The Lord said to my Lord: 
      ”Sit at my right hand 
   until I put your enemies 
      under your feet.” ‘ 45If then David calls him ‘Lord,’ how can he be his son?”46No one could say a word in reply, and from that day on no one dared to ask him any more questions.

The One Thing

Jesus is in a pretty interesting situation here.  He’s just run off a bunch of Sadducees who try to trick Jesus with a question about the resurrection.  Of course, the Sadducees don’t believe in the resurrection.  Which is why they are “sad — you see.”  Sorry, I couldn’t resist.  Not very funny maybe, but true.  So, Jesus puts them in their place. 

Seeing an opening, a bunch of Pharisees descend on Jesus, also trying to trick him into giving a wrong answer.  This is “gotcha” journalism, first-century style.  Discrediting your opponent is much older than this year’s presidential race, I’m afraid.  So, they ask Jesus – 

“Which commandment in the Law is the greatest?”  

My guess is that they expect Jesus to pick one of the 10 commandments — say, Thou shalt have no other gods before me — and say that is the greatest commandment.  And, no matter which commandment Jesus chooses, the Pharisees are ready with 39 reasons why he’s wrong.  

But, Jesus fools them.  Instead, he quotes Deuteronomy.  Not one of the 10 commandments at all, but the general instructions that God gives to the nation on how they are to live.  It’s called the Shema —

 

“Hear O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord alone.  You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.”  

And, then Jesus adds, “And, the second is like unto it — You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”  

Then, Jesus turns the tables on the Pharisees and asks them a question, which we’ll have to deal with another time.  Today, we will spend all our time on the one thing that Jesus says is the most important — loving God and loving your neighbor.

What Does Loving God Mean?  

For devout, righteous Jews loving God meant keeping the commandments — the 10 Commandments. And, here they are:

1.  Having no other gods.

2.  Not making idols.

3.  Not taking God’s name in vain.

4.  Remembering the Sabbath day.

5.  Honoring your parents.

6.  Not killing others.

7.  Not committing adultery.

8.  Not stealing.

9.  Not bearing false witness.

10.                     Not coveting the things of your neighbor.

 

The first four commandments have to do with our relationship with God, and the remaining six commandments have to do with our relationship with others.  So, Jesus sums it up — love God, love your neighbor.  

 

So far, I’m not saying anything you haven’t heard before.  But, here’s where I’m about to begin.  Because in Moses day, and in Jesus day as well, they had a very different view of what “love” within the community meant.  

 

In our 21st century, individualized world, when we hear we should “love” God and our neighbor, we instantly think of “warm fuzzies.”  I’m supposed to have a warm feeling in my heart, and if I’m with a group of like-minded folks, we’ll all join hands and sing, Kum Ba Ya.  But, as you can imagine, that is not what the Biblical writers had in mind.

 

They didn’t think of love as a subjective, emotional response.  They say love as a verb, not a noun.  Love meant action.  Love meant living a certain way, a way that distinguished God’s people from all other people.  Loving God meant worshipping the One, True God — not hedging your bet by making idols to the sun god, and the moon god, and the god of the harvest, and worshipping those, too.  No, loving God meant throwing your lot in with the One God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  

 

Loving God also meant honoring God’s name.  Not speaking it lightly, or profanely, or invoking it to bring down curses upon someone or something.  Loving God meant respecting who God is, and what God has done, and speaking God’s name carefully.

 

Loving God meant resting on one day to commemorate God’s good creation.  To take time out of the endless difficulty of eeking out a living to acknowledge the God of creation and to worship him.  

 

Loving God also meant that you loved your neighbor, which meant anybody around.  Jesus clarified that with the story of the Good Samaritan.  So, you loved God by loving your neighbor.  By honoring your parents.  By not killing other people — which sounds really strange to us today, but in a brutal world where power was supreme, life was cheap and scores were settled by who lived or who died.  And, to parse this idea of not killing other people into arcane arguments about capital punishment, war, and so on is to miss the point.  The point is that life is sacred, and human life is especially so and love for God extends to the person sitting next to me, because he or she is made in God’s image.  

 

Loving God also meant that I don’t steal from my neighbor, that I don’t lie about my neighbor, that I don’t cheat on my wife, and that I don’t even envy the things my neighbor has, because I might be tempted to kill him in order to steal his stuff, and take his wife for my own.  These are all interconnected.  

 

Loving God, then, is action.  And our love for God gets expressed in ways that honor God, and honor those who are made in God’s image.  

 

Now, this is the most important thing Jesus ever said.  Love God, love your neighbor.  Jesus thought this was so important he explained that all the law and prophets hang on these two simple ideas.  

 

The New Testament Echoes Love of God and Neighbor

 

So, if that isn’t enough to make us sit up and take notice, Jesus begins to do a lot of things to show us what this means.  

·       To the woman caught breaking the commandment not to commit adultery, Jesus extends love, not wrath, by telling her “Neither do I condemn you, go and sin no more.”  

·       To those wanting to know where to draw the line on who my neighbor is, Jesus tells the story of the Good Samaritan, which erases all racial, ethnic, cultural, and spiritual boundaries to neighborliness.

·       To those who thought that their neighbors were not the afflicted, Jesus touches lepers, makes blind eyes see, and lame legs walk.  

