The True Light

Sermon January 5, 2025

            In the early 1990’s I was traveling with my mom and my family from New Jersey to Memphis, Tennessee to visit my grandparents.  My mom had decided that she wanted to do something on the trip that would be fun for her grandson, and so we stopped to visit the Luray Caverns in Virginia.  The caverns were pretty spectacular with stalagmites and stalactites everywhere, underground streams, and vast expanses of space.  The place was huge!  In fact, I understand that the Luray Caverns are the largest caverns on the east coast.  All of the spaces in the caverns were brilliantly illuminated, and I never once gave any thought at all to that illumination.  We are just so accustomed to seeing things in the light that we don’t even give it a thought.  And even at night there is often moonlight, and starlight, and when you live in New Jersey the ubiquitous artificial lighting that mostly allows us to see even in the dark.  I didn’t give that lighting in the caverns much thought, until they momentarily turned off the lights.

            Have you ever been in complete and total darkness?  It is extremely unsettling, and I for one am glad that the lights were only off for maybe 10 seconds or so, although those ten seconds did seem interminable, and you could hear a collective sigh of relief as the lights were turned back on.   So, I am sure that I was not the only one who found the darkness to be quite uncomfortable.  In that total darkness it was absolutely impossible to see anything.  The tour guide who turned out the lights suggested that we put our hands in front of our faces.  It was a worthless gesture.  If you have never been in complete darkness, it is difficult to explain what it was like, but you dare not take a step, because you have no idea where that step will lead.  My son Joe was around 11 years old at the time and I remember fumbling around trying to find him just to take his hand.  When the lights came back on, I was holding one of his hands and my wife Jackie was holding the other.

            Darkness is debilitating.  Humans lack the ability to accomplish anything in the dark, lack the ability to travel safely in the dark, lack the ability to defend themselves or others in the dark, lack the ability to interact with others in the dark, in short, we become pretty much useless.

            In today’s reading, John tells us that “In [Jesus] was life, and that life was the light of all [humankind].  The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcomeit.”  Jesus is the light illuminating the souls of those who love Him.  For those who don’t know Him, or don’t love Him, they are walking in darkness, and that darkness is total.  Total, as in not being able to see your hand in front of your face.  Total as in not being able to travel safely or to defend ourselves.  Total as in being completely unable to interact with others in any meaningful way.  Total, as in pretty much totally useless.  Imagine the most complete darkness you have ever experienced, then imagine trying to function in that darkness.  And spiritually speaking, that is what we are trying to do if we are living our lives without “the Light of all humankind”.

            Now, one would think that the world would welcome the light; that the world would gravitate to that light as a moth to a porch light.  But John tells us otherwise.  In the Greek, the word John uses that we translate as “overcome” is κατέλαβεν (ketayleben) and κατέλαβεν is a compound word with κατά which is a word that Greeks used in the same way that we use the prefix “anti” which is used to negate the word that follows it, and λαμβάνω (lambano) which means to take or to receive.  So κατέλαβεν means to fail or refuse to receive.  The light shines in the darkness, but those living in the darkness refuse to receive the light.  (That’s my translation).

            The purpose of John’s Gospel is to introduce us to “The Word” who is the light of the world.  The first 18 verses of the Gospel which we read this morning are called the “Prologue” and in classical Greek literary style the prologue introduces us to the major character of the story that follows, and gives a brief synopsis of what that story is all about.  So, what is John telling us in his prologue?

            First, John introduces us to “The Word”.  The Word is not yet identified as Jesus – that will become apparent a little later, but the first thing that John wants us to know is that in the beginning the Word was with God and the Word was God.  Here, John intentionally echoes the words of Genesis 1 as he speaks of the beginning; the time when nothing yet existed.  A time that, according to the second verse in the Bible, the earth was formless and void.  God existed before anything in our universe was created, and at that time The Word was already with Him.  The Father and the Word are equally co-existent.  And when the act of creation began, how did creation come into being?  What happened?  What does the Bible tell us about how creation began?  Genesis tells us that God SAID “Let there be light”.  It was God’s WORD that caused the light to happen.  God planned the universe, but it was the Word, that literally spoke it into existence.  This is why John tells us that “All things came into being through [the Word], and without [the Word] not one thing [would have come] into being.”  This person, who so far is only identified as “The Word”, is the actual, in fact, creator of the universe.  The relationship of the trinity is a mystery, and it is impossible for our finite minds to comprehend, but John makes it crystal clear in his prologue that the Father and the Word are one.  One God.

            John continues his prologue introducing us to John the Baptist, and it is here that John states the purpose of his Gospel.  John tells us that John the Baptist “came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through [that light] all might believe.”  John repeats this idea towards the end of his Gospel when he says in chapter 20 “Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book.  But these are written that you may believethat Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.”  John’s purpose is to introduce us to God, in the person of Jesus Christ, that in coming to know Him, we may know God.  And that in coming to know God, we may have life in his name.

            So, how does this all work?  Well, like John, let’s start with the Word.  What is a word anyway?  A word is an audible or written expression of an idea.  If I were to say the word “banana”, I would have expressed a word with which we can all identify.  We will immediately have in our minds the image of a banana.  And so, when we speak of God’s Word, we are actually talking about the idea of the physical manifestation of all that God is.  God sent the Word in order to reveal Himself to us.  Edward W. Klink III tells us that the “’Word’ reflects the truth that it is the very nature of God to reveal Himself”. [1]

            Next, John tells us that this “’Word’ became flesh and made His dwelling among us.  And we have seen His glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.”  God is revealed to us in His entirety, in the Son, who is the fully human, yet fully divine and complete image of God.  Everything God is, the Son is.  This God, who created the universe, and created us, has chosen to reveal Himself to us in the person of the Son, Jesus.

            I would like to step away from John’s Gospel for just a moment so I can say something about this Son who is full of grace and truth.  Way back in Exodus 33, Moses asked God if God would allow him to see God’s glory.  God’s response to Moses was that He would cause His goodness to pass in front of Moses.  God’s glory is His goodness!  The grace that forgives, the truth that reveals, the love that abounds, the glory of God is to be found in His goodness.  And THIS is the glory of the one and only Son.  That His goodness is one and the same with His Father’s goodness. 

            The more we learn about Jesus, and through Him, the more we learn about the Father, the more we understand this picture of a God who loves us and is relentless in revealing His love for us in the hope that we may choose to receive His love, and to love Him in return.  Warren Wiersbe says, “Just as the first creation began with ‘Let there be light’, so the new creation begins with the entrance of light into the heart of the believer.” [2]

            But John hasn’t finished his prologue yet, and some of the rest of the story isn’t such good news.  John tells us that “[Jesus] came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him.”  In other words, the beloved refuse to love and the created reject their creator.  Warren Wiersbe again, “Whenever Jesus taught a spiritual truth, His listeners interpreted it in a material or physical way.  The light was unable to penetrate the darkness in their minds.”[3]  As unfathomable as it is to me, some will reject the Good News.  They will refuse to hear it, or refuse to believe it, or refuse to even consider it.  And I believe that the worst part of that rejection is the fact that, those who die without Jesus will spend the rest of eternity in that total darkness about which we spoke.  Unable to be productive, unable to function, unable to accomplish anything of value. 

Now, the last thing in all the world that I want to be is a fire and brimstone preacher.  I often say that we don’t serve a God of retribution, we serve a God of reconciliation.  It isn’t God’s desire to smite those who reject Him, but the sad fact is that there are some who will, and it is they themselves who will make the choice to live in darkness.

            But to those who do receive Him, we are given the right to become children of God.  Karl Kuhn says, “John’s exaltation of Jesus as the transcendent Word is only one side of the story. The other is his claim that the Divine Word becomes flesh and dwells among us. John’s exaltation of Jesus to unimaginable heights of transcendence serves his even more crucial interest of proclaiming that in Jesus, the barrier between the divine and human realms are breached to a degree never before realized. In the Word, John claims, God’s mercy and truth now flow in measures never possible before: “from his fullness, we receive grace upon grace”.[4]

            God came to reclaim the world that He created and the people that He loves.  God’s mission, as He has chosen to pursue it through the work of Jesus, is, as I just said, not one of retribution, but one of reconciliation.  It is God’s desire that none of His beloved children be lost, but that all be saved.  To that end, He has sent Jesus to show us God’s glory.  A glory that will be revealed in His goodness, His forgiveness, His compassion, His patience, and His love. 

            My dear friends, let us step into the light of that goodness and live as children of the light.

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[1] Edward W. Klink III, Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament: John, Pg. 88

[2] Warren Wiersbe, “Be Alive”, Pg. 12.

[3] Warren Wiersbe, “Be Alive”, Pg. 13

[4] Karl Kuhn, WorkingPreacher.org: Commentary on John 1:1-18

I Thought He Was with You

Homily: December 29, 2024

            There is a very famous movie that was released in 1990.  In the movie, the McAllister family is preparing for a Christmas trip to Paris.  The night before they are to depart, they all sit down to dinner, and their youngest son Kevin disrupts the meal.  He is subsequently sent to the attic as punishment.  During the night, they have a power outage and the next morning the family oversleeps, leading to a mad rush to make it to the airport on time.  Somehow, in the rush, Kevin is left “Home Alone”.  The family only discovers the fact that Kevin is missing when their flight is halfway across the Atlantic.  The rest of the movie divides its time between Kevin’s story of thwarting a home invasion and his mom, Kate’s story of frantically trying to book a flight and return home to find her son.

            Those who have seen the movie can understand Kate’s absolute panic when she realizes that she doesn’t know where Kevin is.  This panic is where Mary and Joseph found themselves when, on the way home after their Passover trip to Jerusalem, they discovered the fact that Jesus wasn’t with them. 

In today’s story, our English translation softens the language, telling us that Mary and Joseph were “anxiously searching”, but the word that Luke uses in the Greek is ὀδυνάω (odounow), and to give us a better sense of what Mary and Joseph were actually feeling, in the Biblical story of the rich man and the beggar Lazarus, after they had both died and the rich man was begging Abraham to have Lazarus put a drop of water on his tongue because he was in agony in the flames of hell, that word “agony” is translated from our word ὀδυνάω.

Yeah, Mary and Joseph were pretty upset, but I think that we need to know a little bit more about how this happened, because we can’t entirely blame Mary and Joseph.  During a typical Passover, the population of Jerusalem would increase from about 50,000 people to about 150,000 people.  Entire communities would travel to Jerusalem together in caravans because of the safety provided in numbers.  In those caravans, the women and children would travel in front with the men and young men following behind.  With Jesus being 12 years old, he was quite literally a tween.  Young enough to travel with his mother and the children, but also old enough to travel with his father and the young men.  So, it’s not hard to see how Mary may have thought that He was with Joseph and vice versa. 

