The Fear of Nineveh

Sermon as preached at Lambs and Evington UMC on 1/25/15



Read Jonah 3:1-5,10

When I say that we are going to be talking about Jonah, what’s the first thing that pops into your mind? The whale of course.  Ever since we were young kids this is one of those stories that we have heard over and over again, Jonah being swallowed by a big fish. But we so often focus so much on the incredible story of a human living in the belly of a fish, that we forget what the whole story is about. Our Scripture for this morning comes from the third chapter of Jonah, which reminds us that there is much more to this fascinating story. While we read only a portion of this story earlier this morning, it is impossible to fully grasp the importance of this story without knowing the whole story.

            So why does Jonah find himself in the belly of a whale? Well, the book of Jonah begins with God calling Jonah into ministry. Jonah is called to go to the city of Nineveh and to cry out against it. Jonah is having none of it however, and so he runs away from the call from God. Now Christians often love to overreact to this by too quickly applying Jonah’s story to our own lives in one of two ways. First, some Christians like to look down upon Jonah for running away from God. How could he do such a thing? I would never run away if God were calling me to serve. On the other hand some Christians like to act like their story is exactly like Jonah’s.  “I relate to Jonah, there was a time in my life where I ran away from God, but I too found my way back to Church.” The problem with us trying to put ourselves in Jonah’s shoes, or sandals, is that most of us have not been called to the same extreme that Jonah was. Or maybe more accurately, most of us don’t realize we have been called to the same extreme that Jonah had.

            The thing is, Jonah isn’t just called to go and evangelize to some city of people he doesn’t know, that’s scary enough for most of us, but Jonah was called to evangelize to Nineveh. Sometimes because the cities and countries in the Bible are not familiar to us we lose their significance in our stories; such is the case with Nineveh. Nineveh isn’t just some other city, it is the city of the oppressors of   the Jewish people at that time the Assyrians. The Israelites and the Assyrians often had many battles against each other, with the Israelites facing a lot of destruction and casualties at their hands. Nineveh is the booming metropolis for these Assyrians, and a city that is proud in their ways and hostile to the Jewish people.  To put it in perspective, this is like God calling you to go to Bagdad in Iraq, or Kabul in Afghanistan, and to preach to good news about God. Even worse, Jonah was called to deliver a message of doom and destruction to these people; is it any wonder then why he ran away?

            And so this is what leads us to the part of the story that we are more familiar with. Jonah is running away from God and so he takes a boat heading to Tarshish, which is a city we don’t know much about. Some speculate that it is Carthage  or some place in Egypt, but the fact that we don’t know much about the city tells us something; Jonah has no real destination, he’s just trying to get away. But how do you get away from God? So while he is on this boat, a storm comes and the seas get rough. All of the other people on the boat are freaking out, they’re praying to all of their other pagan God’s trying to save their lives. But Jonah, is calmly asleep. He knows why there is a storm, he knows that it is his Lord who is doing it, but Jonah is calm and content.

            This part of the story reminds me of another story about a boat. Last week I talked about the founder of Methodism John Wesley coming over to America, but what I didn’t talk about was how frightening his trip over really was. While they were at sea, like in Jonah, a huge storm came and tossed their boat to and fro. Wesley was terrified, until he found a group of Christians called the Moravians quietly praying throughout all of the chaos. This stillness and faithfulness spoke to Wesley, and in his writings about that evening saying,

            “In the midst of the psalm wherewith their service began, the sea broke over, split the main-sail in pieces, covered the ship, and poured in between the decks, as if the great deep had already swallowed us up. A terrible screaming began among the English. The Germans calmly sung on. I asked one of them afterwards, “Was you not afraid?” He answered, “I thank God, no.” I asked, “But were not your women and children afraid?” He replied, mildly, “No; our women and children are not afraid to die.” From them I went to their crying, trembling neighbours, and pointed out to them the difference in the hour of trial, between him that feareth God, and him that feareth him not. At twelve the wind fell. This was the most glorious day which I have hitherto seen.

