A Tale of Two Mountains (Hebrews 12:18-29)

Sermon as Preached at Lambs and Evington UMC 8/25/13

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way--in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only” This is the famous opening lines from the classic novel A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. And quite frankly it is one of my favorite books of all time, which I’m sure many of my friends and family are tired of hearing about. The book contrasts the successful times in London with the uprising happening just across the pond in Paris.  This opening line seems to capture the contrast so perfectly, it was the best of times it was the worst of times.  Our passage from Hebrews today also works upon a contrast and comparison, but this is not a tale of two cities, this is a tale of two mountains; Mount Horeb and Mount Zion. One big difference should be pointed out here; the comparison of Mount Horeb and Mount Zion is not a best of times, worst of times scenario, it is instead a good times, better times situation.

            With that being said, let’s jump right into our text for today and see how this comparison takes place. The author of Hebrews begins by talking about the Israelites and how they had experienced the presence of God.  As we have noticed throughout our study of Hebrews, the author likes to use Biblical examples in poetic ways in order to make his point, and once again the author does that here. He says, “You have not come to something that can be touched, a blazing fire, and darkness, and gloom, and a tempest, and the sound of a trumpet, and a voice whose words made the hearers beg that not another word be spoken to them.”  The early readers of Hebrews who were well versed in Biblical stories, would have automatically equated these types of descriptions with stories of encounters with God. There is a fire in the burning bush with Moses as well as fire on the side of the mountain with Elijah as well as a tempest for him as well.  Darkness and gloom categorize many of the prophet’s call stories from Ezekiel to Isaiah. More importantly, most of these descriptions also retell the Israelites encounter with God at Mount Horeb. That is why the passage continues by saying, “(For they could not endure the order that was given, "If even an animal touches the mountain, it shall be stoned to death."  Indeed, so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, "I tremble with fear.")  

            Now the importance of the Israelites encounter of God at Mount Horeb is often missed by Christians today.  We tend to view it as a great story, with awesome events; portrayed by Charlton Heston.  This encounter for God for the Israelites is more than just a great story, this encounter is crucial to their faith.  Prior to Moses God has made a covenant to Abraham of land and descendants. Many of these descendants ended up as slaves in Egypt and so God tells Moses that he will be faithful to his covenant and tells him, “You will be my people and I will be your God.”  After escaping Egypt and wandering in the wilderness, many began to wonder how does this covenant work?  How are we to be God’s people, and how God our God?  And so we come to this critical juncture in the story, where Moses goes up the mountain and receives the law from God. Once again, we often misunderstand the importance of the law for the Israelites. This law was the answer to their question. These laws where the way in which they were to be in covenant with God. These laws showed the Israelites God’s desire for them, and it helped them to live faithfully to will of God.  It was in this experience, this encounter with God that many began to understand and live out the covenant that God made with his people.

            And so the author of Hebrews comes back to this crucial event to make an important point. He points out that in this most pivotal of events, God seemed to be something and someone who was far off and distant, something that could not be touched.  He points out all of the frightful ways in which God was revealed: fire, darkness, gloom, tempest, trumpets. He points out that if an animal touched the Mountain they would die. He points out that Moses himself even trembled with fear as he approached the mountain.  The author of Hebrews points out here that the typical experience of God was that God was unapproachable, that God was untouchable.

            The author shifts quickly from this description of God at Mount Horeb and talks about God in a new way saying, “But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering,  and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect.  The author now talks about the Mountain of Zion, the city of God.  A mountain in which we are able to gather with the angels in a feast. This is no longer like the separation, the distance, the gloom like we experienced at Mount Horeb; this is a feast, in the presence of God!

            So how did this happen? How did we get from an unapproachable mountain full of fear and trembling, and arrive at a mountain of joy and festivities?  The answer is Jesus, of course. “and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.”  Once again a comparison and contrast is being made here, between the blood that Jesus offered and the blood that Abel offered. Now when we here blood and Abel, our first instinct is probably to think about the death of Abel and the spilling of his blood at the hands of Cain; but this is not what Hebrews is talking about here. Instead Hebrews is most likely referring to the offering that the two brothers brought before the Lord. Cain brought fruit, but Abel brought fat portions from the firstborn of his flock, which caused the Lord to look upon Abel with favor. Therefore the blood talked about here in Hebrews is the blood of a sacrificed animal.  Once again it is important to understand the importance of this sacrifice.  Ever since this event, the sacrifice had become a central aspect of worship, especially worship in the Temple once it was constructed.  It was expected that a sacrifice would be brought before the Lord in the Temple. When it was brought forth it would be taken by the priest behind the curtain and offered to God.  Only priests and Levites were allowed behind the curtain, because it was seen as the holy place in which God dwelt.  Once again Hebrews is using this imagery to show the distance that seemed to exist between God and the Israelites.

            However the sacrifice of animals is compared and contrasted here with Jesus. Whereas the blood of Abel was actually the blood of an animal sacrificed to God, The blood of Jesus was in fact his own blood; it was his own sacrifice.  This sacrifice was not hidden behind the curtain, but instead Jesus was raised up on Calvary for all to see.  Jesus broke the seeming distance between us and God. Jesus after all is God incarnate; Jesus after all is Emmanuel, God with us.  Jesus is the great priest that intercedes for us. We no longer need to bring sacrifices to the Temple, because Jesus ‘sacrifice covers us all. Jesus metaphorically brings God out of the Temple, brings God off of the mountain, and makes God obtainable and present. And with his ascension we are given the Holy Spirit to be with us and to lead us. This is how we are able to look towards the mountain of Zion with hope, because of the sacrifice and presence of Christ, of God with us.

            And so the author of Hebrews goes on to talk about what is shaken and what is not, saying, “At that time his voice shook the earth; but now he has promised, "Yet once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heaven." This phrase, "Yet once more," indicates the removal of what is shaken--that is, created things--so that what cannot be shaken may remain. The author is reminding us that at Mount Horeb, when God spoke, the earth trembled; the people trembled for fear. The author however is also using the term shakable to talk about those things are finite. And so he talks about how once again all will be shaken so that what cannot be shaken may remain. In other words the finite will be separated from the infinite, the everlasting.  It kind of reminds me of a device I got to use in my college biology course called the centrifuge. The centrifuge helps you to talk a mixed compound and separate the mixture into a more basic form. How does it work? Well through shaking, or spinning to be more accurate. You pour the compound into little tubes, put the tubes into the centrifuge and turn it on. The centrifuge starts to spin and the lighter part of the compound falls to the outside; kind like on some of the carnival rides, while the heaver substance is then separated and falls into the middle where it can be collected.  This shaking that we talk about in Hebrews is a lot like the centrifuge, where that which is finite, meaning that which is not everlasting, is pulled away, extracted, so that all that remains in infinite, is everlasting. But why is this important? Why does it matter that the infinite is separated from the finite?  Is this a message of doom and gloom intended to scare us into believing? No.  In fact it is quite the opposite, this is a message of hope.  This is a message that we are able to sit in the company of God.  Just follow the whole passage and you can see that this is what they are building up to.  That at one time on Mount Horeb God seemed so distant and so fearful, but that at Mount Zion we are in God’s company with joy. That in the beginning an offering of sacrifice in the Temple was the way to interact with God, that the Law given to Moses and the Israelites were the way to be in covenant with God, but that now there is a new covenant through the blood of Christ, Through God who became flesh and died and rose again for our sins.  It is a message of hope that in a world that can often confuse and hinder us from truly seeing God, there will be a time where that will be no longer a hindrance and that all that is eternal remains. It truly is a message of hope, for that beautiful Kingdom of God.