Upon discovering the fact that Jesus was missing, Mary and Joseph returned to Jerusalem, looking for Jesus, and eventually finding Him in the temple.  Mary chides Jesus for staying behind in Jerusalem, saying “Your father and I have been searching for you”.  Jesus answers “Why were you searching for me?”  In the Greek, this is actually posed as a rhetorical question, a question with the assumption that they absolutely should have known where He was, even though they didn’t. 

So, what do we see when we look at this passage?  Do we see irresponsible parents?  Do we see some kind of adolescent rebellion, or maybe a combination of both?  No, I don’t think that we see any of that.  As a parent, I suppose it may be a little difficult to reconcile Jesus’ actions with the fact of His absolute sinlessness, but the answer to all of this lies within the text itself where Jesus says, “Didn’t you know that I must be in my Father’s house?”

William Barclay says, “See how very gently but very definitely Jesus takes the name father from Joseph and gives it to God”[1].  Jesus’ here identifying God as His Father was something that was unique in Jewish literature.  The Bible often refers to God as “our Father” or as “The Father of Israel”, but never had God ever been referred to as Father in such a personal way.  At the tender age of 12 Jesus has already begun to develop an understanding of His singular and special relationship with the Father. 

We need to realize that this understanding is something that Jesus wasn’t born with.  His awareness of His relationship to the Father, His knowledge of the nature and scope of His mission, His understanding of His role as Lord and Savior, these are all things that developed as He grew.  This is why Luke will later tell us that “Jesus grew in wisdom and in stature”.  Though divine, Jesus was still fully human.  And just like any other human, Jesus had to grow into an understanding of who He was and what He was called to do with His life. 

And the time that Jesus spent with the rabbis in Jerusalem was an important part of that discovery process.  Jesus was never going to receive a world class Jewish education in Nazareth but in Jerusalem He could sit and learn from the best and the brightest.  Jesus had come to a point where He had realized that He needed to prioritize His relationship with the Father.  This is why He stayed in Jerusalem to study, and this is why He was surprised when His parents didn’t know where He was.  Jesus was making His first steps towards adulthood, and a part of that was taking advantage of the opportunity to stay and learn while He had the chance.  But Jesus had one more year to go before He turned 13 and according to Jewish law, that is when He would become responsible for His own actions and could decide for Himself how He would practice His faith.  And so, Luke tells us that Jesus returned with His parents to Nazareth and was obedient to them. 

I believe that this story, the one and only story in the Bible about Jesus’ childhood, was included due to the importance of what happened in Jerusalem that year.  It was a year that Jesus took a major step forward into adulthood, a year that His understanding of His unique and special relationship with the Father was refined, and a year that he recognized His mandate to prioritize His mission, even over His responsibilities to His own family.  It was this attitude that would one day prompt Him to ask the question “Who is my mother and who are my brothers?”  It was a year that Jesus would take a large step on the journey that would lead Him to fulfilling His calling.

Why we study the life of Jesus?  What do we hope to gain in our studies?  We study because we, as believers, are called to be like Jesus, and understanding His life and teaching is a critical part of the process of seeking Christ-likeness.  And so, I’d like to close with a thought from Clinton E. Arnold.  “What is important from Luke’s summary statement is that the life of Jesus reveals what a human life full of God’s Spirit and wisdom looks like.”[2]  The recognition of a special relationship with the Father, the desire to expand on the knowledge of one’s faith, the prioritizing of God’s mission in one’s life, all of these things that we see in 12 year old Jesus are qualities that we, as God’s children, also would do well to nurture in our own lives. 

My friend, Greg Monroe once said to me that prayer is not us asking God to do our will.  Prayer is us asking God to incorporate us into His will.  As we seek to follow Jesus and His example, may we also learn to grow into God’s will for us.

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[1] William Barclay, “The Gospel of Luke” (Revised Edition), Pg. 30

[2] Clinton E. Arnold, “Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament: Luke”, Pg. 147

Emmanuel

Homily December 24. 2024

            I find it fascinating that the opening verses of the story of the birth of Jesus include shepherds.  Shepherds had dirty jobs.  I mean REALLY dirty jobs.  The contact with animals that these shepherds experienced in the performing of their duties rendered them ritually unclean.  And as long as they worked as shepherds, they were perpetually ritually unclean.  Let’s stop for one moment and think about what this means.  Shepherds were, as a result of their profession, NEVER permitted to set foot in the temple and never permitted to participate in worship.

And their ceremonial uncleanness also separated them from the rest of the Jewish community because, as we all know, ritual uncleanness was contagious.  If you were to touch someone who was unclean, that made you unclean also.  And not only was the shepherd’s job dirty and alienating, but apparently, the people who worked as shepherds didn’t exactly have the best reputation.  In fact, according to Jewish law, a shepherd’s testimony was inadmissible in a court of law, presumably due to the character, or lack thereof, of those who were drawn to this profession.

            And so, with this in mind, the Christmas story takes on somewhat of a new dimension.  I mean, why were the angels sent to shepherds?  God could have sent the angel chorus to anyone He chose.  He could have sent that chorus to Caesar Agustus.  In the dark of night, He could have lit the imperial palace up as if it was midday and filled that space with the sound of heavenly praise.  But He didn’t.  He could have sent the angels to the temple and to the priests to herald the arrival of their long-awaited Messiah.  But He didn’t.  He could have sent that heavenly chorus directly to the high priest’s house and let the high priest be the one to tell the world the good news about Jesus’ birth.  But He didn’t.  A few weeks back we read that Luke identified 7 of the most influential men in the Roman world, but the angels didn’t visit any of them.  Instead, it was shepherds.  Why?

            Well, when WE hear good news, who is the first person that we want to tell?  We share our good news with those who are the most likely to delight with us over the news.  And so, we share our good news first with our closest family and friends, So, God’s choice to tell the shepherds first, is telling us something about God Himself.  God first told the Good News to those who He knew would be the ones who would rejoice with Him. 

The kings, the dignitaries, the religious rulers, they weren’t going to rejoice with God over the birth of the Messiah.  In fact, they would end up opposing Jesus because he threatened their power.  And so, God sent the heavenly host to tell the shepherds, and what did the shepherds do?  When they saw the baby Jesus in the manger, Luke tells us that, “they made known what [the angels] had told them about this child, and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them,” And what did the shepherds do after they returned to their fields?  Luke tells us that, “The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, just as it had been told them.”  God told the shepherds first because God knew that they would be the ones who would be rejoicing with Him.

            Isaiah tells us that the Messiah will be called Emmanuel, which means “God with us”.  And Jesus truly is “God with US”.  He is not God with the kings and the well connected.  He is not God with the religious authorities.  He is God WITH US!  He is God who doesn’t require His followers to have an elite position in society.  He is God who doesn’t require elite training in the Bible or in religion.  He is God who does not require an elite income or elite status to be His follower.  He is simply God with us.  And if we ever, ever doubt our worthiness to come before God, just remember that He came to the perpetually unclean shepherds first.

            It’s not possible to read the Bible and not come away with the understanding that God holds a special place in His heart for the poor and the marginalized.  The shepherds who were rejected by the people, excluded from worship, and deeply distrusted, are the very ones that God embraced.  It’s almost impossible to comprehend the fact that unclean shepherds, led by God to a baby, lying in a sheep’s feeding trough, wrapped in strips of cloth, and in a cold and damp cave, is the way the creator of the universe chose to enter the world.  No power, no influence, no friends in high places, just Emmanuel… God with us.

            God’s kingdom is not about power and authority, though God has those things in unfathomable abundance.  God’s kingdom is about God choosing to reconcile the world to Himself.  It’s about bridging the gap between God’s holiness and our sinfulness which God accomplishes by assigning the sinlessness and goodness of Jesus to us… and making it as if our sin never happened.  And this transaction, this free gift of a loving and gracious God is available to absolutely everyone who chooses to accept God’s gift of new life in Him.

            It doesn’t matter who we are.  It doesn’t matter where we’ve been or what we’ve done.  It doesn’t matter how far away from God we think we are.  It only matters where our hearts are right here and right now.  This is the message of the shepherds.  God comes to the unclean, the unwanted, the unappreciated, and the rejected, and out of the difficulties of their lives, He creates something unimaginably beautiful.  He creates a life that He teaches to love Him and to love others.

            Here is the simple truth… If Jesus was willing to be born into an environment as dismal and as smelly as a manger, there is no heart into which He will be unwilling to be born as well.

Love Grows

Sermon for December 22, 2024

            This is the fourth Sunday of Advent, and for any who may have missed it, it is the Sunday of Love, and so we will be talking about love this morning.  For us in the twenty-first century English speaking world, we express the concept of love with just one word, “Love”.  Now, the concept of love actually has several different shades of meaning and so, when we use the word, we have to interpret the thought behind the word through the context in which it is used.  Unfortunately, it’s possible to misinterpret which shade of the word is being used and given the depth of emotion contained in this concept of love, the results of misunderstanding can sometimes be problematic.  For the first century Greco-Roman audience however, there were no such issues because the Greeks actually had four different words, with four completely different meanings, all four of which we translate into the English word “Love”.  Please allow me to explain.

            First, they had the word φῐλῐ́ᾱ (Philia), a word that we would refer to as “brotherly love”.  In fact, Philadelphia is called the city of brotherly love because the name “Philadelphia” is derived from the Greek words φῐλῐ́ᾱ which means love and ἀδελφός which means brother or sister.  φῐλῐ́ᾱ could best be described as the deep and abiding friendship that you would have for a brother or sister, or a closest friend.

            Next, they had the word ἔρως (Eros) which is the root of our word “erotic”.  ἔρως describes love that includes a physical component, essentially describing a love between mutually committed individuals.

            Then, they had the word στοργή  (Storge) which is love with an obligatory component, such as a love one would have for their children, or even a love one has for their country.  It’s important to note that the obligatory nature of στοργή does not detract from the depth of love felt for the beloved.  It simply means that this is a type of love that one is expected to have.

            Finally, there is the word ᾰ̓γᾰ́πη (Agape), and ᾰ̓γᾰ́πη is a word that is extraordinarily rare in its use in classical Greek literature but a word that abounds in the Bible.  In fact, ᾰ̓γᾰ́πη is used over 250 times in the Septuagint, which is the third century BCE Greek version of the Old Testament,  And it is used more than 200 times in the New Testament.  This makes ᾰ̓γᾰ́πη love one of the most common themes of the Bible.  And the meaning of the word is a love that is not self-centered, but rather a love that is outwardly directed; a love that places the needs and wants of others ahead of one’s own. 

