At the end of the gospel of Matthew, Jesus tells his disciples to “go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them…and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you” (28:19-20). This has come to be known as the great commission, and it is cited by parts of the church who believe our purpose is primarily to gain converts to Christianity. However, the scriptures are multifaceted and hardly ever summarized so easily. What we call the great commission is not the only commission Jesus gave.
Earlier in Matthew, Jesus sent the disciples out by twos, saying to them, “as you go, proclaim the good news ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.’ Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast our demons” (10:7-8). This commission seems to focus less on getting other people to convert to Christ and more on bringing the love of Christ to others. This is a commission to heal, to restore those who are unclean and outcast to community, and to set the soul at ease. This is a mission of telling good news.
Sometimes the commission from the end of Matthew sounds to me like it’s all about telling people what they need to do and to believe in order to get right with God. At least, that’s how it has sounded in many hands in the history of the church. But when we see it in relationship to the earlier commission, which was focused more on bringing good news to people, we get a deeper understanding. God doesn’t commission us to tell other people how they need to be different. God commissions us to make their lives different through kindness, generosity, and healing. Instead of telling them what they need to do in order to enter the kingdom, we get to tell them that the kingdom has already come near. What would it be like for us to say to our relatives or our neighbors, when we see them playing and laughing in the yard, or comforting one who is ill, “I’m thankful for you, because right now I see the kingdom of Heaven.” Then we would be fulfilling the commission of Jesus to proclaim the good news that the kingdom has come near.
In the gospel of John, there’s yet another idea for the church. The risen Jesus meets with his disciples and says to them “receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven” (20:22-23). And later, speaking to Peter, Jesus said “feed my sheep” (21:17). Our commission can never be understood narrowly as winning converts. The commission of Jesus started with caring for people, feeding, healing, and showing mercy. When you’ve done that, the good news kind of proclaims itself.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Sermon - Seeing With New Eyes
Preached on April 26, 2009 at First Congregational Church of Tallmadge, Ohio, UCC.
Luke 24:30-48
I want you to think about that moment, which is a very particular kind of moment, near the end of a good mystery novel or a suspenseful movie, which is the moment when you finally learn what you have been trying to figure out the entire time. It may be the identity of the murderer, or of the spy working inside the agency. Or it may be a moment of revelation that you didn’t see coming, only because you didn’t know what to look for. Whatever the revelation, it is a moment that changes the way you understand everything that came before. As you think back on each scene and every part of the plot, you see everything differently.
This is the moment that is described twice in the Luke’s gospel on the evening of Easter. It happened the first time for the two disciples who met Jesus on the road to Emmaus and invited him to eat with them, and it happened a second time for the rest of the disciples back in Jerusalem when the risen Christ visits them. Both times, the disciples have trouble recognizing Jesus or believing that it’s him. The larger group in Jerusalem are described in this strange way: “they still did not believe it because of joy and amazement.” What an interesting way to describe their mix of emotions: they disbelieved in joy and amazement. Both groups have trouble, and both times, Jesus opens their minds to understand the scriptures, going back to Moses, the prophets, and the psalms. He goes back to the scriptures to make the point that they should have expected resurrection. Even in that dark weekend, when their teacher had been killed and they feared arrest themselves, they should have trusted that God’s word of life, of love and grace, is the last word, always. They should have trusted, because that has always been the story told of God, from Moses, to the psalms, to the prophets, who wrote of hope even when they were in exile, and their home and Temple in ruins. The disciples were met by the risen Christ, and that was the moment that changed the way they understood all of history that had come before. It changed the way they understood life itself.
These stories from the gospel make me wonder how we understand life. What is our basic operating understanding of how life works? There is, on the one hand, the answer that we see in the person of Jesus Christ. But there is also a basic understanding that many of us live with, which says that most, if not all, of life is left to chance, luck, and forces beyond our control. See if this resonates with you. Life is an attempt to build and protect our experience of happiness, security, peace, and health. We plan for our future and build a good life in a struggle against a hostile world. First, there is the threat of economic crisis, in which our retirement plans are rewritten and our jobs threatened, all because of the actions of executives and/or elected politicians who did things (or didn’t) in ways that we can’t even understand. We try to protect ourselves from violence at home or abroad, except that we don’t really understand where that comes from either or how to prevent it. And we try to keep our health, but how do you protect yourself from diseases that are unpredictable in where and when they begin, and whether or not they will be treatable?
So much is out of our control. But, we are Americans, so we are optimistic that we can hold economic hardship, violence, and disease at bay for while if we just work hard enough, make the right choices, and get a little bit of luck. Maybe God will even help us out a bit on the part that’s left to chance. Notice how, in this view, the emphasis is on what we can do for ourselves.
But is this what life is about, carving out a bit of peace and happiness against a hard and challenging world? And what happens if that doesn’t work? What happens if we do all the right things and still meet hardship? Will we be left feeling like Macbeth after all his efforts to secure his throne, when his tragedy closes in, who says:
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing. (Macbeth Act V, Scene V)
There are times when life feels that way, and that’s probably how it felt to the disciples that Sunday long ago. They had followed Jesus, trusting that they would make a difference, but in the end the powers of the empire, and the priests and politicians of privilege who thrived under the status quo had been too strong for a rabbi and a small band of disciples who healed illnesses one at a time, proclaimed good news for the poor, fed the hungry, and proclaimed a new order by sharing table hospitality with mixed classes and characters. It seemed like they had lost, that life was a tale told by an idiot. It seemed like that so much that they didn’t even recognize Jesus on the road to Emmaus, and didn’t really believe it when they saw him back in Jerusalem. Not at first, anyway. But then came that one luminous moment. Then came that moment that changed the way they understood all that had happened, and life itself.