·       For those who don’t understand what it means to love, Jesus foreshadows his own sacrifce by saying, “Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”

·       John picks up the refrain connecting loving God and loving others in 1st John 3:14 — “We know that we have passed from death to life because we love one another.  Whoever does not love abides in death.”  

 

So, this is it — love God, love one another.  But, what does that really mean?

 

Well, it means that we as followers of God show love to others in ways that they get it, that they know we love them. For after all, if the person you love doesn’t know it, then your love is not having the intended effect.  We understand how this works in romantic love.  When Debbie and I were dating, I let her know in every way I could think of that I loved her.  I bought her gifts, I took her to movies she wanted to see, I wrote her letters (this was way before email), and I told her I loved her.  Forty years later, we’re still doing some of that same stuff.  Only we do it slower now, but we eventually do get around to it.  Why?  Because unexpressed love is unrealized love.  

 

And, this extends to churches, too.  Churches like ours that want to show love to the community, and people within the community, have to do it in tangible ways.  James wrote about this, criticizing those Christians who told the hungry and cold, “Go, be warmed and well-fed” without lifting a finger to give them something to eat or something to wear.  Love expresses itself in ways that are understandable.

 

Let me give you an example.  Outreach magazine recently published an article I wrote.  I found out about a church in inner-city Detroit that was doing some remarkable things.  Military Avenue Evangelical Presbyterian Church is located in a very depressed part of Detroit.  When the pastor, Dr. Randy Brown, toured the area for the first time, he noticed that graffiti covered the building next to the church.  Spray painted in larger than life letters was the message, “Satan is Alive!” 

 

Now, I must admit that if the BB&T bank building on the corner had been painted with the words, Satan is alive! I might have had second thoughts about coming here to Chatham.  But not Randy Brown.  He believed that God was calling him to Military Ave Church, a church that in its heyday had been a thriving congregation in what was then a solid middle-class neighborhood.  But times changed in Detroit.  Auto plants closed.  The solid middle-class neighborhood fell into disrepair and neglect.  Drug dealers and gangs moved in, and the church was about to close.  

 

But Randy Brown saw an opportunity to love this neighborhood back into God’s arms.  That was 1989, and now, almost 20-years later, the church has built two new buildings.  One of the new buildings is a full-size gym.  In that gym on every weeknight, school children line up for a chance to be tutored by members of Military Avenue Church.  

 

Once a month, families file into the sanctuary of the church for words of encouragement, and a box of free groceries to help them make through another month.  The church operates a clothing ministry, and other outreach efforts to the community, including a gang intervention program.  The pastor told me that one of their most faithful members came in off the street, a drug addict, who found Jesus, and whose life was transformed.  

 

Oh, and remember the building that had been spray painted with the message “Satan is Alive!”?  Well, the church bought it two years ago when the seedy business that was there went broke.  Now the building houses “The Solid Rock Cafe” where teens can come and play games, get something to eat, and talk to adults who spend time there as mentors.  That’s love.  That’s the kind of love that Jesus was talking about, the kind of love that Deuteronomy encouraged, the kind of love that acts in the best interests of those who are loved in ways that they know they are loved.  

 

Seven Traits of Real Love

 

In his paper, Unlimited Love: What It Is and Why It Matters, Dr. Stephen Post cites the work of Jean Vanier, 

founder of L’Arche, a faith-based ministry of 100-communities in 30 countries for people with intellectual disabilities.  Vanier says that love has 7 components to it –

 

1.  To reveal value in the other person.

2.  To understand that other person.

3.  To communicate with the other person.

4.  To celebrate the life of the other person.

5.  To empower the other person.

6.  To be in community with the other person.

7.  To forgive and be forgiven.  

 

So, that’s what love looks like to Jean Vanier, and his vision gives us some food for thought.  These are the tangible expressions of love that are so sadly lacking in most of our preaching and teaching in churches today.  Love doesn’t mean that we all become best friends, spend all of our time together, and go on vacation with each other.  Love means I see value in you and tell you I do; I listen to you enough to understand what you are saying; I communicate with you and receive communication from you; I celebrate the wonder that is your life, no matter the difficulty of its present circumstance; I empower you to act on your own and to take responsibility for living up to your potential; I move within a community that includes you and others who are all seeking to love in the ways that Christ loved; and, I forgive you and ask that you forgive me.  (1)

 

To Vanier’s list I would add an eighth characteristic of love — sacrifice.  For that is how “God showed his love for us, in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us.”  

 

A Story of Love Expressed

 

Here is a story that nicely captures aspects of unlimited love’s gratuitous freedom, told by a Mr. Barry Schlimme

of Louisville, Kentucky.

 

At a fund -raising dinner for a school that serves learning-disabled children, the father of one of the school’s students delivered a speech that would never be forgotten by all who attended. After extolling the school and its

dedicated staff, he offered a question.

 

“Everything God does is done with perfection. Yet, my son, Shay, cannot learn things as other children do. He cannot understand things as other children do. Where is God’s plan reflected in my son?”

 

The audience was stilled by the query.

 

The father continued. “I believe,” the father answered, “that when God brings a child like Shay into the world, an opportunity to realize the Divine Plan presents itself. And it comes in the way people treat that child.”

 

Then, he told the following story:

 

Shay and his father had walked past a park where some boys Shay knew were playing baseball. Shay asked,”Do you think they will let me play?”

