Jesus Is with Us

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Matthew 28:16-20

There was a big movement a couple of decades ago of ministers vacating those grand elevated pulpits such as we have here in order to preach from a lectern on the floor.  Part of the reason for that is how it feels to preach from way up there.   Hovering (maybe even sometimes havering) about up there, above the congregation makes us feel conspicuous, overbearing, and stuffy, not to mention cut off from the people.  Whereas being down on the floor makes us feel like we’re one of you.  It’s more personable and engaging.  It even invites conversation.  On the floor we feel more like a coach while up there we feel more like a pontificator, even though the Latin root of that word, with a bit of irony maybe, means “bridge-builder”.  How do you build a bridge from way up there?

The rest of the reason for the move has to do with what the location of the pulpit says about God to the people in the pew, especially those visiting.  The high pulpit can give the impression that God is above us, always watching, distant and unapproachable.  No matter how much grace we preach, “the medium is the message”.  It is hard to say God has befriended his people when the one conveying the message stays aloof.  One can make the argument that the high pulpit is for reasons of visibility and acoustics.  Maybe so originally, but couple a high pulpit with an obsequious, ashen looking, dower, pompous pontificator telling you that God is a voyeur to your every sin and indeed your every sinful thought.  Woe and curses.  It doesn’t work.  Some people try to soften that impression by saying that God is watching from above making everything go hunky-dory for you.  But what happens when things don’t go hunky-dory?  Did God stop watching?  Moreover, a distant God is just as easily kept at a distance and then, just as easily dismissed…as has happened in Western Christianity. 

Preaching from a lectern on the floor at the level of the congregation on the other hand says that God is with us.  Jesus did not make the promise, “I will be above you always, watching until the end of the age.”  His promise was that he would be with us.  

Just take a second and think about this.  What if Jesus’ promise to us really was rather to be above us than to be with us?  The effect of placing Jesus above us rather than with us is profoundly deadly to the church.  If he is above, then he is not with us.  He is not presently involved in the work of his church or present to us in our individual lives.  He has simply left us, down here, to fend for ourselves trying to figure out what God wants from us.  Trying to forge the way for the church in the 21^st Century in the wake of the death of cultural Christianity simply becomes our task rather than our participation in what he is doing.  It is like he has left us to our own efforts to save his church from oblivion.  That’s just wrong.

If that’s what happens when the church thinks Jesus is above us, then what does it do to us as individuals?  If Jesus is above me, distant from me, a complete non-participant in my life, then faithful living is just a matter of my own efforts, of doing what I think best hoping that God will bless it from above.  If that is the case, then no wonder we conjure up some sort of magical power we call faith (If you just believe hard enough...), invent rituals which must be followed to the T for them to gain God's favour, and negotiate contracts with God (“I’ll do this for you God, if you do that for me.”).  If Jesus is above us, we are simply left to our own.  That’s scary.  But praise be to God! Jesus is with us.  He is not above us.  He is with us.  We are not alone nor abandoned to our own efforts.  

Maybe the most significant change that needs to happen in the church today is a change in our thinking, in our way of understanding the very fabric of reality.  Everything about the way we do church and practice our own personal faith in Christ, I believe, is based in an understanding of reality in which God is above us, in which Jesus is above us.  Our perception of reality needs to effectively change to that of Jesus is with us.  For our churches to make the switch from being the religious institution that undergirded our culture in these days when the culture doesn’t want us to be that anymore into being a church that is out in the world in a missionary kind of way in this land which is now a mission field, we must cease thinking of Jesus as being above and let Jesus retrain our thinking by letting us know he is with us.

I had this change of thinking and this is how it happened with me.  I was raised as Christian.  As a child, my family went to church on and off with irregularity.  Going to church was something you knew you were supposed to do.  It was the super-daddy of all New Year’s resolutions.  It was a good habit to be into; one that would make the rest of life go better because God, who was way off somewhere up there, would bless you for it.  

