The Wisdom of Old Folk

 Luke 2:21-40

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I have learned much in my friendships with the elderly.  I once knew a woman named Katherine in a retirement community in Richmond, VA in which I interned during seminary.  She was 104 years old and quite well known throughout the United Methodist Church community in south-central Virginia for the clay figurines that she crafted there in the residential hobby room.  Katherine's most notable creation was a little froggy orchestra.  I learned from her that if life takes something away from you, your purpose so to speak, well then you just go be creative, move on, and find something else.  Katherine had never done anything with clay until she left her home and everything behind and moved into the Hermitage Home at age 96.  Within eight years people were coming from all over south-central Virginia to view and purchase her art.  There was just something special about her little creations.  They spoke a silent message of hope; the gentle reminder that no matter what, be creative.

My grandmother, Grandma Cox, was in her seventies when she moved into a retirement community.  At her home in Raphine, VA she lived a fairly isolated life making quilts and other sewing crafts.  In the retirement community she became well known for her quilted and knitted things and beanbag monkeys.  She also made the most of the opportunities available there at Sunnyside and even became a reigning shuffleboard champion. It takes a lot of courage to make the changes that she had to make. Yet, like Katherine she made them and kept living and stayed creative and that's that.  That’s what you got to do and how you do it.  

Another thing I have learned from my elder friends is that somewhere between the years of 80 and 85 we are suddenly gifted with the authority to say whatever we want to whomever we want no matter how off the wall it might sound and it will be called wise and people will heed it.  Again, I fall back on my Grandma Cox.  She absolutely did not like the shredded beef salad that they served just a little too often in the cafeteria...and you have to understand that Grandma was an excellent cook herself and had even worked in a school cafeteria for a good bit of her life and so she understood institutional food.  One evening for dinner there at Sunnyside they served her the typical ice cream scoop of shredded beef salad on lettuce.  Grandma looked at it and said, “This looks like something the dog threw up in the yard and I'm not going to eat it.”  Well, the servers immediately gave her something else to eat and after that the beef salad appeared with less frequency.  Grandma’s earthy but wise observation brought about a much-desired change for all the residents. 

So, there you have it.  Just a couple of things I've learned from the elderly.  One, strive to keep living and be creative as much as we are able.  And two, at some point past the age of 80 we will suddenly be granted the gift of being able to say whatever we want to whomever we want and it will be dubbed wisdom and people will listen; so speak up.  Keep living, keep being creative, and speak up.  It's with those lessons in mind that we turn to Simeon and Anna. 

Simeon was a very devout man whom the Holy Spirit had told that he would not die until he had seen the Messiah.  One day the Holy Spirit moved Simeon to go to the temple and there he found Mary and Joseph and baby Jesus. I can imagine him taking Jesus with wrinkly, boney, shaking hands and with a raspy, joyful voice saying, basically, “Yes! Lord, now let me die in peace for I have indeed seen your salvation.” Simeon had lived a very long life and since he had lived his life faithfully, he did indeed know why the Lord had kept him alive so long.  God had made him a promise and told him he would not die until he saw it fulfilled.  There in his arms lay his answered promise - a tiny, weak, vulnerable baby.  God was keeping his promise and was indeed bringing about the deliverance of Israel and of all peoples from every form of oppression.  He looked at Jesus and knew the prayer God put him on earth to pray was answered and he could now die knowing God is faithful.  Simeon is also well past the age of 80 and so he speaks bluntly to Mary concerning Jesus: “This child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be spoken against, so that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed. And a sword will pierce your own soul too.”  I’m sure Mary was a bit befuddled and then up comes this old woman.

Anna the Prophetess was 84 years old. She had probably married at the age of 14 or fifteen and was widowed after seven years.  Instead of remarrying, she then went to live in the temple courtyards (probably as a beggar) for 60-some years, never leaving.  There she worshipped by praying and fasting night and day.  Like Simeon, her life's purpose also was waiting for God's Messiah. At the same moment that Simeon knows his life's purpose had been fulfilled, Anna comes and begins to tell those who had gathered in the temple to pray for God to send the Messiah that he had indeed come. 

Well, to make a long sermon short, I think the obvious wisdom that Simeon and Anna have for us is that we will not know the Lord's purpose for us apart from knowing the Lord's Christ, apart from knowing Jesus.  I've been around more than a few retirement communities and I've been asked more than a few times by people who have outlived most of their family and friends, "Why is the Lord keeping me here? Haven't I served my purpose yet?”  They usually say that because they truly are reeling in the loss that life brings when due to the frailties of old age a transition must be made from the independence of one’s own home to “the home”.  The only nutshell answer there can be to those questions is “You’ve lost much and I can see why you feel your life is pointless.  I’d feel that way to.  But you’re still alive.  So, live.  Keep praying.  Pray for everybody and everything and love and serve your neighbours while you wait.  I suspect you will come to realize that’s why you’re still here.  Our Lord has great plans for the healing and deliverance of the people he’s put in your life.  So, pray for that and wait for it."  

Let’s talk about congregations for a minute.  Many congregations today find themselves in the situation of needing to make a transition to something else due to the physical and spiritual reality of their members growing old.  It is safe to say that just over 60% of the churches in North America have fewer than 50 people in worship on a Sunday and the average age of those folks is over 70.  Old age and dwindling in size have made anxiety in the face of the future and a corporate sense of low self-esteem a constant debilitating factor in the predominant church of North America which is the small church of which we are four.  Small is now the norm for the church.  

Like elderly people do, many of these small and aging congregations are asking “Why are we still here?  What could possibly be our purpose?”  These small churches are still very much alive (just as you folk are) and so must live (just as you must).  Those questions are rooted in the (for lack of a better word) despair of having dwindled the last couple of decades from being the “big, program church” that bubbled onto the scene just after WWII.  In the 20 years after WWII the church in North America experienced unprecedented growth due to the rise of the “Suburb”.  But, bubbles pop and so the bubble of the “big, program church” started to noticeably pop in the ‘80’s.

But, you know, there is nothing in the Bible that says a church of Jesus Christ must have the “big, program church” bag of tricks to be the real deal – a building, full-time paid clergy, Sunday School, and other programs of ministry.  The churches of the New Testament met in homes, were led by gifted and well-tutored disciples, ate together a lot, and their only program for ministry was proclaiming that in his love, God has saved his Creation in through and as Jesus Christ who was soon to return and so they lived accordingly inviting others to be his disciples…and…they virtually eliminated poverty amongst themselves.  

We need to take to heart the wisdom of my friend Katherine and my Grandma Cox – continue living, be creative, and speak up.  When being a church can no longer be done the way we’re accustomed to, well, let’s just find something new to do with the abilities that we still have and be creative about it even if it is just to pray fervently.  The church of twenty years from now is going to be dramatically different from the church of twenty years ago because North American culture has changed so dramatically.  I expect that the church twenty years from now will look more like the New Testament churches be based in homes rather than buildings; centered around potluck meals, Bible Study; and prayer; led by trained lay people, full-time clergy will be fewer and far between and shared by a number of congregations; and, Jesus Christ will be a neighbourhood household reality. 

But for today, the average age of the members of our congregations is now approaching the age of Simeon and Anna, which means we are collectively able and gifted with the authority to say whatever we want to whomever we want and they will listen and call it wise.  So, like Simeon let us proclaim God’s salvation of the world through the reconciling love of Jesus Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit and let us do so because our eyes have indeed beheld him.  May we, like Anna, a crazy old widow, shout it out.  We have something to say!  Amen.

