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.”
Friday, April 17, 2009
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.
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
A Time to Speak
People are still interested in those who have spent time with God. Back on the night when Jesus was arrested and rushed to trial, people asked Peter “weren’t you one of the ones who came with Jesus from Galilee ?” Peter denied it, so we don’t get to hear why they asked the question. Still, I wonder. I wonder if perhaps they were simply curious. They knew that Jesus was on trial, and they wanted to know more him. They wanted to hear the story of what God had meant to a regular person like Peter.
At the trial inside, Peter’s testimony seems to be sorely missing. John’s gospel tells us that “the high priest questioned Jesus about his disciples and about his teaching. Jesus answered, ‘I have spoken openly to the world; I have always taught in synagogues and in the temple, where all the Judeans come together. I have said nothing in secret. Why do you ask me? Ask those who heard what I said to them; they know what I said’” (John 18:19-21). Jesus tells them to ask someone who was with him. And there is Peter, one of those who had heard what Jesus said, right outside. He could have spoken as a witness, but he wasn’t saying anything.
I wonder, are there times when we keep quiet about our own faith? Unlike Peter, our silence is not for fear of arrest, and we are not going to be asked to give testimony in a trial. But I bet that you and I encounter lots of people like the ones who asked Peter if he knew Jesus. I bet that we meet people who are curious to hear about our own faith, to hear the story of the time we have spent with God. They may not ask directly, as they did to Peter. But they might ask indirectly, leaving a pause in conversation in case anyone has anything to say about the love of God. These openings in conversation are like a question, and we can choose to speak or to remain silent. As a first step, we might just begin to notice those openings. Then, one day, we’ll begin to speak and tell our story.
At the trial inside, Peter’s testimony seems to be sorely missing. John’s gospel tells us that “the high priest questioned Jesus about his disciples and about his teaching. Jesus answered, ‘I have spoken openly to the world; I have always taught in synagogues and in the temple, where all the Judeans come together. I have said nothing in secret. Why do you ask me? Ask those who heard what I said to them; they know what I said’” (John 18:19-21). Jesus tells them to ask someone who was with him. And there is Peter, one of those who had heard what Jesus said, right outside. He could have spoken as a witness, but he wasn’t saying anything.
I wonder, are there times when we keep quiet about our own faith? Unlike Peter, our silence is not for fear of arrest, and we are not going to be asked to give testimony in a trial. But I bet that you and I encounter lots of people like the ones who asked Peter if he knew Jesus. I bet that we meet people who are curious to hear about our own faith, to hear the story of the time we have spent with God. They may not ask directly, as they did to Peter. But they might ask indirectly, leaving a pause in conversation in case anyone has anything to say about the love of God. These openings in conversation are like a question, and we can choose to speak or to remain silent. As a first step, we might just begin to notice those openings. Then, one day, we’ll begin to speak and tell our story.
Monday, March 23, 2009
Sermon - We Are What God Made Us
Preached on March 22, 2009 at The First Congregational Church of Tallmadge, Ohio, UCC
Ephesians 2:1-10 John 3:14-21
Dedicated to Betsy; and always to the glory of God.
Author Ray Anderson stepped into a public restroom one day and saw, on the mirror, a message, written with soap in a slanted line. It said: “Judas, come home…all is forgiven.”
In the gospel of John, speaking about himself to Nicodemus, Jesus says that “God did not send his son into the world to condemn it.” And so let us recover the message that should always be at the center of our Christian faith and proclaim to all people: God is not out to get you. Counter to what you may have heard, counter to what you may have been taught to believe, counter even to what you may in the secret part of your mind be afraid of: God is not out to get you. That wonderful prophet of the restroom mirror was right: “come home...all is forgiven.”
God did not send his son to condemn the world, but to save it, even for people like Judas. The son of God came with forgiveness on his lips, instead of condemnation; mercy, instead of judgment; compassion, instead of vengeance. There were people who expected something different. There were a lot of people who expected the messiah to take care of everyone who had wronged them. They thought that God kept track of transgressions and would dispense punishment. But Jesus came as an answer to God’s bad reputation. To those who thought that Jesus would give their enemies what they had coming, Jesus said that what they have coming is mercy, salvation, new life, not condemnation.