Well, on New Year’s Eve when I was almost twenty I threw a party and nobody showed up and that just seemed to be the culmination of a life that had been quite emotionally and relationally painful.  Things got dark for me that night.  I started to think that if this was the sum total of my life, then why is it worth living.  I thought about ending it but in consideration of the pain it would cause my mother, I chose differently.  I listened to a different tug going on inside me and figured Jesus could do a better job with me than I was.  So, I decided my life was his.  I called my best friend’s mom the next morning and asked if she was going to church.  She said, “yes.” And I said, “I’ll see you there”.  That’s when I made the decision to start going to church on my own.

I also started sensing that God was calling me to the ministry and so I made a bargain with him.  I said, “God, I will go this route as long as I don’t have to go it alone.  Bring me a wife…the sooner the better.”  You just got to laugh at that.  A year later I was in university and I had just got dumped by the girl I thought was “the one”.  I knew I was called to the ministry, but it looked like I was going alone.  The bargain I made with God ended through no apparent fault of my own but according to Jimmy Buffet it’s always one’s own damn fault.  I sat there in my dorm room, all alone, having a pity party.  It is hard to describe what happened next.  All I can say is that it was like a door opened in my sense of reality and Jesus stepped in.  From that moment on I have had the awareness that I am not alone.  That he is with me.  Jesus is always with me.  I’ve nothing to fear.  It was also during those days that I really began to realize that God loved me, that I was one of his beloved children.  This change in my perception of reality changed the way I did things.  Prayer for example,  now when I pray, instead of praying to an old man who is seated on a throne somewhere above the expanse of this infinitely huge universe, I pray to God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit who are seated in the room with me.

I always feel like people look at me like I’m mentally ill when I tell these stories.  And it’s odd because the only place I ever really tell them is at church among church people.  As a minister, I get very little exposure to non-church people.  Regardless, we church people, we really need to wake up to the reality that Jesus is with us.   We shouldn’t think it odd if someone says “it just feels so good here.  There’s a peacefulness here at church.” Or, “I was looking out the kitchen window with a world of worry on my mind and a sudden calm came over me.”  We shouldn’t think it strange even if someone says, “I heard the voice of Jesus say.”  That happens.  We, the disciples of Jesus, should expect to have an awareness of Jesus being with us and celebrate it when it happens.  

It would also be great if we as congregations gathered really had the awareness that Jesus is with us and that by the power of the Holy Spirit he is leading us.  In order to figure his leading out, we need to do things like getting together outside of Sunday morning to study the Bible and pray together.  He’ll make his presence felt. Jesus' presence with us isn’t something that only crazy people sense.  It is something he has promised to his disciples.  He is with us.  Amen.

 

Jesus Is with Us...Not above Us

Matthew 28:16-20; John 14:15-27

This is the eighth in a series of eight sermons based on Greg Ogden’s book Essential Guide to Becoming a Disciple: Eight Sessions for Mentoring and Discipleship.

You have probably wondered why in the last few years ministers don’t preach from those grand elevated pulpits such as we have here and rather prefer a lectern on the floor.  Part of the answer is that hovering about up there, above the congregation makes us feel conspicuous, overbearing, and stuffy.  Being down here on the floor makes us feel like we’re one of you.  It’s more personable and chummy.  Down here we feel more like a coach while up there we feel more like a pontificate.  

The rest of the answer has to do with what the location of the pulpit says about God to people visiting a church.  The high pulpit can give the impression that God is above us, always watching, and unapproachable no matter how much grace we preach.  One can make the argument that the high pulpit is for reasons of visibility and acoustics.  Maybe so originally, but couple a high pulpit with an obsequious, ashen looking, dower, pompous pontificator telling you that God is a voyeur to your every sin and indeed your every sinful thought.  Woe and curses.  Some people soften that impression saying God is watching from above making everything go hunky-dory for you.  But what happens when things don’t go hunky-dory?  Well, a distant God is just as easily kept at a distance and then just as easily dismissed…as has happened in Western Christianity.

