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Race and the Will of God

Wed, 13 May 2009 13:42:52 GMT

5/10/09
Race and the Will of God
Acts 8:26-40

Fellow citizens of the kingdom of God,

So today is Mother's Day, but the theme of this sermon is how God wants us human beings of different races to lovingly and graciously see ourselves as one people. Not quite the same theme. Mother's Day. All races being one people.

I did, though, come up with a couple stories that combines those two things. I've told this story at least once before, but when it comes to combining Mother's Day with being against racism, this fits oh so well, I think .

Back in the mid-90's, I was at a Mennonite anti-racism conference in Chicago . One of the speakers was an African-American woman. She said that we who are white should confront other white people when they say and do things that are racist, instead of leaving people who are racial minorities to be the ones who bring it up.

During the question time, a white man in the audience asked, "Well, what if you're really just not comfortable confronting people?"

And the speaker said, "When someone says something about someone of another race, just think of it as them saying something about your momma. You wouldn't let it go if someone insulted your momma, would you?"

And the man said, "Well, yeah, I'd probably just let it go."

A lot of the peace-loving Mennonites in the audience nodded and laughed nervously in sympathy to that.

But the point is that every person is our brother and our sister. God doesn't care much at all about who is whose biological relative. God doesn't care much which group or country a person is part of. People can have a thing about who is there own kind. From God's perspective, it seems that our own kind is just human beings. Every person is our brother and our sister. People sometimes have the attitude that our main obligation is to our own biological family. But that is not in the Bible. In fact, the Bible teaches us otherwise.

Any person who is suffering or hurt or in need or mistreated IS a member of OUR family. So on this Mother's Day, I will say that it's good to be loving, caring, and nurturing toward our biological children, if we have any. But parenting is Christian parenting -- parenting is part of the kingdom of God -- to the extent it is loving, caring, and nurturing toward ALL children of ALL ages.

So on this Mother's Day, here's a word from the kingdom of God to all of us adults: be a parent to whoever, of any age, needs it. That may not be Hallmark's way. But it's what Mother's Day and Father's Day are about in God's eyes.

One more Mother's Day story about this. In Old Testament times, long before Jesus was even born, there were some things that people thought God wanted that kind of supported being prejudiced against other groups. One was that people from certain other groups were not allowed in temple to God. They were seen as too bad or dirty or something to be symbolically close to God by being in God's temple.

[read Deuternonomy 23:2-3]

The Moabites were a people who lived near to the people of Israel back then. There were the enemy. And it said, right in the Bible of God's people, as a direct command from God that no Moabite should enter the temple or be considered part of God's people. And no descendent of a Moabite, even to the tenth generation. If you believe the Bible and live by it, you had to obey that, right?

Well, a little later in the Bible, there's a story of a woman named Ruth. You may know this story. She was from Moab. She was one of those Moabites. I won't go into the whole story, but she became friends with a woman from Israel. Then she ended up marrying a guy from Israel named Boaz.

Here's the Mother's Day connection. This Moab named Ruth, she became the grandmother of the famous King David of Israel . So King David was the third generation descendant of a person from Moab. And interestingly, he actually was the one who came up with the idea of building a temple to God. And his son, Solomon, a fourth generation descendant from a person from Moab, was the one who built the temple to God.

So in the book of Deuternomy, it said that a descendant of someone from Moab shouldn't even go into the temple. But then later, it was descendants of someone from Moab who actually who were the ones who built the temple. And they certainly did go in, too.

Maybe this was God's way of saying, "That stuff about being prejudiced against Moabites -- it's a bunch of B.S.."

When old commands presented as being from God conflict with God's purpose of bringing all people together, those old commands, ignore them. That's what God's people have always done when led by the Holy Spirit.

When Christians talk about "the Holy Spirit," it's a way of talking about God acting in people's lives.

When our Lord, the Son of God, Jesus, was on the earth, the first time he's recorded as mentioning the Holy Spirit was in some comments at a religious gathering in his hometown. He'd already being doing things in public, and to try to give these folks in a hometown a sense of what he was doing, he opened the Bible and read from chapter 61 of the book of Isaiah, where it says, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me to preach good news to the poor, freedom for prisoners, sight for those who are blind, relief for the oppressed."

And the crowd thought that was all well and good. Very interesting. They maybe were imagining their own problems and the problems of people like them and wondering if maybe God would improve those situations.

But then Jesus made them mad. He said that the poor folks and the prisoners and the blind people and the oppressed folks whom God wanted to help -- they were likely to be people from other religions and others part of the world.

And at that, his listeners got mad. They turned into an angry mob. There's some weird part of us human beings that causes us to care more about people who are part of our group. People who are like us. We can be willing to have awful things done to people who are different in order to improve the lives of ourselves and people like us.

Exploit workers in other parts of the world to increase our own standard of living. Keep people with different skin color and a different language on the other side of the border in order to keep people like us wealthier. Bomb people in other parts of the world in order to make our own lives safer. Keep most of the African-American kids in the country in all-black schools that don't get nearly the funding they need to be decent places to go to school. So you get horrible all-black schools in East St. Louis and fabulous almost all-white suburban schools just a few miles away.

It's always been true with human beings. A hundred and fifty years ago, hundreds of thousands of people were coming to the United States from China to work. For example, high percentage of the workers who built the railroads through the west were Chinese. Until that time, the United States hadn't put many restrictions on who could come to this country. But then, most of those who came came from northern and western Europe. The Chinese folks looked different. And there were violent anti-Chinese riots by working people on the west coast. And by the late 1800's, federal laws were passed -- like the Chinese Exclusion Act -- which straightforwardly put racist restrictions on Chinese workers coming to America. And that's why we have a lot fewer ethnically Chinese people in this country than we would otherwise. Just like now we do that with people from Mexico and Central America.

There are different degrees of racism. And by racism, what I mean is to consider one's own racial group superior to enough racial group. And racism itself is really just one form of this very basic human sin: to see people in one's own group as more important than people in other groups. A word for that might be "tribalism." Tribalism.

A person's tribe is a group by which they define themselves. Sometimes it's done by skin color. Sometimes it's done by religion. Sometimes it's done by nationality.

The reason Barack Obama's father died is that, in Kenya, the Obama family is part of the Luo tribe. In Kenya in the 1960's, the Luo tribe lost out to another tribe in the fight over who would run Kenya. And so Obama's father -- despite his education and abilities -- lost his government job and influence. He got depressed. He started drinking too much. And he died in a car accident in his early 40's. He was trained to help run the country, but he had been of the wrong tribe.

In the 1990's, in the former Yugoslavia in southern Europe, the country divided into three tribes. They defined themselves by religion: Serbs, Croats, and Moslems. But lots of these folks weren't religious people. It was what they were by birth. They spoke the same language. They looked the same. But they were three tribes. And there was mass slaughter for most of the decade.

And so it goes. Shiites vs. Sunni Moslems in Iraq . Kurds vs. Turks in northern Iraq and eastern Turkey . Jews vs. Palestinians.

It's a human tendency. Races. Religious groups. Families. Kinds of people.

So does God have any opinion on all this?

Well, again, Jesus challenged people on precisely this issue. He looked for opportunities to let people know that God wasn't the God of any particular tribe. God was not the God of the Jews only, but of all people.

A few weeks ago, we focused together on remembering Jesus' death and resurrection.

And then a couple months after Jesus had been executed and returned to life, his followers had a wild experience. They were pretty much keeping to themselves. After all, the government had recently executed their leader. They weren't sure how safe it would be to go out in public much.

But then, when around a hundred of them were together in private, the spirit of God blew in on them like a wind. Imagine the windows open at home and then the wind picks up and blows into the house. One of the things that happened was that, immediately, these folks who'd known Jesus personally could talk about Jesus and be understood by people who spoke other languages. The very first thing, then, is that lines between tribes was broken down.

And these folks seem to have formed a single church, despite the language issues. There were difficulties.

The book of Acts is the story of the early Christians, and early on, it talks about the struggles between early Christians of different backgrounds. There were struggles. Human beings being human beings, there are always struggles when we share life together. And when we don't. Life isn't easy. So it isn't really a matter of whether of we have struggles and major challenges to deal with in life. It's more a matter of the extent to which we have struggles and major challenges that come from choosing Christ's path of absolute, unlimited, unconditional love for all.

No matter the paths we take, there are challenges and struggles. That's just life. The question is the extent to which our challenges and struggles are part of advancing the kingdom of God in the world.

And for those folks back then, they put in the time and effort to sort through a lot -- with the result that they more and more shared their lives with each other. Different backgrounds, different races, different languages, different cultures -- united by having caught a common wind of the Holy Spirit -- united by a common faith that the one true God is the loving, compassionate, serving God made known through Jesus.

They had among them a lot of economic struggles. We think we have struggles now, but those were the days before any government programs to help with financial emergencies. No food stamps or Medicaid or disability or anything. Now, a big part of the ways we live up to God's call to share with each other and care for each other is through government programs that draw on the resources of the whole society and that channel them to whoever needs them most.

The ones who spoke Greek felt like the widows and orphans among them weren't as well taken care of by the group as the widows and orpahns who spoke Aramaic. So they spent time sorting through it all together. They worked it out. It seems that they came to realize that it was a problem that the people in charge were all from one group: the Aramaic speaking folks who'd known Jesus personally. So part of the solution was to give authority over the money to the new people -- the Greek-speaking folks who hadn't known Jesus personally but had gotten into him.

This broadening of responsibility and power seems to have helped relationships in the group a lot. Those tribal barriers descreased. Less of "us" and "them."

The whole "us" and "them" thing -- not good. When the Holy Spirit found a way to bring different sorts of people together back then -- and the book of Acts is mostly the story of that happening -- when the Holy Spirit did that, it was God saying, "Among you humans who are all my children, there is to be no more 'us' and 'them.' There is to be only 'us.' You are all to be 'us' to each other. Sisters and brothers. One family without boundaries."

God pretty much seems to insist on that. This business of all kinds of people sharing life together regardless of biological relationships or race or culture or nationality -- it's not a side thing but part of the kingdom of God.

In fact, it's part of the very phrase: kingdom of God. Because we hear it so much, we're used to hearing about lots of different "kingdoms" in this world. France, China, Brazil, Mexico, the United States of America. Different countries, different kingdoms. But the borders between them are human creations that go in a different direction from God's kingdom. One kingdom, with one loving compassionate God over it all, and all people as part of it. That's the real lasting kingdom that matters. The others we shouldn't take too seriously but God's kingdom is already eternal and guaranteed.

Let me close with our Scripture reading as a great example of GOD's priorities about these things.

I mentioned that the Aramaic-speaking folks who'd known Jesus in person eventually named some Greek-speaking folks to handle the money to satisfy concerns that the Greek-speaking people in need among them weren't getting the financial help they needed. One of these Greek-speaking folks who handled the money for those in need was named Philip.

Philip was part of this early inclusion of different sorts of people -- different languages even -- into one visible community. God drew people like him in.

And then God used Philip to take another step. God sent Philip to a road. And there passed a man from Ethiopia. This guy was apparently a high official in the Ethiopian government whose official business had taken him through the land of the Jews. He'd picked up a Jewish Bible and was reading it when he passed by Philip.

Philip and the guy started talking. The guy had been reading about how someone would be battered and killed for the sins of others. That gave Philip a chance to talk with him about the whole thing with Jesus that had recently happened. The guy believed it and asked Philip to be baptize him right then and there. (That's how they always seem to have done it back then: right away, as soon as the person believed.)

This guy again was from Ethiopia. Ethiopia is a country in eastern Africa. And the people there have dark skins. They are black.

Now, race is sort of a thing that people have made up. The more direct sunlight a person is in, the better it is for their skin to be dark. And so people whose ancestors evolved in Africa are dark-skinned. People's ancestors evolved in northern Europe, where it's darker and cooler -- their skin is very light. And for people in between: their skin is in-between.

Skin color has to do only with how our skin is set up to handle the sun's rays. That's it.

But people sometimes make a big deal about it, though less and less, thank God.

But I just want to point out that God made a point of including people of different races in churches right away. Different religious backgrounds. Different cultures. The Holy Spirit made it happen -- telling the earliest Christians to do these things that would bring in different sorts of folks.

And for us today? We can be confident, I think, that the more we're a mix of people from different races and cultures and backgrounds -- the more excited God is about us. We actually seem to do pretty well at that here. We're a mix. And that is cool. It's God's way. It's important to God that we lay aside seeing ourselves as parts of other groups and tribes and instead see us part of just the human race who is universally loved and adored by the one true God made known in Jesus.

The kingdom of God is at hand. May the walls all come down.

God of Long-Term Good

Wed, 13 May 2009 13:42:19 GMT

5/3/09
God of Long-Term Good
Psalm 22

Fellow citizens of the kingdom of God,

I'd originally planned to take a sabbatical this summer. That would have meant about four months this summer doing something other than being pastor of Pleasant View. The purpose would be to kind of re-charge my batteries for my service here. Well, for several reasons, my sabbatical has been moved to next year -- 2010.

If it had been this year, my plan was to focus my time on non-churchy stuff. Jesus didn't focus particularly on official church things. He hung out where people were, regardless of whether they were seen as religious people. He befriended folks in all kinds of situations -- including some situations that seemed so non-religious that some religious folks criticized him for it.

So my plan was to spend my sabbatical trying to do that sort of thing here in and around Mt. Pleasant.

As part of my sabbatical that was going to attempt to follow Jesus in rejecting the false lines people sometimes draw between church people and other people -- because really we're all just people, messed-up children of God in different ways -- as part of working at that, my plan was to begin my sabbatical by getting a couple tattoos. I may still do that this summer.

I've been thinking about this for quite a while. And what I've been imaging is the word "truth" down my right arm and the word "grace" down my left arm. Truth and grace -- those are probably the two basic things in my understanding of the kingdom of God. So some people get pictures. Some people get Chinese symbols for words. Me: I've been thinking I'll just go straightforward with "truth" and "grace."

And it'll also give everyone in the congregation something new to talk about! People will say, "What's new at your church?" And you can say, "Our crazy pastor went and got himself tattooed!"

Now, I've heard people say that once you start getting tattoos, it's pretty easy to get hooked on it. Myself, being the think-ahead kind of person I am, I haven't even gotten any yet, and I'm already thinking about my next one.

You know that symbol for infinity that looks like a number eight on its side? The past few weeks, I've been thinking about maybe getting one of those, too. Because I'm not sure if "truth" and "grace" alone does well enough at summing up my understanding of the kingdom of God. For it to really work, I think I probably need to have "infinity" in there.

And here's why. In the short term, that God is the God of truth and grace isn't necessarily all that comforting. In the short term, I think I'd prefer a God of power who fixes problems.

There's a lot of terrible stuff in the world -- not just small problems but horrible problems. Horrible diseases. People suffering in hideous ways. People doing just awful things to other people.

For example, there are parts of the world today -- for example in parts of the Muslim world -- where people can basically be killed for marrying someone that their family doesn't want them to. It might be officially against the law in those countries, but no one ever goes to jail when both men and women -- and especially women and girls -- get executed by their own families for marrying against their family's will.

A year or so ago, there was lovely footage of just such a murder on Youtube. A 19-year-old woman, in the northern part of Iraq, the Kurdish part, being stoned to death by the men of her family and village for going off and marrying a guy from the wrong group. "Honor killings" they are sometimes called. Honor killings. That's just one small example.

Or another bigger example: just this past week in the country of Sri Lanka, the government of Sri Lanka has been trying to finish off the rebels in a long civil war in that country. The rebels are holding out in a heavily populated area, basically using those non-soldiers as shields. The government of Sri Lanka seems to have responded by bombing that area without mercy -- regardless of whether hundreds of thousands of non-soldiers are stuck in the middle. It's going on at this very moment on the other side of the world.

And of course that's just a large-scale in-the-news sort of thing. Very serious and genuinely horrible things are going on in the lives of individuals all around us. Horribly unfair things happening to people. Things that are not gracious. Situations in which the truth does not win out. Things that just seem like too much if God is powerful and really cares.

I don't need to give examples of those sorts of things. We all know well those kinds of situations. And for some of us, to varying degrees, we're going through them ourselves right now.

Our Scripture reading for this morning is from Psalm number 22. Each of the psalms is a poem or song written a long time ago. Later, they got collected into a collection we called "the psalms," kind of like our hymnals are collections of songs. This one -- number 22 -- is pretty intense! It was written around a thousand years before Jesus was even born. And Jesus himself quoted from it during some of the hard times he himself experienced on earth.

It's begins with words Jesus quoted from the cross, "My God, my God. Why have you forsaken me?" And it goes on, "Why are you so far from saving me, so far from the words of my groaning?"

Any experiences yourself of crying out to God for help, yet not getting help?

It goes on, "O my God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer." It goes on about some related issues of suffering. Being made fun of by others. Feeling alone. In verse eleven, the writer prays to God, "Do not be far from me, for trouble is near, but there is no one to help." And then it uses the image of being surrounded by vicious wild animals -- hungry dogs and lions.

And then the writer says, "I can count all my bones. People stare at me." Relate?

People sometimes quote Bible verses during hard times. Usually the verses people quote have to do with God being with them. But when Jesus was on the cross, there's one Bible verse he quoted. This one. Psalm 22. "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

Sometimes we Christians kind of sugarcoat things. We maybe say things like, "God will take care of you. God will keep you safe." But we don't know that. Jesus himself -- God on earth -- announced that he felt that God had left him alone to suffer.

Now, there are promises in this Psalm, too. Verse 24 says, "God has not despised the sufferings of the afflicted . God has not hidden his face from them, but has listened to their cry for help."

And Jesus himself said things like, "Blessed are those weep now. For they will be comforted. Blessed are those who are hungry now, for they will be filled." Jesus promised that the last will be first -- that those in prison and hungry and sick and beaten down and treated unjustly would be lifted up. But we look around and maybe even in our own lives, where is that?

I have a friend who used to be a pastor. One of the people in his congregation, an older woman but not someone they expected to die, was in the hospital for major surgery. My friend told this woman's daughter that her mother would be all right. But instead, the woman died during surgery. The woman's daughter told my friend, the pastor, "You said she'd be all right." And my friend, the pastor, says, "I shouldn't have said that. And I'll never say that to someone again."

Horrible, unjust, evil things happen to people in the world all the time. That's how it was three thousand years ago when this psalm was written. That's how it was when Jesus was executed and quoted this psalm during his execution. And that's how it is now for all those who can identify with crying out to God for help but not getting help.

God loves people? God cares about people? Well, then what about all the horrible things that happen to people?

One thing Jesus did not do was sugarcoat that sort of thing. Why? people ask. Why? why? why? we cry out. And so often, there seems to be no adequate answer. Just horrible stuff.

Jesus didn't sugarcoat that reality. God is the God of truth, not lies. God doesn't say that evil stuff is okay. Jesus did not say that it was okay when he was crucified, either. He said that he felt abandoned and alone. He spoke for an awful lot of people who suffer in an awful lot of ways. Truth -- that's what I'm going to have down my right arm, remember. The truth is, often enough, horrible.

The other day, I was in the car and, on the radio, there was another story about what's happening in Sri Lanka -- blanketing civilian areas with heavy artillery -- and I turned the radio off. It was too much for me. The truth was too much for me -- too horrible for too many people.

The word "truth," though, is what I'm thinking I'll have down my right arm. Simone Weil -- a Christian writer from around seventy years ago who impresses me -- she said that she thought that God wants us to love truth more than we love God. God wants us to love truth more than we love God. Because if we love God more than truth, there's a very good chance that what we really love is a false idea of God. But if we love truth most of all, the truth will lead us to the true God.

Truth.

But when will truth -- the honest truth that we don't hide from -- when will it fit with a God of absolute grace. That's what I'm thinking for my left arm, remember: "grace." Grace is about unconditional acceptance and embrace and care for all. That is the God of Jesus. The God of Jesus is the God of grace. But when will grace and truth fit together?? When will the promise be fulfilled that those who mourn will smile, and those who hunger will be filled. As it says in verse 26 -- "the poor will eat and be satisfied." When will every people fully experience the grace of God in every way?

It's that question that leads me to think that if I'm going to tattoo my theology on myself, I need one more thing: something like the symbol for infinity. Time that goes on and on. Eternity.

Now, eternity of the same would for some be fine and for some be unbearable. And for many, it would be in between. But eternity as the same is not what Jesus talked about. He talked about change -- both now and over the long term. Reversal of fortune. You could see it around him in how he did heal the sick and lift up the humble and accept those who'd been rejected. But for things to be right in a full sense, a longer term than this life seems necessary.

How long term? Well, going from the age of the universe, God is in no rush. Our planet, the earth, seems to be around 4.5 billion years old. And even that goes only around halfway back to the beginning of the universe. We're talking billions of years here.

For over a hundred million years, there were dinosaurs all over this planet. For over a hundred million years! How long have humans dominated the earth? A few thousand years only. One million equals a thousand thousands. Dinosaurs dominated the earth for hundreds of thousands of thousands of years. Us? A few thousand so far. Much less than one tenth of one percent of the time of dinosaurs. So what does long term look like to the God of the dinosaurs?

The continents on our planet -- like North and South America. They actually move very, very slowly. Like a couple inches a year or something. Think about a couple inches compared to, like, our hymnbooks. Seems like nothing. Who cares?

But, over the hundreds of millions of years in the history of the earth, the continents have drifted all over the planet. They used to be in different places. They used to all be attached. And then they split apart and drifted all over the earth -- a couple inches a year.

The Rocky Mountains are the biggest mountains in North America because they're the newest ones and haven't been worn down yet. The tallest mountains in the world are in south central Asia because what's now the country of India used to be a giant separate continent like Australia that collided -- a couple inches a year -- into the rest of Asia and pushed up Mount Everest and the rest of the tallest mountains in the world.

It's hard to believe. And yet, it's true.

God seems to be open to things developing over the long term.

Has anyone here seen the movie Groundhog Day ? It's a movie from around fifteen years ago. The main character in it is a weather man. He's selfish and not all that good a guy. His station assigns him to cover Groundhog Day in Pennsylvania. He does, and when he wakes up the next day, it's Groundhog Day again. Exactly the same day. And the same thing happens again. And again. And again. The same day. The same situations. The same people around him. The same choices. Over and over.

At first, he rebels. He does crazy stuff like kidnapping the groundhog and driving over a cliff with it.

And then, when he keeps waking up to the same day, he goes through a phase of trying to take advantage of it. He impresses people by knowing all the answers to the Jeopardy show on TV. He gets some personal information from an attractive woman in a diner one day so that, when he relives the day, he can use it to seduce her.

But eventually, he accepts how things are -- that he's going to just keep living the same day over and over. He learns to play the piano, getting a lesson every day from a local piano teacher. He learns how to be especially kind in a meaningful way to each of the different people around him. He learns how to stop taking advantage of people and instead to relate to them as valuable in themselves.

And then, and only then, finally, the next day comes. It's not Groundhog Day anymore. He's gotten it right. He's learned all the lessons.

I don't know, but I suspect that, eternity is going to be a lot like that. This life is not the real thing, to be followed by sitting on the clouds. Instead this life is just the first steps in a journey that will go on forever. And over the long term -- maybe the VERY long term -- truth and grace will fully come together.

Jesus was Jewish. Most Jewish people of his time believed in resurrection, which means that they believed that God would bring back to life those who died. Their Bible -- like ours -- began with the story of creation which says that God didn't intend for people to die. People only died because they separated themselves from God's care. And by becoming one of us in Jesus, it seems that part of what God did was reunite God and people in a way that offers life to all. As the early Christian Paul wrote, "In Adam, all died. In Christ, all receive life."

Jesus didn't just live among people who believed that life continues forever. He himself taught it. He said a lot of things about it. He said that the people's ancestors -- Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob -- were still alive. He talked specifically about resurrection. And then God gave a sign by having Jesus -- God on earth -- both die and rise again.

So maybe we have the right perspective to the extent we can think long term. Our own mistakes and other people's mistakes aren't such a huge deal. There's eternity to figure it out and correct it and grow.

I remember, when I was in high school, my mother worrying that I never had a girlfriend. She'd give me ideas for dates and suggested girls I should ask out. But I never did in any serious way. But several years later, I ended up somehow successfully getting involved with and marrying Ruth Ann. So, my mother's nervousness about my lack of a social life -- not necessary.

That was really an exception. My parents usually both let me try all kinds of things and make all kinds of mistakes. For example, basketball had always been my sport. But my sophomore year of high school, I decided to join the wrestling team instead. I had hopes of one day becoming a professional wrestler, so this seemed to me to be a natural step. I turned out not to be a good wrestler. My first match ended in about 45 seconds. I did not win. In fact, it ended with me not just beaten but also bleeding.

We learn lessons in life. From pretty much everything. And if we think long term like God thinks long term -- like God who's older than the earth -- we can imagine that over the course of eternity, we'll learn a lot of lessons. If we learn a good lesson every million years, well, that's a hundred lessons every hundred thousands years!

And while endlessness might seem frightening, like for the guy in the movie Groundhog Day , sooner or later, we'll come to accept it and go with it.

Things can be genuinely horrible. That's the truth and no need to deny that. But that's short-term.

It's over the long term -- millions of years, billions of years -- that grace and truth will come together.

God has time. And God seems to have seen to it that we do, too.

Everyone God's ever made is still around. And we all have long interesting journeys ahead of us. See you on the path.

The Sweet Scent of Getting Along

Wed, 13 May 2009 13:41:44 GMT

4/19/09

The Sweet Scent of Getting Along

Psalm 133

Fellow citizens of the kingdom of God,

My wife Ruth Ann grew up on a dairy farm. Then she went off to college. Not far from where she went to college, she had cousins who had their own dairy farm.

These cousins of hers like to tell the story of when Ruth Ann came out to visit them after being in college for several months. She got out of the car on their dairy farm, went into their dairy barn -- which smelled like dairy barns do -- inhaled the smell, and said, "Mmmmm. It smells so good!"

For Ruth Ann, it smelled like home.

Even today, when I want to put Ruth Ann in an especially good mood, I put on my dairy-barn-scented cologne.

People like different scents.

Among the many weird things about me is that I like the smell of skunk. Most people don't like it. Skunks smell that way, in fact, to get other animals to leave them alone. But I like the smell. I seem to be the only one who likes how Caleb's pet ferrets smell, too. What can I say? There's something in me that likes the smell of wild weasel-like creatures.

How about for you? If you think about smells that you especially like, what comes to mind?

Well, our Scripture reading this morning uses the image of good smells to talk about how it is to God when people get along well.

And it's not just this Scripture reading. When God walked the earth as Jesus, Jesus made that clear.

I think it's fair to say that the two main things Jesus did were, number one, show love to people as they were, and, number two, teach people how to love others the same way. Jesus used his own time and personality and abilities to love people -- whoever they happened to be. And he instructed us all to do the same -- with our own time and personality and abilities.

The label he gave for all this love -- love from God toward people and love from people toward each other -- the label he gave to it was, "The kingdom of God."

And when he said, "The kingdom of God is at hand ," central to what he meant was that God loves us and all people absolutely already AND that people can more fully experience all that life can be to the extent people love the actual other people around them the same way -- God's way, absolutely, with no judgment, but with lots of compassion.

"The kingdom of God is at hand!" You are God's precious child, now, as you are. God accepts you and is committed to you now, as you are. And so is everyone else! So now, to the extent we accept and commit to the real people around us, as they are, we enter now into all life is meant to be. The fullness of life is as close as the actual people God brings into our lives.

Do you want fullness of life? Jesus showed what a full human life looks like. He showed the way and the truth and the life. And he didn't find fullness of life in material possessions or in success or in safety or in stability or in a long life or in a family of his own. Those are places people naturally seek fullness of life, but Jesus looked for it and found it elsewhere. Jesus found fullness of life in going all out to love the actual person in front of him, whoever it was.

When Jesus was arrested the day before his execution, one of his followers tried to defend him. This follower of Jesus, a guy named Peter, he'd known that the authorities might come after Jesus, and so Peter was carrying a sword. And when the police came to arrest Jesus, Peter pulled out his sword to fight. Out of commitment to Jesus, Peter was ready to kill those who'd been sent to hurt Jesus.

And that is a sort of a love. We can probably all identify with the instinct of wanting to protect the people we most care about. But Jesus knew that real love goes even further. Real love is unconditional and, therefore, for everyone -- whether they're the one we know well or the person who might harm the one we know well.

So those folks who came to arrest him, Jesus didn't see them as enemies or opponents. He saw each of those people as beloved children of God. And so he didn't want to see them harmed either.

Jesus' follower Peter was quite willing to harm those folks to help Jesus. Peter took a swing with his sword and hit one of these folks in the side of the head, cutting off his ear. But Jesus, even though his own life and the life of his followers was in danger, would have none of it. He told Peter to put away his sword. And then Jesus picked up the guy's ear that had been sliced off and used his special powers as God's Son to reattach it to the guy.

Loving everyone in every situation -- that's what the kingdom of God is about AND that's what God created us for. It's only to the extent that's how WE live that our lives will be full. Fullness of life is to be found in being loved unconditionally and totally by God and in loving others that same way -- no matter who they are and no matter the cost.

That's what our Scripture reading is about. Our Scripture reading isn't anything real specific. It's from the book of Psalms, which were poems and songs mostly written about a thousand years before Jesus came into the world. They were sort of like the collections of hymns that we have.

This one is a little short one about people getting along. It says, "How good and pleasant it is when people live together in unity!" Now, instead of people, what it actually says is "brothers." As in: "How good and pleasant it is when brothers live together in unity."

But a couple things about that word "brothers."

For one thing, back then, it was common to use male language to cover everybody -- just like it used to be common in our language to use words like "mankind" or "mailman." So we can substitute "brothers and sisters," because there's no reason here to think that God's only happy when men get along.

But even more basic is why it uses a family word like "brothers" -- or "brothers and sisters." It's not talking about just people who are actually part of the same biological family. It's talking about all people who were children of God. Now, back three thousand years ago when this was written, they didn't think of all people as being children of God. It was only people who were part of the people of Israel -- which was basically one country.

Jesus, though, made clear that did not put limits on who were really children of God. Jesus made a point of including people from others parts of the world and even other religions. One of Jesus' followers Paul wrote later that it was sort of like God had grafted more branches onto a tree. In any case, for us since the time of Jesus, when we read "brothers and sisters" here, we can take that as meaning "people." "How good and pleasant it is when human beings live together in unity."

This psalm then gets into smells. It compares people living together as one to something with which it's original readers would've been familiar. There was a ceremony that was done back then in which the high priest -- the number one religious leader -- got scented oil poured all over him. There are specific commands back in the early parts of the Bible about how to doctor this oil so that it smells really good and special. This psalm says that people being as one is like that.

Now, to get a full sense of this symbolism, you have to keep something in mind: the ancient world did not smell good. The main form of transportation was on animals, who were all over the place and who lived at most everyone's home. There was no refrigeration. Also, there were no modern sewer systems. And finally, daily showers were not typical. The world back then did not smell good.

And so there were a lot of perfumes used. There are several stories in the Bible that feature perfume. The wise men from the east brought frankincense and myrrh to Jesus' family when he was born. These were perfumes. And in a smelly world, perfumes made life nicer. There are also a couple stories of people pouring perfume on Jesus' feet to show their appreciation for him. In that smelly world, that was a nice thing.

Now, I'm not sure if this was intended, but maybe part of the image here was to compare people NOT getting along as being like the normal smelly world. We human beings can get pretty unpleasant with each other. We can treat each other very badly -- in ways that can make you want to turn away. So if that's the alternative, then for God, us getting along is like the sweet smell of really good perfume -- like the oil that got poured on the head of the high priest.

Imagine smelling a scent you really like. That's what loving, Christ-like relationships between people are like to God.

And now imagine a terrible smell. I'm not going to make suggestions on this one, but imagine the sort of odor that makes you stomach turn. The kind of odor that makes you want to throw up. That's what judgmental, selfish ways of relating to others are like to God.

Imagine God up in heaven breathing in the scents of how people relate to each other on earth. How do you think it would smell to God? What mix of unconditional, compassionate love on one side and judgmental, selfish stuff on the others? How much is it the sickening odor of grudges and taking advantage of others? And how much is it the sweet fragrances of forgiveness and caring for others?

We are all, by how we relate to others, part of generating the smell that rises up.

So how can we make it smell good?

Again, Jesus Christ showed, by his teachings and by his example, how best to relate to other people -- that is, he showed what love really looks like.

But let's be honest, it can be hard to love people anywhere close to that way. People have issues. People get can on our nerves. So here are a few thoughts on how to move closer toward loving people in Christ-like ways. We won't get there anywhere close to perfectly, but, if, on a scale of one to ten, we can go from a three to a five in Christ-like love for others, that's a huge deal.

One important thing is to remember that while other people have issues and can get on our nerves, we have issues, too. And we can get on other people's nerves. We don't smell so sweet all the time ourselves.

The more honest we are about our own personality traits that make it hard for others to get along with us, the less we'll feel like judging others. Pointing out annoying things about others is the easiest thing in the world to do. But news flash: it's also easy for others to do about each of us -- including you. So if we look at our own difficult personality traits first, then we're likely to be more compassionate toward others. We're all a bunch of imperfect, sometimes annoying people.

Another thing that can help get along with folks more lovingly is to see differences as things that make life more interesting. You've probably heard that expression that difference is the spice of life. When we see people's differences from us as a problem, we're setting things up for unpleasant relationships. But when we see people's differences from us as something interesting , we open up many more possibilities.

For me, that's been one of the valuable things about studying personality types. I've learned that there are lots of different ways to be normal and okay. There isn't just one right way to be. For example, some of us like structure more and some of us like to keep things more open. There's not a right or wrong in that sort of thing, just difference -- difference that can make life more interesting than if everyone was just the same.

Even personality traits that could be really annoying can become interesting this way. Like on TV shows -- sometimes my favorite characters to watch have personalities that, if they were real people I was dealing with, I'd just become upset.

One type of person that I can have a hard time with is someone who thinks they have the only right way of doing things and that anyone else is an idiot. But a couple of my favorite TV characters are just those kinds of people. For those who know the shows, I'm thinking of Red Foreman on That Seventies Show and Carrie's dad on King of Queens. On those shows, those characters are played for laughs. And to the extent I can see the humor in people's personalities, it's a lot easier to just enjoy them.

So you might want to try that with the folks who most upset you. Maybe try imagining them as a character in a sit-com on TV.

Here's a more serious suggestion. I'm convinced that maybe THE key to loving relationships with others is being who we are while also letting them be who they are. That means that not trying to control others or putting conditions on my love for them. But it also means that I am who I am no matter how they feel about it. I am who I am and you are who are, and I won't try to control you and I won't let you control me.

That's how Jesus was. He didn't try to control people. He sometimes tried to talk them into things. That's different. And he gave them a good example. But he didn't try to control them. And he also didn't let other people control him.

So then, the ways you're different from me don't really bother me because I'm not responsible for changing you. My responsibility is just to love you. When we give up the desire to change people and make them a certain way, love is a lot easier. Real love is as the person is -- no pressure to make them be something else.

Finally, sometimes it can help us to love people if we understand how they ended up the person they are. Now, all of us human beings are complicated and kind of mysterious. But by learning about a person's life, we can also get some sense of why they are the way they are, including the annoying things about them.

Take me, for example. Try picturing me as the little child I once was. Instead of picturing me as an adult, instead try to picture me when I was eight. In my 3rd grade school picture, I look an awful lot like Mr. Spock from the TV show Star Trek. I think I was trying to. I was so cool.

Picture me as the little, non-athletic, weird-looking kid who got by with his brain and his mouth. Now, I'm a lot bigger and older now, but in a lot of ways, that kid is still the core of the person I am. I learned how to survive in the world back then. And those lessons, for better and for worse, have stuck with me.

We all learn how to survive in the world early on. The things that help us survive become the core of who are as individuals. And if we see each other as the scared, insecure, just trying to survive kids we used to be -- we maybe can have more compassion for the more difficult things about each other's personalities.

And of course, it can help to remember both that each of us is God's precious, beloved child forever AND that the other person always is, too. And that fullness of life involves loving even them, always, whoever they are.

To the extent we human beings ARE accepting and compassionate -- unconditionally loving -- toward each other, the kingdom of God is at hand.

God Is the God of Jesus -- How Strange

Wed, 13 May 2009 13:40:55 GMT

Easter
4/12/09
God IS the God of Jesus -- How Strange
Mark 16:1-8

Fellow citizens of the kingdom of God,

As you know, we had a hope -- or at least I had a hope -- that it might work out to have a fireworks show this evening to mark the anniversary of Jesus' resurrection. I really tried to make it happen. This past week, I talked with various officials in our city government here in Mount Pleasant. I now have in my phone the cell numbers of officials from our town Park and Rec department and from our fire department.