Those first two disciples finally recognized Jesus when they had stopped for a meal and invited him to join them at the table. When they saw him break the bread and share it with them, in that moment they knew that it was Jesus, and even when he mysteriously disappeared from that place, they said to each other, “were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?” In a moment, they understood everything differently.
The moment is less dramatic in the room back in Jerusalem. But notice the chain of events that Luke tells so carefully. At first, the disciples are terrified, thinking that he is a ghost. Jesus tells them not to be afraid, but to see his wounds. Next comes that great line about how “they still did not believe it because of joy and amazement.” And then Jesus asks for something to eat, and they have fish, and over this meal he opens to them the scriptures, to show how God has always been present in this world. If they had viewed the world from this perspective, they would have expected the resurrection.
Eating bread and eating fish. Those were the moments that changed the way the disciples understood the world. I think there’s a clue here, because in the life of Jesus, the table had always been a central symbol of the kingdom of God. He fed bread and fish to the crowds when he taught them, that we might understand that the teaching of Christ is food for our souls. Jesus was criticized for eating with sinners, and in response he told the parable of the prodigal son, to show us how great God’s love is for every single child. He broke bread at the last supper and said it was his body, to show how completely God reaches out to us in mercy, to show that not even life itself is too great a cost for God’s love.
I bet that all those memories came back to them as they shared those meals with the risen Jesus. In a moment, they realized that these gifts were what life is really about. Life is not a treacherous battle against threats to carve out some happiness. Rather, life is a wonderful, beautiful gift. Life is full of chances to share what we are blessed with around tables with family, friends, neighbors, and even strangers. And where there is suffering, where there are challenges, these are places where the love that we celebrate is put to best use, where it matters most. Notice how this view begins with the gracious gifts of God, not dependent on our achievement.
The thing about the resurrection moment is that it doesn’t change the circumstances of our lives. It doesn’t do away with pain and suffering, and it doesn’t add to our pantries or bank accounts. But it does affect the way that we see and understand our circumstances. Our faith does not deny that suffering and injustice are still present, for now. But we also proclaim that the kingdom of God is not put on hold until we die and enter heaven. When life is understood as a gift of love, then we discover what Jesus said, that the kingdom of God is among us. William Sloan Coffin, minister at Riverside church in New York, described the difference between viewing life as a threatening and viewing it as a gift, and tells us what is needed to make the shift.
“As I see it,” he said, “the primary religious task these days is to try to think straight....You can't think straight with a heart full of fear, for fear seeks safety, not truth. If your heart's a stone, you can't have decent thoughts--either about personal relations or about international ones. A heart full of love, on the other hand, has a limbering effect on the mind."
Instead of viewing life as a series of threats against which we strive for happiness, we suddenly understand that life is a blessing of grace that helps us to meet the times of tragedy. I believe that there are moments that come to each of us, which have the power to reveal life as it really is, and to affect they way we live in every other moment. These moments are sacred. They fill us with love, and from then on, everything looks different. I’ve heard it said that maybe heaven isn’t a different place, it’s just a new set of lenses to see the place where we are. There’s some truth to that. So may God give us a new way of seeing everything that has come before, and everything that is yet to be, and most of all this sacred, present moment.
Luke 24:30-48
I want you to think about that moment, which is a very particular kind of moment, near the end of a good mystery novel or a suspenseful movie, which is the moment when you finally learn what you have been trying to figure out the entire time. It may be the identity of the murderer, or of the spy working inside the agency. Or it may be a moment of revelation that you didn’t see coming, only because you didn’t know what to look for. Whatever the revelation, it is a moment that changes the way you understand everything that came before. As you think back on each scene and every part of the plot, you see everything differently.
This is the moment that is described twice in the Luke’s gospel on the evening of Easter. It happened the first time for the two disciples who met Jesus on the road to Emmaus and invited him to eat with them, and it happened a second time for the rest of the disciples back in Jerusalem when the risen Christ visits them. Both times, the disciples have trouble recognizing Jesus or believing that it’s him. The larger group in Jerusalem are described in this strange way: “they still did not believe it because of joy and amazement.” What an interesting way to describe their mix of emotions: they disbelieved in joy and amazement. Both groups have trouble, and both times, Jesus opens their minds to understand the scriptures, going back to Moses, the prophets, and the psalms. He goes back to the scriptures to make the point that they should have expected resurrection. Even in that dark weekend, when their teacher had been killed and they feared arrest themselves, they should have trusted that God’s word of life, of love and grace, is the last word, always. They should have trusted, because that has always been the story told of God, from Moses, to the psalms, to the prophets, who wrote of hope even when they were in exile, and their home and Temple in ruins. The disciples were met by the risen Christ, and that was the moment that changed the way they understood all of history that had come before. It changed the way they understood life itself.
These stories from the gospel make me wonder how we understand life. What is our basic operating understanding of how life works? There is, on the one hand, the answer that we see in the person of Jesus Christ. But there is also a basic understanding that many of us live with, which says that most, if not all, of life is left to chance, luck, and forces beyond our control. See if this resonates with you. Life is an attempt to build and protect our experience of happiness, security, peace, and health. We plan for our future and build a good life in a struggle against a hostile world. First, there is the threat of economic crisis, in which our retirement plans are rewritten and our jobs threatened, all because of the actions of executives and/or elected politicians who did things (or didn’t) in ways that we can’t even understand. We try to protect ourselves from violence at home or abroad, except that we don’t really understand where that comes from either or how to prevent it. And we try to keep our health, but how do you protect yourself from diseases that are unpredictable in where and when they begin, and whether or not they will be treatable?