            Just as the Moravians had a chance to teach Wesley and friends about their faith through their actions, Jonah also is able to evangelize to the members of this ship during this terrible storm. Jonah tells them that it is his Lord doing it, and that he is the reason why. He even offers himself to be thrown into the sea to save the others, and gives them permission to such. The second that Jonah is thrown overboard, the sea begins to die down, and this caused the men on the ship to believe in the Lord. It is funny, the Jonah is running because he doesn’t want to be an evangelist for the Lord, and in his running, while he is trying to get as far away as possible, he teaches a group of pagans aboard a ship about the ways of the Lord.

            The scene that follows is the part that we are all familiar with, and still we often get it confused. We often view Jonah being swallowed by the fish as punishment, but in reality the fish is sent by God to save Jonah who had now been cast overboard into the depths of the sea. While in the belly of the fish, Jonah sings a song to God praising him and giving God thanks, and after he was done, Jonah was spit out, literally vomited by the fish.

            The Lord calls on Jonah once again to go and evangelize to Nineveh. This time Jonah knows he better listen. So after that whole ordeal of running away, Jonah finds himself in the very same position he was in beforehand, except now he is exhausted, he is further away from Nineveh, and he is covered in fish vomit.  Kind of makes us want to think very carefully the next time God is calling us to do something. Jonah finally arrives in Nineveh, he preaches this word of destruction and what happens, Nineveh repents, they mourn over their ways, and they believe in God. And so God spares the city from destruction.         

            Jonah has to be feeling pretty good. I mean, look at the success rate of all the other prophets in the Bible, Isaiah was unsuccessful, Amos failed, even Moses could not convince Pharaoh to turn from his ways, but here is Jonah with the simple words, “Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown” and all of Nineveh repented. Jonah has to be one of the most successful evangelists in the Bible, so of course he reacts with joy right? … Chapter four tells us that Jonah looks at that conversion of Nineveh, and the sparing of the city and he is upset. He yells to God, I knew this would happen. This is why I ran in the first place, I knew you were a just and loving God and that you could spare these people. Why did you make me come to this wretched city, if you could have done it yourself?  Why did you chase me on a boat, swallow me with a fish, and still call me to come cover in fish vomit to this God forsaken place? In chapter four we see Jonah’s true character come out, it is not that he was terrified for his life that he ran away from the call to Nineveh, he didn’t run because he was afraid of the thought of failing. He ran because he was afraid of succeed. Jonah despised the Assyrians, he despised these people of Nineveh, he did not want to be associated with those who killed his own people. He did not want to be the one known for bringing these people into the fold of God. And yet God responds, God reminds Jonah that these people are the works of God’s hand, that there are over  120,000 people in the city and countless animals to boot. These people however despicable they may be in the eyes of Jonah, are God’s creation and worthy of God’s mercy and grace. Sure God can spare their lives, but who was going to tell them about the goodness of God, and the need to repent? God wanted a messenger, God wanted a Jonah.

            I believe that more and more of us in the churches are called to be Jonah’s for the world, but too often our ears and our souls are not open to hearing the call, and sometimes we like Jonah simply don’t want to respond. Last week at a conference I attended in Blackstone one of the speakers spoke about a pastor of a larger church that had been pastor there for about 30 years. One day the speaker was asking this pastor about opportunities to reach out into the community into maybe some of the poorer areas. The pastor told him that this community was almost all upper middle class suburban folks, and that there wasn’t much poverty in the area. Later that day while at lunch just a quarter mile or so from the church the speaker happened to look out the window and what did he see, a trailer park right across the road; now that doesn’t strike me as upper middle class. So he went back to the preacher and asked him about the trailer park, and the pastor responded, “I had never seen it before.” This pastor had been in the area for 30 years, had driven past this place daily and had never seen that park before.