In the end, as near as I could tell, we could have gotten a permit to have the fireworks display at McMillan Park if only our church insurance company would've certified that they'd cover us -- in case, you know, we accidentally started a fire that burnt down the town.

Our insurance company was reluctant to give that certificate. Although our agent was very friendly and helpful, the mysterious folks in the insurance company's "underwriting" department had some issues. In the end, there wasn't time to get everything taken care of.

So, I'm kind of bummed about that.

But I'm thinking of this as a postponement rather than a cancellation. My new hope: the next big church day, May 31st, which will be Pentecost Sunday -- the anniversary of God adding all kinds of new folks into the community of Jesus' original followers.

There'd be a few advantages to Pentecost over Easter. For one, we'll have more time to sort out the whole insurance thing. For another, it'll be warmer. But also -- and this is why I mention it this evening -- having a public display on Pentecost rather than Easter is a better reflection of what actually happened a couple thousand years ago.

A fireworks show would be something that wouldn't just be for us. It would be for whoever's interested. It would be a public display -- a public celebration.

And if you look at the story that's our Scripture reading for today, you'll see that on that first Easter Sunday, there was no celebration. There was no public display.

These folks had just seen Jesus executed. And it doesn't sound like any of them expected him to return to life. For all Jesus' followers, Jesus' execution showed that he was NOT the Son of God. For all Jesus' original followers, that Jesus was given the death penalty showed that all the things Jesus had said and done were NOT really from God. Because how could God's messenger on the earth just got crushed like that? How could GOD on earth just get beaten by regular human beings?

So that's what they'd decided.

And when a few of the female followers of Jesus came to his grave two days after his execution, it wasn't with any hope. It was to take care of his body. He'd been put in a grave in a rush on Friday afternoon, because Saturday was a religious day of rest for them. Then on Sunday morning -- which was like Monday is for most of us, the first day of the work week -- on Sunday, they went to finish the job of burying him respectfully. No hope of anything more than that.

And then, the grave was open. Jesus' body wasn't there. And some sort of messenger from God -- angels or something -- told these folks that Jesus was alive again.

And what did they do? Did they celebrate? No, it seems that they were puzzled. They were confused. Our Scripture reading for today says that the angels told them to spread the news to Jesus' other followers, but they didn't. Because they were afraid. Probably, it would be more accurate to say that the whole thing just freaked them out. No celebration right away.

Other of Jesus' followers even saw Jesus himself. Jesus talked with them. Ate a few meals with them. But still, it was all just too bizarre.

In fact, it took about a month and a half for them to be ready to go public with the whole thing. For about a month and a half, they just tried to figure out among themselves what it all meant.

When they finally did go public, it was on the day of another Jewish celebration: the day of Pentecost. So that's why I'm realizing that, actually, Pentecost might be a more appropriate day for us to have a public celebration of the kingdom of God. Maybe a public display -- like a fireworks show -- would be a better anniversary of Pentecost. Because on the first Easter -- and for quite a while after -- Jesus' followers wouldn't have even known what to celebrate. It was just STRANGE.

So what DID it mean? What did it mean that the same Jesus who'd been executed on Friday was alive again two days later?

Well, you hear different answers to that question. That it means that Jesus died for our sins. That it means that Jesus defeated death. I think those things are right, but too narrow a focus.

Here's how I'd sum up the meaning of Jesus coming back to life right after being executed: it means that Jesus was right. It means that God really is who Jesus said he was. It means that life is really about what Jesus said it was. God letting Jesus die and then bringing him back to life was partly God's way of saying, Jesus is for real. He's right.

So what do you find most attractive about what Jesus said and what he did? Easter is, among other things, the anniversary of the day on which God told the world, "Yep. Jesus was right. Jesus really was me, God, on earth. His words were mine. His actions showed what I'm like."

Jesus had summed up his message and his actions with the phrase "The kingdom of God is at hand." The kingdom of God is at hand. For Jesus, that seemed to mean especially that God was coming close to all people in the world with absolute love.

"The kingdom of God is at hand" meant that Jesus lived as a poor and powerless person and told people straight out that God is especially concerned with the situations of every person is poor and powerless. Absolute love for those in need. And then, "the kingdom of God is at hand" meant that Jesus also upset people by hanging out with the richest people around, who got rich by taking advantage of everyone in unfair ways. Absolute love for the worst criminals -- those who got rich by mistreated those who didn't have power to stop them.

So one of the things amazing to me about the absolute love Jesus taught and lived out -- one of the things that made it ABSOLUTE love -- is that, because it was for everyone, it refused to choose between people. It loved those who were poor because they were mistreated. AND it loved those who were hated because they were the ones who did the mistreating.

The resurrection of Jesus -- Jesus coming back to life -- one thing it means, a big thing, is that GOD is like that. It means that the real God has absolute love for each person and refuses to choose between us.

One time, someone came to Jesus and said, "Jesus, my father died, and my brother isn't being fair with me in dividing the property. Can you help?" And Jesus' reply: "Who made me the judge?"

So at the same time, Jesus said, "The kingdom of God is at hand." God's ways had come close. And at the same time, he said that he refused to judge between people. And this whole idea of not judging was a big deal. For one thing, he just said to his followers, "Do not judge." "None of you are so perfect yourself. Worry about yourself. You shouldn't be judging anyone else." Isn't it interesting that Christians sometimes get the reputation of being judgmental, when Jesus Christ -- from whom Christians get their name -- said, "Don't judge"?

"No judgment" said Jesus. Did someone sin against you? Forgive them! Did someone take something from you? Let them have it! Give them even more than they took! Did someone mistreat you? Pray for God to bless them! No judgment. Don't decide between people. Choose everyone!!!

In fact, that might be a good way to sum up the message of Jesus: God chooses everyone! The kingdom of God is that kingdom of the God who chooses everyone. The kingdom of God's like a party, said Jesus, and everyone's invited! If some people are too snobby to come, well, we'll focus on those who are excited to be included. But God chooses everyone!

Jesus had taught that. Jesus had lived it out. And then, he came back to life right after being killed which showed that, yep, it wasn't just Jesus. It's God. God chooses everyone!

And Jesus coming right back to life showed also that the things Jesus taught about how to live really had come from God all along. It was the same basic message that Jesus taught and lived out about God. God chooses everyone! Now you, if you're going to try to live as God made you to live, you love choose everyone, too.

The kingdom of God is at hand. That partly meant that the time of God choosing everyone has begun. And it's now. The kingdom of God being at hand also meant -- and means -- that to the extent we lovingly chose everyone, we're experiencing now life as we're made to live it.

The whole business of seeing who measures up, of who deserves what -- that's so not the kingdom of God. Jesus' resurrection showed that "who deserves what" does not matter. Every person is a beloved child of God forever, and that's what matters. And that's what he wants to matter to us, too.

Jesus' own death showed this. Of course he could have fought back against the people who came to arrest him and kill him. He was Jesus. He could have used his special powers and zapped them all. But he didn't. Because he didn't seem to see them as his enemies. He saw them, too, as beloved children of God. He chose them, too. And so, he wouldn't fight them.

Sure, they killed him. But it wasn't anything that lasted. The absolute love of the kingdom of God turns out to be much, much stronger than death.

Imagine a gun to God's head, and the person holding the gun saying, "Okay, I'm tired of you not choosing between people. Choose!" And God saying, "No."

God -- Jesus -- could have chosen. God -- Jesus -- could have decided that those who opposed him enough to kill him would be destroyed. But God -- Jesus -- wouldn't do it. And so God -- Jesus -- was executed. And came right back. And when his followers saw it, it was just weird to them.

They thought and thought about what it all meant. And we're all still thinking about it. It has to do with God choosing everyone -- with no exceptions -- even those who tried to destroy God. God responded to their opposition with: absolute love for them, too.

A few years back, a group of churches kicked out one of their churches because this one church included openly gay and lesbian people as full members. This church that got kicked out, among other things, responded with a poem. And that poem reflects well the nature of the kingdom of God as made known by Jesus -- the nature of the kingdom of God that was shown on that first Easter to be for real.

This is the poem:

You drew a line that put me out:
Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout.
But love and I had the wit to win.
We drew a line that put you in.

The good news of that first Easter is that the God made known through JESUS, the God who has lovingly drawn a line to put all people in, is who God really is.

The kingdom of that one, true God who chooses everyone is for real now -- and forever. Kind of puzzling maybe, but good . And the more we understand it, the better we realize it is. The more we understand it, the more we realize that God's even nicer than we'd thought.

Salvation by the Power of Love Alone

Wed, 13 May 2009 13:40:05 GMT

3/22/09
Salvation by the Power of Love Alone
Mark 13:21 -23 & Mark 14:43-50

Fellow citizens of the kingdom of God ,

So when God came into the world through Jesus, on the one side, Jesus didn't seem to care much at all what religion a person was.

In his time, the religion that focused on the Bible was the Jewish religion. Jesus himself was Jewish. His parents were Jewish. All his earliest followers were Jewish. About eighty percent of the Christian Bible now was also the Jewish Bible then -- that part that we call the Old Testament, which is about eighty percent of it. The Jewish religion was the religion based on what we call the Old Testament, and Jesus, from the beginning of his life to the end, was part of that religion.

But while Jesus was very Jewish, he also didn't seem to care what religion a person was. Even though most of the people in that part of the world back then were Jewish like him, he made a point of reaching out to people who were not Jewish.

For example, he came across a Roman soldier serving in the area. This guy would have been a different religion. Or actually, the way it was for most Romans is that they worshipped lots of different gods at the same time. And so, when this Roman soldier had a beloved servant who was dying, he asked Jesus for help. He'd heard that Jesus could heal sick people. Jesus was so impressed with the confidence this guy showed in Jesus' ability to heal that Jesus said, "I haven't seen faith like this guy has even among Jewish people." That, again, is what Jesus said publicly about a guy who everyone would have known was part of other religions.

Another time, a non-Jewish woman came seeking Jesus' help to heal her daughter, who was dying. First, Jesus had a short discussion with her about whether God should help non-Jewish people, but I guess he was just testing her or messing with her. Because then he said again, "I haven't seen faith like woman has even among Jewish people." This woman has more real faith than people who HAVE the Bible and who have the right religion.

And then another time, a Jewish religious teacher, a Bible expert, asked Jesus what it took for a person to live forever. Jesus said, "You know what it says in the Bible. What does it say?" And this Bible teacher said, "It talks about loving God with all our power and loving our neighbor as ourselves."

And Jesus said, "There you go. Do that."

And the Bible expert said, "Well, who counts as my neighbor?"

And to that, Jesus told what's sometimes called the story of the Good Samaritan. Samaritans were people of another religion. It would be like Muslims are to Christians now. Sort of related, but with both groups considering themselves different religions. So this Bible teacher had asked what a person had to do to live forever. And that had led to the question of what other people we're supposed to love.

And then Jesus said, "Well, imagine that there was an injured Jewish person, beaten up beside the road. And a Bible expert like you comes by, and then walks on. And a Jewish priest comes by, and then walks on. And a Jewish community leader comes by him laying there, but walks past. And then a Samaritan -- a person of another religion -- comes by and sees the hurt man. This Samaritan takes the hurt man to a hospital, pays the man's medical bills, and gives the hospital his contact information to pay any more medical expenses that come up."

And then Jesus asked the Bible expert, "So who was the loving neighbor to the injured man."

And the Bible expert couldn't bring himself to say, "The Samaritan." So he said, "The one who helped him."

"Yes," said Jesus, "Now you go and do likewise."

Remember again, that conversation begins with a Bible expert asking who will live forever and ends with Jesus telling about a loving person of a different religion.

In ways that challenged most of the folks around him, Jesus broadened relationship with God beyond just people of his own religion.

As I often mention -- and this, to me, is a very interesting thing that happened to Jesus -- this very topic is the one that got the religious people in Jesus' hometown to drag him out of church and try to kill him. He said to his home congregation that he'd come from God with good news of God's help for people, and they liked that. But then he said that the people God would help very much included people of different religions, too. And so they flipped out on him, dragged him out, and tried to throw him off a cliff.

And Jesus also made a point of including people who really had no religion at all. I'm talking about the folks who didn't present themselves as even trying to keep God's commands. People who we'd probably say were non-religious -- or who at least looked like it by some of the choices they made about how to live. Religious people often criticized Jesus for the ways he included those folks. To some religious leaders, he even once said, "The prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you."

Jesus didn't much seem to care what religion a person was officially a part of, or whether they were religious at all. He seemed to think other things were important. Things like a person's humbleness before God and other people. And things like a person's love for other people, no matter who those other people were.

But as for a person's religion or lack of one, I get the impression from Jesus that he thought a focus on that was missing the point. Religion might in some ways help the things that were really important. Or religion might in some ways hurt the things that were really important. But either way, religion itself was more a side thing when it came to a person's relationship with God and their participation in what Jesus called "the kingdom of God ."

So what do these sorts of things that Jesus said and did mean to people today?

Well, on their own, they seem to me to suggest that Jesus -- and therefore God -- doesn't much care what religion a person is. To the extent a person's religious beliefs and traditions lead them to be humble toward God and not to look down on others and instead to love others, then those religious beliefs and traditions are helpful. And to the extent a person's religious beliefs and traditions lead them to be proud and judgmental and selfish, then those religious beliefs and traditions are a problem. But it's not the religious beliefs and traditions themselves that matter really. What matters are the things that come out of them in a person's attitudes and decisions -- not whether a person is Muslim or Jewish or Hindu or wiccan or an atheist or really doesn't much care about religion or if they're a Christian -- and if so, what KIND of Christian they are -- or whatever.

That's what the things Jesus had to say and do regarding religion suggest to me, when taking on their own. He lived among people who had some similar questions about what a person's religion had to be for them to be saved. And he really stretched them with the things he said and did regarding people of other religions and of no religion.

So that's the "on the one hand" part.

But then there's the "on the other hand" part. And on the other hand, there is, for example, the words of Jesus as recorded in our Scripture reading for today. The situation was that he was talking to his followers and trying to prepare them for some of the difficult things that they'd experience soon, but after he was gone.

Among other things, he warned them that there would be other people who were called "the anointed one" -- God's chosen one. In their language, the word for God's chosen one was "messiah." In the language of Greek, the word for God's chosen one was "Christ." He said that false Christs -- false chosen ones -- would come after him, trying to deceive people.

That pretty strong suggests that there is just one chosen one -- one "Christ," with a capital C.

Words like that help explain why many Christians through the centuries have thought that if Jesus was really the Son of God -- God's chosen one -- then any other religion must be false and against him. And Jesus did seem to say that -- that we should ignore or oppose any claims that there are, or have been, other Christs.

I remember I had a professor in college who talked about this sort of thing. And he said that if he gets to the gates of heaven, and it's Buddha sitting there instead of Jesus, he'll just admit he was wrong and go to hell.

Now, the real Buddha -- who was a real guy who lived earlier than Jesus -- he didn't claim that he'd decide who got into heaven. He seems to have seen himself more as a regular person who figured out what life is about. But we tend to see simplify things and see the founders of the popular religions as rivals of Jesus. Is it Jesus or Buddha or Mohammed, say?

And that's probably not a fair way to talk about Buddhism or Islam, since they don't see their founders as messiahs the way most Christians see Jesus.

But in any case, when Jesus talks about false messiahs, it sounds like he's maybe warning about other religions.

So how should we fit together Jesus saying something like, "Watch out for false messiahs -- false chosen ones -- who will try to deceive you" -- how are we supposed to fit that together with the ways that Jesus, in other teachings and in the ways he related to people, didn't seem to see a person's religion as very important?

There are different people try to put those together.

One way is to say that the name "Jesus" is key. It's the word "Jesus." If we call on the name "Jesus," we're in good shape. If we don't, we're not. Plenty of Christians understand it that way.

But then, what do we do with how Jesus seems himself to have been so shockingly open regarding what religion a person was -- in ways that upset a lot of the people who shared HIS religion? Do we say that just had to do with religions back then. But now, if a person is a Christian -- or at least the right kind of Christian -- they are right with God forever because of their religion and not right with God if they're not the right religion?

I want to share another possibility. And it has to do not by the name put on how God saves but on the method through which God saves.

Jesus presented God as saving the world through forgiveness and mercy and unconditional love. Jesus said that God's like a parent who is always committed to their children, no matter what -- no matter what suffering would be involved.

Now, we can probably imagine that sort of thing when it comes to a human parent and their children.

Plenty of people don't get it, but central to what everyone needs from their family is unconditional love and commitment. We need to know that our family is not going to let us go. We need to know that our parents are not going to let us go, that they'll accept us and embrace us always, no matter what.

Sometimes in parenting classes, parents learn all sorts of techniques -- how our children can learn more, how our children can be healthier, how our children can be better behaved. And those sorts of parenting techniques are certainly worth learning and putting to use. But at the absolute center of what matters in how we parent our children is unconditional love. No parent or grandparent does it perfectly, but to the extent a child knows in their heart that we are absolutely committed to them and accepting of them, no matter what -- that will be a foundation for a healthy and joyful life. And to the extent we have doubts about the limits of our family's acceptance of us and commitment to us, it will tend to mess us up.

And that's true in all relationships. Marriages, for example. If we're married, sometimes we may want to hear about the techniques that will change and control the person we're married to. Well, absolutely central to a marriage that's good for our partner long term is their knowing that we are unconditionally accepting of them and committed to them -- that they don't have to be a certain way -- that they don't have to have any kind of success in life -- that it's for better and for worth, for richer and for poorer, in sickness and in health -- and all that. That they don't have to worry that we will ever reject them or judge them. They can be totally themself around us. We may not like everything about them, but we will always accept and embrace THEM as people.

Unconditional love is the key to good, deep, meaningful relationships. The closer to unconditional the love is for the other person, the better, deeper, and more meaningful the relationship is likely to be -- and the more life-giving to the other person.

As it is with other relationships, so it is with God toward us human beings. For the relationship between the one true God and us human beings, the relationship is based on God's absolute unconditional love for us -- no matter what, no matter the price, to the end. That's what Jesus lived. And that's the salvation God showed through him.

Jesus had once had a conversation with his follower Peter about Jesus being the messiah, the Christ, God's chosen one. And Peter was all for it. But then Jesus said that it meant Jesus would be rejected and executed and then return to life. Peter was so freaked out by the executed part that he told Jesus that Jesus wasn't allowed to go that direction.

Peter said to Jesus, "You are the Christ," but then Peter didn't want Jesus to live out the truth of God's salvation -- unconditional love for all people. Peter wanted a different kind of Christ. Peter seems to have wanted a Christ who would save by power or by judgment or something like that. But that's now how God saves.

God brings us close only one way -- by being committed to us no matter the cost. Jesus' crucifixion was for the consequences of any sins anyone would ever commit -- whatever price anyone, including the worst sinner around, would ever commit, Jesus on the cross was showing that they didn't need to be punished for that. God would rather suffer for us than lose us. God loves each person more than God dislikes the worst things about us.

When Jesus' followers were with him during the last week of his life, things were coming to a head. The authorities had targeted Jesus as a problem, a trouble maker, someone they couldn't control. And so Jesus' followers freaked out -- in different ways.

Let me read Mark 14:43-50. Here was what it meant to be the messiah -- God's chosen one -- the true Christ. Going to die for the sins of the world. Jesus' followers Judas had already given up on him, and actually showed the authorities where Jesus was that night so they could arrest him. And Jesus' follower Peter was the one who pulled out his sword and tried to fight them. And then, it says, all of Jesus' followers deserted him and fled.

They wanted a different Christ. They wanted a Christ of earthly success. They wanted a Christ of power. They wanted a Christ who would judge others. They wanted a Christ who would favor people like them. They wanted a Christ of something other than unconditional love for all. But those were all false Christs.

And let me suggest that we consider the possibility that when Jesus himself -- God on earth -- warned about false Christs who would try to deceive people, he meant especially false ways of saving the world. God saves by unconditional love alone. Whatever else, whether it has the name Jesus on it or not, is not the way God has chosen.

Anything other than mercy and grace and unconditional love from God is a false way of salvation. There are not many ways to God. In fact, we might even say that there are NO ways TO God. But there is one way FROM God. And that way is the way of unconditional love for all, no matter the consequences, that we see God acting upon through the real Jesus.

The real Jesus -- God on earth -- refused to judge or destroy anyone but instead embraced us all people -- sinners though we are -- because he's in love with us all as we are. And that's the way FROM God, the truth OF God, and the life forever that God shares with people.

Ponder that, talk about it, pray about it, see what you think of that way of fitting together Jesus' warning against false Christs, on the one hand, with, on the other, his inclusive approach toward people apart from their religion.

I've suggested that what ties those two things together is God's absolute unconditional love for people that that's, at core, who Jesus Christ IS.

What do you think?

God Unchained

Wed, 13 May 2009 13:39:28 GMT

3/15/09

God Unchained

John 2:13-22

Sisters and brothers -- fellow citizens of the kingdom of God,

God has chosen to make all people God's people. And God has chosen to come to real people, with our messy real lives, as we are -- in love and compassion and acceptance. All people.

You hear sometimes about God being "holy." And we human beings are so unholy, right? At least I am. But God gets to decide what it means to be holy. And Jesus made clear that God decided that being holy means reaching out to all people with an unconditional love that's totally off the charts. The word "holy" means "separate." And God's separate all right. Separate by being more loving and accepting and committed that anyone else.

When God came to earth as Jesus, he found all sorts of ways to share that good news with the world. One of those ways was by setting aside the temple.

First some background -- but as I go through this background, keep in mind that this was all a set up for Jesus finding yet another way to let the world know that God is for everyone -- no matter who we are. Not a different message from Jesus' main message about the kingdom of God. This is the same message of God's absolute love for us and for all people -- just communicated in a different way. Jesus was very creative in finding different ways to share that good news.

All right: the temple. The temple was a huge building for honoring God.

It was like the big marble buildings in Washington, DC, that our country has its most special buildings. We have the Capitol Building, the White House, the Lincoln Memorial, the Washington Monument. Jesus' people pretty much just had this one big special building that people would go just to see -- as well as to honor God there. The temple.

Jesus' people were the Jewish people of two thousand years ago. God had made them into a people in the first place. Their ancestors had been slaves. But God intervened to get them out of slavery and give them their own land. That's the story of Moses. And God told them how to live in ways that both honored God and that treated each other right. They were God's chosen people. God was their God. Other countries served other gods. But they served the one true God -- God with a capital G.

This God -- the one true God -- had had their ancestors build a special temple. The temple was sort of like a house for God. They believed that God's everywhere, but they also believed that, in some important way, God was especially in this temple. At least as a symbol.

So the temple was like God's house. And then God came to earth through Jesus, and more or less trashed what was supposed to be God's own house. Why would God on earth trash God's own temple.

Two of the things people did at the temple were offer money and offer animal sacrifices. Long before, God had given their ancestors specific instructions that related to how people were to do this. I won't go into all the details now. I'll just say that to offer money and animals in the ways God had said to, people had to make some exchanged at the temple. There were people at the temple whose job it was to make those exchanges, so that those who wanted to honor God could have the right kind of coins and the right kind of animals.

The temple was divided into different parts. And as you walked into the entry area, one of the things you would have seen were stands where people could get the right sort of stuff to offer in the temple in the ways God had said to.

But then, when God came to earth as Jesus, Jesus knocked over the tables of the money changers and chased out the sacrificial animals. That would have shut down the operation of the temple for a little while, since acceptable coins and acceptable animals were needed for the temple to operate according to God's own commands.

So, what was the deal?

Here's what seems to have been going on. Now, at one level, maybe God really was annoyed that some merchants were making money off worshippers. It was like you had to pay an admission price to worship. But, I don't know, people had to sacrifice animals anyway, and that cost them money. And it was the people's own choice to buy their animals there rather than bring their own.

At a more basic level, I think, Jesus was symbolically showing that the time for temple was over. What the temple represented may have had its place for a short time in the past, but no more. A new time had come. And what the temple stood for was not part of the kingdom of God.

One of the things that the temple had stood for was that God is the God just of certain people. It was the people of Israel, who in Jesus' time were called "Jews." The ending of that didn't mean in any way that God would no longer be the God Jewish people. It meant that God had broadened it to include everybody. The Jewish thing had just been a short phase to prepare the way for Jesus.

For a short time, God worked especially through the Jewish people. But that was just to set the stage for God being the God of all people.

It's maybe a little like how Tom Vilsack used to live here in Mt. Pleasant. He was the governor of Iowa until a couple years ago. He kept his house here on Main Street when he was governor. But now that he's part of the national government, as secretary of agriculture, he's sold his house in Mt. Pleasant. He now lives in Washington, DC. Having his house here was a symbol that he was still a small town Iowan. But the time for that has past for him.

It served a purpose for a while for God to have a house in the land of the Jews. It was a step on the way to God's destination. But just a step. It was only for a while. The true home for God is all creation. And the true chosen people of God is not just certain people. It's all people.

When Jesus talked about God being like a loving parent, he talked about it as though all people, however they live and whatever they believe, are God's children. Some are more troublesome children than others, but they're still God's children. Just like our own children are still ours even when they upset us. Loving parents don't dump their children when their children upset them. And God hangs in there with all people -- each of us and everyone -- even when we mess up, sin, and just generally do things that make God want to go lay down for a while.

That we're God's children -- God's chosen people -- doesn't really say much about how wonderful we are. If it depended on that, I know I'd be in very big trouble. Being God's chosen people depends on one thing: God's choice. That's what being chosen means. And as Jesus, God showed that God's chosen the whole world.

So that means I could have gotten a mirror here this morning and put it in a picture frame and put a sign on it that said, "One of God's Chosen People." And I could have passed it around and each of us could have looked into it to see ourself in that picture. Again, it just depends on God. We're God's children, and God's chosen to hang onto us whether we're into that or not. It's a fact, so we might as well learn to love it.

So, you're God's beloved, priceless, precious child right now -- as you are -- whether you like it or not.

You are a chosen person of God. The person next to you is a chosen person of God. The person at the cash register at the store is a chosen person of God. Your worst enemy is a chosen person of God. Every person in the world is chosen person of God.

Jesus talked about this one time with people in his hometown. The situation's recorded in chapter four of the book of Luke. Jesus was talking to the people in his hometown about how God had sent him to people in need. And they thought that was great -- very exciting. But then, Jesus said that would mean people from all over -- not just people of the right background or the right religion. And at that, they got mad. It's like the joke about God putting some people in a separate part of heaven because they don't consider it heaven unless they think they're the only ones there.

Well, in fact, these folks in his hometown dragged him out to a cliff and tried to throw him off. Why? Not because he said God had sent him to care for the people of the world. It wasn't because of what he claimed about himself. They thought that was cool. It was because he said God's kingdom is for ALL people, not just people like them.

We see Jesus expanding the boundaries, also, in how he made such a point in including and holding up people who were Samaritans. Samaritans weren't only a different group of people. They had a different religion. Jews and Samaritans then would be maybe like Christians and Moslems now. And Jesus made a point of holding up Samaritans as often being closer to God's ways than Jews. A person's religious group didn't seem to matter.

I can see, though, how the Jewish people of his time got confused. It was like God had chained God's self for a while to a certain group of people. God did that for some reasons , but they were temporary reasons. And when God was in the world as Jesus, God announced that God was now unchained from any particular people. God is now for all people equally -- Jews, Christians, and everyone else.

All races, all nations, all cultures, all religions -- all God's people. And people of not much religion at all. How we live matters. What we believe matters. But those aren't what make us God's chosen people. What makes us God's chosen people is God's choice. And Jesus showed that God's chosen us all.

Another thing about that temple back then is that God had given lots of rules about who was pure enough to go into it. The basic idea back then seems to have been that a lot of the messiness of life should be kept away from God.

God was clean. God was perfect. God was holy. And so anything dirty and imperfect and impure should be kept away. It was a symbol of how the messiness of our lives separate us from God.

Well, when God came as Jesus, that symbol got tossed. As Jesus, God showed that God no messiness in our lives keeps God away. God even intentionally created a messy situation for Jesus to be born into. Jesus' mother wasn't married yet. She was engaged, but she hadn't even slept with her fiance. And then she got pregnant. That was a scandal. God created that scandal. That's how God chose to enter our world.

And Jesus made a point of getting right into people's real lives. He didn't sit in the temple waiting for people to come to him. He went into homes. To parties. Into people's problems. Alongside regular people in their real lives. He was accused of being a friend of prostitutes. He didn't deny it. He said, "Well, they seem to catch on to what God's up to faster than you do."

His own followers were a messed up group of regular people. He didn't wait for them to get things right. He walked with them through the ups and downs. Through their confusion. He wasn't at the end of their journey. He was with them every step of the way.

And so by sending the message that the time of the temple had passed, part of what Jesus was saying was that we don't have to have everything right. He comes to us as we are. He's with US through OUR ups and downs. He's with US through OUR confusion. He isn't just at the end of our journey. He's with us every step of the way.

Think of our lives as trying to hike to the top of a high mountain to find God. And then we discover that God's hiking next to us the whole time. The messiness of our lives -- of your life and of mine -- it doesn't separate us from God.

What turned out to be amazing about God wasn't so much God's size as God's love. The way God turned out to be different from people isn't by being scary but by being more loving and accepting and friendly and compassionate than any person.

God is not the God who says, "Be afraid." The God of Jesus says, "Don't be afraid. I'm for you. I know you, and I love you. Let's walk together."

"Don't worry about being pure enough to get in anywhere. I've come to you. And I'm not leaving you."

And finally, the temple that Jesus symbolically dismissed -- it was a place of sacrifice. People sacrificed there for various things, but one of those things was to ask God to forgive their sins. For certain sins, you'd sacrifice an animal as a sign of apologizing to God.

Well, Jesus knew full well that he'd soon be given the death penalty himself. And any punishment that anybody deserves for the bad things we've done -- he took that punishment on himself. That is, God took the consequences upon God's self. No need to keep having sacrifices.

We live in a time of God's grace and acceptance for all people -- not just those who are the right kind of people or who measure up. God sent that message through Jesus in lots of ways, including by Jesus symbolically setting aside what the temple stood for.

God is for you and for all people, in the real messiness of our lives. And any punishment anyone deserves, God's already taken upon God's self because God loves all people. It's good news. It's the kingdom of God. May it be fresh air for our souls.

Mercy No Matter What

Wed, 13 May 2009 13:38:41 GMT

3/8/09
Mercy No Matter What
Mark 8:27-33

Fellow citizens of the kingdom of God ,

Much more than we realize, our natural instincts are what guide our lives. Our natural instincts are what tell us what's a good idea, what makes sense, what we should do and shouldn't do, how we should live our lives.

It's like there are roads already built in front of us. We have some choices about which roads to take, but it's not often that it occurs to us to ignore the roads. I'm not much of an off road vehicle kind of person. But maybe we human beings in the world are really more like off road vehicles. We don't have to the roads in front of us. Maybe for the real adventures, the real good stuff, the real important stuff, a person needs to turn off the road and drive into what looks like the wilderness.

Maybe, while God comes to find us on the regular roads of life, God knows that most of what's valuable is off the road, in the wilderness. Maybe that's more where God's natural home is. Maybe it's not wilderness at all out there. Maybe paradise is out there, off the regular roads of what comes naturally for us.

Maybe there aren't regular roads to paradise. Maybe you have to drive off the road, and it helps a lot to have a guide.

Our natural human instincts are like the regular roads in front of us. They give us certaim limited choices. Our natural human instincts, what comes naturally to us, those are Jesus called "the ways of people." And he is our supreme guide to show us where to turn off the road and follow what he called "the ways of God."

Back on that day we heard about in today's Scripture reading, almost 2000 years ago, a guy like us named Peter had scolded Jesus when Jesus had talked about how he, Jesus, was going to be killed soon. Peter said, "No way, man." Jesus told Peter that Peter was going with the ways of people rather than the ways of God. Peter was thinking about the roads are natural for us to travel on through life. Jesus was trying to show the way toward paradise.

Why would the natural ways of people not lead us to paradise? But to get into that , I first want us to reflect some on the natural ways of spiders.

Have you heard about people spiders getting in people mouths when they sleep? How many spiders does the average person swallow in their sleep in a year? What have you heard?

There are different things you hear as an answer to that question.

But the truth is that the answer is zero. Spiders have a survival instinct. And their survival instinct tells them not to crawl into people's mouths. A spider who would do something like crawl into a person's mouth wouldn't tend to live very long, and so it wouldn't tend to have many offspring. Therefore, it's the spiders who have a better survival instinct who pass on their instincts to the next generation of spiders. The result is that it's spiders with good survival instincts who live in our homes -- spiders who live in our attics and hidden places, not spiders who go into our mouths while we sleep.

And what's true for spiders is true for animals generally. Almost all animals have a strong survival instinct. Japanese beetles might be an exception. They don't seem to have any sense of avoiding danger. But almost all other animals do.

When I was a kid out on the west coast, a few times our family went clamming on the shore of the Pacific Ocean . We dug for razor clams. And razor clams are hard to catch. You find them right at the end of where the waves come in. They're under the sand just a few inches below the surface. When the water's over them, they stick their necks out of the sand. They have necks but no heads. Their necks are like tubes -- and they're long and they use them to suck in food, I guess.

When you see one, you start digging fast. But as soon as they feel threatened, they start digging themselves deeper down under the sand. And their body is made for digging, so they can go under fast. It was hard for me to ever get one. So even a clam is hard to get a hold of. And, of course, their shells are what protect them from lots of things -- though not from humans.

Survival instincts. They're strong in all animals. Sometimes the instinct to protect itself is called the instinct for "fight or flight." Fight or flight. Usually, an animal's first choice is to get away. But if it's cornered, it will fight if it can. Our dogs are kind of obsessed with squirrels. Even just the word "squirrel" will get them riled up.

But even though they've been upset about squirrels most of their lives, only once do I remember them actually cornering one. Our bigger dog, Babette, somehow got a squirrel cornered on the porch. Now, usually, what squirrels do is run up a tree. You almost never see a dog actually catch one. But this time, our dog Babette cornered one. And cornered, that squirrel turned on her and fought.

There was this big commotion. A couple of us came running, yelling at Babette. And the squirrel managed to get away. And then, the next week, Babette got this big swollen infected place on her back. My wife Ruth Ann and I have different theories about how that happened, but I think that in all that commotion, the cornered squirrel bit her.

In any case, it was a good example of the instinct toward fight or flight. For most creatures, including us human beings, our first instinct is to avoid danger. But if we don't have a choice, most of us will fight -- just like that squirrel. Maybe you've had to do it.

A few months after that, Jesus' follower Peter was actually in this kind of position. Police came to arrest Jesus. Peter thought they were trapped, so he pulled out his sword and tried to fight them off. But then Jesus told him not to, so Peter did the other natural thing for a person under attack: he ran away.

Sorry to say, people aren't much different from spiders and squirrels when it comes to how much our natural instincts control us. But unlike them, we can learn to go in different directions. Part of what Jesus did is show us a better direction to go -- a better road to follow.

Another natural instinct that's strong for a lot of us, especially for those of us who are male, is competition. You see it in other animals -- rams smashing their horns into each other, dogs and cats fighting for territory. For us humans, too, we compete. Who has the most power. Who has the most money. Who has the best family. Or the best job. Or whatever.

We can see that natural instinct to be powerful in Peter in the situation described in our Scripture reading for today. Peter'd been following Jesus around for a while, at least a few months. Jesus had gotten famous. And what especially got Jesus famous wasn't what he taught. It was what he could do. He could do miracles. He was healing people. That would be a big deal any time, but especially back then, when there wasn't much else that we'd see as decent medical treatments. Jesus was powerful. He was clearly someone special, who could do things with a power that could only come from God.

And there was Peter as Jesus' top assistant. Jesus' lieutenant. Jesus' number two.

Peter said that he thought Jesus was "the Christ," which back then meant that he was God's chosen one. That was right as far as it went, but it didn't have to do with power. Peter seems to have thought that Jesus was going to be the new king -- the ruler of the world -- in a regular earthly sense. Jesus would get rid of all the bad rulers and take things over himself. He'd be the wonderful new ruler of this world.

And Peter would get to be his assistant. He'd get to help Jesus rule the world. Peter was imagining himself as the guy who was going to be the second most powerful person in the world, after Jesus. Peter was a believer. He believed in Jesus. He was committed to Jesus. At least, he believed in and was committed to what he thought Jesus was.