            ᾰ̓γᾰ́πη is defined by the words of 1 Corinthians 13 which are among the most well known words in the Bible due to their being one of the most commonly read Bible passages at weddings.  Readers of this passage tend to interpret it as instructions on how we are to love, and they aren’t wrong, but that’s not the whole story.  This passage actually describes the love that God has for us.  It’s a love that is patient and kind, a love that is not jealous, boastful, arrogant, or rude, it is love that does not insist on having its own way, that keeps no record of wrongs, and that rejoices not in wrongdoing but in truth.  This passage succinctly describes the love that God has for us and is also describing the love that God calls us to have not only for Him, but also for one another.

            Our first reading this morning is known as the Nunc Dimittis, a Latin phrase meaning “now you allow to depart”, but the passage is more commonly referred to as the Song of Simeon.  Luke describes Simeon as a righteous and devout man.  It is presumed that Simeon is elderly because the Holy Spirit has promised him that he would not die until he had seen the Messiah with his own eyes.  Led by the Holy Spirit to the temple on the day that Mary and Joseph brought Jesus to perform the purification ritual, when Simeon saw Jesus, he received Jesus into his arms and praised God with the words that we just read a few moments ago.

            In Luke’s narrative, Mary and Simeon are the only ones who actually hold the baby Jesus.  That’s not to say that others didn’t (I can’t imagine a father not wanting to hold his son!), but these are the only two whose actions were important enough to be mentioned in Luke’s narrative.  But why do we think that is?  Our reading today tells us that Simeon “took” Jesus into his arms, but the sense of the word that was used is that Simeon “received” Jesus into his arms, giving us the image of an infant being gently handed to a loving grandparent.  And upon taking the child into his arms, inspired by the Holy Spirit, Simeon says something that is truly revolutionary.  He says that, not only will this child be the glory of His people Israel, but also that He will be a “Light of revelation to the Gentiles”.  In these words, Simeon prophetically reveals God’s loving plan to reconcile to Himself, not only the Jewish people, but all of His beloved children.

            This universal love of God for His children is echoed in our passage from Matthew today.  Matthew speaks of the compassion that Jesus had for the crowds because they were helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. 

            The week before last, my girlfriend and I took a trip to Manhattan to see the Rockette’s Christmas spectacular and to see the Christmas Tree in Rockefeller Center.  I have been living is New Jersey for over 50 years and I had never done either of these things.  Never in my life have I ever been in a traffic jam, on foot, on a sidewalk.  There were so many people walking, so many people stopping to take pictures and selfies, so many people trying just to get from point A to point B, that the foot traffic on the sidewalk came to a complete standstill.  It took us over 45 minutes to walk 5 blocks. 

If you are watching the TV show “The Chosen” (and if you aren’t, you really should check it out!), the episode where Jesus is trying to get to Jairus’ house to heal his daughter looks very much like my trip to Manhattan.  Time and time again the Bible tells us about the enormous crowds that followed Jesus, and how they would press in on Him from all sides, and how He occasionally would try, often unsuccessfully, to get away from the crowds just to find a little solitude.  But as I read today’s passage, I can look at the crowds that followed Jesus in the light of the human traffic jam that is Manhattan at Christmas time, and the impact of Jesus’ statement that the harvest was plentiful was really brought home to me in that image.  Massive crowds, following Jesus, seeking answers to questions when they are not exactly sure what those questions even are. 

Harassed and helpless indeed.  And while Jesus devoted a good chunk of His time to trying to help people not only to find those answers, but to understand the actual questions themselves, He couldn’t do it all by Himself.  And so, Jesus, with compassion and love for those who were seeking answers, asks us to pray that the Lord will send out workers for the harvest.  And there’s a little bit of irony in this because we actually end up praying for ourselves.  Because WE are the workers for whom we are praying.  Jesus calls us to seek out with compassion and love the harassed and the helpless, that we may begin to be the ones who help to provide answers and clarity for them.

And it’s here that we run squarely into the heart of our call, because it is here… in this reading, that Jesus tells us why he does what He does.  Did anyone happen to catch it?  Matthew tells us that, “When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them.”  Jesus’ mission is about far more than just obligation.  And it has absolutely nothing to do with the metrics of how many people did we save today.  Jesus didn’t just die for us, He lived his entire life for us.  Everything He did was centered on reconciling us to God, and everything He did, was done from an unshakable foundation of ᾰ̓γᾰ́πη love for each and every one of His beloved children.

I have a confession to make.  I am a complete social media geek.  I spend way too much time on Facebook and Quora, but I really like spending time on those apps because they give me an opportunity to share my faith, and that is something that I do rather often.  Not too long ago, a dear friend of mine, a committed believer who always seems to be seeking to expand the knowledge of his faith, forwarded a post questioning the universality of God’s love.  The premise of the post was that God’s love is reserved only for those who accept Him, leaving us to presume that God doesn’t love those who don’t accept Him.  I began my rebuttal to this post by quoting 2 Peter 3:9, “The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead, he is patient with you, not wanting ANYONE to perish, but EVERYONE to come to repentance.”  And I said in my reply that I believed that the answer to the question of “does God’s limit His love” would be found in discovering who are the “anyone” and who are the “everyone” that are referred to in this passage.  It turns out that the Greek word that is translated “anyone” is τινας (tinas) and parsing the word isn’t particularly helpful because in some verses in the Bible it does mean all people but in some other verses it means only certain people.  But the word used for “everyone” is different.  The “everyone” is translated from πάσας (pasas), and every use of this word that I could find in the Bible clearly means “all” or “every”.  This word is an emphatic statement of inclusion, and Jesus uses it three times in today’s reading. 

And so, upon whom did Jesus have compassion?  Πάσας, everyone.  To whom was Jesus called to bring the Good News of our reconciliation to God?  Πάσας, everyone.  And upon whom are WE called to have compassion?  Πάσας, everyone.  And to whom are we called to bring the Good News of our reconciliation to God?  Πάσας, everyone. 

God’s love knows no bounds, has no limits, is withheld from no one.  If indeed the call to the believer is a call to Christ likeness, then the call to us is to love exactly as Christ loved.  Both in the scope of HOW we love, as we seek to love selflessly, giving of ourselves to others out of compassion for their needs and their situations. And also in the scope of WHO we love, as we seek to love inclusively out of compassion for each and every person, because every one of them bears the image of the Living God.  This is the essence of ᾰ̓γᾰ́πη (agape).  This is the essence of love.  This is what it means to love as Jesus loved.  To love without limits, to love selflessly, and to withhold that love from no one.  From the manger to the cross, Jesus showed us what it means to truly love.  Let us go and do likewise.

Prepare the Way Part II

December 15, 2024

            Last week we spoke about making straight the way for the Lord.  We discussed the importance of learning to evaluate where are our valleys, our feelings of inadequacy or helplessness?  Where are our hills of ego and status-seeking and where are our crooked places of distractions and indifference?  Last week our focus was on identifying the problem.  Today the focus is on addressing the problem.

            John the Baptist had a tough task in front of him.  In the Jewish common theology of the first century, salvation was a matter of birthright.  In the mind of the first century Israelite, if you were Jewish, you were automatically an heir to an unbreakable promise from God that you were accepted into His kingdom.  But that isn’t exactly what the Bible says, and so, John doesn’t mince words.  “You brood of vipers” he said.  And the Greek word that he used is :  Γεννήματα (Yeneemata), which actually means to beget or to bring forth.  Here, John is calling those who have come to see him not the children of God, but the children of vipers.  And then he asked them “Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?”

            What wrath?  For his first century Jewish audience, they thought of themselves as children of the Promise, God’s chosen people.  And so, John’s challenge was to teach his listeners that being a descendant of Abraham was worthless unless their lives reflected Abraham’s righteousness as well.  Dr. Doug Scalise teaches us that, “One of the central elements of the Old Testament covenant is the generational promise, which begins with Abraham, continues with Isaac and Jacob, and is extended through them to all of their descendants.  But John says that this promise is meaningless, apart from repentance. In other words, claiming the promise of Abraham without the faith of Abraham simply doesn’t work. John is changing the game, and his preaching challenges his hearers to [understand that change]. [1]  John illustrates his point by telling the crowd that God could make descendants of Abraham out of the stones that surrounded them, if He so chose. 

The message that John the Baptist was bringing was revolutionary.  For a first century Jew even to consider the fact that they may not be resting comfortably in God’s good graces was unthinkable.  And so, John continued, “Even now the ax is laid to the root of the trees.  Therefore, every tree which does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.” You see, John knows that those who think of themselves as “good people”; the important, the wealthy, the well connected, and the self-righteous, are the most difficult people to convince of their need for a savior.  John knew that he had to convince the Jewish people that something they had believed for their entire lives was wrong.  And John knew that an ordinary teacher was not going to be able to accomplish this, which is why John needed to be recognized as having the authority of a prophet in order to speak, and to be heard. 

            Apparently, John’s message reached enough of his listeners that some of them began asking him, “What must we do?”  John’s answer shouldn’t have been news to his listeners.  94 times Old Testament authors repeat the command to care for the poor, and so, John tells the crowd, ““He who has two tunics, let him give to him who has none; and he who has food, let him do likewise.”  Dr. Judith Jones says, “John’s words show that he views poverty neither as an accident nor as the fault of the poor. In his time, as in ours, the earth produced more than enough goods to feed and clothe everyone. The problem then and now is that the resources have been grabbed up by a very small percentage of the population. John called not only the wealthiest but also the merely comfortable to treat their accumulation of goods as directly related to the seriousness of their repentance. How we get money and how we use money exposes what we value. Economic issues are spiritual issues. If we ignore God’s commands to practice social and economic justice, how can we claim that we love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength? If we prioritize our pleasures above our neighbors’ basic necessities, how can we claim to love our neighbors as we love ourselves?” [2]

            Last week I mentioned that God was about to do something brand new, and that John is the herald of that message.  In Jesus, God teaches us that righteousness is not about what we do, it’s about who we are.  Reversing Dr. Jones’ comment, when we truly love our neighbors, their needs will become a priority to us.  When we truly love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, we will, in the words of the prophet Amos, “Let justice run down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.  And we will do these things simply because it is within our new nature in Christ to do so.

            And then, from the crowd came two additional questions.  First, the tax collectors asked, “What should we do?”.  Tax collectors were despised by the Jews because they were viewed as traitors, working for the hated Romans.  To make matters worse, Tax collectors had a guideline from Rome about how much tax they were required to collect and their pay was included in that amount, but tax collectors routinely collected more than the required amount, and then pocketed the difference.  John told them to collect no more than they were required to collect and to stop padding their paycheck with the extra money they were taking from the taxpayers.  Next, a group of soldiers asked, “What should we do?”  Roman soldiers often used their position of authority to extort money from people, threatening to have them jailed or worse if they didn’t pay up.  John told them to be satisfied with their wages and not to intimidate or falsely accuse anyone. 

