Luke 24: 36b-48

April 22, 2012

[36]As they were saying this, Jesus himself stood among them.

[37] But they were startled and frightened, and supposed that they saw a spirit.

[38] And he said to them, “Why are you troubled, and why do questionings rise in your hearts?

[39] See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself; handle me, and see; for a spirit has not flesh and bones as you see that I have.”

[41] And while they still disbelieved for joy, and wondered, he said to them, “Have you anything here to eat?”

[42] They gave him a piece of broiled fish,

[43] and he took it and ate before them.

[44]Then he said to them, “These are my words which I spoke to you, while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets and the psalms must be fulfilled.”

[45] Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures,

[46] and said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead,

[47] and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be preached in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.

[48] You are witnesses of these things.

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Have you seen the commercial on TV that says “Nobody knows like Dominos?”  Well after reading the following story I have to wonder just exactly what it is that they know like no one else.

It seems that two bored, and not so bright employees of one North Carolina Dominos recorded themselves as they carefully concocted a “special treat” for their customers. They ceremoniously dropped pizza toppings on the floor, mashed them around, scraped them up, and daintily arranged them on the pie. They stuck cheese strands up their noses, pulled them back out, then laughed insanely as they sprinkled them over the sauce. They squished and spit the condiments over the top. Then, just to make certain that they could be a stupid as possible, they uploaded the video to You Tube for all to see.

As Ron White says, “You just can’t fix stupid.”

Of course, the outcry was immediate. Domino’s corporate headquarters was instantly plunged into the highest damage control alert possible. These two employees, who I will now refer to as “Dumb and Dumber,” were fired on the spot, and that particular Domino’s outlet was closed for a complete sanitation “do-over.”

But for anyone who saw the video the damage was done. Did any of you see it?  If so, did you order a Domino’s Pizza the next day?  And now after me telling you about it are any of you inclined to call in a deepdish meat lovers on the way home today after hearing that story?

Gross as it might be, we’ve all heard similar stories before.  Like the guy who spit on the police officers cheeseburger at McDonanlds, or the folks who went and ahead and used tainted meat on the Tacos at Taco Bell even though they knew that it was bad.  I’m sure that most of us have been spooked at least a little bit by the uncertainty about who is fixing our food, and where it has been before it reaches our table at the restaurant.

When you stop to think about it.  Eating out is the ultimate exercise in trust.  We trust others to prepare good, healthful, quality controlled food, without any back room monkey business. Without that trust, we would either all be eating only at home, or there would be a great number of employment opportunities for “food tasters.” But even with that said, even if there were official “food tasters” assigned to each and every restaurant, they wouldn’t be able to protect us from the invisible evils of salmonella or e.coli, toxins that we cannot taste and whose symptoms don’t show up immediately.

This sort of trust is part and parcel of our everyday lives.   From the guy who drives our children’s school bus to the kid making our pizza at Pizza Hut, each and every day we are placed in situations where we have to exercise some trust in the people around us.

And as the Apostles found out in this morning’s scripture lesson, trust is also something that is required of anyone who seeks to establish a meaningful and fulfilling relationship with Jesus Christ.

As we continue this Eastertide series of stories about Jesus post resurrection appearances, we read that he has once again appeared to the now 11 apostles.  As the story goes, they are gathered together once again back in Jerusalem, listening as the two friends share with them the story of how they met the resurrected Christ on the road to Emmaus.  And then, as they listened in amazement, suddenly there was Jesus, once again standing right there among them.  And he said,  “Peace be with you.”

As Luke tells it, this was the 3^rd time that Jesus had appeared to the apostles. And given that number, we might think that that by this time, his followers might be getting at least somewhat used to the experience.  But apparently, having your dead friend suddenly appear next to you in a locked room isn’t the sort of thing that one grows accustomed to very easily.

In fact, their reaction to Jesus presence was anything but peaceful.  Luke tells us,   [37] But they were startled and frightened, and supposed that they saw a spirit. [38] And he said to them, “Why are you troubled, and why do questionings rise in your hearts?

Why were their hearts troubled?  Why did questionings still rise in their hearts even though they had walked with Jesus for three years, watching him perform healings and miracles and appearing before them in his resurrected form at least 2 times previous?  It was a matter of trust.

Jesus continued in verse[39] See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself; handle me, and see; for a spirit has not flesh and bones as you see that I have.” [41] And while they still disbelieved for joy, and wondered, he said to them, “Have you anything here to eat?” [42] They gave him a piece of broiled fish, [43] and he took it and ate before them.

They had seen Jesus, they had heard Jesus, Thomas had even touched Jesus, but yet as Luke tells us, “they disbelieved for joy.”  The news was just too good, they couldn’t believe their eyes, they didn’t trust their experience.  As Jack Nicholson said in “A Few Good Men” they couldn’t handle the truth, because they were not yet ready to trust all that they had seen and heard.

The Greek word for “believe” is pistis, which has as its primary meaning “trust.”  To “believe” is not to offer intellectual assent to something. To believe is to hold something so close to the heart that you trust your life to it.  And up until this point the disciples just simply didn’t possess that kind of belief.  They believed, but they didn’t believe.

But then Jesus took a bit of fish and ate it to assure them that they weren’t seeing things and, [45] Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, [46] and said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, [47] and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be preached in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.

And as the truth of the scriptures began to unfold in their minds, and as the realization that Jesus resurrection was indeed the fulfillment of ancient prophecy, in that moment the apostles doubt turned to faith, their belief turned to trust.  Their “belief” was now fully embracing, wholly leaning on, totally trusting in the risen Lord and savior who stood before them.  And this newly discovered trust led to yet another essential for anyone who wants to fully experience the power and wonder of a relationship with Christ, and that word is obey.

These formerly doubting disciples have at this point worked their way through their doubts and lack of trust and have been transformed into passionate “Trust and Obeyers.”  And that was a good thing, because Jesus’ first instruction to his Trusters-and-Obeyers was challenging indeed.

Here it was, only the third day after Jesus crucifixion, the Passover crowds were still milling about, and the apostles completely understood that their own lives were in jeopardy as followers of the executed criminal named Jesus.  But despite their inclination to hide behind closed doors and take the first bus to Jericho, Jesus told these trusting disciples that “repentance and forgiveness of sins should be preached in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. [48] You are witnesses of these things.

Far from hiding away behind closed locked doors, Jesus was challenging his apostles to go out among the very people that had killed him and were looking for them, he commanded them to go to all nations preaching repentance and forgiveness.  He called them to be his witnesses. 

And this word “witness” that Jesus used here in the original Greek is a tricky one.  Our word “martyr” comes from the Greek “martys,” which was originally translated as “witness.” In other words, Jesus is calling those who follow him to give their lives, in essence to be a martyr to the pursuit of offering witness to the life changing power of his death and resurrection.

And so in this sense a trusting and obedient witness loves God with all his or her heart, mind, soul and strength.  A trusting, obedient witness walks daily along a Samaritan Road that tends to the least, the last, the lost, as well as an Emmaus Road that walks humbly, loves mercy, and does justice.  An obedient witness to Jesus extends forgiveness to the unforgiveable, believes the unbelievable, and  holds out hope to the hopeless.

A trusting and obedient witness to Jesus Christ sees life as an opportunity to witness, not as a competition to “win.”

You see, faith, belief, whatever you might want to call it is not primarily a matter of the head, it’s a matter of the heart.  Belief is not, at its core about believing things about God, or getting right thoughts about God. Belief is a trusting relationship with God that enables the trusting believer to obey God’s will no matter how difficult or absurd it might seem.  Trust and obey, for there’s no other way to be happy in Jesus than to trust and obey.

Amen.

John 20: 19-31

April 15, 2012

[19]On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being shut where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.”

[20] When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord.

[21] Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I send you.”

[22] And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.

[23] If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”

[24]Now Thomas, one of the twelve, called the Twin, was not with them when Jesus came.

[25] So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see in his hands the print of the nails, and place my finger in the mark of the nails, and place my hand in his side, I will not believe.”