            And so the question remains how do  we act now. What do we now that we have hope in this kingdom?  What do we do now that we have Jesus Christ who is our great priest? How should we act? Well, Hebrews gives us the answer and it may not be what you are expecting. For while this whole time Hebrews has been contrasting the difference between Mount Horeb and Mount Zion, it has never said that they were wrong in how they acted towards God. Hebrews tells us that, “Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us give thanks, by which we offer to God an acceptable worship with reverence and awe; for indeed our God is a consuming fire.”  We should respond in reverence. We shall remember that the God that is so close to us is still God Almighty. That we should gather in praise for what God has done for us. That we should gather with hope for what is in store, but that we should always remember that God is God. And so we worship God not to get something out of it for ourselves, but we bring ourselves as a living sacrifice before God.  We go forth from worship and serve, and gather again to praise God’s glorious name. When we do this, when we listen to the Tale of two mountains and take it to heart, then maybe we won’t be saying it was the best of times it was the worst of times, instead we may lift up praise like in the end of Dickens’classic book saying, “

“It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.”

Breakfast With Nana (Hebrews 11:29-12:2)

Sermon as Preached at Lambs and Evington UMC 8/18/13

 

 

If you remember last week when we looked at the book of Hebrews we talked all about faith. We talked about how faith and hope so forever tied together, and that our hope lied in the fact that the Kingdom of God was brought forth by Christ and yet not here in its completion. We talked about how this gives us a hope of a transformed world even in the midst of the brokenness we see around us, and we found that this hope gives us faith to live by each day.  We found that this chapter of Hebrews liked to use Biblical examples of people living by faith, and in particular last week we talked about the faith of Abraham and his descendants.  Today we pick up in the same chapter, and once again the author is using Biblical examples of faith. The reason for this however has seemed to change.  Last week we saw that the author used Abraham in particular to teach us about faith and about hope. Now in this part of the chapter the author is no longer focusing on one person, but is giving a long list of those who have lived by faith, from The Israelites in the wilderness, to Rahab, to David, and yes Daniel. This list seems to indicate a switch from explain what faith is, to showing how faith has been faithfully lived out. Hebrews is giving us a long list of saints for us to admire, to learn from, and to emulate their faithfulness.

            When we start to talk about saints in today’s church it becomes hard for us to relate to them. We usually picture saints as those old men and women who are now etched in stone on the side of cathedrals. At Duke Chapel for example as you enter into the massive doors leading into the chapel, stone figures of John Wesley, Francis Asbury, George Whitfield, and Martin Luther surround and watch you as you enter. If we aren’t thinking saints of the past such as these we start thinking about modern day saints such as Mother Teresa. And as is the case in today’s passage we also think of the Biblical saints, Abraham, David, Moses and so on. All of this usually leaves us feeling small and inadequate. We either beat ourselves up for never being as good as those saints, or we say, “They were special, I don’t need to learn from them.” And yet, here in Hebrews we find that we are supposed to learn from the faith of these saints.

            That is the good news however; we aren’t supposed to follow the actions of these great saints, we are supposed to follow their faith. As we discovered during the sermon series we did a month ago and as we are still discovering in our Bible study, all of us are called to live and serve God in our own unique way.  We all have different spiritual gifts, talents, experiences that shape how we live out our faith. Not all are called to lead an enslaved people into the wilderness. Not all are called to house spies that will eventually lead to the destruction of your hometown. Not all are called to imprisoned in a den of lions, and not all are called to be King. When we think about what each of these saints did, we realize that they were all called for very different and unique circumstances, ones that I doubt many of us will be called to do. We are therefore not supposed to simply emulate the actions of these saints, but instead we learn from the faith that leads them. How did Moses faithfully stand up to injustice? How did Rahab faithfully use what means she had to house and support other’s missions. How did Daniel remain faithful in the midst of trials and fear? How did David faithfully discern the will of God?  When we look to the saints these are the questions that we should be asking. These are the questions that will help us in our own calls.

            And still, it becomes easy to answer these questions by saying, “they were able to do all of these things because they were great people, special people, unlike us.” Yet many of these great saints also had great flaws. We celebrate David as the great King of Israel but he committed adultery and used his power as King to have Bathsheba’s husband killed in war. We lift up Rahab as one of the main reasons why the Israelites were able to take Jericho, but Rahab was a prostitute. We lift up Moses for leading the Israelites out of Egypt, but Moses himself was a murder. To add to this, Hebrews all mentions the faith of the Egyptians as whole group, not singling out one “special” person but lifting up the faith of the whole people. If that wasn’t enough he talks about those special people who died for their faith, but the author doesn’t even name any of them. All of this tells us that learning from the saints is trying to just emulate them; because as we have seen many of the saints we revere we just as flawed as us, and that there are just as many saints who have lived in faith who we do not even know. What we do learn from them is how to live faithfully.

            Here lies one of the most crucial elements of this whole chapter. Why is it important for us to learn this faith from the saints who have gone before us? Do we learn faith for our own personal benefit, for our own welfare?  The answer here is no.  As we talked about last week, our faith is rooted in the hope in the Kingdom of God.  If we learned our faith from these saints simply for our own benefit we would be greatly disappointed. Sure, some of these saints that were listed received great success. The ones that come to the top of the mind are once again the Egyptians and their freedom,  David and his rise to King, and Daniel and his safety in the lion’s den.  For as many success stories Hebrews lists, it also however lists just as many hardships and trials. “Others suffered mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. They were stoned to death, they were sawn in two, they were killed by the sword; they went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, persecuted, tormented- of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground.”  And Hebrews reminds us that both who found success on Earth as well as those who found hardship and trials, “all these, though they were commended for their faith, did not receive what was promised,” If we follow the faith of our fathers and mothers, the faith of the saints, for our own personal benefit, then we have to be prepared for the fact that is quite possible, even likely that we will not receive what we are looking for.