            Are there Ninevehs here in our own community, are there those places that we avoid, that we don’t want to be associated with, are there people or groups that we would rather not encounter, or are there groups that we don’t even see.? Are we so caught up in our own circle of friends many whom are good Christians and upright citizens that we fail to even recognize the Ninevehs in our own community.? If God is calling us to serve the Ninevehs in our community then are we running away because we are afraid we may fail, or like Jonah are we running away because we might actually succeed?

            Because as a Church we are certainly running away, and I don’t mean just this church but as Christians as a whole we are running away from Nineveh. We say we want new people, we say we want to make disciples for Christ, but then we only reach out with programs and events to people who already think and act like us. Think about it, what is that last program or event you can remember that has brought non-Christian  to Christ, and how long ago was that? The message we as Christians send out is "come be like us", when over and over again in the Bible we see that evangelism is not about setting up something for people to come to, but actually going, going out to Nineveh.

            But there is such a fear of Nineveh. Because if there wasn’t we would be out in the bars all the time talking to people where they were. We would be out on the other side of the tracks in Altavista where people live in houses that are about to fall down. We would be in the schools learning about the needs of the children in our area. We would be with the undocumented workers, that search each day for work to provide for their families. If we aren’t afraid of Nineveh then why are we not there? I suspect that deep down, we are all like Jonah, it’s not that we are afraid to go to those places, which we may be a little, but we are afraid of what happens if we succeed in reaching out to them and bringing them to Christ.

            Because do we really want that man from the bar who curses like a sailor in here on Sunday mornings?  Do we want welcome and foster the illegal immigrant and their family? Do we want to be a place where youth who struggle with addiction or who had been selling drugs on the street can come and work those problems out within our walls. Are we afraid that if we reach out to the Ninevehs in our community that they might actually come? That it might disrupt this nice little thing we have going on here? If we learn anything from Jonah’s story it is that even if that is our fear, God is still calling us to do it. God is calling us to reach out to the Ninevehs because like us they too are created in the image of God. Like us, they too are able to receive God’s mercy and God’s grace. We may be afraid of Nineveh, but God is calling us to go. And so we can either go and serve with joy recognizing the sacred worth of the individuals we serve, or we can run kicking and screaming like Jonah. But if we decide to go with the latter, if we decide to run like Jonah, then be prepared to answer this question; How’d that work out for Jonah?

           

Turned Down For What?

Sermon as preached at Lambs and Evington UMC on 1/18/15


Read 1 Samuel 3:1-20

This Sunday we are beginning a sermon series titled, “Calling All Prophets.” This week up until Lent we will look at different scriptures throughout the Bible to see how God has called his people to service in so many different ways and what these stories can teach us about how God is calling each and every one of us. This morning we begin in the book of 1 Samuel with the story of Samuel and Eli. It’s funny that this this text makes an appearance in the lectionary this week, because only a month or so ago I was talking to Heather about this very text. I said how much I love this text and yet I feel like it is one that we do not often hear sermons about, and then vio’la  here it. I was excited knowing that in a few weeks I would get to preach on this fascinating story. The story is one that  is so easy to picture in your head, there is Samuel lying just outside of the inner chamber of the Temple, when all of the sudden he hears his name called, and he jumps up and runs to Eli, but Eli had not called him. Two more times this very same thing happens with Samuel hearing a voice, running to Eli only to find that Eli was not the one speaking to him. Finally Eli realizes it is the Lord that is speaking to Samuel and gives Samuel instructions of how to respond. Finally the voice cries to Samuel again, and this time Samuel responds, “Speak, your servant is listening.” And then God calls Samuel into service and leadership

            I was so excited to be able to preach this text, I just knew I would be able to talk about God calling and how sometimes we confuse God’s call amongst the distractions of our daily lives. I knew I was going to be able to talk about how we to should be willing to say to God, “speak your servant is listening.” I was so excited to preach this sermon about Samuel and so this week I got all of my notes and commentaries and scripture organized and was ready to write when God called me a different way.  As I began to read and re-read this scripture, as I read commentaries about it, the more I was drawn to speak about Eli in this story rather than my favorite, Samuel.