 

The God Infusion

Colossians 1:15-23

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It’s Christmas Eve, we gather to celebrate the birth of Jesus, the Christ-child, God the Son become human.  It’s a fairly nostalgic moment that we share – a time to appreciate beauty in song and in the seasonal aesthetics (decorations), a time of warmth in reunion with family and friends, a time of giving and a realization that we need to do more for those in need, and it’s a time to receive.  We gather to worship in an effort to let God know we haven’t forgotten the reason for the season – somehow this Baby Jesus changes us; saves us; saves everything; changes everything.

To say why God has done what God has done for us in, through, and as Jesus is fairly easy.  God is love and so God loves.  God loves his very good creation.  God loves us.  God loves each of us.  Yet, something has gone terribly wrong in God’s good creation, in us, in each of us.  There is good and there is evil.  There is futility and there is death.  The root of it is a disease called sin.  We all have it.  God in love has decided to heal us.

Our disease is not a naive either/or problem where we simply know the difference between what is good and what is evil and at times do good and at times do evil.  When we speak of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Book of Genesis from which Adam and Eve eat, it is not the Tree of the Knowledge of Good or Evil, but rather Good and Evil.  Good and Evil are not juxtaposed but mixed.  So often we do Good and it winds being Evil or we have to do what we know is Evil to bring about Good, war being an example.  Good and Evil are confused and entwined within us.  We cannot just do one without doing the other because we are both at the same time.

We are sick with a disease that is killing us, indeed killing the Creation.  We are as good as dead; dead though we live, doing things that lead to death.  The only cure for our disease is that God infuse us, indeed the whole Creation, with God’s very self and so we talk about God becoming human.  Infusion is like putting a drop of red food coloring into a glass a water.  At first the drop is quite noticeable, but in time the red coloring bonds to all the water molecules changing the whole glass to be red water.  The water is changed.  It has been infused with the color red which diffused throughout the glass changing everything.  It’s not just a glass of clear water anymore.  It’s now a glass of red water.  God the Son became human as the man Jesus of Nazareth.  God took upon himself our sin diseased state of existence and as one of us he lived a life in communion with God and with us, a life in which he did no evil. 

In this way God infused himself to humanity and truly to the entire Creation and has changed the water, so to speak, in such a way as to begin to heal it.  This infusion, Jesus, began the healing.  When Jesus had become sick to death at the evil of his crucifixion, that was actually God diffusing himself into death in order to heal his very Good Creation even of death.  Jesus’ death once and for all removes the disease of sin from humanity like a tea bag drawing the infection from an infected wound.  Jesus’ resurrection set in motion the rubrics of a new humanity, a new creation in which Sin and Death will be no more.  In the fullness of time, whenever that will be, whenever God decides to say “Enough!”, we will either simply be changed if we’re still around or resurrected from the dead to live anew in a bodily existence that neither sins nor suffers nor dies but is rather filled with, infused with the living presence of God right down to every subatomic particle from which we are made.  As Jesus was bodily raised so will we be bodily raised.

Until then, God has poured his Spirit upon those whom has called to follow Jesus as proof of what is to come.  The Spirit is at work in us changing us to become like Jesus.  The Holy Spirit does the work of diffusing God’s presence into us and the creation.  St. Athanasius of Alexandria who lived at the same time said, “He became what we are that we might become what he is” meaning a new humanity, human beings filled with the very life of God.  In Christ we exist at the same time as sinners and dead but healed and alive.  

This all probably sounds like metaphysics until you realize that it is love we are talking about and our relationship with God and one another in the love that God has shown in Jesus and given us in the Holy Spirit.  Not that warm, fuzzy, nostalgic, feel-good stuff; but rather the kind of love in which we put ourselves aside and moved with compassion we act doing things like making sure the people who live on our street, in our town, in our county, in our province, in our nation, in our world have enough to eat and if they don’t we take food from our tables to feed them, and then we’re going to find out why there’s not enough food to around when there should be abundantly enough, and get governments to stop protecting what seems to be the inalienable right of food-hoarders to make money off of starving people and rather just simply for compassions sake feed people and restore to them what is the inalienable right of being able to grow your own food.  

Love in God’s very good creation looks like food for the hungry, clean water for the thirsty, homes for the stranger, clothes for the ill-clothed, health-care for the sick, hospitality and proper care for even those who have broken the law and our trust.  It looks like forgiveness, compassion, generosity, and the absence of trauma.  When we start thinking about and doing unconditional, selfless, sacrificial love in action then the diffusion of God’s infusion of himself into his very good Creation as this vulnerable baby laying in a nasty feeding trough starts to become real.  That’s about all I got.  Merry Christmas.  Amen.

Dressed for Joy

 Isaiah 61:1-11

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Back when I was in seminary, I went on a study tour of the Middle East.  It was an invaluable trip.  One thing that you notice when you go there is that there are ancient ruins everywhere, reminders of civilizations that have come and gone.  The first ruins that my group visited were in Syria, the ancient city of Palmyra.  It is a UNESCO World Heritage site.  Palmyra is a city of nothing but ruins – the ancient temple of Bel, Roman-style columns sticking up, Greek and Roman style tombs, and Roman amphitheatre, massive stone blocks strewn hither and yon.  There’s even a crusader castle on top of a high hill overlooking the city.  Even though there was hardly an intact building with a roof on it, the ancient city was still inhabited by some very, very poor people who sold trinkets, gum, and re-bottled water and myriads of children who would let you take their picture for a dinar.  

If you take a tour to other places in the Middle East you will see that rebuilding ancient ruins is just the way they do things.  Take Jerusalem for example.  Jerusalem is built upon the ruins of a previous Jerusalem that was built upon the ruins of previous Jerusalem that was built upon the ruins of another previous Jerusalem and so on.  Archaeologists have found that you have to dig down about ten metres to get to the Jerusalem where Jesus walked the streets and about twice that to get to the time of King David.  Building upon ruins upon ruins upon ruins upon ruins…a way of life.

Rebuilding ancient ruins is a topic of our reading in Isaiah today and the city involved is Jerusalem.  To give you a little history; the LORD is here speaking to a remnant of his people who said “yes” to his invitation for them to return from their exile in Babylon to the land of Judah, to Jerusalem, to rebuild it, because their time in exile had ended.  On the bigger global scene, the Persians had just conquered Babylon and the Persian king, Cyrus, also decreed they could go home and he would pay their way and help them when they got back.  

Well, why were they, God’s people of all people, in exile?  Nearly a century earlier God had cast his people off of the Land he had promised to and given to their ancestors where they had indeed been a great nation.  God did it because they had been worshipping other gods and this idolatry led them into being a people whose way of life did not shine forth the love, righteousness, justice, and peace of the God who had brought them out of slavery in Egypt to be his distinct people.  They didn’t look like the God who loved them had saved and established them.  Instead, they looked like the soap opera of immorality that those other gods were believed to live.  The wealthy abused the poor and gave no concern to the care of widows and the orphans, the most vulnerable in their day.  In fact, they used the poor as a way to get more wealth.  Their legal system, instead of a just and fair legal system, was a cesspool of corruption and bribery.  Worst of all, their kings and leading citizens went as far as to sacrifice their own children by setting them on fire to the foreign god Molech in order to grow powerful and rich.  Who does that?