            Why then do we lead lives of faith like those saints before us?  It is because we are called to work together with the saints in working towards the Kingdom of God. Just as the saints faithfully followed the will of God; bringing some great success and others hardship, we too are called to faithfully follow God’s will. As Hebrews puts it, “Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us,”  The author of Hebrews compares it to a race. A race in which requires training; by laying aside those things that hold us back and slow us down from running the race. A race that also requires perseverance, which is why it is so critical to have the faith of the saints. Learning from them seeing how to persevere in our success as well as in our failure. It is not a race not is not unique to us; it is a race that has been run by so many before us, and most likely will be run by many after us.  It is a race in which we run, “looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God.”  What makes the race even sweeter is that we are surrounded so great a cloud of witness. It is not just that others have gone before us, but those that have run the race are still with us.

            We may wonder how this is possible, are we talking about ghosts or spirits that surround us? I would have to say no, that is not what we are talking about, what we are talking about is presence.  So what do I mean by that? First and foremost I must start this discussion by saying that there is an element of mystery to the cloud of witnesses, and I think that may be a good thing. Too often in our society we have to have all the answers or it just doesn’t make sense to us; but by embracing the mystery we acknowledging that we are not the sources of all knowledge and that things exist that are beyond our realm of understanding.  With that being said, there are ways to help us understand how the cloud of witnesses are present with us.  One of the actions within the church in which we celebrate this the most is during Holy Communion. During communion we not only celebrate our communion with Christ, and we not only celebrate our communion with each other, we also celebrate our communion with all the saints, both living around the world as well as those who have passed away. Through the sacrament of Holy Communion we are bound together through the love of Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit, and we are able to get a glimpse of the heavenly banquet laid before us when Christ returns in final victory.  It is an amazing union of believers from all places, and yes even from all times.

            Still the question may be, how is this possible?  Well, there is a Cheerios commercial that has been on T.V. recently and someone online, (and I wish I remembered who it was so that I could give them proper credit), but someone pointed out how the commercial is a lot like our understanding of the communion of saints.  The  commercial starts off with a mother and son eating breakfast together.  The boy looks at his mom and says, “Mom, did Nana ever give you cheerios when you were a little kid.” The mother nods and says, yeah she did. The boy continues his questioning by asking,  “Were Cheerios the same back then?”  The mother replies,  “Cheerios has pretty much been the same forever. “ Here the boy makes such a profound statement that catches the mother off guard and brings a tear to her eyes.  He says, “So, when we have cheerios it is like we are having breakfast with Nana.” Breakfast with Nana.  In a way that is what communion is like.  Though it may be celebrated in different ways, the essence of Communion really has not changed since Christ himself.  For two thousand years people have come to the table to be in communion with Christ and with each other. When we come to the table it may not be breakfast with Nana, but it is communion with the saints.

            And yet Hebrews reminds us that we are surrounds by that cloud of witnesses. That everything we do through Christ we do in participation with the saints. We run the race before us, the same race as David and Daniel, the same race as St. Francis and Mother Teresa, and yes the same race as many of our parents, grandparents, brothers, sisters, and friends. If that doesn’t excite you I don’t know what will.  This service that we are called to is one that people have been called to all over the world and throughout time. That our lives are not some insignificant blip on the radar of history, but that each of us are part of a much larger story, and greater race. That we can find assurance from those who have gone for us; celebration when things are good, and solidarity with the martyrs when things go bad.  With this cloud of witnesses surrounding us, I don’t know about you, but I have more confidence,  more endurance to run this great race before us, knowing that Christ is before us leading us in our way.

Gotta Have Faith (Hebrews 11: 1-3, 8-16)

Sermon as preached 8/11/13 at Lambs and Evington UMC

 

 

When I was growing up, there was a cartoon on Nickelodeon called Hey Arnold about all of the mishaps that a bunch of kids in the inner city would get into.  One of the episodes that I remember well, was one called “the vacant lot.”  In this episode, the kids get tired of playing baseball in the middle of the street because they would have to keep stopping for cars and because they kept breaking things.  One day as a few of them were walking home they saw an old abandoned lot, full of trash and debris. These kids did not see a trashy lot however, they saw a baseball field.  So each day these kids went to work clearing out the debris and pulling up the weeds all while the adults looked on and thought that they were nuts. But as days went by the lot became cleaner and cleaner until the only debris left were a hub cap, a tire and other debris used to designate bases. Finally as the kids start to play ball in the lot, the adults start to see the potential of this empty lot. One lady starts a garden in the outfield, The butcher uses the lot as a free range for his chickens, some of the elderly adults set up checker boards in the infield, so much so that the kids could not play ball anymore. To make a long story short however, adults realized what they had done and came together to make the lot a true baseball field with real bases and everything.  What the adults saw as an empty lot, the kids saw as a baseball field. They put their hope and faith to action and created and made a fine ragtag field, and even with the overtaking of the field by the adults, and may I say even because of the overtaking of the adults, the lot eventually became even more than what they had ever hoped for.   To see that empty and trashy lot turned into a real baseball field took a lot of faith by those kids.

            Faith is something that is so special, and yet something that we often don’t truly understand. For many faith is simply their belief system. After all one of the ways in which we describe different religions is by calling them faith traditions.  For others faith means trust. Like when we say we put our faith into someone, we are saying that we trust them. Still, others see faith as an expectation, I have faith things will turn around, and still finally for others faith is assurance; I have faith I am going to heaven. The tricky part about faith is that all of these ways of thinking about it are in some way correct. And yet all of these ways of thinking about faith are also incomplete by themselves.

            This is why in this section of the book of Hebrews, faith and understanding faith becomes the central theme. Before we dive into our lesson for today, let’s have a quick lesson on this book of the Bible since we will be studying for the next few Sundays. Hebrews is probably one of the less read books of the New Testament, and with its name Hebrews, many would probably expect to find it Old Testament. It is instead similar in some degree to many of the letters that we have in the New Testament from Paul such as 1 and 2Corinthians or Ephesians. Except for those letters are obvious to whom the audience it, churches in the those areas; Corinth and Ephesus and so on. This letter which may have been written by Paul as well, but more likely someone close to Paul such as Barnabas or Apollos, is vague on who is the intended audience.  The title Hebrews may make us think it is addressed to some of the Jewish communities, but when we read the book we find that many of the tenets of Christian faith are already assumed. It is then likely that it is addressed if not to a community of Jewish Christians, or at least to a community that understands and recognizes many of the Jewish traditions. All of this means that the letters were not meant to convert, but rather to teach and to instruct.