So much is out of our control. But, we are Americans, so we are optimistic that we can hold economic hardship, violence, and disease at bay for while if we just work hard enough, make the right choices, and get a little bit of luck. Maybe God will even help us out a bit on the part that’s left to chance. Notice how, in this view, the emphasis is on what we can do for ourselves.
But is this what life is about, carving out a bit of peace and happiness against a hard and challenging world? And what happens if that doesn’t work? What happens if we do all the right things and still meet hardship? Will we be left feeling like Macbeth after all his efforts to secure his throne, when his tragedy closes in, who says:
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing. (Macbeth Act V, Scene V)
There are times when life feels that way, and that’s probably how it felt to the disciples that Sunday long ago. They had followed Jesus, trusting that they would make a difference, but in the end the powers of the empire, and the priests and politicians of privilege who thrived under the status quo had been too strong for a rabbi and a small band of disciples who healed illnesses one at a time, proclaimed good news for the poor, fed the hungry, and proclaimed a new order by sharing table hospitality with mixed classes and characters. It seemed like they had lost, that life was a tale told by an idiot. It seemed like that so much that they didn’t even recognize Jesus on the road to Emmaus, and didn’t really believe it when they saw him back in Jerusalem. Not at first, anyway. But then came that one luminous moment. Then came that moment that changed the way they understood all that had happened, and life itself.
Those first two disciples finally recognized Jesus when they had stopped for a meal and invited him to join them at the table. When they saw him break the bread and share it with them, in that moment they knew that it was Jesus, and even when he mysteriously disappeared from that place, they said to each other, “were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?” In a moment, they understood everything differently.
The moment is less dramatic in the room back in Jerusalem. But notice the chain of events that Luke tells so carefully. At first, the disciples are terrified, thinking that he is a ghost. Jesus tells them not to be afraid, but to see his wounds. Next comes that great line about how “they still did not believe it because of joy and amazement.” And then Jesus asks for something to eat, and they have fish, and over this meal he opens to them the scriptures, to show how God has always been present in this world. If they had viewed the world from this perspective, they would have expected the resurrection.
Eating bread and eating fish. Those were the moments that changed the way the disciples understood the world. I think there’s a clue here, because in the life of Jesus, the table had always been a central symbol of the kingdom of God. He fed bread and fish to the crowds when he taught them, that we might understand that the teaching of Christ is food for our souls. Jesus was criticized for eating with sinners, and in response he told the parable of the prodigal son, to show us how great God’s love is for every single child. He broke bread at the last supper and said it was his body, to show how completely God reaches out to us in mercy, to show that not even life itself is too great a cost for God’s love.
I bet that all those memories came back to them as they shared those meals with the risen Jesus. In a moment, they realized that these gifts were what life is really about. Life is not a treacherous battle against threats to carve out some happiness. Rather, life is a wonderful, beautiful gift. Life is full of chances to share what we are blessed with around tables with family, friends, neighbors, and even strangers. And where there is suffering, where there are challenges, these are places where the love that we celebrate is put to best use, where it matters most. Notice how this view begins with the gracious gifts of God, not dependent on our achievement.
The thing about the resurrection moment is that it doesn’t change the circumstances of our lives. It doesn’t do away with pain and suffering, and it doesn’t add to our pantries or bank accounts. But it does affect the way that we see and understand our circumstances. Our faith does not deny that suffering and injustice are still present, for now. But we also proclaim that the kingdom of God is not put on hold until we die and enter heaven. When life is understood as a gift of love, then we discover what Jesus said, that the kingdom of God is among us. William Sloan Coffin, minister at Riverside church in New York, described the difference between viewing life as a threatening and viewing it as a gift, and tells us what is needed to make the shift.
“As I see it,” he said, “the primary religious task these days is to try to think straight....You can't think straight with a heart full of fear, for fear seeks safety, not truth. If your heart's a stone, you can't have decent thoughts--either about personal relations or about international ones. A heart full of love, on the other hand, has a limbering effect on the mind."
Instead of viewing life as a series of threats against which we strive for happiness, we suddenly understand that life is a blessing of grace that helps us to meet the times of tragedy. I believe that there are moments that come to each of us, which have the power to reveal life as it really is, and to affect they way we live in every other moment. These moments are sacred. They fill us with love, and from then on, everything looks different. I’ve heard it said that maybe heaven isn’t a different place, it’s just a new set of lenses to see the place where we are. There’s some truth to that. So may God give us a new way of seeing everything that has come before, and everything that is yet to be, and most of all this sacred, present moment.
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Sermon - Easter Takes Time
Preached on April 19, 2009 at First Congregational Church of Tallmadge, Ohio, UCC.
John 20:19-31
Acts 4:32-35
Fear is a terrible feeling, a debilitating state of being, and an obstacle to change, to taking risks, and love itself. Fear keeps us from growing, giving ourselves in love to one another, and drawing closer to God, and the bad news for us today is that fear is always going to be with us. Fear is a part of being human. We can’t get rid of it, partly because fear is originally a healthy feeling. When you are walking in the woods and the path comes alongside a steep drop-off, fear of falling is a good thing that will make you cautious and keep you safe, and if we could just keep the right amount of cautious fear, we’d be much better. But fear has a way of growing unchecked. When fear gets too big, instead of cautiously hiking the trail, we turn around and go back, and never go hiking again.