 

Shay’s father knew that most boys would not want him on their team. But the father understood that if his son were allowed to play it would give him a much needed sense of belonging. Shay’s father approached one of the boys on the field and asked if Shay could play. The boy looked around for guidance from his teammates. Getting none, he took matters into his own hands and said, “We are losing by six runs, and the game is in the eighth inning. I guess he can be on our team and I’ll try to put him up to bat in the ninth inning.”

 

In the bottom of the eighth inning, Shay’s team scored a few runs but was still behind by three.

 

At the top of the ninth inning, Shay put on a glove and played in the outfield. Although no hits came his way, he was obviously ecstatic just to be on the field, grinning from ear to ear as his father waved to him from the stands. In the bottom of the ninth inning, Shay’s team scored again. Now, with two outs and bases loaded, the potential winning run was on base. Shay was scheduled to be the next at-bat. Would the team actually let Shay bat at this juncture and give away their chance to win the game? 

 

Surprisingly, Shay was given the bat. Everyone knew that a hit was all but impossible because Shay didn’t even know how to hold the bat properly, much less connect with the ball. However, as Shay stepped up to the plate, the

pitcher moved a few steps to lob the ball in softly so Shay could at least be able to make contact. The first pitch came and Shay swung clumsily and missed.

 

The pitcher again took a few steps forward to toss the ball softly toward Shay. As the pitch came in, Shay swung at the ball and hit a slow ground ball to the pitcher. The pitcher picked up the soft grounder and could easily have thrown the ball to the first baseman. Shay would have been out and that would have ended the game. Instead, the pitcher took the ball and threw it on a high arc to right field, far beyond reach of the first baseman. Everyone started yelling, “Shay, run to first. Run to first.” Never in his life had Shay ever made it to first base.

 

He scampered down the baseline, wide-eyed and startled. Everyone yelled “Run to second, run to second!” By the time Shay was rounding first base, the right fielder had the ball. He could have thrown the ball to the second baseman for a tag. But the right fielder understood what the pitcher’s intentions had been, so he threw the ball high and far over the third baseman’s head. Shay ran towards second base as the runners ahead of him deliriously circled the bases towards home. 

 

As Shay reached second base, the opposing shortstop ran to him, turned him in the direction of third base, and shouted, “Run to third!” As Shay rounded third, the boys from both teams were screaming, “Shay! Run home.” Shay ran home, stepped on home plate and was cheered as the hero, for hitting a “grand slam” and winning the game for his team. 

 

“That day,” said the father softly with tears now rolling down his face,”the boys from both teams helped bring a piece of the Divine Plan into this world.” (1)

 

And the greatest of these is love.  

 

(1) Unlimited Love: What it is and Why it matters.  Stephen Post, pgs.14-16

Filed under: Lectionary Yr A, Sermon Illustrations, Sermons, matthew, sermon , greatest commandment, lectionary year a, love, love god, love your neighbor, matthew 22:34-46, sermon

Sermon for Palm Sunday, Mar 16, 2008: In the Name of the Lord

Blessed Is He Who Comes In The Name of the Lord
Matthew 21:1-111As they approached Jerusalem and came to Bethphage on the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples, 2 saying to them, “Go to the village ahead of you, and at once you will find a donkey tied there, with her colt by her. Untie them and bring them to me. 3 If anyone says anything to you, tell him that the Lord needs them, and he will send them right away.”

4 This took place to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet:
5 “Say to the Daughter of Zion,
‘See, your king comes to you,
gentle and riding on a donkey,
on a colt, the foal of a donkey.’ “^[a]

6 The disciples went and did as Jesus had instructed them. 7 They brought the donkey and the colt, placed their cloaks on them, and Jesus sat on them. 8 A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, while others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. 9 The crowds that went ahead of him and those that followed shouted,
“Hosanna^[b] to the Son of David!”
“Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”^[c]
“Hosanna^[d] in the highest!”

10 When Jesus entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred and asked, “Who is this?”

11 The crowds answered, “This is Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth in Galilee.”

Peace Comes To A Divided Nation

On Palm Sunday, April 9, 1865, General Robert E. Lee, commander of the Army of Northern Virginia, arrived at the McLean home at Appomattox Courthouse, not far from where we sit today. Lee arrived about 1 PM, Lt. General Ulysses S. Grant about 30-minutes later. Grant, the younger and smaller man, began the conversation by telling General Lee that they had met before in Mexico, and that Grant would recognize General Lee anywhere. To which Lee replied, that, Yes, they had met before, but that he — Lee — could not remember any detail of what Grant looked like. They talked on for a while, and then General Lee asked Grant to commit the terms of surrender to paper. Grant did so for the next minutes. As he concluded, Grant cast his eye upon the sword hanging by Lee’s side. Turning back to his paper, he prescribed that the sidearms of the officers, and the private horses of the Confederate soldiers were not to be included in the terms of surrender. The document was signed, and the Army of Northern Virginia surrendered.

At about 4 PM, the two men moved outside, where General Lee called for his horse. Seemingly lost in thought, Lee snapped back to the matter at hand when his horse arrived. Mounting sharply, General Lee began to ride slowly from the house back toward his troops awaiting his return.

