Sept. 20 sermon: "Wisdom from Above"

James 3:13--4:3, 7,8 says that when Christians share in the divisions and conflicts typical of the world, we are devilish, unspiritual, and not from above. But when God is with us we have a wisdom that is from above, that "is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits..." How different that sounds from much of the partisan rancor engulfing our country. Yet often people on both sides claim to be motivated by faith.

Sermon for Sept. 20.mp3

Musings on the Daily Lectionary

Today's verses from the "Sermon on the Mount" in Matthew are some of the more well know words from Jesus. They're often called "The Beatittudes" from the Latin for "blessed," which has led to some unfortunate word plays such as "the be-happy attitudes." But this list is not a self-help guide to happiness. It is a surprising list of those whom God favors, who are aligned with the ways of the kingdom. While the list is often spiritualized (and even Matthew seems to have done this with the blessing on the "poor in spirit, see Luke 6:20), these are not "attitudes" for the most part but concrete conditions of life.

"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. Blessed are the peacemakers,for they will be called children of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."

Most people don't think of mourning, being persecuted, or longing for the world to be set right (the meaning of hungering and thirsting for righteousness) as particularly blessed states. And our culture clearly doesn't think that meekness leads to anything good. Jesus' beatitudes embrace people the world views as not particularly fortunate, as not particularly blessed. And these blessing clearly set apart the ways of God's dominion from the ways of the world.

One of the perpetual problems for all religions is that they tend to get "domesticated" over time. Christianity is no different, and when it went mainstream all those centuries ago, it gradually lost a lot of its radical edge. And when it became the official religion in the West, too often it moved from challenging the ways of the world to supporting them. It may well have softened its world a bit, but it was softened as well.

From time to time we all need to take a good look at what Jesus actually said and stood for, to look at the ways we have made his hard words easy. From time to time the Church needs to be reborn in the image of God's reign, shedding the image of the world we have embraced. And I wonder if the loss of prestige and influence by mainline denominations such as my own may be something to celebrate and embrace rather than mourn. Perhaps these are an opportunity given us by God to rediscover who we are really called to be.

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Musings on the Daily Lectionary

I am intrigued by the way Jesus' proclamation of "the good news" is linked with healing the sick. Far too many Christians relegate the "good news" to what happens when they die, but Jesus' ministry seems to say otherwise. He spends a great deal of time dealing with concrete, physical ailments. Today's gospel is a good example. "Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing every disease and every sickness among the people. So his fame spread throughout all Syria, and they brought to him all the sick, those who were afflicted with various diseases and pains, demoniacs, epileptics, and paralytics, and he cured them."

Over the years, many Christians have emulated Jesus through the work of medical missionaries and other health related ministries. There are more than a few Presbyterian hospitals in this country, along with many founded by other denominations. And all of this makes me wonder why some Christians are so outraged at talk of health care reform.

Health care is an extremely complex issue, and figuring out how best to fix our health care system is a huge challenge. Still, it is a fact that many of our fellow citizens, especially those toward the bottom of the economic ladder, receive woeful health care in a nation where the best services are available. And given that these are the very sorts of folks that Jesus ministered to, you would think that Christians would be in agreement that our faith calls us to help such folks. We might not agree on specifics of a particular plan, but any sort of "What would Jesus do?" test surely precludes the stance I've heard from some opposed to reform. Saying, "I'm happy with the insurance I've got, so leave it alone," is another way of saying, "My needs matter more than my neighbors." Hardly the message Jesus preached.

"And they brought to him all the sick, those who were afflicted with various diseases and pains, demoniacs, epileptics, and paralytics, and he cured them." Jesus cured "all" of them, not just the ones who had good jobs, not just the ones who were deserving, but all of them. I don't know how to fix health care, but I'm sure Jesus weeps for all the people in this country, and in the world, who could be healed but aren't.

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Musings on the Daily Lectionary

I was struck by the opening of this morning's psalm. "To you I lift up my eyes, O you who are enthroned in the heavens! As the eyes of servants look to the hand of their master, as the eyes of a maid to the hand of her mistress, so our eyes look to the LORD our God, until he has mercy upon us."

