The Mustard Seed

Lenten Sermon 1: Distracted But Not Defeated

“Distracted But Not Defeated”         

Text: Mark 1:9-13

First Sunday in Lent

Elpis Christian Church

February 26, 2012

 

 

            Daniel Evan Weiss shares some interesting facts about what people do or don’t do these days – and what they frequently have on their minds.  In fairness, the percentages may be a bit dated – the book was written a number of years ago.  But they still illustrate an important point I want to raise today.  According to Weiss, public polls once showed that:

 

• Only 1% of Americans said that they read the Bible more than once a day
• 15% of American married men said they did most of the cooking in the household
• 30% of Americans smoked cigarettes (happily, today that number has dropped closer to 19%)
• 42% of Americans couldn’t name a country near the Pacific Ocean
• 60% of Americans reportedly did not spend a lot of time on their personal appearance (that’s actually a percentage I would dispute – I think people spend a lot more time on it than they admit.)
• 67& of Americans believed secret files were being kept on them for unknown reasons
• 74% said that if they had their life to live over again, they’d continue with their formal education (they needed to if 42% couldn’t name a country near the Pacific Ocean!)
• 84% of Americans believed heaven exits (I wonder how many believed in the other place?)
• 94% of American men reported they would change something about their looks if they could
• 99% of American women reported they would change something about their looks if they could
• 96% of American children could identify Ronald McDonald (who was second only to Santa Claus.)

 

I find statistics like that interesting.  They shed a little light onto the values and the worries and the beliefs of our people in this nation.  But, for today’s purposes, they do something more.  They set the stage for a discussion about how easily we can be distracted – tempted if you will – from matters of real importance.  Just look at those last three stats I mentioned – the ones about how 94 and 99% - worry about their looks and would actually change them if they could.  Or the one about the 96% of children who could easily point out Ronald McDonald.  In the grand scheme of things, the clown who wants you to have a happy meal for lunch – and what you will look like when you do – that’s not very important stuff, is it.  Yet it occupies important space in our brains and therefore in our lives.

 

Now contrast that with the image of Jesus wrestling with the devil in the wilderness; being tested as to his resolve so that he can fulfill his spiritual destiny; and how humanity’s fate rests in the balance in some great, mystical way.  That’s quite a contrast isn’t it?  As this Lenten season begins it’s all about such contrasts.  It’s about our being willing to engage in a serious, personal reflection – and a serious, personal conversation with God – about how we need to overcome the temptation to dwell on self, and self-centered matters – and answer the call to kingdom life and ministry in God’s service.

 

The other night Elizabeth and I went out to dinner.  And, it being Shrove Tuesday, or “Fat Tuesday,” as the French would say, we decided to go to the Cracker Barrel restaurant and get a big plate of pancakes.  Boy, they were good.  But isn’t it funny that the night before Lent we, as a society, decide that’s a great opportunity for a big, old self-indulgent party.  Oh, we rationalize that we are clearing the cabinets of all the stuff that will spoil if left sitting there during our Lenten time of fasting.  But how many of us are really about to engage in a time of spiritual fasting?  I don’t think Cracker Barrel needed Elizabeth and I to help them get rid of pancake batter.  We just wanted pancakes.  Boy, they WERE good.

 

But, all kidding aside, this is the time for us to clear the way of distractions and temptations and all that would keep us from being more Christ-like.  This is the time to say loud and clear, “We may be distracted but we are not defeated!”  We may be tempted but we, with God’s help, with stay the course of true discipleship.  Because we know that is the way to life in all its fullness.  It is the way to victory.

 

What a difference it would make in our perspective on life and what is really important if, for example, we were to join the 1% of Americans who look at their Bible more than once a day.  Lent is a good time to test that theory.  What a difference it would make in our lives if, being part of that 84% of Americans who believe in heaven, we went a little further in our exploration of what it is like.  Or, even better, if we – having admitted our belief in the afterlife – we asked a deeper question: “What difference does that make in how I should live in the here and now, today?”  Lent is a good time to ask that question and then do something about it.

 

We are not Roman Catholic.  And so, we are not likely to spend the next forty days engaged in some ritual of confession or walking the “stations of the cross,” at church.  But we are called to spend this time of preparation wisely and reverently.  How will we do it?

 

There is so much to distract us; so much to tempt us; so much to pre-occupy us.  But Jesus points the way for us to follow, with his own forty days in the wilderness.

 

Today’s passage doesn’t give us a lot of detail.  Mark was more interested in keeping the pace going – just giving us the bare bones facts that right on the heels of Jesus’ being called the beloved son of God, he is driven into his own dark night of the soul.  No sooner are the heavens opened in praise; hell rears its ugly head.  But the other gospel writers add some helpful detail to the story.  It is there that we find the specific temptations Jesus must confront: to worry about his own physical comfort and using his power to turn stones to bread; to test God’s promise to protect him by hurling himself down from the temple mount; to give into his desires and follow Satan into a self-serving claiming of the world’s wealth for himself.  These, no doubt, are not the only temptations Jesus might have wrestled with during those days of preparation.  What about the one to avoid his calling itself and so avoid a horrible, fearful death on a cross?  No, the gospel writers just want to give us a hint of how easy it is to be pulled aside from God’s will and way for us.

 

But time and again Jesus proves he is up to the task.  He proves not just to the devil, but to us, that he is worthy of the name Savior and Lord and Master.  And he reminds us that in following his way we will be able to, in the long run, overcome what might well destroy us, in the short time.

 

It’s all a matter of what we keep our mind on and what we learn to avoid.

 

You know, our own Clarence LeSueur, worked for years as a guard at the Federal Reserve.  When I learned that I had to wonder how good old Clarence kept himself from temptation all those years – I mean surrounded by all that money – more than he could ever earn in a hundred careers as a guard.  Now, I know Clarence is a good guy – we all know that.  So it was largely about his character, I am sure.  But I also read about something else that was at work there, keeping Clarence on the straight and narrow.

 

According to an attorney who worked with the Federal Reserve – it has a lot to do with your thinking about what you are doing.  Pastor Chuck Swindoll, who knows the attorney, explains:

 

He says,

 

“One afternoon he invited me to go with him (to visit the Reserve.)  As we walked in together, we were checked all over, and at the end of a narrow hallway we were checked again.  And, of course, television cameras were everywhere.  Behind a bulletproof glass in the secured room are people who do nothing but count.”

 

“I said, ‘How can the workers resist the temptation to steal some of the money?’  My attorney friend answered, ‘Everything is fine until they begin to realize what they are doing and then we have problems.  As long as they’re just counting slips of paper, that’s fine.  But when they suddenly realize, ‘Hey, this is a hundred dollar bill I have in my hand,’ then we have problems.’ “

 

You see – it’s all in how you look at life – and what’s important.  Clarence, apparently, was able to always keep in perspective that all those stacks were just slips of paper, at least as far as he was concerned.  Spiritually speaking, the metaphor is clear.  We are called, as disciples of Christ, to look at all the twinkling distractions of this world, and realize they are just that – distractions – from what really matters.

 

It isn’t easy to do.  Lots of people fail at it.  And when they do, confession is good for the soul.  But – not everyone fails.  This Lenten season, think of those who are able to keep their faith perspective in all they do.  Think of Christ’s own example as he steadfastly overcame his temptation and followed His destiny.  Think of how God has great things in mind for you and for what you can do in His name.  Think on those things and temptations of all kind will be put in proper perspective.

 

We are distracted but not defeated.  We are tempted but not destroyed.  We are God’s own beloved children.  Let’s spend this Lent doing great things for Him.

 

AMEN.

 

 

 

 

 

Sermon: "Out of the Chaos, Into the Light"

“Out of Chaos; Into the Light”         

Text: Genesis 1:1-5

Elpis Christian Church

January 8, 2012

 

 

            Do you remember the old TV sitcom about a secret agent named Maxwell Smart?  He was the little guy who, though he often bumbled his way through the cases assigned to him, somehow managed to defeat the agents of the enemy and save the day.  I loved the show “Get Smart,” especially the part when secret agent Max got a phone call from his boss.  Do you remember what happened?  He would have to take off his shoe and talk to the “Chief” on the phone hidden in a little compartment there.   Who would have thought that one day we would all be talking on cell phones?

            Do you remember the name of the evil, secret agency with which Maxwell Smart was constantly at war?   What was it named – do you recall?  It was called KAOS – which was aptly named, because the good guys in the series worked for an agency called CONTROL.  It was also well named because this evil agency was supposed to be all about messing things up.  Anything they could do to upset the world; start wars; ferment disease; whatever they could do for their own mad reasons – that was their sole purpose.  KAOS, spelled K-A-O-S, was all about causing chaos, spelled c-h-a-o-s.

            Well, I start here today because I want us to talk about c-h-a-o-s – and how it is foiled, not by a TV sitcom super-spy, but by God.  It’s a brand new year.  And that seems to me to be a wonderful time to go back to the beginning of known time and look at what was happening.  Things were in chaos.  The description is given to us in the book of Genesis, in the first part of verse 2: “Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep . . . .”  It’s like one of those disaster movies, after a great flood or hurricane has blown through town.  Everything is dark and has collapsed into a confused mass of wreckage and mud.  There are downed power lines everwhere.  There is no sign of life anywhere – only mass destruction.  There is no sound.  And the twisted wreckage hangs tentatively upon itself – poised to collapse into the muck at any moment.  This, according to Genesis, was what the world was like “in the beginning.”