Jesus asked his followers, "Who do you say that I am?" And Peter said, "You're the one God's chosen."

And Jesus said, "Good job, Peter!" And Peter smiled and was thinking, "Another brownie point for me. I'm going to help rule the world."

Peter was doing what was natural. He was letting his natural instincts shape the way he thought about things. If someone's number one in the world, that means they run the world, right? It's in the way we talk. If we really think someone's great, some of us say, "They rule!"

So that's how Peter was thinking. He was seeing all the cool stuff Jesus was doing: healing people, doing miracles...and yeah, there was the teaching stuff, too, but whatever. Jesus had power, man. And so Peter was saying, "Jesus, I've seen your power. You are God's chosen one." "You rule, Jesus."

Jesus gave him a good pat on that back for the right answer. But then, Jesus flipped it all totally upside down.

He said, "And I'm going to be killed by the powerful people."

And Peter was like, "What? No way. That's not the plan. The plan's for you to rule, and us with you."

And Jesus said, "Peter, that's not God's way at all. You're giving your natural instincts too much control over your life. You're just driving on the roads your natural instincts give you. But God's way leads to paradise -- all that life can be -- and it's off those roads."

There's no record of how Peter responded, but I'm imagining it was with something like, "What?"

And we can be just as confused. Our natural instincts are so powerful If someone tries to hurt us, our instinct is to get away from them or fight them. It's not to love them. If someone takes advantage of us, what comes natural is to hold a grudge or get them back. We don't naturally respond by loving them. When someone embarrasses us, we don't naturally respond by loving the person who did it. When someone abandons us, what comes natural usually isn't forgiving them and loving them anyway.

When someone tries to control us, what comes natural is to either give in or to fight to break free. It isn't so natural to just be who we are and keep loving them just as much. When someone doesn't work as hard as us, it's natural to just feel like they brought their problems on themself -- bad choices -- so it isn't our problem. It isn't natural not to care who deserves what and just the love person in every way we can.

But that's how God is.

Most of what comes natural for us -- our instincts -- they're just forms of what comes natural for all the animals in world. Fighting back. Running away. Looking out for ourselves first. Holding grudges.

But what comes natural for God is different, it turns out. Now, I don't know how much of it is just how God is and how much of it is God's choice to be this way, but either way, God is unconditionally loving. God accepts us and all people as we are. God is committed to us all as we are. God has a hold of everyone of us through whatever comes, with no exceptions. We can't blow it with God because what it depends on is God's loving commitment not on how well we measure up. From God's end, it's unconditional. It's no matter what. God loves us all no matter what, and we can't help it even if we wanted to. We might as well learn to like it.

A word for all that -- for accepting people and caring for people no matter what -- a word for that is "mercy." And one way to describe God's path is mercy no matter the cost. Jesus explained that it would involve him being killed. And that meant it would NOT involve Peter being assistant king of the world. Peter didn't like that.

If Jesus was a king, it was of the way things really are. Not on the boring roads of our natural instincts. The roads of getting ahead and looking out for ourselves and holding grudges and all that. That stuff's not where it's at. It's not what God created us for. And God's not much interested.

Jesus is king -- God is king -- of what matters most. Unconditional love for all. Absolute forgiveness and acceptance. Hanging in there with others no matter what comes. Giving of ourselves based on what the other person really needs. No judgment of others. Giving ourselves away. Mercy for every other person, no matter the cost.

That's the path down which God is trying to guide us all through Jesus -- off the less important roads of what comes naturally for us and into the adventure of mercy for all, no matter the cost. That's what life's really about. That's what really matters.

Let go of our grudges. Care for others. Accept others no matter what. Where is God's Spirit nudging you in those directions -- off the road of your instinct and onto the path of love for all? The kingdom of God is always as close as the people around us who we can forgive and hang in there with and care for.

Now, our instincts get in the way of loving perfectly. They sure do for me. But every step we can take in that direction is a good thing. And we're covered by God loving us perfectly in the first place. So it isn't about loving others because we have to. It's more about taking steps toward loving others more and more because that's what true life really is. Anything else is likely to feel empty.

And God knows full well that it's different from what comes naturally for us. And God's patient. Like Jesus was with Peter. Jesus got annoyed with Peter. But Jesus didn't give up on him. God knows full well that it's a process for all of us.

Mercy no matter the cost. It can be different from what we naturally look for. But it's how we're made to live. It's God's path. The path of forever. And the path down which God's trying to lead us all.

God Plunges in with Us Sinners

Wed, 13 May 2009 13:37:56 GMT

3/1/09

God Plunges in with Us Sinners

Mark 1:4-15

Fellow citizens of the kingdom of God,

About fifteen years ago, I was in Indiana for a weekend, and I visited a church there Sunday morning. The preacher's message was about the importance of telling other people about Jesus. He said something like, "There are people all around you who need to hear about Jesus."

That was the focus of the first half of his message: We should be talking to the people around us about Jesus.

And then, to introduce the second half of his message, he said, "And if you don't tell the people around you about Jesus, you're gonna go to hell." And that pretty much sums up the last ten or fifteen minutes of his sermon: if we don't share the good news about Jesus, we're going to hell.

What do you think?

There are lots of things I could say about that message. But most of those things I'm not going to say this morning. This morning, I just want to focus on the idea in that message that a person is going to hell if they don't do what they should -- that we're going to hell if we don't do what God wants -- that God will reject us if we don't live right.

A lot of people have that idea: that sinners, or at least really bad sinners, go to hell, and basically good people go to heaven.

But that's not the message that God made known through Jesus. Jesus wouldn't have had to come into the world for people to think that good people would be rewarded and bad people would be punished. Most people who believe in God and in life after death already think something like that naturally.

Now, when God entered our world through Jesus Christ, God did make clear that God really does want us to live in certain ways. I mean, there's a lot of variety in how we can live with our different personalities and situations, but it's important to God that we help people rather than hurt them -- especially those who are weakest. It's important to God that we be generous rather than stingy toward people. It's important to God that we be forgiving toward people rather than bear grudges. And, sort of like that preacher I mentioned earlier said, it's important to God that we let other people know that the true God is the love -centered God made known through Jesus.

Jesus made very clear that God cares how we live. An awful lot of Jesus' teachings were instructions to people -- to us -- about how we should live our lives. He made clear that there are things that we should do and things that we shouldn't do.

Jesus also gave us a pretty good idea of why we should do certain things and why we shouldn't do other things. It's especially because every person is God's precious child. And therefore, however the things we do and don't do affect the least person on earth is a huge deal to God.

So it isn't just like God has random rules that God wants people to live by because God has some desire to control people's lives. It isn't like that at all. The thing is that God is absolutely crazy about every single person -- with no exceptions. Every single person is God's priceless child. If you're a parent, you know how it is when something really bad happens to your child. You feel it. It really bothers you. It's instinctive to us to be deeply affected by what happens to our children.

Everyone is God's child and so that's how God is with everyone. Everyone -- with no exception.

And so every person who gets mistreated, it's God's precious, beloved child who gets mistreated. Every person who needs some help and doesn't get it, it's God's precious, beloved child who doesn't get the help they need.

Sin, as Jesus presented it, is pretty much people not loving other people in the ways God wants us to. Because God is so devoted to every person and cares so much, God gets really upset when any person is mistreated or not given the help they really need. That sort of mistreatment and neglect -- of anybody -- is at the core of what, in God's eyes, is sin.

Society says that we mostly just have to care well for our closest biological relatives. But God says we have to care well for every person that we can. It doesn't matter at all how biologically related to them we are. What matters is that they, like us, are children of God, which makes them, whoever they are, our sister or our brother. And God has always made clear, and Jesus repeated it, that we are to be our sister's and our brother's keeper.

Sin is all the ways we aren't. Sin is all the ways we take advantage of people or mistreat them or neglect them. And I'm not talking just physically. That, too. But I'm also talking about emotional stuff. Writing people off, giving up on people, running people down, looking down on people, insulting people, excluding people, holding grudges against people, not being there for them when times get tough for them -- all that is sin because of how it so negatively affects some of God's precious, beloved children.

Now, none of us are asked to do more than a person can do. We're each just one person, so we can't do everything. But we are responsible to do all we can do -- care for and love with Christ-like unconditional love the people within our reach.

That's central to why God created us. That's what God wants from us. And not doing that is what sin is.

People have always been sinful. From the very beginning, there's been this huge gap between how people should relate to each other and how people actually relate to each other. That gap is what sin is.

Things were just the same a couple thousands years ago when God entered the world through Jesus.

And so right before Jesus came into the public eye -- when he was already around thirty but still a private person -- there came another guy who kind of paved the way for Jesus -- a guy called John the Baptist. His main job was to remind people of how sinful they were. He reminded them of the big gap between how God wants people to live and how people actually live. He reminded them of the big gap between loving others like God loves and the ways that our fears and our self-centeredness contaminate our actual lives.

He stood at a riverside and more or less said, "Look, there's this big gap between how God wants you live and how you actually live. Acknowledge that and try to change. And as a sign of that, come into this water with me and go under. That'll be a symbol. A symbol that you know you're not so clean -- that you need to get washed off. It'll be a symbol that you know that, in some very important ways, you need to start over. It'll be a way to admit to yourself and to God and to everyone that you know full well that you're a sinner who needs help from God."

And preaching from the edge of a river, John really did bring people into the river and dunk them under as a sign of them admitting that they saw this gap between how they should live and how they did live and that they admitted it was wrong. The word for that was "baptism," which, back then, just meant, "dunking under the water." It was an act of humility by sinners -- humble toward God and toward each other.

And who did John regard as a sinner? Well, everyone. The religious and the non-religious. The scandalous and the supposedly respectable. John invited all messed up, imperfect human beings into the river with him.

That was about thirty years after God had come into this world through Jesus. So Jesus was about thirty years old. And he made his first public appearance as part of that crowd who was baptized by John.

As it says in our Scripture reading for today, John's baptism -- John's dunking people under the water -- was for repentance, for the forgiveness of sins. It was for sinful people who were admitting they weren't so pure and who were publicly saying they'd try to do better and hoped God would forgive them for the ways they didn't live like they should.

And there was GOD, in the world as Jesus, among those people. And Jesus made a big point of getting baptized -- this symbol that was specifically for sinful people.

Why did Jesus want to be baptized? Why did he go forward for it?

He was the one perfect -- totally loving -- person ever in the world. God on earth. Why would he join the crowd of sinners who were publicly admitting their sin and committing to try to do better?

Back when I was in fourth grade, I got in trouble pretty bad at school one time. My friends and I considered ourselves a gang. A fourth grade gang. We called ourselves the Sweathogs -- after a group of goof-off high school kids on a TV show.

Some of you have heard before about the time we Sweathogs got in very bad trouble.

One of the things we Sweathogs liked to do at recess at school was cuss. We cussed a lot. One recess, a girl -- who was not one of the Sweathogs -- she overheard us and told on us to the playground supervisor. My friend Michael found out about it and punched her in the face.

That created a much worse situation.

Lesson: if someone ever turns you in for something, even if it would feel good to just punch that person in the face, don't do it. It'll just make a bad situation worse. Aside from the fact that we just shouldn't punch people in the face, there's also the problem that it creates a situation where -- regardless of the original situation -- you're now almost guaranteed to get in big trouble. Any chance of getting a second chance is pretty much gone once you punch someone in the face.

And of course, that girl who told on us was one of God's precious children as much as anybody is. And no matter how annoying it was that she'd done it, it was wrong to hit her.

We were summoned to the principal's office.

And first we had to sit on the bench outside his office. Have you ever had to sit on that bench? The waiting bench, when you know you're in big trouble and you're waiting to be summoned inside?

Well, that's where we were. I remember it well.

But imagine that this is what happened. Imagine that we'd be sitting on that bench in front of the secretary's desk waiting to be called into the principal's office. And then, instead of summoning us in, the principal would come out and sit on the bench with us.
And when we acted confused, imagine him saying, ``Yeah, I'm going to wait here with you for what happens.''

Well, that would have been very confusing to us. Because what we were waiting to happen was to have the principal call us in and punish us. And so if, instead of being in his office, he was sitting with us on the bench outside his office with us waiting to get called in, well...it would have just been confusing. Who would ever call us in if he was out there with us?

And that's a lot like what God coming into the world as Jesus is like.

The perfect God was present in Jesus all right. But one of the things God showed as Jesus was that real perfection is perfect love. And perfect love does not stand over anyone. It stands with. Real perfection -- like God is perfect -- turns out to be perfect love that refuses to stand apart.

John the Baptist was warning that God was maybe going to punish sinful people soon so sinful people better ask for forgiveness and try to change. And then while everyone was looking up in the air afraid of God's punishment, there came God right among them as one of the people saying they were sinners.

Crazy stuff.

Here's what seemed to be happening:

Jesus -- God in the world -- was saying, ``My place is with messed up, imperfect people. I love messed up, imperfect people, so I`m with them forever.''

Everyone here who's messed up and imperfect, say, ``Praise God.''

Jesus -- God in the world -- was saying, ``Instead of standing over sinners, I'm going to stand with them because I just love them so much.''

All the sinners here, say, ``Praise God.''

God is with us. God has chosen not to stand over us. God has chosen not to judge us or weed us out or destroy us. God has chosen to be with us imperfect, messed up, sinful people -- people who fall short of loving others in all the ways God wants -- God has chosen to be with us anyway. Not because God is okay with the ways we mistreat and neglect others. But because we are God's precious children and God is crazy about us.

So again, when there was this public symbol of being messed up, imperfect, and sinful going on -- what John the Baptist called ``a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins'' -- why did Jesus -- God on earth -- join in those getting it done? Why did Jesus get baptized? This is why! It was a sign that God doesn't stand over us messed up, imperfect, sinful people. Instead, God has plunged into our lives just like Jesus plunged into the water with the sinful people he loved so much. God's not the principal waiting in the office. God's with us -- on the bench, on the playground, everywhere -- whatever comes. Trying to shape and guide our lives in more loving directions, to be sure, but with us whatever comes rather than waiting to give us consequences. And by loving us so totally, showing us how we were created to love others, too.

And when Jesus took that stand with us sinners -- and again, by sinners I mean ALL of us flawed and less than fully loving human beings -- when Jesus took that stand with us, a voice from the sky claimed him publicly as doing exactly what God wanted. ``This is my Son, with whom I'm very happy.'' That's what the voice from the sky said.

It wasn't kind, loving Jesus vs. judging God. It was God in the world as Jesus committing to people, despite all the ways we fall short.

God is not the God of sin. But God has chosen to be the God of sinners. Praise God!

Listening to Christ, the Lord of God's Work in the World

Sun, 22 Feb 2009 20:03:56 GMT

2/22/09
Listening to Christ, the Lord of God's Work in the World
Mark 9:2-7

Fellow citizens of the kingdom of God ,

The book that we call "the Bible" is actually not one book. It's a collection of writings. Dozens of writings, written over hundreds of years by dozens of different people.

About three quarters of these writings were written before God came into the world through Jesus. These are the writings that we call the "Old Testament" part of the Bible.

Then, after Jesus came, the writings of Christians for the next seventy years or so got collected into what we call "the New Testament."

The "Old Testament" are the things in the Bible written before God came into the world through Jesus. The "New Testament" are the things in the Bible written shortly afterward.

As for the difference between them, I'm aware of one parent -- and I won't say who this parent is unless they want to take credit -- I'm aware of one parent who explained it to their children this way: "In the Old Testament, God was a Republican. In the New Testament, God became a Democrat."

The Old Testament has more strict rules and rigid boundaries -- more of the distinction between the "right" kind of people and the "wrong" kind of people. Meanwhile, the New Testament has all the stories about Jesus , with the compassionate, forgiving, inclusive ways he related to people.

In the movie Dead Man Walking , there's a Catholic nun who starts a friendly, caring relationship with a murderer who's on death row in the state prison. She's allowed into the prison as his spiritual advisor. The chaplain of the whole prison is a Catholic priest. He doesn't think much of the compassionate way she relates to this murderer. He tells her, "Your job is to get him to accept Jesus as his savior. People need to be punished for their sins. Have you not read the Old Testament?"

She replies, "Have you not read the New Testament, father? God's way is a way of compassion and forgiveness."

People have always noticed the difference between the two parts of the Bible. That's why they got called different things: the Old Testament and the New Testament.

Our Scripture reading for today is about how Jesus Christ was and is Lord of it all. And so it's not all equal, and we should listen to him above any of it -- and above anything else.

As Jesus, God -- the one true God of everything -- actually entered our world as a person like us.

Before that, God had made certain people God's messengers -- someone who could speak for God. And God seems to have focused on just one group of people.

The most famous of the these messengers had been a guy named Moses. One of the things God had done through Moses was tell God's special people how they were supposed to live their lives. They were supposed to have only one God. They were supposed to honor God in certain specific ways. They were supposed to be fair toward everyone. And they were supposed to keep themselves very separate from other people. That's more or less what God told God's special people through Moses.

And there are some people who seem to have the impression that that's still basically God's message to people, but that was only God's message to people before entering the world through Jesus.

Our Scripture reading for today reports a time God made clear that a new time had come -- and that Jesus was the one God has put in charge of saying what this new time is all about.

The situation was that Jesus had already been on the earth for quite a while. He had a group of followers who'd been with him for a while. He took three of these followers up on a mountain with him. These were guys who later because leaders of the earliest Christians, who wrote the letters that eventually got collected into what we call the New Testament.

So there on the mountain with Jesus were the leaders of the people who wrote the New Testament.

And there, Jesus suddenly looked like what he was -- the Son of God, God on earth. His followers found it pretty overwhelming.

Then, right there with Jesus up on that mountain, was Moses. Along with a guy named Elijah, who had also been a great leader of God's people hundreds of years before.

So you had two of the lead people God had spoken through in the past. And you had three followers of Jesus -- Peter, James, and John -- through whom God would speak in the future. And right in the middle of them was Jesus himself, shining like the sun, over them all.

Just like people now try to figure out how the Old Testament commands, from Moses, fits with Jesus, people were trying to figure that out when Jesus was right there in front of them. Part of the answer to that question came on that mountain. There it became clear that Moses was not an opponent of Jesus. He was a supporter of Jesus. Moses was one of Jesus' lieutenants, not his rival.

But a lot of people back then did see Moses as Jesus' rival. Jesus got asked, "Moses said such and such harsh thing. So why do you do this and why do you say that?" Moses vs. Jesus is how it looked to a lot of people. Moses vs. Jesus.

Anne Lamott, a writer I like -- I once heard her being interviewed by a Jewish guy on the radio. She was describing her experience of becoming a Christian, and she said it was like Jesus was stalking her. That's how it felt to her. He wanted her to become one of his people, and she didn't want to. One night, she could feel Jesus watching her from a corner of her bedroom, until she finally gave up her resistance. This Jewish guy interviewing her said, "Are you sure it was Jesus in the corner of your room?" And she said, "I'm sure." And he said, "Well, it was dark. How do you know it wasn't Moses?"

That question goes with the whole thing of Moses being a rival of Jesus. But what Jesus' followers saw on that mountain is that Jesus and Moses weren't rivals. And they weren't equals, either. Jesus was the Lord, and Moses was one of those helping him.

And Jesus' followers weren't equals of him either. They were very much his followers who made mistakes and looked to him for guidance -- and for forgiveness for all the ways they messed up.

Jesus was above it all. He could change things. People back then noticed that. Most of the religious teachers back then would do what I do: they'd read part of the Bible and then say what they thought it meant. Jesus though didn't feel the need to quote the Bible or anything else. He just said, "This is how things are. This is what God's like. This is how you should live." He had his own authority.

Jesus explained and showed that a lot of things had changed from Old Testament times. A new time had come -- the time we're part of it. The kingdom of God is at hand, he said. The way God wants things to be is now possible. And it's possible for all of us.

In the old days, God focused on just a certain group of people. But then Jesus came, and God started focusing on all the people in the world. There's where God's focus is now -- not just on Christians or something like that, but on everyone. Most of the Old Testament stuff was fine in their place. But they were kind of like elementary school. Elementary school is important. But you don't want to stay in elementary school forever. It's a foundation for the future. The Old Testament was more like elementary school for the world.

Now the rest of life was to begin for the world. Graduation day.

So sometimes people talk about Jesus as "part of the Bible." Like if you say, "Jesus said such and such," and they say, "Well, you can't just pick and choose which part of the Bible you like." But Jesus isn't just "part of the Bible." For one thing, he isn't just a character in a book. He's a real person, the Son of God, God on earth, and there are things written in the book about him. But that doesn't mean he's just part of the book.

And in any case, the story in our Bible reading for today is one of many, many places that makes clear that Jesus isn't equal to the rest of the stuff. Moses himself, the one through whom God gave most of the commands, was under Jesus. Jesus' followers were allowed to see that clearly on the mountain. They saw that Jesus was truly THE Son of God -- God on earth. They weren't equal to Jesus. Jesus was at the top.

God had done many things in the world. And God continues to do many things in the world. But ultimately, the Lord of God's work in the world is Jesus Christ.

So a way to think of the Bible is as a pyramid. At the very top is the life and teachings of Jesus. Everything else is under that -- because those who wrote everything else is under him. That doesn't mean those things aren't good. They just have less authority than the life and teachings of Jesus.

And the same is true for any other way we think maybe we know stuff about God or about how we should live. Those things are only right to the extent they fit with what Jesus showed.

I know full well that people sometimes feel like they're not worth very much. But Jesus showed the truth: every person is priceless to God. He said God would leave everyone else to track down any person who wanders off -- as if we could really wander away from God. But his point was how precious we all are.

So if you think that maybe you're not worth much -- that's not true because it doesn't fit what Jesus Christ has shown to be true. He's so into you. Our self esteem issues come from all kinds of things. From our experiences growing up. From how other people have treated us. From how our family's treat us. From the successes and failures we've had in life.

When I've had failures in life -- and I've had plenty -- I can easily start feeling very down on myself, like I'm not worth much. One of the things I notice is that, when I'm feeling that way, I tend not to put on my seat belt, as though at some level I've stopped caring much if I live. Have you been there?

Well, it's not true that I'm not worth much. Not because I'm so wonderful or good, but because the one true God of the universe is in love with me in a way that's permanent and totally committed and that I can't mess up no matter how much I try. And the same's true for you. And for everyone -- no matter their life history, their beliefs, their religion, their successes or failures, their sexual orientation, or anything else. God's bound to each person no matter what -- no exceptions. Jesus made that clear.

And so the things or experiences or people or churches or even Bible verses that tell us different, they're not God. Jesus Christ is.

Now, God can work in people's lives in all kinds of ways. Not just religious ways. God's very creative in finding ways to care for people. Experiences, other people, whatever. I think of all those ways God works in people lives as being sort of like pipes. Pipes that carry God's message and love.

Some of these pipes have a lot of crud in them and are pretty much stopped up. Some of them are bigger and let more through. Some are more narrow. Some are kind of rusty, and so the stuff that goes through them doesn't come out pure. The only wide, clear, and clean pipe is the things Jesus said and did.

I hate to break the news to you, but my sermons are just one of the pipes, and, despite my best efforts, they're not the purest one, of course. The things Jesus said and did -- that's the pure message of God.

That was pretty much what God had to say to these followers of Jesus up on that mountain. These folks who would later write the letters that became the New Testament -- they saw Jesus out of his disguise, looking you might think the Son of God would look -- all bright and glowing.

And then they heard a booming voice say, "This is my Son, whom I love. Listen to him!!" Listen to him!"

Sometimes people say how awesome and great Jesus is and all that. You see that in the situation described in our Scripture reading, where it says that one of Jesus' followers, Peter, wanted to build houses for Jesus and Moses and Elijah. Honor them with something fancy. But what God seems to want is for people to listen to what Jesus actually had to say. Jesus himself said, "It's not about calling me 'Lord.' It's about actually doing what I'm saying."

So here at the end, we'll look at some of what Jesus had to say.

As for Moses, here are a couple things Jesus had to say regarding things Moses had said God commanded.

Jesus said, "You've heard that it was said, 'An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.'" Moses had given that as one of God's commands. If someone got injured, justice was done when the person who caused the injury had the same thing done to them. That stopped things from getting out of hand. If someone knocked out my tooth, I couldn't kill them. But what I could do was go to court and get things evened out. Moses had given that as God's Law over a thousand years before God came into the world as Jesus. Fairness. Evening things up.

But Jesus said, "You've heard that Law. But here's what I say to you: Do not resist one who does evil. If someone takes your coat, give them your shirt, too. If someone makes you carry something for them a mile, carry it a second mile. If someone smacks you on one cheek, turn the other cheek to them as well. Love your enemies. Forgive them. Do good for them. For that's how God is."

Moses was not on top. Evening things out was not on top. Forgiveness and love for all were on top. Jesus said that's how God is toward all of us and that's how God wants us to be toward everyone.

Jesus was usually a pretty laid back guy. Easy to deal with, humble. So it could be easy to miss that he was also, you know, the king of the universe. But every now and then, he -- and God -- found ways to let people know that, yeah, his ways were on top. And everything -- everything else -- had to surrender to his approach.

Happily, his approach was all about absolute love.

And there were these Laws that Moses gave which involved people getting the death penalty if they did certain bad things. But Jesus was all about forgiveness and compassion. Moses said that if a child openly disrespected their parents, they could be killed.

But to tell people about God's love, Jesus said God's like a father whose child treats him disrespectfully. And when the child comes home, the father's whole response is to run out to the child and welcome him home with a big celebration. God's into people, not making things even. Jesus made clear that for us or anybody, God has no interest in punishing us for ways we do the wrong thing. God's into forgiveness, accepting us as we are, seeking us out where we are, loving us and all people unconditionally.

Jesus made clear that God's not a punisher or a killer. God's on the side of people. God's not like a judge looking down on us. God's like a defense lawyer who is on our side. And if God's for us, who can be against us? There's no judge left.

Jesus' message wasn't about himself. It was about what he called the kingdom of God . How God loves every person no matter what. And how God wants people to love every person no matter what. And to the extent we accept God's unconditional love and love other people unconditionally, the kingdom of God is at hand.

That message of Jesus Christ -- that message of absolute, committed, caring unconditional love for us and for others -- it's at the top of the pyramid of truth. Everything else -- everything else-- is under it.

May Jesus' message of absolute love be the scale on which we weigh everything that claims to tell us the truth about God, ourselves, and other people. Anything that supports Jesus' message of absolute love is good. But anything that doesn't support Jesus' message of absolute love, not so good -- because it's just not true.

What's true is the unconditional love Jesus made known.

Reading God's Compass

Sun, 22 Feb 2009 20:02:48 GMT

2/8/09
Reading God's Compass
Mark 1:29-39

Fellow citizens of the kingdom of God,

You've probably heard of this impression people have that men don't like to get directions. Are you aware of this? You can ask my family later if that's at all true for me.

A writer I like, Dave Barry -- he says that women don't understand what's really going on when men don't want to get directions. Here's the deal: the manly law -- the law among us men -- is that if you're a man with your wife or girlfriend in the car with you, and you have to ask for directions, if another man gives you directions, he has the right to take your woman. You women didn't know that, did you?

So hopefully, the next time the whole directions thing comes up, you women will be a bit more understanding and more aware of what's at stake.

When I was a kid, so I guess that he wouldn't need to ask directions and lose my mom, my dad usually had a compass in his car -- mounted to his dash. I should get one. A lot of the time when I get lost, a compass would probably stop me from driving a long distance in the wrong direction, which I've been known to do.

Actually I could have used a compass last Halloween, though I wasn't driving then. I was walking. I was leading 8 or 10 elementary school girls as they went trick-or-treating. We were walking around the southwest part of town. The streets there do some curving around and such. Names of some streets change. So after getting sufficiently loaded down with candy, the witches and geishas and spooky killers that made up our group started getting tired and cold and were ready to head back. So I confidently led the way.

After a while, the girls started questioning whether we were going the right way. After confidently changing our direction a couple times, I finally did figure out where we were -- which was not where I'd thought and was not close to home. To get us home as quickly as possible, when we came to the end of another dead end street, we all tromped through some people's yards.

A compass would have helped that night because it was dark and the streets were unfamiliar and there were times I got turned around and led our group in the opposite direction I thought I was.

When it came to knowing what direction God had in mind for him to go, Jesus had quite the compass. It was striking how he'd change direction in ways that other couldn't understand at the time.

Our Scripture reading for today records one such situation. Jesus had been doing the sort of thing Jesus did: caring for the person in front of him. In this particular case, he healed a bunch of people at the home of his follower Peter, in the town of Capernaum.

In those days, there wasn't much that we'd call good medical care. People who were sick often just stayed sick. Imagine a world without antibiotics, for example. That was the world less than a hundred years ago, and very much back then two thousand years ago. Mental health problems went uncontrolled. Cancer just killed people. Worn out hips and knees weren't replaced. There was no surgery to fix problems like there is today.

So when the word got out back then that there was a guy in town who could heal people, a lot of people showed up. And they brought their sick and injured family and friends, too.

There were so many needs like this. Jesus helped a lot of people there. Then he took a break for the night. The next morning, he got up very early, before the crowd returned. And he went off by himself. Then the crowds then started gathering again at the house where they expected him to be. His followers went out to track him down and found him still off alone. And he told them that, even though there were a big crowds hoping to be healed where he'd been, he should move on to share his message with people in other places. And so he did.

He moved on to share with people who hadn't heard it yet his message of God's love for people as we are and his message that God wants people to love each other the same way -- what he called the message of the kingdom of God.

One thing to recognize here is that Jesus, like us, knew what it was to feel pulled in different directions. And since Jesus knew it, God knows it. I'm not talking about being pulled in one good direction and one bad direction. Jesus seems to have known that, too, since he seems to have been tempted. But in this situation, he was pulled in two good directions. There are things he could have done more to help the people where he was. On the other hand, he could share God's message of love and acceptance with other people. But he was just one person, and, like us, he only do one thing at a time. We all face that sort of thing all the time.

Jesus experienced it, too. When God was on the earth as a person -- as Jesus -- one of the things Jesus did not even try to do was everything. He focused on one little part of the world. And even there, he had to make some tough choices between good things because he, as one person, couldn't do everything that it would have been good to do.

Sometimes in my sermons, I like to remind us that it's God who saves the world. That isn't our job. I mention that especially as a reminder to myself.

I tend to be the kind of person who can feel the pressure of all the ways people are suffering in the world and all that should be done to make things better and it can, of course, feel like too much to me. I have to pray for the serenity to accept the things I can't change, as well as the courage to change the things I can. And the wisdom to tell the difference. I have to remember that I have just my own little role to fill in the kingdom of God. That's my assignment. For each of us, we just have our own little roles in the kingdom of God.

The world has a lot of real needs, but we're each just one person. When Jesus was on the earth as a single person, he had to deal with that. He had to find his own role -- in his case, not so little.

The kingdom of God, as made known through Jesus, is about forgiveness and love and acceptance and compassion toward all people from God and it's about those same things from people toward each other -- forgiveness and love and acceptance and compassion. To the extent those things happen, the kingdom of God has come. To the extent those things happen, God's will is done -- on earth as it is in heaven.

Just choosing to be part of God's loving ways in this world is the big decision. But then, we get to figure out what role we get to play in it so that we can do our part without it becoming too much for us. So what's my part in the coming of the kingdom of God? What's YOUR part?

And as we reflect on that, what happened with Jesus in Capernaum should remind us that our part can change. We may have one part in the coming God's kingdom at one point in our life and another part in another time in our life. Maybe we've reached a point in our own growth where we can do something different. Maybe the situation has changed. Maybe, as the saying goes, "Our work here is done," and we can be part of the coming of God's kingdom most by moving on.

Like Jesus did, it's good to ask those questions. It's good to check God's compass to see what direction God is trying to point us -- with our particular gifts and abilities and personality -- where God's trying to point us now.

Without consulting God's compass, anyone can stuck in a rut. In our Scripture reading for today, we see that that was a danger even for Jesus. He could have easily just kept doing what he was doing: caring for sick people in Capernaum. In itself, that would have been a good thing. It seems like he thought about doing that. He already knew -- and had told people -- that his job was to bring good news of healing and help and freedom for people who were suffering. Forgiveness for those burdened by sin, help for those burdened by other people's sins, a lighter load for those who were weighed down by life.

He could have done all of that for quite a while where he was. But he knew that maybe that would be a rut. You know the expression, "Stuck in a rut." That comes from the days when people rode around in wagons and stage coaches. Their big wooden wheels would wear ruts in the dirt road. When I lived in Colorado, I saw ruts out in the prairie that were still there from when people used stagecoaches to get across the country. Deep ruts.

With a deep rut from where lots of others had traveled the same path, when you came along in your coach, being pulled by horses on that dirt road, your wheels could go into those ruts and you'd barely have to steer anymore. But when your wheels were in a rut, you could have a hard time turning even if you wanted. That's what it means to be stuck in rut. It's easy to keep going in the same direction. It's hard to change directions.

Jesus was trying to figure out if he was getting stuck in a rut by healing people at Peter's house. The easiest thing would have been to stay there -- that's what lots of people wanted him to do. And it would have been a good thing. He'd have helped people there. He knew it was going well. If it ain't broke, don't fix it, right?

And for us, too, there can be times in our lives when something is a good enough thing -- isn't bad or anything like that -- but maybe isn't all that God has in mind for how to use us.

I used the "rut" image for it. Here's a more modern illustration: NASCAR.

I'm sure we're all excited that this week is the beginning of the 2009 NASCAR season. For those who don't know, NASCAR is the big car racing organization.

If you've seen them, NASCAR races are pretty much about driving counter clockwise around big oval race tracks. The cars turn left over and over again. The NASCAR drivers are experts at that.

We all tend to become experts at how we live our lives. We become comfortable with the patterns we have -- our ways of doing things -- experts at turning left on big ovals. What's the pattern of your life? What do you do? What are you used to doing? What's been your role in the coming of God's kingdom, if you feel like you've had one?

What we've been up to may have been great and helpful. But maybe God has something else in mind for us now. Something better. A different way of using our gifts to share God's grace and love and generosity and care in the world. But we've gotten used to driving around and around the big oval. That's what we're comfortable with. And we might not even think about the possibility that God wants us to drive someplace other than on that track

Imagine a NASCAR race where, partway through, the driver decides to drive off the track, get out on the road, and start -- I don't know -- giving rides to people who don't have vehicles or drives to a local elementary school to let kids read out loud to them or uses his mechanic skills to work on the cars of people without the money to pay a mechanic. Just driving off in his car in the middle of a race. Wouldn't that be confusing? And interesting? Imagine the driver deciding that what they're an expert at isn't at all what God wants them to keep doing.

Just because things seem to going "okay" for someone on the road they're on -- that doesn't mean it's the road God most wants them to stay on.

For NASCAR drivers, it's going around those big oval tracks. For Jesus, in the situation we read about today, it was helping the sick and injured folks at Peter's house in Capernaum. What's your rut? What's the equivalent of turning left around the track all day for you? What's the equivalent of healing people at Peter's house for you?

It can be a good thing -- a certain kind of job, a certain kind of family life, a certain way of being in the world. Things that are good but just maybe not what God has in mind for you forever. Jesus' example here should encourage us, throughout our lives, to question and evaluate the path we're on. To keep checking God's compass to see if we're still going in the right direction. Maybe it'll tell us to make a slight correction. Maybe it'll tell us that now's the time to make a major change in direction.

For me, about a year a half ago, one of the things I was trying to figure out was whether to finish the program in school that I was in. For the first couple years I was pastor here, I was also a Ph.D. student in biblical studies. But to finish that program would have taken a lot of a certain kind of work -- a huge writing project -- and a lot of time and energy.

I'd had a clear sense that God had wanted me to learn more about Jesus in his original situation -- that's what I'd gone back to school to study: how Jesus in his original context relates to who God really is and what the kingdom of God is all about. I studied that for four years.

But after some back and forth, it became pretty clear to me that, given everything, God wanted me to let it go. God hadn't been so focused on me getting a fancy degree. It had always been more about what I'd learn. And the trade offs were large enough that it was best for me to focus on things other than this big writing project. So I let it go.

And while at the time, that was pretty painful and I felt in some ways that I was closing off too many options, new things have come into my life -- new things that have found space because I wasn't doing that. New people. New passions. New ways for God to use me. So what at the time felt a little like giving up on a journey, now, just a year and a half later -- it looks like taking a different path when the time was right to do that.

Our journeys are so different. It's hard to talk about these things in ways that fit with everyone. God walks with each of us on our particular journeys -- that's part of what makes life so interesting. God's walking with you on yours.

So, for you, what are you used to? What are the paths you've been on or the paths you've been imagining for yourself?