            And so in our passage for today the author begins to teach about faith and hits us right out front with the crux of the lesson. Verses 1-3 tell us, “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Indeed, by faith our ancestors received approval.  By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was made from things that are not visible.” Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction things not seen. What deep and profound words. Here we begin to see many of our definitions of  faith merge together, assurance, hope, tradition, trust. Let us break down verse one and try to understand it even better. First the author says, Faith is the assurance of things hoped for. Faith and Hope. This is hopefully not the first time that you have heard these two terms used together. In fact over time these have developed into two of the three what we call theological virtues; Faith, Hope, and Love.  Now may be getting more and more familiar with you now, you may recognize it from 1 Corinthians 13; a chapter very popular at many weddings. " For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.  As we see these things, are inseparable, faith, hope, and love, and so when we talk about faith here in Hebrews, it is difficult to do it without talking about love and especially without talking about hope.

            The author of Hebrews makes this connection between hope and faith by tapping into some of the familiar Biblical stories, especially that of Abraham. For the author, the faith of Abraham centers all around the covenants that God made with him. The first covenant was that of a promised land that he would inherit. The second covenant was that of descendants. This was the hope that Abraham had, a hope for descendants and a hope for a promised land; and yet this was a hope that was nowhere near being realized. Hebrews reminds us that as far as land, Abraham had stayed in the promised land as a foreigner, not as the owner.  It also reminds us that the hope for children seemed ludicrous since Sarah was old and seemingly unable to have children.  This hope seemed unfounded, this hope was something that seemed to be intangible, and yet our passage today tells us that faith is the assurance of things hoped for.  Abraham had faith in God. Abraham had faith that God would not go against his covenant, that God would not break his word; Abraham had assurance that his hope was merited. Abraham had faith in God.

            There is a second part of that first verse that is equally important to understand.  It says, faith is “the convictions of things not seen.” Once again we see how faith and hope are so integrally tied together. Not only is faith the assurance of things hoped for, but it is also the conviction of things not seen. Once again going back to Abraham, we see that the hope that he has of having descendants has no real tangible basis. While though he may have been an alien in the promised land he as least could see and imagine what it is that he hoped for. When it came to having a line of descendants that dream seemed distant, impossible, even unimaginable.  How could he have descendants when he had no children?  How could he have children with Sarah being too old to bear them?  Still, Abraham had faith, he had a conviction in the promise that God made with him even if it seemed unimaginable. After Isaac was born the dream seemed alive, until in faith Abraham was asked to sacrifice his son.  If Isaac dies how could the lineage continue?  And yet once again we Abraham had the conviction that God would not fail on his promise even if it seemed that there was no way it could come true. Abraham lived in faith, though he could not foresee that the Lord would save Isaac, Abraham trusted the Lord and followed his commands.

            And yet, sometimes it seems as though it doesn’t matter how much faith we  have, what we hope for does not come true. It is like what we were talking about with prayer the other week, What happens when you pray for something and it doesn’t happen? The same question can be asked here, what happens when what you hope for is never actualized?  The author of Hebrews seems to anticipate this question, because as he is talking about Abraham he shifts and talks about Abraham’s descendants. He says, “Therefore from one person, and this one as good as dead, descendants were born, "as many as the stars of heaven and as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore." All of these died in faith without having received the promises, but from a distance they saw and greeted them. They confessed that they were strangers and foreigners on the earth, for people who speak in this way make it clear that they are seeking a homeland.” The author of Hebrews reminds us that even the descendants of Abraham lived as faithful servants of God and never received the promised land.  We know that even Moses, who led the Israelites out of Egypt into the wilderness never himself made it into the promised land. So what do we make of this? What do we make of the fact that there were so many who were hoping for that inheritance of the promise land and yet never lived to see it? It seems easy to give up, quit, to lose faith when our hopes and dreams aren’t realized.

            We must ask ourselves whose hopes and dreams are they? Are they the dreams that we desire, or do we desire the dreams of God? Hebrews says about those faithful descendants, “But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God; indeed, he has prepared a city for them.” They desire a better country, a heavenly one. We see that the hope that these descendants had was more than just an earthly hope of land, riches, and power. Our passage tells us that if any of them sought that homeland, they could have simply turned back; and yet they continued on faithfully with the conviction of that which was unseen, a Kingdom of God.  In in the end we find that though they died without seeing this come to fruition, that upon their death they did receive a heavenly home.

            And yet heaven itself can become a stumbling block for many people’s faith. As I said we must ask whose hopes and dreams do we hold dear; is it our own or is it the Lord’s. If you are here this morning simply so you can claim your place in heaven when you die, I am sorry but you are here for the wrong reasons. Heaven has far too often become the reason for our faith, we become Christians so that we can avoid Hell and get to Heaven. For many churches this is the crux their of mission and evangelism. This is not why we become Christians. We become Christians because we love Jesus Christ, and seek to serve and grow closer to him. Heaven of course is of extreme importance, it provides us great hope, especially to those who are marginalized or killed for their faith. Still,  heaven is not the goal of Christianity; it is the assurance of rest from our labors of Kingdom building here on Earth” Through Christ we have been given a new hope, the hope of the Kingdom of God here on Earth.  Through his life, death, resurrection and ascension, Jesus initiated the Kingdom of God, and yet the Kingdom is obviously not fully here. It is what Wesley calls, “the already and the not yet.” Through Christ and through the power of the Holy Spirit, we can live faithfully, working with God towards bringing forth that Kingdom. We can look around at a world full of terror and violence, and have faith; have an assurance of that hope given to us by Jesus Christ. We like the friends in Hey Arnold who can look at trashy empty lot and see a baseball field, are able to look at a broken world and see the Kingdom of God.

Lord Teach us to Pray (Luke 11:1-13)

Sermon as preached at Lambs and Evington UMC 7/28/13

If there is one thing in the church today that most people know they should be doing more of and yet find themselves struggling at it, it would most likely be prayer. We know we should be praying, we know that we should be doing it more than just at dinner time and before bed. We know all throughout scripture we are told to pray, we even use some of these passages as catch phrases to remind us to pray such as Paul’s “pray without ceasing.”  We sing songs about prayer exclaiming that we should take it to the Lord in prayer, and yet prayer for so many of us is one of the hardest parts of being a Christian. Most of us don’t really know how to pray. This is not an attack on any of us, it is part of our human condition.  In fact Paul even says in Romans 8,  “In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. ²⁷ And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God.”  Paul himself admits that we do not truly know how to pray and that we need the Holy Spirit’s help. Maybe even more reassuring than this is that in our passage for today, Jesus’ own disciples are unsure about how to pray and so they ask Jesus the simple question, “Lord, teach us how to pray.” As we start to dive into Jesus’ response on how to pray, it seems only fitting that we first stop now and go to the Lord now asking him to teach us how to pray this morning.