            Let me pause for a minute to interject that this is why there are two distinct theories about what was going on in the universe at the very start of things.  One is called the “Original Chaos” interpretation – which poses that when the scripture says the earth was “formless and empty” it referred to a description of an “original, formless matter in the first stage of creation.”  The other theory, called the “Divine Judgment” interpretation, suggests that the words “formless and empty” refer to the earth only, “in a condition subsequent to its creation, not as it was originally.”  In other words – one theory says that God created out of total, original chaos.  The other says God created earth out of the chaos that had come in some timeless past there had been great warfare in heaven, Satan had fallen, and the original perfect creation was destroyed in spiritual warfare.

            Either way – the point is this – things were in a real mess.  And in that pitch, black darkness that surrounded the teeming waters of total disorganization - what does Genesis say was happening?  Verse 2, the second part says, “and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.”  I like the way one Biblical translation puts it, saying, “and the spirit of God was brooding over the face of the waters. “  Picture a worried, mother hen.  Picture a concerned parent leaning over the bedside.  Picture total blackness about to filled with the most beautiful, comforting, illuminating light possible.  That’s what God was up to “in the beginning.”

            We can’t pinpoint when that happened and stick a date on a calendar.  Scripture is silent on that and science isn’t up to the task.  At least for now we will have to settle for the fact that at some point, long before recorded time, God emphatically dealt with the chaos and brought order to it all.  The darkness was shattered and light ruled the day; because God wanted it that way.  I like the way the old Scofield Bible puts it.  It says, “The Bible begins with God, not with philosophic arguments for His existence.”  There is no debate.  There is no “Power Point” presentation – outlining the various arguments for how and why a divine creator has existed – only the bold assertion that He has.  And the equally bold assertion is there as well – that when real, total chaos is at hand – God is the one who takes it in hand and does something about it.  Eight days into the New Year – we ought to remember that.  Eight days into the New Year – we ought to celebrate that.  And every single day of every single year we draw breath – we ought to live our lives based on that glorious fact.  There is no chaos, universal or personal, that is greater than God’s ability to handle it.

            The other night you couldn’t turn of the TV or computer without seeing all kinds of talk about the “Hawkeye Caucae.”  In gathering places all over Iowa, Republicans came together to make their first statements of approval or disapproval over the candidates who say they want to be the next President of the United States.  And the TV and radio commentators and newspapers were having a field day talking about who was going to come in first, second, or last place.  You would have thought the world was going to come to an end based on the outcome of this first straw poll, taken months and months before the real election is held.

            Don’t misunderstand; I know why people were interested and how it does have some impact on the direction this country goes on down the line.  But the world wasn’t going to end depending on whether or not Rick Santorum or Ron Paul or Mitt Romney came in first.  Nevertheless, the commentators would have you believe it was going to do just that.

            And if it isn’t the political news, it’s the economic news that has us on the edge or our seats at night.  If it’s not the economic news it’s the crime statistics.  If it’s not the crime statistic’s it is the latest report from the National Institutes of Health.  On and on and on we worry and fret.  But the God, who once “hovered” over the waters of chaos – hasn’t dropped us yet – and He never will.

            There are a couple of other points that help hammer home this comforting reality.  First, in the original Hebrew, the wording used when speaking about the “light” doesn’t imply an original creative act at that moment.  Instead, the sense is things were made to appear, or made visible.  Why is that important?

            Because it reminds me that so often in life it isn’t that no light exists – it’s that the darkness of the doom and gloom around me have simply obscured it from my vision.  And it’s always God who in His grace, dispels that darkness and lets the divine light shine through and show me the way.  Like the proverbial “silver lining behind the cloud,” God’s light is always there – nothing can stamp it out.  It’s just the chaos that sometimes blocks it from my sight.  And God knows how to deal with chaos.

            Finally, there’s this business of the “day.”  How long was it – 24 hours or some other designated unit?  People have been arguing about that for a long time.  But it turns out the word used for “day” in the scripture is used to mean not just 24 hours a solar day but also a time set apart for some divine purpose as in the “Day of Atonement,” or a longer period of time, during which certain revealed purposes of God are to be accomplished, as in “the Day of the Lord.”

            Why is that important?  Because it reminds me that regardless of what I think about how things should happen at this time or that – God’s perfect timing is another whole thing.  And so, not only can He deal with the chaos in my life in just the right way – He can deal with it at just the right time.

            The New Year is, in a way, all about fresh starts.  But in another way – it’s about how what has been slowly unfolding, in just the right way, at just the right time, is continuing to unfold even now.  Regardless of how upside down our world appears to be, God’s creative, redeeming, purposes are being fulfilled.  And so it will always be.

            Secret agents named Maxwell Smart aren’t the answer to chaos – God is.  So, just for a moment – picture in your mind that thing; that situation; that person; that dilemma; that question; that sin; that addiction; that – whatever it is – you’ve been brooding over lately.  Sit in that darkness for just a few more seconds.  Then picture God’s loving, illuminating, redeeming light exposing it for what it really is: just something over which He has complete control.  Imagine God, in His mercy, easily sweeping it all away and replacing it with love and grace and wisdom and purpose and meaning.

            It’s God’s New Year invitation.  Come out of the chaos; into the light – once and for all.

 

Sermon: "The Blessed Mess"

“The Blessed Mess”                Text: 1 Corinthians 10:14-17

World Communion Sunday

Elpis Christian Church

October 2, 2011

 

 

Many of you may not realize it – but every year, here at Elpis, two important events occur on the same weekend – our Fall Festival and World Communion Sunday.  It’s always struck me how fitting that is.  To get together and, on the one hand, spend all that time chopping those onions or peeling those potatoes or cooking that meat or stirring those huge stew pots filled with Brunswick Stew – and on the other hand, spend some time gathering around the Lord’s Table in worship and thanksgiving.  Both events are about fellowship.  Both events demand something of us.  Both events draw us close together as a church family and both events call us to reach out to the hungry community outside these four sanctuary walls.  Butter Beans and Blessed Ordinance of the Church – those two just go together well, I think.

And there is something else that is kind of ironic.  At both our Fall Festival and at the Lord’s Supper – things can get a little messy now and then.  At the festival it’s all about mixing and chopping and stirring and pricing and selling that yard sale stuff.  At the Lord’s Supper it’s about prayerfully and thankfully recognizing that the cup represents spilt blood and that the broken bread represents a broken body sacrificially given in love for all people.  That symbolism is sometimes lost on us as we rush through the ceremony each week.  But sometimes it becomes very clear.  Take for example what happened at one worship service held years ago in a chapel gathering somewhere.  Here’s the story, which also explains my sermon title today:

“The “Blessed mess” –as it was later called by eyewitnesses - happened unexpectedly during a solemn academic worship service. The Faculty and the student body filled the chapel of the Seminary. The choir performed magnificently. Preaching in his festive robe, the Dean delivered a powerful message. The occasion was heightened by the fact that it was Communion time a significant event, when everybody in the school was expected to attend.

Everything went as scheduled and without blunder though a number of professors and students participated in the Liturgy. When the part of the Lord’s Supper was reached, the youngest and recently appointed new Faculty member walked to the Communion Table ready to serve the Holy Supper.

He was a thin, diminutive person of quiet voice and gentle manner. Since this was his first ministerial function in the Seminary he was noticeably tensed, working hard to do everything in the traditional, “proper” way. He handled his part well and nobody expected trouble till he lifted up the Communion bread. While quoting the words of Christ, “This is my body broken for you”, he was supposed to break the symbol of that body into two halves.

Apparently the loaf had an unusually tough, thick crust because the young professor’s long, narrow fingers could not break through it. He tried once, twice, many times, turning the bread desperately around looking for a better grip and a weaker spot – but in vain. It resisted all assaults.

The people watched his pitiable efforts with increasing shock and dismay. Not knowing what to do, nobody moved to help him in his struggle. And struggle it was. Sweating and panting, gradually disregarding any semblance of solemnity, the professor was stubbornly determined to break that bread. With full force he violently pushed it and pulled it, forced his thumbnails into it, tried to peel off bits and pieces. As the result of this horrendous fight eventually the impeccable Holy Table was covered with crumbs and small torn parts of the non-cooperating bread. It was a real mess. 

Yet, the declaration of the Lord, “This is my body broken for you”, received a deeper and lasting meaning on that day. 

After the service, participants thanked the professor for such an unusual visual presentation of Christ’s suffering. One said: “This was my most memorable Communion Service because it helped me realize that salvation is the result of such a struggle against brokenness”.”

Salvation is the result of such a struggle against brokenness.  Think about that for a minute.  Maybe it takes a “blessed mess” at the communion table to sometimes remind us of what it really means – so that we don’t take it for granted.   It may be that one of the dangers of using neatly chopped up bread or perfectly shaped unleavened pieces is that we forget the broken aspect of it all.   And, in the same way, maybe getting knee deep in the messiness of our annual fall festival can remind us of something too.  That we are not a perfect community by a long shot; that we are broken, imperfect people who get mixed together – like that Brunswick stew we sold yesterday – mixed together in big pots of love and poured out sacrificially for others in Christ’s name.