[26]Eight days later, his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. The doors were shut, but Jesus came and stood among them, and said, “Peace be with you.”

[27] Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side; do not be faithless, but believing.”

[28] Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!”

[29] Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.”

[30]Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book;

[31] but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name.

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I’d like to start this morning by playing a little game.  I’m going to name one of Jesus 12 Apostles and I want you to share the first word that comes to your mind.  OK, here we go, Thaddeus.  Bartholomew.  James the Greater.  James the Lesser.  Alright let me make it a little bit easier.  Peter. (rock) Judas. (Betrayer)  and easiest of all, what word comes to mind when I mention the name Thomas.  (Doubt)

In face we have so closely associated the word doubt with poor old Thomas, that we have coined a phrase to describe pretty much anyone who doubts pretty much anything when we call them a “Doubting Thomas.”

But despite how much we may think we know about Thomas, were you aware that there is virtually nothing that we can learn about him from the first 3 “synoptic” gospels?  And even though Matthew, Mark and Luke have almost nothing to tell us about him, even John wrote only 155 words about Thomas. Yet even with so few words written about him, he was far from a one trick pony.  There was a lot more to Thomas than just doubt.

When Jesus turned his face toward Jerusalem the disciples thought that it would be certain death for all of them. Surprisingly, it was Thomas who said: Then let us go so that we may die with him. It was a courageous statement, yet we don’t remember him for that.

We also fail to point out that in this exact same story of Thomas’ doubt we have the one place in the all the Gospels where the Divinity of Jesus is bluntly and unequivocally stated. It is interesting, is it not, that the story that gives Thomas his infamous nickname, is the same story that has Thomas making an earth shattering confession of faith?  In verse 28 it is Thomas who declared “My Lord, and my God.”

He didn’t call him teacher as many had. He didn’t even call him Messiah as did many who hoped that he had come to overthrow the Roman Government.   Thomas called Jesus his Lord and his God! And it is the only place in the Gospel stories where Jesus is called God without qualification of any kind. It is uttered with conviction as if Thomas was simply recognizing a fact, just as 2 + 2 = 4, and the sun is in the sky. You are my Lord and my God! These are certainly not the words of a doubter.

And so this morning, I ask the question, “What can we learn from the life of Thomas?”

I.  First, Jesus did not scold Thomas for doubting. More often than not, when the word “doubt” is brought up in church circles, it is a word of derision.  To doubt is to lack faith.  Yet Jesus never condemned Thomas doubt, in fact, far from condemning it, he worked with it.   For I think that Jesus understood that once Thomas worked through his doubts, he would be one of the surest men in all Christendom.

I’ve got to admit that I am suspicious of people who say that they have never have any doubts, people who absolutely certain about each and every tenant and detail of their Christian belief system.

But instead, I would say that authentic faith always begins with intellectual honesty, and doubt is the bedrock of honesty. Put it another way: Faith is not the absence of doubt; it is the overcoming of doubt.

It was Alfred Lloyd Tennyson who said: “There lives more faith in honest doubt than in half the creeds.” And so, when we find ourselves wrestling the commonplace doubts of the Christian life, we can repeat with impunity, as did the disciple of old: Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief.

II.  Secondly, we can learn from the life of Thomas that quite often, the most important things in life can never be proven. Jesus said: “Thomas, you have believed because you have seen. Blessed are those who have not seen yet still believe.”  I will never see Jesus in this life, but by faith I believe that he lived, died.  And I may not have the chance to put my finger in the nail scars or to touch his spear pierced side, yet I believe that he rose from the grave on the 3^rd day. Musician Steve Taylor once sang, “It’s harder to believe than not to.”  And Jesus understands that it’s harder for you to believe than for Thomas and he counts you blessed as a result.

And so we add faith to the list of things love and friendship that cannot be objectively proven.  The cynic may claim that the love that you have for your family is nothing more than a selfish desire to control them, or curry some favor.  And they might even accuse your selfless acts of friendship to be a simple attempt to gain something in return.

If the goal of your life is for someone to show you undeniable proof of God’s existence, then you will be forever disappointed. For when we insist on proof we no longer leave room for faith.  Let me offer you the example of another very different Thomas.  Thomas Jefferson ranks as one of our nations greatest intellects and as a result of his reliance on the necessity of reason and rational thinking, he also rejected the notion of miracles. And so, when he approached the scriptures he could not tolerate those passages which dealt with the supernatural. So what did he do? He wrote his own bible. In the Thomas Jefferson Bible you will find only the moral teachings and historical events of Jesus’ life. There is no virgin birth. No healing of Jairus’ daughter. No walking on water. And, believe it or not, there is no resurrection. Here is how the Jefferson bible ends: “There laid they Jesus and rolled a great stone at the mouth of the sepulcher and departed.” For Thomas Jefferson the Gospel ends not at the foot of an empty cross, but rather at the door to a very full tomb.

You see, when we walk by faith with God we have to leave some room for mystery, surprise and uncertainty.  For surprise is the place where God resides.  The Hebrew people expected a mighty king and they got a destitute baby born in a feed trough.  The people expected a messiah who would fight a war to destroy the Roman empire, but Jesus waged peace and spoke not a word even in his own defense.

And you have to have faith to make your way through this world of pain and struggle.  Because there will be times in your life when you are going to have to face grief, disappointment, pain, and depression. There are times when these things happen and they are going to try to loosen your hold on God.  There will be dark nights of the soul, and days of walking through the valley of the shadow when the vision of proof will be rendered useless.

And it is at precisely these moments when I encourage you to walk by faith, and not by sight.  And with that in mind, I share with you this thought from Brett Blair who wrote, NEVER DOUBT IN THE DARK, WHAT GOD HAS TOLD YOU IN THE LIGHT. NEVER DOUBT IN THE DARK, WHAT GOD HAS TOLD YOU IN THE LIGHT.

In moments of light, God has told you that he will never desert you.

In moments of light, God has told you that resurrection is real.

In moments of light, God has told you that the very hairs on your head are numbered and that he loves you dearly.

And so, as you walk through this world, walk by faith, not by sight, when you walk through this world, leave room for the unexpected and a little bit of uncertainty that comes with a blind faith.  Because when you walk the road of life with a blind faith tried and tested, you can walk even walk in the dark.

Amen.

John 20: 1-18

April 8, 2012

We all have a number of strange habits, you know those little quirks and idiosyncrasies that keep life interesting and make us who we are.  For instance, my son Nick, when he was just a little guy would absolutely not eat anything on his plate if one food was touching another, and he also had to have a different utensil for each individual food as well.

We spoke the other week about folks who will only place a roll of toilet paper on the dispenser with the roll coming over the top.  Some folks eat all of the bread crust off of their sandwich first, while others always put on their left shoe before their right, or absolutely cannot go to sleep unless they have a fan whirring away somewhere nearby.

I, predictably have my share of little quirky habits as well.  And one of the most rigid and unchanging of them is my absolute refusal to leave any movie theater until the credits have quit rolling. The music plays, the credits roll by, the theater empties, the poor employees come in to sweep up garbage bags full of popcorn and scrape smashed candies from the floor, and there I sit until the name of every last grip, foley artist, and best boy has rolled by.

But while this frequently makes my family crazy, (C’mon Dad, let’s GO!) every once in a while, my refusal to leave pays off in a little surprise that all the folks who are hurrying off to sit in the traffic of the parking lot are going to miss.  Because even though it might have said “The End” 5 minutes ago, every once in a while a film will come along that has a special little extra nugget of film at the end of the reel.

Back in the day, I can remember sitting to the bitter end of each James Bond film in anticipation of the announcement of the next film in the series. (Coming next summer, “The Man With the Golden Gun.”) Sometimes, like in the original Muppet movie, it might only be Animal returning to screen to tell the audience to “GO HOME, GO HOME!”

And while these extras serve as nice little rewards for hanging around a bit longer, every once in a while there appears not only a little bit of film, but as in the first Pirates of the Caribbean film, a little bit of film that provides an essential bit of information that not only wraps up the film you have just seen, but sets up the next film as well.  If you’ve watched that movie to the end, then you know what I’m talking about.  If not, go home and pop in the DVD.

