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1 Kings 19:4-16

4But he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a solitary broom tree. He asked that he might die: “It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am no better than my ancestors.” 5Then he lay down under the broom tree and fell asleep. Suddenly an angel touched him and said to him, “Get up and eat.” 6He looked, and there at his head was a cake baked on hot stones, and a jar of water. He ate and drank, and lay down again. 7The angel of the Lord came a second time, touched him, and said, “Get up and eat, otherwise the journey will be too much for you.” 8He got up, and ate and drank; then he went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Horeb the mount of God.

 

9At that place he came to a cave, and spent the night there. Then the word of the Lord came to him, saying, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” 10He answered, “I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts; for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away.” 11He said, “Go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.” Now there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; 12and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a sound of sheer silence. 13When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. Then there came a voice to him that said, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” 14He answered, “I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts; for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away.” 15Then the Lord said to him, “Go, return on your way to the wilderness of Damascus; when you arrive, you shall anoint Hazael as king over Aram. 16Also you shall anoint Jehu son of Nimshi as king over Israel; and you shall anoint Elisha son of Shaphat of Abel-meholah as prophet in your place.

 

            There was an older woman who lived by herself and found herself to be growing more and more lonely as she got older.  So one day she decided to go to the pet store and buy a parrot so that she could have a conversation partner in her home.  But when the lady got the parrot home, the parrot just started to curse and swear.  The old lady wasn’t going to take this ‘foul’ language, so she put the parrot in the freezer for two minutes.

            After the bird had served its penalty, the lady told him, “If you don’t clean up your language, I’ll put you right back in there, this time for 5 minutes.”  So the parrot agreed to watch his mouth.

            The very next day the parrot was at it again, cursing and swearing, complaining about the food he had to eat.  So being true to her word, the old lady grabbed the parrot and put him back in the freezer for five minutes.  After the time had passed the woman pulled the bird out, frost forming on his beak.  And she told him again, “If you don’t clean up your language, I’m going to put you right back in there.”  This time the parrot seemed scared and he promised to clean up his language.

            Months passed and the parrot kept his promise and cleaned up his language.  The old lady asked him one day what it was that made him change his ways.  The parrot replied, “Well I knew you were serious when I asked the turkey what he had said to be put in there and he didn’t reply.”

            Loneliness is something that we all deal with from time to time, isn’t it?  We were created to be relational beings, to live in communion with one another.  But sometimes we find ourselves separated from other people and that can be difficult.  Today we are going to look at the life of Elijah and see that God does not intend for us to be alone, though sometimes he does call us to moments of solitude to connect with him.

            Our text for today picks up soon after Elijah’s confrontation with the 450 prophets of Baal and the 400 prophets of Asherah that we looked at last week.  Elijah stood strong against these other prophets, outnumbered 850 to one.  He has his victory over these prophets, but when all of the excitement (and bloodshed) is over, Elijah finds himself right back where he began: by himself.  He wanders for a day into the wilderness and he sat himself down under a tree.  He has no friends, he has no family, he doesn’t even have a pet to keep him company.  He is alone.

            And I am sure that there are a number of factors that are playing into his emotions, one of them being loneliness.  And as Elijah sits there by himself under a single broom tree, Elijah asks God to take his life.  This man who has stood up against the king and against these 850 other prophets and had a convincing victory is so depressed that he wants to die.

            But God wasn’t done with Elijah, there was still work for him to do.  So God provided food and drink for Elijah so that he could make a forty-day journey to Mt. Horeb, which is also known as Mt. Sinai.  And as Elijah is taking shelter in a cave at Mt. Horeb, the word of the Lord comes to him and asked him, What are you doing here?  And Elijah replies in verse 10, “I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts; for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword.  I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away.”

            Whoa, right there, that says something to me.  Elijah knows that his life is in jeopardy.  He knows that people in high places are seeking after him to kill him.  So if he really wants to die, why is he running away?  I would say that Elijah didn’t want to die.  What Elijah wanted was a different life.  What Elijah wanted was friends, people he could count on, talk to, share with, break bread with.  It wasn’t that Elijah wanted to die, he just didn’t want to keep on living in the same way that he had been living.  The lonely life of a prophet is good for no one’s soul.

            Is there anyone out there that gets lonely from time to time?  You don’t have to raise your hand, because I am sure that we all do.  I know I get lonely.  In Genesis God says, It is not good for man to be alone.  So what does God do?  God creates a friend for Adam.

            Now some people will take this passage and twist it a bit and make it into something that it is not meant to say.  I get pretty frustrated when I hear someone talk about how we are not “complete” until we find a mate, a husband or a wife.  For some parents, marrying off their daughter seems to be the ultimate goal.  It is not good for a person to be alone, I agree 100%.  But this does not mean that a person needs to be married to be complete.

            We look at people in the Bible such as the apostle Paul.  Paul says that he is glad that he is single because…it frees him up to do more ministry!  If Paul was married with a wife and three kids, he wouldn’t have been able to travel all around telling about his encounter with the risen Jesus Christ.  No, he would have had to stay put, working at his job as a tentmaker, paying the mortgage, putting food on the table because women did not often work outside of the house in the first century.  This is why Paul encourages people that are unmarried to stay that way in 1 Corinthians 7.  So when someone says about needing to be married to be complete, I look at the people in the Bible that we know were single: Paul, Jeremiah, and Jesus, for example.  I say that if you are single, you are in good company!

            I had some single friends in Seminary and they shared with me the hurt that they had experienced being single in the church.  And the hurt that they experienced was not that they felt incomplete.  The hurt that they felt was coming from church people that were always trying to “fix” this perceived problem; people wanting to set them up with other individuals.  And these were well-intending people, but my friends were quite comfortable being single and they realized the opportunities that singleness presented them in serving the Lord.

            My sister-in-law is twenty seven years old and single.  She doesn’t seem to be interested in getting married any time soon.  Stacy is in her first year of medical residency in family practice in Omaha, Nebraska.  She really doesn’t know where she wants to work when she finishes up her residency, but she wants to have a flexible schedule because she has always wanted to be able to work on medical mission teams to third world countries.  Two weeks, month-long, whatever length trips to Guatemala, remote parts of Africa, or even working locally in free clinics.  These are the things that appeal to Stacy.  Near or far, high or low, she wants to be able to travel and help other people with the gift that she has been given.

            If Stacy would have gotten married in her early 20’s like her sister did, these opportunities would probably not be available to her.  Paul was a single man and being a single man freed him up from home responsibilities and allowed him to serve God in ways that some of us could never do.  The same is true for Stacy.

            Does Stacy get lonely?  Absolutely.  But loneliness is not a good reason to get married.  God said that it is not good for a person to be alone, but God never said that every person must get married to avoid being alone.  We need friends, relatives, loved ones that can fill that emptiness.

            One of the most challenging things about my job is that I may go all day long without seeing or talking to another human being.  When Sonya comes home after work in the evening, she will often ask me, Did you talk to anyone today?  And sometimes I have to think long and hard about that.  Sometimes I remember, Yes, I spoke with a telemarketer on the phone for awhile.  (Telemarketers hate me because they will call and talk with me for about 10 minutes until they find out that I have absolutely no intention of buying whatever they are selling.  I just like to hear the sound of another person’s voice sometimes.)  It is so amazing to her that I can go all day without speaking to another human being!

            But I am thankful that the church does not require that I spend all of my day in the office at the church.  I know of one church that the pastor is expected to be in his office for 40 hours each week.  I would go nuts.  Thankfully I can go and sit at a coffee shop and at least be among other people.  And a part of my job includes going out and visiting with other people, seeing them in the nursing homes and at their private homes.  And yes, sometimes it is a challenge to go into the nursing homes but I know what it is like to be lonely, and I don’t want people to have to endure that.  Especially during difficult times.

            Last Monday, a man from our congregation had a simple out-patient surgical procedure done to remove one of his toes.  He is going through a lot right now; he is confused and suffering.  But on top of all of this, he is alone.  He hasn’t had any family around since his wife died a number of years ago.  No siblings, no children.  Really, he has nobody but the people of this church.  And I am thankful for the way that Danny and Frances have cared for him over the last couple of months.

            So when this man needed surgery, he was going through all of this alone.  And for a man who is already confused, this was surely scary.  I am glad that he did not have to go through it alone. 

            But there are times when being alone is a good thing.  In verses 11-13 from our scripture this morning, we find that Elijah is at Mt. Horeb where he is to meet God.  And as he stands there at the opening of the cave, a great wind passes by.  This wind was splitting mountains and breaking rocks into pieces.  But we are told that the Lord was not in the wind.  Following the wind came an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake.  Then there was a fire, but again, the Lord was not in the fire.  Where did Elijah meet the Lord?  V. 12-13, “And after the fire a sound of sheer silence.  When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave.  Then there came a voice to him that said, ‘What are you doing here, Elijah.’”  God met Elijah in the silence. 

Solitude, silence.  The Bible tells us that there are times when it is good to be alone.  If we look at the life of Jesus, we see him slipping off alone from time to time.  Before he began his public ministry, Jesus went out into the wilderness, into the silence, by himself to fast and pray.  He often snuck away from his disciples and those who were following him so that he might have some time alone with God. 

            Silence and solitude are great things.  I know that I am personally hardwired to want noise in my life.  When I walk into my house or sit down in my car or work in the office, the first thing that I do is I turn on the radio.  I never drive anywhere without music or talk radio going on in the background.  If I am working outside I strap my iPod to my arm, put the headphones on, and jam out to something, anything, just to make the silence go away.  But sometimes, silence is a good thing.

            When you read the Bible or pray, it is good to not have anything else going on to distract you.  That is why some people have prayer closets and this is why some people go on spiritual retreats to secluded places where there isn’t another living human being within sight.  This is why some religious people have joined monasteries and convents and take a vow of silence.  Jesus modeled for us that sometimes you just need to get away from all of the hustle and the bustle and the noise to focus on hearing God’s voice.  But Jesus also models for us that this is never meant to last forever.  God calls us to join with other people, to fellowship with one another and serve him together.

            Getting back to our scripture for this morning, we find that God meets this depressed, lonely Elijah in the silence.  And after Elijah explains to God what he is doing there (as if God didn’t already know), God does something about Elijah’s condition.  He gives him something that will help with his loneliness.  God gives Elijah a job, or three jobs to be precise.  Go to the wilderness of Damascus and anoint Hazael as king of Aram, anoint Jehu as king of Israel, and anoint Elisha as your successor as God’s prophet (vv. 15-16). 

            Now anointing these two people as kings isn’t going to take very long.  The longest part of the task is going to be in finding these people.  Then you pray over them, pour some oil on their heads, and you leave.  There is no long-term commitment from Elijah needed here.  But this third part, this anointing of Elisha, this does not end when the oil has flowed from the horn and onto Elisha’s head.  What God has called Elijah to do is on-going mentoring, teaching Elisha how to be a prophet of the one true God.

            Now that God has given Elijah work to do, Elijah can feel like he is serving a purpose.  His life has meaning because he is serving God.  And through his service to God he has gained a partner, a companion, and a friend.  Loneliness will no longer be a problem for Elijah.  And if we look forward in the life of Elijah, we can see that even when Elijah was uncertain of his future, when he was about to be taken up into heaven on a chariot of fire, Elisha was the kind of friend that would stand beside his mentor.  Elisha says, “As the Lord lives and as you yourself live, I will not leave you.” (2 Kings 2:2)

            My friends, I know that I am not the only one here that gets lonely from time to time.  And while, yes, I do believe that God calls us into solitude for periods of time to spend time with him, I do not believe that God intended us to be alone all of our days.  And I believe that one of the best things that we can do to overcome loneliness and the sense of worthlessness that sometimes comes with it is to serve the Lord.

            Volunteer at the Valley Mission, serving food to the homeless, cleaning the facilities, whatever you can do will be appreciated.  Visit the homebound people that you know would love to have company.  Or even better yet, move in with them and care for them.  You can benefit financially by sharing living expenses and you both gain a conversation partner.  Go to the nursing homes and talk to people you know and meet some people that you don’t know.  If you can’t leave your home, call an old friend.  Knit sweaters for the homeless.  Serve the Lord by loving other people and that loneliness will start to disappear.

            It is not good for a person to be alone.  Marriage, children, family life…these things don’t make a person complete.  What makes a person complete is a relationship with God, serving Him and loving others.  The next time you find yourself being lonely, and we all get lonely, perhaps this is God calling you to something.  Perhaps God is calling you to be a blessing to others.

Standing tall while respecting others

1 Kings 18:20-40

20So Ahab sent to all the Israelites, and assembled the prophets at Mount Carmel.  21Elijah then came near to all the people, and said, “How long will you go limping with two different opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him.” The people did not answer him a word. 22Then Elijah said to the people, “I, even I only, am left a prophet of the Lord; but Baal’s prophets number four hundred fifty. 23Let two bulls be given to us; let them choose one bull for themselves, cut it in pieces, and lay it on the wood, but put no fire to it; I will prepare the other bull and lay it on the wood, but put no fire to it. 24Then you call on the name of your god and I will call on the name of the Lord; the god who answers by fire is indeed God.” All the people answered, “Well spoken!” 25Then Elijah said to the prophets of Baal, “Choose for yourselves one bull and prepare it first, for you are many; then call on the name of your god, but put no fire to it.” 26So they took the bull that was given them, prepared it, and called on the name of Baal from morning until noon, crying, “O Baal, answer us!” But there was no voice, and no answer. They limped about the altar that they had made. 27At noon Elijah mocked them, saying, “Cry aloud! Surely he is a god; either he is meditating, or he has wandered away, or he is on a journey, or perhaps he is asleep and must be awakened.” 28Then they cried aloud and, as was their custom, they cut themselves with swords and lances until the blood gushed out over them. 29As midday passed, they raved on until the time of the offering of the oblation, but there was no voice, no answer, and no response.

30Then Elijah said to all the people, “Come closer to me”; and all the people came closer to him. First he repaired the altar of the Lord that had been thrown down; 31Elijah took twelve stones, according to the number of the tribes of the sons of Jacob, to whom the word of the Lord came, saying, “Israel shall be your name”; 32with the stones he built an altar in the name of the Lord. Then he made a trench around the altar, large enough to contain two measures of seed. 33Next he put the wood in order, cut the bull in pieces, and laid it on the wood. He said, “Fill four jars with water and pour it on the burnt offering and on the wood.” 34Then he said, “Do it a second time”; and they did it a second time. Again he said, “Do it a third time”; and they did it a third time, 35so that the water ran all around the altar, and filled the trench also with water. 36At the time of the offering of the oblation, the prophet Elijah came near and said, “O Lord, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, let it be known this day that you are God in Israel, that I am your servant, and that I have done all these things at your bidding. 37Answer me, O Lord, answer me, so that this people may know that you, O Lord, are God, and that you have turned their hearts back.” 38Then the fire of the Lord fell and consumed the burnt offering, the wood, the stones, and the dust, and even licked up the water that was in the trench. 39When all the people saw it, they fell on their faces and said, “The Lord indeed is God; the Lord indeed is God.” 40Elijah said to them, “Seize the prophets of Baal; do not let one of them escape.” Then they seized them; and Elijah brought them down to the Wadi Kishon, and killed them there.