I know, I know – some of you are probably thinking – “Man, he’s really going out on a limb today – trying to really make something out of a simple pot of stew or a weekly communion service.”  But that’s what preachers like me do.  We take the common elements of our life – be they Brunswick stew or Communion Bread – and search for symbolism there that can help us to appreciate what our life of faith and service is all about.  So bear with me.  Think about it a little.  Think about how God, in his wisdom, and in his love does this in our lives.  He takes the messes we make – and the messes we are – and blesses them in His service.  Doesn’t He?

And then that leads to a question.    How are we doing with that?  On this World Communion Sunday, and on this Fall Festival weekend, how are we doing at making ourselves available as part of God’s “blessed mess”?

One of the things that was very important to the apostle Paul was that he help others understand that God can take you and your life; turn you upside down; shake you up a bit; and make something wonderful to His glory.  That’s what God did in Paul’s life.  That’s what he did in the lives of those of the early church who sacrificed everything they had to be part of this thing called the “Body of Christ.”  He took all they were; all they had to offer and put it into service.  And, especially at the Lord’s Supper, they were constantly reminded of how Christ had given himself for them and for the entire world in just that way.   Paul asks those pivotal questions in today’s text: “Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a participation in the blood of Christ?  And is not the bread that we break a participation in the body of Christ?”

He might just as well have put it this way:

“Every time we come together around this table – and we eat this messy, broken bread and we spill a little of this wine getting it into our mouths – doesn’t that remind us all of what God did for us and how he made us one people because of it?  Sacrifice is a messy thing.  But it’s that sacrifice that has brought us and all of God’s people together as one.  So let’s overlook each other’s faults – each other’s sins – each other’s weaknesses – let’s overlook or forgive each other’s messiness – and let’s be one people the way God want us to be one people – in His spirit and in his love.”

And then he hammers the point home: “Because there is one loaf, we, who are many, are one body.”

We live in a broken and very messy world.  There are a lot of people who feel disenfranchised – which is a fancy way of saying – they feel like they just don’t fit in; that they have been pushed aside by life and forgotten.  At things like our Fall Festival, and especially at times like when we gather around the Lord’s Table, we have a wonderful chance to do something.  We can say to our community “we want you to be a part of who we are in Christ’s name.”  We can do so much more than just sell a little stew or some old yard sale items and make some money for the church.  We can open the doors of the church and the doors of our hearts and invite someone in.  And – at this table – we can remind ourselves and proclaim to the entire world – that we are one people beloved by God.  We are far from perfect; in some ways we have a made a mess of things.  But we are the people of God living in a broken and messy world as those who know something very important.  God has not forgotten about it.  God has not pushed us, or any of his children, aside. God wants us all at his table and in his kingdom.

I like that the Fall Festival and World Communion Sunday fall on the same weekend every single year.  Because it says loud and clear: “Welcome to our ‘blessed mess.’  Come in and join us in the spirit that makes us one in Christ!”

            I want to conclude today with a simple invitation.  It’s an invitation to the Lord’s Supper.  But it’s an invitation to a lot more than just that.  It’s a call to thanksgiving and to service as part of the worldwide body of Christ:

“Come to this table, not because you must, but because you may.  Come not because you are worthy, but because you realize your unworthiness.  Come not because you love God so much but because you love God a little and you want to know more about how to love God.”

Come to his table – his messy, glorious, holy and blessed table.

 

AMEN.

 

 

Sermon: "Water in the Desert"

“Water in the Desert”                                                 Text: Exodus 17:1-7

Elpis Christian Church

September 25, 2011

 

 

            “Is the Lord among us or not?”  I don’t suppose there could be a more important question ever asked.  And that’s saying a lot given how many questions confront us in life.  But when I think of all the ways, and all the circumstances, in which I and others I have known have asked that one, single, burning question – I’ll stand on what I’ve said.  It’s the most important one ever asked.  Because when you boil it all down – if the Lord isn’t among us – we are lost in the most profound of ways.  And life, well, it’s just a merry-go-round or a roller coaster that takes us up and down and around and eventually dumps us out in a cold, empty, dead universe.  Game over.

            So – how good it is to answer the question in the affirmative today.  God IS among us – God has ALWAYS been among us.  God WILL ALWAYS BE among us.  And that makes life a whole another thing.  It makes if full and rich and ultimately meaningful.  Not a game at all, but a journey with a wonderful destination.  And that – is what the people of Israel had to learn.  That is what WE have to learn.  Unfortunately, too often, we learn it the hard way.

            When I was a kid there were some lessons I just had to learn the hard way.  How about you?

 

• There was the time I took a small, pearl-handled pocket knife to school, and, though it was against school rules, couldn’t resist whipping it out at lunch time and performing surgery on the paper cup on my lunch tray.  You would’ve thought I had brought a loaded machine gun in and shot up the place.  But – rules are rules. And soon I was in the principal’s office.
• There was the time – more than one time really – when my eyes were too big for my stomach – and I had to choke down food that my parent’s had paid for with hard earned money because I had insisted on ordering from the “adult” menu instead of wisely choosing from the “kids” meals.
• There were all the times I suffered through exams because I had spent too much time the night before watching TV instead of reading my notes.

 

 

And then, there are of course the adult times when I’ve had to learn things the hard way too.  When I have said the wrong thing, done the wrong thing, refused to do what I knew to be the right thing because of pride or ignorance or some combination of both.  I won’t ask you to embarrass yourself by sharing the times you have failed in life like that – and I will thank you to not ask me for any specific examples from my own life.  But you and I both know – we have plenty of occasions we could recall, don’t we?

Life, for all its joys, is full of hard lessons.  Maybe that is why I like reading about the people of Israel and their wilderness wanderings.  Because time and time again they are just so dumb.  And time and time again, God is so good to them in spite of their stupidity.  Maybe it somehow allows me to feel superior – because I can so easily see what the people of Israel could not see.

One of those times was the one I just read about.  When Moses and the people quarreled with each other about whether or not God was with them in that desert.  And when God and Moses proved once again that He was – by providing the thirsty people with a little refreshment from, of all places, a dirty old rock.  Here the people have to, one more time, admit how little they understand about life and about God and about the glorious reality that he will never leave them high and dry in their wilderness wandering.  Here they learn once again that even out of a place as unlikely as a rock in the desert – He can provide life-giving sustenance.

I’m sure they were grateful for the water when it came gushing out of that stone.  But in a way, it was probably a little bitter to drink as well – because surely they weren’t shamed by their lack of faith.  It’s easy to feel superior to them.  To say, “Why didn’t you trust God?”  But come on – are we any better?  Don’t we have an equally astounding lack of faith now and then?

So that leads me to this.  If the most important question we can ask in life is “Is God among us or not?” and if the life affirming answer is that He is – and that He has proved that time and again.  How do we handle this recurrent, deadly, lack of faith that plagues us all now and then?

Today I want to suggest a couple of things.  I want to suggest a couple of ways that when you are out there in the desert looking at all those dusty looking rocks that surround you – you can remember – God – the rock of our salvation – has some living water for you – right at hand.

In those dry, dusty, moments of weak or nearly non-existent faith – here are a couple of things I want you to remember to do.

 

1. Remember you are not the only one to ever experience what you are experiencing.
2. Remember that what you are experiencing – no matter how painful or frightening – is only temporary.
3. Remember that you are never, ever, alone because even if every other person on the face of the earth were to abandon you – God never will.  Remember that proves just how precious you are in God’s sight.
4. Remember then, in light of that, how you have something ultimately valuable and unique to offer to this world.  So get busy finding out what it is – and get busy doing it.

 

Do that – and I think you will soon find yourself moving out of your confusion, or your grief, or your anger or your cynicism or your lack of faith or whatever it is that is temporarily defeating you and holding you back in life.

Look at those unhappy, grumbling, desert wanderers in our passage today.  They were struggling because they had failed to do each one of the things I just mentioned.

 

• They had forgotten that they were not the only ones to ever wander in need. 
• They were so busy feeling sorry for themselves they couldn’t even recall how God had set them free from their slavery.  They had fallen into the trap that there temporary condition was a permanent one; that God was nowhere to be found and that this Moses fellow had sold them a bill of goods and that they were all going to die.  Most important of all – they had forgotten God’s promise that they were on their way to a promised land full of milk and honey.

 

• They had forgotten how precious they were to God.  And so – it was easy to believe that they were easily expendable.  And, because they were so easily expendable, they started to believe they had no purpose.

 

• And so – they were on the verge of despair – feeling hopeless, abandon, and worthless.  And that is when people die.

 

So, literally, thank God – that God stepped in and did something about it.  Via Moses water was provided – but what was given was much more than just water.  It was hope.  And it allowed them to go on.

 

Now some will cynically say, “So what? That first generation of wilderness wanderers didn’t make it to the Promised Land!  Only their children did!”  And that is true – there was harsh price to be paid for those who consistently disobeyed and walked away from God.  In a way you could say they learned the hard way about what walking away from God too many times can mean.

            But – we mustn’t let that harsh truth blind us from the fact that ultimately that next generation did make it to the Promised Land.  And from this people ultimately came the savior of the world.  There were some harsh detours along the way – because God allowed Israel to suffer some consequences of their disobedience.  But ultimately – a remnant survived – and God’s purposes were fulfilled.  And we are here to tell the story and carry it forward.