                                                ( Time of prayer)

            Lord teach us to pray. This is the request of the disciples of Christ. Now we can assume that they had something in mind when they asked Jesus this question, after all, prayer had been an important part of their Jewish faith.  At that time there were customary times and places at which they would pray daily, and if for some reason they were not able to get away to pray at that said time, there were memorized prayers that they could recite whenever possible. The disciples were most likely familiar and accustomed to these types of prayers and so in asking Jesus to teach them how to pray, they were probably asking for some practices particular to the teachings of Christ. Jesus’ reply was then probably not what they expected because Jesus did not give them a practice, but instead he taught them about the nature of prayer.

            Jesus does start of his answer to the disciples by giving the disciples examples of words to say. These words probably sound somewhat familiar to us since they make up part of the Lord’s prayer that we say every week. When we read it Luke it sounds strange, it sounds choppy, parts seem to be missing. This is because the Lord’s prayer we say is more derived from Matthew’s version which seems to be more eloquent. Could it be that the direct, straightforward, even choppy sounding version that we here in Luke has more to teach us than just words? Could Instead of just giving us a prayer to pray, could it be that Jesus is teaching us how to pray?

            I believe that this is the case, and that Jesus is showing us that there are so many types of prayers, and so he helps us to understand what types of things we should pray for. Jesus starts his prayer by saying, “Father, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come.” This may be the most important lesson on prayer that Jesus gives. We start our prayer addressing God, we do not start our prayer talking about ourselves. This shows us that prayer first and foremost starts with God. It also reminds us of the nature of God; that God’s name should be revered. It reminds us of the omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent nature of our God. It reminds us that this is not just a conversation with your best friend; this is an experience, a relationship with the Almighty!  Finally this beginning phrase reminds us that the primary goal of our prayer is seeking for God’s will to be done. We pray so that we may work with God in bringing forth the Kingdom of God. Bishop Cho uses a short prayer that sums up the beginning of this prayer. He prays, “God, your will, nothing more, nothing less, nothing else.” Jesus teaches us that prayer first and foremost starts with seeking the will of God.

            Next Jesus recognizes that we do in fact pray for our own needs, and so he teaches the disciples, “Give us each day our daily bread.” Jesus’ words here are clever and well thought out.  First it teaches us that God gives what is necessary. Jews at the time would have heard this phrase, give us each day our daily bread, and would have instantly thought back to the time of the Israelites in the dessert. They would have remembered that the Israelites asked the Lord for bread, and so manna came from heaven.  The instructions from God were to gather only what was needed for that day. Most listened to the instructions and found that they had neither gathered too much nor too little, but others tried to keep and hoard bread for the next day only to find that the next morning the bread was bad and full of maggots.  Remembering this story, the disciples would have understood that when Jesus says give us each day our daily bread that he means to ask for only that which is needed. At the same it is a reminder that each day is a day that we should go to the Lord in prayer.

            Jesus’ words go much deeper than this as well. The next question to ask is what does Jesus mean by bread?  The initial response would be that Jesus is telling us to turn to God for our daily necessities: bread, water, clothing, shelter and this is correct. Jesus has also taught however many times about seeking the bread of heaven. By using the word bread Jesus is telling us to seek the Lord in prayer for both our physical needs as well as our spiritual needs as well.

            Finally Jesus concludes the prayer by telling the disciples to say, “And forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us. And do not bring us to the time of trial.” Jesus reminds us about one of the most neglected forms of prayer, the prayer of confession. Jesus reminds us to confess our sins before the Lord and to seek forgiveness, however he adds a little caveat at the end. Not only is confession and pardon something between God on us, but is something we should do with each other. After all we have just learned about the commandment to love our neighbor as ourselves. This is why prior to communion we confess our sins together, this is why we pass the peace, and this is why together we hear the words of pardon, “In the name of Jesus Christ you are forgiven.” This is something that should not be taken lightly.

            After teaching the disciples the manner in how one should pray, Jesus changes gears quite quickly and begins to tell stories. First he tells a story of a man who has an unexpected guest arrive late at night, and has no bread to feed them. He goes to his friend and neighbors house and asks for some bread. The friend originally does not want to unbolt the door because it will awaken the whole family, but the friend does it anyway. What is at play here is the idea of hospitality. It’s great to live in the south because this idea of hospitality still exists here, but imagine what you have learned and multiply it. Hospitality was something that every person was expected to provide, and failing to do such would not just end up having you labeled as rude, but it would bring shame upon the whole family.  This hospitality is why the man having an unexpected guest was expected to provide bread for him, and this fear of shame is why the neighbor gave opened up his door and gave  him bread.  Jesus uses this story to teach the disciples about the nature of God and the nature of prayer.  He explains that if a neighbor who doesn’t want to help but does because of a sense of hospitality opens the door for you, then why would you expect less from the host of hosts? 

            He then goes on to give another example. He asks the disciples to imagine not a friend this time, but rather an evil man. This evil man is asked by his children for fish and for eggs,  would the evil man try to trick his own children by giving a snake whose scales may feel like a fish, or a scorpion who when rolled  up may briefly look like an egg?  The answer is of course no.  Jesus goes on to explain, if even an evil man provides for his children and does not deceive,  why would we expect anything different from the good and loving God?  Jesus uses these  two examples to teach the disciples about the nature of God. That God is one who will hear our needs, that God is one that will respond.

            We then of course have Jesus saying this famous phrase to the disciples, “So I say to you, Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.   Many of us may even know the song, “Seek ye first the Kingdom of God, and his righteousness, and all these shall be added unto you, alleluia. Ask and it shall be given unto you, seek and ye shall find, knock and the door shall be opened unto you, alleluia.” It is a phrase, a song that some of us may treasure. I am afraid however, that it is often treasured in the wrong ways.

            So often we hear these words ask and it will be given unto you,  seek and you will find, knock and it will be given unto you and we hear these as words of entitlement. I am part of generation Y ( barely I must add) or what is sometimes called the millennials. There is another nickname for this generation, that is generation me. It is considered a generation of narcissists, who don’t just strive to succeed but expect it. It is a generation that expects to obtain everything that they desire,  which is why there is the nickname generation me, because everything focuses on the self.  As much as others like to look at our generation and agree with this stereotype, I feel as though when look at how many people, from many generations pray we find that others share many of these traits with my generation. After all so often when we pray it is about us.  If we are honest with ourselves, how often do we pray for something specific to happen in our lives compared to how often we pray for God’s will to be done?

            When we read this section of our scripture for today about asking and it shall be given to us, seeking and we shall find; it often feeds into our own narcissism. It makes us think that all I have to do is ask for something from God and God will grant my wish. We begin to view God less like an Almighty deity in which we serve, and more like a magic genie who is required to grant our wishes.  So then what do we say when what we pray for doesn’t come true. What happens when we pray to get accepted to a certain school and get rejected? What happens when we pray to get offered a job, only to find that they have hired someone else? What happens when we pray for the healing of a loved one and they pass away?  I am not making light of these situations, and it is not that I am taking prayer lightly, but these are honest questions that many of us will ask sometimes in our lives. We pray to God asking for something, sometimes that prayer comes true and we give all the glory to God for it, but what happens when it doesn’t? Do we get angry at God?  We just read that God is not evil, that God hears us and answers; we just read that ask and it shall be given unto us? Why then don’t we always get what we want?