So, God sent the Babylonian army and for over a year they put Jerusalem under siege starving everyone indiscriminately.  When the Babylonians finally broke through the city wall, they levelled the city, razed the Temple, and led away anybody who considered themselves important on a long march to exile in Babylon.  The politicians, the priests, the patrons, the wealthy families – the ones who previously had everything – lost everything and literally had to walk away from it all.  The poor – those who previously had nothing – got what was left…the ruins.  And…it did not take long for opportunist and thugs from surrounding lands to come a-squatting on free real estate.  Those left behind got absorbed in all that and lost their identity.

That was the history behind our passage.  Let’s have a look at the passage itself now.  The prophet was speaking to a remnant of Israelites who had come back from Babylon and resettled Jerusalem and the surrounding area but under difficult circumstances and so they were a disillusioned lot.  They were expecting to rebuild everything to its former glory but they just didn’t have the financial and people resources to do that. And, there were those people who had moved into Jerusalem and the surrounding countryside to squat on the land after the Babylonians took the Jews into exile; they had lived there long enough to call the land their own and didn’t take too kindly to a few thousand religiously fervent “Babylonian” Jews showing up and saying this place belongs to us because God gave it to our ancestors. (The rubrics of the Israeli/Palestinian problem go back a long way.)  The return to Jerusalem did not go according to the hopes of this faithful remnant whom God brought home from Babylon.  

The prophet comes to bring this tired, disillusioned lot good news and joy.  “The Spirit of the LORD is upon me” he says so that he could proclaim the good news to God’s faithful remnant that God is still with them and that his purposes for them will in time come to fruition.  He reminds them who they are and what God has done for them.  In Babylon, they had been oppressed, held captive, even imprisoned for trying to maintain their faith and identity as Jews rather than becoming “Babylonian” as many Jews did.  Hence, the stories of Daniel in the Lion’s Den and Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the fiery furnace.  God freed them and brought them back to their homeland.  Now back on the Land God will rebuild the ancient ruins for it is what God wants to happen.  They are a nation of priests who will reflect the glory of the LORD to the nations and the day will come when the nations will bring their wealth to them and call them blessed in realization that the one true God is among them.  But…the process of how it all happens will not be an overnight kind of thing.  It will be like how plants grow; a natural, timely spouting and growing of righteousness and worship.  It will not happen quickly.

In the meantime, this remnant of tired, disillusioned people will need to be mindful of their own righteousness and be joyful.  They will need to avoid going the way of the nations and trying to gain a false sense of security by means of pursuing power and wealth.  God loves justice and hates it when people rob and cheat and lie to get wealth and power.  They must draw close to the LORD and walk in his ways.  Gratefully walking in God’s ways is what righteousness is.  There can be no real joy apart from righteousness.

I think what the prophet is really trying to say here is that before the ancient ruins of Jerusalem can be rebuilt, the ancient ruin of the people themselves needs to be rebuilt.  The people need to rebuild by walking in the ways of the LORD and rejoicing.  Rejoice means be joy-filled, be joy-filled about what the LORD had done and will do for them.  They are the ancient ruin and they need to be rebuilt with joy.

Throughout this passage the prophet refers to himself.  Yet, it is not a stretch to say that he is speaking of himself as representative of the whole people.  What he says about himself is true for the people as well.  The Spirit of the LORD is upon him.  So, it is with the people.  The Spirit of the LORD is with them, dwelling in and among them.  He wears the joyful wedding garments of salvation and so it is with them.  He says, “I will greatly rejoice in the LORD; my whole being shall exult in my God, for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation, and covered me with the robe of righteousness.”  That’s true for the people as well.  They were in a foreign land oppressed, held captive, and some were even imprisoned and now they are free and in their ancestral land free to be the people on earth through whom the LORD shines forth his glory.  That is the garment of salvation.  They, too, wear the robe of righteousness for the Spirit of the LORD is upon them.  Therefore, they should rejoice, be joyful and praise God with their whole being. 

Even though life back in Jerusalem is not as they had hoped.  Even though Jerusalem still lay in ruins and they have to spend all their time protecting themselves from the folks who have been living there, it is still their reality that God had done so much for them just to get them home and so they should feel the joy and let the slow growth happen as God rebuilds them because it will…in time, it will happen.

Well enough of the past.  How about us today?  The “Church” as most of us remember it is today an ancient ruin.  One studied done just prior to Covid determined that in Canada one church per week was closing.  We are like a faithful remnant holding to the hope of rebuilding it but we lack the resources of finances and people…our only hope is a societal-wide act of God.  

Regardless of the disillusioning reality that according to the numbers Christianity in our land is a dinosaur going the way of the Dodo, inside our doors it can be said that the Spirit of the LORD is upon us.  In our midst, good news can be heard and found.  Jesus the Christ risen from the dead is alive and present in our midst.  We each wear the garment of salvation.  The LORD God who built and rebuilt ancient Israel has stepped into each of our lives and proven himself faithful in steadfast love.  We each wear the robe of righteousness – the Spirit of the LORD is upon us and shines through in the way that we live our lives.  Though we are part of those remnant inhabitants living among the ancient ruins of North American Christianity we have a joy that only God can give.  We have peace.  We have hope.  We have love.  Though we may be growing old, there is in our midst the New Life of the New Day coming, a foretaste of Creation and human community healed.    

Take some time in your daily routine to take note of all that is good in your life, of how God has been faithful to you. How God has been faithful and time and again gave you the strength you needed to face each day and sometimes even just to face the next ten minutes.  The Spirit of the Lord is upon you, in you.  You are never alone.  The one who has the power to raise the dead is holding you by the right hand.  He’s counted every tear you’ve cried.  Since he dwells in you, he has felt everything you have felt and felt it with you.  He has been through everything you have been through and been through it with you.  His voice is the one who calls us to compassion, generosity, patience, and forgiveness rather than selfishness and vengeance.  There is a peace that passes understanding when we “Be still and let God be God.”  When we sow in tears, God will personally see to it that we will reap in Joy.  You folks who have served Lord all your lives has not this been your experience?  Indeed, I think it has.  Praise the Lord.  Amen.

When Jesus Shows Up

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Isaiah 40:1-11

This passage portrays a very powerful image of God deciding it’s time to come to shepherd his people and nothing can stop God from doing it.  So, God tells his prophet to cry out with words of comfort, beckoning all of creation to prepare the way.   These words were first written to give hope to a community of Jewish exiles living in Babylon.  They were a small remnant who had not made Babylon their home and rather longed for their own homeland in Palestine. The prophet was told to cry out and speak tenderly to the heart of God’s people with a message of good news.  But the prophet is a bit reluctant.  To paraphrase his answer, it would sound more like, “God, what can I say to these people that would comfort them?  You have leveled them to the extent that they more readily believe that bad things come from you than good.  They are grass and you have withered them with the scorching heat of your judgment.”  And to paraphrase God’s response, “Just as sure as my Word was to destroy them so now is my Word that I am coming to them tenderly to gather them up and to be their shepherd.  The whole world will see it and know that I am God.  I am coming to them and there is nothing they can do but watch in awe.”  A very powerful image, God’s just going to do it.