Any sense of God maybe calling you to something else? Could you let go of what you're used to if God encouraged you to? Any sense that the path you're on maybe isn't quite your role in the coming of God's kingdom of absolute love?

Here's what I'd recommend: that we regularly follow Jesus' example and consult God's compass rather than just assuming we have a sense of the right direction in our life at all times.

Two ways here to consult God's compass for us.

Number one, the biggest one, is to keep studying and reflecting on, thinking about, the teachings and example of Jesus. He is our guide as to priorities and what's most important. The God who came to earth in Jesus won't ever send us in directions that don't fit with what Jesus was about. What would Jesus do is always a good question to ask. But we're not Jesus, so it's more, "What would Jesus do if Jesus had my gifts and personality and situation and was in the world today?"

But how about the specifics?

Well, Jesus went off alone. He prayed, I guess. Or he was silent. He listened. Listening prayer is a good thing. Just to hold up our issues, our questions, our path -- just hold them up to God and ask, "What should I do?" And then be silent and listen. Maybe you'll get a sense of where God's compass is pointing you on your particular journey. Maybe you'll hear God's voice. And if you don't get a sense of God's compass for you, just go back to the what would Jesus do focus. That's a pretty good compass.

But now, I'll invite us to end with a time of silent reflection. Close your eyes.

What do you do right now to help out the coming of God's kingdom of absolute love? What are your roles? What do you do? What paths are you on?

Hold them up to God. Offer it to God.

Now ask God, "What should I do now?"

And if you have a particular question for God, ask it silently. Then just listen.

God: For People, Against Evil

Mon, 2 Feb 2009 20:36:32 GMT

2/1/09
God: For People, Against Evil
Mark 1:21-28

Fellow citizens of the kingdom of God,

People who speak in public have to learn how to handle unexpected things happening when they're trying to talk.

One time, back when I was a pastor in Colorado, I was in charge of the community Easter sunrise worship service. The churches in town got together and to sponsor a service at sunrise on Easter morning, and that was year, being such a morning person, I'd volunteered to organize it.

Well, my plans didn't come off so smoothly. I myself was going to give a short message. But before that, there were some other things. And groups from various churches in town were asking to do things at the service mostly sing. And someone wanted to tell a short Easter-related story. I didn't want to say no to anybody and hurt their feelings, so I ended up saying okay to everyone. Well, the whole service was supposed to last no more than half an hour.

But then the singing groups sang more songs than I'd expected. And the story that the guy wanted to tell turned out to be kind of a long story. And so it ended up being about half an hour out in the cold on Easter morning with about thirty or forty people on the high school football field's bleachers about a half hour before t he time even came for me to give my message.

As I watched the other things fill up the time, I edited my message there on the bleachers. I crossed things out. Crumpled up pages of it and put it in my pocked. By the time it was time for me to talk, I had a fifteen minute message down to about five. When you speak in public, you have to adjust.

Alternatively, I've heard of pastors who when there's been a blizzard overnight and only three people show up on church on Sunday morning I've heard of pastors who still give their whole sermon, including an altar call. That would be an example of a public speaker not adjusting.

It seems like often when Jesus spoke in public, he had to adjust. Sometimes as he talked, people started criticizing him. One time, as he talked, a guy in a stretcher got lowered through the roof right in front of him. Another time, the people to whom he was speaking didn't agree with him about some things so they tried to drag him and throw him off a cliff to kill him. So Jesus had to adjust.

Our Scripture reading this morning describes one of those times, though nothing so extreme as the congregation physically attacking. This time, it was just that a guy started shouting at him.

Jesus was talking to a group of people in a place of worship, sort of like this. He'd already begun calling some people to travel around with him, mostly from around the town of Capernaum. So the word about Jesus being up to something important was starting to spread. And when he taught, he didn't just quote the Bible to back up his views. He just said things as though he could just do that as though he could speak for God.

So Jesus was teaching like this to a group of people, and one of the people started shouting at him.

Now, in Jesus' day when someone had problems like hearing voices and having seizures, people said that the person had a demon inside them. Nowadays, we'd tend to see those problems as having to do with a mental illness or epilepsy. Probably, today, this guy would be diagnosed as schizophrenic. And there'd be medication that might help him.

But back then, there was no such medication and people thought he had a demon. Jesus didn't question the diagnosis. What he did was heal the man. Right then and there.

That brings up a pattern in how Jesus related to people who were suffering. When someone was sick or injured or mentally ill, Jesus treated that problem as something bad. He didn't say, ``God made you sick for a reason.'' He didn't say, ``You're being punished for something you did.'' Jesus treated the illness as something evil. As an enemy.

And he did the same for other problems. In a world where so many people were extremely poor, Jesus didn't say, ``God made you this way.'' He told those who had enough that they were supposed to be sharing what they had.

When Jesus came across someone who got treated badly, he made a point of associating in a friendly way with person.

Jesus was always on the side of the people who were suffering. Always. Jesus was for people.

And since one of the things Jesus did was show what God's really like, we can then say that God is for people. God is for you, and God is for me, and God is for all people together, and God is for each person individually.

But in how he related to people, Jesus also showed that God is against evil and that evil, in God's eyes, is pretty much whatever hurts people. God is for people and against evil.

Now, here's how we see it in the situation recorded in today's Scripture reading.

When you come across someone who's shouting inappropriately like that someone whose mental illness is causing them to behave disruptively when that happens around us, what are options? Well, one option is shun the person.

There are plenty of people who don't like to be around folks with mental illnesses. Folks with severe mental illnesses know that, and so they stay away from most people. People consider them ``crazy.'' The crazy aunt in the attic. The mumbling homeless person on the street. Easy to ignore them, to avoid them, to shut them away, to pretend they don't exist. That comes naturally to us.

But that's a selfish response, God is anything BUT selfish, and so Jesus wasn't selfish at all either. Jesus was for the person. He saw the person with a mental illness as a suffering child of God. And Jesus was for all God's children. And he still is. And so Jesus confronted the evil to help the person. Because he was for the person, he went after the evil that caused them suffering. He did that for this guy who shouted at him, and that was how he typically handled people's suffering. Because he went after the suffering, he went after the source of the suffering.

That gets to another option in how we relate to people who are mentally. I already mentioned ignoring them. Another option is to be friendly to them as a person but not help them with their mental illness, even when we could. There are people I know people who because they don't have much money, do not take the medication prescribed to them for their mental illnesses. There are people you know who are like that. There are people who don't have transportation to see their psychiatrist and get things adjusted.

So when we're friendly with a person with a mental illness, it's a big dea l. It's a huge deal to be like Jesus showed God to be and see through the person's mental illness to the person underneath. That's a big deal.

It's an even bigger deal to go all the way and, if there's something we can do to help relieve their suffering, to do it. To make sure they get their medications. To make sure they get to the psychiatrist.

A huge percentage something like a third or more of the people in Iowa's prisons have been diagnosed with severe mental illnesses. What society tends to do is not get their mental illnesses treated and, eventually, a lot of them end up in prison for things that come out of their uncontrolled mental illness. It's a bad system. When we intervene to care for these folks, we're being Christ-like and godly, holy for the person and against the evil that's causing them to suffer.

I've been talking as though people with mental illnesses are other people, but of course, it's plenty of us, too, to different degrees. Plenty of people here take anti-depressants. Some of us take other mental health drugs and get other kinds of regular treatment. People tend not to advertise their mental health problems. So it's not just ``other people'' we're talking about here. We have opportunities to love each OTHER and BE LOVED in the face of mental illnesses, and, sometimes, to help each other relieve those illnesses.

And of course, God being for people and against evil doesn't just apply to mental illnesses. It applies to e verything that causes suffering things outside us, as well as things that are part of us that we don't seem to have much control over our issues. And we've all got issues. God sees through all our issues to see the real person underneath. And God is for us.

And at the same time, God is against the things that cause us suffering and hurt us. Again, we see this in how Jesus related to people.

He didn't deny people's sufferings. He targeted it because cared about the suffering of the person.

So, for us, we can know that wherever evil hurts us, God is against it because God is for us. God is for you. God is for you. And God is against the things that hurt you.

We don't have Jesus' power to just fix people's illnesses and such, but we can follow his lead in most other ways of being for people and against evil.

Again, at a straightforward level, we're for people when we accept people as they are, when we don't let things about a person get in the way of befriending them and sticking with them, when we don't reject or ignore anyone, when we treat each person, regardless of their issues, as a beloved and beautiful child of God and our friend. Those things are huge and part of being for people like God is for people.

But really being for people like God is for people means also being against evil that hurts people. Human beings can pretend we don't notice things. Someone can be abused or extremely poor or sick or exploited at work or treated unfairly and human beings can pretend we don't notice. True love for people notices. Being for people like God is for people notices the evil things that hurt them.

We've already thought about this some in terms of mental illness supporting the person getting help, assisting them getting help when that's necessary.

How about with other evils poverty, abuse, neglect, rejection, intolerance, injustice?

When we're really for people like God is for them, we see those things in people's lives. We don't pretend that someone's life is okay when it isn't. We look beyond our own circle to the lives of others around us and others in the world. And we notice the evils that hurt people. And like Jesus did, we take those things on. We take them on because we're for the people who are hurt by them.

We fight to end injustices. We see poverty as an enemy to be combated. We do not tolerate intolerance. We take on that which holds people down and makes people feel terrible about themselves.

The more we're for people, the more we're against evil. I'm not talking about just being polite to people. I'm talking about being passionate committed to them like Jesus showed God to be.

That includes big things like the sad situation in our countries school system where most African-Americans go to schools that spend about half per pupil that schools spend per pupil in the mostly white suburbs. And so the best teachers and the best equipment and the best opportunities tend to go to the kids who already have the most advantages. And the invisible lines between the school districts stops the city kids from going to the better schools that are right next door to them.

The easiest thing is not to notice that sort of thing. But if we're for those people on the wrong side of that line like God is for them, then we notice the evil that hurts them. And we oppose it. And maybe, like God did through Jesus, we decide to live our lives with those on the wrong side of the line.

And it's not just school district lines. Think about borders between countries. Why can't people from Guatemala, say, just move to Iowa if they want to. It's not because of concerns about terrorism or anything like that. It's because our country's policy is to keep Americans a lot richer than Guatemalans by keeping Guatemalans out. If we're for people, we're against the evils that hurt them. The southern border of the United States hurts people bad, keeps them poor, keeps their children less educated. It feels better if we don't think about that sort of thing. But if we're for people like God is for them, we think about it. And we're against that evil.

Those are just a couple examples on a big scale.

It happens on an individuals scale, too. When we're for a person, we don't just wish their life was better. We do what we can to help. We do what we can to lift their burden. We do what we can to end or decrease the evil that harms them. Sometimes we can't do more to help than just stand with the person, put our arms around them, and love them. In those situations, that's what we'll do, then. What we don't do when we're for people as God is for people is ignore the person or ignore the evils that harm them.

When we follow Jesus' lead, see and love the person underneath the affliction, and take on the evils that cause them suffering , we're owning our identity as part of the kingdom of God.

Witnessing to and Sharing the Whole Message of Jesus Christ

Sun, 25 Jan 2009 07:35:33 GMT

1/25/09

Witnessing To and Sharing the Whole Message of Jesus Christ

Mark 2:23-3:6

Fellow citizens of the kingdom of God,

As a church, one of the things we've committed to is witnessing to and sharing the whole message of Jesus Christ. It's right there at the beginning of our church's statement of purpose that's printed in our bulletin, as always, this morning -- the statement we adopted in 2007.

Pleasant View Mennonite Church is to witness to and share the whole message of Jesus Christ.

The way to figure out what the whole message of Jesus Christ is is to look at what Jesus did and said.

It just so happens we've got a couple stories about Jesus as our Scripture reading for today. Jesus' activities here do bring out a central theme of Jesus' message -- the very message we're committed to sharing with others.

Both of these stories are about Jesus doing things on the Sabbath Day. Before we go further, we need to be clear about what the Sabbath Day was.

The people around Jesus back then had a Bible like we have a Bible. Their Bible was the part of the Bible that we'd call the Old Testament. It has lots of different parts in it. The most important part of their Bible for them was the description of commands that God had given to their ancestors. Their Bible told them that these commands were directly from God and that to disobey these commands would be to disobey God.

So obviously, these commands were a big deal to people who cared about things like doing God's will. That wasn't everybody, but it was some people.

One of these commands from God was about a day called the Sabbath Day. "Sabbath" in that language meant "rest." As recorded in the Bible, God had commanded their ancestors to set aside the seventh day of each week as a rest day. No work at all. They weren't even allowed to cook food on that day. They had to cook the food for that day a day ahead.

God said it was important. It even made it into the ten commandments. Number three or four, depending on how you number them: Remember the day of rest -- the Sabbath
Day -- and keep it separate. That's what God had commanded their ancestors.

And there are a lot of things in the Bible that God has commanded. Some people have the impression that that's what the Bible pretty much is: a bunch of rules. A bunch of things you're supposed to do and a bunch of things you're not supposed to do. And there are plenty of those sorts of things in there -- many of them, especially in the Old Testament part of the Bible, presented as commands directly from God. These weren't human traditions. These were things God had said to do.

The command about not doing any work on the day of rest was like that -- directly from God. It even says that if someone intentionally violates the day of rest -- if they just choose to do work on the day of rest -- they were to be executed. It's that big a deal, and that penalty's from God.

Our Scripture reading for today describes a time when Jesus had with him some folks who were extremely concerned about obeying God. They knew God's commands about the day of rest, which in their language was called the "Sabbath" Day. No work.

But then Jesus, who was God on earth -- the one whose message our church is committed to sharing -- he broke that very law right in front of these religious folks who were so careful about keeping it. So think about that. God had given a command to people, with some very harsh punishments attached. But then God became a person, as Jesus, and violated that very command. And it's Jesus whose message we've committed ourselves to sharing.

Jesus and some of his followers were walking. There was a field beside the road, and they were hungry. Some of his followers picked some of the heads of grain off the wheat that was growing there. When you're hungry enough, you'll eat raw wheat. There was no convenience store to stop at on that road trip. And God's commands said that poor people could pick what they could eat when they were hungry, no matter whose field it was.

But this was on the seventh day of the week, the Sabbath Day, the day of rest. And picking food to eat was considered work. So some of the strict, conservative religious folks there said, "What's the deal? You claim to be from God, Jesus, but here, right in front of you, some of your own followers are picking grain on the day of rest."

Here's how Jesus defended them. He said, "God made the day of rest for people. God didn't make people for the day of rest."

That is, the day of rest is only good when it helps people. In situations where it hurts people, then it shouldn't be obeyed.

That's quite the teaching from Jesus. Because it doesn't say that in the Old Testament recording of God's command. There it just says that people are to do no work on the weekly day of rest. And if someone intentionally breaks that law, the punishment is death. No exceptions.

But Jesus swept that away. He said that law should only be obeyed when it doesn't stop us from helping others out -- like when he healed the guy with the injured hand. He said we shouldn't apply it to people who are struggling through a hard time -- like when his followers were hungry.

Jesus applied this to all of God's commands. When conservative religious people criticized him for being such good friends with people who were known as especially bad sinners, Jesus criticized the conservative religious folks back, saying, "Go learn what it means in the Bible where it says that God desires mercy, not sacrifice."

That meant that Jesus didn't think that everything in the Bible was equal. He taught that it's more important to God that we be loving and merciful to people than that we keep every religious rule. Rules are only to be obeyed when they serve people. Otherwise, people come first and too bad for the rule, even when it's a command of God. God didn't make people to obey God's commands. God commanded things to help people. And when a command of God doesn't serve that purpose, too bad for tha commands. People come first. God loves people, not the commands. And we're to do the same.

And we're committed to sharing that central aspect of the message of Jesus -- to every person: God loves you, and we love you, more than any rule or command or principle.

A similar story is also part of today Scripture reading. It was the seventh day, the day of rest, and Jesus was talking to a group. And there was someone there who had a shriveled hand. I'm not quite sure what that would be, but I've known people who have conditions that cause a hand to kind of curl up in a claw. Maybe it was something like that.

Apparently this guy was there to listen to Jesus talk. It was the day of rest, commanded by God, so he didn't ask Jesus to heal him.

Now, everyone back then agreed that there was an exception on the day of rest: if there was a life threatening emergency. For example, if someone sliced themself and was bleeding badly on the day of rest, you could give them first aid. But if it was something that could wait until the next day -- a non-emergency -- you had to let it wait.

Well, this guy who had a messed up hand -- he had a bad problem but it wasn't an emergency. And he didn't ask for Jesus' help. But here's what Jesus did: he had the guy stand up in front of everyone. And he said, "So, what's the right thing to do on the day of rest? To do good or evil? To save someone or kill someone?"

Well, the way Jesus put it, who could argue? And no one said anything. Then Jesus said to the man, "Stretch out your hand." And the man did and Jesus, being Jesus, had healed him. His hand was now fine.

Strict, conservative religious folks were angry. In verse six, it says that they were so mad they started having secret meetings about how to kill Jesus. Now, these weren't the folks who actually killed him later. But these folks were mad enough to.

And really, the way Jesus described the situation doesn't seem all that fair. Jesus wasn't saving the guy's life. He was healing the guy's hand. And it wasn't that the conservative religious folks wanted to hurt the guy. They just thought that God's commands came first, and so if Jesus were really from God, he'd have shown more respect for God's commands.

But Jesus made a point, in front of people who didn't like it, to violate God's command by reaching out to someone in love right then and there. Reaching out in love to the person in front of him seemed to take precedent over any other command of God. He is our example. And we as a church are committed to witnessing to and sharing that example -- the example that says people come first. The example that says reaching out in love takes precedence over everything else.

God values people more than rules. And that's true even when they're God's own rules.

Or maybe another way to look at it is that Jesus made clear that this is God's number one rule: people come first. Compassion for real people comes first. God made the rest day for people. God didn't make people for the rest day.

The command above all commands is to love others as God loves. And we see how God loves in how Jesus loved. The fundamental principle, to which all others must bow down, is that people come first.

Think of commands in the Bible that religious people today use to condemn others. Think of commands in the Bible that religious people today use to shut people out and exclude them. Think of commands in the Bible that religious people today use to look down on others. Speaking for God, Jesus said, "I desire mercy, not sacrifice." Speaking for God, Jesus said, "God made the Sabbath for people, not people for the Sabbath." Showing what God's really like, Jesus made a point of violating commands of God that clashed with reaching out with compassion. And this church has committed ourselves to witnessing to and sharing that message of Jesus which was so central to what he was about.

Exactly 484 years ago, January 25th, 1525, a group of people in Switzerland decided that the whole message of Jesus was leading them to live in a way different from the people around them. And who gave them the hardest time about it? Other religious people. Who gave Jesus the hardest time about putting real people above God's commands? Other religious people. So we can expect the same. Jesus said that when we do it right, it WILL stir up trouble. Plenty of people WILL get mad at us to the extent we put compassion for people above everything. And they'll use God and the Bible to attack the way of Jesus. But we've committed to his way: to witness to it, to share it.

And he's promised that, as we do it, he'll be with us always.

The kingdom of God is at hand. May we witness to and share and experience what that means.

Welcoming,

Sun, 18 Jan 2009 06:27:08 GMT

1/18/09

A Welcoming, Compassionate Community for All People

Mark 2:1-17

Fellow citizens of the Kingdom of God,

This is number two in a short series of messages to remind us of our church statement of purpose -- words that, about a year and a half ago, we agreed would guide us as a congregation. This one is about our commitment to be a welcoming, compassionate community for all people. Open arms for all -- with no exceptions.

It's kind of controversial and sometimes hard, but as a church, we've committed to it.

In that commitment to open our arms to each other and to open our arms to all people -- in that, we've committed to basing our church's relations with people on how God relates to people.

The one true God, made known through Jesus Christ, cares deeply and lovingly about the real deepest needs of every person in the world. The one true God, made known through Jesus Christ, is in everybody's life -- sometimes not noticed, but there -- no matter their life situation or religion or anything else. The one true God, made known through Jesus Christ, is welcoming and compassionate toward all people.

When I think of welcoming, I think of a family we got to know back when we were first married. Their names were Ann and Bruce Johnson. They were part of the little church we joined. And they were very relaxed folks. We lived in town, where I was in school. They lived out in the country.

The church we were part of was a house church, so to meet, we just rotated around to each other's homes. When we met at the Johnson's home, they weren't picky about things like having it all cleaned up so perfectly. And that was true when we went over just to hang out with them, too.

The Johnsons would have us over to the house as it was.

I've heard that given as the difference between "entertaining" and "hospitality." If you're "entertaining" guests, you try to get things just right -- which can involve a lot of work and pressure. But the Johnsons didn't like pressure or extra work. What they practiced was hospitality -- welcoming people in to your space as it is.

When we had church at their house, they had the craziest mix of chairs. A couple of their chairs were really just chair frames because the seats had long since broken through. But that's what they had, so they put them out in the circle. An alternative was the floor. It was sort of like that at everyone's house for church, but the Johnson's stood out as relaxed. So interestingly the most relaxed house, the least fancy house, was also the most welcoming.

They also had this big dog, a friendly blond lab named Dominic, who wandered in and out. At some point, Dominic developed this weird growth on her belly that was kind of like a hanging sack of fluid. The vet determined that it wasn't any big problem, but it looked strange. When you visited their house, one of the things the Johnsons would do is try to get you to touch Dominic's growth. And then, if you'd do it, they all go, "Oooo, I can't believe you did that. Disgusting."

All that was really just part of enjoying your company in a relaxed way. They were interested in you as a person. Because of their curiosity about you and enjoyment of you, they made you feel interesting. They liked to do things like watch movies. But their favorite thing was more just to go on a walk with you and learn about you in a friendly, interested, relaxed way -- talk back and forth about life.

In my life, they've been a good example of hospitality. Maybe there are people who come to mind for you that way.

Well, the one true God, made known through Jesus Christ, is a God of hospitality. The kingdom of God is a welcoming, hospitable place. God's interested in us -- the real us -- as we are. In you -- not just in our plusses but in our minuses, too -- in everything that together makes up who we really are. As whole people, God welcomes us close. And same for everyone.

Our church -- Pleasant View Mennonite Church -- has committed itself to being a welcoming community for all people. Hospitable.

And a compassionate community for all people, too. What's it mean to be compassionate?

In my all-time favorite book, To Kill a Mockingbird , the main relationship in the story is between a father and a daughter. The father's Atticus Finch, a small town lawyer. The daughter's name is Scout. She's elementary school age.

The story's set in the 1930's in the state of Alabama. Atticus has taken on the job of defending a black man who's been accused of a crime he didn't commit. Atticus and his family are taking heat for this from some of the racist white folks in town. When his daughter Scout says some harsh things about those racist white folks, Atticus tells her, "Scout, you can't understand a person without walking around in their shoes for a while."

And keep in mind that that was Atticus talking about not the person he was defending but about the racist folks who insulted his family. Compassion for them didn't mean that he'd agree with their views or think their views were okay. But it did mean that he tried to understand why the person was the way they were. He tried to understand rather than judge.

We, as a congregation, have committed ourselves to practicing that sort of compassion: to try to understand rather than judge. God's that way, you know.

God could find lots of reasons to judge most any one. If God started reading off the list of my major sins, it would gone for a while. It be a combination of embarrassing and boring -- such a long list. So if God wanted to judge me, God could easily do it. But God's gone in a different direction: compassion.

Remember how Atticus Finch said that compassion involved putting ourselves in the other person's shoes? Well, God did it literally -- became one of us -- a human person. So put God's self in our shoes. Lost people close. Been pushed around, been treated unfairly, had things go badly. Had friends not always be there. God's been there. God's walked in our shoes. And God is with us, too, through whatever comes.

So whatever comes our way, God is with us. God understands rather than judges.

For our Scripture reading for this morning, we're looking at a couple ways Jesus -- God on earth -- related to people when he was first starting to do things in public.

There was a guy with a unclean spirit who made a scene during worship. Now, a couple things about that. For one, what they called an "unclean spirit" back then is probably what we'd call "mental illness" today. In the case of this guy who shouted at Jesus during worship, maybe it was schizophrenia.

A lot of the time when Jesus reached out in a healing way, it was toward people with different sorts of severe mental illnesses. Now Jesus had powers we don't have. He could do physical healings. Sometimes God works through people today to heal like that and it's good to pray for that, but what it's good for us to do especially isn't so much to heal a person as to be welcoming and accepting toward them.

How hard is it for a person with a severe mental illness to be welcomed and accepted into a church group? It depends on how the illness affects the person, but most people with severe mental illnesses don't participate in churches. Churches find ways to let them know that they're not fully welcome, that they're too much of a burden, too much of a bother.

Our Scripture reading records a time that some folks disrupted a talk by Jesus by lowering a paralyzed person through a roof in front of him. And Jesus didn't say, "Please, I have a message to share. Or we have hymns to sing. Or you're putting us behind schedule. Or you're upsetting people, making people uncomfortable."

What he did was reach out toward the person with compassion. He figured out the guy's real needs. And then he publicly forgave the guy's sins. Publicly. We don't know what the issues were but probably the other folks around, they knew. Maybe they figured the guy's disability was punishment for something bad he'd done. Maybe the guy himself thought that.

Jesus ended all that by announcing the man's sins were forgiven. And then, for good measure, he healed the guy's severe disability.

Following his example, instead of looking at a person's issues, we can instead make sure they know how much we value them as people, how precious they are to us, and how welcome they are. And in that context, we can try to understand their issues.

We've all got issues, you know. And it can be nice when someone tries to understand our issues without any interest in judging us.

That story about Jesus brings up a couple kinds of people that can feel not so welcomed in a church and not so much compassion. People with severe disabilities and people who've done something that's caused a scandal.

And then Jesus made a point of including among his group of companions a guy who worked as a tax collector, which in that situation was considered an evil and corrupt job, because tax collectors kept a lot of what they collected and because the rest of the tax money went to the foreign government that had taken over the country.

Today, maybe this guy would be a drug dealer or something.

Jesus said come on with me. And the guy came. And then Jesus went over to the guy's house and hung out with the guy and his friends. He brought welcome and compassion to these folks. He didn't wait for people to come to him -- especially people who'd be afraid that they'd be unwelcome or judged. He went to them with his open arms.

So anyway, part of being welcoming and compassionate like Jesus is not to treat the person's issues as a barrier. There are so many reasons why it's a temptation not to be welcoming and not to be compassionate. It can feel more comfortable and natural to be with just "a certain kind of person." And let's be honest, it can feel good to be judgmental and look down on others.

But as a church we're committed to be welcoming and compassionate. Regardless of a person's age. Regardless of a person's education. Regardless of a person's church background. Or their race. Or their criminal record. Or their family status. Or what they wear. Or how they look. Or what language they speak. Or their religious beliefs. Of their IQ. Or their health problems. Or anything else. What did I leave out? That too.

And that's toward each other, too. It can be hard. Hopefully, it isn't like this for you, but for me, sometimes the people it's hardest to be compassionate toward are the people I know best -- in my own family. And I get the impression that sometimes they don't find it so easy to have compassion toward me.

Again, we human beings have all got our issues. You, too! And if you don't know what yours are, one of your issues is blindest to your own issues. None of us are always easy to get along with.

Church isn't a place for folks without big issues -- for folks who have it all together. Church is for real people. At least, that's the only shot I have to be here.

A big part of all this welcome and compassion stuff is breaking down any distinction in our minds between "them" and "us." We're all "us." All of us -- no exceptions -- we're all "us." That's essential to the kingdom of God. Look around. Everyone here is "us."

When we say that part of our purpose, central to our purpose, is to be a welcoming, compassionate community for all people, part of what we're doing is accepting what God has already been doing among us.

Someone who's attended here a little told me not long ago that this is the most accepting church she's ever known. That's quite the complement. So applause for our church on that.

Back 50 years ago when this church got started by people from the Wayland area, it made a point of reaching to people who'd felt rejected by other Christian people. Back then, in the 1950's and 60's, that especially included people who'd been divorced and remarried. Back then, way before I was even a twinkle in my father's eye, this church took some heat for fully including divorced and remarried people -- in a welcoming, compassionate way.

So being a welcoming, compassionate community for all people is part of this church's history as a part of the kingdom of God. Now, there are other stories, too. Not everyone has always felt welcome here. Not everyone has always been treated compassionately. But I'm just saying that this business about being a welcoming, compassionate community for all people -- all people -- that not new for Pleasant View Mennonite Church.

The "all people" part of our statement of purpose doesn't seem to leave any room for exceptions. It was intended to leave no room for exceptions. "All people" means all people. No exceptions -- you too, and me, and everyone else here, and everyone else who'll ever walk into this room or who'll think about walking into this room. Absolute welcome and compassion -- acceptance and understanding -- no judgment -- like God is toward everyone -- like Jesus was toward everyone. That's the kingdom of God.

Tomorrow is Martin Luther King Jr. Day. And Martin Luther King was committed to this idea of being welcoming and compassionate toward all. Toward victims and toward those who hold them down. Love for the racist and love for the victim of racism. So no violence. Action guided by love and truth for every person on every side.

Now, how is this for? None of us are going to be perfect at it. All of us are going to have certain people and certain kinds of people that it's especially hard for us to be welcoming and compassionate toward.

So, focus first on those to whom you do feel compassion toward pretty naturally. Maybe for you, it's people who've gone through hard family situations. Or people who have severe disabilities. Or pastors who can be kind of annoying. Or whatever. Focus first where it comes more naturally -- that's your gift. That's what you do have.

And then toward folks that you find it harder to really love and befriend, if there are folks like that for you, just be polite and pray for them. Pray for them. Pray that God will be bless them as God's beloved children. That'll likely soften your heart a bit and there's a pretty good chance God'll work in you to give you what you need to love them. If you can't love them fully, then pray for them. And if you can, go for it. Take that as one of your spiritual gifts.

The kingdom of God is at hand. May we, as a church, be a community of Christ-like welcome and compassion for each other and for all people.

The Kingdom of God Together

Sun, 18 Jan 2009 06:26:06 GMT

1/11/09

The Kingdom of God Together

Mark 1:14-20

Fellow citizens of the kingdom of God,

What's a church supposed to do? For a church to be doing church things, what are the things it should do? I'm not talking about us as individual people, who together make up the church. I'm talking about the church as a group -- as a church. If you had to come up with a short list of things that a church should do, as people together, what would be on your list?

A couple years ago, when our church leadership was working on a statement of purpose for our congregation, we thought about this. What we came up with were four main things that we thought the church -- the group together -- should make a point of doing. Here are the four: worship, instruction, fellowship, and service.

What do you think of that list?

This Sunday, we're starting a series of three worship services structured around that purpose statement that the whole church adopted about a year and a half ago. This statement, which we always put in our bulletin -- it lays out the top priorities that are to guide our congregational life -- our life as a church -- as Pleasant View Mennonite Church.

This morning we're focusing on the second part. It reads that part of the purpose of this church is to "provide opportunities for worship, instruction, fellowship, and service for those in the congregation." Pretty straightforward maybe. Whether they'd have it written down or not, probably any church would have those basic things.

But this practical part of our purpose statement doesn't stand alone. It's guided by the two other parts. This part is about what the church is to do. The other parts are about how we're to do the things in this part.

As you can see in our bulletin, the first part says that part of our purpose is to "witness to and share the whole message of Jesus Christ." So that means that as we provide opportunities for worship, instruction, fellowship, and service, we're committed to do that stuff in ways that are based on the teachings of Jesus . All the things that Jesus taught -- his "whole message" -- are to guide how we worship, how we learn, how we fellowship, and how we serve.

So, for example, when we teach something in this church -- whether it's in a sermon or a Sunday School class or some other class -- whenever we teach something, a question we should always be asking is, "What did Jesus say about this?" "How does this fit with what Jesus taught and the example he gave us?"

And the same should be true in how we worship, how we fellowship together, and how we serve others. There's more than one way to do each of these things that churches do and some of those ways fit well with Jesus' teachings and example and some fit not so well.

The other night we had a little gathering at the church that would fall into the fellowship category. It was just a little party, a dozen people, with no particular religious content. Somebody asked me if a little party like that was considered an official church event.

What do you think? Can a time just to be together and have some fun be an important part of what a church does?

Well, what would Jesus say? And what would his example tell us?

Just in an obvious sense, there's lots of evidence that Jesus himself liked to hang out with people in relaxed ways. I haven't counted them up, but I'm pretty sure that more of the stories we have about Jesus take place when he was hanging out with people than when he was in religious settings -- meals at people's homes, wedding receptions, walking with people, and parties.

In fact, Jesus caught quite a bit of heat for his frequent attendance at parties. He got called a glutton and a drunk. That is, some of the religious folks said that Jesus spent too much time eating tasty food and drinking wine at parties. And they also accused him of being "a friend of tax collectors and sinners." And to all that, Jesus more or less said, "Yep, guilty as charged. The kingdom of God is at hand."

And then he said, "Wisdom is proved right by her children."

He's recorded saying that in Luke 7:35 -- "Wisdom is proved right by her children." What did that mean? "Jesus, you claim to be from God, but you go to parties with people we look down on -- and you actually party: you have a good time with them." And Jesus replied, "Wisdom is proved right by her children." He meant, "The way I do things is the right way for the kingdom of God. And eventually, you'll see by the results -- in terms of how people are affected -- how they're drawn deeper into God's kingdom."

So we can go back to Jesus himself for support of getting together for pure fellowship -- and that being an important thing for the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God seems not to be all business.

That gets us to the last part of this church's statement of purpose. That last part says we're to be "a welcoming, compassionate community for all people."

And that, I would suggest, is the key to making fellowship central to the kingdom of God. You don't have to talk about God for fellowship to be central to the kingdom of God. But you do have be welcoming and compassionate toward all people. That way it can be Jesus-centered fellowship without Jesus ever being mentioned at all because it's fellowship like Jesus himself practiced it.

Closed fellowship, exclusive fellowship is not fellowship that fits with the whole message of Jesus. Fellowship that says only the right kind of people are welcome is not fellowship that fits with the kingdom of God. But fellowship that's open to everybody and anybody and that with open arms welcomes and includes and equally cares about everybody and anybody -- that can be fellowship that's as important to the work of God on earth as any class or worship service.

Jesus is our model. Rich or poor, religious or non-religious, criminal or victim -- he welcomed and cared about and accepted and enjoyed the company of all people. He had a good time with all of them and he was genuinely, from the heart, friendly with them.

To the extent our fellowship is like that, it's no side thing, no extra thing, but absolutely the kingdom of God at hand.

And the same goes for the other things we do as a church. Our worship, our teaching, the ways we serve. To the extent those things are not consistent with Jesus' teachings and example, it would be better if we didn't do them at all. Jesus didn't teach that churches are important for the kingdom of God. But to the extent churches do things consistent with Jesus' teachings and example , churches can be part of the kingdom of God being at hand. But only to that extent.

Just like back when Jesus walked the earth, religious groups can support or oppose the actual kingdom of God in all kinds of ways. It just depends on how much any religious group, like a church, is guided by the teachings and example of Jesus , especially in what was central to him: his welcome and compassion for all people.

So just because we have worship services doesn't mean we're fulfilling the part of our purpose statement that says we provide opportunities for worship. We're fulfilling that part of our purpose statement only to the extent our worship comes out of the whole message of Jesus and to the extent it's welcoming and compassionate toward all people. We'll never do it perfectly, of course, but to the extent we do it, the kingdom of God is at hand among us right now.

So what does it mean for a worship service to be based on the whole message of Jesus? Well, we can look at Jesus' teachings and example. Any guidance there? For one thing, when Jesus quoted the Bible in worship services, he didn't just quote any part of the Bible. He quoted it in ways that fit his message of compassion for all -- and especially for those most in need .

For example, in chapter four of the book of Luke, there's a story about how Jesus, at a worship service, chose to read a Scripture reading from the book of Isaiah about good news for the poor and oppressed. It's not obvious unless you study it, but when he read it, he stopped right in the middle of a sentence.

He read the part where it says he'd come "to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor." And then he stopped. In the passage he was reading, the rest of the sentence says, "And the day of vengeance of our God." Jesus left that vengeance part out. If you want, you can compare Luke 4:19 with Isaiah 61:2. Jesus didn't finish the quote from the Old Testament. He only quoted as much as fit with the truth of the compassionate kingdom of the compassionate God.

So just because we read and talk about the Bible in church doesn't mean we're having a worship service that fits with the whole message of Jesus. The people who couldn't stand Jesus and considered him evil were religious people who had worship services in which they read the Bible and prayed and sang songs to God. And those things led them to oppose the message of Jesus and, especially, to be unwelcoming and uncompassionate toward many people. It's not that we worship -- and teach and serve and have fellowship -- that makes us Christ's kind of church. Those things are neutral, and they can just as easily support us going in the other direction.