Yes, what some dogged theater sitters like myself understand is that sometimes the end isn’t the end at all.  Every once in a while, even though all appearances and common sense would suggest to you that the story is over, the game is up, and the chips have been cashed in, there’s still a little something extra, a little something that is sometimes so wonderful, so meaningful that everything that has gone before it is rendered nearly meaningless without this little “end after the end.”

And if ever there was a story that proves to us that there are times when the end is not the end at all, it would be the story of that first Easter morning.

Think about it.  On Friday afternoon, the 11 apostles, along with hundreds of Jesus’ other disciples had seen him whipped and beaten to a pulp, then nailed to a cross to die.  Jesus’ mother and the soldiers who were there to the bitter end heard Jesus cry out, and saw him breathe his last.

Like most reasonable folks sitting in a dark movie theater who see the words “THE END” flash onto the screen, they believed that the story of Jesus of Nazareth was all over.  3 years spent together, dozens of sick healed, thousands of physically hungry fed with the bread of the field, and thousands of spiritually hungry fed with the bread of God’s word.  But now, to all appearances it was all over.  Everything that they had hoped and dreamed and worked for for those 1,095 days that they had spend alongside Jesus of Nazareth was lost when his lifeless body was laid in the tomb.

But as I said before, sometimes, the end isn’t the end at all, for while Jesus may have said “It is Finished,” just before he died, for those who know the end that came after the end, the truth is it would have been more accurate had he cried out, “Now it Begins.”  Because despite all of the wise, miraculous and amazing things that Jesus had accomplished on earth during his brief 3 year ministry, it was only after he was crucified that things really started to get interesting.

While it might have appeared to all those standing by that day that Jesus death was the end of his life, it was only after his death that real life for Jesus and for His followers actually began.

The “beloved disciple” looked in at the abandoned grave clothes and believed that Jesus had risen. At that instant he realized that the end wasn’t the end at all, and his life began all over again.

Mary Magdalene heard her name called out in her beloved Teacher’s own voice, and she saw and believed that the risen Lord stood before her. And in that moment her life, faith, and all her expectations concerning what was, and what was not possible were renewed forever.

One by one over that day and the next month or so, Jesus appeared to all his apostles, and eventually hundreds of other disciples, until finally showing up at the Church in Jerusalem before his ascension to Heaven.  And each time Jesus vanished, the people thought it was over, that they had seen the last of him.   But then there he was again showing his wounds to Thomas, and breaking bread with his friends in Emmaus.  And the more he showed up, the more his followers began to understand that with Jesus, the end is not really ever the end at all.

Every now and again we will run across a story of some individual who has been pronounced clinically dead, yet somehow is miraculously revived, they are given a second chance, a new lease on life.  One such story was shared with me by Beth Calabro a few months back via an internet link.  It’s the story of a man named Jeff Marcum who, despite the fact that he was experiencing devastating discomfort, drove himself to te hospital, and dropped dead on the Emergency room floor before he could even get to the receptionist.  The nurses put him on a gurney and wheeled him into the ER where, despite the best efforts of Dr. Chauncey Crandall and his staff, Jeff Marcum was pronounced dead.  To all appearances, this was the end of the story.

Dr. Crandall laid down Mr. Marcum’s chart and walked through the doors that lead out of the ER, but as he walked down the hall, he said that he heard a voice telling him to pray for that man.  He thought to himself, how can I pray for that man, he’s gone, there’s no life left in him. But yet the voice persisted, telling him that he needed to go back and pray for Marcum, and so he did.  To the astonishment of the nurse who stood by the bed, Dr. Crandall laid his hands on the lifeless body of Jeff Marcum and prayed for his soul.

At that moment, another Dr. walked into the room and Dr. Crandall ordered him to once more use the defibrillator to try and shock Jeff Marcum’s lifeless body back to life.  And the rest, as you might guess, is history and a story that has a very happy ending.  Marcum’s lungs immediately began breathing, his heart instantly returned to life, beating out a normal rhythm, and 3 days later… Jeff Marcum woke up, miraculously suffered no brain damage or other ill effects whatsoever.  Sometimes the end isn’t the end at all.

And that’s the most important lesson that any of us can take from the Easter story, and that is that sometimes the end isn’t the end at all.  No matter how hard life might get, no matter how hopeless your situation might seem, no matter how dark the valley you have to travel, keep in mind that in Christ, the end is never really the end at all.

When you run out of answers, and patience, and hope, and any sense of possibility, remember that when you live by faith and not by sight, the end isn’t really the end.

Even when you feel like it’s all over, like the disciples and apostles on that first Easter, standing at the foot of the cross, or hiding away behind locked doors for fear, with the power of God, the end isn’t really the end.

For those who live in Christ, even death is never the end, and despair never has the last word, because God always has another trick up his sleeve, God always has something better in store for those who are willing to stick around for the end… and beyond.

So the next time that you go to the movies, hang around after the screen reads “The End,” and pretty soon you’ll discover that quite often, when you are walking with God by faith, the end isn’t really the end at all.

Amen.

Jeremiah 31: 31-34

March 25, 2012

[31]“Behold, the days are coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, [32] not like the covenant which I made with their fathers when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant which they broke, though I was their husband, says the LORD.

[33] But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it upon their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

[34] And no longer shall each man teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, `Know the LORD,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the LORD; for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”

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Today I’d like to talk a little while about the law.  As a country, and a state we also have all sorts of laws on the books that give us guidance and direction as to order our lives and keep us at least moderately civilized.  There are seemingly limitless written laws that surround our lives.

But have you ever thought about how many unwritten laws you encounter each and every day.  You know what I mean, those little unspoken, unwritten guidelines to everyday living that aren’t written down anywhere, yet pretty much everyone knows them to be true.  For instance,

What direction do you face after entering an elevator?

What is the correct way to put a roll of toilet paper on a toilet paper holder?  What is the right thing to do when someone allows you to merge into a line of traffic?

If you take a chocolate out of a sampler box and it tastes like a combination of soup and dirt, what do you do with it?

You see, even though you might not find them in a book anywhere, every day of our lives is governed not only by written, but also by a seemingly endless list of unwritten laws as well.

The Bible and our Judeo/Christian history are also full of written and unwritten law as well.  In fact we were talking in Bible Study this past Thursday morning about laws and the Bible.  A brief look through the Old Testament will reveal Unwritten Laws concerning just about everything from how to wash your hands to what to do if your neighbors Ox falls into a ditch on your property.  And we all know the pervasive presence of the 10 commandments in our faith and our society as well.

But before God’s laws were written on either parchment or stone, God’s laws were a form of unwritten law called a covenant.  God’s first law and covenants were written on stone and in the sky.

This description of the place and purpose of Biblical covenant comes from Robert Davidson’s commentary on this morning’s scripture passage.  He wrote, “Covenant is one of the words used in the Old Testament to describe the relationship between the Lord and his people. It is a relationship rooted in God’s initiative, in what he has done FOR the people, but it looks for a response FROM the people.  It’s meaning is summed up in the words “you shall be my people and I shall be your God.” 

In many ways, these Biblical covenants are much like the covenants that are spoken by a husband and wife when they are joined in Holy Matrimony.  You know how it goes, “I will be your husband, and you will be my wife, ‘til death do us part.”   A covenant is the ultimate sort of “you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours sort of relationship” where each party promises something to or for the other.

God made a covenant, an unwritten agreement with Abraham that stated that because of his faith, his offspring would be as numerous as the stars in the heaven.  Just a few weeks ago, we spoke of the covenant that God made with Noah after the flood promising that never again would he destroy the world and all the life on it with a flood of water.

But there is a problem with these covenantal relationships.  Humans have a long tradition of breaking them.

As you all know when it comes to our marital vows, there is today in the United States 50% percent of first marriages, 67% of second and 74% of third marriages end in divorce.  And as we have talked about so many times before the Old Testament of the Bible is pretty much an endless cycle of broken promises as God makes covenant with the people and the people break covenant with God over and over and over again.