            It’s interesting to note here that, while both tax collectors and Roman soldiers were among the most despised of Israel’s inhabitants, John doesn’t tell them to quit their jobs… but rather to do their jobs in a way that exhibited ethics, and justice, and even love towards others.  Donald G. Miller says, “This counsel of John is not to be thought of as mere moralizing, nor as salvation by works.  Had he stood for this he would not have broken with the religious leaders of his day.  He is not saying that if [people] are generous, honest, and faithful, they will thereby earn the right to become members of the coming kingdom.  He is rather saying that if one acknowledges [their] unworthiness and accepts God’s gracious gift of entrance into the coming kingdom, [they] will show [that gratitude] by ethical behavior [towards others].  This is not the ethics of legalism, but the ethics of gratitude”. [3]

            Can we see the distinction here?  A changed heart that loves and honors others can only be achieved by a transformation of that heart that is brought about by the Holy Spirit.  In recognizing the hopeless situation that we face before God as a result of sin, we turn to Him asking Him for His gracious forgiveness.  And this forgiveness results in μετανοίας (Metanoias), which is the Greek word that we translate “repentance”.  But μετανοίας means to have a transformative change of the heart, or to have a completely new perspective on our lives that alters the way we think and the way we act.  In short, we become an entirely new person; a person recreated, bearing not only the image of God, but also bearing the image of God’s heart.

            I said before that the “good people”, the important, the wealthy, the well connected, and the self-righteous, are the most difficult people to convince of their need for a savior.  This principle didn’t just apply to the Israelites of the first century.  This principle is universal among humans.  And so sometimes harsh language such as John used is necessary to jolt people out of their presumptive righteousness. 

            And so, the pressing question for us this morning, and for every minute of every day, is “what must we do?”  Well, as we discussed last week, we must prepare the way for the Lord in our own hearts.  We must set aside our insecurities, and our egos, and our distractions, and our indifferences, and we must devote time to prayer, asking God to let His Holy Spirit make the transformative changes in our lives that are necessary in order for us to become productive and faithful citizens of His kingdom. 

            And as God is going about the business of changing our hearts, we can practice.  We can practice loving others, even to the point of seeking to place their needs ahead of our own.  We can practice kindness, and empathy, and forgiveness.  And we can practice justice.  We can recognize the places where the word’s systems create injustice, and we can become a strident voice advocating for fairness and equality in our community and in our world.

            John’s language over the last two weeks has been apocalyptic.  “The wrath to come”, “The axe is at the root”, “baptizing with the Holy Spirit and fire”!  John is making it crystal clear that a new world is coming, and that that world will be very different from the one we now inhabit.  The Rev. Chelsea Harmon said, “If the world is ending, it’s best to live the way of the world that is to come; because then, we will at least recognize ourselves when we are in it.  As people who are washed and cleansed by God’s own transforming hand, we’ve already begun to be different, living from the core of goodness that is Christ within us, rather than our selfish motivations which so often control us.  We will see that the fruit of our ordinary faithfulness was actually the fruit of God’s kingdom coming, here and now; the purifying for eternity has already begun by the work of the Holy Spirit!” [4]

            Rev. Harmon asks an excellent question.  “When this world ends and all that is left of us is what is of God and his Kingdom, will we be able to recognize ourselves?”  Will the fully transformed person that we will become closely resemble the person that we are today?  Or will so much more transformation be necessary that we won’t even recognize the new person that we will become? 

            These are good questions; questions that we should give some thought.  A few weeks ago, I made a comment about theologians liking to say that the kingdom of God is eschatologically here, meaning that the kingdom of God exists in two places at once.  One is the kingdom that is the blessed future hope of every follower of Christ, and the other is the kingdom that is present among us in the here and now.  And as citizens of that kingdom in the here and now, it is our quest, our responsibility, our fondest desire, that we should manifest kingdom living to the fullest of the ability that God grants us through the Holy Spirit.

            But every bit of this is built on the foundation of gratitude for what God has done for us through Jesus.

            The other day I saw a meme on Facebook that had a Philip Yancey quote.  And I love Philip Yancey.  He was talking about the thief on the cross, and he said, “In one of his last acts before death, Jesus forgave a thief dangling on a cross, knowing full well the thief had converted out of plain fear. That thief would never study the Bible, never attend synagogue or church, and never make amends to all those he had wronged. He simply said “Jesus, remember me,” and Jesus promised, ‘Today you will be with me in paradise.’ It was another shocking reminder that grace does not depend on what we have done for God but rather what God has done for us.” [5]  It is this grace, this entirely unmerited and extravagant grace, that prompts our response of gratitude.  God has done for us, in Jesus, that which we could never have accomplished on our own.  God has given us life and has reconciled us to Himself, making us beloved citizens of His kingdom.  With that in mind, is there any part of our lives that we should be unwilling to give Him in return?

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[1] Doug Scalise, “What Should We Do”, BrewsterBaptistChurch.org

[2] Dr. Judith Jones, Commentary on Luke 3:7-18, WorkingPreacher.org

[3] Donald G. Miller, The Layman’s Bible Commentary: Luke, Pg. 45

[4] Chelsea Harmon, Luke 3:7-18 Commentary, CEPreaching.org

[5] Philip Yancey, What’s So Amazing About Grace, Quoted on Facebook

Prepare the Way

Sermon December 8, 2024

            There were a lot of things that the Romans were really good at.  One of these things was building roads.  There are Roman roads that were built hundreds of years before Jesus’ birth that are still in use.  Try to imagine what the Garden State Parkway would look like after 2400 years without maintenance!  Roman engineers started by digging a trench about three feet deep and then building retaining walls on the sides.  They then built the road in layers with a base layer of compacted sand or gravel and a 12-inch layer of concrete that was made from volcanic ash and quicklime.  Then there was another layer of concrete mixed with gravel, and then that was topped with two layers of stones.  The roads were cambered or arched to provide drainage.  In wet areas the roads were elevated to prevent flooding and they used a drainage system to disperse the water runoff.  Roman roads were made to be straight or only gently curved in order to prevent the possibility of people hiding around curves to set an ambush, and except in special circumstances, roads were limited to grade increases or decreases of no more than 8%.  To accomplish this, hills needed to be flattened, valleys needed to be filled in, and the route had to be carefully planned so the road would be as straight as possible.

            When a Roman emperor was planning a visit to one of the provinces, the first thing that would happen, far in advance of the visit, would be Roman engineers traveling to the area to make sure that the roads and accommodations were perfect, and building new roads was a part of that job.  The engineers would literally make straight the way, cutting through hills and building up the valleys; all to see to it that the emperor had a pleasant and uneventful journey. 

            And so, the language of today’s passage would have been well understood by Luke’s first century audience but is not something that we would understand in the same way without having learned a little bit of that cultural background.  Luke is using this imagery that would have been familiar to his audience to make a point about John the Baptist’s ministry, but there is more that we yet need to understand. 

            In Jewish antiquity, events of significant importance would almost always be accompanied by the voice of a prophet.  From Moses to Malachi, God spoke to His people to guide them, to encourage the, to warn them, and to chastise them.  Prophets arose every time Israel faced an important or catastrophic event from Moses leading the people out of Egypt, to Deborah prophesying during the conquest of Canaan.  From Samuel and Nathan during the reigns of Saul and David, to Joel, Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, and Micah before and during the fall of Israel and Nahum, Zephaniah, Habakkuk, and Jeremiah before and during the fall of Judah.  Obadiah and Ezekiel prophesied during the captivity of the Israelites and the prophets Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi accompanied the Israelites back to the Promised Land at the end of the exile.   The appearance of prophets at these critical times shows just how active God was among His people.  And as we look at the stories of these prophets, we find that time and time again they are introduced to us with the same phrase, “The word of the Lord came to…” fill in the blank.  But after Malachi, there was a period of over 400 years with Israel not hearing the voice of a prophet.  And so here, Luke has gone out of his way to identify John the Baptist as a prophet.  Something new and important was about to happen and so God was once again speaking to His people.  The word of the Lord came to John.

            Now, Luke has been universally recognized as a thorough and meticulous historian.  Over the years, things that Luke wrote, names, places, titles, and such, were thought to be either inaccurate or fabrications, but archaeology has consistently found proof of the accuracy of Luke’s reporting.  The famed archaeologist Sir William Ramsey was a harsh critic of Luke until he studied him.  And as his archeological work began revealing the truth about Luke’s writings, Ramsey became convinced of Luke’s accuracy, wrote several books about archaeology’s ties to Luke, and was knighted for his work on the Bible. 

And so, today’s reading, in typical Luke fashion, meticulously identifies the exact time frame of the beginning of John’s ministry.  The 15^th year of Tiberius Caeser’s reign, while Pilate was governor of Judea. Luke also mentions the Tetrarchs Herod, Philip, and Lysanias, and identifies Annas and Caiaphas as High Priest.  But I think that Luke has more in mind here than just establishing a timeline.  Because when Luke places the beginning of John’s ministry in the 15^th year of Tiberius Ceaser’s reign, he unquestionably identifies that ministry as beginning sometime between October of the year 27 and September of the year 28.  But here, Luke has named seven men, seven men representing the height of political and religious power.  And yet as powerful as these people were, God was about to do something here that was earth shaking far beyond anything any of these men could have hoped to achieve.  Dr. David E. Garland said, “These rulers appear to have far more influence than John, but they have no inkling that the foundations that supported their thrones and murderous ideologies would be shaken to the core because of what would happen in an obscure corner of the empire beginning with an obscure prophet.  This list reveals that Roman political dominance over the world does not control the story but a transcendent power does – God’s eternal will.  God was moving in ways that would dethrone them.” [1]  And so, into their world comes a man, a man with no money, no political power, no influence, and yet this is the man to whom came the word of God.  This is the man about whom the angel Gabril spoke, when he said that John would come in the spirit and power of Elijah.  This is the one about whom Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, among those born of women there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist”.  The great reversal has begun!

John is a prophet.  And John is here to announce something entirely new.  Something that we are going to talk about… next week.  So stay tuned!  But for today, I would like to focus on the image that is being drawn here about preparing the way for the Lord.  Flatten the mountains, raise the valleys, and straighten the roads.  Luke’s first century listeners understood that imagery, and now so do we.  But what does it mean?  