Our purpose statement says that the our worship, instruction, fellowship, and service are to establish and strengthen the faith of those in the congregation. But not all "faith" is good. Some faith is bad. Some faith is faith in an unwelcoming, uncompassionate understanding of God that Jesus rejected.

The sort of faith that we're called to establish and strengthen is faith that's based on the whole message of Jesus and that's welcoming and compassionate toward all people. The same is true for us as a church: what makes us Christ's kind of church -- the only kind of church worth being -- is the extent we do the things we do in ways that fit what Christ said and did.

So, for example when it comes to social events, is everyone and anyone fully welcome and treated compassionately in every part of it? That's the key question. And if everyone and anyone is fully welcome and treated compassionately that it isn't "just a social event." It's the kingdom of God at hand -- as much a part of advancing the kingdom of God as anything can be.

All right, maybe you're wondering what this has to do with our Scripture reading for today, which is an account of how Christ called some people to follow him.

At least in my mind, here's how it relates. When God calls us deeper into God's own kingdom on earth now, he's not necessarily calling us to do totally different things. Often it's more that he leads us to do the same sorts of things differently. Think of it as Christ coming to us as a group, and saying to us as a group, "The time is now. The kingdom of God is at hand. Come follow me." When Christ leads us, he doesn't necessarily lead us to do totally different things. Often, it's more that he leads us to do the same sorts of things differently. Including worship, instruction, fellowship, and service.

That's how it was for Jesus' very first followers. They followed Jesus and really soon what did he have them doing, going to the same places of worship, reflecting on the Bible, praying, going to parties, just generally relating to people: some not so different things. But he taught them and showed them how to do those things differently.

May every part of this church's life together be shaped by the welcoming, compassionate way of Christ. And in doing that, may we all experience more and more of God's kingdom now by also being the ones welcomed and accepted compassionately by others -- as we are.

The time is now. The kingdom of God is near. May God help us as we continue on our path of trying, as a church, to follow the way of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

The Kingdom of God Together

Sun, 18 Jan 2009 06:25:14 GMT

The Kingdom of God Together

Starting Fresh

Wed, 7 Jan 2009 16:19:16 GMT

1/4/09
Starting Fresh
Mark 1:1-8

My fellow children of God's kingdom,

Grace is the central theme this morning. Are you familiar with the word "grace"?

B y grace I mean unconditional love -- love and acceptance and mercy entirely apart from who deserves what.

God is the king of graciousness. God's committed to people and faithful to people and loves people without caring who deserves what. God is committed to people and faithful to people and loves people -- accepting and caring for us all -- simply because God wants to. We, all people, are God's children, and is wild about God's children -- and is committed to us no matter what comes. We can't blow it.

Jesus said it's sort of like a father who's son takes the father's money and blows it all on partying. When the son is out of money, the father welcomes him back -- and not with scolding but with a lot of excitement. God's like that father, Jesus said -- always accepting of all God's children, which means all people.

Absolute acceptance and forgiveness and commitment without caring what anyone deserves. That's what grace is.

Grace isn't just something. Grace is the central thing. I think it's probably even right to say that grace is everything.

At least, anything that doesn't fit with grace isn't good. Anything that doesn't fit with grace shouldn't be done. Anything that doesn't fit with grace shouldn't be believed in.

Before God entered the world through Jesus a couple thousand years ago, God first sent a person named John the Baptist to get things ready. We can maybe think of God, acting through Jesus, as the builder. John the Baptist was the one who tried to clear the lot of all the brush and debris so that building could start.

Peoples lives and the world, back then and now, aren't just empty lots, ready for God to build on. If we think of ourselves and the world as a lot to build on, there's already a bunch of stuff on it. Trees and brush and debris, plus things that others have built.

I was talking with a pastor of another church a few months ago. The church he pastored was feeling like their building didn't suit them very well anymore. They thought they should either try to renovate the building they had or build an all-new one. And when they got estimates on how much it would cost to renovate their building, it turned out that it was cheaper to tear that building down and build a whole new one. Their old building just had too many problems and needs.

So back a couple thousand years ago, God was about to start making clear to everyone that God is about grace and that God's kingdom is about grace. That truth was the new building. Most of the world and most people's lives weren't ready for that new building to be built. There was already too much on the lot. And so John the Baptist's job was to prepare the lot by clearing away what was already there -- clearing away anything that didn't fit with the absolute grace of God.

And for us, too, and in our world, there's a lot already on our lots. Much of it is the same as the folks back then. Just regular human attitudes. Money stuff. Political stuff. How we structure our lives and our world. How we make decisions. How we relate to others. Religion -- religion's a biggee.

According to the longer report on John that's in the book of Matthew, chapter 3, John the Baptist's message to the folks back then was summed up in him saying, "Repent! The kingdom of God is at hand." And when people accepted that message, he dunked them under the water to symbolize that they were cleaning off everything about themselves and starting fresh.

There's more than one way to clear off a lot. One option could be a flash flood. Imagine an area kept dry by a dam that held back a lake. If that dam broke, the pounding water could rip up all the trees and knock down everything there, leaving the lot clear and ready for something new.

When John baptized people, it meant something like that. Everything that didn't fit with grace was being washed away. Their sins were forgiven.

And the word "repent" means something like "change," "change direction." So when John told people to repent, he wasn't just saying, "Be good." He was saying, "Change direction.

He said, "The kingdom of God is at hand." That meant something like, "God's ways are here now if you take a hold of them." And God's ways, centered in the forgiveness of all sins, were -- and are -- the ways of grace.

Jesus would make clear what that all meant, but John just tried to clear the lot of everything that didn't fit with grace so that God could build through Jesus.

The invitation and call on us is the same: to let go of everything that doesn't fit with God's way of absolute, total grace. Wash it all off us.

Sometimes we won't even see what doesn't fit at first. God tends to show us things as we're ready to see them -- not everything at once. And God accepts us as we are -- out of grace -- so it isn't like we have to have everything figured out to go to heaven or something like that.

It's not about doing what we need to do for God to accept us. God accepts us already. Out of grace. Washing off, clearing off, everything that doesn't fit with grace has to do with experiencing now all that we're created to experience.

For example, attitudes toward ourselves that are judgmental would count. Attitudes toward are others that are uncaring or harsh -- grudges -- would count. Choices that don't reflect living out God's grace toward all -- those would count. Beliefs that we're used to but that are different from the grace Christ taught and modeled -- those count. Religious practices that we're used but that don't fit well with the gracious kingdom of God taught and modeled by Jesus -- those count. Anything and everything that doesn't fit with grace.

Here's how one writer I like describes repentance. He says, "It means you begin looking at every facet of your life…in this new light -- from the way you think about God to the way you treat your spouse, from your political affiliation to your spending habits, from what makes you angry to what makes you happy. It doesn't mean everything changes at once, but it means you open up the possibility that everything may change over time."

How interested are you in starting that fresh? Starting fresh with nothing but God's gracious kingdom to build.

To symbolize a willingness to be cleared of everything that doesn't fit with grace, I have some water up here. Now, this isn't baptism, which is a symbol of w hen we first say that we put our faith in Jesus. This is a symbol that says we're willing to have washed out of our lives everything that doesn't fit with God's gracious kingdom.

If you come up, I'll say, "The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe the good news. God forgives all your sins." And then I'll put a handful of water on your head.

And God forgives your sins not because you're good or going to be good or because you believe the right things or have things all figured out. God forgives your sins because God loves you.

No obligation to come up. It's just a symbol. And if you can't easily come up but want to share this symbol, give me a signal and I'll come to you.

So again, this isn't baptism. It's a symbol that says we're willing to have cleared out of our lives everything that doesn't fit with God's gracious kingdom -- every attitude, every behavior, every decision, everything that doesn't fit with grace.

[ offering of the symbol ]

Whether we realize it or not, we and all people live under the reign of the one true God.

And the one true God is the God made known through Jesus. We can get a sense of God in other ways, too, but the things Jesus said and did are the only certain way to know who God is and what God's all about.

Jesus was sort of like the spokesperson for God. But more than that, even, Jesus was actually God on earth in a way that people could relate to. Being just human beings, Jesus may well be the best picture of God we ever get -- now or ever.

There was a woman who was stressing about God. She had this deep fear that God was angry with her and was going to reject her. She talked with her pastor about it, and his advice to her was this, "When you think of God and when you pray, don't picture someone mean, picture Jesus. Just picture Jesus when you think of God. And just pray to Jesus when you pray. Do you think Jesus would reject you?"

"No, I don't think so," she said. "I think Jesus is kind and forgiving."

"That's who God is," her pastor told her. "Any other picture of God is false and does not come from God."

I think that pastor gave that woman good advice.

Gracious, compassionate, generous, merciful, sacrificing-himself Jesus is the truth about God. And whether we realize it or not, we and all people live in the kingdom of the God made known through Jesus -- the God who cares about us so much, who sticks with us through everything, and who forgives our worst sins.

May whatever doesn't fit with God's gracious kingdom -- every attitude, every behavior, every decision, everything that doesn't fit with absolute grace -- may it be cleared out of our lives so that we can more fully experience all that God wants us to.

The kingdom of the gracious, forgiving God made known through Jesus is here now. Believe that good news, and let go of whatever doesn't fit with it.

No Need to Fear the Light

Sun, 28 Dec 2008 05:56:28 GMT

12/28/08

No Need to Fear the Ligh t

John 3:19-21

Sisters and brothers -- fellow ministers,

One of the things we're into in our family is reading out loud together. Right now, my wife Ruth Ann and I are reading aloud together a novel called Round Rock by Michelle Huneven. Ruth Ann had already read it to herself, but she liked it so much, she wanted us to read it together, so we are. And I like it a lot, too.

This book, Round Rock , is about people connected to a residential alcoholism rehab center. The center's program is based on the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. Step number four is to make an unflinching moral inventory of one's self. That is, the person is to go through their whole life and list everything morally wrong they have done -- especially as relates to their addiction, but not just that. And then, the next step is to honestly and fully share the details of our wrongs with ourselves, with God, and with at least one trusted person.

Two of the main characters in this story are Red, who runs the rehab center, and Lewis, who finds himself in rehab.

Now, by the time I'm going to describe, Lewis had been sober for several months. It was pretty much enforced, because he'd gotten arrested and all his family and friends were tired of dealing with his issues, so they only place that would take him in was the rehab center. His options were jail or rehab. He chose rehab.

After a few months sober, Lewis' sponsor, Red, talked him into doing the moral inventory. To help him organize his sins, he came up with categories like Lies, Money, and Sex.

Lewis' "Sex" list was a litany of impulsive encounters. Among the more notable things, he'd slept with his fourteen-year-old stepsister, cheated on his wife, slept with the wife of his boss at the parts store, and, when one of his college professors had kindly let him stay at his house, he'd slept with the professor's wife, too.

Red, his sponsor, listened to all this, and more.

Then, Lewis pulled his feet onto his chair, hugged his knees, and admitted to having sex with men, twice, in high school.

"Am I supposed to be shocked?" Red said. "Sorry, but that's been in every inventory I've ever heard, including my own. Sex with men -- and usually a particularly charming chicken, too."

"Chickens? Really?" Lewis threw back his head and exhaled loudly. He asked, "So you don't think I'm really a homosexual?"

"Do I care?" said Red, "You're sure not my type."

When it came to the category of Secrets, among the thing Lewis mentioned were that he'd cheated on a final in college. Once, when drunk, he'd slugged his mother in the mouth. (No wonder she didn't come bail him out of jail.) And when he was very young, for several months, he'd used the backyard as a toilet and didn't bury it. When confronted, he'd blamed it on his little brother. Their parents believed Lewis and sent the little brother to a child psychologist once a week for years. "Makes me sick to think about it," said Lewis.

Red said, "Oh, it's probably the biggest favor you ever did for him. At least he got outside help."

When it comes to the least appealing parts of ourselves, people naturally prefer tend to prefer the shadows. Lewis did, too -- he'd thought he'd die before he ever told anyone that stuff. But then he brought his whole life into the light. And the overall experience, thanks to Red, was an experience -- not of condemnation -- but of grace.

Red went out of his way to let Lewis know throughout that he wasn't freaked out and that he didn't look down on Lewis at all. Whether we fully realize it or not, all us human beings are sinners who depend on grace. By letting Lewis know that we're all in that same basic boat, Red made what could have been a horrible experience for Lewis into a good one.

Like most of us, Lewis was uncomfortable coming fully into the light. He thought he'd die before telling that stuff to anyone. Yet when he did, he not only survived, but the experience was full of grace. Now, human beings aren't always as gracious as Red was to Lewis. But God is.

With God, the eyes that look upon us in the light are always eyes of love and compassion. No expectation that we're anything close to perfect. We're all God's children and God's not looking to judge any of God's children. God's taken any judgment any of us deserve upon God's self already through Jesus. What God's looking for is to be close to us. To know us. Which means, as it says God created us to be in the very first chapters of the Bible, before God, at least, we can be naked and not ashamed. Who we are -- warts and all -- with a guarantee of acceptance.

That brings us to our Scripture reading for today.

It's from chapter three of the Gospel of John. I'll start with verse eighteen. It says, "There is no judgment awaiting those who trust him. But those who don't trust him have already been judged for not believing in the only Son of God. Their judgment is based on the light. The light from heaven came into the world, but they loved the darkness more than the light, for their actions were evil. They hate the light because they want to sin in the darkness. They stay away from the light for fear their sins will be exposed and they will be punished. But those who do what is right come to the light gladly, so everyone can see that they are doing what God wants."

Now, there are a couple ways of reading this. One way is that it's saying that people who do what's good and believe in Jesus are going to heaven. Everyone else is going to hell.

That's how it's often read. But let me suggest that that way of understanding it is cut off from everything Jesus did and said.

Another way of reading this passage is -- not cut off from everything Jesus did and said -- but in light of everything Jesus did and said.

That requires some background. Please bear with me if this next part seems too much like school. This stuff is important for getting a better sense of how to use information in the Gospel of John, like our Scripture reading for today.

Now, the New Testament is made up of 27 different writings that were written separately and then later, over time, people combined them into one collection. Four of those 27 writings in the New Testament are writings -- or short "books" -- in which the writers gave a presentation of Jesus' life: the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Those four writings, at the beginning of the New Testament, are often called the four Gospels. Gospel means "good news," and those are the four stories of the good news about Jesus' life on earth. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

In the first three of them -- Matthew, Mark, and Luke -- there are all kinds of similarities -- including the sorts of things Jesus said, the things he did, the way he talked, the expressions he used -- all that stuff. A lot in those three Gospels -- Matthew, Mark, and Luke -- a lot of it is word for word the same. I'm not going to spend more time now talking about why that is, but I just want to emphasize that the books of Matthew, Mark, and Luke show that the authors were pretty careful about presenting the teachings of Jesus word for word.

What seems to have happened is that those three books about Jesus were written first -- Matthew, Mark, and Luke. So people had those. And then another writer, John, decided to write his own story of Jesus to people who already had the other stories. So there wasn't a good reason for him to repeat what they'd already written.

Instead, while they focused on the actual words and actions of Jesus, John tried to come up with stories and words that would let his readers know what Jesus meant. John's readers lived fifty years or more after Jesus' death, and they spoke a different language and lived in another part of the world. So some of the things that Jesus said and did, John's readers would have had a hard time relating to. John tried to put those things in ways his readers would understand better.

Probably what those folks would have done is look first at the records of what Jesus actually did and said in the books of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Then they would have seen what the book of John added. Or when they started by reading from the book of John, as we did today, then they probably would have compared that to what Jesus said and did, as recorded in Matthew, Mark, and Luke.

I mention all this because if we just take this morning's verses from the book of John on their own -- as if they were alone -- we might think that it meant that people who believe in Jesus and are good are going to heaven and the rest are going to hell.

But even in the Gospel of John, I don't think that's what it means. Because even in the Gospel of John, the very next story after this one is about someone who didn't have a perfect life. It says that she'd been married a bunch of times and was now living with someone to whom she wasn't married. And she's portrayed very positively. As a person of faith in Jesus, though she was also a person of a different religion who lived with her boyfriend.

Sometimes when I'm with a group of pastors and they get talking about how they handle "sinful things" in their congregations, almost always one of the examples they give is couples living together without being married. Now, for one thing, that conveniently focuses on something that none of the pastors are guilty of -- as if "sin" is something about other people more than it's about everyone, including us. But also the first person in the book of John who's presented as being really excited about Jesus is someone who's living with their boyfriend outside of marriage. Jesus knows it, and he doesn't make a big deal about it.

That's in chapter four of the book of John, right after our Scripture reading today in chapter three.

So whatever our Scripture reading meant to the person who wrote the book of John, it doesn't seem to have meant that people who live with their boyfriends aren't going to heaven.

And then in the books of Matthew, Mark, and Luke -- the books whose writers were more careful about presenting what Jesus actually said and did -- in them, there's this major emphasis throughout on Jesus being overwhelmingly accepting of people who don't live anywhere near perfectly.

In our reading today in the Gospel of John, it talks about those who sin wanting to stay out of the light. But then Jesus himself seems to have spent a fair amount of time up at night, out of the light, with people who preferred the darkness.

If you've ever seen the Broadway musical Guys and Dolls , maybe you remember that there's an evangelist woman who's trying to convert sinners on the streets of New York City. But she's going around sharing her message on the street during the daylight. One of the local guys with a bad reputation suggests to her that she might find more sinners to convert if she tried sharing her message on the street at night. Since his types tended more to be night people.

From our reading from John this morning, it would be easy to get the impression that Jesus just stood there -- the light -- and waited for people to come to him. And that would suggest that God's like that -- that God somehow is in a certain holy place and that God waits for people who are pure enough to come to God.

But that wasn't at all how it was with Jesus, and so it isn't how it is with God. Jesus went into the night to connect with people. And God comes into people's darkness -- and he comes into our darkness, our sin, our pain, our doubt -- to find us, too.

God doesn't seek people in the darkness like the police do. God: not like a cop.

My work habits are such that it's not unusual for me to be driving home from my church office very late at night -- sometimes even after the bars close at 2 AM. And late at night like that, there are a lot of police on the road.

I had one of the deputies in the sheriff's department tell me that the reason they're out so late is, not surprisingly, that people try to get away with more in the dark. He said that there are perfectly legitimate reasons for a van to be driving down a gravel road in the country at 3:30 AM, but that there are also reasons to be out like that that involve illegal behavior. So the police are out more when it's dark. Sometimes when I'm at the church late, the police knock on the church door to make sure I'm not a burglar robbing the church. So far, I've always been able to convince them: not a burglar.

So anyway, when the police seek out people who prefer the darkness, it's to figure out if they're up to something, and, if they are, to get them -- to get the bad guys.

But Jesus showed that, number one, none of are so perfect, and number two, that as part of loving everyone, God's into bad guys -- and bad girls -- too. And when it came to those who prefer the darkness because they don't want people to see what they're doing, Jesus went after them. Not like a cop but as a friend. Being God on earth, Jesus knew everything about everyone already. And so he knew that a lot of people are uncomfortable with the idea of God knowing everything about them. And so he didn't wait for people to come to him. He went to them. Into the realities of their lives. As they are. He showed that God is like that.

People -- including people in the darkness -- found God's acceptance in Jesus. In the darkness -- in the dark corners of parties, he sat and talked with people. He let them know he accepted them and liked them. And when it came to parts of people's lives they preferred were kept in the dark, he let them know that he knew all about that stuff and that he accepted them and liked them.

Forget about "other people" now. How much do we buy that about us? How much do we buy that God, knowing everything about even the parts of our lives we'd like to keep hidden -- how much do we buy that God accepts us and likes us? That doesn't mean that God likes everything about us -- everything we do or don't do, all our attitudes, or anything like that. It means that God accepts us as we are as people. And likes us. We all know that we don't have to like everything about someone to like them . God likes us. God accepts you. And God likes you.

That means that we human beings don't need to be afraid of the light by which God sees us.

No Need to Fear the Light

Sun, 28 Dec 2008 05:55:35 GMT

No Need to Fear the Light

God Didn't Move On

Sun, 21 Dec 2008 07:08:37 GMT

12/21/08

God Didn't Move On

Luke 2:1-20

Sisters and brothers -- fellow ministers,

Human beings would have been easy to give up on.

Pretty selfish. Short-sighted. Hurting each other so much. Repeating the same mistakes over and over, generation after generation -- not showing much ability for moral improvement. Who could have really blamed God if God had decided to move on?

This earth is just a tiny little part of a big universe. A big universe full of endless possibilities -- endless possibilities for God to try something different, to start over, to just be, without all the hassle.

This earth isn't so big.

Some of you here have traveled throughout the world. Not me, but even just traveling around the United States, it's amazing to me how small it really is. If I look at a globe of the earth, in a day, I can easily drive far enough to make a noticeable difference in where I am on the globe. In five days, I can drive from coast to coast of the United States.

We talk about "the whole world," as if it's real big. But the whole world is not all that big really.

There are some things that are too big for me to think about. The distance between the earth and the Sun, for example. It takes 5 minutes for the light to get from the sun to the earth -- and light goes 186,000 miles a second! Getting a hold of that distance is a bit much for my little brain.

But the size of the earth -- that I can understand. With airplanes, any of us could be on the other side of the world tomorrow if we bought the ticket.

So the earth is not so big -- even for us, who are just small creatures crawling around it's surface.

For the God of the universe, it's very small. It's tiny. There are billions and billions of galaxies in the universe. Each galaxy is made up of billions and billions of stars. In one of those galaxies, around one of those stars, revolves our little planet, on which we live. Small.

And our planet has been around for over 4 billion years. For at least half of that time, there's been life on earth. For over a billion years, that life was just tiny organisms, smaller than a cell. And then one-cell organisms. And then, hundreds of millions of years ago, came an explosion of life. Fish, reptiles, insects, and, most amazingly, dinosaurs. For hundreds of millions of years, different kinds of dinosaurs dominated the earth.

Then 65 million years ago, they were wiped out suddenly when an asteroid smacked into the earth in what's now Mexico, and made the earth difficult for life for a while. The weather changed. Then different kinds of creatures developed.

And just in the last million years, really, creatures like us developed -- a couple different kinds: Neanderthals, Cro-Magnons. They developed in Africa, and then both kinds spread out -- in small numbers -- across what's now Europe and Asia.

Then in the last hundred thousand years, the Neanderthal humans died out -- leaving just one kind of humans: the Cro-Magnon humans. Those are our direct ancestors. They developed more complex language to express themselves. Just in the past ten thousands years, some of them developed writing and tools like wheels. If you think of the whole history of life on earth as a day, human beings came into existence just in the most recent second: 11:59 and 59 seconds PM. Now, everybody's got to start somewhere. And we may be around for hundreds of millions of years like the dinosaurs, but we're new on an old planet.

The whole biblical story is about just the past five thousand years of God relating to Cro-Magnon humans on this planet -- which orbits one star among billions in this galaxy, which is just one among billions of galaxies. Small.

When human beings hurt each other so much. When we're so focused on ourselves and our own families and groups and countries rather than on everybody. When our amazing ability to develop technology turns into just more ways to help ourselves and hurt each other. Well, who could have blamed God if God had moved on.

Have you ever given someone the advice to move on? Maybe they're not liking their job. They've hoped things would get better. They've tried to make things better. But their job is still extremely unpleasant for them -- making them miserable. And you tell them, "You should really consider looking for something else." Even if they've had this job for quite a while and feel responsibility to it, you might tell them, "It seems to me like this job keeps making you miserable, so it would be good to consider moving on."

Probably you can at least imagine giving someone that advice. Maybe you've been the one given that advice. Probably most of us, at some time or another, have moved on from something that seemed to be causing us more stress than it was worth.

And people end up feeling that way sometimes in relationships, too -- that the problems in the relationship are beyond us and that the whole situation is more trouble than it's worth. And so, in one way or another, we move on.

I could give lots of examples of this from my own life. Here's one. When I was in college, there was a guy in the next room on my hall who became a bit too attached to me. He was an international student -- from Malaysia -- so probably a big part of it was that he just wanted to feel like he belonged. Anyway, he'd get his feelings hurt if I did things without him, and I ended up just deciding that being friends with him was too much of a hassle. So I moved on. It wasn't long before the most we said to each other was "hey" as we walked past each other.

God could have been to us earthlings like I was to this guy on my floor. God could have moved on because we're too much hassle. It's a big universe.

But God went the other direction. And that's what Christmas celebrates. It's about the decision of God -- the one God of the whole universe -- to fully enter the lives of the messed up humans on our little planet.

It's like if I had dealt with the hassles with my former college friend by becoming a more devoted friend and fully inviting him into my life for the long term. I didn't do that. I have more of a tendency to move on than God does. God, on the other hand, is more into the whole total, absolute, committed love thing.

There's channel on our TV called the Lifetime Movie Network. The movies they show on that channel are all similar -- they all seem to have evil, mean men and a woman in distress. Sometimes when I flip by, I get hooked and watch. I admit it.

There was one movie on that channel that was about a women's crisis center. That's where women in abusive situations call to get advice and help.

In this movie, a reporter is doing a story on the women's center, and to help her write the story, she volunteers there, answering calls on the emergency hotline. She has a couple conversations with a woman in a currently abusive situation, whose abusive husband has just gotten out of jail. The abused woman doesn't have hope of things getting better. She's no saint herself. Among other things, she has a drinking problem and she's bought herself a gun. She figures the abuse will go on until eventually either her husband kills her or she has the guts to kill him.

The reporter figures out where the woman lives and goes to talk with her in person. This is in direct violation of the policies of the women's center. The director there tells the reporter, "We're like lifeguards. We do all we can, but there are situations where we can swim so far out to try to save someone that we just end up drowning with the person we're trying to help." The reporter goes anyway.

She ends up in a very dangerous situation, right in the middle of the messiest parts of the lives of strangers. I won't give the rest away in case you come across this show on TV sometime and want to watch it.

My point here is that that reporter was acting like God did in entering our world through Jesus. That reporter could have easily pulled back and moved on when the situation got too messy and dangerous. Instead, she was willing to get her hands dirty -- or, in her case, get her face bloodied -- to try to make a horrible situation better.

And so it was with God. God could have just sighed and frowned and moved on. But God went the other direction. Human life on earth is messy. We sin. That means we do selfish things a lot of the time. We hurt other people a lot of the time. A lot of the time, things that we should do to help other people, we don't do. And it's not just individual stuff, by any means. Societies and the whole world are structured in ways that hurt people and that fail to help people in ways that people should be helped. Greed and fear shape our lives and our societies and our world in all kinds of messed up ways.

It would have been understandable for God to move on, but God responded to our issues by coming closer.

God's like the social worker who takes a deep breath at the door before entering the chaotic, damaged lives of a family.

Humanity on earth is that family, and the birth of Jesus was God going through that door. The point of no return.

Some of the earthly details of God going through that door into our world are described in our Scripture reading for today.

Imagine someone struggling way offshore in deep water. And a lifeguard swims out to them, way out there, and slaps a handcuff on their wrist and puts the other one on his own wrist, and then throws away the key. That's the sort of thing God did with humanity. God bound God's self to us.

That's what happened about nine months before Jesus was born. Part of who God is became a fetus inside an engaged young woman named Mary in the town of Nazareth. Nine months later, she and her fiance had to travel, and during the trip, she went into labor and the baby was born. It wasn't an ideal situation, but it turned out okay. Both she and the baby were okay.

The gigantic God of the universe shrunk down to a tiny size to be a person on the earth. He went through human life like we do -- childhood, adolescence, family relationships, dealing with authorities, taking risks, feeling pain, being mistreated, having friends.

Why?

He likes us human beings, it seems. God's into us.

They say that you can get a good sense of a person by how they treat those underneath them. For example, if someone is nice to their date but rude to the waiter at the restaurant, that rudeness should tell you something. Or if someone is friendly to their own boss but mean to the people they're the boss of, that tells you something about them. You can get a good sense of a person by how they treat those less powerful than they are.

Well, even though God is infinitely more powerful than us, God has gone all out for us. God's like the important person who goes to dinner and then, if the waiter seems like he's having a bad day, ends up focusing on caring for the waiter instead of having the waiter be the one to serve.

Jesus said that God's like a shepherd who would devote himself to searching and searching for a single lost sheep. Or God's like a father who would never stop waiting for a son who had wandered off. And Jesus lived all this out -- lived out God's devoted, committed love -- in how he related to people. He wasn't looking for people who were good enough or religious enough or anything like that. If someone was a human being, he was into them -- loved them and included them and embraced them. So, leaving aside all the other details about you, are you a human being? If you are, then God is devoted to you.

Two thousand years ago, God's decision entered a new stage when Mary gave birth to Jesus in Bethlehem. The child she nursed and lay in a manger in a stable was no ordinary child. As the angels said to the shepherds, he represented God's goodwill toward people -- God's committed love for people. He was God-with-us.

At Christmas, we remember and celebrate how the huge God of the universe chose to shrink down to care for us earthlings.

God on Side of the Oppressed

Thu, 18 Dec 2008 14:38:15 GMT

Advent III
12/14/08
God On the Side of the Oppressed
Luke 1:46-55

Sisters and brothers -- fellow ministers,

Probably most people don't think of Christmas celebrations in church as a time for economic radicalism. Most people think of Christmas celebrations as being about family gatherings and God's Son being born and stories about babies and shepherds and angels and that sort of thing.

But for me, as a preacher, part of every Christmas season is having to deal with some of the most extreme views in the New Testament on issues of the rich and the poor. And that's because some of the most extreme views on the rich and the poor in the New Testament are the words of Jesus' mother as recorded in Luke chapter one, our Scripture reading for today.

Usually the "Christmas spirit" is thought of as having to do with everyone getting along and being nice to each other -- or something like that. Well, for the little lady in the nativity scene -- that was not her kind of Christmas spirit.

She saw the coming of God's Son -- and of her son -- of Jesus -- she saw it as God taking sides in the world on behalf of those who have it roughest.

Let's look at these words of Mary recorded in Luke, chapter one -- the words Joe just read.

At the beginning, Mary said, "I praise the Lord. I rejoice in God my Savior!"

An interesting part of this is that she called God "savior." When I've heard people call God their savior, they're usually talking about how God has saved them from their sins or from hell or from some big problem in life. But here, it seems to have been a different sense of savior. It seems to have been about God "saving" people like her from other people.

And people like her are people who are on the bottom of things -- people who felt like they'd gotten a raw deal.

In the next verse, she called herself a "lowly servant girl" and marveled that the one true God had noticed her. God had made her -- who felt like a nobody -- God had made her somebody.

Probably the rest of you have better taste than I do. But in January, one of the things I do is watch the audition shows for the TV show American Idol . I don't get into the actual singing competition all the much, but the auditions are high quality entertainment for me.

If you haven't seen them, what happens in the auditions on this TV show is people sing a short bit of a pop song in front of the judges. Usually not more than thirty seconds. No accompaniment. Then the judges decide if the person makes the first cut to have a chance of winning first place on the TV show, which each year crowns one singer as the new American Idol. Thousands of people audition to get on the show.

And most of them aren't very good.

Sometimes they're interviewed ahead of time. And they talk about how committed they are to their dream of being a singing star. How important it is for them. And then they sing, and they're terrible.

But it was so important to them to "be somebody" that they couldn't judge their own musical talent.

It's easy to laugh at these folks who are so mistaken about their own ability to sing, but I think part of what we see on the show is people who just want to be somebody. A lot of these contestants are young men and young women -- like Mary was young -- who feel like nobody. Like Mary called herself, "A lowly servant girl." To someone who gets the message in so many ways that they don't matter much -- for someone like that to be lifted up in front of everyone -- that would probably feel really good. That's how Mary felt when she realized that God had discovered her. God had made her a star.

So in choosing Mary, God dropped a major hint that every single person is a major somebody to God. You're a star. Your kids are stars. And one day, everyone will see that. There are no nobodies with God.

This is more individual stuff I've been talking about so far -- how each person matters so much. Most of what Mary said wasn't personal, though. It mostly seems to have been about the group. The word for this kind of group is "social class."

Mary was conscious of her class. She knew that, mostly because of who she was when she was born into the world, she was poor and powerless. And she knew that some people were rich and powerful. Two social and economic classes. In our society, there's also a big middle class. But back then, there wasn't much of one.

So anyway, when it came to how God dealt with social classes in the world, Mary made a few general statements about how God did great things, merciful things, tremendous things with his arm.

And then she got specific and it was specific about social class.

She said, "God scatters the proud and the haughty." Those who look down on others. For Mary to say that, it sounds like she knew what it was like to be looked down on. And why would that have been? A poor person. A nobody. Someone who looked like a pregnant teenager traveling with her boyfriend.

Maybe God had her be Jesus' mother so Jesus would pick up plenty of her hostility toward people who look down on others. Jesus did hate that. In the stories about him as an adult, what seemed to make him the most mad was when someone looked down on someone else.

Then Mary said this, "God has taken down princes from their thrones and exalted the lowly."

We have a word for removing princes and lifting up the lowly in their place -- revolution. It's not just a change in government. It's getting rid of the whole social class that had been in charge and putting in the people who'd been on the bottom.

Mary obviously didn't think much of the princes who ruled her world.

One of them, a guy named Herod was the king over the part of the world she lived in. He was one of the people on the top, and when someone on the bottom started getting ideas, he went at them quick. He didn't get to be king for thirty years by being nice to everyone and hoping everyone let him stay in power. And so he went after Mary's son. There were rumors that God was going to lift up someone on the bottom in Bethlehem to make them the new king, and so Herod had all the little boys in Bethlehem killed.

No wonder Mary wanted the rulers knocked off their thrones. A later ruler would successfully kill Jesus, when he was in his early 30's -- not too old.

I know something about low-income young women who've been on the bottom of society and how society treats them even now , since they are most of the folks who come to the church in desperate situations seeking help . If they get pregnant -- like Mary did -- they get criticized no matter what they do. The easiest thing can be to get an abortion so no one knows. If they have the baby, they get criticized for having babies out of marriage. They get criticized for being poor with children. The vast majority of people in this area -- and throughout the country -- who are extremely poor are mothers with young children.

And why? Well, unless they have a very supportive family to fall back on, what are they supposed to do? Go to work? Where? And how? What are they supposed to do with their young child while they work? If they have no money, how are they supposed to get to work? And how are they supposed to live off of what someone in their situation can make?

Most of the Marys I know don't even have the energy to hope that God turns things upside down. They're depressed or just trying to survive week to week. They often see no way out.

But for the men, too, the lack of decent jobs for people in their situation is a huge problem. There was a time, decades past, when someone could make a decent living and support a family working in a local factory. Now?

But it's the people who already have more money and power who have the most influence on the decisions in national policies that have a big impact on those on the bottom. International trade policies that are great if you're an investor and that aren't so bad if you're a professional. But if you're a blue collar factory worker, the international trade policies of that past thirty years have taken away your chance to make a decent living working with your hands. Are you supposed to go where the job is? Mexico? The people who take showers before work run things. The people who take showers after work get the bad results.

Unions are another thing. There used to be a strong workers unions in this country. But in the early 80's, the government made things much harder for workers to come together in unions so companies couldn't push them around so easily. Trade policies were the biggest reason. Trade rules are set up so that companies can easily move a factory to another country but the laws about how to pay and treat workers don't go to that country.

And so the stock market went up for an investor, while average wages for a factory worker went down.

And in addition to trade, the government in the 80's basically stopped enforcing the laws against targeting workers who support unions.

So there are big employers in the country and around here -- like, say, Wal-Mart and the local restaurants, including fast food. But do any of them have worker unions to fight for better wages and benefits? No. Why? Because those companies will do any ruthless thing possible to stop it. They can't move those jobs overseas. Stores and restaurants have to be near their customers. And so what they do is fire employees who favor unions. And they try to avoid hiring employees who might be interested in unions. And they spend hundreds of millions of dollars on the campaigns of anti-union politicians to get laws written in their favor.

The rich investors are the ones who benefit from this. And the people on the bottom -- they're just trying to survive. They don't even have much time for politics or studying how a labor union might help. If they even think about it, it would probably sound too risky. They're trying to figure out how to pay the basic bills.

But back 2000 years ago, Mary figured it out. She became conscious of her class -- how those on top take advantage of those on the bottom.