Preaching from a lectern on the floor at the level of the congregation on the other hand says that God is with us.  Jesus did not make the promise, “I will be above you always, until the end of the age.”  His promise was that he would be with us. 

Just take a second and think about this.  What if Jesus’ promise to us was rather to be above us than to be with us?  The effect of placing Jesus above us rather than with us is profoundly deadly to the church.  If he is above, then he is not with us.  He is not presently involved the work of his church or present to us in our individual lives.  He has simply left us, down here, to fend for ourselves trying to figure out what God wants from us.  Trying to forge a way for the church in the 21^st Century in the wake of the death of cultural Christianity simply becomes our task rather than participating in what he is doing.  It is like he has left us to our own efforts to save his church from oblivion.  That’s just wrong.

If that’s what happens when the church thinks Jesus is above us, then what does it do to us as individuals?  If Jesus is above us, distant from us, a non-participant, then faithful living is just a matter of our own efforts, of doing what we think best hoping that God will bless it from above.  If that is the case, then no wonder we conjure up some sort magical power we call faith, invent rituals, and negotiate contracts with God (“I’ll do this for you God, if you do that for me.”).  If Jesus is above us, we are left to our own.  That’s scary.  But praise be to God! Jesus is with us.  He is not above us.  He is with us.  We are not alone and abandoned to our own efforts. 

Maybe the most significant change that needs to happen in the church today is a change in our thinking, in our way of understanding the very fabric of reality.  Everything about the way we do church and practice our own personal faith in Christ, I believe, is based in an understanding of reality in which God is above us, in which Jesus is above us.  Our perception of reality needs to effectually change to that of Jesus is with us.  For our churches to make the switch from being the religious institution that undergirded our culture in these days when the culture doesn’t want us to be that anymore to being a church that is out in the world in a missionary kind of way in this nation which is now a mission field, we must cease thinking of Jesus as being above and let Jesus retrain our thinking by letting us know he is with us.

I had this change of thinking and this is how it happened with me.  I was raised as Christian.  We went to church on and off with irregularity.  Going to church was something you knew you were supposed to do.  It was the super-daddy of all New Year’s resolutions.  It was a good habit to be into; one that would make the rest of life better because God, who was way off somewhere up there, would bless you for it.

Well, on New Year’s Eve when I was almost twenty I threw a party and nobody showed up.  Things got dark for me that night.  I started to think that if this was the sum total of my life Jesus could do a better job with me than I was and I decided my life was his.  I called my best friend’s mom the next morning and asked if she was going to church.  She said, “yes.” And I said, “I’ll see you there”.  That’s when I made the decision to start going to church on my own.

I also started sensing that God was calling me to the ministry and so I made a bargain with him.  I said, “God, I will go this route as long as I don’t have to go it alone.  Bring me a wife…the sooner the better.”  

  A year later I was in university and I just got dumped by the girl I thought was “the one”.  I knew I was called to the ministry, but it looked like I was going alone.  The bargain I made with God ended through no apparent fault of my own.  I sat there in my dorm room, all alone, having a pity party.  It is hard to describe what happened next.  All I can say is that it was like a door opened in my sense of reality and Jesus stepped in.  From that moment on I have had the awareness that I am not alone.  That he is with me.  Jesus is always with me.  I’ve nothing to fear.  It was also during those days that I really began to realize that God loved me, that I was one of his beloved children. 

I always feel like people look at me like I’m mentally ill when I tell that story.  That’s odd because the only place I ever really tell it is at church.  We church people should say that an awareness of Jesus with us, his disciples, is something we should all have.  Truly, we should expect disciples of Jesus to have an awareness of Jesus being with them and celebrate it when it happens.  It would also be great if we as congregations really had the awareness that Jesus is with us and that by the power of the Holy Spirit he is leading us.  But, like the song says, we persist in believing “God will be there, watching from above. Go now in peace, in faith, and in love.”  It would help us to change our way of thinking if we sang, “Jesus is here, leading forth in love. Go now in peace, in faith, and in love.”