            Samuel’s story is a story that is full of awe and wonder, full of hope and joy, but Eli’s story is not.  Eli was one of the high priests of the Temple, called by God to be a leader for the Israelites.  While Eli himself in scripture is depicted as an upright and noble person, the same cannot be said about his two sons. His sons were notorious for taking food sacrificed at the Temple and using it for their own pleasure. They would even take food from the people before they were even able to offer it up as sacrifice. These brothers were also widely known for sleeping around with the women who served at the Temple entrance. Because of this the Eli’s family name was tarnished, and worse than this the house of the Lord was tarnished as well. Prophets told Eli about the destruction that faced he and his family if this behavior did not change, and Eli rebuked his sons, but he could not stop them.

            While all this was happening, Eli was also raising another boy in his Temple, a boy who had been left at the Temple by his mother. This is not because the mother did not want him, but rather quite the opposite. Hannah had gone without children for so long and promised that if God gave her a son she would dedicate it to the Lord. This is the state that Eli first found Hannah in when he encountered her weeping in the Temple. Eli told her to go back home, for the Lord had heard her petitions, so Hannah went home and was conceived a son, and named him Samuel. And when Samuel was weaned, Hannah dedicated this child to God to be a servant in the Temple with Eli. Whereas Eli had failed in the raising of his own two sons, Eli instructed Samuel in the ways of the Lord, and Samuel grew in wisdom and character largely due to Eli’s guidance.

            This is the situation in which we find Eli in our scripture today. Let’s try to imagine this text from the perspective of Eli. Samuel is now a young adult, while Eli is an old man, losing his sight. And here comes the young chipper Samuel running up to Eli and asking what did he call him for.  Eli has been training Samuel so it was probably not that uncommon for Samuel to come running up to him often looking for directions, but this time he had not called him; no big deal.  But then it happens again, Samuel thinks Eli has called him again; now it’s getting a little weird. Finally when it happens a third time Eli know what is happening, it is God calling. When we read this story from Samuel’s perspective this is a joyous and wonderful occasion, but for Eli this is not the case.   I imagine this moment to be like in Star Wars when Darth Vader feels the presence of the force for the first time in a long time. Scripture tells us that the word of the Lord coming upon people was rare in those days, it is probably something the Eli had experienced in his youth but had almost forgotten what it was like. So when he finally realizes that the Lrod is calling to Samuel, it is not joy he feels, but probably some nostalgia. A feeling of this is what it used to be like, that happened to me when I was more attune with God, how could it take so long for me to recognize it. God calling Samuel was a powerful reminder to Eli of how long it had been since he had felt God calling to him.

            To make matters worse, Eli knew that what God had to say to Samuel would not be good news for himself. Samuel had been told by God about the fate of Eli and his household. This terrified Samuel, for Eli had been nothing but good to him. Samuel did not know how to tell Eli about what the Lord said to him. In a way Eli already knew. Eli sits with Samuel and asks him what God said, and with such grace Eli says, “Do not hide it from me. May God do so to you and more also, if you hide anything from me of all that he told you.” Eli gives Samuel the courage and permission to tell him the bad news that the Lord will punish him and his household. To me what is so spectacular about Eli is that again he responds with such integrity and grace saying, “It is the LORD; let him do what seems good to him."

            How could Eli says these words? How could Eli hear news that not only will he die, (that’s not news really, he is late in his life,) but that both of his sons will die?  How can he simply say let him do what seems good to him, when that will be the downfall of everything he has ever known or lived for? These are questions that are hard to answer when we view the words of God as just some sort of punishment for the behavior of Eli’s sons. If we view it simply as a moralistic, or legal cause and effect, then we miss the power of Eli’s response. Eli doesn’t say let God do this because I deserve my punishment; he says let him do what seems good to him. The downfall of Eli’s family is less about punishment and more about God leading his people. The Temple had become defiled under Eli’s watch so much so that whatever good ministry had occur before was no longer fruitful. God casting out Eli and his family and establishing Samuel is about restoring God’s ministry to the world. That is why Eli’s words are so powerful, because he yields his desires to the will of God. He says if that is what is best for God, for this Temple, and for the Israelites, then let God do what he deems to be best. Eli is turned down by God, but turned down for what? So that God’s ministry may flourish.