Well, what things are standing in the way of our relationship with Jesus?  What are our valleys?  When are the times when we feel inadequate or helpless?  You know, there’s an old saying that God doesn’t call the qualified, He qualifies the called.  When we feel like we are not up to the task of sharing the Gospel, or feeding the hungry, or loving our enemies, these things can be the valleys in our lives.  But John tells us to lift up those valleys.  We have to trust that we don’t need to be afraid of sharing our faith because when the time comes, the Spirit will give us the exact right words to say.  We have to understand that God is not calling us to feed EVERYONE, He is just calling us to do our part; to care for those who God puts in our path.  If we have trouble loving our enemies… well, we all have trouble loving our enemies.  But we can start by praying for them and maybe eventually our prayers for them may end up healing us!  Satan loves it when we feel inadequate because those feelings of inadequacy can paralyze us and keep us from being effective servants of the Gospel.  So, lift up those valleys!  We need to learn to recognize the areas in our lives where our feelings are preventing us from living to glorify God.  And we need to pray on these things because God is faithful to equip us with everything that we need in our service to Him, if only we ask.  Let us make our valleys exalted.

Next, what are our hills?  What are the things in our lives where ego and status-seeking hinder our love for one another?  When we see a poor person, when we see someone who is homeless, dirty, and disheveled, when we see migrants crossing the river in a desperate attempt to make a better life for themselves and their families, do we feel repulsed?  Are we quick to blame the poor for being poor; quick to blame the homeless for not picking themselves up and bettering themselves; quick to blame the migrant for not following the rules?  Or are we looking at these people and seeing the Imago Dei, the image of the Living God, OUR God, dwelling within them.  A huge part of the love that we are called to have for others is built on empathy.  Until such time as we knock down the hills of our ego, we will lack the ability to put ourselves in another person’s shoes, and until we are able to do that, it will be impossible for us to love in the way that we are called to love.  Let us make our hills low.

Finally, where are our roads crooked?  Where do we get distracted or thrown off course?  What are the things in our lives that interfere with our focus on Jesus or our focus on living faithfully?  The world is full of distractions, and sometimes we need to force ourselves to set those distractions aside in order to create time for prayer, for worship, for service.  Being a child of God sometimes requires a re-prioritizing of our lives.  In his letter to the church at Rome, Paul wrote, “Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship.”  This re-prioritizing of our lives is exactly the sacrifice to which Paul was referring.  The Christian Missionary Jim Elliot once said, ““He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep, to gain what he cannot lose”.  Let us pray that we are able to set aside our distractions and take the time that we’ve saved to instead become fruitful bearers of the Good News of the kingdom.  Let us make our roads straight.

            John preached a message of repentance.  His message is grounded in the idea that our encounter with the Living God who we meet in the person of Jesus will affect us in such a profound way that it alters how we think and what we do.  Donald G. Miller says, “When the multitudes flocked to John to be baptized, he insisted that the rite was of no value save as it testified to a deep inner change of the heart.  This change of heart, however, was not some dramatic act far removed from the common round of life.  It was to be manifested by living in hope of the coming Kingdom in the ordinary tasks of every day.[2] 

            My dear friends, we are in the process of becoming new creations.  As God continues to touch our lives, He is transforming our hearts into hearts that will someday look just like His heart.  Hearts that have the capacity to love others, even those who are difficult to love.  Hearts that are broken when we see that some of God’s children are hungry, or homeless, or exploited, or abandoned.  Hearts that long for justice and fairness and equality. 

            And so, as God’s Holy Spirit works in us to bring about this transformed heart, let us participate in that process by bringing low our hills, exalting our valleys, and making straight the way for the Lord.

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[1] Dr. David E. Garland, Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament: Luke, Pg. 152

[2] Donald G. Miller, The Layman’s Bible Commentary: Luke, Pg. 44

Signs and Portents

Sermon December 1, 2024

            What in the world is going on here??  Here we are in the beginning of Advent with Christmas and the joyous birth of Jesus right around the corner and our reading today is telling us that, “People will faint from terror, apprehensive of what is coming on the world, for the heavenly bodies will be shaken.”  Why are we reading apocalyptic literature like this right before Christmas?  Wouldn’t we really rather have a nice reminder about the baby in the manger; maybe an animal or two with a heavenly chorus thrown in for good measure?  No pun intended.

            Well, today is the first Sunday in Advent and our word “Advent” comes from the Latin “Adventus” which is a word that means “to arrive”.  And so, appropriately, Advent is the time for us to be preparing for the arrival of the Christ Child.  But… let us not forget that the birth of Jesus in a manger is not going to be His only Advent.  There is a second arrival that is yet to come, and today’s reading is addressing that Parousia, or second coming of Christ.  So, in spite of the fact that this discussion may seem a little out of place in this otherwise joyful season of Christmas, there are some great reasons to talk about these things now.

            As Christians, we are pretty familiar with the Christmas story.  Even non-Christians are familiar with at least part of it.  Popular culture has seen to that, whether it is through the story that is silently told by a creche or the ubiquitous Christmas songs in the stores, or through Linus’ wonderful narrative in the Peanuts Christmas special.  We are familiar with the events of Christ’s first Advent, but our familiarity with the first Advent stands in stark contrast to the myriads of questions that surround the second one. 

            We spoke just two weeks ago about the Olivet discourse, and we discussed the critical importance of being able to separate the true from the counterfeit.  That concept of finding truth was carried through our lesson last week and expanded, and now this week, Jesus is telling us how holding on to that truth is going to sustain us through all manner of worldly events.  “There will be signs,” Jesus said.  Signs that will sometimes point to anguish and perplexity.  I don’t have to tell you that there is no shortage of trials in this life.  We need look no further than our weekly prayer list to know that sometimes people struggle; sometimes all of us struggle.  And facing difficulties is never, ever, an easy thing.

            In today’s lesson, Jesus is giving us the bad news first, but as He talks to us about the trials that the world is going to face, there is something really interesting that’s hidden in this passage.  When Jesus tells us in verse 27 that people are going to be “apprehensive of what is coming on the world”, He doesn’t use the standard Greek word for “world” which is κόσμος, (Cosmos) he uses the word οἰκουμένῃ (oikoumene) which is a word that refers not to the whole world in general, but specifically to the political and economic forces within the world.  So, with this in mind, let’s take a look at that text again.  The concern of the people is about how these things that are happening are going to affect the politically and financially connected.  But for those who are seeking the truth, the political and the financial should be of much less consequence.  Because our focus as believers isn’t on political power, and most of us aren’t managing huge portfolios.  As those seeking the truth, our focus should be on truth seeking.  And when Jesus says to us, “When these things begin to take place”, these things that are causing the world all of these concerns, we should “stand up and lift up [our] heads, because [our] redemption is drawing near.”  Jesus is reminding us of our place as ambassadors in this world; reminders that we do not belong to this world, but that we are a part of the kingdom of God, even in the here and now.

Have you ever started reading a book, and before you have finished the book, you skipped to the end to see what happens?  Sometimes you really just want to know how the story ends.  Well, as Christians, we have kind of skipped to the end of the book, and we do know how our story ends.  We don’t know when, but we do know how.

As the end times approach and the world’s political and financial systems come crashing down, as the people who are IN the world are panic stricken over what is happening, followers of Jesus will know that the time of our redemption has finally come.  And while the rest of the world is looking downcast, fearful of how these apocalyptic events are going to impact their lives, Christians will be looking up because we know that the kingdom of God, that which we have hoped for, for our entire Christian lifetime is finally at hand. 

Let’s take a quick look back at the beginning of Luke and you can tell me what you see.  Mary’s Magnificat, the song that she sang when Elizabeth blessed her and her unborn child, is filled with references to scattering the proud and bringing down rulers, to filling the hungry and sending the rich away empty, to exalting the humble. John the Baptist called the people who came to be baptized by him a “brood of vipers” and asked them “who warned [them] to flee from the coming wrath?”  In His very first sermon Jesus claimed that He had been anointed to “proclaim good news to the poor, proclaim freedom for the prisoners, and give sight to the blind”.  Theologians have referred to the coming kingdom as “The Great Reversal”.  God never intended for His resources to be hoarded.  He never intended for people to exploit others for personal gain.  The kingdom will restore God’s planned order of things.  The financial and cultural hills will be made low, and those valleys will be exalted.  Pastor David Cotton once said, “Good news for the poor is always bad news for the rich”.  And those who have taken advantage, those who have exploited others for personal gain, those who have substituted greed for love, are finally going to be called to account for their actions. 

The coming kingdom of God will abound in love, in compassion, in empathy, in justice, in fairness, and in equality.  Those who are unable or who choose not to live as people of the light are going to be left out.  It’s not a pleasant thought.  But here is the truth… that even the worst of those people, are still to be loved by us.

Christians are called to be messengers. We are called to be the ones proclaiming the coming kingdom.  And we are called to exhibit kingdom living in our lives right here and right now.  Because our actions need to be consistent with our message if we expect anyone to actually hear us.  And here’s the thing that we always need to remember.  We never know when our actions are going to have an eternal impact on another person. 

One of the best friends I have ever had was a guy named Roy Williams.  Roy was a black guy and Roy was a Christian, but not just any Christian.  He was a member of a really exuberant church. I know, I went with him once.  You think MY sermons are long?  Great music though!  Roy was also the single most joyful person that I have ever met.  He was always smiling, had a great sense of humor, loved a good joke, and was relentless in sharing his faith with me.  But he was never, in the four years that we were best friends, never once overbearing or “preachy”.  He was just joyous… and always delighted to be talking about his faith.  Roy is one of the three people in my life who are responsible for my having become a committed follower of Jesus.  I may never have made that commitment if it wasn’t for Roy.  But Roy and I lost touch with each other before that ever happened.  And so, I can’t imagine any way that Roy would know the impact that he had on my life, or on my faith.  In a way, this makes me really sad, because I wish that there was a way for me to thank him.  But I also know that Roy was thoroughly familiar with the fact that while we plant the seeds, it’s God who brings the increase.  And Roy was just completely happy to be the guy who was doing the planting.

We are called to love.  We are called to be joyous.  We are called to live lives that reflect the goodness and the kindness, and the love of God.  And our faithfulness to do that may be the only opportunity for someone who seems destined to be left out of God’s kingdom, to be welcomed instead. 