 

            A Sunday school teacher was telling the story about Elijah’s confrontation with the false prophets of Baal to her elementary-aged students in class one day.  She told them about how he cut and prepared the bull for an offering and then how he had 12 barrels of water dumped over the offering.  The teacher asked her students, “Does anyone know why Elijah had them dump all of the water over the offering?”  An eager girl in the back started waving her hand in the air because she knew the answer.  When the teacher called on her, the little girl replied, “I bet they were in charge of making the gravy!”

            Today we are going to look at the story of the confrontation between Elijah and the prophets of Baal and I hope to show you that we are called to be like Elijah and stand up for what we believe in, even when the odds are against us, 450 to 1.  But I also hope to show you that unlike Elijah, we are called to respect all people even when we disagree on what we believe to be foundational to our lives.

            I remember in elementary school when we were asked, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”  Of course, many of my classmates threw out the usual answers like: a cowboy, a football player, an astronaut, a teacher, and president of the United States.  Not once did I hear anyone say, “I want to be a prophet one day.”  Oh sure, the whole talking with God thing.  That was great.  But the hours were long, the pay was nothing, and there was a really good chance that the people in town were not going to like you and would possibly seek to kill you.  Prophets ate weird things, often cooked over questionable fuel sources, and dressed a little on the funny side.  Plenty of reason why one would not choose to be a prophet.  That is why the role of prophet is given by God, not chosen by the individual.  It was a tough line of work with few earthly perks.

            In the text leading up to our scripture for today, we find that Elijah has been hiding out in the desert for somewhere between two and three years.  They were in the third year of a drought and God told Elijah to go to King Ahab and tell him that the drought was about to end.  King Ahab has been searching for Elijah for these two to three years and why was he searching for Elijah?  Not to invite him over for tea, but to kill this dude.  And here he is, waltzing into Ahab’s home.  And Ahab accuses Elijah of causing the drought.  Elijah tells him, No, you are the reason for the drought.  Because you have worshiped the false god Baal, you and your people have suffered.

            So Elijah comes up with a bit of a contest to prove once and for all that Baal is nothing and that Yahweh is God.  They are to gather the 450 prophets of Baal and the 400 prophets of Asherah at Mt. Carmel for a showdown.

            You have to love those odds, don’t you.  850 versus 1.  Now we don’t hear about the 400 prophets of Asherah once they get to the mountain, but our text tells us that the 450 prophets of Baal are there.  And Elijah challenges them to prepare an offering of a bull on a pile of wood next to an altar to Baal and he would do the same thing on an altar to the Lord.  They would each get their own opportunity to call to their god and to see which god would set fire to and consume their offering.  And whoever’s god was able to do this would be known throughout the land as the one true God.

            The prophets of Baal went first.  They called to their god and cried out to him, but nothing happened from morning through noon.  The prophets cut themselves with swords and spears, pouring their own blood out on the offering and showing their earnest desire for Baal to come to that place and consume their offering.  But nothing happened.

            So it came time for Elijah’s offering to the Lord.  He rebuilt the altar to the Lord, placed the wood on the altar, prepared the bull offering, and then he drenched the whole thing with water.  Twelve large containers of water were dumped on the offering until it was soaked and water was pooling all around the offering, the altar, and the wood.  Then Elijah offered a simple prayer to God and fire came from the sky and consumed the offering; the wood, the stones, the dust, and even the water was burnt up.  And our text tells us that the people turned back to God and said, “Indeed, Yahweh is God.”

            So that’s all cool, right?  I love that Elijah was bold in his faith and that he stood up for what he believed in, even among 850 other people.  I know that it can be difficult to stand up for what you believe in even when the odds are 2:1, even 1:1, or even in your favor.  And my life has never depended on it.  I’ve never been threatened.  Elijah knew very well that Ahab had been looking for him, wanting to kill him, and that if things didn’t go Elijah’s way, he was a goner.

            The prophets were often not the most poplar people in their time.  Rarely did they single out an individual and critique that person, but they often called attention to the sins of the community around them.  When Israel was prosperous, yet forgot about the widows and the orphans, Isaiah called the people out on the carpet.  He said “This isn’t right!  You know it, I know it, and I’m not going to stand for it any longer.”  People usually don’t like to hear that stuff.  So I have much respect for Elijah and the other prophets who were willing to sacrifice their popularity, their personal comfort, and even their lives for what they believed to be right.

But Elijah is not perfect; Elijah is a human being just like you and me.  And there are some things we see here about the character of Elijah that I don’t think are helpful for us as Christians today, things that we should not emulate.  And it isn’t just Elijah that fails God from time to time, we all do!  Even the greatest leaders in the Bible stumble from time to time.

            The Bible is full of imperfect people trying to follow God’s perfect will.  Some of the time we are called to do as these people did, and some times we are to learn from their mistakes as well.  And sometimes we are left to figure out who falls into which category.  We look at guys like Moses and we know that he was a great leader, but he also was a murderer.  David was called a man after God’s own heart, but he was an adulterer and also a murderer.  Jesus said that there was never a greater man born of a woman than John the Baptist, but John was a doubter and questioned Jesus as to if he was the messiah.  These are all godly men, with an emphasis on men.  They are not God.  Neither was Elijah.  I think that Elijah did great things.  As I said last week, he is one of my favorite prophets.  So while I think we can look at him and admire his bravery in standing up to the 450 prophets of Baal and 400 prophets of Asherah, I think we can skip the mocking of people from other religions.

If we look at verse 27, we find a little humor coming from Elijah.  I like humor, I tell jokes.  Elijah is being sarcastic, calling out to the prophets of Baal, “Cry aloud! Surely he is a god; either he is meditating, or he has wandered away, or he is on a journey, or perhaps he is asleep and needs to be awakened.”  When Elijah says that Baal must have wandered away, this is a Hebrew idiom referencing wandering into the woods to do his business.  I can tend to be a little sarcastic myself, so I laugh a little bit when I read these things.

            But the Bible tells it like it is in verse 27.  It says that Elijah “mocked” the prophets of Baal.  He is demeaning them, making fun of them, laughing at their expense.  To be honest, I would say that Elijah was being a bit of a jerk to these other prophets.

            I think the Elijah did well to stand his ground when it was one versus 450 or even 850.  Stand up for what you believe.  But don’t be a jerk about it.  I sometimes hear Christians laugh about what people from other religions believe.  Yeah, Mormons believe that Joseph Smith translated a golden book that nobody else ever even saw.  And how heavy would that book be if it were made entirely of gold?  Right, like that could happen.  L. Ron Hubbard wrote that human existence came into being from aliens planting life on earth (or something like that).  We hear these things, and we laugh.  But are some of the things that we believe that much easier to believe?  That Jesus was born of a virgin, walked on water, and rose from the dead? 

            Now don’t get me wrong, I do believe that Jesus was born of a virgin, walked on water, and rose from the dead.  My point is, if we believe something as abnormal as these things, then why do we make fun of other religions that believe certain abnormal things as well?  Or why do we single out a religious group and mock them as Elijah mocked the prophets of Baal?

            I went to a very white, very middle class, very culturally Christian high school in Ohio.  And most of us had never even met a person of a different religion.  Then in the sixth grade, a family from India moved to our school district.  I believe that school was pretty rough for Kunj.  He spoke differently than the rest of us, his skin was darker, and he was shorter than most of the kids his age.  So we made fun of him for these things.

            But it wasn’t until we got to high school gym class, after over two years of being made fun of for his physical characteristics, just when the other kids were starting to accept him, we found out something else about Kunj.  Kunj was and is a Hindu.  We first noticed in the locker room after gym class that he had this string that ran from his shoulder around his waist.  This was new to us, so we asked about it.  It is what is called the janoi, or the sacred string.  When a Hindu child turns about 13 years old, they go through a rite of passage ceremony, like a Jewish boy would have a Bar Mitzvah.  This string was something that Kunj wore all of the time, under his clothes, in the shower, in class. 

            So now religion became one more thing that we could make fun of Kunj about.  Thankfully, none of us really knew what a Hindu was.  But when we had hamburgers for school lunches, we would give Kunj a hard time saying things like, “I think I’m eating your grandma!”  Man, we were so mean to Kunj.  And as bad as it is when kids make fun of other kids, the really sad thing is that some of us never grow out of it.  I don’t think Elijah was right in his mocking the prophets of Baal.   

            If we are to follow any individual from the Bible, let us follow Jesus Christ.  If we look at Jesus’ interactions with other people in the Bible, we find that he is kind of harsh to some people, and often loving and accepting toward others.  Who is he harsh toward?  Those that think they have everything figured out, those that criticize other people’s actions, those that condemn others because of their lack of religious zeal.  Jesus is most critical of the Scribes, Sadducees, and the Pharisees.  “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!  For you tithe mint, dill, and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith.  It is these you ought to have practiced without neglecting the others.” (Mat 23:23).  It was the people that thought that they had it all together who were missing the point!

            But how did Jesus interact with those outside of his religion?  We don’t have many examples in the Bible, but in one instance, Jesus describes a Samaritan as “good” and uses that Samaritan as the example of how all people should act.  When he meets the Samaritan woman at the well, he does not mock her, but he enters into a conversation with her.  The only example we have of Jesus speaking poorly of a person of a different faith background is when he encounters the Syrio-Phoenician woman and he calls her a dog.  I really don’t know what to do with that scripture, to be honest!

            So when I hear Elijah mocking the prophets of Baal, I don’t think that we are to mimic his actions.  We are to stand tall when we are in the minority, but we are to respect all people, and that means respecting their beliefs, even when we don’t believe what they believe at all.  Now this doesn’t mean that we don’t have conversations about faith and that we can’t invite people of other faith to consider the foundations of their faith and whether they should be following Jesus as their Lord and Savior.  This doesn’t mean that all religions are the same.  But it does mean that we should treat all people with the same amount of dignity and respect that they deserve as people created in the image of God.

            Elijah took it one step further than simply mocking the prophets of Baal.  He then went to the extreme measure of massacring all 450 of them.  When the people saw that the Lord was indeed God, they repented of what they had done, they repented for having worshipped Baal and Asherah.  They new that they had been in the wrong and they were willing to do whatever they needed to do to make things right.  So Elijah said, “Kill them” and the people did just that.

            The Bible doesn’t tell us that God told Elijah to kill the 450 prophets of Baal, but if you just read through the text, you might assume that Elijah is doing God’s will.  But we have seen time and time again throughout the Bible that people that are following God do make mistakes, they do act out of their own emotions, and they do often miss God’s intentions.

            I don’t know that Elijah needed to have those prophets killed.  I wouldn’t be surprised if most of them who had seen this great act would have converted and given their lives right then and there to follow the one true God.  But instead it is often our first response to just kill the other people.  Now that the power is in our favor, we are going to exercise that power!

            Just over a week ago, thirteen American soldiers lost their lives on US soil at Ft. Hood in Texas.  The gunman was a major in the Army, and the gunman is a Muslim.  When things like this happen, especially on our home turf, Americans tend to retaliate in an extreme way.  After September 11^th, 2001, Muslim mosques were bombed by everyday people, property was defaced, messages of hate were sprayed on homes and cars belonging to Muslims.  On our televisions and computers we hear messages from Christian leaders saying that we need to attack back.  If they take 13 American lives, we will take 1,300 of their lives.

            Let’s stop this cycle of hate!  I follow the Prince of Peace, Lord of lords, who told us to love our enemies, turn the other cheek, and to pray for those that persecute us.  A friend of mine has a bumper sticker that says, “Love your enemies, it messes with their heads!”  Indeed, it does.  When we love our enemies, it does mess with their heads.  And sometimes, they end up loving us back.

            I saw Kunj a couple of years ago at a high school football game.  He was still just as short as ever, but yet he seemed to be walking a lot taller.  He walked back into his old school where he was mocked and persecuted by the jocks, the preppies, the rich kids, even the nerds.  And now, as the jocks had seen their waistlines grow and their hairlines recede, Kunj, a successful software engineer with a beautiful wife and child, could have turned the tables on those jokes, I mean jocks, and mocked them.  But he didn’t.  He approached them as friends, shook their hands, and caught up with them.  He asked them about their lives and showed an honest interest in what they were doing.  And I’m glad he did.  You’ve gotta love it when a Hindu teaches how to be Christ-like.

            Standup for what you believe in.  Even if you are outnumbered 850 to 1, even if it might cost you your life.  But if you find yourself in a power position where you can persecute others, mock them, or even slaughter them, remember the teachings and life of our Lord and love those people instead.

God is calling

1 Kings 17:7-16

7But after a while the wadi dried up, because there was no rain in the land.

8Then the word of the Lord came to him, saying, 9“Go now to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and live there; for I have commanded a widow there to feed you.” 10So he set out and went to Zarephath. When he came to the gate of the town, a widow was there gathering sticks; he called to her and said, “Bring me a little water in a vessel, so that I may drink.” 11As she was going to bring it, he called to her and said, “Bring me a morsel of bread in your hand.” 12But she said, “As the Lord your God lives, I have nothing baked, only a handful of meal in a jar, and a little oil in a jug; I am now gathering a couple of sticks, so that I may go home and prepare it for myself and my son, that we may eat it, and die.” 13Elijah said to her, “Do not be afraid; go and do as you have said; but first make me a little cake of it and bring it to me, and afterwards make something for yourself and your son. 14For thus says the Lord the God of Israel: The jar of meal will not be emptied and the jug of oil will not fail until the day that the Lord sends rain on the earth.” 15She went and did as Elijah said, so that she as well as he and her household ate for many days. 16The jar of meal was not emptied, neither did the jug of oil fail, according to the word of the Lord that he spoke by Elijah.

 

Two cannibals meet one day. The first cannibal says, “You know, I just can’t seem to find a tender missionary. I’ve baked ‘em, I’ve roasted ‘em, I’ve stewed ‘em, I’ve barbequed ‘em, I’ve even tried every sort of marinade. I just cannot seem to get them tender.” The second cannibal asks, “What kind of missionary do you use?” The other replied, “You know, the ones that hang out at that place at the bend of the river. They have those brown cloaks with a rope around the waist and their sort of bald on top with a funny ring of hair on their heads.” “Ah ha!” he replies. “No wonder…those are friars!”