Well, this passage is special to me because I saw something very much like it happen.   It was during my last two years of seminary.  I was serving as the volunteer chaplain at the Masonic Home of Virginia, which is a retirement community.  About all I did there was conduct worship at their Sunday evening chapel service and occasionally visit.  So, it wasn’t my doings.  When I first started, the chapel service, and I hate to say it, was a depressing sight.  There were about 35 mostly drowsy people because of the heat in there and a very screechy choir of 5 or 6 led by Mr. Helsabeck who was stone deaf, loud, and monotone.   More somberly, and I say this with great respect, they were exiles of life much like the Jews in Babylon.  Old age had taken their independence, their homes, their ability to care for themselves, many of their life-long friends, and their spouses.   Many had even outlived their children.  Mostly, they were in a safe place waiting their turn to die.  Death was all they had to look forward to.

For me this was my first real regular preaching work.  I was inexperienced and at a loss as to what I could preach that would be of any kind of comfort to them at all.  Well, I prayed on the matter and fortunately the first Sunday I preached there was Easter Sunday and Easter was my answer.  Preach on the hope of our faith.  Our God is the God who raises the dead.  Death is not the final word in God’s very good Creation.  So, for us now living resurrection hope in Christ in the face of death is our way.  

For the two years I was there it seemed that nearly every time I sat down to write the sermon what came out was in someway about hope and continuing to live as those who have hope in the face of death.  You’d think they would have grown tired of hearing that same central message week after week, but hope was what they needed, “Jesus” hope.  Our hope is founded on his living presence with and in us.  We have the friendship and companionship of the Holy Spirit who renews and reinvigorates our lives daily and even moment-to-moment if we devote ourselves to being mindful of him.  It is from his renewing presence that our lives flow forth to be those who give of hope in this world.

They took the message seriously.  Actually, I got the fodder for many of my sermons from just watching how they lived and commending them for it.  From what I saw of their life together in that very close-knit community they definitively lived as those who had hope.  They visited each other in illness and supported each other when yet more bad news came.  They helped one another in small daily tasks like meals.  They prayed for each other.  Played games together.  They had a way of understanding when so and so was a little grouchy today. Give a hug and let them be grouchy.  These exiles knew how to live in a community-centered way that cried out, “We have hope.  We still live.”  Jesus’ life was living in them and they were living according to it.  

Well, something began to happen there at the Masonic Home and the only way I can explain it is that God showed up in a powerfully obvious way.  It seemed every month attendance grew at the chapel service.  In the two years that I was there it went from 35 to nearly 90.  The choir blossomed to over 20 members but they still couldn’t drown out Mr. Helsabeck. 

If you will allow me to coin the terminology of the study of how churches grow, Christ gifted and equipped this little fellowship for his ministry.  There were folks there who were just natural pastors who did a lot of visiting and seeing that needs were being met throughout the community.  They had evangelists and teachers.  New residents and old did not go without an invitation to come to the chapel service and the Wednesday night Bible study, which they taught themselves and the people were excited to participate in it and learn.  They had justice advocates who requested the administration provide extra staff on Sunday nights to help wheel the wheelchair bound folks to chapel, which the Admin did.  In fact, the administration was so impressed with how important the chapel had become in the community that they remodeled the chapel by putting in a new sound system and making space for wheelchairs.  

This little congregation even had a vision.  They didn’t have go through months of congregational studies to find it.  It was more like, “Oh my God we’ve got a church here.”  And they got excited and just did what they knew they were supposed to do.  They loved to do it because “ministry” had become their purpose to live.  

This all just happened.  I couldn’t believe it.  They couldn’t believe.  Here was a growing and vibrant church in a nursing home where the average age was 83.  It was no longer just some chapel adjunct to the programming.  The only way we could explain it was with this image that Isaiah portrays here.  God just decided it was time to come and shepherd his people and God did it in such a way that the residents, staff, administration, and family members could only say, “Here is God.” 

Well, I’ve abstained from giving examples from the personal lives of my friends there at the Masonic Home and how they knew Jesus was there personally comforting them through their hardest days.  I will just say that God who was there in a big way building up the chapel was also there in even greater proportion for these people whom he loved.  Jesus was with his people giving them the hope that he would continue to increase in their personal lives and the chapel was visible proof of that.

Well, it’s Advent and as the preacher here today I guess it’s my responsibility to proclaim that God has come, is coming, and will be coming into our lives in very wonderful ways and there’s nothing we can do about it except prepare for it.  And how do we prepare for it?  How do we latch on to hope and then begin to live as those who have hope especially in a world were people are prone either to hope in the wrong things and even worse have no hope at all?  Well, the secret I believe lies in just letting God be God, letting God prove himself to the world through what he does in us.  Well, it begins with tending to God’s presence with us now in worship, prayer, studying the Scriptures, and just being still inside to feel God’s presence.   Sitting at Jesus’ feet is where we find hope.   As we do this I can say with certainty, because I’ve seen it happen, that God will give us a clear sense of what he put us here to do and through each of us individually and this congregation God will prove himself to be real, present, and good.  Amen.

Lord, Come Down

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Isaiah 64

My grandfather was a quiet man.  My Grandmother, on the other hand,…well, she was one of those who could talk non-stop, relentlessly.  I know that’s redundant, but it helps to make my point.  My grandfather usually found a way to cope with that.  Usually with work, civic groups, and staying busy.  But, when Granddaddy retired he had to come up with something quick.  It did not take long for the number of TV sets around their house to increase.  He could turn on and tune out while Grandma yattered on.  He even put one in the kitchen – the Holy of Holies of their home.  Grandma could watch her shows while she piddled in there throughout the day, but mostly I think the TV was meant to give Granddaddy relief at meal times.  

I have a fond memory of that TV.  I was there for dinner one evening back in ’85 or “86.  The news was on.  Grandma was “givin’ ‘er” with the chatter on family and neighbourhood news.  In the midst of this I noticed Granddaddy staring at the TV and becoming agitated in a way very unlike him.  So, I turned to look at what was on.  It was a news story about how the face of Jesus was beginning to take shape in the rust on the side of a water tower somewhere in Ohio.  Granddaddy was as angry as I had ever seen him.  I fact, I don’t think I remember ever seeing him angry before that.  He was just always so calm, gentle, and composed.   As we watched the story, he suddenly blurted out, “The Bible says that when Jesus comes back he’s coming on clouds of glory not on the side of some water tower.  Ain’t that right, boy?”  I said, “That’s right”.  He shook his head in righteous indignation and went back to eating.

Now, I cannot say much for Canada though I’ve lived here 20 years now, but I know that down in the Southern U.S. where I’m from, down in the Bible Belt, people are as superstitious about their so-called face of Jesus appearances as the Roman Catholics were about their “relics” back in the Middle Ages (a piece of the cross here, another head of John the Baptist there, here a finger of Peter, there a toe of Paul).  I have actually heard it reported on the news that the face of Jesus has appeared on the tin roof of a barn silo, a piece of toast, on a tortilla chip, and in the mould on a bathroom wall of a run-down little house somewhere in South Carolina.  I’ve even seen a news report of a Madonna and Child taking form in a Cheeto.  

I’m with my grandfather on this one.  The proof of the hope of our faith is not rusting up on the side of some water tower in Ohio.  But you never know.  I’ve seen some things in my time too that have given me hope.  Most psychologists would say that when people see things like that, they are most likely seeing something they want to see.  If that’s the case, these people are passionately wanting to see Jesus, wanting him to come and sort things out, and who can fault them for that.