And so, we celebrate Advent both commemorating the historic birth of Jesus and anticipating the future coming of Christ on the clouds of glory.  Pastor James Laurence says, “[Today’s] scripture readings – help us to focus on the deeper preparation that we are called to undertake this time of year. They remind us of the spiritual preparation that is needed to get ready for the return of our Savior.” [1]

Yes, difficulties will come.  But we have already read the end of the book.  Warren Wiersbe says, “Our Lord’s admonition to His people is, ‘Don’t be terrified!’  These things must come to pass, there is nothing anyone can do to prevent them.  This does not mean that God’s people are submitting to blind fate; rather it means they are yielding to the plan of a loving Father who works all things ‘after the counsel of His own will.”  [2]  William Barclay says, “The Christian conception of history is that it has a goal and at that goal, Jesus Christ will be Lord of All.  That’s all we know, and all we need to know.” [3] 

For those of us who are facing difficulties let me just say this:  When reading the story about the death of Lazarus, we find that before Lazarus died, Jesus already knew that He would be raising him from the dead.  When Jesus visited Mary and Martha after Lazarus had died, Jesus walked with them to the tomb. And what did Jesus do?  The Bible tells us that He wept.  But He wasn’t crying for Lazarus.  Because He knew that in just a few minutes Lazarus would be alive again.  He was crying because He was moved by the grief of His friends.  This is the God we serve.  A God who walks with us in our darkest times, and cries with us in our grief.  No, our trials will never be easy, but we do know that we will never face them alone.

Finally, we return once again to a discussion about truth.  In the Matthew parallel to today’s passage, Matthew says, “False messiahs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect.”  This is why Jesus has called us to, “Be always on the watch, and pray that [we] may be able to escape all that is about to happen, and that [we] may be able to stand before the Son of Man.”  Because when all is said and done, that’s the plan, isn’t it?  To stand before Jesus?    As Paul wrote to the church at Philippi, “I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.  Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

My friends, it’s Advent!  As we prepare to receive the newborn king into our lives, let us tell His story!  As we receive His love and His grace, let us reflect that love and grace to the world.  And as we contemplate His second coming, let us be watchful, let us wait patiently, never allowing ourselves to be fooled, always being cognizant of the truth, and let us pray the prayer that the saints have been praying for centuries, “Amen, come Lord Jesus”.

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[1] James Laurence, “There Will Be Signs”, MyPastoralPonderings.com

[2] Warren Wiersbe. “Be Courageous”, Pg. 97

[3] Billiam Barclay, “The Gospel of Luke (Revised Edition), Pg. 261

What is Truth?

Sermon November 24, 2024

            What is truth?  This is the response that Pilate had to Jesus’ statement that He was born and came into the world to testify to the truth.  Pilate actually had a good question.  In today’s story there are three participants, the Jewish authorities, Jesus, and the Roman government, represented by Pilate.  And each of these three participants had their own idea about what was truth.

            The Jewish authorities were committed to following the Law.  For them, truth was to be found in the studying and interpretation of the Torah and it’s not fair for us to think of them as being unfaithful.  The lives of these Jewish authorities revolved around the practicing of their faith, and they were thoroughly committed to their cause.  And yet, the Messiah that they longed for, the Messiah in whom they believed they were putting their hope and trust stood right before them, and not only did they not recognize Him, they outright rejected Him.  Why?

            The Jewish authorities had a pretty well-defined idea about who they thought the Messiah was supposed to be.  The contemporary website, Judaism 101 provides a classic description of the Messiah, as viewed through the lens of the Jewish faith.  “The messiah will be a great political leader descended from King David.  –  He will be well-versed in Jewish law, and observant of its commandments. He will be a charismatic leader, inspiring others to follow his example. He will be a great military leader, who will win battles for Israel. He will be a great judge, who makes righteous decisions. But above all, he will be a human being, not a god, demi-god or other supernatural being.” [1]  This Jewish view of messiah probably hasn’t changed much in the last 3,000 years. 

When we look at Jewish history, discussion of the messiah has always been at its peak during times of trial for the Jews.  The first destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians in 586 BCE and the resulting forced relocation of the Jewish people, scattering them throughout the Babylonian empire, inspired the apocalyptic books of Daniel and Ezekiel.  At that time, the nation of Israel expected the messiah to come as a military leader who would subdue the Babylonians, return the Jews to the Promised Land, rebuild the temple, and reinstitute temple worship.  But God had other plans.  It was the Persians under the relatively progressive king Cyrus who facilitated the return of the exiles to the land of Israel.  The Jewish people themselves rebuilt the walls and gates of Jerusalem, built the 2^nd temple, ordained priests, and reinstituted temple worship. 

The Maccabean revolt freed the Jews from Seleucid rule in the 160’s BCE and they purified and rededicated the temple.  Again, messianic talk abounded in the intertestamental books of the Maccabees; and the heroic efforts of the Maccabees in re-establishing Jewish independence, a relatively short time before the birth of Jesus, undoubtedly affected Jewish expectations of who messiah would be in the subsequent Roman occupation of Israel.  And so, truth for the Jews, at least as it related to the Messiah, was the expectation that the messiah would be a great but human military leader who would put an end to Roman rule and establish Isreal as the head of a dominant world government. 

But as we look at this critically, we can’t lose sight of the fact that the Jewish authorities also had a deeply vested interest in maintaining the status quo.  For the most part, the Jewish authorities were very well-to-do.  They were among the Jewish upper class and benefited greatly from their temple income or from donations and stipends if they were scribes.  They maintained their position of power and influence by setting themselves apart as the holy ones, contrasting themselves with the “unclean” and the “sinners” who became “the other”; the enemy from within whose influence supposedly threatened the lifestyles and salvation of the common people.  When Jesus came along, He threw an enormous monkey wrench into this clean vs. unclean narrative.  His radical inclusivity and His emphasis on love and forgiveness presented a genuine threat to the neat little apple cart of the Jewish authorities, and I have no doubt that those authorities felt entirely justified in their rejection of, and ultimate execution of, this threat to their lifestyles and faith as they understood it.

Modern psychological studies have stated that people would rather change the truth… than change their views.  Due to the prevalence of this phenomenon, psychologists have even given it a name.  They call it Cognitive Dissonance.  This is what happens when new information conflicts with existing beliefs.  Those beliefs, when deeply held, can cause an individual to reject overwhelming facts in favor of preserving their deeply held beliefs.  For the most part, the Jewish authorities were either unwilling or unable to reconcile their beliefs with this new teaching of Jesus, in spite of the fact that Jesus consistently tied His teaching to the Torah, and in spite of the fact that His teachings were accompanied by signs and wonders that Jesus performed that defied logical explanation.

For the Romans, truth was all about empire, and the preservation of order by any means necessary.  Nations subjugated by the Romans were required to comply with Roman rules and regulations or face potentially dire consequences.  Pilate was deeply concerned about the claim of the Pharisees that Jesus had declared Himself to be king.  If Jesus had indeed declared Himself king, that would have been interpreted by the Romans as insurrection.  And so, Pilate’s first question to Jesus was “Are you the king of the Jews”?  Clearly this was the most important thing on Pilate’s mind.  Because if Jesus presented a threat to Roman rule, that threat would need to be eliminated.  But Jesus brilliantly counters Pilate’s question by asking him if his question about kingship was his own idea, or something he had heard from someone else.  If Pilate’s question about Jesus’ kingship had come from the Jewish authorities, then it was hearsay, and therefore inadmissible as evidence in a Roman trial. 

The Jewish authorities had not really given Pilate a lot to go on.  When Pilate asked them for what offense Jesus had been convicted by the Sanhedrin, their initial response was intentionally vague.  “If he were not a criminal, we would not have handed him over to you” they said.  The real issues for the Jewish authorities were first, that they believed that Jesus was a false messiah and second, that Jesus had threatened to destroy the temple.  But Pilate could not have cared less about these charges, which he deemed to be an entirely Jewish issue.  According to Marcus Dods the Pharisees wanted “not to have their judgment revised, but to have their decision confirmed and the punishment executed”. [2]  But Pilate, ever the diligent administrator, was not willing to try Jesus’ case without having a charge on which to try Him, so we read in Mark that the Jewish authorities told Pilate that Jesus was stirring up the people in preparation for an insurrection.  For Pilate, the best approach was whichever one which did the most to maintain order and so, Pilate, though he declared before the Jewish authorities that he found no basis for a charge against Jesus, nevertheless gave the order to have Him crucified.  Pilate, I am sure, justified his actions as doing what was best for the empire.

Did the Jewish authorities and leaders believe in what they were doing?  Of course they did.  Were their actions born of what they believed to be the truth?  Again, of course they were.  But was their truth really truth?  No, it wasn’t.  In fact, did anyone happen to notice the irony of the Jewish authorities not entering the Praetorium in order to maintain their ceremonial cleanliness?  R. C. Sproul said, “As they delivered the Lamb of God to the slaughter, they made sure their hands were ceremonially clean”.  [3]

Did the Roman authorities believe in what they were doing?  Of course they did.  Were their actions born of what they believed to be the truth?  Again, of course they were.  But was their truth really truth?  Again, no, it wasn’t.

For Jesus, truth was something entirely different.  For Jesus, truth wasn’t a what, it was a who.  For Jesus, the entirety of truth was to be found in the person of God.  And because Jesus is the exact living representation of God, the entirety of truth is to be found in Him as well.  “I am the way, the truth, and the life”, Jesus once said. 

My dear friends, Jesus IS truth.  The red letters in the Bible represent the words of the One who is truth personified.  His very life is a testimony to who God is and to what God is doing in our lives.  God created all of us and as such, He has a claim on all of us, but His claim is not manifested in demanding fealty as if He was some sort of human ruler.  Rather His claim results in a joyous reunion of parent and child.  The parent abandoning all dignity, running to meet Their prodigal child and preparing a feast because They are overwhelmed with delight at Their beloved child’s return.  THIS is the nature of the God who created us.  And yet this is the God who humanity has collectively thumbed their nose at.  It is a peculiar human desire to want to be left alone, to control our own destiny, and to make our own decisions, no matter how bad those decisions may be.  But God’s desire is to change our hearts.  To help us to see the world the way He sees it, and to understand how having loving hearts helps us to be a people who exemplify God’s truth and reflect that truth to the world.

I had a friend once who was a Buddhist priest.  He was thoroughly familiar with Christian theology and in a conversation that we once had, he boiled down the entire Gospel into the single statement; that Jesus teaches things that work.  When we live lives of compassion, empathy, grace, and love we begin the work of building a society of peace and justice and fairness.  According to my Buddhist friend, Jesus taught things that promote harmonious living.  And while I have some serious theological issues with my friend’s beliefs, I can’t say that he is wrong about the end result of kingdom living.  Ultimately, heaven will be populated by a people who, though they will be entirely themselves, will follow exactly Jesus’ example of loving God and loving others.  And it is that love that will make heaven, to be heaven.

Theologians like to say that the kingdom of heaven is eschatologically here.  What that means is that heaven is actually in two places at once.  It is, of course, our blessed hope for the future.  It is the place that Jesus has prepared for us, filled with many mansions and abounding with the love of God.  A place of joy and peace and a place where God Himself will wipe away every tear.  But heaven is also in the here and now and is manifested every time one of God’s beloved children is fed when they are hungry, clothed when they are naked, housed when they are homeless, defended when they are persecuted, uplifted when they are marginalized, and taken in when they are rejected.