What do you think of when you hear the term “missionary”?  I would bet that most of us have at least some understanding of what a missionary is.  We often think of a missionary as the people that the church supports financially and prayerfully to send them into the remote parts of the world to work with indigenous people, teaching them about Christianity and trying to teach them what we believe to be better ways to live (reading, writing, arithmetic).  And indeed, this is mission!  But mission is so much more!

            I would define mission as joining with God to bring shalom to all of the world.  We often hear shalom translated as “peace”.  And that is somewhat correct.  Peace is an aspect of shalom, but the definition of shalom is much bigger than peace.  Shalom means “well-being.”  So when I say that mission is joining in with God to bring shalom to all of the world, I am saying that mission includes economic development in third-world countries, mission includes feeding the poor, clothing the naked, sharing God’s redemptive message, the forgiveness of sins, digging wells for fresh water, teaching inner-city school kids, working with AIDS victims in Africa and in our neighborhood, prayer, and financial support.  Mission is joining in on what God is doing and not just sitting back in our easy chair, going to church once a week, and saying, “It’s all good, I’m under grace.”

            Rob Bell was asked once what the mission statement for his church is and he replied, “We are disciples, who are making disciples, who are making disciples, who are making disciples…”  I like that!  Because to bring about God’s shalom, we need followers of Jesus Christ.  Now I did not say that we need believers in Jesus Christ.  The Bible tells us that even the demons believe.  When Jesus gave his great commission in Matthew 28 he tells his disciples to go out into all of the world and make more disciples, more followers, not just believers.

            Today we are going to look at the prophet Elijah and we will see on this Missions Sunday that if we are doing what God has called us to do, God will supply us with what we need to work for God’s shalom.  We will also see that sometimes answering God’s call requires a leap of faith.  So let’s jump into the scripture to see what we can learn about joining God in his mission.

            Elijah is an interesting character who leads an interesting life.  In the scripture leading up to our text for today we find that King Ahab has come to power and married a woman named Jezebel.  Ahab begins to worship the god of his wife, who is named Baal, and builds a temple and an altar for Baal, and then puts up an Asherah pole.  So we have the new king of Israel and many of the people breaking the first commandment “You shall have no other gods before me.”  God doesn’t like it when his chosen people reject him, so God sends the prophet Elijah to Ahab and tells him that because of his sin, that there will be a great drought in the land. 

            God then speaks to Elijah telling him to move east of the Jordan, and it isn’t clear why God told Elijah to do this.  It is either to keep him safe from Ahab, to lead him to water, or likely both.  So this is what Elijah does, he picks up and moves to the Jordan.  And God led him to water to drink and the ravens, birds from the air, brought him bread and meat twice a day.

            Elijah was doing God’s work, was he not?  He was a prophet of the most High God, working to bring God’s shalom to the world.  And God sent him to a place where he would be safe and God delivered food for him.  God provided what was necessary for Elijah to do the things that God had called him to do.  And I believe that is true for people that are doing God’s work today as well.  Now God never promises to keep us safe when we are doing God’s work.  We have large volumes of books naming people that died serving God.  One of which is the Martyr’s Mirror.  But we have probably all heard stories of how God supplies for those who are committed to his service.

            We in Virginia Mennonite Conference have a wonderful mission organization just up the road in Harrisonburg.  Virginia Mennonite Missions supports around 200 mission workers every year in at least fifteen countries, often in partnership with other mission agencies.  They tend to concentrate missionaries in the Caribbean, the Mediterranean region, and some Asian and European countries.  Not only do they participate in overseas ministry, but Virginia Mennonite Missions is also very involved in local ministry as well; planting churches and equipping the established churches for ministry in a rapidly changing world.  I get a monthly newsletter from Ed Bontrager informing us of resources for those in pastoral leadership in these times.  VMMissions is a great organization, and I am glad that we as a church support this organization.

            Now as many of you probably already know, the past year or so has been a pretty tough year for many people financially.  Many people have lost jobs, lost hours at their work, taken a pay cut, lost homes, and so on. We are in a recession; times are tough.  So when times get tough, non-profit organizations like churches tend to take a hit financially.  It makes sense, when your constituents are making less money, less money will be donated.  This is true for most churches, and it is often true for organizations like Virginia Mennonite Missions.

            VMMissions has an annual budget of about $2,000,000.00 and they operate on a September 1-August 31 fiscal year.  During this past year individual and congregational giving was down 6%, which is not really that much when compared to other mission organizations.  But that wasn’t their only hit financially.  One thing that we often overlook is that the exchange rate of the US dollar to the Euro has not been in our favor recently.  So even if VMMissions is able to raise money, it is worth less when it is sent into other countries.

            But perhaps the biggest hit that VMMissions took last year was in their long-term investments.  We often refer to these investments as endowments.  They put a large sum of money in a high-earning account, like a money market or CD, and use the interest off of these accounts for their operating expenses.  VMMissions usually depends on 10% of their income coming from endowments.  That’s $200,000 that they usually rely on from endowments.  This year they lost money on their endowments.  I don’t know many non-profit organizations that can take that kind of hit and survive.

            So VMMissions was looking for ways to save money in the upcoming year, as we all should.  Pay cuts for staff personnel, elimination of staff positions, elimination of missionary positions; all were considered.  Chris and Melody Riddle were home on furlough this past summer after only 2 years of ministry in Italy.  They believed that they were just getting settled in their community, just getting comfortable with the language, their kids were just starting to connect with other kids, they were finally feeling like they were doing ministry, and they were told that there might not be enough money to send them back.

            Perhaps God was saying that the work of VMMissions and the work of the Riddles was no longer needed, because God provides for those who are doing His will, right?  Maybe this was God’s way of saying, “It is time to find something else to do.”  But in August, and remember that this is the last month of the fiscal year for VMMissions, approximately $600,000.00 in unexpected donations came in, mostly from bequests.  Now not all of this money was made immediately available for VMMissions, but it gave a huge boost financially to VMMissions as well as a huge boost to the attitudes of the 200+ workers with VMMissions.  There was still a need to reduce this year’s budget by 9%, but Chris, Melody, and the boys have been able to return to Italy to continue in the work that they have begun.  God provides when we are doing God’s will.

            Now this is not a call to complacency.  I am in no way suggesting that we sit back and do nothing and just expect that God will take care of things.  No, we are called to action.  We are called to service.  We are called to give of our time, we are called to give of our energy, we are called to give of our money, and we might be called to give our last bit of food.

            In our scripture for this morning, Elijah goes to the town that God directed him to.  And Elijah approaches a widow that God told Elijah would provide food for him.  But when Elijah asks her for bread, she tells him her sad story.  She only has enough flour and enough oil to make a small loaf of bread.  When that is gone, every thing is gone.  So she is going to go home, make what bread she can, share it with her son, and then die of hunger.

            But Elijah informs her that God has a different plan.  God wants to use her and God will make sure that the small amount of flour and oil will not run out until the drought is over and there is food in the region once again.

            How many of you know what an impala is?  Now I’m not talking about the Chevy Impala, I’m talking about the African antelope-like creature called an impala.  Impala’s are herbivores, meaning they eat plants.  They are not a predator to anything but grass and shrubs.  However, impalas make a pretty tasty treat to lions, tigers, and other carnivores.  Impalas grow to about 3 feet tall at the shoulders, and can weigh up to 170 lbs. so they are quite comparable to our white tail deer that so many of us like to eat.

            Now the interesting thing about an impala is that God gave them the ability to escape danger in an amazing way.  Impalas can jump over 10 feet high into the air, and over 30 feet long.  So when a predator approaches an impala, they just start jumping around, covering long distances in a single bound, until they reach safety.  To put that in perspective, if you put an impala on a basketball court, an impala could jump high enough to land on top of the basket and it could jump far enough to go ten feet beyond the three-point line. 

            Now if you go to the zoo, you will see impalas enclosed in an area with only a short wall around it that is about three, maybe four feet high.  And it doesn’t take a physicist to figure out that an impala should be able to jump out of a pen that has a wall that is only three feet high.  And having grown up on a farm, I know exactly how difficult it can be to keep an animal within the confines that you choose for it.  So why don’t the impalas jump out of their pens?

            Well someone figured out that impalas will not jump somewhere if they can’t see the place where they are going to land.  In order to have the confidence to leap over that wall, they need to see what is on the other side.  So as long as the wall is at or above eye level, they will not jump over it because they are afraid of what’s on the other side.

            We have the ability to do great things.  We have been called to join God in his shalom making mission to this world.  We have been called to join in what God is doing, but so often we are afraid because we are uncertain of what might happen.  We refuse to jump out of our pens because we don’t really know what is on the other side of the wall.  It is safe in our pens.  We have food to eat and a place to sleep.

            And this is understandable.  We all fear the unknown.  The woman from our scripture hesitated to give Elijah the last of her food and there is good reason to hesitate in this situation.  I would hesitate too.  Wouldn’t you?

            Now the interesting thing to me is that in verse nine God tells Elijah that he has instructed a widow in the town to feed Elijah.  But when Elijah comes to the woman, she says that she can’t feed him.  She only has enough to feed her son and herself one more time, and then they are going to die.  But Elijah instructs her to first make him something to eat, and then she will see that God will provide for her until the great drought is over.  They will not run out of flour and they will not run out of oil.  There will be plenty.  And evidently the woman listened to Elijah because what Elijah had said would happen did happen.

            See the thing that makes God’s calling so much easier to answer is when other people are hearing the same thing as you are.  God had told this woman to feed Elijah, but she didn’t listen.  She was like that impala, not knowing what was on the other side of the fence, afraid to jump because of the unknown.  But when Elijah comes along and confirms what she has heard, then she knows that her original call from God was authentic.  Someone else has heard it as well.

            Now I know that the Bible shows us some special cases where an individual is called by God and nobody else seems to know about it.  We don’t know that anybody else was able to confirm Abram’s call to leave Ur, we don’t know that anybody confirmed Moses’ call to lead the Israelites out of Egypt.  But I believe that when God calls us today, God does so by speaking not only to us, but to other people as well.

            Diane Zaerr Brenneman worked for Mennonite Church USA in a role that the business world might call human resources.  She was in charge of getting pastors to fill out what is called the Ministerial Leadership Inquiry documents which are then matched with a similar document that churches that are looking for a pastor fill out.  So Diane was in a position where a lot of pastors would come to her to say, Hey, can you help me find a job? 

            Diane told me that quite often she would have newcomers that would come to her office, call her on the phone, or send her an email saying, “God is telling me that I should be a pastor.”  And her response was always, “Great.  Who else is telling you that?”

            I encourage you to ask the same question of yourself when you sense that God is calling you to do something scary, life-changing, life-altering, or new.  If you sense that God is calling you to join in on God’s mission, ask friends and family to help you discern if that calling is truly from God.  If the impala would only ask the neighboring orangutan if it was safe to jump over the fence, then maybe it would find the confidence to do just that and explore new territory.  And maybe, just maybe, if we partner together, affirming God’s call on our lives, we might be able to join together to seek God’s shalom for all of the world, disciples making disciples, who make disciples.

God is listening

Hebrews 9:11-14

11But when Christ came as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation), 12he entered once for all into the Holy Place, not with the blood of goats and calves, but with his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption. 13For if the blood of goats and bulls, with the sprinkling of the ashes of a heifer, sanctifies those who have been defiled so that their flesh is purified, 14how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to worship the living God!

 

            I went to a pastor’s appreciation dinner on Tuesday, and I decided to wear my navy blazer, which most of you have never seen before because I so rarely wear it.  I was looking classy that evening with my starched-white shirt, navy blazer, and khaki pants.  I was, that is, until the lady next to me asked me to pass the sweet and low and I reached a little too low for it and dragged my sleeve through the chocolate cake on the table.  But of course I did not know immediately what I had done.  So I rested my arm at my side, I sat it on the table in front of me, I put it on the back of my chair.  And by the time I noticed what I had done, I had spread chocolate all across the right side of my fancy blazer, the chair, and the white table cloth.  By this time I was not looking as classy as I had when I left the house.

            So what did I do to clean it all up?  I rubbed some blood and ashes from a burnt heifer on the chocolate stains.  No, of course not!  I’m still looking for a good dry cleaner in the Staunton area.  Blood, ashes, what are these things going to clean?  I’ve cut myself enough times and cleaned enough fire pits to know that these things do not clean, they do not purify.  They stain.  I saw a joke on the internet this week saying that the best thing to do when you get a blood stain on a t-shirt is to spill more blood around the stain so that it doesn’t stand out as much.

            So there is something counterintuitive about God’s cleaning agent, because it is by the blood of Christ that we are made clean.  It doesn’t make sense, and perhaps that is one that we can chalk up to the humor of God.  I did not choose today’s scripture because it is an easy one to preach on or because it makes sense, but I hope that we can all be challenged to grow by looking at God’s cleaning agent.  Today I want to look at two different things that have come about because of the actions of Jesus: the atonement and purification.

            Today’s scripture is full of references to Judaism, which we might expect by the name of this particular book of the Bible: Hebrews.  The author of Hebrews is writing to Jewish people and is attempting to show them how Jesus is the fulfillment of the Jewish messianic expectations.  So in order to understand today’s scripture, we need to understand Judaism a little better.  Actually, I would say that in order to understand scripture at all, we need a pretty good background in Judaism.  So it might seem like today’s sermon is a little heavy on the Jewish teachings and practices, but I believe that this is essential for us to understand what scripture is intended to teach us.

Verse 11 begins by telling us that Jesus came to the greater and more perfect tabernacle or tent.  This is a reference to the old, portable tabernacle that the Israelites took with them as they wandered from captivity in Egypt to the Promised Land over a period of 40 years.  Then, as they set up in the Promised Land, they continued to worship in the tent style tabernacle up until Solomon built the temple just after the year 1000 BC.  So we have a couple hundred years where the Israelites worshiped God in a moveable tent, or more precisely a series of tents.

            When Solomon built his temple, it in many ways was structured the same way that the tabernacle made out of the series of tents was to be assembled.  Both had a holy place inside where the priests would perform the religious practices and then there was the Holy of Holies, or the Most Holy Place where only the high priest could enter one time each year on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, to make sacrifices to God to atone for the sins of the people.  To atone for something means to compensate for something done wrong, ie the forgiveness of sins.  These two rooms, the Holy Place and the Most Holy Place were separated by a curtain, or perhaps two curtains.  God was believed to dwell within the Holy of Holies and if anyone other than the High Priest went into the Holy of Holies they would die.  If the High Priest went into the Holy of Holies without first going through the correct rituals to purify himself, he would die.  I’ve even heard it said that the High Priest would tie a bell around his neck and a rope to his leg that way if they were struck down dead by God when they entered into the Holy of Holies the other priests would hear that the bell stopped ringing and they could pull the priest out with the rope.