So, why all this possibly inappropriate nattering on about face of Jesus sightings?  Well, we have our Isaiah reading to blame.  In verse one the prophet cries out: “O that you would tear open the heavens and come down, so that the mountains would quake at your presence.”  Actually, in the Hebrew language the word we translate as “presence” is “face”. “O that you would tear open the heavens and come down, so that the mountains would quake at your face, as when fir kindles brushwood and the fire causes water to boil, to make your name known to your enemies, so that the nations might tremble at your face.”  Isaiah goes on to say and I paraphrase, “You did it before when we didn’t expect it, when we didn’t deserve it.  You freed us from slavery in Egypt, and brought us to Mt. Sinai, ‘you came down, that mountain quaked at your face’.  No ear has heard.  No eye has seen any God besides you who acts for those who wait for him.”  

I think there are quite a many people today praying like that, saying, “Jesus, tear open the heavens and come down.  We are your people.  You made us who we are.  Where are you Jesus?  Come down and show your face.  Put things right here.”   Globally, we’re coming off a still lingering pandemic.  There’s war in the Ukraine and war in Israel, fires, famines, earthquakes, tsunamis, a global food shortage.  For whatever reason, the climate is indeed changing.  The arctic climate that I studied in grade school forty-five years ago no longer exists. Earth is warming up and is on the verge of a point of no foreseeable return.  Authoritarian populists if not downright racist people are getting elected as national leaders in Europe in nations that are bearing the brunt of absorbing the refugees that are fleeing conflicts in the Middle East.  Inflation has run rampant since the Pandemic.  There is no such thing as affordable housing at present.   

That’s just the big stuff that we have to deal with.   What about the more immediate and even bigger stuff we have to deal with on the day to day basis.  That diagnosis….  That addiction….  That affair….  That mental illness….  That boss….  My child….  Christmas….   I know, right now, that there’s a whole lot of people crying out to God in desperation wanting God, Jesus, Holy Spirit to just show up and do something.  Isaiah said it so well, “Oh, that you would tear open the heavens and come down”.  Yet, Jesus for whatever reason…?...we are left with a profound sense of God’s absence and the urge to lament.

This passage from Isaiah is what we would call a lament.  Laments arise from people feeling a very profound sense of God’s absence and inactivity. Their train of thought will generally be “Where are you God? You were faithful to us in the past when you did thus and such.  But, where are you now?  Why have you abandoned us?”  It’s like Jesus’ disciples in a storm-tossed boat about to get swamped and he’s comfortably asleep on a pillow in the back of the boat and so they have to wake him saying, “Lord, don’t you care that we’re perishing?”

There’s something about laments we need to take to heart.  Their very presence in the Bible let’s us know that it’s okay for us to be angry at God when God seems to be pulling a Sleeping Jesus. It’s okay to be angry with God when he seems to be a no show.  Did you know there are probably as many if not more psalms of lament in the Bible than there are psalms of praise?  Folks, it’s okay to be angry with God.  

Laments express our hurt, anger, and frustration with God when he seems so absent and inactive.  But the trajectory of how laments arise and God responds to them is that God brings us to a place of a profound sense of God’s absence but then there is a moment and suddenly we are profoundly aware of his presence with us.  God speaks and says, “Peace.  Be still.” 

Have you ever looked looked at the state of your own life and felt the profound absence of God?  Have you ever found yourself powerless over the course of your life and in need of God’s help and yet it seems he’s nowhere to be found.  Have you ever been on your knees crying out, “Jesus, where are you?  Come!  Tear open the heavens and come down.  Jesus, show me your face.  You’ve acted before.  I’ve read my Bible.  It’s full of stories of your steadfast love and faithfulness, of how you did miraculous things for those who wait for you.  You did it for them.  Why don’t you do it for me?  I know it is you who has made me who I am, so where are you?  Jesus, show your face!” 

 If you have ever felt that profound sense of God’s absence and cried out your lament, then you know what this first Sunday in Advent is about; this gut-churning waiting for God to act in the midst of the painful profoundness of his absence.  It is not some warm, fuzzy, nostalgic Christmas that we hope and wait for.  Christmas has happened and so we stand on it in faith.  God has once and for all gotten involved in his Creation to deliver it by becoming Jesus the Christ.  Christmas has come.  It’s the completion of Christmas that we await.  It’s his coming again to put things right that we are waiting for.   Strong feelings of lament are profoundly normal in a world that’s not yet put to rights.  Yet, and mysteriously, these strong feelings of lament are the seedbed of the hope and faith through which God comes and eventually makes his presence known.  It’s okay to be angry with God when God seems absent and uninvolved.  It’s okay to let him know it.  It is in the lament that we discover that, indeed, God is with us and is suffering with us.  Amen.

Flock of Mercy

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Matthew 24:29-44; 25:31-46

This passage reminds me of an old Sunday School song.  Maybe you folks know it.  Let’s give it a shot.  It goes:

I just wanna be a sheep. Baa, baa, baa, baa
I just wanna be a sheep . Baa, baa, baa, baa
I pray the Lord my soul to keep
I just wanna be a sheep.  Baa, baa, baa, baa

 

I don’t wanna be a goat, nope. I don’t wanna be a goat, nope
Haven’t got any hope, nope.  I don’t wanna be a goat, nope

 

I just wanna be a sheep. Baa, baa, baa, baa
I just wanna be a sheep . Baa, baa, baa, baa
I pray the Lord my soul to keep
I just wanna be a sheep.  Baa, baa, baa, baa

Well, that out of the system, I could just ask you which are you, a sheep or a goat, call it a sermon, and we’re done.  But that’s too easy and, believe it or not, this parable isn’t as straightforward as it seems.  It’s complicated.  Let me bewilder you for a minute.

If, as the parable says, history ends with Jesus coming back and judging between those who have or have not shown mercy to him by showing it to the “least of these”, well then, I’m a goat.  In truth, every one of us here is a goat.  We have our good moments for sure, but overall, we’re goats.  How do we know?  There are still people in the world who are not just hungry, but worse.  They are dying of hunger.   There are people dying of thirst, due to not having a well or some source of clean water in their village – a problem easily fixable.  Clothing the naked?  A good deal of the inexpensive clothing that we wear is made in a sweatshop somewhere in Southeast Asia by people who only have the clothes on their back.  Welcoming the stranger?  The refugee situation in the world today (that’s this very day) is the worst it has ever been.  Who’s going to welcome them?  Visiting the prisoner?  We tend to view prisoners as criminals getting what they deserve.  I was exposed to prison ministry in seminary.  From what I saw, prison contributes more to the problem than it does to the solution.  There’s very little compassion and a whole lot of dehumanization.  Caring for the sick?  Well, we try but it’s painfully obvious the wealthy areas have really good medical care while poor places and people get nothing.  

We are all participants in and contributors to the problems that perpetuate the harsh reality of there being people who are the “least of these” in this world.  Sadly, we as individuals do little to nothing about it.  We’re all goats.  Those whom Jesus could or would call sheep are few and far between.

So, there you have it.  Whether we mean to be or not, we’re all goats.  We can come up with thousands of excuses in an effort to shirk this basic human responsibility that we have to show mercy to “the least of these”.  We can blame the governments that ourselves we elect.  Blame the corruption in foreign governments as if it didn’t exist in our own.  Most frequently, we just blame the victim.  We can say we don’t have time or we don’t have the money or we just don’t know what to do. 