            So often we want to be called by God in the same way that Samuel was. We want to hear the voice of God calling us, using us to do great things for the sake of the Kingdom of God, but sometimes we are called to be more like Eli. Sometimes God is not calling us to do, but calling us to stop. This is a difficult message for most anybody to hear, but especially for us who love the Lord and want to serve the way we know how. The founder of the Methodist Church John Wesley knew this truth all too well.  John and his brother Charles grew up as members of the Church of England where their father was rector of an Anglican church. John attended oxford and was ordained in the Anglican Church. Together with his brother and some of their friends, John started a movement within the Anglican church nicknamed the Methodists, because of their strict devotion to their prayer life, scripture reading, and service. This Methodist movement became very popular, but John always envisioned it being a part of the Anglican Church. Due to his success John came to Georgia on a mission to set up churches here in the Colonies, but these were not nearly as successful. People did not like John’s style, and frankly John didn’t do much to help himself. After the girl he loved married another man, John refused to serve her Communion. Add this to the growing animosity for the British, and John realized he had to step aside. John returned home, and set up other leaders here in the States such as Thomas Coke and Francis Asbury who went on to help spread and grow the Methodist Church in America in a way that Wesley was unable to. When God calls us it is not always a call to do something new, but sometimes it’s a call for us to allow room for God to work in different ways. As Wesley developed a covenant prayer for us to say as a way of answering God’s call in our lives, I can only imagine that his time in Georgia influenced these words. “I am no longer my own, but thine.

 Put me to what thou wilt, rank me with whom thou wilt.

 Put me to doing, put me to suffering.

Let me be employed for thee or laid aside for thee,

exalted for thee or brought low for thee.

Let me be full, let me be empty.

Let me have all things, let me have nothing.

I freely and heartily yield all things to thy pleasure and disposal.

And now, O glorious and blessed God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit,thou art mine, and I am thine.

So be it. And the covenant which I have made on earth,let it be ratified in heaven.Amen.

It’s a lot easier to be employed for God than be laid aside for God, but in our lives and in the lives of the Church there is time for both. Like Eli, so often we hang on to a feeling or an experience that we felt long ago, but have not really felt for some time since. Things that once served a great purpose and function in the life of the Church may no longer be fruitful ministries anymore. There is nothing wrong with this, in an ever changing world with and God of endless possibilities, ministries sometimes die. The question is in instances like these, are we willing to be as brave as Eli, are we willing to lay these ministries aside for God, are we going to say, “It is the Lord, let him do what seems good to him.”

            Because sadly every year at Annual Conference we the names of more and more churches that close all around our conference. These were loyal, compassionate churches, who loved God, who had done great service for years and years, but many of whom were afraid to change, afraid to try something new. This year at Annul conference there was something new though; yes more churches closed, but we also heard the story of people who were willing to step aside and let God work in their midst. There’s the story of Basic UMC, ( no that’s actually the name) who in a small town decided something had to change and began a Hispanic ministry in the church that has now begun to boom. There’s also the story of what is now the Vine UMC, which started when a church with only 8 members left, all in their 70s or older decided that God was calling them to close their church and start over again. With the effort of those members, the conference, and the new pastor, The Vine which now worships there is used to seeing 200 people on any given Sunday.  Things don’t even have to be as drastic as that,  I remember at Duke Memorial, the church I attended when I was in Durham, members of a Sunday School class made the tough decision to end the class. This class had been going on for 100 years, throughout the years those members had been active in the life and mission of the Church but now their numbers had dwindled and they decided it was time to stop. The church had a great celebration for the class, prayed over the remaining members, and then those members joined other classes, helping to teach and mentor other members of the Church they had not known as well before.