            Before the High Priest went into the Holy of Holies on the Day of Atonement they were to get two goats and a bull and bring them into the temple.  The High Priest would then take the bull and slaughter it as a sin offering to atone for his own sin and the sin of his household.  If he didn’t do this, he didn’t live through the whole process.  A sinful person could not enter the Holy of Holies and have direct contact with God. 

So this now-atoned-for priest takes the goats and one of them will be sent out into the wilderness as a scapegoat, a symbolic carrier of the sins of the people away from the camp, and the other one is slaughtered for the sins of the people.  The High Priest then takes the blood of the goat and blood of the bull and smears it on various things within the Holy of Holies and within the tent of meeting.  The bodies of these animals are then burned as an offering, and the remains are taken out of the camp and disposed of.  Then they did it again the next year, and the year after that, and so on.  Every year, on the Day of Atonement, they went through this process.

But the author of Hebrews says that Jesus came as High Priest in a perfect tabernacle.  And in verse 12, “he entered once for all into the Holy Place, not with the blood of goats and calves, but with his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption.”

That, my friends, is what we call the Good News.  No longer do we need to slaughter a goat and cast our sins upon another goat and send it out into the wilderness to atone for our sins.  But Jesus came and acted as both the High Priest and as the sacrifice, atoning for the sins of all those that would know him as Lord.

Now there is a clear division between verses 12 and 13.  Verse 12 is comparing the Day of Atonement in the Jewish tradition and the way that Jesus has served as both priest and sacrifice in his death on the cross atoning for the sins of his followers.  There is a stipulation here.  If you are a follower of Jesus, then this atonement is for you.  It’s not just for Jews, it’s not just for Mennonites, but it is for those that know Jesus as Lord.  However, I would say that verse 13 changes gears a bit and goes from the atonement and transitions to purification. 

The Israelites had a fair number of purity laws concerning what they could and could not touch, what they could or could not eat, with whom they could or could not eat it with.  You cannot touch dead people or you will be ceremonially unclean for a week and you can’t enter into the temple for worship, you can’t be in contact with other people.  You can’t eat shellfish, pork, and other animals, or else you will be unclean and you cannot enter into the temple and you can’t be in contact with other people.  Don’t eat with a Gentile, or…you get the idea.

In Numbers 19 we find an interesting ritual that was used for the purification of the people when they became unclean.  The priest was to slaughter and burn a red heifer, and the ashes of the burned heifer were to be mixed with water and dumped on the unclean person.  Then, after the prescribed time had passed, that person could enter into the Jewish community and into worship, into the presence of God once again.  This is what the author of Hebrews is referring to when he says, “13For if the blood of goats and bulls, with the sprinkling of the ashes of a heifer, sanctifies those who have been defiled so that their flesh is purified, 14how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to worship the living God!”

I would say that atonement is contingent on making Jesus your Lord, but this purification is universal.  These are separate acts that took place through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  We often focus in the church on the atonement aspect of Jesus death and resurrection, but we should not take lightly this purification that took place.

It is because Jesus has purified all people that we can approach God without going through the High Priest.  At Jesus’ death, the Gospel of Luke says that the curtain that separated the common people from the Holy of Holies was torn in two.  God does not reside in the Holy of Holies.  Now God lives with us, among us, and within us in the form of the Holy Spirit.  And again, there is nothing that we have to do to acquire this.  Jesus already took care of it.  So whether you are the finest, clean cut, church-going Christian, or a drug-dealing, thieving, lowlife, God will hear your prayers.  Jesus bridged the gap that once divided God and humanity, the gap that once could only be bridged by a High Priest who had gone through the purification rituals.  And I believe that Jesus bridged that gap because Jesus, as God incarnate, came and dwelled among us, among the sinners, the tax collectors and prostitutes.  Now all can come directly to God.

Would you not agree that all people can come to God in prayer?  Or does God only hear the prayers of those who are righteous and upright?  If God does not hear the prayers of sinners, then when I prayed to God and asked him to be Lord in my life, that prayer was not heard.  I was not a Christian when I dedicated my life to following Jesus.  If I had already been a Christian, then I would have already made that decision.

In Luke chapter 18, Jesus tells a parable about two men that went up to the temple to pray; one a Pharisee and one a tax collector.  First the Pharisee stands up to pray, makes a big show about things, and prays out loud, “God, I thank you that I am not like other men—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.”

But then we hear from the tax collector, the un-holy one, the one that the Pharisee used as an example of what he was glad to not be like.  And the tax collector beats his breast and says, “God have mercy on me, a sinner.”  And who does Jesus say is heard by God?  Trick question!  They are both heard by God.  But the tax collector is the one that goes home on God’s good side.

Yes, I believe that God hears all prayers.  If we truly believe that God is all-knowing, then God must hear all prayers, regardless of our outward piety.  Righteousness is not a criteria in the New Testament for being heard by God and righteousness in not a criteria in the New Testament for God answering your prayer.  The criteria in the New Testament that we are given for God answering prayers is when we ask for things according to God’s will in Jesus’ name.  And it was God’s will to forgive the tax collector in Jesus’ parable.

This was not the case in the Jewish way of thinking.  If we look at John chapter 9, the story of the man born blind and healed by Jesus, we find that the Pharisees were questioning this now-healed man about Jesus to see if he sinned by healing on the Sabbath.  And this man born blind says that Jesus could not have sinned by healing him because God does not hear the prayers of sinners.  Chapter 9:31, “We know that God does not listen to sinners, but he does listen to one who worships him and obeys his will.”  He is saying, Jesus couldn’t have been a sinner because God answered his prayer.  We find scripture in the Old Testament that confirms this in Proverbs and Psalms.  But because Jesus has come to this earth in the form of a human being, spent time with the sinners, and torn the curtain separating the Holy of Holies, now all can come to God in prayer.

            This is hard for some of us to understand today.  We want to believe that we are the ones that God hears and nobody else.  We want to be like the man born blind and say, “God does not hear the prayers of sinners.”  We feel like we are entitled to God hearing our prayers and not the prayers of the sinners, not the prayers of riff-raff and vagabonds.  We have dedicated our lives to serving God!  We have sacrificed money, fame, power, prestige.  We have given to the poor, loved our enemy, forgiven people that did not deserve to be forgiven.  God must hear our prayers; God must hear my prayers.  It just doesn’t seem fair to think that God would hear the prayers of all people.

            But then we realize, Christianity isn’t about what I have done.  Christianity is about what God has done through Jesus Christ.  And to be honest, sometimes that scares me.  That scares me because I like to be in control.  If I just do this, and if I just do that, then God will love me more, then God will hear my prayers, then God will answer my prayers.  But no, it is not about what I do.  It is about what God has done.

One thing that I get from time to time when people find out that I am a pastor or a church-going man is that they will ask me to pray for them.  And it is not that they are asking me to pray with them as they pray, but to pray for them because they think that they are not good enough to pray to God.  They believe that they are sinners and that there is this separation between them and God and that God can not hear them across that gulf.  I try to assure them that my prayers are no better than their prayers.  God will hear you whether you are the pope or a prostitute, a reverend or society’s reject.  Perhaps the best thing that I could do for people in that situation is to say, Yes, I will pray for you.  Will you pray for me?

Today is All Saints Day.  We in the Mennonite Church don’t often make a big deal about All Saints Day because we don’t like to venerate individuals.  Perhaps that is a good thing, because as I have said, it isn’t about what we do, but about what God has already done that deserves veneration.

But yet we do have a decision to make.  We are faced with the decision to accept the gift of grace and follow Christ, or not.  And to be honest, accepting grace is the easy part, following Christ, what we call discipleship, is not.

In his letters to the Corinthians, Ephesians, Philippians, and Colossians, Paul addresses his recipients as “saints”.  To the saints in Corinth, to the saints in Ephesus, Philippi, Colossae.  Paul doesn’t call them saints because they are perfect, but because they have made the decision to follow Jesus, accepting the atonement brought about by his blood, and not the blood of goats and bulls, and dedicating themselves to a life of service.

As I look out upon the faces of the saints of Staunton, we know that we are not perfect, but we are here today because we seek to serve the living God.  Maybe you wouldn’t think of yourself as a saint.  Maybe you can think of a grandparent or a neighbor that was truly a saint.  But me, a saint?  Come on!

If that is where you are today, praise God, because we serve a God that came to this earth in the form of Jesus Christ to bridge the gap between sinful humanity and a holy God.  Now sinners like you and sinners like me can come to God to ask for healing, to ask for guidance, to ask for forgiveness so that we can work toward becoming the saints that we are called to be.

Blood and ashes leave stains.  I’ve got the shirts to prove it.  But the blood of Christ has cleansed us.  Is this counterintuitive?  Yes indeed.  Is it effective?  I’m counting on it.  And I am thankful that everyone, sinners and saints, can come to our Lord.  Praise God.

God of Compassion, Hear Our Prayers

James 5:13-20

13Are any among you suffering? They should pray. Are any cheerful? They should sing songs of praise. 14Are any among you sick? They should call for the elders of the church and have them pray over them, anointing them with oil in the name of the Lord. 15The prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise them up; and anyone who has committed sins will be forgiven. 16Therefore confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, so that you may be healed. The prayer of the righteous is powerful and effective. 17Elijah was a human being like us, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth. 18Then he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain and the earth yielded its harvest. 19My brothers and sisters, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and is brought back by another, 20you should know that whoever brings back a sinner from wandering will save the sinner’s soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins.

 

There were these two boys who lived with their Grandma. They were about to go to bed but before they slept they prayed. The older grandson started to pray. He prayed about the day he had and about everything he had done. The younger grandson then started to pray, he prayed much louder than his elder brother, he prayed for bikes and toys, and when he finished the older brother asked him “Why are you praying so loud? God is not deaf.” The younger son responded and said “Yea but Grandma is.”

I am not advocating that we pray to God as if he were a genie in a bottle, existing to grant our three wishes.  But today I would like to search the scriptures to see that God is a God of compassion who cares deeply about us and therefore is a God that hears and answers our prayers.  So we will start today by looking at some background stories leading up to our scripture for today.

They say that God never changes, that God is immutable, which is not to say that you can’t mute God, but that God does not mutate.  Not only do “they” say this, but God says this.  In Malachi 3:6 we read, “I the Lord do not change.”  It doesn’t get any clearer than that, my friends.

We also believe that Jesus is the manifestation of God on earth; Jesus is God incarnate, in the flesh.  Jesus says “If you have seen me, you have seen the father.”  So if Jesus is God and God does not change, Jesus does not change.  Hebrews 13:8 tells us that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. 

What does that mean?  What does it mean that God does not change?  It means that God does not stop being like God.  There are characteristics about God that do not falter or fail.  One of the most challenging thoughts that was given to me in seminary is that there is one thing that God cannot do: God cannot act outside of his character.  God cannot stop being righteous, just, and loving.  These are things that describe the God that we serve and because God does not change we can always count on God to be righteous, just, and loving.  And I want to add one more item to the list of God’s characteristics: God is compassionate.  Now prepare yourself for this, I’m now going to throw a little confusion into the equation.  Because God is compassionate, God does change.

Now you’re probably thinking, “What in the world are you talking about?  You just got done telling me that God does not change and now you are telling me that God does change?”  And if that is what you are thinking then you are hearing me correctly.  You see, I believe that the characteristics of God do not change, but that does not mean that God does not change his plans, his will, and his mind.  In fact, I would say that because God has the unchanging characteristic of being compassionate, God will change his plans, his will, and his mind.

We find a number of examples of God’s compassion causing God to change his mind in the Bible.  The first one that comes to my mind is the story of Abraham pleading for God to spare the city of Sodom from destruction.  It was announced to Abraham by his three visitors that God was going to wipe out this city because of the sinfulness of the people.  Abraham didn’t like this, so he began to plead with God to spare the city because it wouldn’t be right to wipe out the righteous with the wicked.  Abraham began pleading with God saying, If there are fifty righteous, will you spare the city?  And this bargaining went on until Abraham got God to agree to spare the city if there were only 10 righteous men to be found in the city. 

Some have minimized this story by saying that God knew that there were not 10 righteous in Sodom and therefore he already had his mind made up that he was going to destroy the city.  But this wasn’t the first time that God changed his mind, and it won’t be the last either.

Beginning in Genesis chapter 6 we find that humanity had strayed far away from their creator.  There was a huge division between God and people, which was not the purpose for which God made humanity.  No, God made humanity so that they might be in fellowship, in communion with God.  So God decides to wipe out all of humanity.

Some people have said that God wanted to wipe out humanity and start again, but Genesis 6:7 says, “So the Lord said, ‘I will blot out from the earth the human beings I have created—people together with animals and creeping things and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them.”  There is nothing in that verse about starting over again.  This is about God scrapping the entire plan and giving up on humanity.

But there was a guy named Noah that found favor in the sight of the Lord, and God decided to spare him.  And not only did God change his mind and not eradicate all of humanity, God also chose not to scrap all of creation.  That seems like a pretty big change in plans to me.  We may not be sitting here today if God had not changed his mind.

            Jesus as God incarnate even shows us how God changes his mind when given the opportunity to be compassionate.  We find in Mark’s Gospel the story of Jesus walking on water.  If you remember the story, Jesus had sent the disciples on ahead of him to cross the sea.  Then when evening came, Jesus looks out on the sea and sees the disciples struggling at the oars, fighting against the wind.  So he walks toward them on the water.  Then verse 48 tells us that Jesus intended to pass them by.  But the disciples were scared and they were tired and Jesus had compassion on them.  So Jesus changed his plans and joined them on the boat, calming the sea.

            We also read about how Jesus was ministering to the Jewish people when a foreign woman of Syrophoenician decent approaches him and asks him to heal her daughter of an unclean spirit.  Jesus responds to her by saying that he came to feed the children, that is the Jews, and that it would not be appropriate to take the children’s food and give it to the dogs.  The woman responds that even the dogs eat from the scraps of the master’s table.  Jesus’ heart was moved by this woman’s faith and he did as she requested.

            Contrast these examples to a different understanding of God.  There is a school of philosophy known as Deism that claims that God created the world and all that is in it.  But then God stepped away from the world and allowed the world to function on its own.  The view of God within Deism is often referred to as “God the clockmaker” where a clockmaker would make a time piece and then not have to mess with it again.