There is something healthy about the fear of the disciples on the evening of that Easter Sunday, when John’s gospel tells us that they were together with the doors locked, for fear of the Judean authorities. That seems like a healthy fear, seeing as they were disciples of a rabbi who had just been arrested in the dead of night, and tried and executed by the morning, before the news could get out. They were in hiding because, Who knew that they might not be next? I picture them sitting in a tense silence, their stomachs in turmoil and their mouths dry, expecting at any moment a knock on the door, or the door being bashed in.
And maybe we are also waiting for a knock on the door. We don’t expect to be arrested for coming to church, but we are also, in our own ways, waiting in fear, expecting at any moment that someone will come to tell us that our job has been cut, to tell us that the tests came back and there is bad news, to tell us that the violence we hear about everyday in the news has come close to us, affecting someone we love.
The disciples were afraid of the Judean authorities who had arrested Jesus, the gospel tells us, but I think that they were also afraid of Jesus himself. Just that morning, Peter and John had seen the empty tomb, and then Mary Magdalene came back to tell them that she had seen Jesus, though she’d mistaken him for the gardener at first. If a part of them fears arrest, I believe the other part of them fears the shame of coming face to face with Jesus, the one whom they had abandoned, and even denied. They hadn’t stayed close to offer what support they could. Instead, they’d gone into hiding.
I also see this fear reflected in our lives. We take elaborate measures to avoid embarrassment, shame, or losing face. After a fight with someone, it sometimes feels easier to keep seething from the wrongs we suffered than it is to apologize for the things we said. When we have let someone down, it’s easier to focus on the circumstances that were out of our control than it is to face our own failures. Like the disciples, we may lock ourselves away from the ones we love as much as from any danger.
The disciples never heard a knock, and the locked door wasn’t battered in. Instead, Jesus came and stood among them, and the very first thing he said to them was “peace be with you.” And the very second thing he said to them was “peace be with you.”
Just so, the risen Christ who faced and conquered fear in the name of love comes into our lives, into our locked rooms, and gives us peace. If the bad news is that fear will always be with us, the good news is that in Christ, God has conquered fear with love. In the first letter of John, he writes “there is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear” (1 John 4:18). Whether the next knock at the door brings bad news, or brings the face of one whom we have wronged, or brings a calling for our lives that scares us, God gives us the strength to face our fears with love, and with the peace that comes from the far side of the empty tomb.
On the evening of Easter day Jesus has come to the disciples in the locked room to bring them peace, to show them his wounds, even to breathe on them the Holy Spirit (remember that breath is always symbolic of spirit) and to send them just as he was sent by God to proclaim forgiveness. With the exception of Thomas, they were all there. But Thomas was there the next time the risen Christ appeared to them. This was a week later, when the gospel tells us that the disciples were in the same house, with the doors locked.
Now, think about this for a moment. On Easter, the disciples were behind locked doors in fear of, well, of a number of things, when the risen Christ, who had just conquered death, came to them to give them peace, to give them the Holy Spirit, and to send them forth just as he had been sent. A week later, they are right in the same place with the doors still locked. It seems that Easter takes time to sink in.
Have you ever had a meeting at work to do something like improve customer relations, or to eliminate inefficiencies, and after the meeting thought to yourself “well, we won’t have to worry about that anymore!” Or have you ever gone through the work of setting appropriate limits for your children, like a curfew, and then thought to yourself “that’s the last time we’ll have to deal with that!” Sometimes we ministers will find ourselves preaching about some particularly difficult, like the will of God, the problem of suffering, or even the resurrection, and we’ll think, in the back of our minds: “you know, I preached about this about years ago and thought that I had cleared it all up!” It doesn’t work like that, does it?
So for all of you who have been frustrated about having to say the same things again, or having to confront the same issues at work or at home, remember this: even the risen Christ came back a week later and found the disciples in the same exact place. And maybe that helps us to think about our own spiritual journeys. We come back to this place week after week to encounter God. We come back to Easter year after year. And that’s okay. Easter takes time with us. The transformation from fearful people behind locked doors to disciples who are filled with love that casts our fear takes some time. And we know that they get there eventually. In our second scripture reading, from the book of Acts, we heard about the disciples and the growing church: “with great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and much grace was upon them all.” And no one among them was in need. They shared their possessions, and were one in heart and mind. We’re getting there, but Easter takes time.
The transformation from fear to love is a gift from God, and it works itself into our lives in different ways. I have heard it said that we think our way into a new way of acting, and also that we can act our way into a new way of thinking. I think it goes both ways. Sometimes it is better to just start acting with kindness and generosity even if we don’t feel them. When we start to be more attentive to others because we know we are supposed to, we then find that we feel more interested in others, and more blessed by them. When we start to give away more than we want to give, we begin to think more in terms of generosity, and it changes the way we view the resources we have. We act our way into a new way of thinking.
But we can also think our way into a new way of acting. Sometimes this happens by regret. We see those opportunities slip by when we might have reached out to someone who was celebrating or grieving: a co-worker, neighbor, or friend. We regret the missed chance, but our regret makes us better prepared. I can still remember a conversation fifteen years ago when I didn’t speak up to defend people in a conversation. Later, I practiced in my mind what I could have said, and since then I have been more ready.
Or we may spend some time thinking about others who have made a difference to us. We think about what they said and did that made such a difference, and in a way we are then rehearsing for our chance to say and do those things for someone else. Maybe it was the person who talked to you when you were a stranger. Maybe it was the person who invited you to church. Maybe someone told you how good it is to count you as a friend.