I think these words grabbed me because of something I read yesterday in Barbara Brown Taylor's book, An Altar in the World. She told of meeting someone at a mosque where she takes her college religion class for a field trip of sorts. This woman shared how difficult it had been for her to adopt the prayer practice of bowing to the floor five times each day. She had struggled to "stand up for herself," and assuming this subservient pose seemed like regressing in some way.

We Presbyterians don't do much bowing, but I wonder if we wouldn't do well to try the practice, if for nothing more than to wrestle with the same issues as this Muslim woman. It might help us to put some flesh on the words of the psalm, to come before God as a servant approaches a master.

I think that much of the time I approach faith from a different viewpoint. God has something I may want and I'm looking to get it. I'm not really interested in a master, someone who tells me what to do. Trouble is, that makes if very difficult to respond when Jesus says, "Take up your cross and follow me."

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Sermon for Sept. 13 - Who Is Jesus?

Musings on the Daily Lectionary

In the opening of 1 Corinthians Paul writes, "Now I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you be in agreement and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same purpose. For it has been reported to me by Chloe's people that there are quarrels among you, my brothers and sisters."

"For it has been reported to me...that there are quarrels among you." Wow, quarrels and division in a congregation. That's a real shocker. I can't begin to recall all the times I've heard someone say, "The worst fights are church fights." I might take some solace in the fact that faith must be very important to people in order to fight about it. But one of the others sayings I've heard frequently is, "The worst church fights are over the color of the carpet." Oh well.

The fights in the Corinthian church weren't about carpet. Some of the folks there like Apollos better than Paul and that had caused a rift. This also seems to have been a very exuberant congregation, and they apparently tried to outdo one another in developing spiritual gifts, with a special emphasis on more exotic gifts such as speaking in tongues. They thought such gifts a sign of their spiritual maturity, but Paul considers their spiritual competitions a sign of their childishness.

If you read Paul's letters, it is clear that he engages in some pretty heated arguments of his own with other Christians. So Paul probably doesn't mean, "Can't we all just get along?" Rather, Paul sees the divisions and quarrels in Corinth arising because of a self-centeredness that fails to keep the needs of one's neighbor always paramount.

I am a very competitive person by nature. I love to win, whether it's sports or a debate. Sometimes this is relatively harmless. But others times it can poison discussions about everything from how to improve worship to what color flooring to use in the chapel renovation. And as a pastor, with more theological training than most people in a congregation, it is all too easy to bludgeon people with impressive sounding rhetoric. I can employ my knowledge less to illuminate and more to win.

I would do well, as perhaps some of you might, to step back a bit when the discussion starts to get a little testy. Who's agenda am I pursuing, that of Jesus or my own? Come to think of it, sometimes I can be in the right from a biblical or theological point of view, and still tarnish the glory of God by my methods. A little help here, God?

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Sermon for September 13

"Who Is Jesus?" - from Mark 8:27-38 - Christians say that we follow Jesus, but just what that means depends on who we think Jesus is. And like Peter, we often want Jesus to conform to our wishes rather than our going where he leads.

Sermon for September 13.mp3

Musings on the Daily Lectionary

"Therefore, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed me, not only in my presence, but much more now in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure." Philippians 2:12-13

The opening verses of this lectionary passage may seem just a bit strange coming from Paul, that champion of salvation by faith and not by works. If we are "saved" by faith, that is by trusting in God's grace, what is all this about "working out" our own salvation?

Actually, I think that Christians sometimes create more of an either-or situation regarding faith and works than is found in Paul or the Bible. While Paul will insist over and over that no one can earn God's favor by their behavior, he nonetheless expects those who have encountered God's love in Jesus to work that out in their lives. For Paul, the right relationship with God that comes through faith inevitably leads to right behaviors. And so Paul's letters routinely move from the free gift of God in Jesus to exhortations to live holy, just, moral, and righteous lives. How can anyone who is "in Christ" not live in a manner that expresses that?

I saw some posts on Facebook yesterday recalling a sermon which said that while Jesus says to us, "Follow me," we find it easier just to worship him instead." Many of us find it easy to talk about Jesus, to claim God's love, and then to live no differently from anyone else in the world. It reminds me of the popular line often repeated in back the 1960s and 70s. "If you were arrested for being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you?"