            Deists do not believe that God has ever intervened for the people that he has created.  Deists deny miracles, deists deny the incarnation of God in the form of Jesus Christ.  They believe that God created the world and then turned us loose on our own.

I believe that the examples from the Bible reveal that God does change because there is a part of God that does not change.  God is compassionate.  That does not change.  And because God is compassionate, God sometimes intervenes and changes things up a bit.

            So what does any of this have to do with the passage that we started with from James chapter five?  I think this answers the question of why we pray.  We pray because we serve a compassionate God that does hear our prayers and does change his mind and his plans.  We serve a God that does break into this world and intervene on behalf of those that he has created and loved.  If God did not care about us and if God did not care about what was important to us, then prayer would be nothing but a waste of time.  But no, our God is a compassionate God.

            James 5 tells us when to pray and how to pray.  In verse 13 we find that if any are suffering, they should pray.  James is encouraging us to pray for ourselves.  Now he doesn’t go into detail as to how these people are suffering that should lead them to pray for themselves.  But I would assume that he is not talking about being sick, because he gives instructions for how to pray when you are sick separately in the next verse.  So these sufferers are suffering from more than a flu bug.  They are suffering physically from oppression, slavery, life situations, and very likely persecution.

            I’ll be honest with you all, this is when prayer is the most difficult for me.  When life is tough, when things are not going the way that I want them to go, I am supposed to pray?  Prayer is the last thing that I want to do when times are tough, and I really don’t know what suffering is.  I hear some of your stories and all of the things that you have been through, the sicknesses, the loss of loved ones, and I know that I do not know what it truly means to suffer.

            Last night Sonya and I went to a benefit auction for a couple of our friends, Dawn and Paul, that have been trying to get pregnant for about 2.5 years.  They are trying to raise money to adopt a child from Russia.  They both come from a very family-oriented background and they both want children very much.  So when things didn’t happen naturally they underwent numerous fertility treatments; they have gone to numerous doctors.  They have been poked, probed, stuck with needles, and questioned. 

Dawn shared with me one day that every month they go through a time of mourning, mourning the loss of opportunity, mourning the loss of another child not born.  They have suffered, they have prayed, and I know that they have struggled to pray as they know that they should.

            One of the hardest things that I have had to do in a long time was to tell Dawn and Paul that we are expecting a child in January.  Having known their struggles and knowing Dawn’s role at her church as the pastor of youth and family ministry, I realized that our news would be tough for Dawn to hear, even though I also knew that she would support us full heartedly.

            Prayer is tough when you are in the middle of suffering.  And people mean well, telling you things like, “God will see you through this.  God will help you.  God will (fill in the blank).”  But when you are in the middle of suffering, it can be hard to believe in God at all.  But I believe that God can and often does intercede.  We serve a God of compassion.  That is why we pray. 

But prayer is not just something that you do on your own behalf.  Look at verse 16, which says, “Therefore confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, so that you may be healed.  The prayer of the righteous is powerful and effective.”  I don’t want to focus so much on the confessing your sins to one another now (though I do believe this to be a good practice), but the praying for one another.

            There are times when we just cannot bring ourselves to pray.  When we are hanging on to our lives by a thread, when our faith is dwindling, that is when we need prayer the most.  James instructs us that when we are sick to invite the elders of the church to pray for you.  I don’t believe that James instructs us to do this because our own prayers are not effective, but because our prayers might not be happening.

            I think that verse 13 lifts out another important aspect of prayer that we find on the complete opposite end of the spectrum, and that is how to pray when things are going well.  James says, “Are any of you cheerful?  They should sing songs of praise.”

            We have a lot to be happy about.  Each one of us.  I am thankful for the rain we got this weekend.  I am thankful for an abundant harvest from the fields and gardens in the area.  I am thankful for a roof over my head, clothes on my back, a loving wife that is carrying a healthy child in her womb.  I have much to be happy about.  And that…is…dangerous.

            We might think that James is simply stating the obvious here when he tells us to sing songs of praise when things are going well, but he says it for a reason.  I know that when things are going well that I tend to take God for granted.  God becomes a distant deity that I know is there if I need him, but I don’t take the time to thank God for what I have.

            I think part of this is because we live in a capitalist society where we have self-made men and self-made women.  We see the rich and the powerful and we hear stories about how Bill Gates, the co-founder of Microsoft, went from a college drop-out to one of the richest people in the world. 

So I end today by asking the question, does prayer work?  I say yes, prayer works.  And you don’t need to be a pastor and you sure don’t need to be perfect in order to have your prayer answered.  James lifts out the prophet Elijah as an example, saying that Elijah was just a plain human being, like you and me.  Flesh and blood, bone and hair.  He put on his tunic one leg at a time, just like anyone else.  But Elijah prayed, and he prayed fervently.  And because of his prayers, God made the rain stop and start again.

We all posses that kind of power with our prayers.  We can control the rain and the sun, the wind and cold.  Jesus told us his disciples that if they have faith the size of a mustard seed that they can move a mountain.  So if our prayers have that much power, then why do we so often not see any results?  Why can we pray and pray and pray some more, and a loved one still dies?  Why have Paul and Dawn prayed and been prayed for for years, and still not find themselves pregnant? 

Tony Campolo tells a story about being in a church in Oregon where he was asked to pray for a man who had cancer. Campolo prayed boldly for the man’s healing. That next week he got a telephone call from the man’s wife. She said, “You prayed for my husband. He had cancer.” Campolo thought when he heard her use the past tense verb that his cancer had been eradicated! But before he could think much about it she said, “He died.” Campolo felt terrible.
But she continued, “Don’t feel bad. When he came into that church that Sunday he was filled with anger. He knew he was going to be dead in a short period of time, and he hated God. He was 58 years old, and he wanted to see his children and grandchildren grow up. He was angry that this all-powerful God didn’t take away his sickness and heal him. He would lie in bed and curse God. The more his anger grew towards God, the more miserable he was to everybody around him. It was an awful thing to be in his presence.

But the lady told Campolo, “After you prayed for him, a peace had come over him and a joy had come into him. Tony, the last three days have been the best days of our lives. We’ve sung. We’ve laughed. We’ve read Scripture. We prayed. Oh, they’ve been wonderful days. And I called to thank you for laying your hands on him and praying for healing.”

And then she said something incredibly profound. She said, “He wasn’t cured, but he was healed.” (Tony Campolo, “Year of Jubilee,” Preaching Today Tape #212)

            The prayer of the righteous is powerful and effective.  God never promises to answer our prayers in the way we want him to, but God has promised to hear and answer our prayers.  As Paul and Dawn prepare to adopt a child from Russia, I know that they would say that there have been times when they have become frustrated, angry, and questioned God’s motives.  But yesterday as we sat at the benefit auction for them, we could see the love of God poured out through their many friends and family members.  Sometimes, even in moments of sorrow, God surprises us with blessings too great for us to even anticipate.

 

 

God you are unchanging, and for this we give you praise.

God of compassion, hear our prayers.

You have given sight to the blind and hope to the hopeless.

God of compassion, hear our prayers.

You are the great healer of physical, mental, and spiritual ailments.

God of compassion, hear our prayers.

You have loved us, redeemed us, and called us to follow you.

God of compassion, hear our prayers.

Help us, Lord, for you alone are holy.

God of compassion, hear our prayers.—Amen

Childish behavior

9/20/09

Mark 9:30-37 (New International Version)

Who is Greatest?

 33They came to Capernaum. When he was in the house, he asked them, “What were you arguing about on the road?” 34But they kept quiet because on the way they had argued about who was the greatest.

 35Sitting down, Jesus called the Twelve and said, “If anyone wants to be first, he must be the very last, and the servant of all.”

 36He took a little child and had him stand among them. Taking him in his arms, he said to them, 37″Whoever welcomes one of these little children in my name welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me does not welcome me but the one who sent me.”

 

Mark 10:13-16 (New International Version)

The Little Children and Jesus

13People were bringing little children to Jesus to have him touch them, but the disciples rebuked them. 14When Jesus saw this, he was indignant. He said to them, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. 15I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.” 16And he took the children in his arms, put his hands on them and blessed them.

 

            Growing up in the 1990’s was quite an experience.  I grew up during an era when the cartoons on television were worth watching.  We watched the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, He-man, The Thundercats, and perhaps one of my favorite cartoons of all times, Animaniacs. 

During my Junior High years I was quite the hit among girls and boys alike because of my ability to mimic the voice of Wakko Warner, one of the characters from Animaniacs.  I even had a Wakko shirt, which I bet still hangs in my closet in Ohio.

But something happened between the summer of my last year of Junior High and my first year of High School.  I remember being in the 9^th grade, a freshman, and speaking in my Wakko voice in a mixed gender group.  And this comical voice that had so often brought forth laughter in the 8^th grade now elicited a different response.  I got told by a girl that I was immature and that I needed to grow up.

What the heck!  Last year I was cool.  Now I’m immature?  That hit me hard.  I still remember that 15 years later.  Not only the experience, but the feelings with which I was overcome.  So what did I do?  I tried to grow up, to mature.  Gone were the silly voices and the silly T-shirts.  They were replaced by sarcastic banter and polo shirts.

Perhaps you have a similar story of when you made the decision that it was time to grow up.  But today I want to encourage you to be childish once again.  Today I want to show you that there are characteristics that most children posses at some point in their lives that we should all seek to reacquire today.  And we will get there, but let’s first start by looking at the context of our scripture for this morning.

            I sometimes feel bad for the twelve disciples.  They really are not made to look too bright in the Gospels, are they?  In the text leading up to our scripture for this morning we find that Jesus and his disciples are passing through Galilee and they stop for a teaching moment.  Jesus reveals to them yet again that he is going to be handed over to the authorities, killed, and then rise again on the third day.  And yet again the text tells us that they don’t get it.  And when these things really do happen, we see that the disciples still didn’t understand what Jesus was talking about until after the resurrection.

            So I feel kind of bad for the disciples because I think I can understand why they seem so confused so often.  Jesus was always teaching in parables.  He was always talking about mustard seeds, yeast, lost coins, lost sheep, lost sons, sowers, reapers, and now he was talking about dieing and rising again.  I would assume they were trying to figure out what it was that Jesus was trying to tell them in this parable, only what they didn’t know was that this wasn’t a parable at all.

            In addition to the fact that Jesus often did teach in parables, the disciples may have assumed this was a parable because it did not fit into their understanding of who Jesus was.  They understood him to be the next great king of Israel, like David and Solomon.  Jesus was going to reunite the chosen people and they were going to drive the Romans out of their Promised Land.  So there was no way that Jesus was going to die.  This must have been a parable.

            So these poor confused disciples are walking along the road to Capernaum after Jesus throws this non-parable parable at them and you can see by their conversation that they are still expecting Jesus to be some kind of militant leader or physical king.  They are talking among themselves and arguing about which of them is the greatest.  I would think that they are trying to establish some kind of hierarchy for their future positions under Jesus when he becomes the next king of Israel.  Jesus hears them chattering back and forth as they walk and after they arrive at their destination Jesus asks them what it was that they were talking about back there.  Oops, they just got caught.

Now Jesus launches into a parable, or perhaps more of a metaphor.  He takes this teaching opportunity and sits down to tell the disciples something important.  “If anyone wants to be first, he must be the very last, and the servant of all.”  To illustrate this, Jesus gets a hold of the closest child to him and says that whoever welcomes one like a child welcomes him and welcomes the one who sent him.

At first glance it might seem like Jesus is just rattling off random things here about humility, children, and being welcoming.  But I think that these things are very much connected. 

How old was Jesus when he began his public ministry?  Around 30 years old.  Why would he have waited 30 years to begin his ministry?  This is God incarnate, he was probably more knowledgeable at three years old than most of us are at thirty or sixty for that matter.  No, Jesus waited until he was thirty to begin his public ministry because that was the common age for someone to be considered to have lived enough to be able to teach others.  Think of Paul’s letters to Timothy when he tells Timothy to not let anyone look down on him because of his age.  Your credentials in the first century included your birth certificate (okay they didn’t actually have birth certificates) that confirmed that you had gone around the sun at least 30 times and were therefore experienced enough to have something worthwhile to teach others.  This makes Luke’s account of a twelve-year-old Jesus teaching at the temple all the more impressive.

Children were to be seen and not heard.  Sure, children were a blessing, especially sons, but they also got in the way when grownups were trying to have a serious discussion.

So Jesus says that if you want to be first in his kingdom, you need to be a servant to all.  Even to the little children, welcoming them in as your guest.  That is humbling, especially for these disciples that were thinking that they were going to be the great decision makers, the great political advisors, and the great generals in Jesus’ kingdom.  No, they are getting stuck with diaper duty.

Evidently the disciples were not listening to Jesus when he spoke these things to them because if we look ahead to Mark chapter 10, people are bringing their children to Jesus and the disciples are chasing them off!  He just said to welcome them, now they are chasing them off!  Jesus rebukes the disciples for doing this and he gives them a stern lesson.  He tells them that anyone that does not receive the kingdom of God like one of these children will never enter into it.  The parallel in Matthew 19 says that unless we become like children, we will never enter into the kingdom of heaven.

So I am getting pretty excited about being a daddy in a little more than three months.  This last week I painted our nursery (Yukon Gold) and I found myself full of anticipation, more so than I have been for a while as I thought about the opportunities that I would have to raise up and teach another living, breathing human being.  But as I looked at these scriptures from Mark about Jesus and the children, I realized that perhaps there was something that we should be learning from children.  We are to receive the kingdom of God as a child does and if we want to enter the kingdom of heaven we need to become like a child.  So what does that mean?

I started thinking about what characteristics children have that we as adults should emulate.  And don’t worry, I know that there are also things that we should not seek to emulate.  The first thing I thought of is that children are inquisitive.  If you have ever been around children, you know that they ask a lot of questions.  How much longer until we get there?  Why can’t I have a candy bar?  Why is the sky blue and the grass green?  Why can’t I have a pet snake?

Many of you will remember Greta Shenk, who was a YPCA member that came to Staunton Mennonite as a part of the Y-church program.  Both of Greta’s parents are seminary professors and I had the opportunity to study under them both in my seminary days.  Greta’s parents, Sara and Gerald, are both quite intelligent people.  Gerald has a PhD in Sociology of Religion and Sara has a doctorate in education.  So they wanted their children to grow up with the opportunity to learn as much as they could.

Sara and Gerald made an effort to answer all of the “why” questions that their children asked.  They didn’t want their children to just mindlessly do as they were told, but to be informed even as little children.  So when asked “why?” they would take the time to explain things rather than just say “Because I said so!”  