I’ll repeat myself.  WE can too easily forget what life is all about, how we fit into the larger picture, and start to believe we are alone.  But if we can remember – if we can just remember – we are not the only ones to have ever thus despaired; we are not alone; and God will see us through if only we have faith in Him to do so – it will make all the difference in the world.

 

Some lessons we do have to learn the hard way.  But the lesson of the smitten rock in the wilderness is that some seemingly rock-hard obstacles can by God’s grace become living water.  Theologians have long understood that the smitten rock symbolizes the living Christ that smitten for us provides life.

It’s an obstacle for many.  But for those who can believe its salvation.

Look around you.  There are people – thirsty people – who feel alone and abandoned and hopeless.  You know that God is good and loving and ever willing to provide strength and love and hope.  Maybe in some small way you can help those thirsty people find a little something to drink.  And maybe, just maybe, the next time your faith fails - and you are thirsty – someone will do the same for you.

“Is God among us or not?”  Absolutely, He is.  So in spite of any temporary difficulty or doubt - let’s all take a long, lingering, deep drink of that good news.  And then let’s move on - to the Promised Land.

 

AMEN.

 

 

 

Sermon: "The Sixty-Four Dollar Question"

“The Sixty-Four Million Dollar Question”    

Text: Matthew 16:13-20

Elpis Christian Church

August 21, 2011

 

 

            Do you remember it?  It was called “The Sixty-Four Dollar Question,” and it was wildly popular.  Listen to how one researcher describes its origin:

 

“It had its roots in the CBS radio quiz show, Take It or Leave It, which ran from April 21, 1940, to July 27, 1947, hosted first by Bob Hawk (1940-41) and then by Phil Baker(1941-47). In 1947, the series switched to NBC, hosted at various times by Baker, Garry Moore (1947-49), Eddie Cantor (1949-50) and Jack Paar (beginning June 11, 1950. On September 10, 1950, Take It or Leave It changed its title to The $64 Question. Paar continued as host, followed by Baker (March 1951-December 1951) and Paar (back on December 1951). The series continued on NBC Radio until June 1, 1952.

On both Take It or Leave It and The $64 Question, contestants were asked questions devised by the series' writer-researcher Edith Oliver. She attempted to make each question slightly more difficult than the preceding one. After answering a question correctly, the contestant had the choice to "take" the prize for that question or "leave it" in favor of a chance at the next question. The first question was worth one dollar, and the value doubled for each successive question, up to the seventh and final question, worth 64 United States dollars.

During the 1940s, "That's the $64 question" became a common catch phrase for a particularly difficult question or problem. In addition to the common phrase, "Take it or leave it," the show also popularized another phrase, widely spoken in the 1940s as a taunt but now mostly forgotten (except in Warner Brothers cartoons). Chanted in unison by the entire audience when someone chose to risk their winnings by going for the $64 prize, it was vocalized with a rising inflection: "You'll be sorrr-REEEE.”

One final, humorous comment: the researcher adds wryly, “then they had the game show $64000 question and I guess with inflation it is now (the) 64 million dollar question.”

 

            Well today – whether you call it the sixty-four; sixty-four thousand; or sixty-four million dollar question – let’s just leave it as this: it is the most important question you can ask in life.  It’s found on the lips of Jesus of Nazareth.  And I just read it a minute ago.

 

“What about you?  Who do YOU say I am?”

 

Our world is filled with questions, many which seem to be unanswerable.  But this one, this one burning issue, continues to surface.  Who was Jesus of Nazareth?  Or, if asked from a Christian faith perspective, who IS Jesus today?

            Now there are some, many in fact, who might take this preacher to task today.  They would be quick to say, “That’s not a burning question at all – not for me!”  Atheist or agnostic, they would simply say “I don’t know – and frankly, I don’t care – I’ve got plenty of other fish to fry.”

            Well fair enough.  But as for me – I can’t think of a more important question.  I ask it every day, in one form or another.  Who is this Lord of mine?  What does he think about me?  What does he want of me?  What does he offer me?  What does he want me to offer others in his name?  On and on, the questions go on.  And they all come back to the issue of my declaration of faith in this mysterious fellow named Jesus.

            So often I am brought back in my mind to the comment that atheist turned Christian C.S. Lewis made about how there is one thing about Jesus, you can’t very well be neutral about him.  Given all he said and reportedly did, and the impact it has had on our world you are ultimately forced to do one thing or another.  You either have to decide he was a raving lunatic – or you have to fall on your knees and confess him Lord and Savior.  But a wishy-washy attitude of he was simply a great teacher – well, that just didn’t sit well with Professor Lewis.  He thought – as I do – that Jesus’ life deserves a more committed attitude from us than that.  And so – our scripture brings us to the question Peter and the disciples and millions more have faced – “Who Is Jesus?”  And how we answer that will change how we live every waking moment of our lives.

            Now some have chosen to answer this way:  “Jesus, oh, he’s my savior…uh, pass the catsup, please.”  What do I mean by that?  Well, just that for some they have decided to adhere to the intellectual belief that

 

1.      the Bible and it’s claims are true (though they don’t read it and don’t know it very well.)

2.      Jesus is, in fact, the Savior of mankind and anyone who says they believe in him gets a ticket out of hell and a pass to heaven, so – who would turn that down, right?

3.      that having made that decision about their eternal resting place they can pretty much forget all about it and get on with the really important stuff like lunch, so, “please pass the catsup.”

 

But for many more of us – for people like you and me – that’s not enough is it?  We want to know what difference it makes, not just for the future, but for today –this affirmation of Jesus as Lord and Savior.  And it is for us that I think this scripture is particularly important.  Because you see, it reminds us that living as a Christian impacts all of our decisions, day in and day out.  Or it should.  Our faith is not supposed to be neatly put into a little compartment that we just pull out on Sunday morning or at Christmas time.  It is to be our very life’s breath.  It is to inspire us, inform us, invigorate us, and send us out to DO something important for God.  That’s why I think it’s the “sixty-four million dollar” question.  And I think you believe that too – otherwise you wouldn’t get out of bed on Sunday morning and put on your best clothes and drag your children here when they would rather be watching cartoons or eating their cocoa puffs.  We get it.  We get that following Jesus, and learning every day how to be more like him, as best we can, is the burning question of our lives.  We get that prayer isn’t just for those who have secluded themselves on some holy mountain top – it’s for you and me – it’s the pipeline to talk to the Creator and Sustainer of the universe.  We get that opening our Bible regularly and trying to understand at least a little of what it has to say is really important.  We get that Jesus didn’t just die for us – he lived for us – and he wants us to live for him as well.  And living for him might call us into a wild, new, adventure when we least expect it.  Because Jesus didn’t just live a long time ago – he lives today – in some strange, mystical, but powerful way.

 

“Who do you say that I am?” is not a question asked and answered two-thousand years ago – only to be forgotten.  It is THE question for all humanity to ask and answer even now.

 

And how you answer it makes a difference in what you do at home; how you raise your children; what decisions you make at work; what you will and will not do to make money; what you will do with your money once you have some; whom you will spend your life with; what books you will read or not read; what movies you will let your children watch or not watch; what you will do when you see that beggar on the street; whom you will vote for and why; how you will speak; how you will listen;  whether or not you will love those who think or look differently than you do; and whether or not you will love others in real, tangible ways - even those who hate you with a passion.  These are the issues – and a thousand more – that are impacted by your answer to Jesus’ question “Who do you say I am?”

            For me the answer to Jesus is simply “You are my Lord and my savior, my God, whom I will follow every day of my life.”  And that means I can’t decide I know it all; I can’t decide I’ve read the Bible enough; I can’t decide I will never change my mind again – I have to decide instead that as I listen and hear the still, small, voice of God guiding me – I will do my best to follow and do what he tells me to do.  You may answer Jesus’ question differently –but I pray you answer it daily.

            And by the way – just as an aside, when you get stuck in this process – I think another question is a good one to ask as well – it’ll get you moving again.  It’s the follow up question to “Who do you say that I am?”  It’s “What would Jesus do?”

            One other thing about that game show - it had to go off the air because it turned out to be rigged.  That’s the way the world is.  It so often appears to be one thing and turns out to be something far uglier and false - but not so with Jesus.  He’s real; he’s authentic; he can be trusted.  And there isn’t a single question you might have that he isn’t willing to hear and answer for you.  The answer might not always come in the form you want or expect – but I believe, one day, it will come.

            This next week, ask the “sixty-four million dollar” question.  Ask yourself who Jesus is.  And ask how you can grow closer in your walk with him.  It’ll be worth a whole lot more than money.  It’ll make all the difference in the world. The world is full of questions.  And we have the answer to the most important one of all.  Isn’t that great? 

 

 

 

 

 

Sermon: "No Longer Grounded"

“No Longer Grounded”                                              Text: Luke 24:44-53

Ascension of the Lord

June 2, 2011

Elpis Christian Church

 

 

            A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to counsel a young man who had gotten into some serious trouble.  For the sake of confidentiality, I won’t go into the details today.  But suffice it to say that the matter was grave enough that there were legal as well as personal ramifications.  (By the way – this young man doesn’t belong to our congregation – so don’t get sidetracked this morning trying to figure out who I’m talking about.)  At any rate – as I say, it was a very serious matter.

            At one point, early on in the conversation, since I knew the boy’s parents pretty well – and the probable reaction they would have to the incident in question – I joked, “So I guess you’re pretty much GROUNDED FOR LIFE, right?”  To which my young counselee just sadly smiled and said, “Yeah…That’s pretty much it.”