To Judas, and to us, Jesus says “come home…all is forgiven.” In the letter to the Ephesians, Paul, or perhaps a follower of Paul, describes you and I like this. “You were dead through the trespasses and sins in which you once lived, following the course of this world”(Ephesians 2:1-2). Isn’t that an interesting way to talk about sin? He isn’t saying that we’re all terrible, destructive people, who leave hatred and hurt in our wake. He says that we can sin (which means separation from God), just by “following the course of the world.” What Paul is saying is that even regular people, leading regular lives are walking around dead.
Paul describes our spiritual state in terms of life and death: “Even when we were dead through our trespasses, [God] made us alive together with Christ” (Ephesians 2:4-5). It reminds me of that movie The Sixth Sense, in which a young boy, played by the oh-so-cute and sincere Haley Joel Osment, is disturbed by his unwanted communication with people who had died. As he explained so memorably: “I see dead people.” And then he clarifies: “I see dead people, walking around like regular people…they don't know they're dead.” It’s just a ghost story, maybe. But those words of his - they seem to me like an astute observation about our lives, with language right out of the new testament. Dead people walking around like regular people, not even knowing the difference. Not knowing what it is to be made alive by the grace of God.
To be made alive requires a death. It requires the death of whatever it is inside us that keeps us from God. When our self-consumed interest dies, and we look with God's eyes to others, we are made alive. When the lie that are not lovable dies, when the conviction that we don't have anything to offer dies, when the stubborn refusal to finally come home dies, like it did for the prodigal son, like I hope it did for Judas, then we are made alive. Because finally, Judas, the prodigal son, you and I come to realize that we are what God made us. God made us alive. God made us, Paul writes, for good.
This movement from death to life is, for many of us, a long process, and we have to receive God's grace anew for each new challenge. That's one of the reasons we come back to the season of Lent each year. It's why we come back to the cross of Good Friday and the empty tomb of Easter each year. Because when you are 17, the new life you need is a different gift than when you are 40, or 68. And in each new part of our life we are discovering the good for which God made us. People are doing this all the time. Let me tell you their stories.
When Beth Slevcove moved with her husband Joe from the suburbs into the heart of the city, she embraced urban life, even the noise and sirens and difficult parking. (This story is quoted and paraphrased from The Sun, August 2007). While the homeless people in the neighborhood made Joe nervous, Beth met them and called them by name. But there was one place that Beth steered clear of: the tattoo parlor across the street. The guys who ran it would sit around out front, and got into fights that would move into the street and stop traffic. They harassed women who walked by and intimidated the men. For two years Beth glared across the street at them from her window with dark thoughts.
Then one day she changed her approach. She got a tattoo. She walked across the street and marched inside. Manuel, who ran the store, was working on somebody’s back. Beth introduced herself as a neighbor and asked if she could watch. He said sure. After a while, she went outside and sat in front to study the world from their perspective. One of the guys asked what she was getting done, and she said “Love thy neighbor.” She explained, “you guys are my neighbors, and I’m having trouble loving you. You kind of scare me - you know, with all the fights that break out over here.”
He took her inside and announced, with complete sincerity, “Manuel, dude, we’re scaring our neighbors! We got to stop fighting.” There was an awkward moment there while Manual got defensive until Beth explained that she hadn’t come because she was mad, or to change them, but just to get a tattoo on her wrist with the words “love thy neighbor.” They settled on a design and style for the letters. “How do you spell thy,” Manuel asked shyly. “I didn’t go to school.”
From then on Beth would wave to the tattoo guys like they were old pals. No more fights broke out. The sidewalk felt safe. Four months later, when she ran into Manuel at an auto shop, Manuel turned to the mechanic and said “hey, this is my neighbor, the one I was telling you about.”