But Gerald shared a story one time about when they rented a boat for a family vacation and they were having some issues steering the boat.  I don’t remember what they were heading toward, but I will say that it was a waterfall because that makes the story better.  So they were on this boat and they were heading toward this waterfall and Gerald just starts barking out orders to the three kids.  Grab the sail!  Lower it quickly!  Throw the anchor overboard!  And the kids kept asking, “Why daddy?  Why daddy?”  That was a time when he needed them to just do as he said and not take time to answer questions!

But kids are naturally inquisitive.  They ask questions.  They realize that there is a lot that they have to learn yet, and they believe that they can learn from other people.  I believe that the same is true for us as Christians. 

So often we are discouraged from asking questions as Christians because I guess that we are afraid that asking hard questions will damage our faith.  But I find it much more damaging to my faith when people just throw orders or doctrine or scripture at me than when they actually sit down with me and have a discussion, even if that discussion involves us all admitting that we don’t always have all of the answers.

I come back to the text leading up to our scripture for today where Jesus tells his disciples that he is going to be handed over, killed, and then rise again.  Chapter 9 verse 32 says, “But they did not understand what he was saying and were afraid to ask him.”

I remember being told that when you ask a question you run the risk of looking like a fool for a few minutes, but when you don’t ask a question you run the risk of looking like a fool for the rest of your life.  The disciples did not ask questions and they didn’t seem to understand Jesus’ role here on earth until after the resurrection.

How many of us have never asked the difficult questions that we have, either because it will make us look less intelligent or less spiritual or for whatever other reason you can think of?  I encourage you to ask those “why” questions like a little child.  Ask the tough questions. 

As I shared with someone from church that I would be speaking about the childlike characteristics that we are to emulate he responded by asking about the scripture form 1 Corinthians 13 where it says something along the lines of when I was a child I spoke like a child, thought like a child, reasoned like a child.  But when I became a man I put away childish things.  He asked me why the Bible seems to say in one place to be like a child and in another to put away childish things.  Why does the Bible contradict itself?  Those are the kind of questions I want you to feel free to ask.  Children are inquisitive and I believe that we as Christians should be inquisitive as well.  Ask and it will be given to you, seek and you will find.

The next characteristic of children that I think we need to adopt as our own is that children are inviting.  We were all children at some point in our lives, and we were probably all told, “Don’t talk to strangers.”  Why did our parents teach us to not talk to strangers?  Because most of us would talk to strangers.  Kids don’t understand the norms of society.  They look at people that they don’t know, they smile at them, they talk to strangers. 

Maybe you have had this experience as well, but I have been in a conversation with a young family, meeting them for the first time, and I always try to talk to the little kids as well.  And every now and then these little kids will invite me over to their homes.

I think that the parents are sometimes a little embarrassed by this.  “Hey little Johnny.  We just met Mr. Kevin.  I am sure that he doesn’t want to come to our home.”  Or maybe “He’s a busy man and he probably can’t come over to play right now.”

I think that it is great that kids are so open and inviting to other people.  Now obviously there are some safety issues involved when we are talking about kids, but at what point in our lives do we become so privatized?  When do we begin to walk past our neighbor on the street and not even make eye contact, yet alone say hello.  God forbid we invite them over to our home like I’ve been invited by a little child!  Our lives are private.  We build fences, both figuratively and literally between us and our neighbors.  We go to work in the morning, come home late in the evening, throw something together for supper, eat in our homes, watch television all evening, do it all over again the next day and we never have to interact with anyone else.

We have made our lives private, and following along those same lines we have made our faith private.  We even use terminology that indicates that our faith is private.  We talk about Jesus as our personal savior and we say that we have a personal relationship with God.  Where do we get this stuff?  That isn’t biblical.  Yes it is important to have a relationship with God, but it should never just be about you and God.  It is about a communal relationship with God.  Jesus isn’t your personal savior like you have a personal assistant or a personal trainer.  This even seems to suggest that there is another savior.  Jesus is my personal savior; you better go find your own.  No, John 3:16 tells us that God so loved the world that he sent his one and only son.  Jesus wasn’t just sent for me, he was sent for the world.  Privatized lives lead to privatized religion.  My God is too big to be my personal god.  We need to be more inviting, inviting people into our homes, into our lives, and into a life of following Jesus.

The third personality trait about children that I want to point out that we should emulate is that they are accepting.  Children are not racist.  Children are not sexist (until girls/boys become yucky).  They do not discriminate based on class, level of income, occupation, education, hair color, eye color.  Maybe even more impressive is that children do not judge other people based on what they have done in their past.  They just play with whoever is close by.  They might disagree on their favorite toys and their favorite baby food, but they don’t fight.  I’ve never heard of a baby killing another baby over the rights to oil, gold, or diamonds.  That’s something that they learn later in life, probably from watching us.

This accepting nature is the way that Jesus models relationships for us in the Bible.  Dining with the tax collectors and the sinners, hanging out with the prostitutes, even lifting up the actions of a good Samaritan as the way his followers should respond to people in need.

We as Christians are quick to say that we need to love the sinner and hate the sin.  But how are we living that out?  I fear that too often we attempt to isolate ourselves from “sinners”.  And believe me, I get this.  I know why we avoid certain places and things.  We try to avoid certain temptations.  James tells us to resist the devil and he will flee from you.  But there is a big difference between resisting temptation and avoiding the very people that we are told to love; the very same people for whom Jesus died.

As we begin now to decorate the nursery in our home, Sonya has made the executive decision that she wants to decorate the room with items from Ten Thousand Villages.  She wants to decorate it with handicrafts made by artisans from around the world.  Wall hangings and toys from Africa, Asia, Europe, South America.  And though this will be a more expensive alternative to shopping at Target or Babies-R-Us, I support this idea.  I want our child to embrace the diversity of this world.  I want our child to know that all people are not just like him or her.  I want our child to respect other people’s opinions and their culture.  I hope that we can allow our child to maintain that characteristic that all children are born with that says all people are okay, even if we don’t agree with them.  But yet I also want my children to stand up for what they believe in.  Not to be wishy-washy on their theology, but to approach God with awe, reverence, and confidence.

Inquisitive, invitational, and accepting.  Those are three of the personality traits of children that I believe we should seek to adopt.  Which ones do you think would be helpful?

Who is God’s favorite?

September 6, 2009

James 2:1-10

2My brothers and sisters, do you with your acts of favoritism really believe in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ? 2For if a person with gold rings and in fine clothes comes into your assembly, and if a poor person in dirty clothes also comes in, 3and if you take notice of the one wearing the fine clothes and say, “Have a seat here, please,” while to the one who is poor you say, “Stand there,” or, “Sit at my feet,” 4have you not made distinctions among yourselves, and become judges with evil thoughts? 5Listen, my beloved brothers and sisters. Has not God chosen the poor in the world to be rich in faith and to be heirs of the kingdom that he has promised to those who love him? 6But you have dishonored the poor. Is it not the rich who oppress you? Is it not they who drag you into court? 7Is it not they who blaspheme the excellent name that was invoked over you?

8You do well if you really fulfill the royal law according to the scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 9But if you show partiality, you commit sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. 10For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it.

 

An Ohio State fan in an elevator leans over to the guy next to him and says, “Wanna hear a good Michigan joke?”

The guy next to him replies, “Well before you tell that joke, you should know something. I’m 6′ tall, 200 lbs., and I am a Michigan grad. The guy standing next to me is 6′ 2″ tall, weighs 225, and he’s a Michigan grad. And the fella next to him is 6′ 5″ tall, weighs 250, and he’s a Michigan grad. Now, you still wanna tell that joke?”

The first guy says, “No, not if I’m gonna have to explain it three times.”

I don’t mess around when it comes to college football.  I have two favorite teams: Ohio State and whoever plays Michigan.  I love my Buckeyes and I do not apologize for this.  There is Ohio State, and then there is everyone else.  Nobody can compete for my love when it comes to college football.  Some of you (misguided) folks here today would say the same thing about the Virginia Tech Hokies.  Or maybe if football isn’t your sport, you might claim such love for the Boston Red Sox or for a NASCAR driver, a musician, or what ever other form of entertainment you might choose.

We as human beings tend to have favorites.  We could go through item after item, thing after thing, and you could probably name your favorite for me.  What’s your favorite color?  Your favorite food?  Your favorite song?  Yeah, we have favorites.  We might even have favorite people.  Maybe you have a favorite aunt or a favorite teacher or even a favorite child.  We have favorites.  That’s just the way we were made.

But when it comes to God we know that God does not have favorites, at least not among his children.  Whether you are rich or poor, young or old, handsome or down-right ugly, God loves you.  God loves you and God loves people diametrically different from you.  So let’s look at the scripture for this morning to see how God loves us all equally and does not have favorites.

            James comes right out of the gates with a tough rhetorical question, tough because it cuts right to the core of the issue.  He asks, “Do you with your acts of favoritism really believe in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ?”  He seems to be implying that because his Jewish hearers are providing favoritism for a certain social class that they don’t even believe in Jesus!

            Now obviously these people were not saying that Jesus never lived or that he never died.  James is talking to Christians, so I can’t imagine that they don’t believe that Jesus is real.  He isn’t saying that these Christians don’t believe in Jesus in the same way that I don’t believe in the boogey man, elves, and hobbits.  Their not believing in Jesus had more to do with their actions than with their beliefs because as Jesus says in John 14:12, anyone that believes in him will do the works that he has done.  The biblical model of belief requires action.  Belief leads to following Jesus; living as he lived, doing as he taught.  At the end of this chapter James writes that even the demons “believe” in Jesus and that faith without works is dead.

            It is hard to say whether James witnessed something or if he is making up a hypothetical situation as an example, but he talks about two people entering into a place of worship, a synagogue in this situation.  One is a rich man with fancy clothes and the other is a poor man with tattered clothes, perhaps with scraggily looking hair and beard, maybe he even smells a bit.  And the people at the synagogue take notice of the rich man and they give him the best seat in the place of worship.  The poor man…well it sounds like they make him sit at the feet of the others.

            James has a problem with this!  Why would you treat a person better just because he or she has money?  Didn’t Jesus come to save both the rich and the poor?  And didn’t Jesus seem to spend more time with the poor, often criticizing the rich and the powerful?  Why would we flip this upside-down and roll out the red carpet for the rich man?  All men and women are equal in the eyes of God.  There is no longer male or female, rich or poor, slave or free, but all are one in Christ.  Yet the people at this synagogue seem to be flocking to the rich man.  And why?  Probably because of what he can give them.

            Imagine a rich person walking into the church, and we know of this person.  In fact, everyone knows of this person.  Let’s say that it is LeBron James.  So we reach out to LeBron thinking that if we become friends with him, maybe he will buy us lunch sometime.  Maybe he will take us to a professional basketball game sometime.  Maybe he will lend us his Lexus for awhile; maybe he will take us on exotic vacations with him.  And even better, other people will see us spending time with LeBron and they will think we are great as well.  Hey look, there’s Kevin!  He hangs out with LeBron.  We like Kevin.

            But now switch LeBron with some homeless guy named Larry.  Larry has nothing to offer us.  He won’t buy us lunch or lend us the Lexus.  In fact, we might have to lend Larry money and give him rides.  Larry isn’t going to take us on vacations.  Larry hasn’t ever even been out of the state.  And when people see us with Larry, will they think less of us?  Will they think, “There’s that stinky guy and his friend.”

            That’s what they said about Jesus, too.  Those in high positions critiqued Jesus on whom he spent his time with.  But Jesus knew that each and every person had the same value to God.  He did not discriminate based on level of income.  He didn’t discriminate at all.  Jesus didn’t choose with whom he spent his time based on someone’s socio-economic status.  Jesus didn’t choose his friends based on what they could do for him or whether or not they would make good conversation partners.  Jesus loved everyone equally.

            As many of you know, my pay check comes from these baskets that get passed around each Sunday.  My income depends on how much you give.  So you might think that I have a lot of interest in the offering each week.

            But it has been my policy to not have anything to do with the collecting, counting, and depositing of the offering each week.  I don’t know who gives and I don’t know how much you give.  I have never gone through the offering and looked at your gifts to the church because I have never wanted to show one person favor over another.  If LeBron gives more than Larry, should he get more of my time and more of my prayers?  Should I show him favoritism because of his giving?  I don’t think so.  What you give is between you and God.  I hope you are giving to the church and to other charities, but I don’t want to know if you are giving toward our budget or not.  If LeBron walks in the front door, I shouldn’t view him as a walking dollar sign.  I should view him the same as a poor person, the same as Jesus did.  I should see him as a beloved child of God, a person needing to be ministered to, a person in need of grace and love.

            For who knows how long, in India they had a social system in place known as the Caste System.  This was a hierarchy of people based on what jobs they had.  The highest position in the Caste System was known as the Brahmans.  The Brahmans were the intellectuals: the priests, the poets, the professors.  The lowest position in the Caste System was known as the Dalits, with many positions in between the Brahmans and the Dalits.  The Dalits performed the lowest of service jobs in the country.  These were the people that cleaned up after animals, dug sewage ditches, and burnt the bodies of the deceased.  The Dalits were better known by their common name, the “Untouchables.”

            The Caste System kept you in your place.  You didn’t move up a division and you didn’t move down.  If your father was a Brahmin, you would be a Brahmin.  And so would your mother and your spouse, because you didn’t marry outside of your caste.

            The Caste System in India, which I am told still exists in some areas, is not an example of racism.  It is an example of classism.  It was discrimination based on your level of income.  And by looking at our scripture for this morning, we can see that classism is not something that the Indians invented.  This is something that has been going on since at least Jesus’ day, and I would bet for a long time before that.

            Classism was not only a problem in the church when people came together for worship, classism was a problem anytime people got together.  In 1^st Corinthians 11, Paul writes to the church about a problem that he has heard about in how they get together for meals.  It seems like there are some that are coming early and eating and drinking more than their fair share and leaving some to go hungry.  What Paul seems to be suggesting is that it is the rich and the powerful that are coming early and eating all of the food, even though they have plenty to eat at home.  And then it is the poor that are left to go hungry because they don’t have anything to eat at home; this was their opportunity to eat and the rich folks were gluttonous, consuming all the food and drink.

            So while James uses the example of giving the best seat to those who are rich, his point is that we are to treat everyone as equals.  Money, power, fame, fortune…all of these things are temporary and without value in the kingdom of God.  Each person has the same value in the eyes of God and we saw that in the ministry of Jesus.  Young and old, rich and poor, sick or healthy, he loved them all equally and still does today. 