            Can you remember such a day in your own life?  Can you remember a time when you messed up so profoundly; so irrevocably, that you thought you’d never be able to recover?  Can you recall a time when you thought your only options were to slink away in disgrace or change your identity and try and start fresh somewhere where no one had ever heard of you?  Can you remember a time when you had really blown it completely and you couldn’t imagine there being the option of a second chance?  Let me give you just a minute or two to think about that.

            If you’re like me – it didn’t take more than a few seconds for an image and a memory to come to mind.  Because some moments; such difficult episodes in our lives; our etched into our psyches in a particularly powerful way.  And what’s more, it’s something we pretty much universally share with each other as human beings.  I know some very good people – but I don’t any saints.  To put it scripturally, “All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.”  To put it in simpler terms: “We’ve all been ‘grounded for life’ before.”

            So today – even while I’ve caused you to drudge up some unhappy memories of your own failings or shortcomings – let me now hopefully lead you to happier ground.  In fact, I hope by looking at the scripture before us today we can not only go to happier and higher ground but get off the ground completely.  Today is Ascension Sunday – when the scripture reminds us of, and promises us, something truly extraordinary.  That just as the Lord Himself ascended to heaven – so we, with His blessing, are given the possibility to ascend as well.  Not just to some glittering city in the sky, in the sweet by and by, but to new, rich, full, joyful, and powerful life in the kingdom of God – in the here and the now.

            Life in the kingdom is to never be grounded again.  Let me repeat that – it’s the sound bite I want you to remember, if you remember nothing else, after I’ve finished preaching today.

 

            LIFE IN THE KINGDOM IS TO NEVER BE GROUNDED AGAIN.

 

            What does that mean?  Well, let me unpack it for you a little bit if I can.

 

I believe it is a sad reality that too many people live as if they have been grounded for life.  They live with their wings clipped and their spirits bowed low.   Perhaps it’s the political environment in which they live or work.  Maybe it’s the economic hardship under which they try to manage.  It may be the emotional or spiritual baggage that they carry around with them wherever they go.  The hardships may be visible; palpable realities – an oppressive political regime that rules their land; or an oppressive boss at work.  The difficulties which chain and restrain them may be made of actual iron or constructed in their own minds or both.  But either way, they are as tied to the ground as are the great balloons of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade on the day after Thanksgiving.              People – far too many people – lived wounded and ineffective lives.

            It’s nothing new.  The disciples of Jesus knew all about it.   Just days after they had failed him; betrayed him; and fled they knew what real defeat, in all its horror and shame, was about.   They locked themselves behind closed doors and sat licking their wounds and pondering their next move.  Most were probably wondering when the Roman guards would be coming for them and when they would be hung on their own crosses of shame.

            Then Jesus came knocking on the door.  More than that – He came walking right through the locked one.  And, so Dr. Luke tells us, both in his gospel and the book of Acts, he spent the next forty days with them – opening their minds so that they could “understand the scriptures.”  Now if that causes you to picture in your mind a sort of Master’s level Bible Study class – with the disciples sitting around with scrolls and notebooks in hand while the good Rabbi expounds – I think you’re only partially correct.  I picture something more real, down-to-earth, and “grittier” if you will.  I see Jesus sitting with his friends – the very ones who in their shame and sense of unworthiness probably found it difficult to look him in the eye when he first showed up in that locked upper room.  I see Jesus embracing them, and reassuring them, and eating with them, and making the scriptures come alive to them – literally.

            I think that forty days following the resurrection must have been amazing.  All that they had experienced in some half-witted way; all the miracles they had witnessed and the challenges they had faced; all the hardship of the road travelled which had culminated in watching Jesus die; and all the failure they had felt to the very marrow of their bones – that came crashing in on them.  And all the promises, all the teaching he had done, finally all the scriptures and prophecies to which he had referred – began to take on new, shining, glimmering, reality in their lives.  It was TRUE – the gospel was TRUE.  The KINGDOM WAS AT HAND.           And then, even while they still hadn’t fully comprehended it all, because they mistakenly asked “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom of Israel?” Jesus did something even more amazing.   He ascended to heaven.  But not before He promised that they would receive power when the Holy Spirit came upon them, enabling them to be witnesses to this new life in Christ, even to the very ends of the earth.  And not before he blessed them.  That is key to see.  When Jesus left them – he did so – while blessing them.  They weren’t grounded anymore.  Not physically, not emotionally, not spiritually, not politically, not economically, not racially – not in any way possible – were they grounded anymore.  Christ had lifted them once and for all, with a blessing and a promise that was beyond their wildest dreams or expectations.  And the result is that the Church was born.

            What does that mean for us?  What does it mean that in this mysterious, mystical, inexplicable way Jesus of Nazareth became the risen Christ, lifted on high, hidden by a cloud, borne witness to by angels while blessing and commissioning his disciples to go into the entire world in His holy name?  It’s staggering stuff, isn’t it?  And we – like those first imperfect men and women who dared to believe in and follow Him are tempted to stay grounded in our own limited vision and deflated energies.  But God has so much more for us than that.  God hopes so much more for us than that.  And God calls us to do so much more than that.  Ascension isn’t just about falling on our faces in worship and awe of Christ as He is lifted up into the heavens – though that is a perfectly appropriate thing for us to do.  Ascension is about our own lifting up and responding to the call He has issued.  And ascension, above all, is about receiving blessing and assurance.

            What has you grounded today?  What has clipped your wings and caused you to doubt yourself or the goodness of God?  What is holding you back from doing that thing you know, deep in your heart, God is calling you to do?  You know one very important difference between us and those first disciples is that the locked doors behind which we hide are far more insidious and deceiving than the real, iron-bolted ones they hid behind.  Ours are more subtle.  The chains which bind us are not as obvious as the ones which burdened them – or which burden the political prisoners of today.  We will leave here today and go home to rich meals and well appointed houses cooled by air conditioning.  We will leave here today and go about our business at our leisure – the household errands; the sporting event; the parties or the family outings.  And then we’ll go to work tomorrow – either to earn some money from our employers or to undertake some task we’ve set for ourselves.  And another day and another week and another month and another year will unfold.   And even when there is real, obvious difficulty and struggle in our lives – whether it is caused by illness or other challenges - when we are honest about it – wouldn’t you agree that our lives are pretty good?

            And yet – there is something lurking – something hidden – something threatening as well.  It is a darkness or a fear or a discouragement or a self-doubting – or something else, you have to name it for yourself.  I think many of us – indeed I think most of us – are burdened by this unnamed demon.  And it is this that causes us to falter when the night lengthens and sleep won’t come easily.  It is this that brings people into my office for counseling.  It is this that brings us to our knees, sometimes in prayer, sometimes in simple despair.  This demon is what grounds us and threatens to destroy us.  And – thanks be to God - it is this demon which the risen Christ defeats.

            If we can trust in and receive the blessing of Christ as He ascends above us; which is to receive the promise that there is nothing in this world or any world that can ultimately separate us from his love and empowering grace, then we will be lifted up in a way that the world cannot ever understand.  That is grace.  That is power.  That is possibility and new life.

            A few weeks ago I sat in my office and joked with a young man about how his parents had “grounded” him for life.  We talked openly and honestly about the mistakes he had made and the damage that had been done.  But then I tried my best to reassure him of the fact that our God is a God of second, and third, and fourth, and infinite chances.  And I hope I was able to paint a picture for him of a life of possibility and promise that lay ahead, thanks to God’s grace.

            We will never fully understand the mystery of what occurred the day Christ ascended to heaven, at least not until He comes again.  But we can embrace the possibility and promise it offers.  Don’t stay grounded for life – not today – not ever. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sermon: "The Chosen"

“The Chosen”                           Text: John 14:15-21

Elpis Christian Church

Memorial Day Weekend

May 29, 2011

 

 

     Ted Engstrom tells the funny little story of a man hailed a hero following an incident on a cruise ship.  He says,

 

     “The party aboard ship was in full swing.  Speeches were being made by the captain, the crew, and the guests enjoying the week-long voyage.  Sitting at the head table was a seventy-year-old man who, somewhat embarrassed, was doing his best to accept the praise being poured on him.

     Earlier that morning a young woman had apparently fallen overboard, and within seconds elderly gentleman was in the cold, dark waters at her side.  The woman was rescued and the elderly man became an instant hero.

     When time finally came for the brave passenger to speak, the stateroom fell into a hush as he rose from his chair.  He went to the microphone and, in what was probably the shortest ‘hero’s’ speech ever offered, spoke the stirring words:

 

‘I just want to know one thing – who pushed me?’”

 

Sometimes heroes are born; sometimes they are made; and apparently – sometimes they are pushed.

 

Courage is a funny thing, isn’t it?  So is sacrifice.  Most of us go about our daily lives relatively quietly.  We get up in the morning, brush our teeth – or put them in – we get dressed, eat a little breakfast, maybe look over the morning paper or check out the news on the TV or computer, and another day begins.  Not many of us put on a “superhero” costume to start the day.  We just do what we have to do.

But there are certainly times when men and women are called to do more; sacrifice more; answer some great call of duty or service.  And whether or not they are recognized as they go about this solemn, important duty – they too just “do what (they) have to do.”  That takes courage and sacrifice.