I would guess that the disciples spent a lot of time thinking about how Jesus came to them without anger or reprimand, but with the word peace. And they must have thought about his love for people, even as he put his life at risk. But there must have also been a part of them that just decided to begin living in love instead of fear even if they didn’t quite feel that way. Even with fear in their minds, they began to act as if they weren’t afraid of anything, not because nothing bad could ever happen, but because nothing could separate them from the life, the love, and the peace of the risen Christ.
John 20:19-31
Acts 4:32-35
Fear is a terrible feeling, a debilitating state of being, and an obstacle to change, to taking risks, and love itself. Fear keeps us from growing, giving ourselves in love to one another, and drawing closer to God, and the bad news for us today is that fear is always going to be with us. Fear is a part of being human. We can’t get rid of it, partly because fear is originally a healthy feeling. When you are walking in the woods and the path comes alongside a steep drop-off, fear of falling is a good thing that will make you cautious and keep you safe, and if we could just keep the right amount of cautious fear, we’d be much better. But fear has a way of growing unchecked. When fear gets too big, instead of cautiously hiking the trail, we turn around and go back, and never go hiking again.
There is something healthy about the fear of the disciples on the evening of that Easter Sunday, when John’s gospel tells us that they were together with the doors locked, for fear of the Judean authorities. That seems like a healthy fear, seeing as they were disciples of a rabbi who had just been arrested in the dead of night, and tried and executed by the morning, before the news could get out. They were in hiding because, Who knew that they might not be next? I picture them sitting in a tense silence, their stomachs in turmoil and their mouths dry, expecting at any moment a knock on the door, or the door being bashed in.
And maybe we are also waiting for a knock on the door. We don’t expect to be arrested for coming to church, but we are also, in our own ways, waiting in fear, expecting at any moment that someone will come to tell us that our job has been cut, to tell us that the tests came back and there is bad news, to tell us that the violence we hear about everyday in the news has come close to us, affecting someone we love.
The disciples were afraid of the Judean authorities who had arrested Jesus, the gospel tells us, but I think that they were also afraid of Jesus himself. Just that morning, Peter and John had seen the empty tomb, and then Mary Magdalene came back to tell them that she had seen Jesus, though she’d mistaken him for the gardener at first. If a part of them fears arrest, I believe the other part of them fears the shame of coming face to face with Jesus, the one whom they had abandoned, and even denied. They hadn’t stayed close to offer what support they could. Instead, they’d gone into hiding.
I also see this fear reflected in our lives. We take elaborate measures to avoid embarrassment, shame, or losing face. After a fight with someone, it sometimes feels easier to keep seething from the wrongs we suffered than it is to apologize for the things we said. When we have let someone down, it’s easier to focus on the circumstances that were out of our control than it is to face our own failures. Like the disciples, we may lock ourselves away from the ones we love as much as from any danger.
The disciples never heard a knock, and the locked door wasn’t battered in. Instead, Jesus came and stood among them, and the very first thing he said to them was “peace be with you.” And the very second thing he said to them was “peace be with you.”
Just so, the risen Christ who faced and conquered fear in the name of love comes into our lives, into our locked rooms, and gives us peace. If the bad news is that fear will always be with us, the good news is that in Christ, God has conquered fear with love. In the first letter of John, he writes “there is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear” (1 John 4:18). Whether the next knock at the door brings bad news, or brings the face of one whom we have wronged, or brings a calling for our lives that scares us, God gives us the strength to face our fears with love, and with the peace that comes from the far side of the empty tomb.
On the evening of Easter day Jesus has come to the disciples in the locked room to bring them peace, to show them his wounds, even to breathe on them the Holy Spirit (remember that breath is always symbolic of spirit) and to send them just as he was sent by God to proclaim forgiveness. With the exception of Thomas, they were all there. But Thomas was there the next time the risen Christ appeared to them. This was a week later, when the gospel tells us that the disciples were in the same house, with the doors locked.
Now, think about this for a moment. On Easter, the disciples were behind locked doors in fear of, well, of a number of things, when the risen Christ, who had just conquered death, came to them to give them peace, to give them the Holy Spirit, and to send them forth just as he had been sent. A week later, they are right in the same place with the doors still locked. It seems that Easter takes time to sink in.
Have you ever had a meeting at work to do something like improve customer relations, or to eliminate inefficiencies, and after the meeting thought to yourself “well, we won’t have to worry about that anymore!” Or have you ever gone through the work of setting appropriate limits for your children, like a curfew, and then thought to yourself “that’s the last time we’ll have to deal with that!” Sometimes we ministers will find ourselves preaching about some particularly difficult, like the will of God, the problem of suffering, or even the resurrection, and we’ll think, in the back of our minds: “you know, I preached about this about years ago and thought that I had cleared it all up!” It doesn’t work like that, does it?
So for all of you who have been frustrated about having to say the same things again, or having to confront the same issues at work or at home, remember this: even the risen Christ came back a week later and found the disciples in the same exact place. And maybe that helps us to think about our own spiritual journeys. We come back to this place week after week to encounter God. We come back to Easter year after year. And that’s okay. Easter takes time with us. The transformation from fearful people behind locked doors to disciples who are filled with love that casts our fear takes some time. And we know that they get there eventually. In our second scripture reading, from the book of Acts, we heard about the disciples and the growing church: “with great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and much grace was upon them all.” And no one among them was in need. They shared their possessions, and were one in heart and mind. We’re getting there, but Easter takes time.