As General Lee passed, Lt. General Ulysses S. Grant, removed his hat in a non-military salute to Lee. All of the Union soldiers standing also removed their hats as General Lee passed by. Peace had come at last to a nation torn by war, and Grant, by his gesture, acknowledged that Robert E. Lee had given the peace that to that day the Union forces had been unable to take.

Peace Rides Into Jerusalem

That scene played out in 1865, was eerily reminiscent of the scene that occurred on another day, long before anyone knew to call it Palm Sunday. Jesus, on a circuitous journey to Jerusalem, instructs his disciples only a few miles from Jerusalem, to go into the village of Bethpage and bring the donkey and her colt tied there to him. If anyone should ask them what they were doing, Jesus said, “Tell him that the Lord needs them, and he will send them right away.”

Then, Matthew takes a moment to explain to those of us looking on, what all this means.

4This took place to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet:
5“Say to the Daughter of Zion,
‘See, your king comes to you,
gentle and riding on a donkey,
on a colt, the foal of a donkey.’ “

Matthew is quoting from Zechariah, one of the minor prophets of the Hebrew scriptures. Zechariah wrote in the days after the nation returned from the Babylonian captivity, about 500 years before Jesus’ birth. Even after the nation of Israel returned to their land and to Jerusalem, things did not go well. Old enemies reappeared, new enemies threatened to annihilate the weakened, chastened nation. The rebuilding of the temple lagged, the people still in shock over a lifetime of captivity in Babylon. Zechariah, Haggai, and other prophets both challenge and encourage the nation to rise to the moment, to again be faithful, to embrace the God of Israel who has brought them home.

Zechariah’s prophesy of hope extends from chapter 9 through 14. In chapter 9, verses 9-10, Zechariah speaks of the Zion’s King coming to his people –

9 Rejoice greatly, O Daughter of Zion!
Shout, Daughter of Jerusalem!
See, your king comes to you,
righteous and having salvation,
gentle and riding on a donkey,
on a colt, the foal of a donkey. 10 I will take away the chariots from Ephraim
and the war-horses from Jerusalem,
and the battle bow will be broken.
He will proclaim peace to the nations.
His rule will extend from sea to sea
and from the River to the ends of the earth.

The king is coming, to repeat that rousing song of a couple of decades ago. The king is coming, and when he comes he comes riding a donkey, more precisely a donkey’s colt. A young, unproven beast of burden known more for its sure-footedness than swiftness. Riding on a donkey was the king’s way of saying, “We’re not at war anymore. We no longer have to mount the horses of war. We can ride slowly, confidently, joyfully because I bring peace.”

But, Zechariah doesn’t stop there. He continues in this prophesy that covers chapters 9-14. Zechariah describes what happens when the Lord comes and reigns –

8 On that day living water will flow out from Jerusalem, half to the eastern sea and half to the western sea, in summer and in winter.

9 The LORD will be king over the whole earth. On that day there will be one LORD, and his name the only name.

Jesus Comes in the Name of the Lord

And so, here is Jesus, riding into Jerusalem, fully aware of the prophecy of Zechariah. The crowd also seems to understand. For their dilemma is not the rebuilding of the Temple. Herod the Great has already accomplished that. The dilemma of the nation in Jesus day is that they are in exile again. Occupied by Roman troops, whose headquarters abuts the Temple compound itself. Rome, with its despised Roman eagle insignia, holds the nation hostage in its own land, in its own city, Jerusalem.

Insurrections against foreign enemies had arisen quickly, but had ultimately been crushed. The latest and most significant was the Maccabean revolt, about 167 years before Jesus, which ended badly for the Jews. Pompey, in 63 BC, conquered Jerusalem and the puppet king Herod the Great was installed as ruler. Now the people again longed for a king, a popular figure, a person of the people, a common man who would be like King David. A king who could unite them, shepherd them with love, stand against their enemies, defend them in the face of foreign foes.

And in that atmosphere, Jesus comes riding into Jerusalem on a donkey’s colt. We do not know how it happened that the crowd began to shout and sing –

Hosanna to the Son of David
Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.
Hosanna in the highest.

But in those shouts, those accolades, those songs of triumph were the hopes of everyday people. People who were tired of living in fear. People who were weary of a religion that piled rule upon rule, law upon law, until it was all so heavy that no one could bear it. People who longed for hope and help and kindness and gentleness. People who wished for the impossible.

And yet, here he was. The symbolism of the animal upon which Jesus rode was not lost on them. They knew the scripture, too. His name was not lost on them either. This name which we pronounce ‘Jesus’ they knew as ‘Yeshua.’ In English, Joshua. And they needed a Joshua. Joshua who took the nation into the promised land after the death of Moses. Joshua, with his companion Caleb, who had been the only spies to say, “This land is ours. God gave us this land. We can cross over and take it.” Only that day, the people wanted nothing to do with Joshua. And so they all wandered 40-years until all the naysayers died. And it was left to the next generation to follow Joshua.

All of the people living were the children of the Maccabean revolt. It had been over 60-years since they ruled themselves. What their forefathers had only seized for a brief time — freedom — they wanted for a lifetime. Jesus, the new Joshua, seemed their best hope.

And so they sang, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.”