And that brings us to Jeremiah the prophet.  He was not the world’s happiest, or best loved guy.  In fact he was the ultimate prophet of doom and gloom.  His calling from God was to reveal the sins of the people and foretell the impending disaster that would come as a result of their current round of covenant breaking.   Joel Osteen might be known today as the smiling pastor, but many know Jeremiah as the weeping prophet.

However, in characteristically surprising fashion it was precisely this forlorn, weeping prophet that God chose to be the mouthpiece for a new era, a new agreement, a new relationship, a new covenant with His people.

[31]“Behold, the days are coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, [32] not like the covenant which I made with their fathers when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant which they broke, though I was their husband, says the LORD.

[33] But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it upon their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

[34] And no longer shall each man teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, `Know the LORD,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the LORD; for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”

This new covenant, this new law that would be written only on the hearts of God’s people would change people and their relationship to God and one another forever. And there are three specific changes or implications of this unwritten law for God’s children both then and now.

1. Because there will be no need for instruction, everyone will know the law. [34] And no longer shall each man teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, `Know the LORD,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the LORD;

Previous to this God, and God’s people had been very clear about who was in and who was out.  The 12 tribes of Israel were God’s chosen ones, and then there was everybody else.

The Israelites were the bearers and the keepers of the law that they carried with them, studied and picked apart to the tiniest detail making sure that they were able to clearly define and declare their superiority over all the other people of the earth.

We still have that tendency to want to define who is in and who is out of the Body of Christ, generally based on our own convictions and desires.  We can use all sorts of litmus tests to decide and define our boundaries.  They might be based on theology, race, politics, or even just pure opinion.

The largest question about the new covenant is not about who belongs to it, but about whether any of us, Jew or Christian, show forth the new heart and new spirit that God has promised to effect within us.

1. And that leads to our second learning.  It is a law not to be written down, studied or memorized, it is written in the heart, it will be second nature.  [33] But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it upon their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.”

This writing of God’s law on one’s heart literally involves a change of that person’s heart.  Inner response will replace outward demand.

This new law, of course, is Grace, God’s love and forgiveness freely given without any deserving nature or action of our own.

God’s love has a way of outweighing God’s judgment. And so God loves us with an endless, eternally forgiving love that gives us no option other than to think or to act in any way contrary to that God given, Grace filled love.  When God becomes our God, and we become God’s people, with God’s law written on our hearts our relationship with God and our neighbor changes with the change that takes place in our heart, as the bitterness, self focus and anger of our old human heart is replaced by the Grace of God that forgives 70×7. The measure of our relationship with God can be directly measured by the amount of love, grace, and forgiveness we render in our daily lives.

3. And this leads to the last, and perhaps the trickiest of our three learnings about the unwritten law.  God’s Grace erases your past mistakes and those of your neighbors.  Speaking for God to His people, Jeremiah said, “I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”

Because this new relationship will be one where the tragic legacy of repeated past failure will be dealt with forever.  Like that rainbow in the sky promising that God will never again destroy the earth with a flood, the unwritten law of Grace through Christ, written on our hearts promises us that the past will become a closed book.  God says “I will remember their sin no more.”  God understands that the guilt associated with sin separates us from a close abiding relationship with Him.  Just as Adam and Eve hid behind fig leaves and bushes when God came walking in the Garden after they ate from the forbidden fruit, so have a tendency to hide from God when we are feeling less than proud of our ability to live life bearing the family resemblance to our Heavenly Father who loves and forgives always and forever.

And so this new covenant creates a new community of Grace on earth where God’s forgiveness of our shortcomings changes our hearts and drives us to forgive others as we have been forgiven and on and on and on the wave of this new covenant rolls throughout our community and across the globe where one, by one by one hearts are changed and lives are renewed by the joy that comes with being at peace with God and neighbor.

Look inside your heart this morning and honestly answer yourself as to what you find there.  Is your heart full of the anger, pain, and resentment caused by the sin of you and those who have sinned against you?  Or do you see a heart empty of bitterness and remorse, a heart with the unwritten law of Grace written all over it by the finger of the God.

If it’s there, thank God, and if it’s not, then receive it, because it is the only way to find true peace in this world and the next.

Amen.

Psalm 107: 1-3, 17-22

March 18, 2012

Ps.107

[1] O give thanks to the LORD, for he is good;

for his steadfast love endures for ever!

[2] Let the redeemed of the LORD say so,

whom he has redeemed from trouble

[3] and gathered in from the lands,

from the east and from the west,

from the north and from the south.

[4] Some wandered in desert wastes,

finding no way to a city to dwell in;

[5] hungry and thirsty,

their soul fainted within them.

[6] Then they cried to the LORD in their trouble,

and he delivered them from their distress;

[7] he led them by a straight way,

till they reached a city to dwell in.

[8] Let them thank the LORD for his steadfast love,

for his wonderful works to the sons of men!

[9] For he satisfies him who is thirsty,

and the hungry he fills with good things.

[10] Some sat in darkness and in gloom,

prisoners in affliction and in irons,

[11] for they had rebelled against the words of God,

and spurned the counsel of the Most High.

[12] Their hearts were bowed down with hard labor;

they fell down, with none to help.

[13] Then they cried to the LORD in their trouble,

and he delivered them from their distress;

[14] he brought them out of darkness and gloom,

and broke their bonds asunder.

[15] Let them thank the LORD for his steadfast love,

for his wonderful works to the sons of men!

[16] For he shatters the doors of bronze,

and cuts in two the bars of iron.

[17] Some were sick through their sinful ways,

and because of their iniquities suffered affliction;

[18] they loathed any kind of food,

and they drew near to the gates of death.

[19] Then they cried to the LORD in their trouble,

and he delivered them from their distress;

[20] he sent forth his word, and healed them,

and delivered them from destruction.

[21] Let them thank the LORD for his steadfast love,

for his wonderful works to the sons of men!

[22] And let them offer sacrifices of thanksgiving,

and tell of his deeds in songs of joy!

This morning I want to talk to you about blame.  Blame is as old as the creation story in Genesis when God came walking in the garden of Eden and  Adam blamed Eve and Eve blamed the serpent for their recently acquiesced guilt inspired change in attire.  It’s also as recent as this morning’s paper as our elected officials square off in an endless game of tag in which the last person touched, or torched receives all the blame for the problems in our country and the world.

The truth is, at one time or another in our lives we all get caught up in playing the blame game, because when faced with problems and pain, when challenged by trials and tribulations, it is just simply human nature to try to find some one, or some thing that can take the responsibility and receive the punishment for our discontent.

The all time classic tale about suffering and blame has to be the Old Testament story of Job.  If you don’t know the story, it goes roughly like this.  Once upon a time there was a rich and righteous man named Job who had everything that you could want, or ask for.  He had a beautiful family, a big house, all sorts of livestock and crops and anything and everything that could give a man status and prestige in his day.  Think Donald Trump without the hair.  As the story goes, one day as God and Satan were hanging out in Heaven, God asked if Satan had ever noticed his righteous child Job as he went walking to and fro on the earth.  Satan replied that yes indeed he knew who Job was, but that the only reason that Job had been so faithful to God was because he had so much stuff.

So God challenged Satan to put Job to the test.  God said that he would take his hands off of Job, so that Satan could do anything he wanted to do to Job because he was so certain that no matter what, Job would remain faithful.  So in one morning Satan took everything away.  He killed Jobs children, he burned Jobs crops and destroyed Job’s livestock.  And to beat it all, he gave Job some awful skin disease that left him alone on the burnt rubble and ashes of what used to be his home scraping the scabs off of his decaying skin with a piece of broken pottery.

Job, as you can imagine was at his wits end, he knew that he had been faithful to God, he knew that he hadn’t done anything to deserve all this pain and suffering, yet here he was, alone on a pile of ashes scraping away the scabs.

Then came his friends, each one claiming a desire to alleviate Job’s suffering by offering him a perfectly plausible reason as to why God had seemingly punished him so.  One by one they began to suggest various bad things that Job, or Job’s family must have done to deserve such a fate, each one of them committed to their belief that Job must have sinned to incite God’s punishment.