If Jesus is in any way really present in our lives, how can we not seek to follow where he leads us?

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Musings on the Daily Lectionary

"Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness." Philippians 2:5-7

Years ago a church member came up to me after worship to complain about one of the songs we had sung. He was good sort of fellow and his complaint was gentle and intended to be helpful. It wasn't the typical complaint about the song being unfamiliar or hard to sing. Rather, he was somewhat troubled by the words. It happened so long ago that I can't recall the exact song, but the issue was a line in it addressed to God or Jesus stating something to the effect, "I want to be like you." To this person, that seemed to be going too far. His sense of reverence for God and Jesus made it difficult for him to sing these words.

I appreciated his desire to maintain appropriate reverence for God. Too often there is not a lot of that in the Church. We approach God easily, even casually, as though it were no big deal. A lot of Christians seem to have little sense of the awesome, transcendent majesty of God, that biblical "fear of the LORD" that Proverbs calls "the beginning of Wisdom."

But while we would probably all do well to heighten our reverence and "fear" of God, the Apostle Paul does seem to think we can be like Jesus. We can have "the same mind" that was in Christ, which is to say we can regard our relationship with God as something not for our own personal gain, but for doing the work of God. For Paul, this shows up concretely in the sort of behavior he recommends to the Philippian Church. "Regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others."

For Paul, having the same mind as Jesus is not about mystical communion -- not that he's opposed to that sort of thing -- but is about the way we act. That might be a pretty good way for me to evaluate my day. Did my actions seem to flow from the mind of Christ, or from something else entirely?

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Sunday Sermon - All God's Children: Risking It All for "Them"

Musings on the Daily Lectionary

Today's verses from Philippians begin, "I want you to know, beloved that what has happened to me has actually helped to spread the gospel, so that it has become known throughout the whole imperial guard and to everyone else that my imprisonment is for Christ." Despite being imprisoned, Paul can joyously claim that his hardship has furthered the cause of the gospel.

I sometimes find it very difficult to trust that God is still at work and in control when bad things are happening to me. Likewise, when the world seems to get out of kilter, I can be tempted to throw up my hands in disgust. Sometimes we humans seem to be a hopeless enterprise, and sometimes I have the hardest time feeling anything like how Paul says he feels.

As I think about these words written to the church in Philippi, I suspect that my notion of things working out for the best may not be exactly the same as Paul's. I usually evaluate how things are going based on how they are going for me. However Paul's frame of reference is not himself, but Christ and the good news about him. Paul thinks that things are going well for him when Christ is being proclaimed, as opposed to when he is comfortable, well fed, secure, etc.

In America, Christian faith has become very personalized over the years. And many people view their beliefs in terms of personal benefits associated with faith, be they salvation, heaven, happiness, wealth, or some other measure. But Paul's measure is not so personal. Paul's measure is a healthy Church, people growing in Christ, and Christ being proclaimed to the world.

Before being ordained as pastors, candidates in my Presbyterian denomination have to undergo an examination by the presbytery, a representative governing body made up of pastors and church elders. I've been told that at one time, candidates have been asked, "Would you be willing to be damned for all eternity if it would glorify God?" It many ways this seem a very odd question to me, but it does touch on this subject of where one locates success, happiness, blessedness. (By the way, I've also heard that this question was once answered, "Sir, I'd be willing for every member of this presbytery to be damned for the glory of God.")

But all jokes aside, I would like to be motivated more by the sort of thing that motivates Paul, and less by the sort of worldly things that so often drive me.

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Sermon for Sept. 6 - All God's Children: Risking It All for "Them"

Matthew 25:31-46 is Jesus' last public teaching prior to his arrest. He describes a judgment at his return in which righteous and unrighteous are separated like sheep from goats, all of them judged by what they have or haven't done to care for "the least of these." All the nations are gathered for this judgment, but "nations" seems to actually describe the non-Christian Gentiles who will be targets of the Church's evangelism efforts. Heard in this light, Jesus' words have something much more to say beyond care for those in need.

Sermon for September 6.mp3