When we, as believers carry the truth of the Gospel in our hearts and live that truth in our day to day lives, we show the world the vision that God has for our future.  A future of joy and peace, of justice and fairness.  A future devoid of pain and suffering.  And a future where love for God and love for others permeates everything that is said and done.  This, my friends, is what truth is.  Let us be the people who show the world that truth.

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[1] Tracey R. Rich, https://www.jewfaq.org/mashiach, The Messianic Idea in Judaism

[2] Marcus Dods, The Gospel of St. John

[3] R. C. Sproul, John: An Expositional Commentary, Pg. 324

I Am He – No You’re Not

Sermon November 17, 2024

            The year is 66.  Discontent with the Roman occupation of Isreal has been festering for decades.  After 129 years of Ruman rule the people of Israel are tired of the oppression, tired of the oppressive taxes, tired of the brutal methods of the Roman army who have been empowered to keep the peace, tired of the lack of personal freedoms imposed by the Roman puppet kings, tired of the paganism of the Romans and the insolent opposition to their worship of the one true God  And so, this discontent, brewing for so long, is finally reaching a boiling point.

            Within the population of Israel are a couple of different groups with different ideas about what the future of Isreal should look like.  The Herodians are what today we might call the oligarchy.  They are the wealthy and the influential, supporting Rome because they have profited from their Roman connections.  The Pax Romana, the peace afforded by Roman rule, creates a very conducive environment for their businesses and their lifestyles and they are perfectly happy with Roman rule so long as it continues to support their agenda. 

            The Zealots are the malcontents.  They are exasperated with the excesses of the Roman occupation and declare themselves to be freedom fighters.  For years the Zealots have bred insurrection.  A group within the Zealots called the Sicarii carry daggers around in public places just seeking opportunities to murder Roman officials and Roman sympathizers.  The Zealots believed that war with the Romans was not only inevitable but that when it happened, it would be a holy war, ridding Israel of the pagan influences of Rome.  But there was more.  The Zealots believed that instituting a war with Rome would bring about the coming of the Jewish Messiah, the defeat of all of the world’s pagan governments, and the exalting of Israel as the Nation that would head an everlasting government that would rule the entire world. 

            The Essenes were a group of separatists who eschewed cosmopolitan life in favor of monastic living within a community of people who were dedicated to ritual purity and separation.  The Essenes were also deeply fascinated with the study of the end times and would very possibly have been sympathetic to the cause of the Zealots.  As an aside, the Dead Sea Scrolls are thought to be the library of the Essene community.

            The Pharisees and the Sadducees were the religious ruling elite, who for the most part tried to work with the Romans in order to maintain the political power that accompanied their position as Temple officials.  This arrangement appears to have been mostly pragmatic, as the focus of the Pharisees and Sadducees tended to be more about protecting Temple worship and the following of the Jewish Law than it was about governing.

            Caught in the middle are the common folk, who are just trying to maintain their day-to-day life, keep up with the obligations of supporting themselves and their families, and keeping up with the Roman taxes to avoid having their homes taken away.  For the most part, the common folk didn’t want war with Rome, but if you were to have taken a poll, the majority of them would have more closely aligned with the rebels than with the Roman loyalists.

            In the year 66, the discontent came to a head, and the Zealots led an open rebellion against Rome.  A Zealot leader named Eleazar was able to put an end to the daily sacrifices to Ceasar, which were a requirement of the agreement that the Israelites had with Rome.  Then, a group of Zealots attacked the Roman auxiliary garrison, murdering every Roman soldier that was stationed there, and of course stealing all of their weapons and armor.  This attack left Rome with no alternative but to respond… and respond they did.  They sent the General and future emperor Vespasian to put down the uprising.

            This war with Rome lasted for four years, culminating in a seven-month Roman siege of Jerusalem.  Those living in Jerusalem during the siege ran out of food and, according to the Jewish historian Josephus, 1.1 million inhabitants of Jerusalem died during the siege.  Many of them died from hunger, and those who tried to escape were captured by the Romans and crucified just outside the city walls in full view of the inhabitants of the city.  By the year 70 the emperor Nero had died, and Vespasian had returned to Rome to succeed him as emperor.  Vespasian’s son Titus, also a future emperor, assumed command of the Roman forces in Judea and finally breached the walls of Jerusalem and put an end to the uprising.  As the Roman army was about to enter Jerusalem for the first time, Titus issued an order to destroy the city and not to leave one stone standing on top of another.

            The siege of Jerusalem was horrific.  And a part of today’s lesson predicts this destruction.  Our reading this morning is the beginning of what has come to be known as the Olivet Discourse, because this teaching of Jesus, that predates the fall of Jerusalem by about 35 years, was given while He and the disciples were sitting on the Mount of Olives.  This part of our story is so important that all three Synoptic Gospels relate this teaching in detail.  The word “apocalypse” is derived from a Greek word that means to uncover or to reveal, and here in apocalyptic language, Jesus reveals to the disciples the startling information that the Temple will soon be destroyed.  For centuries, theologians and scholars have debated the text of the Olivet Discourse, trying to determine whether Jesus was simply addressing the future destruction of Jerusalem, or was speaking to the larger issue of His second coming.  While there doesn’t appear to be general agreement among scholars, the consensus, and the thing that seems to make the most sense, is that the discourse speaks to a combination of both events.

            Jesus’ prediction of the destruction of the Temple was almost certainly about the events of the year 70.  And does anyone find it interesting that somewhere in the early 30’s Jesus prophesied that not one stone would be left standing on another and that 30 some years later when the walls of Jerusalem were finally breached, a Roman general would give his troops the order not to leave one stone standing on top of another? 

            As Jesus makes this prediction the disciples asked Him to tell them when these things will happen and what will be the signs that they are about to be fulfilled.  The disciples wanted Jesus to tell them about the future, but Jesus’ answer didn’t address the future.  Rather He replied with what I believe is the most important teaching relating to our approach to the end times, and that is to BE ALERT.  The NIV tells us that Jesus said, “Watch out that no one deceives you”.  In the Greek, “watch out” is βλέπετε (blepete) which is a word that means to look carefully or to examine something in order to understand it.  This warning from Jesus is a call to be able to identify what is true.

            “Many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am he,’ and will deceive many,” Jesus said.  In not choosing to answer directly the question that the disciples asked, Jesus is basically teaching us here that our focus should not be on the why or the when or the where, but rather on the who; to focus on the person of Jesus.

            A few years back, in a sermon that I preached, I told you a story about a gentleman who had become a Secret Service Agent.  He was hired to work in a division that investigated counterfeit money and so he was sent to school to learn about counterfeit money.  In the story, the agent said that he expected that, in the class, he would see all kinds of different counterfeit money, but to his complete surprise, the class consisted entirely of studying REAL money, and learning everything about it, from how it is printed to the materials that are used, to the minutiae of the design of the bills.  You see, the instructors knew that when you are thoroughly familiar with the real thing, the counterfeit becomes easy to identify.

            And so, the task presented to us in today’s passage is for us to become thoroughly familiar with the real thing.  When we have a thorough and intimate knowledge of who Jesus is and when we truly know the things that He teaches, then a counterfeit Jesus becomes easy for us to identify.  But if we lack this intimate familiarity with Jesus, we do run the risk of being deceived.  Because someone is going to come along who kind of sounds kind of right and who maybe kind of acts in a way that seems kind of right, and they are charismatic and a great speaker, and they say what we want to hear.  And the next thing you know, maybe we’ve turned and started to follow the wrong person; the wrong belief, the wrong theology, and now, our life is headed in the completely wrong direction.

            And so, you see, there is a very real and very critical purpose to our study of the Bible, and specifically to the study of the life, example, and teaching of Jesus.  Like the agent who diligently studied real currency in order to be able to identify that which was counterfeit, so it is that our study of the Bible leads us to an understanding of the genuine that makes the imposter easy to identify.

Next Jesus tells us that there will be wars and famine and earthquakes but that these are a part of what He called birth pains.  We can study the apocalyptic books of Daniel and Ezekiel and Revelation and we can try to make sense of the teachings and we can try to extrapolate information from the text in order to try to learn more about what is to come.  But please tell me this:  What do the years 1874, 1878, 1881, 1910, 1914, 1918, 1925, 1975, 1984, 1988, 1994, 2011, and 2012 have in common?  Every one of these years are years that some prominent theologian somewhere predicted would be either the year of the rapture or the year of the 2^nd coming of Jesus.  To the best of my knowledge, none of them were. 

But, we have to realize that these predictions were made by intelligent and dedicated scholars and theologians who believed in the accuracy of their predictions.  In some of the years that I mentioned, followers of these theologians sold all that they had, gave all their money away, and impoverished themselves for what turned out to be a lie.  All because they didn’t recognize the counterfeit.  The last three of the years I mentioned were years where the predictions were made by a pastor and theologian who I used to listen to every day on my commute to work.  I thought, and still think, that his analysis of the scriptures was brilliant and inspired.  But for whatever reason his focus shifted from teaching the truth about Jesus to trying to predict the future.  He was wrong, three times, and it ended his ministry. 

Dr. Alyce McKenzie tells us that, “The message to [Mark’s] persecuted community is that they need to prepare to participate in Jesus’ suffering and eventual victory by maintaining their witness to the truth in difficult times. The text intends to give them hope and encourage steadfastness in the faith – in the face of challenges to come. To seek in this text a detailed schedule of the events of the end-time is to misunderstand its purpose, which is to encourage persistence in the present, not to peer into the future.” [1]

Did anyone happen to notice what Jesus said to the disciples as He was telling them about future wars and earthquakes and famines?  He said, “Do not be alarmed”!  In the face of coming disasters, Jesus desires to comfort us.  And He tries to do that by pointing us all in the right direction.  Pastor Jo Anne Taylor explains, “Christ calls us, first of all, to prepare our own hearts by paying attention to the presence of God and living in that presence every day.  Then, Christ calls us to encourage each other to be prepared, by meeting together as the Body of Christ.  And Christ calls us to walk with other believers in the kind of close fellowship that provides encouragement and accountability.  As we band together with a few trusted friends in Christ, we meet Jesus and keep each other faithful to stay prepared for His coming.  Finally, Christ calls us to share the gospel in meaningful and authentic ways. This is why we feed the hungry and clothe the naked and care for the sick and welcome the stranger and visit those in prison.” [2]

And so, if our ultimate purpose is to be witnesses to the truth.  What does that look like?  How do we make familiarity with Jesus the cornerstone of a faith that rejects the counterfeit and speaks truth to ourselves, to our community of believers, and to those who surround us?  The answer is, as Pastor Tailor said, that our truth is spoken through our actions.  When we love others, when we embrace the outcast and the refugee and the marginalized, when we become a strident voice for justice and fairness, when we feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and shelter the homeless, when we emulate Christ we show the world what Christianity is truly supposed to look like.  And when we do that faithfully, not only are we teaching the world how to differentiate between the authentic and the counterfeit, but we are showing the world, and ourselves, the way to living the life that God has called us all to live.