            R. Alan Culpepper, dean of the school of theology at Mercer University argues that we are often we do not pay attention to the verbs, ask, seek, knock.[1] Far too often we come to the door as those who feel entitled. Our prayers more often than not take the form of demands rather than petitions. We come to God as if we come to a server at  the restaurant, “May I get the house special” when in reality it is just a polite way of saying I want it, give it to me. Culpepper argues that these words, ask, seek, knock, are words that indicate that we who come before God are like beggars. We have nothing, and ask for God’s generosity.  We don’t demand God’s justice, we ask for God’s mercy. When we come to prayer like a beggar, like one not even worthy to ask for a crumb, then we start to understand the whole passage better. We understand what it means that God will provide, we don’t try to gather and store our heavenly bread, but celebrate each day for our blessings. When we come to prayer as a beggar, we begin to see how truly dependent we are on God, and how God truly does provide.  And it is for this reason that we like the disciples shall come to Christ and start by saying, “Lord, teach us to pray.”

                         

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[1] New Interpreter Bible Commentary Volume IX pgs 238-289

A Better Answer (Luke 10:38-42)

Sermon as preached on 7/21/13 at Lambs and Evington UMC

When I was in school, especially when I was still in high school I remember dreading different formats for tests.  Teachers found many different ways to test our knowledge about any particular subject. For me, the easiest questions were the True or False questions. You would be given a statement and had to determine whether or not it was true or whether it was false. They were the easiest to me because it was cut and dry, the statement was either true, or it was false. There were other forms of questions however that was not as simple, including the multiple choice questions. What I hated about multiple choice questions is the older you got the more sophisticated the questions would get, and eventually you would have a statement such as, “which of the following best answers the question?” It was that best that would always get me. It means that you good give a correct answers, you could even argue with the teacher after the fact that you were not wrong, and yet it was not the best answer for the question. For example a question could be, F Scott Fitzgerald is best known for which novel: A) Moby Dick, B) This Side of Paradise C) A Tale of Two Cities, D) The Great Gatsby.  As you go through the question you can eliminate  Moby Dick because that was written by Melville, and you can eliminate a Tale of Two cities because that was written by Dickens. But then you left with This Side of Paradise and the Great Gatsby which both seem to be correct answers, because both were written by Fitzgerald. A judgment call has to be made then to determine which he is best known for and therefore you would choose The Great Gatsby. The questions become much harder when there is a good answer, and yet there is a better one.

            Our scripture for today is a perfect example of the difference between the good choice, and the best choice. Our scripture starts with Jesus and his disciples being invited into the house of two sisters Martha and Mary. When they entered the house Martha did all that she could to provide hospitality to their guests. She slaved away in the kitchen preparing them something to eat, cleaned up to make sure they would be comfortable there; In essence Martha did everything she could to show respect to her honored guest. While Martha was doing all of this however, her sister Mary simply sat at the feet of Jesus and listened. Finally sick of the fact that her sister was not helping her, Martha speaks to Jesus and tells him, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me." Many of us may be surprised by Jesus’ answer as he replies, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her."

            When we hear this our first instinct is to question what has Martha done wrong? After all many of us here are Marthas. We always try to keep up with the best of our responsibilities, most of us are eager to be hospitable to guests, and so why does Jesus seem to rebuke Martha? The thing is Martha has done nothing wrong; she has done what is good and what is expected of her. In fact if anybody had done anything wrong it seems to be Mary. Mary neglects her responsibility to help her sister and simply sits at the feet of Jesus. That action in itself is more of a wrong at that time than many of us recognize when we read scripture through the lens of our modern world.  In those times women were not seen as equals to men, and there were certain gender roles and responsibilities that were expected to be done by women. Especially in the presence of guests, women were expected to be the servants to their male guests. Mary had rejected this responsibility. Even worse than this, women were not supposed to sit at the feet of a teacher; this was seen as a privilege for the men. In our scripture we find Mary rejecting these social cues; neglecting her responsibility to  serve as well as sitting in a place of honor that society deemed her not to be worthy of.  In light of all of this we can see that Martha is in fact doing what is good; she is doing what is expected of her, she is performing acts of hospitality to her guests. Jesus never says what she is doing is wrong, instead he says, “Mary has chosen the better part.” Mary has chosen the better part.

            So what then is the better part? Why is what Mary does better than what Martha does? To answer that question we must understand that this story in Luke does not sit in a vacuum by itself. It is a continuation of a theme that Jesus had started earlier in the chapter. Before arriving at the house of Martha and Mary, Jesus was asked by a scribe what was necessary to get into heaven. Jesus asked what is written in the scriptures, and the man replied, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.” Not satisfied with the answer the scribe asked Jesus and who is my neighbor. And so Jesus told the parable of the Good Samaritan.  It is one of the best known parables in the Bible.  In the story a man is beaten and robbed and left for dead on the side of the road. A priest happens to walk by, but sees the man and crosses on the opposite side of the road. Likewise, a Levite, ( who were helpers of the priests)  came saw the man and crossed on the opposite side of the road. Finally a Samaritan, ( who were outcasts of society) saw the man beaten and took care of him, took him to an inn and made all the provisions necessary that the man may be completely taken care of. After he told this parable Jesus asked, which of these is the neighbor, and the scribe responded, the one who showed mercy, and Jesus says “Go and do likewise.”

            In the encounter with scribe, Jesus makes clear what the Lord requires of us, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.”  Through the parable of the Good Samaritan Jesus teaches the scribes, teaches the disciples, and Luke through his gospel teaches us the reader what it means to love your neighbor as yourself. To leave the story there would be to only explain half of the commandment that Jesus had given. We would only know what it means to love our neighbor; we wouldn’t know what it means to love the Lord with all our heart, with all of our soul, with all of our strength and with all of our mind. For this reason, it is so important that we have the story of Martha and Mary follow right after this parable.

            It is as if through the actions of Martha, God is showing us the danger of only following half of that commandment. After all Martha is loving her neighbor as herself, maybe even more than herself. She has invited them in, she has prepared a space for them and is making the feel as welcome as possible. What is lacking for Martha however, is an understanding the need to love God with all our hearts.  Service is good, even great; but if it does not start with a love for God than it is nothing more than a distraction.

            It is easy for us to do the same in our lives, to get distracted by the responsibilities in our lives, even the noble ones, even our service.  How often do we get distracted by our work, even by our families so much so that we push God to the wayside? Even in church we can get so devoted to different groups and activities, responsibilities and meetings that we forget that the reason we are doing all that we do is because God loves us, and because we love God. All of these things are good, all of the things are important, and yet when we lose sight of our love for God because of them we like Martha become distracted. We must seek the better answer.