They assumed, in their view of theology, that God always rewards good and punishes evil, with no apparent exceptions allowed. There seems to be no room in their understanding of God for divine discretion and mystery in allowing and arranging suffering for purposes other than retribution.

In their eyes, Job must be the one to blame for his pain and suffering.  Yet once again, Job knew that he had done nothing wrong, so who was to blame?

Have you ever felt like that?  Have you ever felt like the world was conspiring against you even though you had done nothing to deserve it?  Have you ever felt like a character in a cartoon who has suffered problem after problem before saying, “It couldn’t get any worse” just before the raincloud unloads its contents on his head?

This is precisely the situation described by the Psalmist in the passage that Michelle read for us just a few moments ago.  In the bit of the scripture that is cut out of the Liturgical calendar between verses 3 and 17, the suffering are described as hungry and thirsty, with their soul fainting within them.

[10] Some sat in darkness and in gloom, prisoners in affliction and in irons,

[12] Their hearts were bowed down with hard labor; they fell down, with none to help.

And then on to verse 17 where our reading resumed, [17] Some were sick through their sinful ways, and because of their iniquities suffered affliction; [18] they loathed any kind of food, and they drew near to the gates of death.

Down, depressed, no appetite, no rest, no hope, near death.  As a later verse 27 describes it, these are times when like poor old Job, we are at wits end as we sit on the ash heap, gnash our teeth, and toss and turn in our beds seeking for someone, anyone to take the blame, and receive the pain for the frustration and the loss that we feel.

But what Job finally discovers, and as our Psalmist suggests to us this morning, getting caught up in the blame game is a negative and downright counterproductive response to pain and suffering.

The reality is that when we are asking who is to blame for the problems surrounding us, we are asking the wrong question.  As Job found out, more often than not, the answer to who is to blame is far too complicated for us to fully comprehend.

And so, instead of asking who is to blame, the question that we should be asking is, “who and what can possibly get us out of this fix and set everything right again?”

In the Psalmists words, [19] Then they cried to the LORD in their trouble,

and he delivered them from their distress; [20] he sent forth his word, and healed them, and delivered them from destruction. [21] Let them thank the LORD for his steadfast love, for his wonderful works to the sons of men!

[22] And let them offer sacrifices of thanksgiving, and tell of his deeds in songs of joy!

In other words, the correct response when faced with pain and punishment is to praise God.  The way to heal the hurt in our heart is to offer sacrifices of thanksgiving and to tell of God’s deeds in songs of joy.  The secret is in all things, to be grateful, not grumpy.

Henri Nouen in his book “Bread for Grace” puts it this way, “To be grateful for the good things that happen in our lives is easy, but to be grateful for all of our lives—the good as well as the bad, the moments of joy as well as the moments of sorrow, the successes as well as the failures, the rewards as well as the rejections—that requires hard spiritual work. Still, we are only truly grateful people when we can say “thank you” to all that has brought us to the present moment. As long as we keep dividing our lives between events and people we would like to remember and those we would rather forget, we cannot claim the fullness of our beings as a gift of God to be grateful for. Let’s not be afraid to look at everything that has brought us to where we are now and trust that we will soon see in it the guiding hand of a loving God.”

In other words, when we feel down and troubled, the only thing that we can do to heal our hearts and make our soul feel satisfied is to take our mind off of our self and our troubles and to focus all our heart, mind, soul, strength, attention and effort on the goodness of God.  In simplest terms, blaming is negative, it tears down, it destroys, but praising God builds up and heals.  Blame is destructive, praise is redemptive.

Let go of the blame, take hold of God’s grace and you will find that elusive peace that passes all understanding.

Amen.

Psalm 19

March 11, 2012

Ps.19

 To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David.

[1] The heavens are telling the glory of God;

and the firmament proclaims his handiwork.

[2] Day to day pours forth speech,

and night to night declares knowledge.

[3] There is no speech, nor are there words;

their voice is not heard;

[4] yet their voice goes out through all the earth,

and their words to the end of the world.

In them he has set a tent for the sun,

[5] which comes forth like a bridegroom leaving his chamber,

and like a strong man runs its course with joy.

[6] Its rising is from the end of the heavens,

and its circuit to the end of them;

and there is nothing hid from its heat.

[7] The law of the LORD is perfect,

reviving the soul;

the testimony of the LORD is sure,

making wise the simple;

[8] the precepts of the LORD are right,

rejoicing the heart;

the commandment of the LORD is pure,

enlightening the eyes;

[9] the fear of the LORD is clean,

enduring for ever;

the ordinances of the LORD are true,

and righteous altogether.

[10] More to be desired are they than gold,

even much fine gold;

sweeter also than honey

and drippings of the honeycomb.

[11] Moreover by them is thy servant warned;

in keeping them there is great reward.

[12] But who can discern his errors?

Clear thou me from hidden faults.

[13] Keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins;

let them not have dominion over me!

Then I shall be blameless,

and innocent of great transgression.

[14] Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart

be acceptable in thy sight,

O LORD, my rock and my redeemer.

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Have you ever wondered what God’s voice sounds like?  Around this time each year my all time favorite the Ten Commandments is aired on television and we get to hear what Cecil B DeMille thought God might sound like as that spooky voice calls out, “I am, that I am…..”

It’s strange when you think about it, but pretty much all of us have either said, or been told that God has said this thing or that.  “God told me to take this job.” “God told me to marry this woman.”  “God told me not to eat that 5^th slice of double chocolate cake….”

We pretty much all believe that God speaks to us, but how many of us can even hazard a guess as to what God’s voice might actually sound like?

This morning’s Psalm tells us this…

[1] The heavens are telling the glory of God;

and the firmament proclaims his handiwork.

[2] Day to day pours forth speech,

and night to night declares knowledge.

[3] There is no speech, nor are there words;

their voice is not heard;

[4] yet their voice goes out through all the earth,

and their words to the end of the world

.

That’s about as clear as mud isn’t it? “Day to day pours forth speech, yet there is no speech, nor are there words, their voice is not heard, yet their voice goes out through all the earth.”

OK God, so what you are saying is that every day pours out speech that is not there, yet it goes throughout all the earth.  What the heck is that supposed to mean?

Well, what the Psalmist is saying, is that for those who have eyes to see and ears to hear, not only does God speak to us regularly and consistently through common sources like the scriptures and prayer, but if you are really looking and listening, you will very soon notice that God is speaking not only in the words and phrases, but in what musician Van Morrison called the “Inarticulate Speech of the heart,” or what William Shakespeare referred to as “Sermons in Stones.”   In his classic “As You Like It” Shakespeare described it this way,  “And this our life, exempt from public haunts, finds tongues in trees, books in running brooks, SERMONS IN STONES and good in everything.”

[1] The heavens are telling the glory of God;

and the firmament proclaims his handiwork.

[2] Day to day pours forth speech,

and night to night declares knowledge.

The idea of God speaking through creation is obviously as old as scripture itself.  And while we in the 21^st century may have lost some of our connection with God’s voice in creation, there is a rich tradition of celebrating the voice of God as heard in the world around us.

Appropriately on this week before St. Patrick’s day, we can look back in particular at the beliefs of the Celtic people of Great Britain and Scotland in the second and third centuries who held close to a tradition that emphasized the goodness of creation and the gracious goodness of God, which can be seen both in the natural world and in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ in equal proportion.

For them, God, nature, and humankind were inextricably intertwined like the strands of a Celtic knot.  For the Celt, God spoke every bit as clearly through the wonders of nature as through the gifts of scripture and prayer.

But then, historians of religion tell us that the Celtic way of perceiving things was pushed aside in the fifth century by orthodox Roman Catholic theology, which emphasized original sin and the fallenness of creation.  Much of the church’s discomfort with the world to this very day – with humanness, with sexuality – comes from that theological conflict.

Yet the Psalm calls us to get back to our roots, as does Scottish theologian George McDonald who wrote, “We should look not only to the scriptures and the church to know God, but to creation as well.”

The heavens are telling the glories of God.