In a lot of the stories Jesus told, he drew on things that the people around him knew. He talked about bankers and people who owed more money than they could pay. He talked about landowners and the peasants who worked the land. He talked about rich people behind gates and poor people dying outside on the street. In all that, he was talking about the world his mother Mary lived in. And she wasn't one of the rich folks who owned land and lived behind a gate.

She was upset about how things were -- what a bad deal those on the bottom were getting. And she looked to God to change it.

Verse 53 records her saying that she worshipped a God who "satisfies the hungry with good things, but sends the rich away empty handed." Mary didn't just want people like her to have enough. She wanted some payback to those who'd enjoyed extra when people like her didn't have enough.

Pull the powerful down from their thrones and lift up the lowly instead. Give food to the hungry and send the rich away.

Mary was hoping that what God was doing by coming into the world meant that God was clearly taking a side in the clashes between social classes in the world -- that God was clearly taking the side of the poor and the oppressed.

And Mary -- that radical young pregnant woman -- she was right. God is not neutral between the powerful and the weak, between investors and workers, between the rich and the poor -- God is not neutral. In those conflicts, God loves everyone on every side, but God is ON the side of the weak, the workers, and the poor.

The shut out and despised -- that's whose side God is on. The rejected and the ignored -- that's whose side God is on. The wounded, the abused, and the alone -- that's whose side God is on. Again, God loves everyone on every side, but God is ON the side of the oppressed.

Jesus said that he, Jesus -- God on earth -- that he is so much on the side of the oppressed and poor that it's like what happens to poor and oppressed folks are what happens to him -- and that all the world will be judged by how they treat those folks. When Jesus talked about hell -- and he did -- when he talked about it, the people he warned were in danger of hell were the exact two groups that his mother wanted to see taken down: those who proudly looked down on others and those who were rich while others went without.

And Jesus didn't treat poor and oppressed folks as though they were "those people." They were "his people." They ARE his people. It was the rich and powerful and snobby who were "those people."

Those on the bottom of this world are on the top of God's list. To the extent that's you, God is on your side more than you even realize. The last will be first. The lowly will be lifted up. God loves everyone, but God is ON the bottom -- child of a single mother, a refugee, no special education, worked with his hands, struggled for money, looked down on by the fancy people, criticized for his friends, and then pushed around and killed by the powerful because they saw him as a trouble maker. That was Jesus -- that's God in the world, then and now -- on a side.

Most every Christmas season I end up preaching a sermon along these lines. It's not a "Silent Night, Holy Night" kind of message. It may not seem all that Christmasy. But I don't feel like I have much choice, since the words of Jesus' mother Mary are very much part of the Christmas story. And this is what she said.

And I guess if God didn't want this to be a Christmas theme, God wouldn't have chosen such a radical woman to be Jesus' mother.

We'll close with Isaiah 61, the biblical reading Jesus chose to give his idea of Christmas spirit -- one very much in harmony with his mother's. Christmas spirit -- "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because the Lord has appointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to comfort the brokenhearted and to announce that captives will be realized and prisoners will be freed. He has sent me to tell those who mourn that the time of the Lord's favor has come, and with it, the day of God's anger against their enemies. To all who mourn among God's people, he will give beauty for ashes, joy instead of mourning, praise instead of despair."

So let's get some true Christmas spirit. At all levels of our lives, let's love everyone but be on the SIDE of those having the roughest time. Let's turn some things upside down that need to be turned upside down for the sake of those hurting on the bottom.

Comfort from God

Wed, 10 Dec 2008 03:43:31 GMT

Advent II

12/7/08

Comfort from God

Isaiah 40:1-11

Sisters and brothers -- fellow ministers,

The message this morning is about comfort. So when you think of comfort, what comes to mind?

Maybe you've heard of the expression ``comfort food.'' I read this week that Oprah Winfrey, the TV talk show host -- when she's feeling down or stressed, one of the things she does is eat lots of macaroni and cheese. Mac and cheese is comfort food for a lot of people.

Or sometimes, when people are feeling down about things, they curl up with a carton of their favorite ice cream. Anyone here?

Is there comfort food that you go to when you're feeling down?

For me, at home, it would probably be Vietnam fried rice, my favorite easy dinner. Mmmmm. I smile every time I sit down to it. Nothing fancy but dependable. Yum.

Or maybe pizza with pineapple topping.

Or if I stop at a convenience store, it would be a bottle of Dr. Pepper and bag of cashews. Total pleasure.

Comfort food.

And for me, if I really want to be comforted, maybe I'll listen to my favorite music from back when I was teenager. I just turn it up and smile. Late 70's/early 80's rock and roll music is comfort music for me. What would it be for you?

Or maybe instead of music, I'd turn on the TV and watch a rerun of one of the classic shows that I can depend on to make me laugh. Seinfeld. Or Friends.

For my wife Ruth Ann, I see her do her comfort thing. Her comfort stuff would include putting on warm pajamas, thick socks, and warm slippers; wrapping up in a thick robe on top of that; and then curling up in a comfortable chair with a cup of chai tea and a novel she's enjoying.

In the background, some classical music or Christmas music playing softly. Ideally, for her, it would be snowing outside.

And for kids, comfort often has a special connection to a favorite blanket or stuffed animal that they're used to.

What comes to mind for you when you think of comfort?

I asked someone that this week, and she said that she thought of when her great-grandmother died. Family and friends came together. And her own friends surrounded her -- gave her a shoulder to cry on.

I suppose that's a big part of why we gather together when something painful happens. To lean on each other. To be there for each other. To receive comfort -- and to provide comfort.

A couple weeks ago, I had the privilege of being part of a funeral. The man had died in his mid-50's -- unexpectedly and before his time. A large group of family and friends gathered together -- to grieve together, to comfort each other.

And as part of the funeral, the man's son performed a song for the folks who`d gathered. A brave thing to do. He sat in front with his guitar, and he played and sang the song ``Stand By Me'' by Ben E. K ing.

That song's about how no matter what comes, you can survive as long as the person to whom you're singing stands by you. ``I can face anything, as long as you stand by me.''

I mention that because that seems to be a big part of how God offers comfort. God stands by us through anything that comes. The worst comes -- pain, humiliation, failure, sin, earthly death -- and God's still right there, standing by us.

Now, over the long term, God is not only with us but sets thing right. God has made it so that each of us can live forever, and things like being mistreated and in poverty and being sick aren't part of the long-term plan for anybody.

Over the course of eternity, God's intention for each person includes growth and love and relationships with loved ones -- without the painful things that can be part of this stage of life. I'm talking about beyond earthly death here. All of us will die -- as it says in our Scripture reading, "the grass dies, the flower fades" -- but God has made it so that our earthly deaths are just a transition to chapter two of a book that will never end.

And through all that and more, God will stand by us always.

But even now, God stands with us.

Our Scripture reading this morning comes from around 2500 years ago. There was a group of people back then who'd felt abandoned by God. They'd gone through some very hard times. And it felt to them as though God either had left them as punishment for ways they'd messed up.

Our Scripture reading for this morning was a word from God to those suffering folks, 2500 years ago -- an announcement that God was, in fact, going to stand by them. It was a message of comfort to people who felt abandoned.

About 500 years after that situation -- which makes it about 2000 years ago -- God entered the world through Jesus to make even clearer how committed God is to stand by people, to comfort us, to be there for us -- no matter what.

There are couple aspects of it that Jesus made clear.

For one thing, he showed that God stands with people when they're poor and being hurt by others. So to the extent that's you, God stands with you even closer than to the rest of us.

God chose to enter the world as a poor and oppressed person. Back then, there were kings and emperors who were claiming to be gods. But when the one true real God of everything entered the world as a person, it was as someone without power, without a fancy position, without money, not even from a powerful country. If God entered the world today like this, maybe it would be as a person from Afghanistan or Ukraine or Congo. And not as a leader but as just a regular person -- and one without much money or education.

One of the things Jesus showed people is what God's comfort looks like -- and doesn't look like. It didn't look like God fixing everything. It didn't look like God giving people ``an easy life.''

It was more about the steadfast relationship between God and people -- like in the song ``Stand by Me.''

Often people think about what a person's life should be in terms of "seeking God." But one thing Jesus showed is that it is God who seeks us. And it's not just a one time thing, being ``saved'' or something like that. Through ALL the ups and downs of our lives, God seeks us -- tracks us down, digs us out, stays close -- holds us tight. The one true God -- the God made known through Jesus -- is determined to stand by each person.

Jesus surprised some people with that. One time Jesus started hanging out with someone of a different religion. This person had also been married a bunch of times. Jesus' followers were surprised that he was hanging out with her, and so, it seems, the woman herself was surprised.

About the religion thing, she said, ``So what are you, a Jew, doing sitting and talking like this with me, a Samaritan?'' She was a different religion.

But nothing kept Jesus away. There were no barriers between him and people that he wouldn't happily bust right through. That's how God is, he showed people. God ignores warning sides and barriers and stands by us. God stands by me and God stands by you and by everyone here and everyone there is.

Standing by us, though, doesn't mean that God approves of everything about any of us. That's one of the things people sometimes get confused about. Approval and commitment are different things. Totally different.

When you stand by someone, it doesn't mean you think they do no wrong, does it?

Like when a kid gets in trouble at school -- by being a bully, say. And the principal tries to talk with the parents about it. And the parent refuses to acknowledge that their child can be in the wrong. They're loyal to their kid till the end, even if their kid is disrupting class and bullying other kids.

"Mr. Jones, your son was whacking other children over the head with his ruler."

"Why are you always picking on my son? He says the teacher doesn't like him. Sounds to me like the problem is the teacher."

"Today he drew blood from two of his classmates."

"So my son is the only one in the whole class who ever acts up? I hear that there are a lot of kids in the class who mess around. He said he didn't start it."

You can imagine this kind of discussion -- maybe you've been part of a discussion like that.

The parent who refuses to accept that his son has been hurting other children -- that parent's motives are good in a lot of ways. He's trying to be loyal to his son -- let his son know that he count on his dad.

But he's denying his son's sins, and so really the father isn't doing a favor to anyone. Even for the son -- especially for the son -- it would be better to acknowledge the truth of the situation and work on it. And that wouldn't have to mean the father'd be standing by his son any less.

Everyone messes up. We all do things we shouldn't do. And there are things that all of us should do that we don't. Specifically we all do things that hurt other people and that don't help other people as much as we could. And because God loves the person next to us, God cares very much how we treat them.

The religious word for that kind of thing is "sin." We're sinners. I sure am. So God cares very much about our sin. Because God loves the people our sins affect, our sins are big deals to God.

But what our sins don't do is cause God to stop standing by us. In our Scripture reading from Isaiah 40, it says that God wouldn't hold those people's sins against them. They'd already paid whatever price needs to be paid. These were those folks 2500 years ago who'd felt like God had abandoned them forever because of their sins.

And God's word to them was forgiveness. "Speak tenderly to my people. Tell them that their sad days are gone and that their sins are pardoned. The Lord has already punished them in full for all their sins."

That was 500 years before God entered the world in Jesus. In Jesus, God revealed Godself to be even more forgiving than that.

One of the things Jesus showed about God is that God is very into forgiveness. So much so that God would rather take punishment for people's sins upon God's self than inflict it on people.

Look, God knows us better than we know ourselves even. God knows all our sins full well. God's aware of the sins we're ashamed of. And God's aware of the sins we aren't ashamed of, but that we probably should be.

God doesn't like those things about us, but God likes US. You, too.

And especially if we feel ashamed or guilty or like we don't measure up or like we can't take the pressure of TRYING to measure up -- God's approach can be a lot of comfort. God's approach is unconditional acceptance. Unconditional love. As we are. As everyone is.

There's no fine print in our contract with God that says that if we mess up in such and such a way, then God's out of the contract. It's set in stone. Signed in blood.

One time, there was a guy who wasn't able to use his arms or legs at all. Probably he'd been in some sort of accident. His friends brought him to Jesus, hoping Jesus would heal him. But like Jesus knows everyone, Jesus knew this guy. And when he saw him, he thought, "Ah yes, it's Louie. I know that Louie has always felt horrible about the way he treated his son -- the one he fathered outside of marriage and then didn't help raise." And so knowing what Louie needed, Jesus told him, in front of everyone, "Your sins are forgiven."

No one even asked Jesus to forgive. In fact, in the stories about Jesus in which he straight out told someone that their sins are forgiven, none of them had asked him for that. But he knew that was something they needed to hear.

So maybe sometimes you hear people say that a person has to repent and ask for forgiveness before they can be forgiven. Well, Jesus' approach to the whole issue of forgiveness undercut that. Jesus was Mr. Forgiveness. Which means God is Forgiving, with a capital F -- it's central to who God is, it turns out.

God's total forgiveness of all our sins is part of God's unconditional love for us. God stands by us in the face of our sins. One way to think of God's unconditional love and forgiveness is to think of it as an embrace -- a big hug.

God embraces people as we are. We don't have to fake anything at all. We can totally let our guard down. And God embraces us.

For most of us, a warm, full embrace is pretty high on the list of what we find comforting. And for me, at least, an accepting embrace feels especially good when I know I don't deserve it. Being accepted as I am is pretty awesome. For me, when I've felt that, it's been especially in family -- especially in my marriage.

It doesn't mean that Ruth Ann approves everything about me. You can ask her, but I'm thinking she's say, "No." But she hangs in there with me and accepts me as I am. It's pretty amazing.

Now, not everyone gets that from their closest relationships. I'm lucky. And no one gets that kind of unconditional embrace perfectly from other people. But that's how God loves -- now. With forgiveness and acceptance, with the comfort of an embrace that's just as much there when we sin badly as at any other time. We can't blow it with God. God's hold on us is unlimited.

And so that's another way that God provides comfort to us -- by standing by us no matter what.

Our Scripture reading looks forward to what we experience. It talks about the announcement back then that "Our God is coming!" Well for us, on this side of God entering the world through Jesus, the message is, "God has come! Jesus -- gracious, compassionate, stick-with-people-no-matter-what Jesus -- Mr. Forgiveness -- he is the truth about God."

The Christmas season is an especially good time to look back at how amazing it turns out God is -- how comforting it is that God stands with people no matter what and forever.

Who Is God?

Thu, 4 Dec 2008 07:06:03 GMT

11/30/08
Who is God?
Isaiah 64:1-9

Sisters and brothers -- fellow ministers,

Regular lives of regular people have plenty of ups and downs. People don't suffer the same amount -- not even close -- but most people go through plenty of hard times of different kinds.

I'm going to describe someone I know. This sort of life I'm describing could be most anyone's. She isn't someone who, if you met her, would seem to have had a hard life. And really, she hasn't. Just the hard stuff that plenty of people experience.

She grew up in a broken household, mostly during the Depression. Her mother was only home sometimes. Other times, her mother'd be gone for a long time -- as in months. One time, her mother came home pregnant. Then she disappeared again. Eventually she left for good.

This woman got married at around twenty. She had three children. One of her sons had bad health problems and then he died shortly after finishing high school. The way he died, it was never clear if it was an accident or if he committed suicide.

Her daughters did fine for themselves, though one of her grand daughters has had a pretty rough time of it -- and this granddaughter's also had a few kids who've had a pretty rough time of it as little kids.

On the other hand, this woman has had a lifelong marriage to a man who is genuinely her friend. In her fifties, this woman was also able to go back to college and get the degree she'd never gotten before because she'd married so young.

Ups and downs in life. Two children doing well, one child dead. A good long marriage, a mother who more or less abandoned her.

Knowing this person now -- in her 80's -- she's very kindhearted, but she also wouldn't claim to have much in the way of belief in God.

I obviously haven't known her all her life, but my guess is that if you'd talked with her at various times during her life and asked her what her thoughts were on God, it would have depended on which time in her life it was. The time when her children were born would probably have brought a different answer from the time her youngest child died.

And if you asked her now, she'd probably say that there have been so many downs as well as ups that it's hard to say.

For you, how have your life experiences shaped what you think God's probably like?

Would it have mattered when in your life we'd have asked you?

Our Scripture reading this morning comes from about 500 years before Jesus was born. So this would have been about 2500 years ago. It was a particular time in the lives of a whole group of peoples. In terms of ups and downs, this was a serious, horrible down time for most of them.

Here's the background:

There had been a whole country of people who had considered themselves to be God's people, in a special way. God had rescued their ancestors from slavery. God had led their ancestors into a new land. God had also spoken more or less directly to their ancestors through people called prophets. The first prophet, and the greatest one, had been a guy named Moses. Through him, God had given their ancestors a lot of the details about how God wanted them to live in the world.

God also sort of lived among them. Now, if you'd asked them, most of these folks would have said that God is everywhere. But God also symbolically lived among them in a way God didn't live in other places. For a few hundred years, they had what they called the tabernacle. It was like God's tent. And it was in the tabernacle that special things were done to worship God -- special sacrifices and that sort of thing. And a few times a year, all the people would come and camp out around the tabernacle to remember the great things God had done for their ancestors in the past.

And then eventually, the people got rid of the tabernacle and build a spectacular temple. The tabernacle had been a big tent. The temple was a big building. They built it in their capital city, Jerusalem. And it symbolized that God was with them. This was in about 1000 B.C..

But not long after the people built the temple for God -- God's house, as they saw it -- God seems to have become dissatisfied with the whole arrangement. The people were called Israel in those days. But while they thought of themselves as God's special people, they'd pretty much become just like other countries.

Every country back then had a special God and built temples to their God. Israel had some political conflicts that split it into two countries, a northern one and a southern one. Then the northern one was invaded by a powerful army and destroyed. The southern part of Israel managed to cut some deals to stay in existence.

But then, around 600 years ago, a new powerful nation arose nearby. This new nation was called Babylon. And it tried to take over pretty much all the other countries nearby. And it did. And that included the southern part of Israel, which was known as Judah -- because that was the largest tribe of Israel in the south.

So Babylon took over Judah, and then some of the leaders of Judah tried some things to resist. That didn't go well at all, so the Babylonian army just arrested everybody and destroyed the country. They carted off the people in chains to the land of Babylon. And as for the city of Jerusalem and the temple which was God's house among the people -- the Babylonian army burned them down.

God's temple. The stone tablets on which Moses had written God's commands. The whole city of Jerusalem. Totally destroyed. A lot of the people of Judah were killed, and the rest were arrested and taken away to Babylon.

It was in Babylon that these people from Judah first became known as ``Jews'' -- which just meant, ``people from Judah.''

And by and large, these Jews -- these people from Judah -- they found the whole experience devastating.

For one thing, of course, they'd seen large numbers of their friends and family die in the Babylonian invasion. And they'd been forced to leave their homeland -- the land on which their ancestors had lived for hundreds of years. So now they were in a strange new land, with different weather and different customs and a different language. And a different religion.

And so they wondered, ``Where is God in all this?''

One of their poems from this time made it into the collection of psalms. It asks, ``How could we see songs of praise to God so far from Jerusalem, the city of God? Instead of playing our harps, we hung them on tree branches by the Babylon River.''

They didn't feel just sad. They felt confused. They felt empty. They felt like, given all that had happened, they didn't know who God really was. They felt like God was far away, didn't care.

God didn't seem close. God seemed hidden.

And it was out of all that confusion and sadness and emptiness -- out of all that came our Scripture reading for today. It comes from just that time -- the time of the Jews in Babylon.

Speaking not just for himself but all the people, the prophet cried out for the true God to break into the world -- to break through the clouds and show his face.

Now by this time, most of what we call the Old Testament was already out there. These folks already knew most of the Bible stories from the time before Jesus. They already knew the laws that God had given through Moses. And yet, in the midst of intense suffering, they felt that all that they had failed to show God to them. To these folks who had most the Old Testament part of the Bible and who had lived the rest, what they had didn't feel like it showed them God. Despite their Scriptures and their history and their experiences, God seemed hidden.

What do you think? How much can you relate to that feeling?

This Scripture reading from 500 years before Jesus' birth expresses how these folks were seeing God at that point in their life. God to them seemed pretty hidden and mysterious. How is God to you right now? How clear and in focus at this point in your life?

And they based their confusion on the ups and downs that their ancestors had experienced and, especially, on the major ``down'' they were in the midst of experiencing. Right now in your life, how clear is it where God is?

There would have been times in the past during which the ancestors of those Jews would felt pretty certain that they saw God accurately. But then a lot of that turned out to be wrong. So thinking we see God clearly and actually seeing God clearly aren't the same thing. Sometimes what people see very clearly turns out, on closer inspection, not to be God much at all.

So if we take into account our own experiences in life and then add in the experiences of everyone else, what picture would we have of God? How clear?

The picture might be blurry. Or we might not even know which way to look.

I've had the experience of looking through a telescope at the night sky. And a person who knows what they're doing is guiding me. And she focuses the telescope and then tells me what I'm going to be looking at. Mars maybe. And I look and say, ``Oh yeah, I can tell that's Mars. Cool.'' And then she looks through again and says, ``Hmmm. That's not Mars. You must have bumped the telescope.''

So just because what I was looking at was in focus doesn't mean that it was what I thought I was looking at. Just because someone seems certain that they're seeing God clearly doesn't mean that what they see clearly is actually God. In fact, there's know it could be for everyone, because so many different people are so sure they see God clearly, yet they don't all see the same thing.

So God is hidden even from some who think they see God clearly.

And as for making sense of God from looking around at the world and people's experiences, if we do that, we may well end up where the author of the book of Ecclesiastes did. Ecclesiastes is one of the Old Testament writings. It's hard to tell when it was written or who wrote it. But it doesn't claim to be a message from God. It's just a person's attempt to make sense of things from looking at the world.

And the author of that writing says that, after a long life studying the world and reflecting on it, there's not much sense to make. It's all meaningless, he says. People who do the right thing suffer just as much as those who do evil. Those who hurt others prosper at least as much as those who care for others. There seems to be no way to predict how long a person will live. It's just a crapshoot, a role of the dice.

Yep, that's in the Bible.

To the author of the book of Ecclesiastes, looking around at things didn't settle much. Some people point to the beauty of nature as something that points to who God is. But just as much as nature includes glorious sunsets, it also includes hurricanes and earthquakes that kill lots of people. Just as much as nature includes the beauty of swans and whales, it also includes the germs that kill millions of people every week.

And really, that's a legitimate point of view. If you look around at people's lives, there doesn't seem to be a pattern in people getting what they deserve. Maybe sometimes it seems like they do. But just as often, it goes the other direction -- and those who should be blessed end up suffering greatly. Chance. Luck. Unfairness. Or even meaninglessness.

How does it seem to you? Like it seemed to the author of the book of Ecclesiastes? He would have said that God seemed hidden.

And so the Jewish people in Babylon 2500 years ago felt that way. And they cried out for God to show who God really is in the face of such messed up stuff in the world.

And then, before too long, God did. God entered the world God's self -- as a person in the world. The face of Jesus was the face of God. And in the things he said and did, Jesus wasn't God in disguise. He was what God really looks like.

In our Scripture reading of people before the time of Jesus, these folks prayed for God to speak from the clouds. Well, when Jesus walked the earth, God did. Twice. The first time, it was when Jesus was baptized. And a voice from the clouds said, ``This is my beloved Son, in whom I'm pleased.'' And the second time was during a situation that's sometimes remembered as the Transfiguration -- when Jesus appeared shining like light in front of a few of his followers. And God spoke to them from the clouds saying, ``This is my Son. Listen to him!''

So God has spoken from the clouds -- to direct people toward Jesus.

And God has more the spoken from the clouds -- God has come into the world as Jesus to show us the truth. According to the Gospel of John, one of Jesus' followers once asked Jesus, ``Will you show us the Father?''

And Jesus replied, ``Haven't you figured it out yet? If you've seen me, you've seen the Father.''

All the things Jesus said and all the things he did -- his priorities, the things he cared about -- all that was a removal of God's hiddenness.

There are all these claims out there about God. You've heard a lot of them. Some people present God as mostly angry and punishing. Some people present God as compassionate and forgiving. Some people present God as distant -- at most kind of watching over things but not really involved. Some people present God as very involved in things -- as the cause of everything that happens, whether good or bad.

Let's just look at those questions. We'll do scales of one to ten.

So on a scale of one to ten, with one being compassionate and forgiving and ten being angry and punishing, where do you see God being?

On a scale of one to ten, with one being that God controls everything that happens and ten being that God controls nothing that happens, where would you see God being?

There are a lot of different answers out there -- a wide range. And among people who call themselves ``Christians,'' the range is almost as wide.

I've heard talk about things like ``the Christian view of God'' and ``a Christian lifestyle,'' and I have almost no idea what they mean by those things until I ask them more -- because people who call themselves Christians don't agree on much. In my experience, the label ``Christian'' is not helpful in getting a sense of what a person believes about God and about life.

So among Christians, you have all these different views of God out there.

Apart from the teachings and actions of Jesus, God is at least partially hidden. Apart from what God made known through Jesus, God is at least partially hidden.

All other ways to see God are imperfect. They may show some things that are true about God, but they may also just as easily show something very different from God and yet call it God.

The teachings and actions of Jesus are the way to see God as God really is. The only sure way.

In the coming Sundays, up to Christmas, I'll be talking more specifically about what we see of God through what Jesus said and did.

Here's the real short version: God is committed with absolute love to every person, no matter what. To you, to everyone. God is crazy about every person. And God is with us through all things.

So the God we can see through Jesus' teachings and actions is accepting and compassionate and merciful and generous and with all people through all things, no matter what.

Jesus ended the hiddenness of God, to the extent we're willing to see God through his life and through his teachings.

Who is God? God is the overwhelmingly gracious one revealed through the life and teachings of Jesus.

We're All In This Together

Thu, 4 Dec 2008 07:05:40 GMT

11/23/08
We're All in This Together
Matthew 25:31-45

Sisters and brothers -- fellow ministers,

As our Scripture reading for this morning shows, when God walked the earth through Jesus, God made clear that we are to care for the people around us -- especially those most in need. And God also made clear through Jesus that when WE are in great need, when things are hardest and most desperate for us, God identifies with US so closely it's like what happens to us happens to God.

We human beings go through hard things sometimes. People about whom we care deeply die. Our health fails. Our finances don't add up. We lose our job. Important relationships break down.

Hard times come.

I have a friend who, it seems like, has had one hard thing after another in his life. He grew up with a father mostly in prison and a mother with a drug problem. He wasn't sent to school all the time. He got smacked around some. And he got neglected a lot. He got into trouble early on, as a teenager. Spent some time living in Christamore House here in town.

He got hooked on drugs, including meth. He and his girlfriend had their children taken away.

Then he finally was trying to get his life straightened out, but he had too much to drink at a party and ended up being accused of some things he didn't think he'd done but couldn't say for sure. And so he was stuck in jail, which caused him to lose his job and, frankly, his confidence.

Now he's out, for now, trying to make it.

Hard stuff.

I know some of us who very much want to move their lives in the right direction, and who get hired through a temp agency at one of the factories in town, but who then don't get enough hours to make it. Or they get laid off altogether.

And some of us get hit with bad health problems -- a bad test result or a sudden injury begins a long period of struggle. We want to work but our bodies just won't cooperate.

And some of us have family relationships and other relationships fall apart, leaving us feeling alone, angry, abandoned.

And some of us are in situations that, because of the past, are always going to be difficult.

We all have plenty of ups and downs in our lives. For some of us, it feels like we have more than our share of downs.

And now the entire global economy seems to be entering a downturn. I won't stand up here and pretend to understand the credit crisis. I've tried several times to understand what the Federal Reserve does, but I don't understand it. The International Monetary Fund -- not really sure. I don't understand what a derivative is. So I don't pretend to understand the upper levels of finance that make modern capitalism work.

But what I do know is that the people who do seem to understand -- whether they're Democrats or Republicans, liberals or conservatives -- almost all of them agree that we are heading into a time of a bad economy. The question is just how bad -- and these folks disagree about what should be done to make it less bad. But all the economists -- people who are specialists at studying the economy -- they agree that things are already not great and that they're going to get quite a bit worse -- maybe a LOT worse.

We've all heard the experts and the politicians using the expression ``the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.'' So at the very least, that means worse than the mid-70's and the early 80's -- the two most recent severe economic downturns.

Some of you remember the early 80's when, among other things, the farm crisis washed out so many of the farmers in the Midwest . And the mid-70's were when good factory jobs started disappearing. It used to be that a person who had a strong body and worked hard could make a good enough living to support a family. It was in the 70's when that started disappearing. What bad shifts are coming now?

Bad economic times get compared to the Great Depression. The Great Depression was in the 1930's. And it was horrible on a scale I have a hard time believing in the United States . Unemployment was 25%. That means that out of every four people who wanted a job, for one of them there was no job to be found. For every hundred people who wanted a job, there were only 75 jobs. In some factory towns, like Toledo , Ohio , unemployment was over 50%. Only half as many jobs as there were people who wanted to work. Right now, unemployment is still around 7% in the United States . We have a long way to fall.

Think about how many of the people in this area depend on the economy going decently. Jobs in education and health care aren't affected much by the economy. Retired folks aren't affected much by it -- unless they still have money in the stock market. But everyone who works in a factory, for example, is very much affected. As are people who work in stores that sell things to people who work in factories. Just in the past couple weeks, national chains like Circuit City and Linens and Things have gone out of business. And the car industry -- which includes suppliers and dealerships, as well as car makers -- it's apparently in a big mess. Both General Motors and Chrysler are reported to be on the verge of bankruptcy.

All this is to say that the experts may well be right and we could be entering a really rough time in the economy -- both around here and throughout the world. How should we respond? A time of great need around us may well be coming.

Two thousand years ago, God walked the earth as a Jewish guy named Jesus. Our Scripture reading for today is from the teachings of Jesus, part of a talk he gave that's recorded in chapter 25 of the book of Matthew. In it, Jesus addressed situations of great need.

One thing he made clear is that these things are deep concerns of God. God cares about people's hard times and struggles -- about OUR hard times and struggles, about our neighbor's hard times and struggles, and about our worst enemy's hard times and struggles. God is totally devoted to every person.

Jesus said that in people's hard times, God is with them so intensely it's like what happens to them is happening to God. He said that it's like God could say, ``I was hungry. I was naked. I was sick. I was in prison,'' when those things happen to people.

And Jesus didn't say that that's about just the ``right kind'' of people -- just Christians or anything like that. What God is devoted to is people, period. So God is able to say, ``Whatever you did or didn't do for the least of these brothers or sisters of mine, you did or didn't do for me.'' That's how God feels now about people in their hard times.

The title of this sermon is ``We're All in This Together.'' So a question that raises is, Who's included in the ``all''?

Well, for one thing, it doesn't just include people, it includes God, too. God sent that signal pretty clearly by actually becoming a person in Jesus. So God didn't just say , ``I'm with you.'' He actually became one of us -- and went through some hard times as a person here on earth.

So like a human being understands human suffering, God does. In anything that anyone goes through -- in anything you go through -- God is right there with you. God doesn't back away or freak out because it gets to be too much or too weird or too horrible. God's not ``up there'' looking down on it all. God is right there with people through it all. So much so it's like what happens to us is happening to God, too.

``We're All in This Together'' includes all people and it includes God, too. Whatever it is, God's in it with us -- to the end -- no matter what comes.

And that's the direction in which God has pointed us, too -- toward each other, especially in hard times.

What do we do when things get hard? Well, one solution is to save ourselves. There's a story in the Old Testament part of the Bible about how thousands of years ago, God decided to kill everybody in the world because they were so bad. But God did warn one family. God told Noah, who was part of that family, to build a big boat, an ark, because God was going to flood the world. And so Noah did. He saved himself and his family.

In all kinds of ways, that story of the Flood is very different -- almost the opposite -- of how God is now and what God wants from people now. The way to learn the truth about God now and what God wants now -- the way to learn the truth about them is through the teachings and example of Jesus.

``Save yourself,'' does not sum up Jesus' message. ``Take care of your own,'' isn't what Jesus was about. Jesus was all about an inclusive love for all people -- without concern for who deserves what but simply because people are people. That's why he died -- for all people out of love. And that's what he calls us to -- an inclusive love for all people. We're to see ourselves as all in this together.

Don't build an ark. We're all in this together. When others are hurting, the easiest thing can be to look the other way. When the gap between richer people and poorer people increases, if you're on the richer side, the easiest thing to do is move into a gated community with a private security force, or, if you're in a richer country, to build a wall along your borders with poorer countries.

But through Jesus, God has taught us that we are the keeper of our brothers and sisters -- including especially, it says in today`s Scripture reading, ``the least of these.'' We are responsible not just for ourselves but for each other. Alongside every person in need, especially in desperate need, alongside every one of them is God calling us to do all we can to help. And when our own needs are desperate, God does the same for us.

Love your neighbor, said Jesus. Love your neighbor as yourself. He didn't say take care of yourself first. Love you neighbor after yourself. He said to love your neighbor as yourself.

And Jesus didn't talk about ``love'' as a feeling. He talked about love as an action. I'm not sure what the best definition would be for what Jesus meant by ``love,'' but maybe it would be something like ``to act in the person's interests.'' ``To act on the person's real needs.'' That's love in God's eyes. That's how God so loved the world -- by acting to meet a real need of people in the world.

When Jesus said to love our neighbor and to love our enemy, that's what he meant. It wasn't about necessarily feeling fondly toward them -- or even about knowing them -- it was about acting in their interests, doing what we can to meet their real needs.

So God is with us and acts in our interests to meet our real needs -- and God calls us all to be like God in those ways toward each other. God entered the lives of humans through Jesus. God calls us to enter each other's lives the same way, not in the sense of being ``above'' but in the sense of being ``with'' -- and doing what we can..

And we're all on both sides of it, if we're open to it. I have a friend who I thought I was ``helping.'' But then it turned out that she provided at least as much help and support for me as I ever did to her. Friendship, I guess it's called.

And as we enter together into ``the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression,'' what does it mean that we're all in this together? Maybe there are things you remember from economic downturns of the past -- ways that people supported each other to get rents and mortgages paid, keep the lights on, and make sure kids could go to college.

Jesus walked the earth during a time when an awful lot of people were very poor. And when his followers -- the people who knew him best -- gathered together when he was gone, one of the things they did was put all their money in a common pot to share with each other. From each according to their ability, and to each according to their need. They were all in it together -- they'd learned that from Jesus.

I'm not this morning going to go into more detail with ideas of how we might live out Christ's ways. But I'd encourage us all to think about it, pray about it, and open ourselves to the Holy Spirit's leading.

I can't close with words any more powerful than the words of Jesus himself. ``On the last day, all peoples will stand before the king. He will separate them as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, the sheep at his right hand and the goats at his left. And to those on his right, he will say, 'Come to me, you who are blessed. I was hungry, and you gave me food. I was thirsty, and you gave me something to drink. I was naked, and you clothed me. I was sick, and you cared for me. I was in prison, and you visited me.'''

And they'll say, ``Lord, when did we see YOU in need like this and care for you?''

And he'll reply, ``I tell you the truth, whatever you did for the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.''

Why Are We Here?

Thu, 4 Dec 2008 06:50:53 GMT

11/16/08

Why Are We Here?

Matthew 25:14-30

Sisters and brothers -- fellow ministers,

We've all heard a lot of different people speak.

One things that effective speakers do is connect the things they're talking about. The opposite of that is rambling. Rambling is when you go from one topic to another in ways that don't seem to connect. You listen to a rambling speaker and you afterward you say, ``Soooo, how did that fit together?''

That's part of the reason I plan out my sermons ahead of time: to try to avoid rambling. When I've prepared a sermon, I go through it. And when I come across parts that don't seem to connect to the main theme, I cut them out. Sometimes it's painful for me to cut stuff out. I've got a funny story or what I think is a very insightful point but it doesn't fit with the rest of what I'm saying very well, and so I try to be ruthless and cut it out -- hopefully save it for some other time.

Like there's an episode of the TV show The Simpsons that talks about Mennonites. It's an animated comedy. I've heard that the creator of that show grew up around Mennonites and that several of the characters in it are based on real people who are Mennonites.

So anyway, in one episode, the Simpson family is trying to build a tree house in their backyard but they're having trouble. Then one of them says that what they need to do is hire some people who know how to do those sorts of things. So they call…the Amish. And these Amish guys come and quickly build them a fabulous, sturdy tree house.

Marge Simpson, the mother, then looks out at their work and says, ``Those Amish. They're so industrious!…Not like those shifty Mennonites.''

And then the camera pans to people who I guess are supposed to be Mennonites. They're in a back alley shooting dice.

I think it's funny. I've tried to put in lots of sermons. But I've never been able to relate it to a sermon topic, so I`ve always had to cut it out. Until now, when I'm illustrating what it would be like to listen to a rambling sermon -- with the different parts disconnected.