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[1] Dr. Alyce Mckenzie, The Pony Under the Pile – Reflections on Mark 13:1-8, Perkins Center for Preaching Excellence blog

[2] Jo Anne Taylor, A Pastor Sings, Birth Pangs – Sermon on Mark 13:1-8

It’s Not Just About Money

November 10, 2024

            I know it’s stewardship Sunday, but you can relax.  I’m not going to preach the sermon on the amount. 

            Mark begins today’s story telling us that Jesus issued this warning about the Scribes “Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces and to have the best seats in the synagogues and places of honor at banquets!”.  Yes, many of the Scribes were prideful, and Jesus wanted us to know that that was not a plus, but there is more going on here than meets the eye.  The Jerusalem Talmud, a written collection of the Jewish oral law, stated “A person must greet one who is greater than he in knowledge of Torah”.  And so, the Scribes coveted these greetings in the marketplace because they were an acknowledgement of one’s intellectual superiority. 

Many of the scribes were engrossed in this aggressive pursuit of the approval of people.  These Jewish authorities wanted to be important and wanted to be recognized as being important.  The Apostle Paul often used the phrase “Puffed up” to describe a self-important person.  And this is a fitting description of these Scribes.  But it wasn’t just the arrogance and pride of the Scribes against which Jesus spoke.  Jesus also said that the Scribes were “Shamelessly cheating widows out of their property”.  Dr. William Lane teaches us that, “The Scribes lived primarily on subsidies, since it was forbidden that they should be paid for exercising their profession.  The extension of hospitality to them was strongly encouraged as an act of piety; it was considered to be particularly meritorious to relieve a Scribe of concern for his livelihood.  Many well-to-do persons placed their financial resources at the disposal of Scribes, and it was inevitable that there should be abuses”.  [1]

In ancient times, widows and orphans were society’s most vulnerable members, and God’s concern for, and the command for us to care for the most vulnerable, is one of the primary themes of the Bible – both Old Testament and New.  In fact, the Bible directly addresses God’s care for widows at least 80 times, with orphans and foreigners usually being included in those passages as well.  An apocryphal first century CE document called “The Testament of Moses” says of the Pharisees and Scribes that “They consume the goods of the poor, saying their acts are according to justice, while in fact they are simply exterminators”. [2]  The Rev. Chelsea Harmon spoke of the mistreatment of widows when she said, “Historical evidence suggests a number of ways scribes interacted with (and could take financial advantage of) widows:  Though it was forbidden, many took payment from widows for providing legal assistance.  While serving as lawyers, some cheated on the wills or mismanaged the widows’ estates.  Some scribes were known to take advantage of, and freeload upon, the hospitality offered to them by widows.  Certain scribes were in the habit of taking payment and promising to make intercessory prayer for widows (i.e., making it a business transaction).  And if a widow could not pay, there were known cases where scribes literally took the widow’s home as payment for services rendered.  [3]

By all outward appearances, these Scribes were devout and pious men.  There is no question that, by and large, they were meticulous in following the Jewish Law.  But for those who were self-aggrandizing, for the cheaters and the swindlers, and the heartless among them, they were the whitewashed tombs about which Jesus spoke; beautiful and well maintained on the outside but filled with impurity and filth on the inside.

            Mark continues his story, providing us with a contrast to the story of the Scribes in the story of the widow making her offering in the temple.  Herod’s Temple in Jerusalem was set up in concentric rectangles.  The outside rectangle was the Court of the Gentiles, and all were welcome there.  Within the Court of the Gentiles, separated by a wall with large gates was the Court of the Women, and all Jews were welcomed in the Court of the Women, both male and female.  But it was forbidden under penalty of death for a Gentile to enter the Court of the Women.  Within the Court of the Women were three other courts, but in today’s story we are going to focus on the Court of the Women, because that is where our story unfolds. 

In the Court of the Women, there were twelve Shofarot or collection boxes.  They were shaped like a Shofar, or a ram’s horn, hence the name.  The small, or mouthpiece, end of the Shofarot was at the top, and that is where you dropped in your coins (remembering that there was no paper money in the first century).  The wide, or bell, part of the Shofarot was at the bottom and was where the coins were collected.  The opening of the Shafarot at the top was small to prevent people from being able to reach in and take coins out of the box.  Picture the coin slot on a piggy bank and you get the idea.  And so, when making your offering, because the opening was so small, you could only drop in a few coins at a time.

            With this in mind, Mark is telling us a story about Jesus watching the different givers in the temple.  And as Mark describes the wealthy making large donations, we can draw a mental picture of a person standing at one of those Shofarot for a really long time, dropping coin after coin after coin into that slot.  Jesus had just finished talking about how the Scribes loved to make ostentatious displays to gain attention and approval, but it wasn’t just they who were in the people pleasing business.  These large donors would have attracted a lot of attention, as everyone would hear the clink, clink, clink of the coins as they were dropped one, after another, after another, into the collection box.

            In the midst of all of these folks making donations, a widow approached one of the Shofarot and dropped in two One Lepta coins.  In first century Palestine a denarius was a day’s wage for a common worker.  The Lepta was worth 1/128^th of a day’s wage, or what a common laborer would earn in about 3 minutes and 45 seconds of work.  In today’s economy, 2 Lepta would be about 97 cents.  Jesus commented to His disciples that “this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury.  For all of them have contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.”

            As we stop to think about today being Stewardship Sunday, we recognize this passage as one well suited to a discussion about giving generously.  But today I would really like to go beyond the platitudes about faithful giving and really focus on what is going on here, because we do no justice to this story if we don’t look beyond the obvious.  The first thing I would like to do is call attention to a slightly misleading translation.  The NIV tells us that the widow, “Put in everything—all she had to live on.”  But the original Greek says that she gave “ὅλον τὸν βίον αὐτῆς  (Holon ton bion autes),  and this translates as literally “her whole life”.  She gave her whole life.

            There is a picture of some Greek coins in the bulletin insert.  The Lepton is the one at the bottom right and is listed as being 3 mm wide.  For comparison’s sake, a modern US dime is about 18mm wide.  And so, I suppose it is possible that, when the widow dropped these two coins, they barely made any noise at all.  And yet Jesus recognized her gift as the greatest of all because her gift was the gift of her entire self.

            Ordinarily, when we think about this passage, we tend to identify similarities between ourselves and the Scribes and ourselves and the widow.  We probably don’t find much in common between us and the Scribes, whose focus is on status and prestige yet who violate God’s law by mistreating the most vulnerable among us.  Pretty low bar, right?  Maybe we find the widow a somewhat better match, but when we look at the story in this way, we run the risk of feeling guilty if we don’t feel like we measure up to the faithfulness of the widow, and we might run the risk of feeling a bit self-righteous if we feel like we surpass the righteousness of the Scribes.  So instead, I would like for us not to focus on comparing ourselves to either the Scribes or the Widow, but to think of ourselves as being the gift itself.  What would we look like if we were the entirety of the gift?

            I have spoken often about how our faith is a matter of the condition of our hearts.  When we ourselves are the gift, our hearts will dictate to us what that means.  To begin with, the heart that belongs to God is sensitive to the needs of the community.    The heart that belongs to God recognizes a need and acts to fill that need as their circumstances permit.  And I have to say that over the years, this church… this congregation has been positively awesome at recognizing and filling needs.  Through difficult times of building issues and income deficiencies and declining membership, this congregation has been amazingly faithful to step up and provide as needs arise, and I thank God for that faithfulness, and consider myself privileged to be a part of a congregation whose faith runs so deep. 

But we all know that discipleship is not just about our resources.  Discipleship is truly about “ὅλον τὸν βίον αὐτῆς, the giving of the whole self. It’s about the giving of our time and our efforts, it’s about the contributing of our ideas and our voices, it’s about taking on the tasks that keep the church functioning.  And it’s about reaching beyond these walls to be the hands and feet and voice of Jesus as we seek to do our part to bring the Good News of the Gospel to the world. 

We had a birthday party for my son, Joe, when he turned three.  There were a dozen or so kids in my back yard, and one of the children decided that he wanted to play with one of the toys that my son had received as a gift.  When my son tried to retrieve the toy, the other child clutched it to his chest and responded “No!  It’s MINE!”  I guess in the mind of a three-year-old, possession is 9/10^ths of the law, but clearly the toy wasn’t his.  We live in a world where people often tend to cling tightly to their possessions, and not without reason, but sometimes forgetting the fact that our whole world belongs to God.  Have you ever had a time when you had trouble letting go of something that was not yours?  I know I have.  So, maybe it’s not just three-year-olds who believe in that “9/10^ths of the law” thing!  Psalm 24 tells us, “The earth is the Lord’s and the fulness thereof, the world and all who dwell therein”.  As Christians, we all know intellectually that we are merely stewards of God’s possessions, but to know that at a transformative level, to know that at a level that affects not only our thinking but our actions, that is very, very, hard. 

I seriously did not want to talk about money today. What I want to talk about, and what I have been talking about for months now, is the giving of ourselves to God.  God knows us better than we know ourselves.  The Bible tells us in Hebrews that we do not serve a God who is unable to empathize with us, because Jesus experienced life in every way, just as we do.  God is not unaware of our struggles.  He fully understands our finances and our time constraints and our strengths and weaknesses, and please believe me when I tell you that God will never ask from us what He knows that we are unable to give.  But The Message translation of 1 Peter 4:1 says, “Since Jesus went through everything you’re going through and more, learn to think like him. Think of your sufferings as a weaning from that old sinful habit of always expecting to get your own way.”

If we ourselves are going to be the gift, and of course God Himself is the recipient of our gift, then the question is not “how much are we going to give?” But rather “how are we going to give much?”  How can we present the gift of ourselves in such a way that we honor the personal commitments with which God has blessed us, covering the costs of family and domicile and food and heat and lights, while at the same time honoring God and the community of faith with which God has blessed us also?  Believe it or not, there is actually a simple solution.  If we ask, God will be faithful to answer.

As faithful children of God, let us each seek the guidance of the Holy Spirit, and ask God to tell our hearts to dictate what it means for US to be the gift.

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[1] William Lane, The Gospel of Mark, Pg. 441

[2] The Testament of Moses 7:6-7

[3] Rev. Chelsea Harmon, Mark 12:38-44 Commentary, CEPreaching.org website