            And so through the actions of Mary, Jesus teaches Martha, his disciples, and all of us what it means to love the Lord your God with all of your heart, soul, strength and mind. Mary recognizes the presence of the Lord in her midst and puts everything aside to be in his presence. Mary risks the consequences of breaking the social norms, all so that she may hear what the Lord has to say. It is in fact quite amazing paradox that by simply doing nothing but stopping and listening, that Mary is doing so much and risking so much.

            As we heard from Barbara last week, the focus of this year’s annual conference was Lord teach us to pray. I won’t harp on this too much because it is our scripture for next week, but one thing that must be pointed out is that as I have talked to many people after this annual conference, both clergy and lay, the consensus is that this was one of the best and most powerful annual conferences that we have had in a while, and everyone can identify why. It is because this annual conference first and foremost focused on prayer; focused on being in the presence of God and hearing the word of God. Not only did we open and close every session with prayer, but with each decision that we made we went to the Lord in prayer about it. We asked for God’s discernment for each topic. The Annual Conference truly was focused on loving God and experiencing the love of God.

            I must make a confession though, going into the conference I was definitely a Martha. I knew the reputation of Bishop Cho, I had even experienced his prayer centered leadership style at Pastor’s Convocation in January, and I must admit that heading into annual conference it made me a little nervous. I thought to myself, that’s great and all, but what if we spend too much time in prayer? What if we don’t get to everything on the agenda?  The days are condensed down from what they used to be several years ago, what if we run out of time. And of course the worst of all, what if we don’t break on time for lunches and dinners?  Other than the last question, these were legitimate questions, because the business aspect of the conference is an extremely important issue since we only meet once a year. And yet as we dove into prayer each day  found that we did in fact have time for business. And those who had been to other annual conferences may have realized that the debates and arguments were not as heated,  not as long as other conferences. That discussions were truly discussions, and that people disagreed with each other, and felt comfortable enough to voice their disagreement, and yet the animosity experienced in previous conferences did not seem to be there.  We loved the Lord with all of our heart and soul, and the business still got done.

            This is the lesson that Martha and Mary teach us; that we must first seek after God. We must first love the Lord our God with all of our hearts, souls, strength and minds.  When we do this we find that there is still time for our other responsibilities and our service, but not only is there time, we find that this service and these responsibilities, and transformed by our love for God. By taking the time to be with Christ, we are able to more than if we had used that time for other responsibilities.  We must not ignore these responsibilities, we must continue to love our neighbor as ourselves, but we must first and foremost do this through seeking the better answer; we must love our neighbors through our love for God.

A Year With the Christian Calendar

Ok, so I know that this isn’t my first year with Christian calendar, in fact it is my twenty-fifth. I have of course experienced many of the nuances of the seasons from Advent and Christmas, to Epiphany, Lent, Easter and Pentecost, and of course ordinary time and all of the special days scattered throughout the year. Growing up I had of coursed celebrated many of these seasons (and even understood some of them!). In college and in seminary I learned more about the calendar in depth, and yet for all of my experience and training, there truly is something eye opening about experiencing the Christian for the first time as a pastor. These are some of the things that stuck out to me from my first year in service. There are many seasons and special days that I will not mention that were still greatly important to me, but the following examples are the experiences that have surprised me, and that have taught me the most over the past year.

 

1) The Christian Calendar Reorders Time

            What do I mean when I say that Christian Calendar reorders time? We live in a culture that lives its life within the boundaries and context of many different calendars; some more obvious than others. When we think of calendar, we in the West of course think of January first as the beginning and December 31 as the end. Those who are in school or who are teachers may have another calendar they go by, beginning in late August or early September or and going until May or June. Many businesses have a fiscal year that begins in July. In other words, we order our lives around these calendars, but when we truly follow the Christian Calendar we find a calendar that is different, and sometimes seemingly in opposition to these other calendars that lay claim to our lives. This is not a new concept, I even remember having this explained to me in seminary, and yet it is totally different once you experience your vocation dedicated to a calendar different than the other calendars you had been living within the boundaries of ( for me, this was the school calendar in particular).  My first Sunday was the first Sunday of July, I had just graduated from seminary turning the page on that chapter, and I had just opened a new chapter in my life through the beginning of my ministry.  While my life was at the crossroads of the end and a beginning, the Christian calendar was right in the middle of Ordinary time. It was a reminder for me that despite all the new and wonderful things going on in my life, both the joys and the fears, that the story of God of love continues on. It was rather humbling, reminding me that I am but in one moment somewhere between the already and the not yet. As the September approached, a new school year started, but not for me, I was still in the middle of ordinary time. And finally as Christ the King Sunday arrived in November, I remember how odd it felt to be ending a year, and starting a new one, a month before we in the western culture celebrate the turn of our calendars. Living in the Christian Calendar reordered time for me in that while as I said a realized I was but in a certain moment between the already and the not yet, I somehow, almost paradoxically, was able to live the entirety of the salvation narrative.

 

2. The Advent/ Christmas Battle

            This dilemma too is nothing new, it is something that pastors have been griping about for ages, and yet until you are a pastor you don’t really get it.  In seminary I thought I got it, but I didn’t. What I am referring to is of course the need for churches to skip past advent straight to Christmas. When you start a new year in the calendar (Advent is the beginning of the Christian Calendar) what is it saying when the first thing you talk about is little baby Jesus? What does this say about the span of time prior to Jesus? What does it say about our view of the importance of what we call the Old Testament? How do we learn about our need for God incarnate, if we don’t take time to listen to the prophets’ warnings? All of these questions seem to be neglected because we want to sing our favorite Christmas hymns and celebrate the coming of our savior before we take time to prepare for what that means. This dilemma I expected; what I didn’t account for was how quickly Christmas was over. That once we were finally in the Christmas season, Christmas was over for most people. They didn’t want to sing those hymns anymore, they didn’t want to hear about the little baby, it’s time for Jesus to grow up now.  For wanting to rush into the coming of Christmas, it is truly amazing that we fail to celebrate it in its fullest.

 

3. The Easter Hangover

            No I don’t mean the sheer fatigue that accompanies the festivities of Holy Week, and no I don’t mean the inability to move after sinning boldly as gluttons at Easter dinner. The Easter Hangover I refer to here is one that came about three weeks into Easter. The first two Sundays of Easter were great! After a long but meaningful Lent,  preaching about the good news of the resurrection, the forgiveness of our sins, grace and so on seemed to just easily flow from my lips. Then I got to a point where I had to stop and ask, what now?  I can’t just say the same thing four weeks in a row. Where do I go from here? It was on Ascension Sunday when I realized that my questions were probably not that different from those of the disciples. Jesus is resurrected and now ascended, what now?  It truly taught me to wait, to pray, to stop trying to run ahead of where God was leading me. Most of all, it gave me a greater appreciation for Pentecost. Pentecost was as if a weight was lifted from my shoulders; the spirit was with us, and now we had a direction to go.