The transformation from fear to love is a gift from God, and it works itself into our lives in different ways. I have heard it said that we think our way into a new way of acting, and also that we can act our way into a new way of thinking. I think it goes both ways. Sometimes it is better to just start acting with kindness and generosity even if we don’t feel them. When we start to be more attentive to others because we know we are supposed to, we then find that we feel more interested in others, and more blessed by them. When we start to give away more than we want to give, we begin to think more in terms of generosity, and it changes the way we view the resources we have. We act our way into a new way of thinking.
But we can also think our way into a new way of acting. Sometimes this happens by regret. We see those opportunities slip by when we might have reached out to someone who was celebrating or grieving: a co-worker, neighbor, or friend. We regret the missed chance, but our regret makes us better prepared. I can still remember a conversation fifteen years ago when I didn’t speak up to defend people in a conversation. Later, I practiced in my mind what I could have said, and since then I have been more ready.
Or we may spend some time thinking about others who have made a difference to us. We think about what they said and did that made such a difference, and in a way we are then rehearsing for our chance to say and do those things for someone else. Maybe it was the person who talked to you when you were a stranger. Maybe it was the person who invited you to church. Maybe someone told you how good it is to count you as a friend.
I would guess that the disciples spent a lot of time thinking about how Jesus came to them without anger or reprimand, but with the word peace. And they must have thought about his love for people, even as he put his life at risk. But there must have also been a part of them that just decided to begin living in love instead of fear even if they didn’t quite feel that way. Even with fear in their minds, they began to act as if they weren’t afraid of anything, not because nothing bad could ever happen, but because nothing could separate them from the life, the love, and the peace of the risen Christ.
Friday, April 17, 2009
Easter Sermon - God Says Yes
Preached on April 12, 2009 at the Historic Church on the Tallmadge, Ohio circle.
John 20:1-18
Dedicated to my wife Betsy; and always to the glory of God.
In the time when Jesus lived and died, the people of Israel and much of the Mediterranean world lived under the rule of Caesar. Caesar was Lord. Caesar was called the prince of peace, because the Roman Empire enforced peace within its borders: pax Romana, it was called. Caesar was even called the Son of God - his right to rule divinely ordained. Caesar was Lord of the kingdom of Rome. He kept peace by quashing dissidents, and putting down rebellions by the sword and the cross. And so the cross was the inevitable conclusion to the life of Jesus, because Jesus was a rival to all the titles of Caesar: Lord, Prince of Peace, Son of God.
Jesus proclaimed a rival kingdom, the kingdom of God, that was near, at hand, even within you. His followers called him Lord instead of Caesar. They called him the prince of peace and the Son of God. Except that his peace came through love instead of force, it came from mercy instead of condemnation. And so the empire executed him, and the crime they posted above his head was that he claimed to be king. King of the Jews, read the sign. The empire claimed that there could be only one Lord, and that was Caesar.
Jesus had spent his ministry building the kingdom of God. It is not a kingdom with borders – its geography is the heart, mind, and soul, in which people are healed and fed, no matter who they are; in which saints and sinners are welcomed equally to the banquet; in which our measure of greatness is not to be admired and waited on but to serve one another. But the ones who were great in the kingdom of Rome said no to all of that. They remind us that there are parts of us that say no with them. Like them, there are parts of us that choose the peace that comes from forcibly protecting our interests. There are parts of us that do not want our community to include the wrong kinds of people. And so we join the ones who said no to the kingdom of God in Jesus Christ, at least in part.
Thankfully, there are also parts of us that know what it’s like to be an outsider, yearning to be welcomed inside. We know what it means to be forgiven, to have our slate wiped clean. And we have discovered the mysterious joy of turning our attention outward in service to others. There are parts of us, the greater part of us, that grieves when we see the giant word NO in the cross that ended the life of Jesus Christ.
And that brings us to today. Because when the world said NO to Jesus, God said yes.
To the inclusive compassion of Christ, the world said no. But God said yes.
To the kingdom of God that he proclaimed, the world said no. But God said yes.
To his very life, his waking and breathing, the world said no. But God said yes.
When God raised Jesus Christ, God said yes to life, said yes to reconciliation, said yes to healing, said yes to justice for the poor and the oppressed, said yes to compassion for the outcast, said yes to love which casts our fear, and mercy that overcomes evil. God said yes to all that Jesus proclaimed and did. And God said no to the powers of this world that killed him.
It may seem at times as though the powers of no will carry the day, but they will not have the final word. It may seem for a time that darkness rules, but night will not last. The true light came into the world in Jesus Christ, and not even the darkness of the tomb can shut it out.
On Easter, God said yes to Christ and to all that he stood for and lived for. But on this day we need to remember that God’s yes is not only in the past tense. It isn’t just that God said yes to Jesus a long time ago, and that means that we get to keep living after we die. Easter is about our lives right now. Today, God says yes to the light of Christ wherever it is found shining.
You see, it makes Easter too small to think that it only means that Jesus conquered death so that we too will live again after we die. It does mean that, but it means much more than that. Jesus conquered darkness and death in order to open a doorway through darkness and death and to hold it open for you and I to walk through. We walk though that door in this lifetime, because when we have walked through it, when we have come through the empty tomb, then we have nothing to be afraid of. We are free to live in the kingdom of God, become great in service, to extend love mercy freely instead of trading it in exchange for something in return.
There’s a difference between celebrating the death of Jesus and his resurrection on Easter as something he did so that we don’t have to do it, and celebrating it as something that Jesus enables us to do with him. I believe that his death and resurrection blazes a trail to new life that we follow. That’s why he told his disciples to take up their crosses. He meant for us to follow.