There is a wonderful Hasidic story about the child of a rabbi who used to wander in the woods. At first his father let him wander, but over time he became concerned. The woods were dangerous. The father did not know what lurked there. He decided to discuss the matter with his child.

One day he took his boy aside and said, “You know, I have noticed that each day you walk into the woods. I wonder, why do you go there?”

The boy said to his father, “I go there to find God.”

“That is a very good thing,” the father replied gently. “I am glad you are searching for God. But, my child, don’t you know that God is the same everywhere?”

“Yes,” the boy answered, “but I’m not.”

The wonders of creation have a way of transforming us, of changing the way we think and feel, and see, the wonders of creation open us to the wonders and the voice of God.  You can feel it and hear it as you stand and stare into the milky blackness of a starlit night.  You can see it in the wild unity and diversity that you can witness on a walk through the woods.  You can hear it in the cry of a newborn baby, and the beauty of delicate spring flower that pushes it’s way through the earth demonstrating the consistent pattern and rhythm of creation that God set in place at the dawn of time, yet still remains unchanged still today.

As Shakespeare said, there are Sermons in stones. Do you find them there? You can, you know. Or in the towering trees or fragrant flora or starry nights.

Listen to creation carefully with ears of faith, and you will hear the voice of God.

Amen.

Romans 4: 13-25

March 4, 2012

[13]The promise to Abraham and his descendants, that they should inherit the world, did not come through the law but through the righteousness of faith.[14] If it is the adherents of the law who are to be the heirs, faith is null and the promise is void. [15] For the law brings wrath, but where there is no law there is no transgression. [16]That is why it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his descendants — not only to the adherents of the law but also to those who share the faith of Abraham, for he is the father of us all,[17] as it is written, “I have made you the father of many nations” — in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist. [18] In hope he believed against hope, that he should become the father of many nations; as he had been told, “So shall your descendants be.” [19] He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead because he was about a hundred years old, or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah’s womb.

[20] No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God,

[21] fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised.

[22] That is why his faith was “reckoned to him as righteousness.”

[23] But the words, “it was reckoned to him,” were written not for his sake alone, [24] but for ours also. It will be reckoned to us who believe in him that raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, [25] who was put to death for our trespasses and raised for our justification.

——————————————————————————————–

When most people talk about the heroes of the Bible, they think about brave and gallant men and women who lived spotless lives of Biblical perfection.  They cast out demons, they preached in hostile territory, and they crossed the Red Sea.  And while they did do all these things, there was another side to these people as well.  The further truth is, that in addition to their valorous, heroic tendencies, just like you and me, all of the men and women of the Bible had their own faults, failings and short comings.  Even a not so careful reading of scripture will tell us that Noah was a drunk, David was a murderer, Jacob was a cheat, and Abraham, the hero of this mornings scripture lesson was a liar.

You don’t remember that part of the story?  Let me refresh your memory, as the story goes, Abraham and Sarah were traveling to Egypt and knowing that he was married to a hottie, Abraham was afraid that when the king caught sight of Sarah, he would have Abraham killed so that the king could take Sarah for his own.  And so Abraham come up with a unique solution.  He lied.

When asked his relationship to this little beauty, Abraham swore to the king that Sarah was his sister.

It’s hard for us to swallow these blemished stories about our Biblical heroes, isn’t it?  It makes them seem like factory seconds or Bible School drop outs or something.  We want our Bible heroes to be perfect, which in the final analysis is reflective of the fact that we want to be perfect as well.

You see, our resistance or inability to understand our Biblical heroes as such flawed human beings has something to do with how many of us view our own faith.  While we talk about God’s Amazing Grace and the power of the cross, the truth is that far too often when it comes our relationship with God, or more particularly, when we come to judge or estimate the quality of other people’s Christian witness we equate goodness with Godliness.

For example, how many times have you made a mistake, lost your temper, said a cross word, said a curse word, or done whatever other thing that you might have done or said differently had you the opportunity to do it over,  and then no sooner was the deed done than some friend, neighbor, coworker, relative or other acquaintance uttered those 7 devastating words, “And I thought you were a Christian.”

The suggestion is of course that you’re not good enough to be a Christian.  And the painful truth is, they are right.  Hear these words from an earlier section of Chapter 4 of Romans.

[10] As it is written: “None is righteous, no, not one; [11] no one understands, no one seeks for God. [12] All have turned aside, together they have gone wrong; no one does good, not even one.” [13] “Their throat is an open grave,they use their tongues to deceive.” “The venom of asps is under their lips.” [14] “Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.” [15] “Their feet are swift to shed blood, [16] in their paths are ruin and misery, [17] and the way of peace they do not know.”

[18] “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”

Ouch.

None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands, no one seeks for God.  No one does good, not even one.

And here’s one worse, from Luke Chapter 18, [18]And a ruler asked him, “Good Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” [19] And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone.”

No one is good, not even Jesus?  Makes you feel like just throwing in the towel and call it a life, doesn’t it?  How in the world are we supposed to please God if not even Jesus is worthy of being called good?

It’s a problem, so much of a problem that it’s led many people to losing their religion if not their mind.  They try and try and try to be “good enough for God.”  But inevitably, they make a mistake, they trip over their tongue or get burned to the ground by some temptation.  And in the end, instead of finding the joy of the Lord and that peace that passes all understanding in their relationship with God, they end up hopeless, bitter, frustrated and angry.

This happens so often, because our “do it yourself society”, built by self made men and women who have been taught to pull themselves up by their bootstraps are ill suited for the life of a disciple of Christ which lets go and lets God.

In our heart of hearts, we’re all control freaks.  We’d rather drive than be driven, we live a Burger King existence where we always want to have it our way.  If we could, we’d love to be able to micromanage even the most minute fragments of our lives, not to mention the lives of the people around us.  If we had it our way, we’d all be living in a spotlessly clean world where everything and everyone is perfect, a kind of home, home on the range where never is heard a discouraging word and the skies are not cloudy all day.

But then we wake up to reality and we hear Paul’s words ringing in our throbbing heads, “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands, no one seeks for God.  No one does good, not even one.” 

The frustration over our inability to do the thing that we want to do drives us to distraction and even the tendency take out our frustration on the people around us.

But if Abraham wasn’t loved by God because he was good, what was it that enabled God to trust this liar to be the father of his people for all generations to come?  Paul tells us,  [13]The promise to Abraham and his descendants, that they should inherit the world, did not come through the law but through the righteousness of faith.” And [18] In hope he believed against hope, that he should become the father of many nations; as he had been told, “So shall your descendants be.”

God chose Abraham not because he was good enough, but because of his faith.  Abraham believed in God’s promises, as absurd as they were.  And his faith in God’s promise, hard to believe as it was, gave him the hope that he needed to carry on.  And if there is one thing that we need in this crazy, painful, imperfect, nobody is good, mixed up world it is hope.

Andy Crouch-Human beings can live for forty days without food, four days without water, and four minutes without air. But we cannot live for four seconds without hope.

Lewis Smedes- This nation was built by the power of hope. No painter ever set brush to canvas, no writer ever set pen to paper, no builder ever set brick on brick, no enterpriser ever built an enterprise without having hope that he or she could do what they were dreaming of doing. We have not begun to fathom the power of hope in creating better lives for ourselves and our children.”

And what Smedes is saying is that Hope is contagious. The understanding that none is good save God alone IS the good news.  We don’t have to be good, we have to be faithful.  We don’t have to be perfect, we have to maintain hope in God’s absolute power, will, and goodness.

Belief in God leads to a love of and acceptance of oneself and love of and acceptance of oneself, imperfect though we may be leads to an acceptance and love of our very imperfect neighbors, which in turn leads to an acceptance of and love for the world around us with unbounded hope that declares that it is indeed possible for God’s kingdom to come on earth as it is in heaven through the love of God grasped by and poured out upon all humanity by you, and me, and every other person who believes in the hope possible only through the love and grace of God.

And so ultimately, all those people talking trash to you are right, you’re not good enough, and you never will be good enough to deserve a close, intimate, abiding love with the Lord of all creation.  No you’re not good enough, but you are loved enough. And God’s infinite love for you brings with it unbounded grace that can cover an abundance of sin that in turn promises that just as you are, warts and all, you are welcome in the Kingdom of God by Grace through faith in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen.