We are what God made us. We were made for good.
One more story before we close. (This next story is told by Philip Yancey in What's So Amazing About Grace?) This one is about Gordon Wilson, who was with his grown daughter in a town near Belfast, Ireland on Veteran’s Day in 1987 at a Protestant observance when an IRA bomb killed 11 people, including his daughter. It wasn’t so much different from much of the violence between Catholics and Protestants in Ireland, where extremists traded revenge attacks and bystanders got caught in the middle. A newspaper later proclaimed, “No one remembers what the politicians had to say at that time. No one who heard Gordon Wilson will ever forget what he confessed…His grace towered over the miserable justifications of the bombers.” What he said was this: “I have lost my daughter, but I bear no grudge. Bitter talk is not going to bring Marie Wilson back to life. I shall pray, tonight and every night, that God will forgive them.”
Gordon Wilson became a leader for peace in Ireland. The Protestant extremists who had planned a revenge attack decided against it. With Gordon Wilson on the scene, such an attack would be politically foolish. Wilson met with the IRA, forgave them, and asked them to stop. He said “I know you’ve lost loved ones, just like me. Surely enough is enough.”
These are stories of regular people, much like you and me, who were made alive by the son of God who came to save the world. It would have been easy for them to act out of fear and hatred. In fact, that would have been the course of the world. But we were made for something else. We were made for a goodness that will come forth in surprising ways and will have amazing consequences. It will be as if we had been dead, and God made us alive.
We are what God made us, and God made us for good.
Ephesians 2:1-10 John 3:14-21
Dedicated to Betsy; and always to the glory of God.
Author Ray Anderson stepped into a public restroom one day and saw, on the mirror, a message, written with soap in a slanted line. It said: “Judas, come home…all is forgiven.”
In the gospel of John, speaking about himself to Nicodemus, Jesus says that “God did not send his son into the world to condemn it.” And so let us recover the message that should always be at the center of our Christian faith and proclaim to all people: God is not out to get you. Counter to what you may have heard, counter to what you may have been taught to believe, counter even to what you may in the secret part of your mind be afraid of: God is not out to get you. That wonderful prophet of the restroom mirror was right: “come home...all is forgiven.”
God did not send his son to condemn the world, but to save it, even for people like Judas. The son of God came with forgiveness on his lips, instead of condemnation; mercy, instead of judgment; compassion, instead of vengeance. There were people who expected something different. There were a lot of people who expected the messiah to take care of everyone who had wronged them. They thought that God kept track of transgressions and would dispense punishment. But Jesus came as an answer to God’s bad reputation. To those who thought that Jesus would give their enemies what they had coming, Jesus said that what they have coming is mercy, salvation, new life, not condemnation.
To Judas, and to us, Jesus says “come home…all is forgiven.” In the letter to the Ephesians, Paul, or perhaps a follower of Paul, describes you and I like this. “You were dead through the trespasses and sins in which you once lived, following the course of this world”(Ephesians 2:1-2). Isn’t that an interesting way to talk about sin? He isn’t saying that we’re all terrible, destructive people, who leave hatred and hurt in our wake. He says that we can sin (which means separation from God), just by “following the course of the world.” What Paul is saying is that even regular people, leading regular lives are walking around dead.
Paul describes our spiritual state in terms of life and death: “Even when we were dead through our trespasses, [God] made us alive together with Christ” (Ephesians 2:4-5). It reminds me of that movie The Sixth Sense, in which a young boy, played by the oh-so-cute and sincere Haley Joel Osment, is disturbed by his unwanted communication with people who had died. As he explained so memorably: “I see dead people.” And then he clarifies: “I see dead people, walking around like regular people…they don't know they're dead.” It’s just a ghost story, maybe. But those words of his - they seem to me like an astute observation about our lives, with language right out of the new testament. Dead people walking around like regular people, not even knowing the difference. Not knowing what it is to be made alive by the grace of God.