Let me put it this way, by telling a story that I just recently realized is a story about Easter. One of my favorite Olympic moments is from the track at the Barcelona games in 1992 – a semi-final heat in the men’s 400 meter. The British runner Derek Redmond was in top form, having recovered from injuries earlier in his career, and had won his first two heats. But on this race, as he enters the back straightaway, suddenly his hamstring goes – he reaches back to hold it as he limps to a stop. He later said that it felt like he’d been shot. After kneeling on the track while the other runners approach the finish and the Olympic officials rush on to the track, he gets up and resumes the race on his one good leg, limping down his lane. He is coming painfully around the final bend, when out of the stands runs his father, who pushes past a track official to take his son in his arms. Derek hobbles now, as his father holds him up. And as they walk the final 100 meters, long after the other runners have finished, the stadium rises to its feet to cheer him on.
We are, all of us, like Derek Redmond. There is a part of us that desires the kingdom of God with a passion, but there is a part of us also that holds us back, that tries to keep us in the kingdom where we are Lords of our own lives. Derek’s father didn’t come down to the track in order to say “don’t worry son, you stay here and I’ll finish the race for you.” He didn’t offer to do it on his son’s behalf. He came to take Derek himself to the end and beyond it.
And so it is for us on this Easter morning. The world has said no to Jesus Christ, no to the kingdom of God. But God says yes. And when we proclaim that Christ is risen, we proclaim that we are risen too. We are risen to new life, to the life of Christ, and to the kingdom of God, where there is good news for every person we know, and every person who has yet to cross our paths. Christ is risen. There is no power stronger than the life of the kingdom of God.
I will close, as I did last year, with the words of Saint John Chrysostom, who spoke these words on an Easter Sunday in 4th century Constantinople, to proclaim the good news of Easter.
“Whoever you are, come, celebrate this shining happening, this festival of life.
Let everybody, therefore, crowd into the exhilaration of our savior.
You the first and you the last, equally heaped with blessings.
You the rich and you the poor, celebrate together
You the careful and you the careless, enjoy this day of days.
You who have kept the fast and you that have broken it, be happy this day. The table is loaded. Feast on it like princes. Because no one need fear death for our savior himself has died and set us free. He confronted death in his own person and blasted it to nothing.
Poor death, where is your sting? Poor hell, where is your triumph?
Christ steps out of the tomb and you are reduced to nothing.
Christ rises and the angels are wild with delight. Christ rises and life is set free.
Christ rises and the graves are emptied of dead.”
John 20:1-18
Dedicated to my wife Betsy; and always to the glory of God.
In the time when Jesus lived and died, the people of Israel and much of the Mediterranean world lived under the rule of Caesar. Caesar was Lord. Caesar was called the prince of peace, because the Roman Empire enforced peace within its borders: pax Romana, it was called. Caesar was even called the Son of God - his right to rule divinely ordained. Caesar was Lord of the kingdom of Rome. He kept peace by quashing dissidents, and putting down rebellions by the sword and the cross. And so the cross was the inevitable conclusion to the life of Jesus, because Jesus was a rival to all the titles of Caesar: Lord, Prince of Peace, Son of God.
Jesus proclaimed a rival kingdom, the kingdom of God, that was near, at hand, even within you. His followers called him Lord instead of Caesar. They called him the prince of peace and the Son of God. Except that his peace came through love instead of force, it came from mercy instead of condemnation. And so the empire executed him, and the crime they posted above his head was that he claimed to be king. King of the Jews, read the sign. The empire claimed that there could be only one Lord, and that was Caesar.
Jesus had spent his ministry building the kingdom of God. It is not a kingdom with borders – its geography is the heart, mind, and soul, in which people are healed and fed, no matter who they are; in which saints and sinners are welcomed equally to the banquet; in which our measure of greatness is not to be admired and waited on but to serve one another. But the ones who were great in the kingdom of Rome said no to all of that. They remind us that there are parts of us that say no with them. Like them, there are parts of us that choose the peace that comes from forcibly protecting our interests. There are parts of us that do not want our community to include the wrong kinds of people. And so we join the ones who said no to the kingdom of God in Jesus Christ, at least in part.
Thankfully, there are also parts of us that know what it’s like to be an outsider, yearning to be welcomed inside. We know what it means to be forgiven, to have our slate wiped clean. And we have discovered the mysterious joy of turning our attention outward in service to others. There are parts of us, the greater part of us, that grieves when we see the giant word NO in the cross that ended the life of Jesus Christ.
And that brings us to today. Because when the world said NO to Jesus, God said yes.
To the inclusive compassion of Christ, the world said no. But God said yes.
To the kingdom of God that he proclaimed, the world said no. But God said yes.
To his very life, his waking and breathing, the world said no. But God said yes.
When God raised Jesus Christ, God said yes to life, said yes to reconciliation, said yes to healing, said yes to justice for the poor and the oppressed, said yes to compassion for the outcast, said yes to love which casts our fear, and mercy that overcomes evil. God said yes to all that Jesus proclaimed and did. And God said no to the powers of this world that killed him.
It may seem at times as though the powers of no will carry the day, but they will not have the final word. It may seem for a time that darkness rules, but night will not last. The true light came into the world in Jesus Christ, and not even the darkness of the tomb can shut it out.
On Easter, God said yes to Christ and to all that he stood for and lived for. But on this day we need to remember that God’s yes is not only in the past tense. It isn’t just that God said yes to Jesus a long time ago, and that means that we get to keep living after we die. Easter is about our lives right now. Today, God says yes to the light of Christ wherever it is found shining.