But, guess what?  The quick, easy test for how to tell if we’re goats is the fact that we make excuses in an effort to rationalize our neglect of the “least of these” and to self-justify in order to escape our guilty consciences.  In the parable, the goats do this rationalizing and self-justifying by blaming Jesus for hiding himself.  They make Jesus, God, their excuse for not caring for the least of these.  “If we had known that what we did or didn’t do for the “least of these” was done or not done to you, Lord, then we’d have been all over it.  But we didn’t know because you hid himself and it led to our neglecting the “least of these”.”  That’s pretty lame.  It’s like saying, “God, it’s your fault I’m the selfish jerk that I am.”

The sheep are the polar opposite.  They didn’t know they had something to gain by tending to the needs of the “least of these”.  Their motivations for showing mercy were unselfish, not motivated by some sort of eternal personal gain.  It’s just the way they are.  It seems the sheep are merciful, compassionate simply because that’s the way they are.  It’s their nature.

Well, if the reason the sheep are the way they are is that that’s just the way they are, well then, the case could be made that that’s the way God made them.  And here we’ve got another problem.  If the sheep are sheep and the goats are goats because that’s the way God made them, then we’re dealing with a huge theological problem called double predestination which was disavowed by the Presbyterian Church in 1904.  

Predestination by itself is problematic enough without having to double it.  Predestination deals with the question of why some people come and follow Jesus and others just don’t.  Predestination says that God predetermined before creation who would and who would not be saved.  Those predetermined – predestined – for salvation are called the “elect” or the “chosen”. There’s no room for personal decision.  In fact, they say sin has corrupted our decision-making capacity to the extent that there no longer is anything we could call free will.  That’s the Doctrine of Total Depravity.  So, we can’t of our own free will decide to follow Jesus.  We must chosen, predestined by God and empowered by the Holy Spirit to do so. 

Predestination is problematic.  The language of chosen is scriptural.  Personally, I feel like God chose me and has been at work my whole life to draw me to himself and it’s been an irresistible pull.  But to say God chose me to be saved and decided not to choose somebody else is a bit further than I’m willing to go and I think it’s also a misunderstanding of what the Bible says.  If one carries predestination to logical rather than scriptural conclusions, one could argue that if you are not chosen, well, you can try your best to be a sheep and even be more sheep-like than those whom God has chosen but still not be one of the chosen and thus still damned to the fate of the goats.  So also, you can be the biggest goat there ever was, but because you’ve been chosen, you’re really a sheep.  You’ll still go to Heaven, but you’ll probably be working in the sewage treatment plant.  That’s assuming people will still have bodily functions.

Double Predestination is even more troubling.  It goes one step further than just saying all are damned yet God has chosen some to be saved.  Double predestination says God created some to be saved, sheep, but he also created some to be damned, goats.  Basically, God apparently created the majority of humanity so that he could destroy us in Hell.  That sort of thinking needs to be reined in.  1 Timothy 2:4 says that “God our Saviour desires for everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.”  If it’s God’s desire that everyone be saved, then why would he predetermine that some would not be saved and more so, why would he create some for the specific purpose of watching them burn?  I hope you feeling the bewilderment by now.

Well, let’s now throw the Gospel into the equation which is not spoken of in the parable.  This Gospel says “Well, let’s just admit that sin has made us all goats, even the Mother Teresa’s among us.  There are no longer any sheep.  We all deserve the punishment reserved for the goats.  But, God in his infinite love for us has made it so that we can yet be saved.  God the Son became human as Jesus and on our behalf, he lived the faithful life we are unable to live, died the death we deserve, but because he was innocent God raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand from whence we await his return.  By making the personal decision to accept Jesus as our Lord and Saviour and then living faithfully as his disciples from here on out we have the new way to be sheep.  Moreover, God gives us the Holy Spirit who works in us to heal and transform us to be more and more like him and also through us to heal and transform the world by showing mercy to the “least of these” while being a living witness to the goats of what this so very hidden God expects of them and the new and living way God has made available to them.  By the grace of God, it’s now again possible to be a sheep.  We may fail miserably, but in Christ we are sired anew or born anew to be sheep. 

But grace is not cheap.  If we are going to follow Jesus, then we must follow him.  Just saying I believe in him isn’t enough.  Faith without works is dead.  We who profess to be his disciples, more so than anybody else, must be the flock of mercy.  If we are sired anew, born anew sheep, then we must be sheep and above all else tend to the needs of the “least of these” among whom our Lord is hidden and abiding.  Unfortunately, the church has a track record of behaving like goats.  We’ve been overly concerned with trying to get people to join our Jesus Club, with being the morality police, with being the right beliefs police, with trying to rule the world of politics, with everything but showing mercy to the “least of these”.  If showing compassion to the “least of these is the way we the followers of Jesus are to show our love for him, we’ve largely blown it.

But as I said earlier, the proclamation of the Gospel is not part of the parable.  Jesus doesn’t mention it as the means to become a sheep.  That parable would indicate that sheep are sheep and goats are goats and that’s the way things are.  The parable simply says that Jesus will come back and judge between the sheep and the goats on the basis of how we showed mercy, loving kindness to the “least of these” and thus to him.  Jesus is the crux of human history and existence.  Everyone will answer to him.  He will return and hold us each accountable for how we have or have not shown mercy to the “least of these” and thus to him.  Whether we follow him or not, we must still give account for how we have or have not fed the hungry, given drink to the thirsty, welcomed the stranger, clothed the naked, took care of the sick, and visited the prisoner.  I don’t know about you, but I want to be a sheep and yet I’ve got a lot work to do.  Amen.

 

Mind Your Lamp

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Matthew 24:1-14; 25:1-13

So, Jesus and his peeps are walking out of the Temple at the end of what was probably the most tediously irritating day of his life.  He had been put to the test by all the religious authorities and they all just want him dead.  He shut them all up quite authoritatively I might add; but to no avail.  They just want him dead all the more.  So as they were walking out, the disciples quite bizarrely begin to comment on how magnificent the Temple was. “Look at that organ, those stained-glass windows, and those ceiling fans…ooo, Holy, Holy, Holy.”  With a hint of frustration, Jesus began to sing: “If I had my way.  If I had my way, in this cruel world.  If I had my way…I’d tear this old building down.”  That wasn’t quite what he said, but he did say not one stone would be left on top another.  They would all be thrown down.  In 70 AD the Romans did just that.

They walked on up to the top of the Mount of Olives to overlook Jerusalem.  Lit a campfire, put on a pot of beans, and reminisced about that scene from Blazing Saddles.  Small talk done; the disciples wanted to know when all the destruction was going to happen.  When’s the end going to be?  Like a good youth pastor, Jesus picked up a guitar and began to rap an almost incoherent rant, probably something like this:

That's great! It starts with an earthquake
Birds and snakes, an aeroplane and Lenny Bruce is not afraid
Eye of a hurricane, listen to yourself churn
World serves its own needs, don't mis-serve your own needs
Speed it up a notch, speed, grunt, no strength
Tell me ‘bout the rapture and the reverend in the right, right
You vitriolic, patriotic, slam, fight, bright light
Feeling pretty psyched

It's the end of the world as we know it.

It's the end of the world as we know it.

It's the end of the world as we know it.