To be made alive requires a death. It requires the death of whatever it is inside us that keeps us from God. When our self-consumed interest dies, and we look with God's eyes to others, we are made alive. When the lie that are not lovable dies, when the conviction that we don't have anything to offer dies, when the stubborn refusal to finally come home dies, like it did for the prodigal son, like I hope it did for Judas, then we are made alive. Because finally, Judas, the prodigal son, you and I come to realize that we are what God made us. God made us alive. God made us, Paul writes, for good.
This movement from death to life is, for many of us, a long process, and we have to receive God's grace anew for each new challenge. That's one of the reasons we come back to the season of Lent each year. It's why we come back to the cross of Good Friday and the empty tomb of Easter each year. Because when you are 17, the new life you need is a different gift than when you are 40, or 68. And in each new part of our life we are discovering the good for which God made us. People are doing this all the time. Let me tell you their stories.
When Beth Slevcove moved with her husband Joe from the suburbs into the heart of the city, she embraced urban life, even the noise and sirens and difficult parking. (This story is quoted and paraphrased from The Sun, August 2007). While the homeless people in the neighborhood made Joe nervous, Beth met them and called them by name. But there was one place that Beth steered clear of: the tattoo parlor across the street. The guys who ran it would sit around out front, and got into fights that would move into the street and stop traffic. They harassed women who walked by and intimidated the men. For two years Beth glared across the street at them from her window with dark thoughts.
Then one day she changed her approach. She got a tattoo. She walked across the street and marched inside. Manuel, who ran the store, was working on somebody’s back. Beth introduced herself as a neighbor and asked if she could watch. He said sure. After a while, she went outside and sat in front to study the world from their perspective. One of the guys asked what she was getting done, and she said “Love thy neighbor.” She explained, “you guys are my neighbors, and I’m having trouble loving you. You kind of scare me - you know, with all the fights that break out over here.”
He took her inside and announced, with complete sincerity, “Manuel, dude, we’re scaring our neighbors! We got to stop fighting.” There was an awkward moment there while Manual got defensive until Beth explained that she hadn’t come because she was mad, or to change them, but just to get a tattoo on her wrist with the words “love thy neighbor.” They settled on a design and style for the letters. “How do you spell thy,” Manuel asked shyly. “I didn’t go to school.”
From then on Beth would wave to the tattoo guys like they were old pals. No more fights broke out. The sidewalk felt safe. Four months later, when she ran into Manuel at an auto shop, Manuel turned to the mechanic and said “hey, this is my neighbor, the one I was telling you about.”
We are what God made us. We were made for good.
One more story before we close. (This next story is told by Philip Yancey in What's So Amazing About Grace?) This one is about Gordon Wilson, who was with his grown daughter in a town near Belfast, Ireland on Veteran’s Day in 1987 at a Protestant observance when an IRA bomb killed 11 people, including his daughter. It wasn’t so much different from much of the violence between Catholics and Protestants in Ireland, where extremists traded revenge attacks and bystanders got caught in the middle. A newspaper later proclaimed, “No one remembers what the politicians had to say at that time. No one who heard Gordon Wilson will ever forget what he confessed…His grace towered over the miserable justifications of the bombers.” What he said was this: “I have lost my daughter, but I bear no grudge. Bitter talk is not going to bring Marie Wilson back to life. I shall pray, tonight and every night, that God will forgive them.”
Gordon Wilson became a leader for peace in Ireland. The Protestant extremists who had planned a revenge attack decided against it. With Gordon Wilson on the scene, such an attack would be politically foolish. Wilson met with the IRA, forgave them, and asked them to stop. He said “I know you’ve lost loved ones, just like me. Surely enough is enough.”
These are stories of regular people, much like you and me, who were made alive by the son of God who came to save the world. It would have been easy for them to act out of fear and hatred. In fact, that would have been the course of the world. But we were made for something else. We were made for a goodness that will come forth in surprising ways and will have amazing consequences. It will be as if we had been dead, and God made us alive.
We are what God made us, and God made us for good.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)