Mark 9: 2-9

February 19, 2012

[2]And after six days Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain apart by themselves; and he was transfigured before them, [3] and his garments became glistening, intensely white, as no fuller on earth could bleach them. [4] And there appeared to them Eli’jah with Moses; and they were talking to Jesus. [5] And Peter said to Jesus, “Master, it is well that we are here; let us make three booths, one for you and one for Moses and one for Eli’jah.” [6] For he did not know what to say, for they were exceedingly afraid. [7] And a cloud overshadowed them, and a voice came out of the cloud, “This is my beloved Son; listen to him.”

[8] And suddenly looking around they no longer saw any one with them but Jesus only. [9]And as they were coming down the mountain, he charged them to tell no one what they had seen, until the Son of man should have risen from the dead.

This morning I’d like to talk with you about the Thin Places on earth.  Thin places are locations where through powerful and sometimes even miraculous events it appears that the veil between the natural and supernatural world is particularly “thin.”  In these thin places, it’s truly as if God’s kingdom has come to earth as it is in heaven in unusual and life changing ways.

One such thin place is the Scottish isle of Iona.  Iona is a small island in the Inner Hebrides off the western coast of Scotland. It was a centre of Irish monasticism for four centuries beginning in the middle ages, and is today renowned for its tranquility and natural beauty. Its modern Gaelic name means “Iona of (Saint) Columba”

Iona was the site of a highly important monastery and according to tradition the monastery was founded in 563 by the monk Columba, who along with 12 of his companions had been exiled from his native Ireland.  The monastery and the movement they founded played a crucial role in the spread of Christianity to Scotland and still today is known as a place where God’s presence can be uniquely experienced.

Another such thin place is 312 Azusa street in Los Angeles California where in the early part of the 20^th century the Pentecostal movement in this country was born.    It began with a meeting on April 14, 1906, and continued until roughly 1915. The revival was characterized by ecstatic spiritual experiences accompanied by miracles, dramatic worship services, and speaking in tongues. The participants were criticized by the secular media and Christian theologians for behaviors considered to be outrageous and unorthodox, especially at the time. Anywhere from 300 to 1,500 at a time would pack the tiny building for the services that sometimes ran nearly 24 hours a day.  Any of the thousands of people who came through those meetings agreed that God was present in a profoundly special way.

What are some times and places where you have felt a special touch or presence of God?

There were certainly some very thin places in the Bible as well.  Can you imagine standing with Moses on top of Mt. Sinai, when God spoke to him from the burning bush?  Or try to imagine the experience had by Paul on the road to Damascus when he was knocked down and struck blind by the presence of God.  Then, following Jesus resurrection, as two disciples were walking on the road to Emmaus, Jesus joined them on their journey and at the table where they finally recognized him in the breaking of the bread.

And obviously, in this mornings story of Peter, James and John on the mountaintop with Jesus, Elijah and Moses, God made his presence known in a particularly dramatic fashion.

Yet, as much as the transfiguration that is being referred to in the title of the story is the transfiguration of Jesus as his garments became glistening, intensely white, as no fuller on earth could bleach them, the real change that took place, the real transfiguration, the most long lasting transformation that took place that day was the change that took place in the hearts, minds, and lives of Peter, James, and John.  They had witnessed God in His fullness and their lives would never be the same.

It was a feeling like nothing that they had never known and Peter wanted to make it last.  And so he said to Jesus, “Master, it is well that we are here; let us make three booths, one for you and one for Moses and one for Eli’jah.” Peter wanted to create booths, shelters to contain the presence of these 3 holy me in order that he might be able to make the moment last forever.

But the problem was, Peter was confusing the power of the place with the power of the experience.  He imagined that if he could build those booths, he could preserve the experience, he could contain it in that time and that place.

But even the thinnest places don’t last forever.  One of my favorite fictional tales about thin places comes in CS Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia.  If you haven’t read the books, or seen one of the 3 movies made thus far, they feature the ongoing saga of 4 children from WWII era England who are repeatedly transported from their world to the magical kingdom of Narnia where they go on exciting adventures as kings and queens of that magical land.

In the first book titled, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, the children entered Narnia through the back of an old wardrobe in a remote spare room of the house.  In Prince Caspian and the Voyage of the Dawn Treader, they entered through a magical painting that came to life and drew them inside.

The entrance was never the same.  You see each time they entered Narnia and returned home to England, the portal through which they had traveled would be closed, never to be opened again.  Yet each time one portal closed another would open in an unexpected place at an unexpected time.

You see, just as Peter wanted to contain and control the presence of God on top of the mount of Transfiguration, he couldn’t.  It was a onetime event that would not be repeated.

And so as they came down from that mountain, as they continued to sense that transformation that had taken place within them, they began to realize that it wasn’t the place, it was the presence of God that was so magical and life changing.  And it was that moment that they came to understand that God, and God’s transformative Spirit is everywhere.  It’s not the place that is special, and life changing, it is the presence of God.

Just think of the thin places that we have talked about this morning. God was present in powerful ways on top of the mountain and in the middle of a road that hundreds of thousands of people had walked for years.  God showed up and changed the spiritual face of western Europe from the slopes and fields of a Scottish island and set North American ablaze with the fire of the Holy Spirit from an abandoned warehouse in a Los Angeles slum.

The presence of God, and the potential of encountering a thin place is possible anywhere and anytime that we go into our everyday lives looking for and expecting the presence of God.

To that end, I’ve always loved the story told by philosopher and writer Sam Keane who wrote in his book “To a Dancing God” where he speaks of being a child and first hearing the story of Moses on the mountain with God and the burning bush.  The transformative moment for Keen came when he heard the passage where God instructed Moses to take off his sandals because the ground that he was standing on was holy.  Young Keen asked his mother if it weren’t true that God was everywhere.  And when she affirmed that indeed God was everywhere, little Sam decided that he was going to walk around barefoot the rest of the summer as his way of acknowledging that all ground was holy.

It might not be very practical, or comfortable to walk around barefoot in the New England winter, but perhaps if we decide to mentally remove our shoes, if we choose to look at all ground as holy ground, if we look at every moment and every place in our life as full of God’s presence and the potential to be a thin place, then we’ll be able to sense the transformative presence of God everywhere.

Amen.

Mark 1: 40-45

February 12, 2012

[40]And a leper came to him beseeching him, and kneeling said to him, “If you will, you can make me clean.”

[41] Moved with pity, he stretched out his hand and touched him, and said to him, “I will; be clean.”

[42] And immediately the leprosy left him, and he was made clean.

[43] And he sternly charged him, and sent him away at once,

[44] and said to him, “See that you say nothing to any one; but go, show yourself to the priest, and offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded, for a proof to the people.”

[45] But he went out and began to talk freely about it, and to spread the news, so that Jesus could no longer openly enter a town, but was out in the country; and people came to him from every quarter.

Inspired by the writing of author and preacher Leonard Sweet on this passage, I want to talk to you this morning about leaks and mirrors.

Our kitchen sink is a mess.  The faucet never stops dripping.  If you turn the handle to the middle, turn it on full force then shut it off real fast and keep that handle dead on in the middle, it will only drip a little bit.  But that’s not the worst of it.  Down under the sink where we keep the dish soap, window cleaner, trashcan, furniture polish and hummingbird food, the drainpipe has a terrible leak.  God bless Keith Lyman he’s been over to the house dozens of times trying to help us get this stuff straight and we have finally had to resort to keeping a plastic movie theater popcorn bucket under the sink to catch the water that leaks out of the pipes underneath.  And if you wait too long to empty the bucket….. well then you’ve got another problem.

Leaks, whether they are in your sink, your toilet, your brake lines, or on your roof are seldom ever a good thing.

But you know, people sometimes spring leaks as well.  Sometimes things just “leak” out of us, no matter how hard we try to plug them up.  Sometimes we spring a “leak” that should have sprung long ago. Other times leaks spring that never should have sprung.