Names Meant Something Then

Unlike today, when we name our children for rock stars, names meant something in Jesus’ day. The angels gave the name of John the Baptist to his father, Zechariah. And the angels gave the name Jesus to Mary for her soon to be born son. Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins. The same sins from which Joshua saved them — the sins of unbelief and faithlessness. The same sins for which they had suffered in recurring cycles throughout their history.

But, not only did the name Jesus mean something, the title Lord did, too. Jesus tells the disciples to explain that “the Lord” needs the donkey and colt, if anyone asks. Zechariah says that

“The LORD will be king over the whole earth. On that day there will be one LORD, and his name the only name.

Not only will the Lord be king, but his name will be the only name. So, he who comes in the name of the Lord, comes with the full authority of God the Father. God, whose name the Jews never pronounced until it was lost from any way to vocalize it, was always referred to as “Adonai” — Lord.

To come in the name of the Lord was to come in full authority of God, the God of Israel, the God of manna, and of freedom, the God of a thousand blessings, the God who shepherded his people with kindness.

And to come in the name of the Lord meant mostly to come bringing peace. Peace. Not power, not dominance, not wrath, but peace. Peace to a people who were weary of war. Peace to a people who had no means to fight. Peace to a people who could not seize peace, but who longed for it desperately.

To come in the name of the Lord meant to come bringing peace. On a donkey, without arms, without aggression, with no defense, to bring peace to the midst of chaos.

Just as God had spoken light into darkness at creation, so Jesus came bringing peace.

The King Comes To His Kingdom

Jesus entered Jerusalem as a king who has already won the battle. Peace is his now, and he can give peace to his people. Jesus’ ministry has been about the kingdom of God. His preaching announced it, his teaching explained it, his miracles demonstrated its power. The only thing left is for the kingdom to come in its messianic peace.

Momentarily, the people of Jerusalem think they understand. On that day, they believe that Jesus will bring peace, the kind of peace that means armies are defeated, governments overthrown, power shifted to the powerless. But, Jesus has already told them, “My peace I give to you. Not as the world gives…”

Later in the week, they will grow tired of this peace “not of the world” and will impatiently reject Jesus in favor of nothing. “No peace is better than this, they will reason. Peace can’t come if you don’t defend yourself, answer your critics, fight for your freedom. No, we’re better off with no hope than with this Jesus.”

But he who comes in the name of the Lord brings peace, just as surely as Lee brought peace to Appomattox 143-years ago. Peace is given, never taken. Peace is a gift, not a prize. Peace is an act of love, not the result of victory.

People of Peace

On Thursday, Debbie and I drove to Roanoke to attend the funeral of Donnie Bower’s father, Orville. Donnie grew up in the Old German Baptist Brethren Church, and his mother and father were faithful members of that group their entire lives. The Old German Baptists Brethren maintain some of the old traditions of our Anabaptist forebears. They wear long beards without moustaches, like some of the former ministers of this congregation. The men wear dark suits, but from an old pattern style — jackets without collars, white shirts worn without ties, matching vest and trousers. Women wear modest high-necked, long-sleeved dresses with low hemlines almost to the floor. A head covering of a white net cap tied tightly under their chin rounds out their wardrobe. Black bonnets are worn out of doors.

You might think that these folks would be joyless and stiff, dressed as I have just described. We arrived about 5-minutes late, because google maps sent us to the wrong road near Boone’s Mill. As we walked up to the meeting house door, the sounds of singing rang through the building. In unison and without accompaniment, as one great strong voice, the congregation was singing as we entered the meetinghouse. A bearded minister stood at the front of the large meeting room, “lining” the hymn — he spoke the verse, which the congregation then sang. The sound reminded me of vespers at a monastery retreat I took several years ago. Almost a chant, the melody soared and fell in a slow, deliberate cadence that was solemn, but not sad.

Debbie and I sat down, only to realize upon looking around that we were seated on the left section filled with men only. The center section contained families — husbands, wives, children — and the right section of pews seated only women. All the pews faced the front of the room, which could probably seat about 400. One group of pews on the left faced toward the ministers. Deacons occupied those pews, I was later told.

The meetinghouse was well-constructed, but plain — a wood floor, newly polished; white unadorned walls; flat ceiling about 14-feet high; and plain pews with no hymn racks. The rectangular room was lined with pews in three sections, all facing the wall opposite the door. The two entrance doors were on the south wall, the pews faced the north wall, both were the longest walls, so that the congregation was broader than it was deep.

As I looked at the front of the room, there was no platform and no pulpit. The ministers, who are elected by the congregation and are unpaid, sat on two rows of pews facing the congregation. In front of those pews, between the ministers and congregation, was a long wooden table. I had read that the earliest Baptist meetinghouses had a central table around which the congregation was seated. I was witness to that 300-year old arrangement at the Old German Baptist Brethren church today.

After the hymn singing ended — each person carried their own small hymnal with words but no music — a minister stood to speak. Although he used no microphone, his words resounded off the floor and walls with crisp clarity. “This is what a service must have been like 200-years’ ago,” I thought to myself, although the room did have plain electric lights hanging from the ceiling.

The service included two speakers, two or three hymns, two prayers during which the entire congregation of men knelt on the hard wooden floor, and the Lord’s Prayer followed each prayer. From 10 AM to 12 noon we sang, prayed, knelt, and listened as this funeral “meeting” offered words of comfort, and a community of support.