Jesus presence with us isn’t something that only crazy people sense.  It is something he has promised to his disciples.  He is with us.  Like a presence in an empty chair, he is with us.  Amen.

Baptized into the Name...

Matthew 28:16-20; John 17:1-5, 20-25

This is the forth in an 8 sermon series following Greg Ogden's Essential Guide to Becoming a Disciple: Eight Sessions for mentoring and Discipling.
Back in my university days, when I was a Bible and Theology major at Eastern Mennonite University, I remember getting on a side-track for a couple weeks wondering what it meant to pray “in Jesus’ name”.  This was back in the 80’s and the TV preachers were making a fortune telling people that God would give them anything they wanted as long as they asked for it “in Jesus name” and believed whole-heartedly that they would receive it (and a donation helps). 

Their magic formula wasn’t working for me and so I decided I wanted to debunk the TV preachers.  I talked to a professor.  He recommended a few books.  And off to the library I went to do some research.  I found that the phrase “in Jesus’ name” had a much deeper, richer meaning than it simply being a magic formula we tack onto the end of a prayer to make it official. 

As a child I was taught to always end my prayers with “in Jesus’ name” because you’re talking to God and that’s the proper way to do it.  The theology behind that idea was that with us being sinners, we are not worthy on our own to ask God for anything and so we ask our prayers on the basis of Jesus’ worthiness, his name.  In my research I did find there was a small taste of that Sunday School belief.  We don’t just presume upon God, but…God loves us and will hear our prayers regardless of whether we understand our sinfulness or use the proper format.

In my research what I found mostly was that the phrase “in the name of” has to do with location and association – where you stand and who you know.  When an ambassador is sent from one country to another she goes “in the name of” the country that sends her to represent its citizens’ interests.  She stays in an embassy which is considered by the host nation to be territory of the ambassador’s home country.  And, the work she does she does with the authority granted her by her home country.

Likewise, to pray “in Jesus name” means that although we are here away from the heavenly kingdom in which our citizenship lies, we are nevertheless located “in him”, “in Jesus” as he stands in the presence of God the Father.  We are Jesus’ embassy here on earth.  The Holy Spirit binds us to Jesus so that Jesus is in us and we are in him sharing in his relationship with the Father.  Our existential reality is as Jesus prays in John 17:20-22.  Jesus asks the Father (and his prayers are answered) that we who have heard the message he gave to the first disciples may be one just as he and the Father are one, the Father in him and he in the Father.  Jesus asks that we be in them and our unity be complete in them, we in the Father and Son and they in us because Jesus has given us his glory, the Holy Spirit. 

To be “in the name of Jesus” is to be in the existential reality of living in the eternal life of knowing the Father and knowing Jesus the Son whom he sent because they have given us the Holy Spirit.  Our location, where we are at, is in the loving communion of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  We are their representatives here.

So also, just like ambassadors sent abroad we are in the world—this broken, hurting, vicious, twisted, beloved by God world—“in the name of Jesus” as his ambassadors with a message of salvation to new life now and yet to come when Jesus returns, a message that we embody in our own lives which have been changed by him by the power of the Holy Spirit and which we embody in the love we share for one another which comes from God the Father and God the Son in the presence power of God the Hoy Spirit.  So, who we know is Jesus and what we represent from him is his saving reign.