             These are all examples of how sometimes the way that God calls us into service, is by calling us to step aside. When things are no longer fruitful to the ministry of God’s Kingdom, then sometimes we are called to end it, and make room new and exciting ways for the Spirit of the Lord to work in our midst. Nobody likes ending ministries, especially since these ministries once served such an important function, but as we will see through this sermon series, when God calls us to something it is rarely easy.  There are many great ministries here at _______________ that serve and glorify the Lord, but maybe there are also new and powerful ministries that God is calling us into, if we only were to allow space for it to happen. Let us have the attitude of Eli and be willing to say, “It is the Lord, let him do what seems good to him.”  Then whether we are employed for God or laid aside for God, we know that it is all for God’s glory. That even if we are called to step aside, it is because we are allowing God to step in.

           

Water and Spirit

Sermon as preached at Lambs and Evington UMC on 1/11/14



Read Acts 19:1-7

Image Courtesy of Vanderbilt Divinity Library

Baptism is an interesting thing in the life of the church. It is something so crucial, so central to our beliefs, so much so that certain denominations have even named themselves after their beliefs about baptism. Most of us recognize the importance of baptism, most of us want more than anything else in the life of the Church for those who have never been baptized to be washed by those cleansing waters. Baptism is funny however because for how crucial it is in the life of our church, for how much we yearn to  follow Jesus’s command to “Go and make disciples, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit;” we also really don’t talk that much about baptism in the Church. Maybe this is something that our Baptist brothers and sisters have done a better job of, but how often to you think, or read, or listen to something about our United Methodist belief on baptism.  How often do we really talk about what Baptism really means for us and for the church?

            Today in the Christian Calendar is a day known as the Baptism of the Lord Sunday. It is a day in which traditionally churches read about Jesus as he is baptized in the Jordan river by John. We typically hear about the skies opening and the Spirit descending like a dove upon Jesus. We usually hear those words from God the Father crying out, “This is my Son with whom I am well pleased.”  At our Lambs revival this year we even envisioned God saying to us that we are his beloved with whom he is well pleased. This text of Jesus’s baptism is central to the life of the Church, it in a way marks the beginning of Jesus’s ministry, and certainly marks a revelation to those present that this is the Son of God. This revelation is after all why this Sunday falls in the season after Epiphany. You may have noticed though, that though I am talking about the baptism of Jesus know, that wasn’t our scripture for this morning. This is because, though this story of Jesus’s baptism is so central to our faith, often we get so caught up in the spectacular aspects of the story,that we forget about what baptism means for us.

            Our scripture instead comes from the book of Acts.  Unlike the dramatic scene of Jesus’s baptism, the scene here in Acts depicts a rather mundane scene, yet one that is still important for us as Christians today. Our scripture takes place in the city of Ephesus. Just prior to our scene, the great orator Apollos had been in this city. Apollos was a new and talented speaker who proclaimed a lot about Jesus, and while what he said was correct, except he had an incomplete understanding of this new Christian movement, having been baptized by John the Baptist and following the teachings of those followers. Apollos was then taken and taught by some members of the Church, and from there he went on to be one of the great evangelists of the movement.

            After Apollos had left Ephesus, there were still many in the city who were in the same position that he was in. They had even probably heard Apollos preach and teach prior to his meeting with the church leaders. Like Apollos, these people earnestly wanted to follow Jesus, but had not really been shown the way. Paul stumbled upon these “believers” and asked them a very important question. “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you were baptized?” The people were obviously dumbfounded at this question, saying they had never even heard of the Holy Spirit.  “What then were you baptized into?” Paul asks, you can almost hear some disbelief in his voice. We were baptized into John’s baptism.  And here once again we see the incomplete attitude of the believers for even John himself said,  “ I baptize you with water, but one is coming after me who will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”

            Paul questions these believers and basically puts out the question, what good is baptism without the Spirit? What would it mean to baptize only with water? The United Methodist Church has put out at short book/Bible Study called “By Water and the Spirit” that looks into our understanding of this sacrament of Baptism. This book discusses our understanding of a sacrament, and the best description we have for sacraments is that they are “outward signs of an inward grace.” This means that there is something tangible, physical that we have and that we do, that represents the grace we experience. So just as in Communion where the bread and juice becomes for us signs of God’s grace, water in the same way for baptism becomes that sign of God’s grace with us. But without God’s presence with, without Holy Spirit descending upon us as it did for Jesus, what is water other than just the chemical compound H2O?  The water is an important sign and element of Baptism, but as Paul points out, without the Spirit, without God’s presence in our lives, baptism is incomplete.