After the funeral, we drove the short distance to the church-owned cemetery. As we stood by the graveside, brief words were spoken. Then cemetery workmen lowered the casket into the vault, secured the top of the vault, and lowered both into the grave. As they did so, two of the Brethren came alongside with long tamping poles. As the vault was lowered, they inserted the poles down each side, guiding the vault away from the sides of the grave into the center. What followed was remarkable.

The gathered congregation began to sing. As they sang, bearded men in black suits picked up shovels and began to shovel dirt into the grave. These hands were not strangers to work, and as they shoveled, other men holding the tamping rods tamped the dirt vigorously as the grave filled. One song gave way to another as one by one, bearded men and family members shoveled dirt into the grave, and tamped it lovingly into place. Some tears were shed, but most wore pleasant expressions of seeing an old friend off on a long journey. As the grave filled, other men brought rolls of sod, covering the smoothed dirt with green grass.

The hymns ended. A minister spoke of the journey of their brother, a journey that had taken him safely home. A prayer was offered and then another minister thanked everyone for their loving kindness to the family.

As Debbie and I stood among these gentle people dressed in clothes belonging to another place and time, I marveled at how they had gathered to take care of their brother even to the duty of laying his body in the ground. This was a community of faith. A community carrying out centuries-old traditions, but not without meaning. This community gathered from all over the country, as automobile tags carried the designations of many states. They gathered, greeting each other with hugs and holy kisses, to do what communities do — to cry, to pray, to help, to support, to do the work that one friend does for another.

Most of those Old German Baptists were old. Gray beards and gray-bonneted hair were in the majority. I felt we were witnessing the passing of an era. An era when people believed together, worshipped together, mourned together, and rejoiced together. An era when life was simple, families were close, and faith was real. These were people who brought peace to a family. People who had come in the name of the Lord.

Filed under: Lectionary Yr A, Sermon Illustrations, Sermons, Worship, bless the world, matthew, sermon , blessed is he who comes in the name of the lord, lectionary year a, matthew 21:1-11, palm sunday, palm sunday sermon, peace is a gift, preaching, sermon, Worship

Sermon for Sunday, Feb 3, 2008 — Going Up To Glory

This is the sermon I’m preaching tomorrow, Februay 3, 2008, on Transfiguration Sunday.  I hope yours is a wonderful day with God’s people!

Going Up To Glory

Exodus 24:12-18 NIV

12 The LORD said to Moses, “Come up to me on the mountain and stay here, and I will give you the tablets of stone, with the law and commands I have written for their instruction.”

13 Then Moses set out with Joshua his aide, and Moses went up on the mountain of God. 14 He said to the elders, “Wait here for us until we come back to you. Aaron and Hur are with you, and anyone involved in a dispute can go to them.”

15 When Moses went up on the mountain, the cloud covered it, 16 and the glory of the LORD settled on Mount Sinai. For six days the cloud covered the mountain, and on the seventh day the LORD called to Moses from within the cloud. 17 To the Israelites the glory of the LORD looked like a consuming fire on top of the mountain. 18 Then Moses entered the cloud as he went on up the mountain. And he stayed on the mountain forty days and forty nights.

Matthew 17:1-9

1After six days Jesus took with him Peter, James and John the brother of James, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. 2There he was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as the light. 3Just then there appeared before them Moses and Elijah, talking with Jesus.

4Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good for us to be here. If you wish, I will put up three shelters—one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah.”

5While he was still speaking, a bright cloud enveloped them, and a voice from the cloud said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him!”

6When the disciples heard this, they fell facedown to the ground, terrified. 7But Jesus came and touched them. “Get up,” he said. “Don’t be afraid.” 8When they looked up, they saw no one except Jesus.

9As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus instructed them, “Don’t tell anyone what you have seen, until the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.”

Immortality in the Movies

In 1985, a charming movie directed by Ron Howard — remember Opie on The Andy Griffith Show? — premiered. The movie was Cocoon, and the cast included veterans of stage and screen such as Don Ameche, Hume Cronyn, Jessica Tandy, Wilford Brimley, and Maureen Stapleton. The story line was simple: Aliens led by Brian Denehy, returned to earth to retrieve some of their friends who were encased in “cocoons” beneath the ocean. The aliens made the mistake of temporarily stashing their cocooned friends in a swimming pool located near a retirement home. Several of the male retirees made it a regular habit to break into the pool for a swim. Only one day they encounter a pool full of barnacle-encrusted giant easter-egg-like cocoons. Undaunted the group swims anyway, only to discover the next day that they are youthful and vigorous again. I said the storyline was simple, not believable.

Anyway, the movie is really about the quest for immortality, because the aliens offer all the senior citizens who want to go, a trip to their planet where everyone lives forever. Of course, if they choose to live forever, they have to leave friends and family. And, there’s the rub. Some go, some don’t, some think they will go, then change their minds. The movie was a very clever device for addressing the desire humans have for immortality.