            I think we do a pretty good job of welcoming people to this church that might be different from ourselves.  But, like in most things, we can also probably do better.  Myself included.  I know that I have a certain kind of person that I have idealized as coming to this church.  I would like to see more people in their 20’s, 30’s, and 40’s with families.  And when we have someone that fits this mold walk into the church, I feel a little nervous because I want to make a good impression on them.  I want them to like me and I want them to like this church.  I want them to keep coming back.  So when a retired person comes to visit, do I give them the same welcome as I might give a young family?  Do I invite them to my home for lunch or to get together sometime just to hang out?  Probably not.  And that is a problem.

            I think it is clear that we tend to spend time with people in our own social-economic class and close to our own age.  Most of my friends are middle class, 25-40 year olds.  And there is nothing wrong with having friends that are like you.  Of course you are going to have friends that are like you, you must have common interests, otherwise conversations sure are difficult.  You can only talk about the weather for so long, my friends. 

The problem is when my friends are exclusively people just like me; when I don’t reach out and share the love of Christ with people of every race, color, creed, and social-economic class.  How many times have I invited a person living in poverty into my home?  How many times have I had them over for a cookout? 

            I know the excuses; I know them because I have used them myself.  We don’t invite people of a lower social status than us into our homes because we won’t have anything to talk about.  It is difficult to connect with some people when you don’t have anything in common.  Or maybe it is scary to have someone into your home and see your valuable possessions.  There is a fear that they might steal from you.  But these excuses are examples of classism today.  Judging people based on their socio-economic position. 

            But look at Jesus.  Jesus had every opportunity to hang out with the richest and most powerful people of his time.  And he did, to some extent.  He did spend time in the homes of Pharisees and he did spend time with Scribes.  But he also spent time with common folk like Mary and Martha, and he spent time with the poorest of the poor, with tax collectors and sinners.  I keep coming back to this strange group of men that Jesus spent time with every day.  There was a zealot that would have been a part of a group that wanted to fight the Romans and take back Jerusalem and there was a tax collector that worked for the Roman government.  There were fisherman who worked hard out on the sea, bringing in their catch, and there was a man that turned Jesus in to the authorities for some silver.  Some were richer than others.  Some were young, some were old.  Each had value to Jesus.  Jesus knew an important truth that we would all gain from hearing again: Each and every human life has equal value.

            There are people that get this.  I’ve mentioned Shane Claiborne a time or two.  Shane is cofounder of a Christian Community in one of the poorest sections of Philadelphia.  Shane owns very few things, dresses like a neo-hippie, makes his own clothes, and ministers to the poorest of the poor.  Every day he hears stories about people being mugged, beaten up, raped, and exploited.  And he doesn’t just listen to the stories and then go back to his safe home in a gated community.  He lives out that reality with those that are suffering.

            Here we have an educated white male, privileged for sure, choosing to live among the poorest of the poor.  Sounds kind of like something our God did in Jesus Christ, taking on human flesh and living among us.  And what in the world would make a person do such a thing?  Love, my friends, love.

            In verse 8, James quotes a verse that Jesus also thought had some importance for his followers.  Love your neighbors as yourself.  Jesus thought that this verse was so important that he put it as second in importance, only to loving God.

            And we all know that this is not always easy to do.  It is difficult to love the people we like and have things in common with, let alone people vastly different from ourselves.  But we have a decision to make.  As Shane Claiborne has said, “The most radical thing we do is choose to love each other… again and again.”  It is a choice that we must make continually.  We make the decision to love others every day.

            So I want to leave you with a few challenges for the week ahead.  The first challenge is to commit an act of radical love and generosity to someone that you normally wouldn’t spend time with.  And it doesn’t have to be a homeless person.  If you are a Republican, invite a Democrat over to your home for supper.  Give a ride to a person that you have met before and that you dislike.  Show that the love of God is not bound by any –ism.  Not classism, racism, or nationalism.

            My second challenge for you is to make sure that they know why you are tearing down the walls that have been built between you.  Make sure that they know that you are acting out of Christian love.  Don’t just invite them to go to church with you, offer to give them a ride.  Offer to take them out to eat afterward or better yet, invite them to your home.

            James begins our scripture for today by asking Christians if by their acts of favoritism they are showing the world that they believe in our glorious Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  God shows no signs of favoritism, Jesus shows no signs of favoritism.  As followers of Jesus Christ, we must not show any signs of favoritism, either.

Three things we should say more often

Romans 1:8-17

8First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is proclaimed throughout the world. 9For God, whom I serve with my spirit by announcing the gospel of his Son, is my witness that without ceasing I remember you always in my prayers, 10asking that by God’s will I may somehow at last succeed in coming to you. 11For I am longing to see you so that I may share with you some spiritual gift to strengthen you— 12or rather so that we may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith, both yours and mine. 13I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that I have often intended to come to you (but thus far have been prevented), in order that I may reap some harvest among you as I have among the rest of the Gentiles. 14I am a debtor both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish 15—hence my eagerness to proclaim the gospel to you also who are in Rome.

16For I am not ashamed of the gospel; it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who has faith, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. 17For in it the righteousness of God is revealed through faith for faith; as it is written, “The one who is righteous will live by faith.”

 

Three things we don’t say often enough

            There was a pastor that had been at a new church for about a year.  And, as was his custom, after the church service, he met the people of the congregation at the door on the way out of the sanctuary.

            One Sunday a little boy handed the pastor a handful of coins and dollars bills as he left the sanctuary.  The pastor said, “Thanks, but I can’t take this.”  Yet the boy insisted.

            The pastor asked him why he insisted on giving the pastor the contents of his piggy bank, to which the boy replied, “I want to do anything I can to help.  My daddy says that you are the poorest preacher we have ever had at this church.”

            Kids say the funniest things, but they are honest.  If they are feeling something, they tell you.  If they want something, they let you know.  But sometime between the time we start talking and the time we turn 18, we learn to guard our tongues and only say certain things.  Let me assure you, this is a good thing.

            But there are things that I believe we need to say more often.  We should tell our families that we love them more often, we should say we are sorry more often, and when I go to a buffet, I should learn to say “I’m full.” more often, or at least earlier.

            Today I would like to look at the first chapter of Romans to see three things that Paul teaches us that we should say more often.  Today I want to begin a series of sermons by focusing on these three things that we don’t say often enough, 1. Thanks for the church, God. 2. Let’s get together sometime. 3. I am not ashamed of the gospel.

Thanks for the church, God

            Paul begins by saying, “I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is proclaimed throughout the world.”  I don’t say that enough, and I bet you don’t either.  Paul is thankful for the church in Rome, for the body of believers and he says that he prays without ceasing for the Roman church.

            Well I do thank my God for you, each and every one of you that is reading these words today.  As the church, we are the hands and feet of Jesus Christ, called to live out and share the message delivered through the prophets of old, through the authors of the New Testament, and through Jesus Christ himself.  And I give God thanks that his word is spreading and that disciples of Jesus Christ are being formed throughout the world.  Not only in Rome but even here in Staunton, Virginia as well.

            I do pray for you, but not nearly as much as I ought to.  Last weekend while Sonya and I were in Nebraska for a wedding, I made sure to pray for you as you were beginning the services here.  I prayed for Jim as he brought the morning sermon, for Susan as she led us in music, and for Ronald as the worship leader.  I prayed that your time would be an opportunity to connect with God, a time to be filled with the Holy Spirit, and a time to grow in knowledge of who God is.

            And much like Paul said that the faith of the Romans was being proclaimed around the world, the faith of the Stauntonians is being proclaimed around the world, or at least in certain parts of it.  In March Sonya and I traveled to Ohio to visit our families and as I said, last week we were in Nebraska.  And it is pretty hard for me not to brag about you all, because you have all shown great faith.

            People ask me everywhere I go, “How’s the church going?”  And I tell them, they are doing very well.  We are growing in numbers, we are growing closer to God, and we are growing closer to each other.  I get to tell stories of how you have reached out to provide meals for those who are sick.  I get to tell stories of how you have invited friends and neighbors to church.  I get to tell stories of how we have been able to host a popular men’s singing group.  Your faith is being proclaimed throughout the world, or at least the parts that I am coming in contact with.

            It is clear when we read our scripture for today that the apostle Paul was a man of prayer.  He prayed, not only for himself, but for all of the people that made up the church and all of those whose life might be touched by the church.  And Paul thanked God for the church.  Something that we don’t say often enough is that we thank God for each person that makes up the body of Christ, the church.

Let’s get together sometime

            Paul goes on to talk about how he wants to meet with the Roman Christians so that they can be mutually encouraged by one another.  There is something about surrounding yourself with positive people that are experiencing positive things that is contagious.  Now I am not saying that we avoid hanging out with negative people all together.  We need to love all people and spend time with all kinds of people.  I would just suggest that you make sure to get a healthy dose of positive attitude as well.  Balance is important.

            I am glad that we give the opportunity to share prayer requests and praises each Sunday at church.  I find this time to be a chance to get to know what is going on in peoples’ lives, to connect with others on a deeper level, and to show love and support for each other.  If everyone just sat here, sang a few songs, and listened to me talk for about 25 minutes, I think we would be missing an important part of worship.  Just as Paul talks about being mutually encouraging to the Roman Christians, we can and must be mutually encouraging to each other.

            I wish we had more opportunity to share with one another in church, but the whole way we do church doesn’t make it too easy to do so.  That is why meeting outside of the church building throughout the week is so important.  Whether it is at a coffee shop, running errands together, or having people over to your home, it is important to spend time with other people.  I believe that we should be hospitable, inviting people into our homes and into our lives.  Hospitality is such an important theme in the Bible.  Romans 12:13 tells us to practice hospitality and gives no reason for why we should do so.  Perhaps because it should be obvious: we are to practice hospitality treating others as Christ has shown us to.

            I know that Sonya and I have not done the best that we could inviting people into our homes.  We think of it often, and we have a long mental list of people we would like to have over.  But we allow the busy-ness of life to keep us from being hospitable.  And by doing so I believe that we are missing many chances to be mutually encouraged by our time together.

There are people in this church that are great hosts and hostesses.  I have a lot to learn from them.  And I hate that I have the mentality that sometimes I need to have everything perfectly clean and to have a great meal prepared before I invite someone over to my home.  As my mother told a friend of hers from Iowa when we were traveling through and wanted to stop by for a visit, “I’m coming to see you, not your house.”  Something that we don’t say nearly enough is, “Let’s get together sometime.”

I am not ashamed of the gospel

            Now the part of our scripture that I want to focus the most on today.  Verse 16 says, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel; it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who has faith, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.”  Paul gives us a bit of a definition of the good news here by saying that the good news is the power of God for salvation to everyone who has faith.  But I believe that this definition pretty vague.  And I think that is on purpose.

            Paul doesn’t lay out all of the details of the gospel in six bullet points or a brief synopsis, but he leaves it open for further and ongoing defining.  And if you haven’t figured it out, I like broad definitions that allow God to work, rather than boxing God in with a few words or paragraphs.

So how would I define the gospel?  Well, first of all the word we translate as gospel literally means, “good news.”  And I like to define the good news as saying it is God’s action, through Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, to reconcile us to God and to each other.  Reconciliation, I believe, is central to the good news of Jesus Christ. 

Dictionary.com defines reconciliation as an action, “to bring into agreement or harmony.”  As a church that sings a lot of four-part, a cappella music, we probably know what it means to be out of harmony from time to time.

Last weekend at the wedding in Nebraska, all of the cousins and those who have married into the family sang a blessing upon the bride and groom.  Not all of those that have married into the family grew up singing four-part harmony…and it showedJ.

And I share that story, not to be critical because anyone that sits near me in church knows that I am not the best singer by any means.  But I wish to show you that when we are out of harmony with each other, things are less than they could be.

            It isn’t a secret that we as humans are not perfect.  We make mistakes, we fail.  We often call this sin in the church.  But we serve a God who is perfect and expects us to follow him.  So when we make mistakes, we are out of harmony with God.  And things become less than they could be.  Thankfully, through the reconciliation made possible by Christ, we are brought back into harmony with God.

            Not only with God, also with other human beings.  Jesus taught us that if we sin against a brother or sister in Christ, it is more important that we go and make things right with that person than to spend time worshiping God.  He tells us that if there is something between us and another person we are to leave our offering on the altar and go make things right before we go on with our acts of praise.  We are told to forgive others, not 7 times, but 70 times 7.  And that isn’t meant to say that we stop at 490 times, but that we keep on forgiving. 

            Jesus taught us how to live at peace with other people, making ourselves lower than them, being a servant to all.  Jesus stooped to wash the feet of his disciples, performing the act of a servant though he is a king.  The Bible teaches radical sharing; if you have two tunics, give one to someone that has none.  When we stop trying to make ourselves look better than other people, when we give up our selfish ambitions and live for Christ first, then others, then we can be living the life that God intended for us.

            Jesus provides the way to be reconciled to God and the way for us to be reconciled with our fellow brothers and sisters.  Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 5:18-19, “All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; ¹⁹that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us.”  That is my understanding of the gospel.  That is my understanding of the good news.  And what good news it is.

            I am not ashamed of the gospel, and I really don’t see why anyone would be ashamed of the gospel.  That God came to the earth in human flesh to restore relationships between God and humanity and each other is not something that I am ashamed of.  But I will tell you what I am ashamed of.  And that’s what some Christians have done, and tried to justify by claiming that it is God’s will.

            The Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, the Holocaust, slavery, Colonialism, suppression of women, propagation of hate, war mongering.  I could go on and on.  People, people claiming to be Christians, have done these things “in the name of Christ.”

            And this isn’t just a trend that we see in the history books.  It continues today.  We have probably all heard about the church that has protested funerals, civil gatherings, and other non-threatening events to say that “God hates___.”  Just fill in the blank.  They recently protested a funeral in Wisconsin after three students died in a house fire saying that God was punishing the students and their parents because they were living un-Christ-like lives.  Of course nobody in the church had ever met any of the students personally.  Exactly what a person needs to hear at their 20-year-old’s funeral, right?

            Others have made public statements about God punishing 9/11 victims for the way that the United States has drifted from God’s teachings, or Hurricane Katrina, or what ever other natural disaster that has taken the lives of many.

            Don’t get me wrong, I strongly believe that God calls His people to live by a certain ethic and I do believe that we need to be correcting an erring brother or sister.  We also need to be a prophetic voice to those outside of the church about God’s will and desire.  But is this how Jesus shows us to correct people?  By protesting, by printing something in a book, newspaper, or website?  I hope that we are always seeking ways to share the truth in love and not through hate.

            Jesus clearly teaches in Matthew 18 that if someone within the church sins against us we are to approach that person in private and seek to make things correct them.  Again, this is about reconciliation, not public humiliation.  And how does Jesus provide guidance for those outside of the church?  He builds relationships with them first.  He eats with them, he has conversations with them.  He loves them and calls them to follow him.