            When we talk about water and when we talk about Spirit in baptism, each has its own significance and its own connotation. Water is so helpful when talking about Baptism because it helps the idea of washing or being washed hit home. In our everyday life we use water to wash our clothes, our dishes, even our own bodies. Water in baptism helps us to recognize the grace that washes away our guilt of sin, because we actually feel the water, feel that sign of cleansing. This is what John the Baptist preached, even Paul points out that John preached about repentance and the forgiveness of sins; but Paul’s words make us to believe that there is still more, that this isn’t the end of the conversation.

            And it isn’t really. How many of you have taken a shower or bath in the past week? Are you good? Do you still plan to take a shower next week? This sounds like a no brainer of a question, but often it’s how we approach Baptism. Just because we have been forgiven of our sins, we act like we never get dirty again, like all sin has been eradicated and we are all now such perfect creatures, but we know this isn’t true. We are all sinners, the filth of sin piles upon every day, every hour, every minute; and to be cleanses we would need to be in those waters ever hour of our lives. But thank God we don’t have to, for in baptism we have received the power of the Spirit. In baptism we have been washed and forgiven of our sins, but we have also been given the Spirit that walks with us and guides us away from this life of sin and towards the grace of God. We receive the Spirit, reminding us that this baptism is not the culmination of Christian life, but is only the beginning of our new life with Christ. We still sin, we still fall away, but the Spirit intercedes for us, and connects us with the Almighty in prayer when at times all we have to offer are “wordless groans.” Baptism without spirit is incomplete, because baptism is only the beginning of a life of being perfected in love through the power of the Holy Spirit.

            Though in order to teach about Baptism this morning I have separated water and Spirit and talked about the significance of each; but the truth is that these two are inseparable.  As Paul points out to the followers in our text, baptism is and always shall be by water and the Spirit. The water should always be a tangible sign of the cleansing of our souls but also a reminder of the grace we receive through the power of the Holy Spirit. A reminder that Baptism is only the beginning of our new life in Christ, a life in which sin is still ever present, but a life now being perfected through the Holy Spirit. And from now on water can continue to serve as a reminder of the Holy Spirit’s presence with us. When you wash your hands, remember that the Spirit is with you. When you hop in the shower dreading the day that is ahead of you or recollecting on the hardships of the day that is past, remember the Holy Spirit is with you. And as you come and touch the waters this morning as we remember our baptism, know that the Spirit is with you; remember your Baptism and be thankful. 

Forgetting Christmas

Sermon as preached at Lambs and Evington UMC on 1/4/15



Read Matthew 2:1-12

Image Courtesy of Vanderbilt Divinity Library

 This Sunday we celebrate a time in the life of the Church know as Epiphany. Like normal, we have read the story of the wise men as they travel from Herod to go see the Christ child. So often for us as Christian this story is just the perfect ending to the season of Christmas. We celebrate the birth of Christ, we celebrate the shepherds visit, and we end by celebrating the arrival of the Magi. While this is ultimately correct, too often we hold all of these pieces together as though they make perfect sense, as though shepherds and magi visiting a carpenter’s baby is completely normal. Because we as Christians are privy to know the whole story of the celebration of Christ’s birth we act as if the shepherd’s story and the magi’s story might as well be the same story, our nativities even depict them all there together. The truth of the matter is that the story of the shepherds and the story of the magi are two drastically different stories. The shepherds are Jewish, they are waiting for the coming Messiah that has been promised in scripture. The angels of the Lord come and sing to them telling them of the good news that the Messiah is born, and then they go see the child and tell all who would listen that Christ is born. They were not evangelical in the way we think about it now, converting someone who never believed, instead they were just messengers, like town heralds, telling all of their Jewish friends that the Messiah they were waiting for was here. The shepherd’s story is a story about the fulfillment of expectations.