 

Frank Buckles was one such man.  As one article puts it,

 

“(He) did not seek the spotlight, but when he outlived every other American who had served in World War I, he became what his biographer called "the humble patriot" and final torchbearer for the memory of that fading conflict.  Buckles went to war at 16 after lying about his age.  He died  . . . on his farm in Charles Town, nearly a month after his 110th birthday.

He had devoted the last years of his life to campaigning for greater recognition for his former comrades, prodding politicians to support a national memorial in Washington and working with friend and family spokesman David DeJonge on a biography.

"We were always asking ourselves: How can we represent this story to the world?" DeJonge said today. "How can we make sure World War I isn't forgotten?"  When asked in February 2008 how it felt to be the last survivor, Buckles said simply, "I realized that somebody had to be, and it was me."  At least 8.5 million soldiers are believed to have died in the war.

(He) was born in Missouri in 1901 and raised in Oklahoma, visited a string of military recruiters after the US in April 1917 entered what was called "the war to end all wars". He was repeatedly rejected before convincing an army captain he was 18.

More than 4.7 million people joined the U.S. military from 1917-18. By 2007, only three survived.

Buckles got fan mail almost every day, DeJonge said, and had enough birthday cards to fill several bushel baskets.

DeJonge had visited Buckles late last week and was driving back to Michigan with about 5000 letters to organize and answer when he got the call telling him his friend had died.

"The letters are so heartfelt," he said. "That kept him going."

(He) served in England and France, working mainly as a driver and store man. An eager student of culture and language, he used his off-duty hours to learn German, visit cathedrals, museums and tombs, and bicycle in the French countryside.

After Armistice Day, Buckles helped return prisoners of war to Germany. He returned to the US in January 1920.

After the war, he returned to Oklahoma, and then moved to Canada, where he worked a series of jobs before heading for New York City. There he landed jobs in banking and advertising.

But it was the shipping industry that suited him best, and he worked around the world for the White Star Line Steamship Co. and W.R. Grace & Co.

In 1941, while on business in the Philippines, Buckles was captured by the Japanese. He spent more than three years in prison camps.

 

"I was never actually looking for adventure," he once said. "It just came to me."

 

 

     It’s that last quote that really grabs me.  It reminds us that life presents itself – in all its drama, joy, passion, pain, obstacles, and triumphs – and we must respond.  We have the God-given freedom, and responsibility, to do that.  Some respond better than others.  And we should not judge others on how well we think they have done or not done.

     It is better that we simply reflect prayerfully on what we are called to do with the circumstances in which we find ourselves.  And we should not be surprised if at times we are called to be courageous – even heroes in some way – too.

     By now you may think I’ve forgotten the scripture passage I read a few moments ago, but I haven’t.  You see, it’s oddly appropriate that the church calendar brings us to this passage about Jesus’ calling his disciples to follow him, to obey his commands, if in fact they love him – on the very weekend that we remember those who have served faithfully, courageously, boldly for love of God and country and fellow man.  The scripture passage talks about how the world cannot easily accept Christ – nor does it accept His followers.  And how it is that to serve Him faithfully it will take courage and sacrifice time and again.  And yet, there is that promise as well – that Christ does not leave us as orphans, never alone, in that task.  The Holy Spirit – the comforter – the advisor – the teacher – the
One who strengthens us in all things – will always be there as we answer our own unique calls as Christians, as citizens, as members of the human family.

     Memorial Day is so much more than picnics and fireworks.  It’s remembering, and giving thanks, and humbly devoting ourselves to following in the footsteps of those who have answered their own calls with courage and conviction.  Frank Buckles said, “I was never actually looking for adventure, it just came to me.”  We might not be looking for it either – but it may come – and we must make the choice to serve however God calls us to serve – or lose a grand opportunity.

     In a few moments we are going to do as we do each week – remember Christ’s sacrifice for us and for the entire world – as we partake of the Communion elements.  Then, shortly afterward, we are going to exit this sanctuary and go outside where we will conclude our time together by placing flags of remembrance on the graves of the veterans in our own cemetery.  That to me is always a very meaningful few moments – watching those flags be placed in remembrance and honor.

     But I hope as we do it each year it is more than just remembering and honoring those veterans – as important as it is to do that. I hope it’s a time when we quietly, and without much fanfare, re-dedicate ourselves to a life of service and sacrifice when need be.  It is our legacy that we do our part to follow Christ’s commands; to hold high Christian values; to reach out compassionately and boldly in Christ’s name; to serve God and country – always recognizing that God comes first.  And to simply be willing, should life place it before us, to serve in heroic and faithful ways.

     Frank Buckles went to war at age 16 after lying about his age.  The man in our little story about the cruise ship was literally “pushed” into acting heroically.  Christ called his disciples to follow in His footsteps on the very night that the world betrayed and denied him.  And though they stumbled a bit – most followed him – even when it meant dying as he had.  We never know where or how we might be called.  But we can remember those who have gone before, those who have answered the call, and we can do the same.  We do not do it alone.  God himself goes with us into the task.

   We are the chosen – chosen as people of faith and servants of God.  Chosen not to bring glory or honor unto ourselves but unto Him. Like so many who have gone before - may we be faithful, bold, courageous, and true when that call comes.         

 

 

Sermon: "Staying Connected"

“Staying Connected”               Text: John 14:1-14

Elpis Christian Church

May 22, 2011                                                                

 

     It’s one of the most effective advertising campaigns in recent history.  It shows a tall, thin, kind of gangly looking fellow.  He’s wearing black, horned-rimmed glasses and looks like he might be an accountant or computer geek.  He’s got a cell phone in his hand and a serious look on his face.  And everywhere he goes, no matter how remote or strange a place, he’s got one thing to say.  Do you know what it is?

“Can you hear me now?”

What’s the ad?  It’s for VERIZON – and I bet those ads have interrupted your favorite TV show or televised sports game a thousand times or more.  Why is it so successful an ad that they keep running it and running it and running it some more?  Because it makes VERIZON a lot of money.  And why is that? Because Americans are OBSESSED with being “connected.”  Whether it’s by cell phones; email; social networking sites – people, it seems, can’t go even a few minutes without connecting.  Sometimes it’s about business, other times it’s all about pleasure, but staying connected is key.  And it’s not just Americans who are obsessed with this process.  It’s a worldwide phenomenon.

     Consider these numbers:

According to MICROSOFT DYNAMICS, an arm of the huge MICROSOFT company, the social networking company “Facebook has an impressive 640 million users. Twitter has 175 million users. The Big 3 Cloud Based email providers (Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo!) combine for 362 million users.” And according to another source that watches these kinds of things, “there are 1.9 billion email users worldwide.”  That same source also predicts “that number will increase to 2.5 billion by 2014.”

     Those numbers are so staggering I can’t even wrap my mind around them.  That one Facebook statistic is enough to stop you in your tracks, isn’t it?  640 million users.  I’m one of them – and I use it every single day.  But I had no idea I had so many potential friends on line with me.

     What do I know though – is that staying connected with God, for a lot a people, doesn’t seem to be nearly as important as staying connected with their friends on Facebook or Twitter.  If it was, preachers would boast about having millions of millions of members in their churches – but we know that isn’t true.

     So today and next week I want to talk some about “staying connected” with God, because I will guarantee you this.  When the “rubber meets the road,” your friends at Facebook might be helpful.  But God is essential.  The good news is that He is more than willing to stay connected with us. And not just in times of crisis – but every single moment of our lives.  And that means we have the opportunity to be connected to not just a good cell-phone network; but to the very source of all power in the universe.  Isn’t that incredibly reassuring?

     Pastor David Crisp attested to this when he wrote these words,

     “On May 16, 2005, I turned 44, or as I preferred to say, 44 Magnum.  I guess 44 makes me middle aged, or at least it used to.  I am quite certain that now middle age must start later than it used to.  According to popular culture, I’m ripe for what is known as a mid-life crisis.  That’s when you start wearing open-collared disco shirts that reveal large gold medallions – which certainly sounds like a crisis to me.  It’s when you trade in your mini-van for a convertible and begin trying every way possible to recapture your youth by reliving your glory days (even if you really never had any.)

     Mid-life crisis is the result of the self-evaluation which comes to kick you in the stomach with the cold hard fact that you haven’t accomplished things you always dreamed you would and the reality is that it may be too late.  It doesn’t necessarily have to be that way.  Moses was 80 when God called him to lead Israel to the Promised Land.  Joshua was probably about the same age when he kicked the Canaanites out.  Caleb was the oldest guy in Canaan and he asked for and got the toughest assignment.  With God, every day is an adventure.  And with Him, all things are possible.

     When you serve the Lord, you never come to the point when you are useless.  You can always pray, always sing, always smile, and always encourage someone else with your story.  Our hope does not disappoint us.  No matter how old I am, or how old I get, I’ve decided that I will commit to make each year my best ever.  I may not have it all together, but I am connected to One who is more than able to do exceedingly and abundantly above and beyond all I can ask, think or imagine according to His power that is at work in me.  That’s magnum power.”

     He’s right.  When you’re connected to God – you are connected to the One who can accomplish anything.  You can’t do better than that.  But don’t take Pastor Crisp’s or my word for it – take the Lord’s.  He shared them with us in this fourteenth chapter of John.

     “Do not let your hearts be troubled.  Believe in God, believe also in me.”