Years ago when I finished seminary and was waiting for my first call I stuck around the school and got an additional masters degree in New Testament Studies studying particularly Paul and his letters.  So you can trust me when I say that when Paul talks about salvation he nowhere talks about it in terms of how we get into heaven when we die, but rather salvation is our being adopted right now into the family of God the Father and Jesus the Son; and, the Father claims us as his own children whom he loves as much as Jesus the Son something we experience right now by the presence of the Holy Spirit.  Salvation entails a "saved from" and so salvation is deliverance right now from a life lived like parentless children enslaved by sin and evil who pursue their own demise, but now free to live honourable lives with the rights of being beloved children of God.

If Paul and John sat down and started talking about salvation, John would bring up eternal life. Like Paul, John would also not talk about how we get to heaven when we die but rather about knowing the Father and Jesus the Son in the Holy Spirit.  Eternal life is what we have now in a relationship with God in Christ and that relationship is salvation, salvation from the life of perishing that comes about because we do not know the love of God the Father who loves the world so much that he gave his only begotten Son over to die for it.  Knowing the love of God, the love of God the Father for the God the Son, and the love of the Son for the Father, and knowing ourselves to be included in that love right now, this is salvation right now, eternal life right now, adoption right now as Paul would say.

When Jesus tells his disciples to go into the world discipling all peoples baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and teaching them to obey his commandments, that command to baptize has two meanings.  One, as Christ Jesus’ ambassadors we baptize with, under, or “in” the authority of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit that he has really vested in us by giving us the Holy Spirit binding us to himself as his representatives.  But two, we baptize people “into” the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  If salvation is that we are adopted into the family of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, then the act, the rite, the sacrament of Baptism is signing the papers.

Back to Paul, Paul’s primary way of talking about Baptism is that it is participation in Jesus’ death and resurrection so that it is no longer we, ourselves, who live but Christ living in us.  For the baptized disciple there is no more talk about me, myself, and I and what I want in life.  Rather, it is about allegiance (faithfulness) to Christ Jesus demonstrated through living in the new family in God in Christ and bringing honour to the new family name.  Understandings of Baptism being the sign and symbol of washing from sin and the Christian version of circumcision are secondary to baptism being our dying and rising with Christ to really live a real new life in him in the family of God, a life that really will endure for ever. 

Baptized into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit means we are dead to all our old allegiances and are now really raised to new life into the loving communion, the loving Family of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and this new life in Christ is to be our foremost allegiance.  It doesn’t matter whether we were baptized as babies or as adults.  For now, we bear the family name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and to do that honourably means being sacrificially compassionate, kind, forbearing, forgiving, generous, hospitable, joyful, peaceful, and self-controlled to everyone…and the Holy Spirit living in us, the Family DNA so to speak, makes us able to be this way.  Friends, you are a new creation, adopted children of God who are eternally alive in the family of God.  Live accordingly.  Amen.

Go and Make Disciples

Matthew 28:16-20

In 1963 Dr. Robert E. Coleman released probably the most influential book ever written on the topic of evangelism: The Master Plan of Evangelism. He sought to answer one simple question – What was Jesus’ strategy for evangelism? He concluded that the way Jesus did evangelism was to devote the majority of his time to the twelve disciples letting them get to know him so that they could become like him and teaching them the nature of his Kingdom so that they could live accordingly. He then sent them to disciple others in his name. Jesus changed the world not by converting the masses but by discipling twelve men who went out and discipled others. We have developed plenty of ways of going about evangelism: going door to door with evangelistic tracks, holding big evangelistic events, working at the food bank, inviting a friend to church hoping the preacher can get through to them, good signage, worship services with catchy music and uplifting messages. Unfortunately, that’s not the way Jesus did it. Jesus did evangelism through making disciples who made disciples who made disciples and so on.

Many years ago at one of my last Presbytery meetings in West Virginia, the chair of the Presbytery Finance Committee was lamenting on how the financial situation of the Presbytery was becoming drastically weaker in correlation to our congregations become smaller and financially in crisis. He diagnosed that the problem was evangelism, mostly the lack there of. This rings true here in the Presbyterian Church in Canada. Our churches and our denomination are dying, but nobody is doing evangelism.