And I feel fine.

Well, something like that.  Maybe y’all just don’t know the song – It’s the End of the World as We Know It (If Feel Fine) by a band called R.E.M.  In its full version it’s about four minutes of rapping and almost incoherent stream of consciousness rant about the state of the world in the 80’s.  A couple of its lines about low flying planes seemed to come true on 9/11 adding a bit of Twilight Zone effect.  But, comparing it to what Jesus said to his disciples about the end, I imagine what he said probably sounded just as much like an incoherent stream of consciousness rant about the state of their world at the time as did this song back in the ‘80’s.  But Jesus’ rant also pointed forward to THE END in which we could expect him to return to put the world to rights.  But when that day would occur was a big unknown even to him.  Only God the Father knows.  Until then they were going to have to wait faithfully, keep hope alive, spread the Good News, and keep awake.  And then he picked up his guitar again and began to sing. 

Keep your lamp trimmed and burning.  

Keep your lamp trimmed and burning.

Keep your lamp trimmed and burning.  

See what the Lord can do.

 

God’s people walked through the water.  

The people walked through the water.  

God’s people walked through the water.  

See what the Lord can do.

 

Jesus walked on the water.  Jesus walked on the water.

Jesus walked on the water. See what the Lord can do.

 

Jesus raised ole’ Lazarus.  Jesus raised ole’ Lazarus.

Jesus raised ole’ Lazarus.  See what the Lord can do.

 

Sister don’t stop praying.  Sister don’t stop praying.

Sister don’t stop praying.  The work is almost done.

 

Preacher don’t stop preaching.  Preacher don’t stop preaching.

Preacher don’t stop preaching.  The work is almost done.

 

Now children don’t you worry.  Children don’t you worry.

Children don’t you worry.  Jesus a-coming soon.

 

Keep your lamp trimmed and burning.  

Keep your lamp trimmed and burning.

Keep your lamp trimmed and burning.  

See what the Lord will do.

 

Well, so here we are some one thousand nine hundred and ninety years later and Jesus has still yet to return to set the world in order.  Over the years there have continued to be wars and rumours of wars, earthquakes, disasters, famines, plagues, and a whole lot of what would be called apocalyptic movements.  These are groups led by very charismatic leaders who believe we are at the end.  They are masters of taking a weird sounding Bible verse from here and another from there and use them to build a road map to the end times and this is where we’re at and these few things have yet to happen.  There was a lot of that going on back in the ‘70’s and ‘80’s, but we’re still here.  The Berlin Wall came down.  The war to end all wars still hasn’t happened.  

I see people wandering and hear people wondering if we might be at the end now.  The war between Israel and Hamas threatens to become a much bigger animal…and then there’s Ukraine.  Australia, the Western US, and great deal of Canada have been seeing wildfires of apocalyptic proportion.  Weather events are getting profoundly more devastating.  

Covid was a scary, deadly beast in its first year and a bit…and who knows when, not if, the next pandemic is going to hit.  Some nasty virus came out of a rain forest that we shouldn’t have encroached on to eat a bat or an old virus coming from a methane belch in the permafrost thawing of Siberia or a newly engineered one coming from a lab accident because somebody thinks making and playing with deadly viruses is  fun and apparently necessary for national security.  Mother Earth is indiscriminate and brutal when she bites back and we got it coming.  

In economics inflation is rampant and you probably didn’t know it but we are in the midst of a global food crisis.  Today, right now, 783 million people are dealing with chronic hunger.  333 million people don’t know where their next meal is coming from.  That’s inexcusable.

The higher up the food chain you go in the world of politics, the crazier it gets.   It’s like Monday Night Raw with the WWE or media driven reality TV.  The political life on planet earth is really just an episode of Survivor.  The problems appear to be just too big to be solved without a major change to global lifestyle...and who wants that.  Times are ripe for an alien invasion or a Zombie apocalypse or something…or maybe, just maybe, we human beings might rise to the occasion and prevent a catastrophe.  We did it with the Ozone Layer.  If it’s true that power corrupts and ultimate power corrupts ultimately, then we shouldn’t look for powerful people to solve the world’s problems.  We should be looking for people like Rosa Parks who just wasn’t going to sit in the back of the bus that day.

I don’t know if it’s the end of the world or not, but if the world ends with Jesus coming back, then that’s a good thing…if you been minding your lamp.  “This little light of mine”…we’ve all been given a light to let shine…a lamp.  Lamps don’t burn on their own forever.  They need tending, minding.  Even in today’s world where we have electricity running on grids powered by nuclear power plants, lamps still need to be minded.  The fuel source looked after.

Looking at the parable, what is the lamp and it’s light that we have?  Well, it’s the faith, the hope, the love we have in order to show forth in hope-filled, love-filled acts of faithfulness, acts of loyalty to Jesus.  By the lives we live people can tell whose side we’re on.  Does the kindness of Jesus, the compassion of Jesus, the patience of Jesus, the generosity of Jesus, the forgiveness of Jesus shine forth in everything we do?  That’s the lamp and the light it gives.

For the lamp to work, we’ve got to keep it fueled with oil.  That’s an obvious reference to the Holy Spirit, to God’s presence in our lives.  In the parable, the foolish folks didn’t get oil ahead of time and had to wait for the stores to open so they could buy some only to show up late to the wedding feast and be turned away by the bridegroom who says, “I don’t know you”.  They think they know him but he doesn’t know them.  “I don’t know you” is a phrase that indicates to me that the “oil” we’re talking about is found in relationship, in a relationship with God.  Are we taking the time right now in the days that we are given to live to sit in the presence of God to pray and to read the Bible so that we can get to know God and know God’s voice?  The relationship with God is where we get the oil that makes our little lights shine.

The point of the parable is that if we don’t mind our lamps right now, there won’t be time later.  If you noticed there in the parable, everyone, both the foolish and the wise got drowsy and fell asleep.  The call came to them all and they were all raised up from their sleep.  That’s a death and resurrection analogy.  The ones who had minded not only their lamps, but more so their oil-source went to the party.  Those who didn’t…by their foolishness they made themselves unrecognizable to the wrong person.

The parable ends with the command to keep awake.  That’s a reference to live the resurrected life now.  Keep your lamp lit.  Keep yourself well supplied with the oil.  Mind the lamp by spending time now with the Lord.  Build that relationship.  For now, we have been given the time to do that.  We don’t know when the time for that is going to end, so we best get on to it now.  If people like Rosa Parks are our example, then it’s likely that the solution to many of the world’s problems will, for now, come from and through people who have been minding the lamp.  Keep your lamp trimmed and burning and see what the Lord will do.  Amen.

  

Serve in Humble Love

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Matthew 22:34-13:12

Those “religious authorities”…it seems the closer Jesus got to the cross the more they just started to swarm after him as if he’d bumped their hive.  They were all after him - Pharisees, Sadducees, the Herodians, the Scribes, the priests, the elders of the people.  They all came out to test him hoping he’d say something deserving of death.  Why?  Well, they are “religious authorities”.  That’s what they do.  In a day when almost all the people had “messiah-fever” and messiahs were a dime a dozen, it was the “religious authorities” who determined a false messiah?  They alone knew the Law.  They alone knew the traditions.  They alone led devout lives…well, at least the Scribes and Pharisees believed that about themselves.  They alone were the ones who could determine a false messiah.  Yes, they were pretty good at spotting the false messiahs, but the true Messiah…well…hmm.