     So often we only read or hear those words at funerals.  And that’s a good place to read or hear them.  But they belong on our lips, and minds, and hearts every day as well.  Jesus said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through me.”  Too often those words are used as a sort-of proof text for the fact that if you want to avoid hellfire and damnation you better get right with the Lord.  Well, that may true.  But I think the Lord was talking about a lot more than just how to insure for you a nice spot in heaven. I think he was talking about how to connect to the power source that will sustain you, lead us, empower and grace you with his Love every single day.

     Now what does his disciple and friend Philip do with that – this idea that Jesus is offering a sound, strong, permanent connection with the heavenly Father on a daily basis?  Well, Philip says, “That’s great – just show us the Father then, and we’ll connected.”  And Jesus has to sadly shake his head and reply, “Philip, have I been with you all this time, and you still don’t know me?”  That’s a question that must’ve stung not only Philip, but all his disciples, as well.

      But Jesus is simply pointing out that the connection to God they say they so desperately need is standing right there before them.  He’s in plain sight.  It’s not complicated.  It’s just a matter of opening our eyes and our hearts to that fact.

     And when we do – well that’s when that amazing promise comes.  Jesus says, “I am going to the Father.  I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son.  If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it.”

     That’s staggering.  That’s almost frightening to comprehend.  Obviously, Christ isn’t talking here about asking for any little trinket we might want and getting it – how could that possibly glorify God?  But he is saying that if what we seek; what we need, will bring God glory – if we are aligned – connected if you will – with that – nothing can stop us.  Again, that’s staggering to comprehend, isn’t it?

     And what is most amazing of all – is that Jesus makes this promise right before he is torn from them and publicly executed.  Right on the edge of seeming disaster – he says – “nothing can stop you if you stay connected with me – just believe.”  How much easier it would have been for them if Jesus had called angels down to assist him, overthrown Rome, and established a new kingdom on earth – then they would have easily believed.  But they had to go on faith, didn’t they?  Only after the resurrection would they see that faith vindicated.

     Is it any different for us?  It is during the hard times, the doubtful times, the dark times, that we are most likely to doubt our connection with God.  But it is also during those times when we have an opportunity to prove His faithfulness, His love, and His overcoming power.  “Do not let your hearts be troubled; neither let them be afraid.  Believe in God, believe also in me.”  That’s connection.

     I leave you with a little quiz.  How many of you here today own a cell phone? Let’s see your hands.  How many of you dinosaurs have land-line service?  How many of you, like me, have both?  Now let me ask you.  If those lines went suddenly dead, how quickly, and with how much effort, would go to work to trying to re-establish those connections?

  Is your daily connection with God any less important?  Keep the lines open.  Keep the connection strong.  It’s not hard to do.  It’s as easy as praying; reading your Bible; coming to church; looking around at all the beauty in the world; counting your blessings on a daily, if not hourly basis – it’s easy really, as easy as just opening your eyes. And it’s a whole lot less complicated that trying to understand that phone bill you get every month.  The question “Can you hear me now?”  - when it comes from God – takes on a whole new meaning, doesn’t it?

 

Sermon: "Why Baptism?"

“Why Baptism?”               Text: Galatians 3:26-29

Elpis Christian Church

April 17, 2011

 

 

     Well I thought today, since we’ve had our baptismal service as part of our morning worship, it would be good timing to talk a little bit about this ancient ritual.  Baptism is one of those things that, if you ask a half-dozen average persons to explain its meaning, you might get a half-dozen answers.  There’s good reason for that really. One is that everyone experiences baptism in slightly different ways – especially if you’re the one being baptized.

Some of us here today were baptized as infants.  It was an act of faith entered into by their parents – and they had little to do with it at the time.  No one asks a baby – “Hey, is it O.K. with you if next Sunday we dress you up in a frilly white dress, hold you up in front of a room full of people, and pour some water over your head? It’s sort of a religious thing . . . you O.K. with that?”  Parents just do it – and only later do some of those individuals come forward, enter into what their church calls “confirmation classes,” then finally become members of their church body through formal expression of their faith.

Still others of us were baptized like our candidates today – having made a formal confession of faith on their own accord.  Four youth and one adult were immersed in our baptismal pool, according to ancient, New Testament tradition.  Or, to put it a little less formally – when it comes to our baptismal experience - some of us have been “dunked.”

For some, it’s a very meaningful, holy moment.  For others, it’s more of a rite of passage – something they do because they just think they have to – and only later may they come to appreciate its full significance.  For still others – it’s kind of mixed bag. Take my own mother, for instance, sprinkled as an infant in the Methodist church; immersed into the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) as an adult.  And not just immersed – but dunked into a pool of over-heated water, thanks to a faulty water heating system.  She always said afterward, “Now I know what those lobsters feel like.” 

Finally, there are those who have never experienced baptism personally – and maybe find the whole thing more than a little strange.  “What’s this all about, anyway?” they say.  “Sprinkling, dunking, what’s the difference and what does it matter?”  Well, those are good questions.  And today I want to take a stab at answering them.

So let’s start with the word itself – baptism.  It is translated from the Greek – where we find it as baptizo (bap-tid-zo.)  It means, “to dip repeatedly, to submerge, to cleanse by dipping or submerging, to wash, to make clean with water, or to wash one’s self, to bathe.”  It also can mean, interestingly enough, to “overwhelm.”

According to James Montgomery Boice, writing in BIBLE STUDY MAGAZINE in May 1989, the “clearest example that shows the meaning of baptizo is a text from the Greek poet and physician Nicander, who lived about 200 B.C.”  What’s funny though is that it’s not a religious text in which we find the word used.  It’s not even a Greek tragedy about the sinking of a mighty war ship.  It’s a recipe – for making pickles. Nicander says that in order to make a pickle (and let’s see if you ladies agree) – the vegetable should first be ‘dipped’ (bapto) into boiling water and then ‘baptized’ (baptizo) in the vinegar solution.  But the first – the dipping - is temporary.  The second, the act of baptizing the vegetable, produces a permanent change.”  Maybe what happened to my Mom isn’t so unusual after all.

Well, I know our candidates today are glad that we didn’t dip them into boiling water and baptize them in vinegar solution afterward.  But it’s interesting that – spiritually speaking – they experienced something akin to those pickles in question.  You see – we dipped them in the water – that part, as significant as we try to make it – is only temporary; only symbolic.  The real change, the permanent one, is what happens thanks to God’s grace.  And it has nothing to do with vinegar.  It has everything to do with love.

There’s a legend that when Saint Patrick baptized King Aengus (eengus) of Ireland, at some time during the rite St. Patrick leaned on his sharp-pointed staff and inadvertently stabbed the king’s foot.  After the baptism was over, St. Patrick looked down at all the blood, realized what he had done, and begged the king’s forgiveness.  “Why did you suffer this pain in silence,” the Saint wanted to know.  The king replied, “I thought it was part of the ritual.”

     Sometimes we too, don’t understand everything about the ritual.  Whether we are participating in it ourselves or just onlookers, it can seem strange and foreboding.  But in spite of that, we need to remember this has nothing to do with suffering, at least not our own.  Baptism is about new life.  It’s about the Savior who loves us so much that He died for us.  Just so, we are buried – symbolically with him – in the waters of the baptismal pool.  And, like Him, we are symbolically raised from that grave to new life.

     The baptism waters also cleanse us – but it’s not about how dirty our physical body is or isn’t.  We are cleansed spiritually in this ancient, beautiful process.  Borrowed from the practices of the Jewish community; bringing to mind the ritual cleansing that was done on various occasions; we have come to see baptism as cleansing too.  We recall Naaman’s dipping in the Jordan River seven times for cleansing from his skin disease; we think of the Qumran sect which produced the Dead Sea scrolls and how they were concerned with ritual cleansing and purifying rites.  We think of John the Baptist – whom some have said may have been part of that Essene community at Qumran which emphasized repentance and submission to God’s will.  Most of all, we think of how Jesus himself came to “fulfill all righteousness” being baptized himself – though he clearly needed no spiritual cleansing.  And of how the ancient church, and the church through the ages, faithfully followed His instruction to not only be baptized in His name, but to go “into all the world, baptizing others in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.”  All of this swirls around in the mysterious waters of the baptismal pool.  And all of us calls us and speaks to us intellectually, emotionally, spiritually, and as a part of this community we call the body of Christ.  Baptism is all of this – and more.

     Like almost everything else in the history of the Church, it has been a bone of contention.  Churches have split many times over questions of what baptism was and how it should be practiced.  The debate has been hot and heavy.  But the rite itself remains.  And, thankfully, in more recent years the debates over the specific practice have waned.  And we have returned to a renewed appreciation of the fact that baptism should be something that brings us together as believers, not divide us.  Our own denomination, as an example, once adamantly opposed to the practice of infant baptism, now fully recognizes both infant and immersion as acceptable and no cause for conflict.  What it comes down to is this.  Sprinkling, dunking that is of little consequence; but being brought into full communion and participation with the one, worldwide, body of Christ – that is everything.  Our scripture today goes to the heart of it.  “There is neither Jew nor Greek, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”  And the words I spoke over each candidate today call them – and not just them, but us all – to something powerful and important:

 

     “Do you promise by the grace of God, to be Christ’s disciple to follow in the way of our Savior, to resist oppression and evil, to show love and justice, and to witness to the work and word of Jesus Christ as best you are able?”