And then there are intentional leaks. How many of you are familiar with “Wikileaks?” WikiLeaks is an international online organisation that publishes submissions of private, secret, and classified media from anonymous news sources, news leaks, and whistleblowers. And we’ve all read in the papers or heard on the news about how this politician or that has somehow “leaked” information to the press.

It’s never difficult to find a source to provide such leaks. The truth is, most of us are pretty terrible at keeping secrets. After all what is the point of having “secret knowledge” if you cannot share the fact that you have it?

And that brings us to one of the stranger elements of the Gospel of Mark.  It’s something that Biblical scholars refer to as the “messianic secret.” Bizarrely, time and again in Mark’s Gospel, Jesus will teach a powerful lesson, cast out demons, heal the sick and then tell everyone in attendance, “Tell no one what you’ve seen.”  Kind of a bizarre twist on public relations.

But how well did Jesus “cover up plan” really work?  Not so well, evidently.  Even thought the stories that we are reading come from the earliest part of Jesus ministry, last week we read that the “entire city” came to Peter’s house for Jesus to heal them, and in the passage we just read, after healing the leper, Jesus told him,  “See that you say nothing to any one; but go, show yourself to the priest, and offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded, for a proof to the people.”

But what did the leper do? [45] But he went out and began to talk freely about it, and to spread the news, so that Jesus could no longer openly enter a town, but was out in the country; and people came to him from every quarter.”

And why did this man, grateful though he might have been for his healing blatantly disregard Jesus command to tell no one? It was because he had to, he couldn’t help himself.  Think about his situation.  Not only did leprosy render one hideous in a physical sense, but it also caused one to become an ultimate social outcast.  They were considered to be ritually unclean, banished to leper colonies, and were allowed absolutely no contact with the outside world.

And so, when Jesus broke the social and religious rules of the day, when he not only spoke to, but reached out and touched this man, thereby healing him of his disease, the joy that the now former leper experienced, the sublime thrill of having been released from the prison of isolation and rejection, through the power of Jesus’ touch and word compelled him to run into the streets, to proclaim his miraculous transformation, to “broadcast” far and wide the good news of his wholeness and to reveal who had made that wholeness possible.

Inspired by joy, this man’s exuberant exclamations acted as a kind of controlled “leak” about the person and power of Jesus the Christ. Mark’s text declares that it was because of the proclamations of this cleansed leper that Jesus’ popularity grew so great, forcing him to stay outside the synagogues and cities, sending him ever further out into the countryside. There his work and words became even more widespread and well known. Instead of staying within the safe circle of the synagogue circuit, the joyous witness of this one man ushered Jesus into the next phase of his mission and journey.

While the healed leper in this week’s text may have been the first to act as a leaky source of the messianic secret, he was by no means the last. Again and again when Jesus cautions the crowds to be quiet, they respond by spreading the news of his healing powers, his authoritative words, his depth of knowledge, his good news of the kingdom. The volume of the crowds continues to increase throughout Jesus’ ministry.

The shepherd of the First Great Awakening, Princeton president Jonathan Edwards is mostly remembered for a sermon about sinners dangling over the flames of hell that was titled “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.”  But also, Edwards conceived a theological notion he called “remanations” — the human response to an encounter with a divine “emanation,” the presence of the divine in our midst.

According to Edwards, when a human encounters the emanation of the divine, the human spirit responds with its own reflection, its own kind of bounce-back echo, of that divinity. Of course, the emanation Edwards meant was the person and presence of Jesus Christ. Each human being who encounters the Christ, who is transformed in the presence of that divine emanation, becomes a “remanation” — a reflection of that glory.

When the leper in today’s gospel text encountered the emanation of the divine in Jesus, he could not help but “bounce back” that light, that love, that energy. The cleansed leper became a “remanation,” a reflection of Christ’s transforming, healing wholeness. He reflected God’s power and glory with his cleansed skin and his clear voice.

What does it mean for us to be a “remanation” of the divine emanation? What does it mean for us to be an echo, a reflection of Christ in this twenty-first century?

Like the first century leper, it means giving up some control, letting the personal experience of a Christ-encounter take hold and take you away. Once you add leavening to a mixture of flour, water, and sugar, things are going to happen. You cannot tell the infused dough not to rise. Once we experience the power and presence of Jesus, we cannot help but be fundamentally altered. We are changed. We are charged. We are challenged.

But the best explanation I can come up with of the relationship between a “remanation” and an “emanation” is this story from Robert Fulghum. Fulghum is most known for his first book, All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten (1988), which stayed on the New York Times best-seller list for two years. But his second book: It was On Fire When I Lay Down On It (1989) contains a chapter called “Are There Any Questions?” which details Fulghum’s penchant for asking “What is the Meaning of Life?” at the end of lectures which end with “Are There Any Questions?”  It’s kind of a fun thing to do, try it sometime.

It’s a story about a lecture that was given by Alexander Papaderos on the Greek isle of Crete, where Fulghum today lives when he’s not at home in Seattle. Papaderos is a scholar, politician, gardener, and resident of Athens. He created an institute to heal the memories between the Greeks and the Germans, even after the Germans were guilty of some of the most heinous crimes imaginable against the Greek people.

“By the time I came to the institute for a summer session, Alexander Papaderos had become a living legend. One look at him and you saw his strength and intensity ‑‑ energy, physical power, courage, intelligence, passion, and vivacity radiated from this person. And to speak to him, to shake his hand, to be in a room with him when he spoke, was to experience his extraordinary electric humanity. Few men live up to their reputations when you get close. Alexander Papaderos was an exception.

At the last session on the last morning of a two‑week seminar on Greek culture, led by intellectuals and experts in their fields who were recruited by Papaderos from across Greece, Papaderos rose from his chair at the back of the room and walked to the front, where he stood in the bright Greek sunlight of an open window and looked out. We followed his gaze across the bay to the iron cross marking the German cemetery.

He turned. And made the ritual gesture: “Are there any questions?”

Quiet quilted the room. These two weeks had generated enough questions for a lifetime, but for now there was only silence.

“No questions?” Papaderos swept the room with his eyes.

So. I asked.

“Dr. Papaderos, what is the meaning of life?”

The usual laughter followed, and people stirred to go.

Papaderos held up his hand and stilled the room and looked at me for a long time, asking with his eyes if I was serious and seeing from my eyes that I was.

“I will answer your question.”

Taking his wallet out of his hip pocket, he fished into a leather billfold and brought out a very small round mirror, about the size of a quarter.

And what he said went like this:

“When I was a small child, during the war, we were very poor and we lived in a remote village. One day, on the road, I found the broken pieces of a mirror. A German motorcycle had been wrecked in that place.

“I tried to find all the pieces and put them together, but it was not possible, so I kept only the largest piece. This one. And by scratching it on a stone I made it round. I began to play with it as a toy and became fascinated by the fact that I could reflect light into dark places where the sun would never shine ‑‑ in deep holes and crevices and dark closets. It became a game for me to get light into the most inaccessible places I could find.

“I kept the little mirror, and as I went about my growing up, I would take it out in idle moments and continue the challenge of the game. As I became a man, I grew to understand that this was not just a child’s game but a metaphor for what I might do with my life. I came to understand that I am not the light or the source of light. But light ‑‑ truth, understanding, knowledge ‑‑ is there, and it will only shine in many dark places if I reflect it.

“I am a fragment of a mirror whose whole design and shape I do not know. Nevertheless, with what I have I can reflect light into the dark places of this world ‑‑ into the black places in the hearts of men ‑‑ and change some things in some people. Perhaps others may see and do likewise. This is what I am about. This is the meaning of my life.”

And then he took his small mirror and, holding it carefully, caught the bright rays of daylight streaming through the window and reflected them onto my face and onto my hands folded on the desk.”

This week I charge you with the challenge of carrying around with you in the wallet of your mind a small round mirror as a reminder that you are a remanation of an emanation . . .

So don’t hide your light under a bushel.  But take the light of Christ that has, can and will heal every broken part of your heart, mind, and soul and let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.

Amen.