I'm talking about this because when God walked the earth through Jesus, Jesus doesn't seem to have been a rambling speaker. But sometimes he did give longer speeches. Our Scripture reading for today records a part of one of those longer speeches from Jesus Christ. But in his longer speeches, things connected. The thing Jesus said first connected closely with the thing he said second. The thing he said third connected with the thing he said second.

Our reading for today is one of the stories Jesus told, and it was part of a longer speech. This story is sometimes called Jesus' Parable of the Talents. But back then, the word ``talent'' had a different meaning from today. Back then, what it meant was a lot of money. A talent was as much a regular worker could earn in a year. So what would that be in our society? Maybe twenty or twenty five thousand dollars.

So the idea here is that there's a very rich guy who gives a bunch of money to his servants to manage while he's out traveling. Back in those days, there weren't telephones or anything like that, so when a person was out of town, they were out of touch. So his employees couldn't consult with him on what they did with the money.

So in this story Jesus told, the rich guy gave several of his servants money to manage while he was gone. To one he gave $25,000, to another he gave $50,000, and to another he gave $100,000. The rich guy then left town for a long time. When he got back, he called in his servants to see how things had gone with his investments.

Well, two of the three of them had invested the money and made more. The third, though, didn't even put the money in a savings account in the bank to get a little interest. He just hid the money he was responsible for. He didn't want to take any risks, so he just hid it.

The point of the story is not to be like this third servant. He took a very safe and cautious approach -- as little risk as possible. And he's the bad example.

Jesus' story wasn't about money primarily. It was about doing what God wants us to in our time on earth. That's why we have a clock up here on the altar today. This is about making the most of our time in the world rather than just trying to survive and play it safe.

Don't be like that third servant, who was trying to avoid risks. Instead be like the other two, who took some risks and made the most of what they had to work with. That's what God wants.

But more specifically, what does God want. As far as God is concerned, what specifically does it mean to make the most of our time on earth?

Sometimes you hear people say that what God most wants is to be worshipped in the right ways. Or that what God most wants is for people to believe the right things about salvation. Or that what God most wants is for people to believe the right things about other stuff. Or what God wants most is for people to go to church and avoid things that are very immoral. Those are some of the answers I've gotten. And there are other answers people'd give.

Well, when God was on the earth as Jesus, God didn't leave the answer to that question mysterious. Through the life and teachings of Jesus, God told all people in all times how God wants us to make the most of our time on earth.

And that's where this fits in with what I said earlier about how Jesus didn't ramble along when he talked. Jesus told this story about how important it is to make the most of our time on earth and not just play it safe.

And then the very next thing he did was talk very specifically about what it means to live that way. Our reading this morning in the book of Matthew goes through chapter 25, verse 30. Starting in the very next verse, as part of the same talk Jesus gave, we can read how, specifically, God wants people to live our lives.

Now, oftentimes what people do is just take one little part of what Jesus did or said and think about it apart from the rest. But Jesus didn't just say this or that. He had a message that fit together under what he called ``the kingdom of God.''

In our Scripture reading for today, he emphasized that God doesn't want us to play it safe in life. We're here for a reason and we're to pursue that reason.

And then in a second story, he explained what that reason is. He explained how we're to live, what our priorities are to be, and why it is we're here.

This one was a vision of the future -- when he would judge all people.

When Jesus told the parable of the talents, the very next thing he did-- same overall message, same audience -- the very next thing he did was tell about how he would one day separate people like a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. Those two stories belong together. Jesus told them together, and they belong together. If we separate them, there's a good chance we'll misunderstand the parable of the talents. Because the second story Jesus told that day explain what God wants us to be doing in our lives.

Here's that second story:

Jesus said to imagine, at the end of everybody's lives, that everyone's standing in front of him. He'd then separate people from each other based on how they lived their lives. And on what basis?

What church they were part of? No.

Whether they smoked and drank? No.

Whether they called themselves Christians? No.

Whether they lived with their boyfriend or girlfriend? No.

Jesus said the separation would be based on how much each person cared for those most in need.

To those who did care like that, he would say, ``I was hungry, and you gave me food. I was thirsty, and you gave me something to drink. I was naked, and you clothed me. I was in prison, and you visited me. I had no place to go, and you invited me in.''

And those to whom he said this would reply, ``When did we see YOU in those circumstances? When did we see YOU hungry or thirsty or naked or in prison or homeless?''

And Jesus will say, ``Whatever you did for the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.''

You see the connection between these two stories that Jesus told back to back? These who cared for those most in need are the servants in the parable of the talents who, when their master is away, take some risks and do what he wants them to do. The parable of the talents is not about something different. Jesus told the stories one right after the other, and the second explains the first. They were two ways of saying similar things.

And what of the negative example in the parable of the talents -- the servant who just tries to survive and who hides the money rather than investing it? In the second story, here he is:

Jesus said he will say to those on his left, ``Leave me. For I was hungry, and you gave me nothing to eat. I was naked, and you didn't clothe me. I homeless, and you didn't invite me in. I was sick, and you didn't care for me. I was in prison, and you let me rot there.''

And they will reply, ``When Lord?''

And Jesus will tell them, ``Whatever you didn't do for the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you didn't do for me. Depart from me.''

Tough words from Jesus. These are just like the servant in the parable of the talents who plays it safe and just buries the money.

God has given us our lives here. We're to use them to care for each other and especially for those most in need.

Why are we here? What is the meaning of life? Why are we here on earth?

Not to survive. Note that Jesus himself did not survive. He was actually executed just days after speaking these words. These are from his last week. Whether we die when we're young or when we're old, all of us die.

People in our society tend to think it's a good thing to live a long life. But is it really? To the extent that's our goal, we're likely to play it safe and focus on surviving -- a lot like the guy in Jesus' parable of the talents who tries to avoid risk by burying the money with which he's been entrusted.

God has entrusted us all with life. Not to bury our lives in order to protect them. Not to avoid risks and danger to prolong it as much as possible. Jesus has already defeated death! Don't you believe that? If we die or something, it just means the next step for us begins sooner rather than later -- like it did for Jesus himself.

We are here to love and care for those most in need around us. That is why we're here, sisters and brothers.

And to the extent YOU are in great need, what God wants is for us to love and care for YOU. And at the same time, of course, God wants you to love and care for others.

And it's interesting, though, how those most in need are often also those most willing to take risks to care for others.

We've had people connected to this church who've been in desperate financial situations. Homeless. And the word has been put out: does anyone have a place for these folks to stay. An extra room to share for a while.

Well, when those folks do get invited in to stay with someone, it's almost always by someone else in a desperate situation. It tends not to be those of us with empty guest bedrooms who invite in those who've found themselves homeless. It tends to be others who know what it's like to be homeless. And so, true story, the family of six on the edge of homelessness ends up staying not in one of our guestrooms but on the living room floor of a family of four that already lives with a single bedroom. True story.

Sometimes we tend to think that being spiritually mature is somehow connected with having our lives together financially. But you see that the family with one bedroom invited in the homeless family while those of us with empty spare bedrooms didn`t, and the question is, ``So who is more spiritually mature? Those who don't offer their guestroom to a homeless family or those in the discount motel who offer their living room floor? Who has gotten more on board with why we're here and what God wants from us?''

Now, a confession. I was working on this message while at the same time aware that I've been way overdue to go to Des Moines to visit a friend who's in prison there. I have a goal of visiting her once a month. No one else visits her regularly and only one other person visits her at all. But I've been slacking. It's often now two months between visits. Most recently, it's been two months at least . Things have come up when I've planned to go. Personal issues. Family issues. Or I've just felt too tired. Or I've had sermons to write.

But I must say that working on this sermon that includes Jesus' words, ``I was in prison and you visited me'' -- or ``did NOT visit me'' -- well, it couldn't help but remind me of God's call on me in regard to my friend in prison. The hypocrisy was too great for even me!

And so yesterday, I got up early and visited her. And I know from her and others that it's easy to feel alone and barely hanging on when you're in prison. It's easy to feel abandoned and alone -- unloved. God cares about her -- and about the thousands of others in Iowa's prison system, including a thousand right here in Mt. Pleasant -- God cares about them all so much that Jesus said he'd judge our lives partly on whether we visit them and care for them.

That's what God wants us to do. Not survive life. We won't survive life. Everyone dies. The question is not whether we will die. The question is how much, between now and then, we will do what God wants us to and extend ourselves in love and compassion to those who need it most.

And so I confess that it's a lot easier for me to preach about it than to live it. I confess that with my friend in prison, for example, if it weren't for the guilt caused by this sermon, I'd have almost certainly let another week go by without visiting her.

In fact, and this seems to be a danger of giving sermons based on the teachings of Jesus, the Holy Spirit has been pretty annoying this week about this kind of thing. Several situations came up regarding people in tough situations of need -- situations in which I would like to have avoided getting involved. But here I was was working on this sermon about the huge importance, according to Jesus Christ, of how we treat those in the toughest situations. And so I couldn't do what I often do and pretend that I didn't realize what a big deal these situations are in God's eyes.

Or maybe it's good that I had to see some people and situations this week more like God does. Maybe it hasn't been so much about God bringing more of these situations to me as about my eyes being opened a bit more.

So anyway, I'm so far from a perfect example of this. I need God's mercy so much for all the ways I turn aside from those around me. I need not just God's mercy but the mercy of those from whom I turn aside. Of all the ways I'm a sinner, this is the worst because Jesus has said it's what matters most to God.

The kingdom of God is at hand, Jesus said. It's as close as those most in need around us. But to grasp it, we must, said Jesus, be willing to let go of our safety, our security, our lives. It's only those who lose their lives who save it, said Jesus. It's only to the extent we let go of our safety and security and control that we find fullness of life. He lost his life out of love for us and for all, without any concern for who deserved what but just out of unconditional love for all people. He didn't play it safe with the life with which he was entrusted. May we follow his path -- Christ's path of risking all. out of love for whoever needs it most.

That's Jesus' message -- and his example -- about why we're here.

The Eternal God and Eternal People in Temporary Countries

Thu, 4 Dec 2008 06:33:39 GMT

10/26/08
The Eternal God and Eternal People in Temporary Countries
Matthew 22:15-22

Sisters and brothers fellow ministers,

Our Scripture reading for this morning records a situation in which Jesus was asked to get involved in a political issue.

First, let me give a little background.

The land in which Jesus lived was called Palestine. Most of the people there, including Jesus, were Jewish. The government, however, was in the control of the Roman Empire, which centered way over in Italy. The Roman Empire controlled that whole part of the world in southern Europe, western Asia, and north Africa. Including Palestine, the traditional land of the Jewish people.

In our situation, we're used to a government that in some way or another comes from the people who are under it. But their government, then, wasn't like that. It was a foreign controlled government, run by an empire that had conquered the land of the Jews about a hundred years before Jesus was killed.

Now, at a local level, most of the things the government did were done by Jewish people hired or appointed by the Roman government. And so the chief priests and the tax collectors and the police and people like that were all Jewish. But they only had their jobs to the extent the Roman Empire let them have them. So it was really a foreign-controlled government. Not very popular among the people.

So Jesus was asked about paying taxes to this government. Since all governments run on tax money of some sort, they were basically asking Jesus whether he thought a godly person should rebel against the government. Because then as now, paying taxes was not optional.

Jesus answered the question by asking who made the money whose picture was on it. They said that the emperor's picture was on it. The head of the Roman Empire back in Italy, who at that time was a guy named Tiberias. And Jesus said, well, if the Roman Empire made the made the money and put its emperor on it, let them have it. But give to God what is God's.

So what do we make of that?

Sometimes people make a lot of it. Sometimes people use that comment by Jesus to say that he thought people should stay away from political issues. Sometimes people use that comment by Jesus to say that he thought people should obey the government do what the government asks.

If you put it in the mix of everything Jesus did and said, it seems to me that he was probably more making a comment about money than about government.

Jesus liked to run down the importance of money.

Another time, people asked about paying a tax. So he had one of his followers go catch a fish and then, like a magician, pulled a coin out of its mouth to pay the tax. He seems to have been making fun of the whole issue.

Jesus also told one of his stories about this. He said to imagine someone who managed to store up lots of grain for the coming years, and then they died. That person would be a fool for focusing on storing up possessions.

Once when someone wanted to follow him, Jesus told the guy to first get rid of all his possessions, give them away, and then to come follow.

Another time, Jesus said to imagine that an employee was caught stealing money from his boss. When he realized he was about to get caught, the employee steals even more and gives it away to people. That way, said Jesus, he'd at least have some friends out there when he was out of a job. Jesus seemed to present this guy as a good example.

Jesus liked to make fun of the importance people put on money. Of course, most of us can't just pull coins out of the mouths of fish when we want like he could.

And Jesus said at other times that the least lucky people in the world would turn out to be those who had a lot of money, because they've already gotten what they're going to get out of life.

So as a rule, Jesus didn't think much of people trying to hold onto money and possessions. My sense is that that's mostly what was involved with his comment about giving to the emperor the coins that had the emperor's picture on them.

So I do think that was Jesus' main point there.

But now, I want to stay something related to the election that, you may have heard, is coming up in nine days. Now, I realize that not everyone thinks and worries as much about politics as I do. I think I bring new meaning to the phrase "political issues." So for this next part will be in the form of a dream I may or may not have had recently in which an angel from the God of Jesus came and talked politics with me.

But before I get into that particular dream, I'll mention that my wife Ruth Ann seems to think that one of the many ways I'm abnormal is that I sometimes have political figures in my dream. For example, I've talked with Dick Cheney in my dreams twice, I think.

So anyway, I may or may not have had this particular dream. An angel came to me and -- like other people have recently -- said, "So how are you feeling about the election?"

And I said, "I'm stressed. I've pretty much been stressed about this election for the past four years. And now that it's close, it's worse."

"Ten times a day, I check the political sites that have the latest polls and news. If there are poll changes that favor McCain, I feel more tense. If there are poll changes that favor Obama, I still feel tense."

"I read a book once by someone who ran campaigns, and he said that on election day itself, when there's nothing to do but wait, what he usually does is rent a room, unplug the phone, and curl up i n the fetal position fully dressed in the bed until the returns come in. "

"Until the Iowa caucuses on January 3rd, I did think there were things I could do to make a difference. But after that, I don't fool myself into thinking the little things I could do to make much difference. I know Iowa's not a swing state this time. So emotionally, I wish that after the Iowa caucuses, I could have curled up fully dressed in the fetal position until after the election."

"Now it's finally here, and Obama's ahead by seven or eight percent in the polls, but you never know. Things can change. Something can happen. Maybe racism will make a difference at the end or something. I can barely get out of bed. I feel nauseous a lot about it."

The angel said, "Dude, when I asked you how you're feeling about the election, I was just making conversation. You have issues."

I didn't laugh.

So then I said, "W ell, does God not care about this election?"

And the angel said, "Do you want the short answer or the long answer?"

"Both, please," I said.

And the angel said, "The short answer is that sure, God cares."

"The long answer, though, is that God has a wide perspective on things."

"Countries come and go. Small countries, powerful countries, all sorts. The earth is maybe four billion or so years old. Human beings have been forming countries only for around five thousand years -- a lot less than that in some parts of the world. "

He said, "Countries come and go. Egypt that built the pyramids. The great kingdoms of Mesopotamia -- Chaldea, Assyria, Babylon, Persia. The Greek kingdoms founded by Alexander the Great. The Huns. The Mongols. The great empires of China and India. The great kingdoms of Ghana, Mali, and Songhai in northwest Africa. The Mayans, the Incas, the Aztecs. The great countries of medieval and early modern Europe. The civilizations of North America that were wiped out by European diseases before European people even showed up. And of course, the great Roman Empire. None of these around anymore."

"Countries come and go. If you read the words of God's prophets from back 2700 years ago or so, you'll see that God cares a lot what countries do. What God doesn't care so much about is which country is around. The people are what God cares about, not the country. God didn't care back then if they were under their own Jewish king or the Babylonian Empire or the Persian Empire. But God did care about the poor and defenseless being cared for and justice being done for people equally."

"It's often been true that when countries fall apart, people think the whole world is falling apart. The Roman Empire that was around when Jesus walked the earth, it lasted around four years after he was around. People in that part of the world couldn't imagine that it would ever be gone. But it fell apart."

"And so will the countries of the world today. You know, God's not an American. God cares just as much about policies of governments in China and Indonesia and Mexico and Brazil and Russia and Nigeria as God does about the policies of the United States. God doesn't care about national identity. God cares about people."

"That was pretty clear in Jesus," I said, "He seemed to make a point making sure the people around him knew that all people are God's children."

"That's right," said the angel, "But it's not just that. People are eternal. God is going to last forever. Forever. No beginning and no end. People do have a beginning. But they don't have an end either."

"It's like the life of each person is a book. Your lives here are just the first chapters of your books. But the books will go on forever."

Scientists think that probably the earth itself will be around for over another billion years. Considering that human civilization has been around for around 5000 years, can you do the math? "

I had to write it down. "If I have the math right," I said, "I think it means that human civilization on earth might be just one 200,000th of the way through. That's just a tiny, tiny fraction of a percent. So wow, that means we won't even be 5% of the way through human history on earth until another fifty million years have gone by. So we're still at the very beginning of human history then."

"Right," said the angel, "So relax a little. Imagine what we went through in heaven watching the really bad things happen in human history. But still, everyone affected by those things is still alive in God's arms. God has made you humans to be immortal, so you know, no worries."

"So nothing matters?" I said.

"Things matter a lot, but different things than you might think," said the angel. " Or a better to what to say is that 'things' DON'T matter at all. But PEOPLE matter infinitely. Think about the stories you know about Jesus. How much attention did he put on trying to improve the government of his time?"

"Um, not much," I said.

"Right," said the angel. "What did he spend time on?"

"Hmmm," I said, "It seems like especially on loving the actual people around him -- strangers, people in need, people who wanted to talk, his followers, his enemies."

"That's right," said the angel. "People are VERY important. Each person -- every person -- with no exceptions. Loving and caring for people is what it's about."

"Well," I said, "Aren't government policies a way that we can act together to love people in practical ways. I mean, no church can put together the Medicaid program or the public school system or the student loan program or food stamps, but as a society, we can do those things. I heard someone say that 'Government is our word for the things we decide to do together.'"

"Sure," said the angel, "Obviously people are very affected by who runs governments. That's why my short answer was that God DOES care what happens in this election. I'm just trying to put it in perspective for you. My sense is that you forget that God is eternal and people are eternal, but countries are so temporary. If you're going to make decisions as though this world is all there is, you're on the wrong track. That's true with money or government or relationships or health or anything else. Your eighty years on earth here are just the beginning of eternity. These years are like elementary school for you. Hopefully you get some of the basics down for all that comes next."

"Well, I'm worried. If I could do something to make a difference, I don't think I'd feel so much stress," I said.

"Here's what you can do," said the angel. I was eager to hear the answer. Campaign contributions? Really cutting and sarcastic comments on a political blog?

But here's what the angel said, "Love the person in front of you. Go all out to love the people around you. Like in that story Jesus told about the Good Samaritan. Don't pass by people in need because you have something important on your mind. Nothing is more important than stopping for the person in need right in front of you. Nothing. When God was on the earth in Jesus, Jesus showed what it looks like to live that way. Now you do it."

"Don't worry about what you have control over," said the angel, "When there's so much you DO have control over: how much you love the actual people around you."

"So," I said, "I'm preaching a sermon this Sunday on Jesus' comments about giving to Caesar what's Caesar's and to God what's God's. Any tie ins for me?"

"Sure," said the angel. "Too often people focus on what's Caesar's -- what belongs to the country. But focus instead on what belongs to God. Give to God what is God's. Your time and energy. Use those as God wants: by loving the actual people around you. That's what Jesus wants."

"Okay," I said, "So I shouldn't spend this next week fully clothed in my bed in the fetal position?"

"Look," said the angel, "God loves you just as much however you spend the week. But if you want to make the week worthwhile, keep your eyes and ears -- and especially your heart -- open to the people around you. God will do the rest."

Circles of God's Kingdom

Thu, 4 Dec 2008 06:32:31 GMT

10/19/08
Circles of God's Kingdom
Matthew 4:23-5:10

Sisters and brothers -- fellow ministers,

When Jesus walked the earth a couple thousand years ago, he called people to follow him into what he called "the kingdom of God ." Imagine seeing Jesus right up in front of you like this, saying, ``The kingdom of God is within your grasp. Follow me.''

What the kingdom of God turned out to be was especially a life being totally and unconditionally loved by God and a life totally and unconditionally loving everyone else -- with no exceptions. Jesus lived it out. And he called everyone else to also.

So Jesus called people to follow him into "the kingdom of God ." So my question is, "Who responded positively to Jesus call ? Who responded positively to Jesus' call into the kingdom of God ? "

That answer to that question will relate a lot to us now -- because just like back then, the more seriously we think about that question, the answer's not always so clear.

We have stories from Jesus' life in the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John in the Bible. The more we look seriously at those stories, the less clear it is who counts as having been a follower of Jesus.

Now, probably when I asked who followed Jesus ' call back when he walked the earth two thousand years ago, for a lot of us what came to mind were the twelve apostles. Anyone?

Th e word apostle meant something like "missionary." So the twelve apostles, the twelve missionaries. But if we look carefully at the stories of Jesus naming them, we'll see that they're not the only people who followed him. He had a LOT of people follow him and from that larger group, he named twelve of them as apostles. They weren't the whole group. Another report says that another time he sent out seventy two of his followers to different places to spread his message. And even they don't seem to have been the whole group.

So if we went back in time and looked at what was actually going on around Jesus, we'd see that it was usually a lot more than his twelve apostles following him -- though sometimes he did do things with just them. He had twelve apo stles but a lot more "disciples " a lot more followers.

So the twelve apostles were kind of like an inner circle around Jesus. They were with him almost always. Now, t hey were far from perfect. It's almost like he picked them because they were so regular. Sometimes they messed up worse than anyone. They often didn't understand what Jesus was talking about. Sometimes they were opposed to the important things he was doing. One time Jesus even called one of them, " the devil " -- and he wasn't joking. But even though they don't seem to have been all that wonderful as followers, the apostles were the inner circle around Jesus who pretty much went with him everywhere.

But with them among Jesus' followers were people who followed Jesus enough that at times he sent them out, too. And along with the apostles, these folks were in the group of people who had left their homes to literally follow Jesus. Later, after Jesus was gone, his followers were looking for someone new for a leadership position. They decided it should be one of the people who'd followed Jesus from the beginning and had seen everything the apostles had. So there were other people like that. Maybe a lot.

They seem mostly to have been men, but in Luke 7, it mentions a group of women among them, too.

So anyway, these folks were part of the closest circle around Jesus. They were just as committed as the twelve apostles, even though they maybe didn't actually get to know Jesus as well.

And then in the next circle there were others -- people who we might call "supporters." The most famous story about supporters is the probably story of Jesus' relationship with the family of Mary, Martha, and Lazarus. Among other things, Jesus stayed in their home when he was in the big city of Jerusalem . They seem to have been people who supported Jesus strongly. But they didn't leave their homes. Were they followers? I imagine there were a lot of other folks like them in towns Jesus went into and needed a place to stay and something to eat.

And then there were people who met Jesus when he was passing through their area, people who seemed to have powerful connections with Jesus , but who then disappear from the written story. People like Zaccheus of Jericho, a mentally ill man in Gerasea, Nicodemus, a woman in Tyre , a woman in Samaria , a Roman soldier in Capernaum . These folks seemed to totally buy into whatever Jesus wanted them to. But they didn't leave their homes and follow him.

These were supporters -- and they were the next circle of people around Jesus. Were they entering the kingdom of God ?

And then there were other circles. Jesus famously said that `` the tax collectors and prostitutes [ were ] entering the kingdom of God '' before the religious leaders because the supposedly "bad" people were aware of their need for love that was unconditional while a lot of the religious leaders thought they deserved God's love . Those tax collectors and prostitutes -- part of a circle around Jesus. And to the annoyance of some of the supposedly religious people, Jesus spent a lot of his time with these folks.

In our Scripture reading for today, it mentions crowds who came to hear Jesus and to be helped by him.

First, Jesus was healing people of all kinds of problems -- mental illnesses, physical illnesses, injuries. So especially in those days when there wasn't much that we'd call medicine, people came from all over to try to get help.

So these are people who sought Jesus for healing of their bodies and minds.

Then it says that he preached in synagogues, which were the places of worship back then. So we'd say that he spoke in lots of churches. And people listened.

It says that because of his whole reputation, large crowds from the whole region followed him. It's like if someone was speaking here, and the parking lot was packed, and there were license plates from not just Henry County but from all the surrounding counties, and from Illinois and Missouri , too.

In the situation recorded in our Scripture reading, there was this big crowd around him and he sat down on a mountainside to teach. It says that his di sciples were closest around him. But then at the end of his talk , it refers to what the crowds thought of what he had to say. So there were a lot of people there. So maybe we can kind of picture the circles around Jesus there, with his disciples closest and other circle s of listeners beyond them.

And when he talked with them, he said things like, "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of God ." Theirs is the kingdom of God . So if the issue is who is part of the kingdom of God , Jesus said it had to do especially with being "poor in spirit." That's probably what we'd call "humble." Those who'd been humbled brought low by life.

And Jesus said also that `` the meek will inherit the earth. '' The meek, as opposed to the powerful. So being without power and being humble helps a person get a hold of what Jesus was teaching. And in the stories of his life, you can see that -- it was mostly people who'd had rougher lives who caught his message while those on top didn't.

So there were these different circles of people around Jesus. Which one fits you best?

Disciples who'd left everything.

Supporters who didn't much change their outward lives.

Humble folks who'd had rough lives and who were attracted by the ways he reached out to them.

Supposedly "bad" folks who liked how he accepted them.

Curious people who were interested enough to listen to what he had to say.

People going through hard stuff who came to him for help.

Which of those groups fits you best? Or how would you label your group around Jesus? If Jesus is in the middle, and there were these circles of folks around him, where'd you put yourself?

Around Jesus, it was pretty clear who was close. And even that wasn't sometimes a surprise. But what there weren't were clear boundaries around the edges . It wasn't clear where you'd have drawn the line between who was into Jesus and who wasn't. People were into him in different ways and to different degrees. And Jesus himself doesn't seem to have been interested in drawing those lines around the edges.

What do you think of that?

Churches, though, sometimes want clear boundaries around the edges . A membership list.

Jesus , though, doesn't seem to have kept a membership list. His approach was more that his message of the kingdom of God was at the center, and people were part of it to the extent they were into it. He taught God's absolute love for all and called everyone to love others the same ways -- and to the extent people were into that, they were part of the kingdom of God . But then churches came along later with boundaries and membership lists. They didn't get that from Jesus.

And they didn't get it from the writings o f his early followers either. In the Bible, t he word `` member '' only shows up in the writings of an early Christian leader named Paul. But Paul wasn't talking about any list of who was officially part of the group. He wasn't talking about boundaries around the edge. When Paul used the word "member," it was like a "member of the body" -- like an arm or a leg or an ear. He said that the different gifts and abilities that people have are like different members of the body different parts of the body. We need the wide range of people with their wide range of gifts and abilities -- just like a body needs all its many members to be function well. That's the ONLY way the word "member" is used in the Bible. This idea of being on a list was something that people made up later.

Sometimes the two approaches are called "bounded set" and "centered set" approaches to groups. In a bounded set model, there are clear boundaries around the edges . It's clear who's in and who's not in . And it's clear how to go through the boundary.

With a centered set approach, what's clear is the middle . What matters is how close you are to the center.

Does that make sense?

It seems that Jesus' approach was a centered set approach. Both through how he lived and through what he said, he was clear what the kingdom of God is about. That' s the center. And it was pretty clear who was close to the center by how much they were on board with that. But there weren't really boundaries around the edges where Jesus said thi s person is in and this person' s out. There was a clear center.

And with a centered set approach, what direction someone is going can matter more than where they are. They can be close to the center and going the wrong way or far away but coming toward the center. Which of these is part of the group more?

With a bounded set approach, what's clear are the boundaries around the edges . We know who's in and who's out. That's the approach most churches use.

What do you think would be best?

I've been pastoring here at Pleasant View for three and a half years. Since long before I came, this church seems to have mostly played down official membership. Accor ding to our church constitution yes, we do have one the only things you have to be an official member to do is be pastor or an elder. Although I think even one of our recent elders was still on the membership list of a different church where he used to live, and no one really cared.

So we do have an ``official membership'' list no one ever looks at. I never look at. And I'm not even sure who's on it. But we also have what I consider to be our real list of who's part of Pleasant View. The real list at Pleasant View is the list of people who have mailboxes in the back. You get a mailbox when you start coming and if you stop coming, you end up losing your mailbox. But you can always start coming again and get it back! It's just a practical thing. But that's really the only meaningful and accurate list we have of people who are part of Pleasant View. And I think that's a good thing.

So are you a member of Pleasant View? Well, does your household have a church mailbox? If it does, I'd encourage to consider yourself as much a member as any of us.

So anyway, the mailboxes are important, but I pretty obviously think that that's as far as we should go. T he most Jesusy approach wo uld be to totally get rid of that ``official'' membership list once and for all and just focus on being clear about Jesus' teachings and example -- a centered set approach. We've got our good statement of purpose on the back of the bulletin. It's focused on Jesus' whole message. That's a pretty clear center. You're part of Pleasant View to the extent you but into that and attend here.

And i n any case, however we human beings choose to handle this stuff, the kingdom of God is much greater than any human organization -- it's much greater than all the churches in the world together. As Jesus presented it, the kingdom of God is about God's absolute love for people (including for you, exactly as you are) and it's also about God's call that all of us love every person the same way -- absolutely, exactly as they are. To the extent we're into that, we've grasped the kingdom of God even now , and we're part of it .

Grace for the Religious

Thu, 4 Dec 2008 06:31:06 GMT

10/12/08
Grace for the Religious
Exodus 32:1-14

Sisters and brothers -- fellow ministers,

I originally misunderstood the story in our Scripture reading for today. I'm sure that shocks you. Some of you are surprised that I'd get something like that wrong . Those who know me best are surprised that I'd admit I got something wrong like that.

I n any case, I thought I knew this story of the golden calf. I thought it was about people being afraid that God wasn't taking care of them, so they mad e their own god . So the title of the sermon in the bulletin is "Grace for the Fearful." The fearful -- people who look for help in things other than God because we're afraid.

I think we do that. I know I do that.

But it turns out that that isn't quite what happened with the golden calf. The golden calf story is, I've realized, about people's incorrect response to God saving them . It's about people responding to the right God but in ways other than God wants. This story's kind of about the mistake of thinking that what God cares about is "religion," when the truth is that what God cares about is all of life -- especially how we relate to others . And this story's about how religion can easily be a distraction from what God really cares about -- all of life and especially how we relate to others .

So if you have a pen in hand, you might want to cross out the title of the sermon in your bulletin and change it to "Grace for the Religious." Grace for the Religious.

Here's what happened back then:

First, we're talking about the people of Israel 3500 years ago in Egypt. The people of Israel got their name because a guy named Jacob, whose nickname was Israel -- he was the ancestor of all of them hundreds of years before. His descendants were like a big tribe -- and they got named after him: the people of Israel.

So anyway, they lived in Egypt among other people. T hrough some political stuff, they ended up becoming the most oppressed group in Egypt. They ended up in slavery.

A lot of people have been in that sort of situation through history and have prayed for God to help. Well, that time, God really did help. God worked through a leader named Moses to force the government of Egypt to let the people of Israel -- the slave laborers in that society -- to let them go -- go to a different part of the world so they could have their own country. God was rough with the Egyptians to make this happen.

So the people of Israel got free. They were "saved." Not because of anything they'd done, but because of what God did to help them.

For God , "saving" was just step one. It was like opening a door to all that God has in mind. It was like them being born -- and then they have life to live.

And so it is for us. In a temporary earthly sense, God "saved" the people of Israel when God brought them out of slavery in Egypt.

In a permanent sense, God "saved" the world -- including all of us -- when God chose to forgive and accept the people of the world in grace -- as we are. Becoming one of us through Jesus and dying for us through Jesus is how God acted on that decision to embrace human beings without condition. So the world has been saved . You have been saved. It's not our imperfect human faith that really saves people . It's God's faithfulness to people -- God hanging onto every one of us -- to you -- as you are -- through everything and anything -- and it'll last forever.

So I think a lot of the emphasis some Christians put on "getting saved" puts way too much emphasis on the human side and not nearly enough emphasis on what God did through Jesus. In Jesus, God didn't make a hoop to jump through into heaven . God saved the world. As near as I can tell from the teachings of Jesus -- the guy who did the saving -- God forgiving and accepting all people out of grace is the same thing as God saving us . It's done. Through Jesus. For the world. Already.

Back to the people of Israel back 3500 years ago. God had already saved them -- brought them out of their horribly rough lives in Egypt.

They went first into the desert east of Egypt. And then their leader, Moses, went up on a mountain to talk with God. And he was gone a long time -- over a month . No cell phone. And he was old.

And the people wondered, "Is he ever coming back?" They felt like they'd been saved and then sort of left to sit there.

And for a lot of Christians, it can feel like that. It's like, oh, so God's loves and accepts and forgives us as we are . Cool. So, um, then what?

When people try to figure the "then what?" question out on our own, it can be a problem. Often the answers that people come up with have to do with towers and statues and ceremonies and all those kinds of things. God has saved the world. So what should we do? Build churches about it and have worship services regularly!

And so the world is full of church buildings and temples and such.

One time a friend told me that, as a kid, she'd had the discussion with her parents about why she needed to dress up for church. And they told her, "To look good for God." Even as a kid, that seemed to her like a pretty lame answer. God's everywhere -- not just in church. And where did they get the idea that God wanted people to "look good."

But we human beings come up with things like that in response to God accepting us. Dress up. Build churches.

About fifty years ago, a guy named Clarence Jordan was a leader in a community of Christians down in Georgia. This was in the 50's. This group was trying to work for civil rights and improvements in the lives of poor people in Georgia. One of the big rich white churches near them decided to spend $50,000 or so to re-create the Garden of Gethsemane outside their building. That's the Garden where Jesus was arrested.

Anyway, Clarence Jordan pondered this project -- a church spending such a large amount of money for a supposedly holy decoration in what was then one of the poorest areas of the country. And he thought that maybe a truly holy response would be to go there at night with a shovel and dig the thing up.

The real God doesn't seem to be into fancy decorations . And the God doesn't leave it to us to figure out what us saved folks should do. Moses did eventually come down from that mountain with a message from God about what to do. And later, Jesus came and had a lot to say about how people should respond to God saving them.

The people of Israel , though, originally came up with their own solution about how to respond to God saving them. They made a statue -- a statue out of gold. It was in the shape of a calf. But it was not to some other god. It was to the God who'd just brought them out of Egypt. The guy who built it said that they'd use it to have a festival to "Yahweh," which was their name for the God who'd brought them out of Egypt -- God. So it wasn't that they'd changed gods or anything like that. It was that they dealt with not knowing what to do in response to God saving them -- they dealt with that by making a golden statue.

Think God was excited about that?

Well, God wasn't. God is not into golden statues -- not in the shape of a calf, not in the shape of anything. If fact, one of the commands God was giving to Moses up on the mountain while the people were making the golden statue was "Do not make any statues." And that seems to have applied especially to statues that were supposed to represent God.

Lots of people throughout history have tried to honor their gods with fancy stuff . Big fancy temples. Giant statues. But the God who brought the people of Israel out of Egypt had a different idea.

While they were trying to b e godly people in their own way -- a way involving a statue and a worship service -- meanwhile, God was focused on telling Moses how God wanted them to be godly people. God was giving Moses lots of instructions. The most famous of those instructions were the so-called Ten Commandments. But there's no good reason to focus mostly on them. God gave Moses hundreds of commandments up there. And they covered every part of life.

Now, that was then. Some of those commandments were just temporary -- for the short-term before Jesus came. And some were just steps in the direction God would go through Jesus. So the commandments God gave to the people of Israel back then are not the same as God's commands to us now.

The point I want to emphasize though is that those people responded to God saving them by building a golden statue while what God wanted was for them to live in certain ways. Two views of responding to God saving . One is about religion -- special ceremonies and symbols. The other is about every part of life. God chose the second option.

When God came to earth through Jesus to save the world by becoming one of us and taking whatever punishment we deserve for our sins -- when God did that, Jesus also told people how to respond. He didn't focus on religion either. He didn't say to build statues. He didn't say to make anything fancy. He didn't say to have worship services. He didn't say to have pastors and churches.