One could ask why that is and the obvious answer would be our churches have been good at producing members who call themselves Christians, but we would be quite near to lying if we said the people in our pews were actually disciples of Jesus Christ. Speaking for myself, in my 31 years of commitment to Jesus Christ I have only brushed up against something called being discipled on less than a handful of occasions mostly in university. I have simply been well churched through attending worship and Adult Sunday school and Bible studies – two things that have also dried up in most PCC churches. I’ve been well churched, but not discipled.

What is a disciple? I have two definitions for you. Greg Ogden in Discipleship Essentials: A Guide to Building Your Life in Christ says: “Discipling is an intentional relationship in which we walk alongside other disciples in order to encourage, equip and challenge one another in love to grow towards maturity in Christ. This includes equipping the disciple to teach others as well.”[1] Disciples grow in maturity in Christ and equip one another to disciple others.

Another definition, when Jesus called his first disciples he said, “Follow me and I will make you fishers of people.” In Discipleshift: Five Steps That Help Your Church to Make Disciples Who Make Disciples Jim Putman and Bobby Harrington unpack that verse and say that “a true disciple is a person who follows Jesus, is transformed by Jesus, and joins with Jesus on his mission”.[2]

A disciple follows Jesus. This is first a commitment to the Lordship of Jesus Christ, a commitment to do his will in all things, a commitment to study his life teachings and live accordingly. It is a commitment to know him, to have a relationship with him in prayer, in scripture study, and in others. We must also remember that following Jesus is not an individual exercise, but something we do with a group of others in which there is accountability.

A disciple is someone whom Jesus is transforming to be more like him by the powerful working of the Holy Spirit. A disciples’ relationship with Jesus among other disciples changes us. We learn we are beloved children of the Father. He changes our very nature to be like him. He doesn’t make us to be what we imagine him to be like. He gives us deep impressions of who he is that change us.

Several years back I took up the task of memorizing the Sermon on the Mount a verse a day. I would memorize the verse and as best as I could I kept reciting it to myself throughout the day. About 2/3 of the way through those roughly 110 days one afternoon on a run while I was reciting that verse Jesus impressed upon me a sense of how patiently non-judgemental and forgiving he is. It changed me and has taken the rough edge off of how cut and dry I could be towards others. He took me off my judge’s bench. When I find myself trying to resume my place on that bench I recall that feeling and I instantly become more understanding of others.

A disciple joins Jesus in his ministry of bringing about the Kingdom of God here on earth as it is in heaven. This means that our homes, our work places, our neighbourhoods, are places to which Jesus has sent us (placed us) to be living witnesses of who he is and to be part of the means through which he invites and draws people to come and be his disciples. Jesus has placed us in every significant relational network we are in to be witnesses to him so that through us he might draw others to himself.

Discipleship is something we have to intentionally do if we are going to grow into the new life Jesus freely gives us and calls us to in himself. Timothy and I would like to introduce intentional discipling into the churches of the Coop. We would like in each of the churches that groups of 2-4 women and 2-4 men form and commit to meet together roughly once a week for a total of 25 weeks and work through this resource: Discipleship Essentials: A Guide to Building Your Life in Christ. This resource builds Christian friendship, personal devotion, and teaches the faith. It trains you so that when you finish working through it with the initial group you will go and start another group and work through the resource.

Jesus told us to go and make disciples. If I were a super-evangelist and got one person a day to make a personal decision to accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Saviour, after 16 years I would have 5,840 decisions for Christ but no way to feed all those people so that they grow in maturity in Christ. But if I disciple two people through this resource and they in turn disciple two people who disciple two more and so on, after 16 years there would be 65,536 well fed disciples of Jesus Christ. As of 2015, the Presbyterian Church in Canada had 980 congregations and 91,036 members. If we started discipling, that would change quickly. Maybe we should start discipling. Amen.






[1] Pg. 17


[2] Pg. 54