            The magi’s story is completely different. To truly understand the magi and their journey we have to for a moment forget about the birth story in Luke that we are so familiar with. To better understand the magi, we must first remove them from our thoughts of the nativity scene, and from our own expectations of the Christmas. In Christmas we celebrate the fulfillment of all the expectations we had be waiting for during Advent, but there is a reason why Epiphany signals the end of the Christmas celebration, because here on Epiphany the good news of Christ’s birth stops just being a celebration of the arrival of the Messiah, and becomes a signal for Christ’s mission to all the world.

            So for a moment, let’s forget the shepherds, forget the angels singing, and forget the Messianic expectation, for a moment let’s forget Christmas, and let’s put ourselves in the shoes of the Magi. The Magi or the wise men as they are sometimes called are not Jewish, they are part of a religion such as Zoroastrianism that studies the stars to find true about any deities. The know only enough Jewish tradition to be dangerous, sort of how like today most of us know Muslims believe in a prophet named Muhammad or the Buddhists believe in reaching some state called Nirvana, but other than that we don’t know all that much about other religions. This is how the Magi were, but as they were reading the stars, they found something, a disturbance in the force if you will, the stars were telling of the birth of a king in Bethlehem. These magi decide to set off west most likely from Persia towards Bethlehem to see this new king. As they arrive in Jerusalem, the meet with King Herod and ask where this child might be, but Herod is stunned to hear the news, so he calls together his chief priests. Herod is in one of the most privileged positions in our story, he is told by foreigners of a revelation of theirs about a king that was born, but unlike the Magi he and his scribes know of the Jewish texts that foretell of this coming. Unfortunately, Herod is more full of fear than joy, since this child could mean trouble to his throne, and so he send the magi to find this child, not telling them the reason he wants to find Jesus so bad is so that he can kill him.

            So the Magi once again continue on their journey reading the stars, until the star leads them to Mary and the baby child. And when they see the baby they recognize that this child is King, not just the “King of the Jews” the title mocking Jesus at his death, but this child is their King, he is the King of all.  And so having just met this child, having never read the scriptures about the Messiah and his coming, these Zoroastrian sorcerers if you will, bow down before Christ and offer him gifts fitting of a King; gold, frankincense, and myrrh

            This is the beauty of the Epiphany story, God choses to work through the actions of gentiles, these pagans, in order to profess not just to the Jews but to the world that Christ is King. God grace was able to grab the attention of the wise men who had never before known God, this grace drew them in and towards Christ, and that grace forever transformed their lives; for they did not go back to Herod, but returned home a different way, for their lives from this point on would be different. When we put away our own preconceived notions of this story, when we for a moment forget Christmas and look at this text from fresh new eyes, then we realize that this moment truly is an epiphany. God took something ordinary, something profane; God spoke not to the chosen people but to pagans; and in doing so told the whole world of the good news of Christ.

            As we celebrate Epiphany today, we celebrate as gentiles, that Christ has included us in his salvation narrative. We celebrate that like the magi, God’s grace has drawn us from our lives of despair, sometimes through such profane and mundane ways, and helped us to see the Christ child, our King. We celebrate that this grace continues to transform our lives that we in our lives go now a different way. Finally we celebrate that this good news is not just for us, but that is good news for all the world to hear, and that the pressure is not on us to change the world, but to simply be the messengers of that good news; for if God can use the stars to bring the magi to Christ, what other mundane ways can God’s grace work through us to do the same for others today. We celebrate because as we gather around the table this morning like the star for the magi, God can take this ordinary bread and juice and make them be for us a moment of Epiphany, a moment where we recognize the grace of God working in our lives, and realize we must go a different way.