You see, it makes Easter too small to think that it only means that Jesus conquered death so that we too will live again after we die. It does mean that, but it means much more than that. Jesus conquered darkness and death in order to open a doorway through darkness and death and to hold it open for you and I to walk through. We walk though that door in this lifetime, because when we have walked through it, when we have come through the empty tomb, then we have nothing to be afraid of. We are free to live in the kingdom of God, become great in service, to extend love mercy freely instead of trading it in exchange for something in return.
There’s a difference between celebrating the death of Jesus and his resurrection on Easter as something he did so that we don’t have to do it, and celebrating it as something that Jesus enables us to do with him. I believe that his death and resurrection blazes a trail to new life that we follow. That’s why he told his disciples to take up their crosses. He meant for us to follow.
Let me put it this way, by telling a story that I just recently realized is a story about Easter. One of my favorite Olympic moments is from the track at the Barcelona games in 1992 – a semi-final heat in the men’s 400 meter. The British runner Derek Redmond was in top form, having recovered from injuries earlier in his career, and had won his first two heats. But on this race, as he enters the back straightaway, suddenly his hamstring goes – he reaches back to hold it as he limps to a stop. He later said that it felt like he’d been shot. After kneeling on the track while the other runners approach the finish and the Olympic officials rush on to the track, he gets up and resumes the race on his one good leg, limping down his lane. He is coming painfully around the final bend, when out of the stands runs his father, who pushes past a track official to take his son in his arms. Derek hobbles now, as his father holds him up. And as they walk the final 100 meters, long after the other runners have finished, the stadium rises to its feet to cheer him on.
We are, all of us, like Derek Redmond. There is a part of us that desires the kingdom of God with a passion, but there is a part of us also that holds us back, that tries to keep us in the kingdom where we are Lords of our own lives. Derek’s father didn’t come down to the track in order to say “don’t worry son, you stay here and I’ll finish the race for you.” He didn’t offer to do it on his son’s behalf. He came to take Derek himself to the end and beyond it.
And so it is for us on this Easter morning. The world has said no to Jesus Christ, no to the kingdom of God. But God says yes. And when we proclaim that Christ is risen, we proclaim that we are risen too. We are risen to new life, to the life of Christ, and to the kingdom of God, where there is good news for every person we know, and every person who has yet to cross our paths. Christ is risen. There is no power stronger than the life of the kingdom of God.
I will close, as I did last year, with the words of Saint John Chrysostom, who spoke these words on an Easter Sunday in 4th century Constantinople, to proclaim the good news of Easter.
“Whoever you are, come, celebrate this shining happening, this festival of life.
Let everybody, therefore, crowd into the exhilaration of our savior.
You the first and you the last, equally heaped with blessings.
You the rich and you the poor, celebrate together
You the careful and you the careless, enjoy this day of days.
You who have kept the fast and you that have broken it, be happy this day. The table is loaded. Feast on it like princes. Because no one need fear death for our savior himself has died and set us free. He confronted death in his own person and blasted it to nothing.
Poor death, where is your sting? Poor hell, where is your triumph?
Christ steps out of the tomb and you are reduced to nothing.
Christ rises and the angels are wild with delight. Christ rises and life is set free.
Christ rises and the graves are emptied of dead.”
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Beautiful
In the first chapter of Genesis, which tells a poetic story about God creating the world, each day has the same pattern. God speaks, and something new is created, and then God speaks again, to proclaim that whatever has just been created is good. That’s how I’ve always read the story, but this past week I learned something new in a radio interview with an Orthodox priest (a wonderful show called Speaking of Faith – hear it Sundays at 7 AM on WKSU 89.7 or you can get it as a podcast, like me). This priest, Vigen Guroian, said that the original Hebrew word “tov,” which we normally translated as “good,” also means “beautiful.” In this case, beautiful may be a better translation.
When God looked at creation and called it good, we shouldn’t view that as simply a moral proclamation. God wasn’t just saying that the creation is good, as opposed to being evil. God was also saying that the creation is beautiful. And because creation is beautiful, it instills us with love and wonder, and it inspires us to respond in creative ways.
Creation is beautiful! Now, for this to become real to us in our day to day lives, we need to make it more focused, more specific. Creation is too large to hold in your mind all the time. Instead try these: Your spouse is beautiful. Your parents are beautiful. Your friend is beautiful. The person who bags your groceries is beautiful.
The grass is beautiful. The tree on your left as you wait a red light is beautiful. The silence of the early morning is beautiful, and so is the darkness of a late night when you can’t fall asleep.
The church is beautiful. The words of scripture, the music, the gut-feeling you have to do something you are afraid of, and the stranger in front of you with a cough: they are all beautiful.
God saw all that had been created, and God said that it was good. Tov. Beautiful.
When God looked at creation and called it good, we shouldn’t view that as simply a moral proclamation. God wasn’t just saying that the creation is good, as opposed to being evil. God was also saying that the creation is beautiful. And because creation is beautiful, it instills us with love and wonder, and it inspires us to respond in creative ways.
Creation is beautiful! Now, for this to become real to us in our day to day lives, we need to make it more focused, more specific. Creation is too large to hold in your mind all the time. Instead try these: Your spouse is beautiful. Your parents are beautiful. Your friend is beautiful. The person who bags your groceries is beautiful.
The grass is beautiful. The tree on your left as you wait a red light is beautiful. The silence of the early morning is beautiful, and so is the darkness of a late night when you can’t fall asleep.
The church is beautiful. The words of scripture, the music, the gut-feeling you have to do something you are afraid of, and the stranger in front of you with a cough: they are all beautiful.
God saw all that had been created, and God said that it was good. Tov. Beautiful.
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