            I am not ashamed of the gospel, but I am embarrassed of some Christians.  I watched a pastor on television recently and he said something like this.  If I was walking down a street and someone punched my wife in the face, you better believe I would hit him back.  And you would too if you are any kind of man. I thought to myself, “Maybe I’m not a real man then, because I probably wouldn’t hit him back.”  First of all, we are taught to turn the other cheek when someone strikes us.  We are taught to forgive others, love our enemies.  And second, who in the world would just walk up and hit my wife in the face?  If someone did walk up and hit my wife in the face, there is a good chance that that person is mentally ill and they need my love more than they need my fist in their face.  I was embarrassed by the Christian that told me and everyone else that they need to hit someone in the face if they hit your wife first because that is what a real man would do.  If that’s what being a man is, then I guess I’m not one.

            But while I have been embarrassed by other Christians, I’m not ready to stop calling myself a Christian just yet. When I was in Seminary, a lot of my friends made the decision that they would no longer refer to themselves as Christians, but as Christ-followers.  Their reason for doing this is because of all of the negative stereotypes that are out there about Christians, stereotypes that exist for a reason…because some of us fit those stereotypes.  And I want to make sure that you realize that it wasn’t that they were ashamed of Jesus or ashamed of the gospel, but they didn’t want to be lumped together with some of the people that I just got done critiquing. 

            I understand what they were trying to say: If this is what being a Christian is, then I am not one.  But I say that rather than abandoning the name Christian, we should make sure people know what a Christian should look like.  We should be the ones feeding the poor, loving the lost, clothing the naked, mending broken relationships, and so on.  We should be leading our people in our care for God’s creation, living simply so that others might simply live.  I will admit that I am tired of Christians being known for what they are against.  But rather than taking the easy way out and abandoning the term “Christian”, we should transform what people think about Christians so that they will think of what we are for, rather than what we are against.  And what are we for?  We are for the kingdom of God and that all people might come to be reconciled to God and each other.

            Maybe we can work together to reconcile, to bring the term “Christian”, back to the point where a Christian will look like something like Christ.  Then we can live in harmony with God and each other.  And what a sweet sound that will be.

            Let’s take time this week to thank God for the church, let’s practice hospitality and be mutually encouraged, and let us never be ashamed of the good news.

Sons of the Day at SMC

Sons of the Day, a popular a cappella group, will be leading our worship on Sunday, the 17th of May beginning at 10:30 am.  Please join us as we worship God in music. 

You are also welcome to join us for a free meal in our fellowship hall following the service (around noon). 

I hope to see you there.

Shining a Light in the darkness

Kevin Gasser

Staunton Mennonite Church

1/4/09

 

Isaiah 60:1-6

60Arise, shine; for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you. 2For darkness shall cover the earth, and thick darkness the peoples; but the Lord will arise upon you, and his glory will appear over you. 3Nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn. 4Lift up your eyes and look around; they all gather together, they come to you; your sons shall come from far away, and your daughters shall be carried on their nurses’ arms. 5Then you shall see and be radiant; your heart shall thrill and rejoice, because the abundance of the sea shall be brought to you, the wealth of the nations shall come to you. 6A multitude of camels shall cover you, the young camels of Midian and Ephah; all those from Sheba shall come. They shall bring gold and frankincense, and shall proclaim the praise of the Lord.

 

            I heard a story about a man that used to help milk the cows on a local dairy farm in Ohio.  He was blind, but he knew the cows as well as anyone else on the farm.  The blind man often helped the owner of the dairy with the morning milking, beginning around 4:30 am.

            One day, the owner slept in a little later than normal.  So he quickly rushed to put on his work clothes and boots and he hurried out the door to the barn.  When he got to the barn, everything was dark as normal.  But what was different was that everything else was running.  He could hear the vacuum pump howling, the pulsators pulsating, and the cows were shuffling through the milking parlor.  The blind hired hand had started milking without the owner.  He had everything running and was beginning the task of milking, but he had no need for the lights. 

            For those of us that can see, we know just how important light can be.  Without light we cannot see anything.  In times of darkness, we are drawn to the light.  Bugs actually use the light of the moon as a navigational system.  Pilots and ship captains have used the stars of the sky to help them find their way.  Light has a way of attracting us and giving us direction.  And today we are going to look at the light that Isaiah had prophesized about that would draw all people to Israel, and would draw all people to Jesus.

            Our scripture for this morning comes to us as the prophet Isaiah is beginning to break out in song as a way of celebrating what God is doing for his people.  Israel has been in captivity for around 70 years where they were being punished for the sins of the people.  But now God’s favor was returning to his chosen people.  They were reclaiming the Promised Land.  They were leaving behind their shackles and chains and exchanging them for freedom once again.

            And Isaiah speaks to the Israelites and tells them to arise and shine, for their light has come, and that the glory of the Lord is upon them.  Oh, sure, there is going to be darkness that will cover the earth; especially the people of earth.  But the Lord will be with his people through the difficult times ahead.  He will be a light in time of darkness and his glory will cover his people.

            As I read these lines from Isaiah, I can’t help but think about the grace and forgiveness that God offers to his people.  And we all need it, don’t we?  The Israelites were punished for their sinfulness but God did forgive them and bless them.  They have been redeemed.

            But now as redeemed people the Israelites have a new job to do.  In fact, it seems as if these people have been transformed.  There is something different about them.  There is something attractive about them.  And no, I don’t think that they are better looking people.  I don’t think that they were attractive in that they all looked like movie stars and models.  But instead, they shone like a star and became models of the kingdom of God.

            Isaiah tells us that nations will come; kings will come; all will come to the people of Israel, to the people of God because God is with them.  People will be attracted to the Israelites because God’s light is shining through them.  The wealthy will come, the working class will come, the poor will come.  God’s light shining through his people will attract people of every age, color, ethnicity, gender, and background.  People will be attracted to the God of the Israelites like a moth to a flame; like bugs to a light they will swarm to Jerusalem.

            Now obviously this prophecy by Isaiah has not fully been realized.  Not everyone has been attracted by the light of the world and made the decision to follow God.  So either Isaiah was wrong, or this event hasn’t happened yet.  My understanding of this ingathering of the nations is eschatological; it is referring to the end times when every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.  But we can begin to see hints of this ingathering taking place throughout the Bible where people from all nations are led to the God of the Israelites.  And we can see this in the story of the wise men.

            The story of the wise men involves a few key actors.  Obviously we have Mary, Joseph, and the young Jesus staying in Bethlehem just outside of Jerusalem.  They are all Jews; the people of God.  But we also have some Gentiles in the story.  These were the wise men, astrologers who worshiped false gods.  These wise men find their way to Jesus because they had been following a great light in the sky.  And when they arrive, they do just as Isaiah had predicted they would do over 500 years earlier.  The wise men bring gold and frankincense and they proclaim the praise of the Lord (v. 6).

            So while the prophecy from Isaiah has not been fully realized, we begin to see that God has set this entire process in motion through Jesus.  And as followers of Jesus Christ and servants of the one true God, I believe that this prophecy needs to continue to be lived out through us today.

            Jesus tells his disciples in Matthew 5:14, “You are the light of the world.  A city built on a hill cannot be hid.”  Those who consider themselves to be followers of Jesus Christ are to be light to the world, drawing people to God like a moth is drawn to a flame.  We are to be like the star in the sky that led the wise men to Jesus.

            We will be hosting another Community Fellowship Meal this Wednesday here at Staunton Mennonite Church.  I felt pretty good about the last Community Fellowship Meal we had here and we are planning another meal for the first Wednesday of February.  The reason for having a free meal like this is really three-fold.  The first reason is that we as humans need one another.  We were created for each other; to be able to communicate with one another; to touch, feel, smell one another.  We often refer to this as fellowship within the church.

            As followers of Jesus Christ, we know that what we have committed to doing with our lives isn’t always that easy; love our enemies, pray for our persecutors, forgive, give to the poor.  We will be faced with challenges and obstacles that people outside of the church may not understand.  In fact, people outside of the Church might be the problem (just as those inside the Church can be a big problem, but that’s a topic for another day).  Jesus told his disciples that the world will hate them because the world hated him first.  So by coming together, we can share in one another’s joys and concerns.  We bear one another’s burdens.  We help each other out.  We need fellowship.  Everyone needs fellowship.  Jesus surrounded himself with 12 close friends.  God even exists in three persons, revealing a relational God in constant fellowship with God’s self.  Fellowship is important for church people and for people that don’t belong to any certain congregation.  We were created as relational beings.  That is reason number 1 for why we are gathering on Wednesday; for the fellowship.

            Reason number two for hosting the Free Community Fellowship Meal is because… it is free.  Someone once said that there is no such thing as a free meal.  Maybe that is true, but we aren’t expecting anything from people other than to sit down and have a conversation with us.  Actually, we will still give you a free meal if you choose to sit in a corner by yourself and never open your mouth except to put a fork into it.  We don’t require that a person promises to come back for church the next Sunday before they eat.  They don’t have to pray a certain prayer first.  There might not be such a thing as a free meal, but I hope that we are offering something as close to free as possible.

            We offer a free meal because there are some people that can use all of the help they can get financially.  And maybe they are only saving a few bucks by not having to buy their own food; maybe they are only saving a few minutes by not having to prepare their own meal and clean up afterwards; but every little bit helps.  We all know people that aren’t able to afford a decent meal, or can put together a hot meal. And we must remember that anytime we feed the hungry and offer drink to the thirsty, we are offering these things to Christ (Matthew 25:40).

            As I receive calls for financial help here at the church, I make sure to invite these people to our Fellowship Meal.  And I do this, not so that we can simply get our “feel goods” out of serving someone in need.  But I invite people so that they can join us as brothers and sisters in fellowship, to be seated at the table with us as equals.  Because poor people are still people.  We are all beings created in the image of God and we must honor the image of God reflected by all people.

            The third reason we offer these Free Community Fellowship Meals is because we know that people hunger and thirst not only for food and drink, but also for God.  Unfortunately, so many people have a bad understanding of what the church is and who makes up the church.  So in the Community Fellowship Meal, we are attempting to have a non-churchy activity in a church with church people to help decrease some of those negative stereotypes that people have of Christians.  (Wouldn’t we like to eliminate these stereotypes?  Unfortunately they often exist for a reason.)

            Sure, we all have heard stories about people that wander in off the street on a Sunday morning because they hear the music and decide to checkout what is going on only to feel convicted, choose to become a follower of Christ, and become a pillar of that congregation.  These things happen, I won’t deny that.  But I believe that more often than not, people are scared to walk into a place where they don’t know anyone, where they don’t know the appropriate dress, where they don’t know what is expected of them, where they don’t know the songs.  I can surely understand how scary it is to be a new person in a new place.

            Sonya and I have been living here in Staunton since July and we have been members at the YMCA since October.  But a little over a month ago, Sonya comes to the crazy notion that she would like to go to the Spinning classes at the Y on Tuesdays and Fridays, which begin at 5:45 in the morning, and that she would like me to go along.  (Spinning is a high-intensity aerobic exercise on a stationary bicycle)

            Well, for more reasons than one, I drug my feet at first.  You can probably assume why I didn’t want to go: I didn’t want to get up that early, I didn’t want to have to work that hard that early in the day.  I had plenty of reasons why I didn’t want to go.  But my biggest fear that was keeping me from going to Spinning class was that I didn’t want to appear out of place; to appear like I didn’t belong.

            You see, when you have a class that meets at 5:45 in the morning to exercise, it tends to become a bit of a closed group.  The people there know one another by name and probably have known one another for years.  They meet a couple times a week, they talk afterwards about family matters and work.  And when other people try to join their group, the existing group members are immediately suspect of the newcomers. 

            What are they doing here?  They don’t belong.  That guy doesn’t know what he is doing on the bike…he looks stupid.  And why would he wear that headband or those shorts?

            Sure, the people that have been coming to the Spinning class probably don’t really think or say these things.  But as an outsider, I was afraid of what they would think of this guy just showing up, invading “their space”, really not knowing what I was doing.  I don’t like feeling like an outsider.  I don’t like it when people realize I don’t belong.

            Do you know what would have made it a lot easier for me to start going to the Spinning class?  First of all, I think it would have been a lot easier for me if I would have been able to meet those other people in a less formal setting (I know, Spinning class is a lot less than formal, but I’m going somewhere with this).  Second, it would have been helpful if I had someone from within the class that had invited me to join them and if that person could have been with me to show me the appropriate way to conduct myself.

            I think that it is pretty obvious how my experience with going to Spinning class has influenced my understanding of how it might feel for someone from outside of the church to come on a Sunday morning.  It is scary.  You will probably stick out, especially in a small congregation.  Wouldn’t it be easier if you could get to know the people in a less formal setting first?  Wouldn’t it be helpful if you had someone from within that invited you to come and if they sat with you, showed you the right hymnal to use, when to stand and sit, when to pray, and so on?  The third reason for having a Free Community Fellowship Meal is that it provides a less formal, more relaxed place for us to bring our non-churched friends.  It provides a place to meet church people, to hopefully breakdown some of the negative stereotypes that we all have about Christians, a place to build relationships so that someone can feel like they belong to that congregation even before they ever join us on a Sunday morning.

            So the reasons for the Community Fellowship Meal are: 1. It provides a place for people from the church to fellowship with one another.  2. It gives us an opportunity to serve those in need and to be a loving community that would like to include them in our fellowship.  3. It provides a way to invite non-churched people into our fellowship in a less formal way that may be less intimidating for them.  And I believe that all of these reasons help us to be a beacon of light to the community of Staunton.  Staunton Mennonite’s mission statement says that we seek to be “Love, Hope, and Light in the Community.”  I believe that we are being true to our mission statement when we work together toward making the Community Fellowship Meal a success.

            So when you are wondering why we are having these free meals at our church, remember that we are doing this, not because we are simply trying to bring more people into our church, but because we are trying to live out our call to be a beacon of light, attracting people like a moth to a flame, attracting them to a relationship with the one true God.  The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; the God revealed to us through Jesus Christ.

            When Isaiah received his message from the Lord that the Israelites would be a light unto all nations, he was so excited that he broke out in a song.  God’s favor was upon the Israelites.  Now it is the church that is to be the beacon of light that leads the way to Christ, much like the star of Bethlehem led the wise men to Christ.  As the church, we must let our light shine so that all people will see it and give glory to God.  Whether through the Community Fellowship Meal, or what ever other way God might be leading you, I hope that you will take this challenge upon yourself to be light unto the world.  For The Light has come into the world, and darkness shall not overcome it.