So, here’s this Jesus of Nazareth and his considerable following of misfits hanging around Jerusalem particularly the Temple.  It’s a crowd that like consisted mostly of people whom Jesus had healed of diseases or set free from their demons.  They weren’t armed like an army.  Jesus had never taught violence or revolt.  On the contrary, Jesus had made it quite clear he was coming to Jerusalem to be treated like a buffoon and to die and be raised and somehow this would give worth and life back to humanity which was wastefully dead due to its disease we call sin.  They probably looked like a very enthusiastic sect following a profoundly compassionate and quite peaceful rabbi.  The Romans wouldn’t have been concerned about him, yet the “religious authorities” were.  You see, Jesus had a certain authority about him that threatened their privileged position.  So, as “religious authorities” do when God threatens their position and privilege, they went looking for a way to get rid of the threat.  They were going out to kill the prophet.  Wasn’t the first time and wouldn’t be the last.

Our passage from Matthew comes at the end of a long series of tests these “religious authorities” put to Jesus.  Oddly, these tests were not really about anything crucial to Israelite faith.  They were about peripheral issues that were hot topics in their day, topics used to define whose side you were on in the political spectrum actually.  They tested him on divorce, on what constituted working on the Sabbath, on where he got his authority, on paying taxes to the emperor, and (this one’s pretty deep) on whose wife a woman would be at the resurrection if she had more than one husband in her lifetime.  These are some very petty things to argue about yet we should take a lesson from them.  Whenever you have Christians up in arms about the peripherals rather than really trying to learn and understand the essentials, what you have is indeed a bunch of “religious authorities” trying to force an agenda in the name of God.  

Anyway, back to Matthew, here was this lawyer, a “religious authority” but not like the others.  After hearing how well Jesus had shut down the others on the peripherals, he decided to get to the heart of the faith with a textbook question any rabbi, and any true Israelite for that matter, would have known the answer to: “Which commandment in the Law is the greatest?”  Jesus’ answer was not as we would expect.  We would expect the first of the Ten Commandments, “I am the Lord, your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery; you shall have no gods before me.”  Instead, Jesus proves himself quite apt at the scribal or rabbinical discipline of simplifying what is at the heart of the commandments.  Jesus goes with the creedal statement known as the Shema.  “Shema, Yitzrael!  Adonai elohenu! Adonai eckhod!  Ahavtah et Yahweh elohecha b'cal l'bavkha v'b'cal naphsh'ekkah v'b'cal m'odehkah!”  “Hear, O Israel!  The Lord is our God! The Lord alone!  You shall love Yahweh your God with all your heart, with your whole personhood, and with all your mind.”  

I think Jesus went with the Shema, the creed, rather than the first of the Ten Commandments so that he could point out the fundamental flaw of the “religious authorities.”  They had beliefs and obedience but they had no love – no love of God and no love for neighbour.  They were apparently just in it for the show, the power and prestige of social position.  The problem with the Ten Commandments is that they tell us what not to do and leave what we’re supposed to do out in the open.  The Shema, on the other hand, tells us right off the bat to love the Lord our God with all our heart, personhood, and mind.  The Ten Commandments assume that the Israelites would be thankful and love God because he delivered them from slavery.  Unfortunately, 900 years later when slavery in Egypt and the Exodus were long behind them and forgotten, the “religious authorities” had lost their love for the Lord.  Their idea of faithfulness was simply obeying rules, and particularly obeying them for others to see.  

The word for love here in the Greek is our old friend agape; love that is unconditional, love that is shown in selfless action, love that continues to love even when it is not returned, even when it is resented.  It is a love learned by coming to know God’s unconditional love.  The love he showed us by bringing salvation in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  It is the love of God the Father for God the Son poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit so that we are also included in their relationship as God’s own beloved children.  In response to knowing and encountering this love we love the Lord first by loving him with all our hearts.  In Jesus’ culture the heart was the seat of our motives not just our emotions.  We are to discipline ourselves to make love for the Lord the motive of everything we do be.  It may also be helpful here for us to think of love as being faithfulness or loyalty compelled by thankfulness.

We are to love the Lord with the totality of our personhood.  We are probably used to hearing the world soul here.  I try to get away from that word because one of the problematic beliefs that has crept into the Christian faith from Greek Paganism is that we have an immortal soul, a whiff of energy that blips off into eternity when we die.  The Bible portrays the soul as the entirety of a person’s identity which includes the body.  We are to love the Lord by letting his love shape our identities as persons to be in conformity with the image of Christ Jesus.  The question here is, “Does who I am at heart and in action look like Jesus?  Do I reflect the nature of Jesus to the people in my life?”  As persons are we kind, patient, forgiving, refraining from judging, generous. Do we give hope?  Are we prayerful?  Do we listen?

We are to love the Lord with our minds.  The mind can be understood in two ways.  One, it is the part of us that thinks and learns.  It’s that part of us behind our eyeballs and between our ears that filters what comes out our mouths.  We’ve a responsibility to learn and grow in the faith.  We think the things of God rather than the things of man.  With the mind we pray, study the Bible, read theology, and teach the faith to our children.  With the mid we choose, we strive to replace worry with prayer.  With the mind we tell ourselves and others to hope in the love of God.  The mind can also mean what we’re minded on in life?  What do we orient ourselves towards?  What do we pursue in life?  What are our goals?  To love the Lord with our mindedness is simply to say “Did I this day, in this moment, this situation do my best to please God?”  Is pleasing God our life’s motive.

Jesus adds a second commandment to the Shema.  We are to love our neighbors as ourselves.  This is a tricky one.  We cannot love our neighbors rightly if we do not love ourselves rightly.  So also, if we love ourselves wrongly, we will not love our neighbours as we should which happens to be the current problem we humans suffer from by nature.  Healthy self-love begins with knowing the unconditional love of God and thus, we are back to needing to know God’s love so that we may gratefully return that love by loving the Lord our God with all our hearts, persons, minds.

Looking further in our reading, after pointing out the hypocrisy of the “religious authorities”, Jesus offers us a means of loving God and loving neighbour that pretty well covers the bases.  He said, “The greatest among you will be your servant.”  Appropriate love of God is humility.  Appropriate self-love is humility.    Paul wrote of what humility looks like in 1 Corinthians 13 when he wrote of what love looks like.  He says, “Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable; it keeps no record of wrongs; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing but rejoices in the truth” (1 Cor. 13:4-6).  To serve one another humbly, rather than seeking our own gain is our way. 

We’ve a hymn in our hymnal that sums this up pretty well.  It’s Brother, Sister Let Me Serve You written by Richard Gillard.  I’ll just read the lyrics:

1. Brother, sister, let me serve you; let me be as Christ to you; pray that I may have the grace to let you be my servant too.
2. We are pilgrims on a journey, and companions on the road; we are here to help each other walk the mile and bear the load.
3. I will hold the Christ-light for you in the nighttime of your fear; I will hold my hand out to you, speak the peace you long to hear.
4. I will weep when you are weeping; when you laugh, I'll laugh with you; I will share your joy and sorrow, till we've seen this journey through.
5. When we sing to God in heaven, we shall find such harmony, born of all we've known together of Christ's love and agony.
6. Brother, sister, let me serve you; let me be as Christ to you; pray that l may have the grace to let you be my servant too.

Amen.