In fact, as recorded in chapt er 23 of the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus ripped into religiousness and religious leaders in very harsh language. Fancy prayers, fancy titles, fancy clothes, looking religious -- he slammed it all.

W hat he said positively about what God wants is recorded especially clearly in chapters 5 through 7 of the Gospel of Matthew. It's sometimes called Jesus' Sermon on the Mount. Most of it can be summed up this way: forgive everyone, love everyone, don't judge anyone , be generous toward everyone, don't be proud , and trust that God will take care of you. It's everyday life stuff. Not religion .

A way to put it together is maybe something like this: God has decided to love and accept and include all people as we are. And God's command is that we respond by loving and accepting and including all people as they are . Jesus not only taught that, he lived out what it looked like.

Churches like this are good only to the extent they help us more fully understand that God loves people unconditionally and to the extent they help us love others more unconditionally. That's their value. The rest is pretty much golden-calf stuff. Worship services are good only to the extent they move us in those directions. Singing and sermons and pastors and Christian organizations are good only to the extent they help us move more fully in those directions. Calling ourselves "Christians" is good only to the extent that helps us move more fully in those directions. And again, "those directions" are 1) understanding the absolute love of God for all and 2) learning to love all more absolutely in every part of our lives .

Otherwise, to the extent supposedly Christian things don't move us in those directions, they're golden calves. They're religion, not life. And God's into life, not religion. They're human creations. However well intentioned, they're on the wrong track. The golden calf was well intentioned, I've realized.

I'm sure, though, that we'll get it wrong a lot. We have our golden calves. We have our religion that distracts us from life, which is where God's concern is. But good news is that when we get this wrong, as with all our sins, God is forgiving.

When the people of Israel made a golden calf to represent God and were holding excited worship services around it, God got mad, it says. According to verse ten of our text, God told Moses, "Leave me alone so my anger can blaze against them and destroy them all."

But Moses begged God not to. In verse twelve, it says that Moses asked God to change God's mind about destroying the people. And then God did change God's mind . This is one of the stories that people who say that God never changes have to ignore. God sometimes has changed when it comes to how to handle people who do the wrong thing -- who sin. And the change has been in the direction of being more forgiving.

This was long before God came to earth God's self in Jesus. Back at the time of the golden calf, God cut the people a break. Through Jesus, God went even further and just set aside the whole idea of judging people. So it's in that context of God's grace for people -- it's in that context that we can try to identify and get rid of our golden calves -- our human creations that we think are about God but that really are distractions from what God wants from us .

And again what does God really want from us: not religion but that we be humble and that we love all people like God loves in every part of our lives.

Back around fifteen years ago, there was a Jehovah's Witness guy who often came to our door. I think he liked that I enjoyed talking with him. He was used to having people be unfriendly. So he came by our place a lot and would stay to talk.

He and I discussed various things. But in the end, it turned out that our biggest disagreement was this. He thought that a person had to have their religion totally right or they'd go to hell. I, on the other hand, was convinced that God is forgiving to ward people. I figure we're all wrong about plenty. It's not about having the right list of beliefs. It's about God being gracious.

And when the people of Israel got it wrong, God cut them a break even though it made God mad. And it's the same God now -- a God who went much further in that direction through Jesus. God has saved the world because God is wild about people. And the way God wants us to respond is by loving others -- all others -- with that same commitment.

But to the extent we don't, to the extent we get distracted or on the wrong track, God' s merciful about that, too. So as we try to sort it out, it'll always be in the context of God already being committed to us.

God is gracious even when people's religion gets in the way of what God really wants from us.

Grace for All Who Don't Deserve It

Thu, 4 Dec 2008 06:30:28 GMT

10/5/08
Grace for All Who Don't Deserve It
Matthew 21:31b-46

Sisters and brothers -- fellow ministers,

Sometimes Christians call Jesus "the light of the world." "The light of the world." And what does light do? It shows things as they really are. It shows the truth about things.

In the dark, all kinds of things seem like they could be true. It's hard to tell what is . So people makes a lot of guesses about God and about life. But in the light, things become a lot clearer.

That's how Jesus was like light. Jesus showed the truth about things -- how things really are.

And among the things that Jesus showed are that in many ways, this world is upside down, from God's perspective. The way this world tends to see things is flipped totally the opposite from how God knows things really are.

Jesus said that his message was about "the kingdom of God ." He said that the kingdom of God was "at hand." And the way Jesus saw that was so different from how things are usually seen that it's sometimes called "the upside-down kingdom " of Jesus. The upside-down kingdom.

According to Jesus, despite appearances, the truth is that t he poor are rich, and the rich are poor . The weak are strong, and the powerful are weak. S ervants are kings, and kings are nothing. Those at the bottom are on top of the world, and those at the top of world are really on the bottom. The bad are righteous , and the righteous are bad. The godly are ungodly, and the ungodly are godly. The upside-down kingdom of Jesus. Or better: the rightside-up kingdom of Jesus in the mist of this upside-down world.

It's like this world tends to look at things through a distorted lens that turns everything upside down, like when you look at your reflection in a spoon.

Sometimes Jesus summed up the truth he saw with the words, "The last are first, and the first are last."

And a lot of people were confused by all this . Could the world -- including most of the religious people of the world -- really see things so flipped over from how God does?

Jesus said, " Yep. Afraid so."

Our Scripture reading for today begins with Jesus talking about this stuff with some of the folks it upset -- people who were seen as especially godly. They felt like they were on top in the first place -- especially because they tried hard to live better lives than others, more godly lives .

They were getting the sense that Jesus wasn't at all impressed -- that Jesus was saying God wasn't impressed. Their feelings were hurt. And Jesus saw this, and he didn't try to make them feel better. As recorded in our Scripture reading for today, Jesus said, "I'm telling you , the tax collectors and the prostitutes are eating the kingdom of God ahead of you."

Tax collectors and prostitutes. Now, we know what prostitutes are. That may be the world's oldest profession, but it's never been high status.

And tax collectors? Back then, the country of Rome controlled the land Jesus lived in. Tax collectors were locals who worked for these outside conquerors for Rome. They collected taxes from the people to pay for the military that then controlled the people. So tax collectors were not popular.

Then, to get people to take this unpopular job, Rome let tax collectors collect a lot of extra money from people and keep it. This made your average tax collector not just more hated but also very rich. They were the big example back then of really bad people -- people who had just rejected right and wrong by how they'd chosen to live their lives. People who seemed to be just in it for themselves.

Jesus looked at the most religious people around him -- people who did try hard to live better than others -- and he told them, "The tax collectors -- and the prostitutes those you consider the worst people around -- they're entering this kingdom of God I'm talking about ahead of you."

And then Jesus told a story to say this another way. Oftentimes, Jesus told stories to try to make his points.

He said, think of God's world God's kingdom -- t h ink of it as being like a farm. Imagine that people are allowed to use that land. For free, even -- it's still not theirs, but they can farm it. And then imagine that the owner of the land sends a guy to go check on how things are going there.

Imagine that the people on the land chase the guy away.

And imagine that he sends someone else, and they chase this guy away, too.

And then imagine that the owner of the land sends his son to see what the deal is.

And imagine the people on the land saying, "Okay, a couple things. When the owner dies, his son will get the land. If we get rid of the son, there's no clear heir. We have a better chance at keeping it. Also, if we get rid of the son, it will send a message to the owner that regardless of how we got here, we're in charge here now. We won't take orders from anyone. We've been working this land, and we deserve it."

And so the owner's son goes to the farm. And the people working on the land kill him.

What would that owner probably do? Jesus asked.

The people there said that he'd kick those people off the farm or worse !

And Jesus said, "Indeed. And then he'll give the land to people who deserve it."

Now Jesus had just said that the tax collectors and the prostitutes were going into the kingdom of God ahead of supposedly good religious people, and so it was clear what he meant. The owner of the land represented God. The people farming the land represented the supposedly good religious people. And the people who'd end up getting the land represented the supposedly "bad" people -- like tax collectors and prostitutes.

It says that the supposedly good religious people understood very well what Jesus was saying. And it made them want to kill him. But the re was a crowd around that was pretty much on Jesus' side, so they couldn't attack him right there.

But they did kill him a few days after this. Just like in the story Jesus had told, some supposedly good religious people would rather get rid of Jesus than let him tell them what God is really like and how God really sees the world. It turned out that these folks weren't really devoted to God. Their commitment was to their own beliefs about God.

Let me be straightforward about this -- because Jesus was straightforward about it. A lot of people call themselves "Christians." It's by far the most popular religion in our society. But if you listen closely, you'll notice that a lot of people who call themselves Christians pretty much ignore most of the things Jesus actually did and said.

Sometimes these folks say that what they believe in is the Bible. Well, that sounds good. But not when the Bible is used to minimize the importance of God on earth. T hese folks who killed Jesus believed in the Bible, too. In the name of the Bible, they rejected the real God and the real ways of God. The kingdom of God was at hand, but in the name of the Bible, they did not grasp it.

The things Jesus did and said are not just "part of the Bible." They're God on earth, the light of the world. And when they're not the center of how we understand God and God's ways now, we're getting rid of Jesus kind of like the folks in that story Jesus told did.

Jesus said that the reason the tax collectors and prostitutes were the ones on the right track is that they'd believed the message of John the Baptist.

So who was John the Baptist and what was his message?

John the Baptist lived more or less at the same time as Jesus. He was sort of the one who set things up for Jesus. John got called ``the Baptist'' because he's the one who invented the symbol of baptism -- which back then basically meant dunking someone under the water -- he invented it as a way for people to admit they were dirty. `` You're dirty, '' John said. ``Your soul is dirty. Your heart is dirty. Your faith is dirty. Your life is dirty. You need to go in the water to wash. ''

He meant that people were sinful -- that a lot of things God wanted, they didn't do, and that a lot of things God didn't want, they did. Baptism started as a way to admit that .

It's like in Alcoholic's Anonymous or any twelve step group -- the first step is admitting you have a big problem. At a meeting for Alcoholic's Anonymous, people introduce themselves by saying something like, "I'm John, and I'm an alcoholic." You constantly admit that you have a big problem.

Now, for whom is it easier to admit they have a big drinking problem, say? Well, they say that usually a person has to "hit bottom." They have to have had their world pretty much fall apart because of their addiction. When you look into the abyss -- w hen your family's left you or you're in jail or you've lost your job -- then it's hard to deny you have a problem.

This month, I get to lead the weekly Bible study at MHI -- the mental health institute here in Mt. Pleasant. Most of the people there are there for drug problems. And they're so honest about it. They don't try to justify it. And they don't try to deny it. They'll talk openly with you about their addictions to meth or cocaine or heroin. They admit they have a problem. They're in a live-in treatment program -- for most of them, it's court-ordered -- so would be hard to deny! And they don't try.

John the Baptist's message was that people needed to admit they have a big problem -- that they 're far from living fully as God wants -- that they're dirty, morally and spiritually.

Who accepts that kind of message most quickly? The supposedly good religious people? Mostly, it's folks who seem to be the least `` good and religious. '' The tax collectors and the prostitutes , for example . The drug addicts and drug dealers. The people who've had sex for money. The people who've been busted for stealing. They can't hide that they were so far from perfect even if they wanted to.

Jesus said that such folks enter the kingdom of God first most easily . T he undeniably messed up folks who are open about not deserving much at all .

The most undeniable sinners enter most easily. Upside down?

For all of us, t t's a matter of God forgiving us of God accepting us as we are of grace . It's not a matter of anyone being good enough -- either in the past or now. Christians continue to be sinners. Everyone continues to be a sinner . But hopefully being a Christian is like being in A.A. -- we admit it. I'm John , and I'm a sinner. I'm John and messed up in all kinds of ways. I'm John , and there are lots of ways I' m very far from living as God wants. I'm John , and if it came down to being good enough, I'd be out.

If anyone here' s worried about not being good enough to be part of the kingdom of God, I assure you that if being good enough is what it comes down to, at least you'll have me for company.

Now sometimes this story Jesus told is understood in a very wrong way, I think. Sometimes it's explained as though the farmers who run off the owner's son are the Jews and the people who will get the land are the Christians. Ever heard that explanation ? Well, it's pretty clearly wrong. In fact, it's dangerously wrong.

Jesus himself made clear what he was talking about. He said he was contrasting the people who admitted being messed up and bad -- for example, the tax collectors and prostitutes -- he was contrasting them with people who considered themselves good godly people who lived better than others. It didn't seem to matter what religion any of these people were, on either side. It mattered whether they accepted the message of John the Baptist that is, whether saw themselves as messed up.

John the Baptist and Jesus were like a one-two punch.

John the Baptist tried to get people to admit how "dirty" they were -- messed up, sinful, and off track. Baptism was about symbolically admitting that.

Then Jesus came right afterward and said, "God loves you anyway. God embraces the dirty. God hangs in there with the messed up. God forgives the sinful. God wanders along with those off track and seeks them."

And that's everyone. Who's not messed up? Who's not sinful? Who's fully on the right track? Who's so clean?

Whether we admit it or not, we're all in need of the God announced by Jesus -- the God who loves unconditionally and accepts as we are and forgives sins and hangs in there with us just because God's so into us to rather than because anyone deserves it. Every person needs that. But we don't all realize it.

To the extent we do realize it , the kingdom is now for us. Grace. Total grace. Because God IS gracious. God embraces us as we are and loves us and forgives us.

And like how any child's relationships are heavily influenced by how unconditionally their parents' loved them, so God's love, to the extent we're aware of it, will have effects in how we relate to others.

Grace for the undeserving. That's not certain "other people." That's me and you and everyone.

We've Got What We Need

Thu, 4 Dec 2008 06:28:36 GMT

9/28/08

We've Got What We Need
Exodus 16:2-15

Sisters and brothers -- fellow ministers,

The song we sang before the Scripture reading -- "Obey My Voice" -- it's a catchy song, and its words are almost straight from the Bible. But it isn't from the teachings of Jesus. It's from the Old Testament , written long before God came to earth as Jesus .

Specifically, it's from the teachings of a guy named Jeremiah who lived about six hundred years before Jesus. And Jeremiah said these words, "obey God's voice, and God will be your God " -- he said them to explain to the people of his time what they hadn't done and therefore why God was letting them be destroyed by another country that was attacking them.

Obey God's voice, and God will be your God -- that's a very OLD Testament message. It implies, "Disobey God's voice, and God won't." God wants us to love everyone absolutely -- in our personal lives, in society -- in every way. How well do we do that? How well do we obey God's voice?

Because God was well aware that people don't love as God wants us to, h ere's the message that came through Jesus later : even though we so often don't obey God's voice, God has chosen to be our God. God has chosen to be the God of all people, as we are. God being our God is not conditional on us obeying God's voice well enough. God's love is not conditional on us being loving enough . God's acceptance is not conditional on us being accepting enough . God's care is not conditional on us being caring enough . God's love and acceptance and care -- God being the God of humanity -- it's unconditional.

God has set aside the whole thing about people having to live a good enough life because, frankly, people didn't do it . And when it comes down to it, God loves people more than God hates the worst things we do. And regardless of how well anyone obeys God's voice and live s as God wants, God is not just our God, but the God of all the imperfect people of the world.

We are God's -- you are God's -- all people are God's -- not because we believe well enough or live well enough, but simply because God is so wild about each person that God won't let us go. It doesn't come down to our faith . It comes down to God's faithfulness . Lucky us!

Sometimes we Christians call Jesus "the light of the world." What light does is show things as they really are. He lifted the darkness and showed the truth.

This morning, we're going to try to shine the light of Jesus' teachings and example of the question of what we need. What do we human beings really need?

There's a song by the Rolling Stones that gets sung in our family a lot -- by me . It's called "You Can't Always Get What You Want." I sing it, doing my impressive imitation of Mick Jagger -- when someone -- a kid -- is begging for something they want but don't need . And the chorus of the song goes like this: "You can't always get what you want; you can't always get what you want; you can't always get what you want; but if yo u try sometime, you just might find you get what you need."

What you need. Well, what is it we really need?

There are levels to that question, I think.

I remember having a lesson in school --I think it was in second grade -- and the teacher was talking about people's basic needs. I remember food and shelter were the main ones. Those are pretty basic.

Our Scripture reading today tells about how around 2500 years ago, God was trying to bring a bunch of people out of a bad situation and into a better one. But on the way -- in between -- the people were in a desert. And they didn't have anything to eat. So they were scared.

God responded by giving them flakes of bread in the morning and some chunks of meat at night. Nothing fancy. And the people got soooooo sick of that bland bread. But it kept them alive. T hey wanted tasty meals -- pizza and fried chicken and hamburgers and French fries and hot fudge sundaes. But what they got -- every day -- was mostly flakes of bland bread. Plenty of it. Enough to fill up on. But still, flakes of bland bread, every day, for years.

They didn't get what they wanted. But they got what they needed.

That's the reality of how God seems to operate with people. We don't always get what we want. But God makes sure we do get what we need. What do you think of that?

When Jesus gave his followers an example of how to pray a good prayer, his example is what's sometimes called the Lord's Prayer. That prayer includes the request to God to "give us this day our daily bread."

" This day ." " Daily " bread. Jesus seemed to be making some sort of point of living on a day-to-day basis. You know all those lessons people teach about storing up for the future and all that. Well, Jesus didn't live that way, and he didn't teach others to live that way. Of course, he was dead before he was my age, so you can take that into account if you want .

But he pointed his followers to the example of birds and flowers who don't store things up and who don't plant crops. He said that it's best to live like them. He encouraged people to give away their possessions before following him.

A nother time , he noted that often he himself had no where to lay his head at night. Where did Jesus sleep? Well, at least some of the time, when he wasn't invited in to stay with someone, he seems to have slept outside.

He didn't have much.

Around the same time Jesus lived, there was a guy named Apollonius who, like Jesus, thought that people got way too tied down with possessions. And so Apollonius lived very simply. Other than his robe, one of Apollonius' only possessions was a metal cup he tied to the robe he used for a belt . That metal cup was kind of Apollonius' trade mark as a simple living person. And then one day, Apollonius came across a kid at the side of a stream, and the kid was cupping the water into his hands to drink it. And Apollonius shook his head, took the cup off his belt, and threw it away. "I've been overloaded," he said.

Apollonius and Jesus never met, but I think they probably would've liked each other.

How do we separate wants from needs?

And is it the same for everyone? That's a big question, I think.

In our Wednesday evening class this fall, we've been looking at our different personalities. My guess is that we have some different needs. For example, some of us have more of a need for quiet time alone and some have more of a need for regular time with people. Some of us more need structure around us and some of us more need flexibility around us.

What do you need? Really, really absolutely need?

For me, the more I think about it, the less makes that list.

Today I made a point of wearing dirty jeans and a dirty shirt I got at a thrift store. I think of myself as needing a lot more clothes than I really do. I like a variety of clothes. I like to wear clothes without coffee stains on them. But I don't need much. What do you NEED as far as clothes?

And for shelter, what do we really need? Especially in bad weather, we pretty much need something. But what? Certainly not a three bedroom house. The vast majority of families in the history of humanity haven't lived in a three bedroom house with over a thousand square feet. The vast majority of families on earth today don't have that. I like it, but I don't need it. What do I need?

I could sleep at the church. My whole family could. Last weekend, we had a youth group lock-in in this building and over fifteen of us slept here overnight. I slept fine. It was only for four hours because some of them went to bed so late, but for those four hours, I slept fine on a sleeping bag on the floor.

And every family doesn't need their own house or apartment . We could share places to live a lot more than we do. In most of the world, that's what people do.

And we need some sort of income, which for most people means a job, which means getting to the job. That means transportation. But that doesn't mean we need a car for everyone. In most of the world, every family doesn't have a car. We could share v ehicles more. I could walk. I could b ike. That's what they do in much of the world.

And for food, well, I like to eat. I think I've put on a good fifteen pounds since I moved to Iowa three and a half years ago. So I seem to especially to like to eat in Iowa. But what do I need ?

One of my heroes, a guy named Francis who lived almost a thousand years ago in Italy, he made a point of eating bland food. Mostly plain bread and oatmeal, cooked over a fire. If he was liking his oatmeal too much, he'd put some ashes from the fire in it. He didn't want to get hooked on tasty food.

Myself, I like variety. Yesterday, I got a sub at Subway. And like a lot of people, I have a special way I like my sub so that it's tasty. My preferences involve Southwest sauce and extra onions. But I don't need all that.

Jesus told his followers to look to the example of the birds and flowers. To me, he might say, "John, look to the example of your dogs." Our family's dogs are healthy and what do they eat? No variety. Every day for breakfast: dog food. Every day for dinner: dog food. Nutritionally balanced and all that -- almost certainly healthier for them than my daily diet is for me. I could go with Purina human chow for every meal and get -- not what I want -- but what I need.

But here's a question: do I eve n need that?

We need food to stay alive . But what's the worst case scenario? That we die.

O ne of the things God has shown through Jesus is that death is not the end. Jesus was executed publicly, and it looked like this big deal: the end of Jesus, in whom lots of people had put their hopes.

But it turned out he was only dead for the weekend. And not even the whole weekend! Just Friday afternoon through Sunday morning.

Sometimes people act as though the death of Jesus was so horrible. And I'm sure the whole crucifixion thing hurt, but hey, lots of people experience pain, and it was only for a part of a day, and then he came back fine a day and a half later!

I'm coming to think of the death of Jesus as being much more about him showing how unimportant death really is. Death seems like this big bad darkness that most people naturally fear. Jesus shined a light on it and showed that it's not so big and bad . It's just a door to the rest of life forever . He stuck around a bit after he died to let folks know that.

Did Jesus , the human being who walked the earth -- did he get what he needed? In his early thirties, he was mostly homeless and then was executed. What kind of example is that of a person getting what they needed? Maybe a n important example. Maybe t he most important example. Did God make sure Jesus got what he needed?

Death only held him for a weekend. So it turned out that those necessities he supposedly needed to stay alive -- well, staying alive itself wasn't so much of a necessity. For him or for us. He said that -- things like "Those who lose their lives will save it," and "Don't fear those who can destroy the body."

Sometimes I've been with kids who are afraid of dogs. They see a dog, and they freak out. So when it's a friendly dog, I sometimes go over and pet the dog and let it lick my hand and stuff to show the child that the dog's nothing to be afraid of. Jesus sort of did that to death. Big bad scary death. Jesus showed that it had to obey God, too, and therefore it wasn't allowed to destroy people. God loves people too much to let people get destroyed by anything .

So everybody dies, sooner or later. In Jesus' case, it was on the sooner side. But as his follower Paul wrote shortly afterward, Jesus showed that the truth is that death is like a wasp that's lost its sting.

So we've got life forever. What else do we really need? Love?

Jesus showed that God is committed to people as we are forever. God forgives our sins and faults, even when they're large . If there's any price we should have to pay for our sins -- and I know I deserve a fair amount of consequences for mine -- God paid that price God's self through Jesus' suffering. God is endlessly forgiving.

God loves and accepts us as we are. And so that deep desire we all have to be loved and accepted unconditionally -- we have that from God, guaranteed -- from God who knows every single person totally and finds every single person wonderful and priceless. You, as you are, are God's absolutely priceless child. And so also is everyone else -- with no exceptions.

So many people experience abandonment in their lives . The people we really want to be there for us aren't always there. Sometimes it's by their choice. And sometimes it's beyond their control. B ut being left alone is no fun .

Through Jesus, God also showed that a person is never really alone. As it says in the 23rd Psalm, " even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, you God are with me. " " When my enemies surround me, you God make a feast for me in front of them. " And, Jesus would add, when we're someone else's enemy, God makes a feast for them in front of us. One of the things God will never do is abandon anyone.

Not for sin or lack of faith or anything. Jesus made a point of showing that by hanging out especially with those known to be very sinful and lacking in faith. There's nothing we can do or can be done to us that can cause the one true God -- the God of Jesus -- to ever let any of us go.

And so God's loving hold on us is permanent . And God has turned death into a door to eternal life. Sisters and brothers, whatever life hits us with, we already have what we really need.

We don't need health. Eventually, the health of each of us will, one way or another, fail. One way or another, we'll all die. I'll do your funeral. Or someone else will do your funeral. But remember Jesus and how his death seemed like this big horrible thing but he was only dead for a weekend -- kind of making fun of death almost -- well, Jesus showed death to be not so big and bad. No big deal. We don't need to fear it.

So if we don't need to fear death because it's just a door to more life forever and we don't need to fear God because the only God there is loves and forgives and accepts people unconditionally, then w hat do we really have to fear? People are God's forever.

We don't have everything we want. Some people's lives are, in fact, especially hard. And God is closer to them than to anyone. But God has made sure we have what we need. Life and unconditional love forever, as God's gift. Whether they know it or not, everyone already has what they need.

God's Equality

Thu, 4 Dec 2008 06:27:39 GMT

9/21/08
God's Equality

Matthew 20:1-16

Sisters and brothers fellow ministers,

The only God there is is the one made known through the life and teachings of Jesus two thousand years ago . And one of the things Jesus showed about God is that God's really generous to people .

But m ost of us human beings have this natural tendency to be competitive. We compare ourselves to other people. It's not just how we do; it's how we do compared to others.

But Jesus made pretty clear that God's not much into that.

According to the Gospel of John, Jesus once talked about himself as being ``the W ay. '' But sometimes we can talk about that as though Jesus is in the way. Like Jesus is the guard that people have to get past to get to God or something. When he walked the earth and showed everyone the truth, Jesus was so not like that.

He described himself as being other times as being more like a shepherd and all of us human being as sheep. His focus as shepherd, he said, was to spend all his time searching for the sheep who aren't already close. People are a ll part of the flock w hether they're close or not, and he said he spends his time bri nging in the lost ones.

He said if ninety nine percent of the sheep are where they're supposed to be and one percent is gone, he'd leave the ninety nine percent and spend all this time seeking the one percent. He said that when a bunch of religious people criticized him for hanging out with people they looked down on as ``bad.''

So Jesus being the way didn't turn out, in actual practice, to have to do with people getting past him to God. They didn't have to say the right words or go through the right steps. It had to do with him going to them. He turned out to be much more the way from God to people. He was the seeker. He is the seeker.

People put so much sometimes on that one little phrase in John chapter 14 , where it says Jesus says, ``I am the way. No one comes to the Father except by me.'' Now, for one thing, most anyone who's studied it realizes that the writer of the Gospel of John didn't ever try to do a word-for-word reporting of things Jesus said. The Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke did that. John wrote a bit later, and he tried to give what he thought was the meaning not word for word.

So when using the Gospel of John, it's important to check it by the other Gospels the books of Matthew, Mark, and Luke in which Jesus' words and actions were much more carefully recorded as they happened. And in general, when making sense of something in the Bible, it's always important to look at everything that Jesus did and said that relates. Otherwise, just taking one little phrase or verse can send us off in a direction that God doesn't support. Jesus' life and teachings are like the glasses we need to look through to really see everything as it' s meant to b e seen.

And when you look at how Jesus actually WAS the way when he walked the earth, it wasn't that he was telling people that unless people believed in him in just the right way they were going to hell or something. Jesus wasn't even that much about what we think of as religion.

He went to people where they were. And when someone came across his path, that became the most important in the world to him. When he went to places of worship, like this, it was mostly to stir things up. Most of Jesus' real work came in the rest of life. And not to get people to believe in him but to embrace people as they were to come to them with acceptance and service and compassion and time. And: to call them to love others more and more the same way.

Jesus called all this the kingdom of God . He wasn't much interested in the ``house'' of God churches and temples and such. His interest was in the kingdom of God , which included the whole world, all of life, and every person not just those who were supposedly ``the right kind of people.''

Jesus' approach to all this got different reactions. Some people thought it was awesome. Some people thought it seemed too good to be true. Some people didn't care. And some people got very upset about it because they had strong beliefs and Jesus' approach didn't fit them well.

In response to all this, Jesus told a little story to try to give people a better sense of what he was doing. That story's our Scripture reading for today which we've already heard rapped, plus we've had it sort of demonstrated in the children's message.

The way Jesus operated shows us how God operates including today. And Jesus went to people as they are and where they are in all kinds of ways. He was the way FROM God TO people. Some of the ways people talk about as though Jesus is the guard at the gate to whom you have to say the password that ignores how Jesus actually related to people when he walked the earth. And how Jesus actually related to people when he walked the earth shows us how God actually relates to people generally, including now.

And just like in the story Jesus told about the workers who all got full pay even though they worked different amounts of time, so God doesn't seem to care how he draws people close as long as it happens. When people complains it has to be a certain way or that God is too generous that God's arms are open too wide God just yawns. And like the employer in the story Jesus told, says, ``Yeah well, I can be generous if I want to.''

A lot of people, Jesus came to in their problems and pain. There was a man who paralyzed. Probably a horrible injury had left him unable to move his arms or legs. Friends of his brought him to Jesus to see if Jesus could help. And Jesus did. First, he told the guy, ``Your sins are forgiven.'' Then, as a bonus, he gave the guy back the ability to walk.

Lots of people Jesus came to with their physical problems. Blind people shouted out at him from the side of the road, and he gave them their sight back. Once, a young man had died who was the only son of a widow. Jesus raised him back to life so that she wouldn't be alone. There was no Social Security back then. If you didn't have any family to take care of you when you were elderly, you were in big trouble.

There were people with leprosy, which was a disease that scared people. It's a little like AIDS today. If someone's HIV positive, people can be scared of them if they know about it . It changes their whole life. Well this was back in the days before medicine. And because some forms of leprosy were contagious, there were special rules that kept people with leprosy away from everyone else. Jesus healed people with leprosy. He saw beyond the label, ``Leper,'' to the real person, and he touched them and he healed them so that, among other things, they could return to regular life.

One woman just had a high fever. I say ``just,'' but in those days with no medicine, people often got sick, got high fevers, and died fairly quickly. Jesus healed her and brought her fever down.

He came to people in their physical struggles. And in doing so, he showed that God comes to people in our physical struggles.

Now, God doesn't heal most people. And anyway, everyone Jesus healed eventually died of something else later. Jesus healing them did help them in the short term, but it was also a sign. A sign of God caring and that God is not the cause of physical struggles that God comes to us during them on our side.

One of my heroes was a guy named Francis in Italy almost a thousand years ago. He'd been badly injured in a war. And as he lay in great physical pain recovering, he had a lot of time to think about his life. And that time was important for God showing him a new possibility other than living for himself.

Maybe you've had bad health problems. And maybe you can think of ways that, one way or another, God's worked through it. God doesn't cause people's health problems. God is especially close when we have serious health prob lems and, as Jesus showed, God will take advantage of the opening they provide to get closer to us.

Even more serious are mental health problems. There are mental health problems in people all through humanity. Our brains are physical things and they don't always work perfectly. They can get out of wack. Sometimes it's in-born, sometimes it's because of things we've experienced, sometimes it seems like just bad luck.

When Jesus walked the earth, people didn't understand at all what we know to be mental illnesses. They thought the symptoms were caused by demons. Jesus didn't focus on challenging people's views about the cause. He focused on helping the people who were suffering.

One guy, probably with severe uncontrolled schizophrenia, lived out in the town graveyard. He hurt himself. He scared everyone. Jesus healed him. And the guy then wanted to follow Jesus, but Jesus said just to tell people in his hometown how God had helped him. And so the guy did.

One of the people who did follow Jesus was a woman named Mary Magdalene. All we know about her background is that Jesus had cast seven demons out of her. She apparently had also had a severe mental illness. Jesus had helped her. And she became one of his most devoted followers.

God comes to some of us through our struggles. Unless we know that we need help, maybe we aren't going to care much about anything God can do for us. But when we're hurting and desperate, most all of us cry out for God's help whether we fully believe or not.

That reminds me of a time someone asked for Jesus' help to heal his son. Jesus asked the guy if he believed Jesus could really do it. And the guy said, ``I believe. Help my unbelief.'' That was a way of saying, ``Well, sort of. I'm hopeful. And please don't let my doubts about it stop you from helping.'' Jesus healed the guy's child.

Physical pain and suffering in life our own and that of those close to us can drive us to our knees. And when a person's on their knees, God can draw close easily.

There were also folks who were outcasts. They were considered bad. Some were individuals who were known to have done very bad things. There was a woman who was seen as a very bad person in town. Jesus made a point of telling everyone including especially religious people who looked down on her that her sins were all forgiven. Her sins drove her to her knees and Jesus' acceptance of her drove her to tears. Then he lifted her up in front of everyone.

And there was a man in Jericho was hated because he was a corrupt government official. He got rich by hurting everyone else in town. Jesus became this guy's friend. Jesus accepted him first, and then the guy did change some of his hurtful behaviors. But Jesus didn't wait for that.

And then there were whole groups of people Jesus was famous for accepting ``tax collectors,'' ``prostitutes,'' and just generally ``sinners,'' as though some people aren't sinners. Jesus accepted them and befriended them. They maybe never went inside a religious building. Jesus came to them.

And God comes to people in our sin and guilt. None of us are close to perfect. We all do things that hurt others. We also all hurt others by things we fail to do. Our faults and sins can drive us to our knees they should. And when a person's on their knees, they're in a place where God can lift them up.

Jesus didn't care about these folks' religion. He cared about their humility. And he cared that they were God's children just as much as anyone else was. And today and forever, it's the same God who walked in the earth in Jesus.

Speaking of religion, Jesus went out of his way to accept some people who did not have the right religion. Mostly they were soldiers who were from other places. They happened to be serving in the part of the world where Jesus lived. When they came to him for help in desperate situations, Jesus praised their faith he used the word ``faith'' even though these guys hadn't converted to the religion of the Bible. Same with a woman of a different religion whose daughter was dying. He praised her ``faith'' for seeking help with such determination. Knowing we need help is a really big deal.

Jesus didn't seem to care what religion a person was.

Lest there was any doubt about this, one time a very religious person of the right religion asked Jesus about having eternal life. What did a person have to do? And this guy talked about the ten commandments and stuff. Jesus then told a story. Often when Jesus told a story, it was because if he'd said it straight out, a lot people would have been horrified. By telling stories, people could maybe deal with his challenging truths more easily.

So anyway, the question was what did a person have to do to receive eternal life. And Jesus responded by telling the story of the Good Samaritan. Samaritans were people of another religion. For us, it might be the story of the Good Muslim. Or maybe the Good Wiccan or the Go od New Ager or whatever. It was a person of the supposedly wrong religion who helps a stranger who desperately needs help. Wrong religion. Helped a stranger in desperate need of help. That's how Jesus answered the question of how to receive eternal life.

Jesus clearly didn't care about people's religions. Lots of people around him saw themselves as believing in the religion of the Bible. And plenty of them couldn't stand Jesus. They didn't want a generous, gracious, accepting God . They wanted to be rewarded for believing the right things and for living better than other people.

And then there were folks who had no religion or the wrong religion and who humbly wanted help and who compassionately helped others. Jesus left no doubt who closer to God.

Now, there were also people who read the Bible back then and who were excited about Jesus. They realized that the God of the Bible is merciful and caring especially for those on the bottom. And they were excited about Jesus. So Jesus did come to some people through religion. But that was just one way.

The right place humble, seeking help, compassionate people get there in all kinds of different ways. It's a mistake to think they all have to do it the same way. When Jesus walked the earth, he made clear that it wasn't all the same way. It's not that there are really different paths to God. It's more like God comes down all kinds of paths to people. God's commitment is not to a particular path. God's commitment is to every single person. As Jesus made clear, every p erson is a sheep of God's flock.

That's, I think, what Jesus was talking about in the story he told about workers who work different amounts of time and all get paid the same. God wants to be generous. God doesn't care who deserves what. God's equality true quality is based on who people are in the first place: all G od's beloved children -- you, me, everyone you know, everyone in the world.

The workers in the story Jesus told are us and everyone who in whatever way ends up seeking help and acceptance and who tries to give those things to others, too. Maybe religion is part of how we're ended up there. And if so, great. But just as that's only part of the picture then, it's only part now.

Let me tell this story again. This is my own paraphrase:

For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who hired people early in the morning to work on his farm. Their work was through the Christian religion. He agreed to pay them the daily wage.

Three hours later, he went out and saw other people standing around. He hired them, too. Their work was through their own life experiences and relationships outside organized religion.

A few hours later, he went out and saw some more people. Their own reflections on life were how they entered work on the farm.

Later still, he saw others who'd gotten to somewhat similar places through other religions. They joined in the work, too, as they could.

And at the end of the day , he saw yet more people. They were desperate. Life had really battered them. They just needed a place to be. He put them on the farm, too, to do a little work if they could.

And then he paid them all the same amount a full wage. Some of those who worked since morning were upset, but the landowner said, ``I can be generous if I want to. And I do want to.''

The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe the good news.