 

As best you are able – we aren’t perfect.  We never will be.  But we are called.  And we are His.  And that is enough.

 

     Philip Henry, father of the 18^th century, the Presbyterian minister and scholar Matthew Henry, wrote for his children some words that became their baptismal statement.  They are words we should all take to heart.  And as we reflect on what Baptism means – they call us to devotion and to action.

 

     I take God to be my chief end and highest good.

     I take God the Son to be my prince and Savior.

     I take God the Holy Spirit to be my sanctifier,

          teacher, guide, and comforter.

     I take the Word of God to be the rule in all my actions

          and the people of God to be my people

              under all conditions.

     I do hereby dedicate and devote to the Lord all that I am,

          all that I have,

              and all that I can do.

     And all this I do deliberately, freely, and forever.

 

 

Why baptism?  Because it is so much more than just sprinkling, or dunking, or a rite of passage, or a funny, religious ritual.  It is accepting God’s grace, once and for all, and loving Him as we have first been loved.

Take some time this Lenten and Easter season to reflect on what baptism means to you.  If you’ve never been baptized – consider it.  If you have – re-claim it and celebrate it: the waters, clear and pure; God’s grace abounding; God’s church calling.  That’s what baptism is about.  And to God be the glory.

 

    

 

    

      

 

 

     

Sermon: "To Life!"

"To Life"                     Text: John 11:1-44

Elpis Christian Church

April 10, 2011

 

 

 

            Eileen Guder, in a book with the intriguing title God, But I’m Bored, has this to say:

            “You can live life on bland food so as to avoid an ulcer, drink no tea or coffee or other stimulants in the name of health, go to bed early and stay away from night life, avoid all controversial subjects so as to never give offense, mind your own business and avoid involvement in other people’s problems, spend money only on necessities and save all you can. (And) you can still break your neck in the bathtub (and die).  And, she adds, “it will serve you right.”

            That may seem a bit harsh – but she has a point.  Life is to be LIVED – lived to the fullest – and not just endured.  I’ve always loved the Jewish expression one hears at their various gatherings and celebrations, especially weddings: “L’Chayim” meaning literally, “to life.”  On the one hand, it’s a simple toast, offered before wine or other alcoholic beverages.  But it seems to me – it’s really something much more.  Coming from this people who have suffered so much for so many years, and who have survived near extermination time and again – it is a bold, faithful declaration.  “To life!” as if to say, “Live it to the fullest – and never take it for granted.”  How easy it to slip into taking life for granted.  And how much is lost when that happens.

            I put that before us today as a backdrop for our consideration of this amazing story of the raising of Lazarus.  We come to it as we wind our way with Jesus and His disciples to Jerusalem.  We come to it as we note the tension that is rising – how the powers that be in Jesus’ day are all conspiring to do Him in – as the hand of Satan himself guides them.  If you look back in the chapters leading to this passage in John, you will quickly see that there is a back and forth shifting between bold declarations of who Jesus is as the long awaited Messiah and Savior and equally bold assertions of how He must be eliminated since, they say, he is obviously only a blasphemer and troublemaker.

This is the tension that hovers near the path we walk from Bethany to Jerusalem to the Mount of Olives, Golgotha, and the tomb that would hold Jesus’ body very soon.  And in the midst of it all – in the midst of all this threat of death – we find this story of resurrection - in this case, not Jesus’ but that of one of his closest friends, Lazarus.

            It’s such a familiar story to us, in a way I think it has lost much of its impact.  But it is one we should re-visit often, not just during Lent, but all through our lives.  Because it is one of the clearest reminders we have of who Jesus was and what he was all about.  In this world of constant, inevitable, relentless death and decay – Jesus is LIFE.  We may call him a great teacher; a compassionate healer; a formidable prophetic voice for justice; a wise sage and a thousand other names.  But what we as Christians affirm most of all is that he is “the resurrection and the life.” And the question he asks of young Martha, as she wipes her red eyes and bows her head in sorrow – is the question He asks of every single man and woman on the face of this planet.  “I am the resurrection and the life.  He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die.  Do you believe this?”

DO YOU BELIEVE THIS?

            That’s what it all comes down to.  You can take or leave church membership; you can decide to be a part of what’s happening here or not; you can live every day reading your Bible and trying to live by its precepts or you can set it aside and follow a thousand other ways.  But it all comes down to this.  DO you believe Jesus is who He says He is – or not?  And the answer makes all the difference in the world.

            It makes a difference in the long run – in regard to, as the evangelists are fond of saying – “where we will spend eternity.”  More sermons than could ever be remembered have used this very text to challenge, frighten, guide, and inspire listeners into making confessions of faith so as to avoid being sent to a fiery death.

            But I think the answer to Jesus’ question also makes all the difference in the world as to the kind of life we will live in the here and now.  It’s not all about avoiding hellfire and damnation.  It’s about finding life and living life to its fullest NOW.

            I believe Jesus has the power to unwrap the burial clothes which bind us so tightly not just when our physical bodies are dead and decaying in the tomb but when our day to day living has grown stagnant as well.  I believe Jesus is the way in which we find ourselves freed of the depression, the discouragement, the meaninglessness, and the sheer boredom which sometimes threatens to do us in – long before our physical bodies have died.  Put it still another way – to follow Jesus is to find not just life eternal but life in the here and now.

            Somehow, sadly, there are lots and lots of people who have missed that message.  And I have a sneaking suspicion the Church, as an institution, must bear a large part of the blame for that.  Ask a lot people for a honest response to how they feel about Church and the faith and they will tell you they’d just as soon have to a go the dentist and have a root canal as be forced to dress up and come to church and sit through one more boring sermon or sing one more glum hymn.  We’ve lost our passion – our enthusiasm – our conviction to say loud and clear “To Life!” And a lot of people know it.  So they seek life elsewhere, rarely finding it.  We’ve got to do better than that.  The stakes are too high. And it’s time we re-discover for ourselves the joys of living a real life of faith.

            So, says the cynic, how?  Prove it?  What does Jesus offer that is so “life-giving”?  Well, truth is, I can’t answer that in a hundred sermons, much less just one.  It’s something you have to experience for yourself to really come to believe it.  But, lest I be accused of just taking the easy way out on that let me make one suggestion – and it takes us back to our scripture passage today.

            Go back to that little encounter between Jesus and Martha.  He asks Martha if she believes in this concept of resurrection – and whether or not Jesus has the power to raise Lazarus.  And like any good, careful, Sunday School student, she answers the good rabbi “I know he will rise again the resurrection of the last day.”

            Do you see?  He asks the question and she answers with a nice, reasonable, theologically correct response.  Even in her sorrow, she engages her brain and finds the appropriate intellectual belief and spits it out as if she is being graded on some final exam.

            But Jesus doesn’t leave it there.  He doesn’t just pat her on the head, give her a gold star, and say, “Very good, little girl, you just keep believing that, and one day, hopefully, it will prove to be true.  And – by the way – I’m sorry for your loss. Now go fix us something to eat.”

            No – Jesus presses on.  He presses on past what she believes in her mind to what she believes in her heart.  Again he asks, “I am the resurrection and the life….Do you believe this?”  And it’s as if the light bulb goes on.  You can almost see here expression change; her eyes brighten as she realizes in her gut what he is promising do right then and right now.  And she says “Yes, Lord!  Yes!  I BELIEVE YOU ARE THE CHRIST, THE SON OF GOD, WHO WAS TO COME INTO THE WORLD.”  She might just as easily said, and maybe she did, “Yes Lord!  I understand! I believe you can make my brother live again, right here, right now.  I believe you can give us all our lives back again!”

And when she made that leap of faith, not just with her mind, but with her heart, Jesus prayed and then brought her brother back to her and her sister.

            In other words you can’t find life in Jesus just by believing certain things about Him.  That’s good, as far as it goes.  But what you really have to do is believe not just things ABOUT him – you have to believe IN HIM – and in his power to be a real, live, active, powerful, life-giving force in your life right now.

            It’s so much more than just creeds and doctrine.  It’s being willing to every day go to him, talk to him, listen to him, and follow him.  And then and only then will the veil of death begin to part and real life begin.

            Today there are some among us who are willing to do that.  They are willing to step forward and boldly declare that they don’t just believe some things about Jesus in some, vague, intellectual way.  They are willing to walk down this aisle today and say publicly that they know Jesus is the resurrection and the life and that following Him day in and day out is going to change their lives radically and permanently.  They are willing to say “To Life!” with all their hearts, minds, and souls.  I hope and pray we can join in their affirmation and add our own, enthusiastic affirmation as well.

            Chuck Swindoll says in his book Grace Awakening:

            If our greatest need had been information,

                        God would have sent us an educator.

            If our greatest need had been technology,

                        God would have sent us a scientist.

            If our greatest need had been money,

                        God would have sent us an economist.

            If our greatest need had been pleasure,

                        God would have sent us an entertainer.

            But our greatest need was forgiveness,

                        so God sent us a Savior!

 

Being a Christian isn’t just about believing in a certain set of principles, or following a certain set of laws, or engaging in a certain number of ethical actions – though it encompasses all of those things.  And it certainly isn’t just about attending a certain number of church services before you die.  Being a Christian is about choosing life by choosing Jesus as Lord and Savior in every single aspect of your life, day in, day out, every single day.  Do that, and everything else will fall into place.

 

“L’Chayim! To LIFE!”