 

4.  The End or the Beginning?

            Christ the King Sunday marks the end of the Christian calendar, but unfortunately it is a day that is less emphasized in some of the less liturgical churches. For this reason I knew about the day, but it truly was like experiencing it for the first time. I got all excited to talk about soteriology and eschatology. I was excited to talk about the Kingdom come and to talk about communion and our foretaste of when “Christ comes in final victory and we feast at his heavenly banquet.”[1] I was excited to talk about that anticipation of the coming Christ. Jump forward to next week, and it the beginning of Advent and what else am I talking about than the anticipation of the coming Christ. It may be the greatest transition in history of calendars, that the end and the beginning, though so completely different, focus on the same hope. That in the beginning of our journey to its end, we truly live in a world in need of Emmanuel, God with us, and that as we begin and end each Christian year we know  that our hope is real, because we have experienced it each day of our lives by putting ourselves within the salvation narrative. For me that truly is the beauty of the Christian Calendar.

 

 

P.S. I do indeed recognize the irony of writing this during Ordinary time and not at the end of the Christian year.

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[1] United Methodist hymnal pg.10

The Servant Leader (Luke 7:1-10)

Sermon as preached at Lambs and Evington UMC 6/2/13

When I was going up before the board to be commissioned, I remember one of the questions they really asked a lot was what is servant leadership?  Now the answer to the question seems pretty self-explanatory, it’s a leader that leads through service, and yet and they kept pushing me to explain it deeper, I realized that not only describing what is a servant leader is difficult; I also realized that being a servant leader is difficult.   Out of all of their questions, which I assure you there were many, and despite the nerves and the sweat and the tears of those interviews, I still remember one question that I really struggled to answer.  What person in the Bible best describes your understanding of a servant leader? Of course there is a wealth of great leaders in the Bible, from Noah to Moses, David and Deborah, John the Baptist and of course Jesus; and yet it was so hard for me to pick one as the shining example of a servant leader. And then I read this scripture for today, it is quite a gem that we have from the book of Luke, a short ten verse story that many may not be familiar with, and when I read it I almost shouted out loud, aha! There’s your servant leader, the centurion is the example of a great servant leader.

            So what makes the centurion such a great servant leader?  Well first a foremost the centurion recognizes the power of the role that he is in.  A centurion was a military leader in charge of a company of a hundred men. In fact that’s where the title centurion comes from, a hundred just like century means a hundred years. The centurion was also powerful enough at that time to have his own servants, or slaves. This is not the time to discuss this as an ethical issue, as we must remember the historical context of this story. As I said earlier however, is that the first great strength of the centurion is the recognition of the power he has. He says, “For I also am a man set under authority, with soldiers under me; and I say to one, 'Go,' and he goes, and to another, 'Come,' and he comes, and to my slave, 'Do this,' and the slave does it." The centurion does not cower from the power that he, but instead embraces it; he knows the ways in which he can lead others.

            Recognition of power for many leaders however, can become a problem. A sense of entitlement can develop, and as we see so often in our society today, that power can be abused. The centurion still is different; while it is true that authority is given to him by his commanding officers; his power as leader was earned through his compassion, care and service to those he lead. We of course see this in our story, we have a servant, somebody viewed as a nobody in that society, and yet when the centurion finds out that the this slave is close to death, he does all that he can in his power to help him. That includes reaching out to a complete stranger. We must remember that the centurion is a Gentile, not a Jew,  he reaches out Jesus, someone who he has no business associating with, because it provided hope that his servant may be saved.  We can assess that this is type of action is not out of the ordinary for the centurion, that he has always lead with great compassion and respect. We hear the words of the Jewish elders whom he sent to Jesus telling Jesus about the centurion saying, “He is worthy of having you do this for him,
 for he loves our people, and it is he who built our synagogue for us.” Once again we hear about the centurion’s great respect for those he leads. Although he is not Jew he helped to build the synagogue for them.  All of these examples go to show that the centurion truly did serve those who was leading, in effect became an even stronger leader because his power was not just simply given to him, but earned by the ways in which he served.

            Finally, we come to the last great sign of a servant leader. So far we have noted that a great leader serves those whom they are leading, and we have also noted that a great leader recognizes and appreciates the power that they hold. And yet in our story we find a point of tension.  The centurion realizes that in the midst of his compassion for his servant, he had not truly respected who Jesus is. On the one hand this is a practical statement.  Jesus is a Jew, and for him to come into the house of a Gentile and heal the servant, he would become deemed unclean by the Jewish laws. The centurion realizes that he has asked to put this guest in a difficult position, and so he sends messengers again deferring to Jesus saying, “Lord, do not trouble yourself, for I am not worthy to have you come under my roof; therefore I did not presume to come to you. But only speak the word, and let my servant be healed.” While the centurion’s respect for Jesus was one hand because of the practices of the Jewish law, on the other hand we can see that the centurion recognizes Jesus for who he is, the Son of God.”  We can see this in the previous statement, he tells Jesus that he himself, a centurion mind you, is unworthy to have Jesus come under his roof and implores him to speak and let the servant be healed. Speak the word and let my servant be healed!” What an amazing statement of faith! The centurion recognizes the power of Jesus, that with a word the slave can be healed. And then in the greatest form of recognition the centurion says, “For I also am a man set under authority, with soldiers under me; and I say to one, 'Go,' and he goes, and to another, 'Come,' and he comes, and to my slave, 'Do this,' and the slave does it.”  The centurion is saying, look at the power that I have, a command people and they listen, and yet do not have the authority that you do.  This creates a tension that is the last characteristic of a great servant leader. That although a servant leader recognizes the power they have, they first a foremost recognize that all authority belongs to God. Secondly, though a great servant leader serves the needs of those they lead, the also recognize that service to Christ comes first. And yet we see through this story that the two things are not mutually exclusive. That though the in the power and glory of Jesus the centurion deferred his request, that Christ is also filled with the same compassion for the servant and heals them. And though the centurion claims to not be worthy in the presence of Jesus, Jesus affirms the centurion saying, “I tell you, not even in Israel have I found such faith."

            Servant leaders are called to live in that tension of serving those they lead and serving the will of God; the tension of recognizing the power they have, and that at the same time they have no power. Brothers and sisters, today I tell you that we are all called in some way to be servant leaders. To recognize the power that we have in our lives to serve others and at the same be completely obedient to the will of God. And yet, like the centurion discovered, when we submit to the will of God, we can do far more than what we could alone.