But, that’s not my point. I’m telling you the storyline, so I can tell you this one tiny part. Steve Gutenberg is the young captain of a small fishing boat, rented by the aliens to go out to sea to retrieve the cocoons. Brian Denehy is the head alien, only he looks just like, well, Brian Denehy. No big oval head with almond-shaped eyes on skinny legs. No sir, Brian Denehy is an all-American alien, or at least that’s what we think for a while. Also on board, and helping Brian-the-alien with the retrieval of the cocoons was a beautiful young woman, who also appeared very normal. One day she goes below to change out of her diving gear, and young Mr. Steve Gutenberg peeks in the window. Much to his surprise, not only does she unzip her wet suit, she unzips her entire outer layer of skin, and takes it off like an overcoat on a hot day! Under that human-body-mask, is a creature of light, with an almost human form, but glowing like a star in the sky. Of course, Gutenberg almost faints, and there the story takes off.

When We Think of God’s Glory We Think of Light

Now, I realize I took the long way around to make a very small point, so let me make it. Today, despite what the media says about this Sunday, today is Transfiguration Sunday. We read the passage from Matthew’s gospel about the transfiguration of Jesus, and we have just read the Old Testament precursor to Matthew, the story of Moses going up to the glory of God on Mt. Sinai. Just about every time in the Bible when we encounter the glory of God, we get a picture of blazing light, of luminous presence, of consuming fire. We don’t have time this morning to look at all those places, but you know the stories –

• The story of creation, where God says, Let there be light, on the very first day.
• The story of God appearing to Moses in the burning bush. God says it’s holy ground.
• The story of God appearing to guide the nation of Israel as a cloud by day, and fire by night.
• The story of God validating the tabernacle, and ultimately the temple, by resting his shekinah glory — the luminous, awesome, visible glory that is God’s — over those structures.
• The story of God responding to Elijah’s call for consuming fire on the altar, prophets of Baal, and barrel-loads of water, and God does it.
• The story of Elijah being taken in the chariot of fire into heaven, bypassing death on the way.
• The story of angels who appear in blazing light to shepherds who are “sore afraid” in King James language.
• The story John tells of the Light which came into the world who lights all who are in the world.
• The story of Paul being blinded by the light of God, until his eyes are opened to the truth of God.
• The story of the holy city, the new Jerusalem, and of God as the light of the city, where there is no need of the sun by day, or the moon by night, for God is its Light.

The glory of God as light comes at us from all directions in both Old and New Testaments. Vladimir Lossky expresses the theology of the Orthodox Church when he says –

In the mystical theology of the Eastern Church, these expressions (of God as light) are not used as metaphors or as figure of speech, but as expressions for a real aspect of the Godhead. If God is called Light, it is because He cannot remain foreign to our experience.

Orthodox folks take this business of God is Light very seriously, and so should we. But, Orthodox Christians are not the only ones to take God is Light to heart. Fifteen-hundred years ago, as Patrick took Christianity to Ireland, the emerging Celtic Christian church believed that the Light of God was evident not only in the Bible, but also in creation. Listen to this ancient poem about the birth of Jesus and the response of all creation –

This is the long night…

It will snow and it will drift…

White snow there will be till day…

White moon there will be till morn…

This night is the eve of the Great Nativity…

This night is born Mary Virgin’s Son,…

This night is born Jesus, Son of the King of glory…

This night is born to us the root of our joy…

This night gleamed the sun of the mountains high…

This night gleamed sea and shore together…

This night was born Christ the King of greatness…

Ere it was heard that the Glory was come…

Heard was the wave upon the strand…

Ere ’twas heard that His foot had reached the earth…

Heard was the song of the angels glorious…

This night is the long night…

Glowed to Him wood and tree…

Glowed to Him mount and sea,

Glowed to Him land and plain,

When that His foot was come to earth.

– The Book of Creation, J. Philip Newell, pg 12-13

So, not only does Jesus bring the glory of God to earth, but all creation responds by “glowing” God’s light back to God. The Celtic Christians believed that the Light of God infused all of creation, and that light would respond to God’s presence by glowing back to God in return.

Moses, Elijah, and Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration

Which brings us back to our story. Peter, James, and John have accompanied Jesus up the mountain where something wonderfully miraculous happens. As they watch, Jesus is transfigured — changed into something they have never before seen — into a glowing, radiant Light. If that weren’t enough, Moses and Elijah appear alongside Jesus and talk with Him about the future. Moses is glowing, Elijah is glowing, Jesus is glowing — radiantly white, pouring light from their clothes, their faces, their hands, their arms, light floods from all around them.

And God speaks. Again. The same words God spoke at Jesus’ baptism — “This is my Son, the Beloved, with him I am well pleased: listen to Him!” With that, the disciples who are looking at this display of light, fall on their faces overcome by fear. Not surprising, because we would probably do the same.

Moses, Elijah, and Jesus. All who have seen the glory of God, face-to-face, in person. Moses and Elijah both were called friends of God. Moses the lawgiver, who ascends Mt. Sinai to receive from God the Law of God. That Law will distinguish God’s people from all other people on the earth. Moses has stood in the presence of God, closer than any person ever stood; so close that his own faced glowed with radiant light. That glow of God so disturbed the nation of Israel that Moses had to put a veil on his face to keep from scaring the people of God.

Elijah, the prophet of God, representing all the prophets of God. Elijah who has seen God’s provision for a widow and her son, and God’s judgment on a king and kingdom that worshipped false gods. Elijah, so profoundly in tune with God that God sends a chariot of fire, pulled by horses of flame to carry Elijah in their whirlwind to heaven.

Jesus, who himself has stepped out of the throne room of heaven down to earth, and who has cloaked himself in the form of a man, masking His own glory to all the world.

Except on this day, this day we call the day of transfiguration that glory is no longer masked. Now some folks think that the miracle was that Jesus glowed radiantly like the sun that day. And that Moses and Elijah were also luminous with the glory of God all over them.  But I’m not so sure. 

As a kid, did you ever catch lightning bugs? Some people call them fireflies, but in Columbus, Georgia, all the 10-year old boys I knew called them lightning bugs. You could catch them in a jar and watch them for hours.  But without fail, if you were a 10-year old boy, you had to hold one for yourself. And, sometimes if you held one too tightly, or grabbed one out of the air too quickly, your lighting bug met his untimely end. All you were left with was a glowing streak of lightning bug juice on your hand. Well, imagine that all over your body, then multiply by about 1,000, and you have the idea that most folks have of what happened on the mountain that day to Jesus and Moses and Elijah.

But, I think the miracle is what happened to Peter, James, and John. I believe that it wasn’t Jesus who was transfigured before them so much as it was the change that came to those three disciples. And for the first time since they had followed him, they saw his glory. “Glory,” John would later say, “as of the only begotten Son of God.” I think what happened that day wasn’t that Jesus was changed, but that Peter, James, and John were. Listen to Vladimir Lossky again –

The Transfiguration was not a phenomenon circumscribed in time and space; Christ underwent no change at that moment, even in His human nature, but a change occurred in the awareness of the apostles, who for a time received the power to see their Master as He was, resplendent in the eternal light of His Godhead. — The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, Vladimir Lossky, pg 223.

The Light of God’s Glory Changes Us

From that time, Peter, James, and John were not the same. They had seen the glory of God and they were changed because of it. Not perfect, but changed. No longer was following Jesus just about wondering how he did miracles, or how the healed the sick, or even how he reimagined the Law of Moses for the people of God. From that day forward, these disciples knew that Jesus was on a mission, a mission to bring the kingdom of God to the people of God.  A mission to make all things new. 

A mission in which the shekinah glory of God no longer rested over the Temple, but on their Teacher. A mission that encompassed the Law and the Prophets, not just a populist revolt. So, they were changed by the glory of God, just as Moses had been changed, and just as Elijah had been changed.

A very sweet, yet powerful story is found in The Revelations of St. Seraphim of Sarov, written in the early 1800s, only a couple of hundred years ago. This Russian story was recorded by Seraphim’s student, who was with Seraphim one morning.

The student said to the monk Seraphim, “I don’t understand how one can be certain of being in the Spirit of God. How should I recognize this should it happen to me?”

Seraphim patiently reiterated the lessons he had already taught this disciple, only to have the student reply, “I must understand better everything you have said to me.”

To which Seraphim replied, “My friend, we are both in the Spirit now…Why won’t you look at me?”

“I can’t look at you, Father,” he replied, “your eyes shine like lightning; your face has become more dazzling that the sun, and it hurts my eyes to look at you.”

Seraphim said, “Don’t be afraid, at this very moment you’ve become as bright as I have. You are also in the fullness of the Spirit.”

Listen to what this disciple, this student monk, wrote then, in his own words,

Encouraged by his words, I looked and was seized by holy fear. Imagine in the middle of the sun, dazzling in the brilliance of its noontide rays, the face of the man who is speaking to you. You can see the movements of his lips, the changing expression of his eyes, you can hear his voice, you can feel his hands holding you by the shoulders, but you can see neither his hands nor his body — nothing except the blaze of light which shines around, lighting up with its brilliance the snow-covered meadow, and the snowflakes continue to fall unceasingly. — The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, pg 227-8

C. S. Lewis in his book, The Weight of Glory, said, –

For if we take the imagery of Scripture seriously, if we believe that God will one day give us the Morning Star and cause us to put on the splendour of the sun, then we may surmise that both the ancient myths and the modern poetry, so false as history, may be very near the truth as prophesy. At present we are on the outside of the world, the wrong side of the door…We cannot mingle with the splendours we see. But all the leaves of the New Testament are rustling with the rumour that it will not always be so. Some day, God willing, we shall get in. When human souls have become as perfect in voluntary obedience, then they will put on its glory, or rather that greater glory of which Nature is on the first sketch.

– The Weight of Glory, pg 43.

God’s glory changes us. It changed Moses on Mt. Sinai. It changed Elijah on Mt. Carmel. It changed Peter, James, and John on Mt. Tabor. No, we do not need to build tabernacles to the glory of God. God has already built his own. We see God’s glory in creation, if our eyes are open. We see God’s glory in His Word, if our spirits are open. We see God’s glory in others, if our hearts are open. And the glory we see changes us, so that one day that same glory may rest on us, revealing the Light of God that has long lived in our hearts, eager to be released to a world of darkness.

The little children’s song had it right,

This little light of mine,

I’m gonna let it shine,

This little light of mine,

I’m gonna let it shine,

Let it shine,

Let it shine,

Let it shine.

Filed under: Exodus, Lectionary Yr A, Sermon Illustrations, Sermons, The Story, Worship, matthew, sermon , elijah, exodus 24:12-18, glory of god, matthew 17:1-9, moses, preaching, sermon, shekinah glory, st seraphim, super bowl sunday sermon, transfiguration of christ, transfiguration sunday sermon