Friday, November 29, 2019

“Light When It’s Dark” - December 1, 2019


Romans 13:11-14



This is one of those Sundays when we are trying to squeeze a lot into a short time, so I am going to take advantage of that to split my sermon into two sections for two groups and make each of them short.


First, here’s a message for the younger folks.  

The Bible reading we heard earlier talks about what it’s like “the moment for you to wake from sleep” [Romans 13:11].  A lot of the time you probably depend on your parents to wake you up, and tell you it’s time to get up and get ready.  Most of the time you probably grumble a little, and some days you take your time to the point where you’re trying to finish your breakfast but the adults are saying, “Come on!  We have to get going!” and they’re standing by the closet door with your jacket and telling you to put your shoes on and grab your bookbag or your backpack.

The worst part of it can be when you do try to rush, and they get annoyed and tell you that you should have had everything in place before you went to bed, or you should have gotten up without being called three times and you would have had more time.  But the fact is that right then the time you have is the time you have and you’re doing what you can to keep up or to catch up.

What this Bible message tells us, though, is something like that.  Jesus loves us very much, and wants us to be ready for a lot of the good things he has for us to do, and to spend time with us like our friends spend time with us.  That means that it’s not good to get too wrapped up in other things that aren’t as important in the long run as he is.



Now, here’s the message for the older folks.

Paul talks in Romans about how we very often want to remain in the dark, but how faith works to make us people of the light instead.  There are things that he identifies as “the works of darkness” and gives a list of some of them: “reveling and drunkenness, debauchery and licentiousness, quarreling and jealousy”.  They’re the sort of things that make someone want to pull the covers over their heads and say, “No, I didn’t do that, did I?  I didn’t say that.  Really?”

He urges us to live our lives in such a way that when we wake up we welcome today instead of regretting yesterday.  In fact, he tells us that we should live with expectation that Jesus will show us something good with each new day, “For salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers.” [Romans 13:11]  

Here’s a good exercise to recapture that feeling if it has faded.  Try to remember when Christmas morning was not a time that you wanted to sleep in.  Try to remember when the most difficult part of the day was staying in bed until you were supposed to get up, wondering what was downstairs in the living room that wasn’t there the night before, and if the milk and cookies that you left out had been eaten.

If one little sparkle of that feeling is something you remember, then realize that it is not just the celebration and the tinsel and the gifts that once were all that you knew, but it is the presence of Christ among us and in your life every single day year round that lies at the source of that kind of joy.


Then light can shine when things get really dark, and the sun can come up when night seems deepest around you.  Then the people who dwell in darkness see a great light, and it’s not the light of candles and electric bulbs and storefront or neighborhood displays.  It doesn’t need carols and cookies to flip the switch.  It’s the real thing, the light of Christ.  That light “shines in the darkness and the darkness has never overcome it.” [John 1:5]

Saturday, November 23, 2019

“’Save Yourself and Us’” - November 24, 2019



Luke 23:33-43


            The word “save” is all over this morning’s reading from the gospel of Luke.  It was being tossed around in a lot of ways while Jesus was dying.

“The leaders scoffed at him, saying, ‘He saved others; let him save himself if he is the Messiah of God, his chosen one!  The soldiers also mocked him, coming up and offering him sour wine, and saying, ‘If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!”  [Luke 23:35-37]
“One of the criminals who were hanged there kept deriding him and saying, ‘Are you not the Messiah?  Save yourself and us!’” [Luke 23:39]
A king – any ruler – is supposed to do that, right?

            There’s the obvious level where a king is the commander-in-chief.  He was to ride out with his army and drive back invaders led by a neighboring king.  Even better, he was to be the one doing the invading, conquering territory and maybe even turning the kingdom into an empire.

            There’s the less flashy but no less vital aspect where the king was to be a wise administrator.  He would save the people from poverty with his trade and economic policies.  Czar Peter the Great left Russia at one point in the hands of his ministers so that he could travel to western Europe to learn its technology first-hand.  He himself worked in a Dutch shipyard so that he could learn what he needed to know to upgrade the Russian navy and its commercial fleet.

He would save the people from hunger with his encouragement of sound agricultural practices.  The Inca came to power in part because they understood how to terrace land in the Andes to grow potatoes on mountainsides, and their kings made the resources available to do that. 

A king would order irrigation projects that would also include reservoirs and dams and levees to save his country from drought or floods.  If his timing was right.

The king could, if he wanted, issue laws that protected the weak and vulnerable.  He could save the poor from exploitation.  In theory.  He could save the disabled from neglect and abandonment.  Sometimes.

            We still have these expectations of government, whether they are vested in one person or laid upon some formal institution (and it’s interesting that we do refer to a congress or a council or a court or an agency as a “governmental body” as if it were one person).  A good government is one that sees to these matters and more.  Thomas Jefferson boiled down what we should expect into the terms “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” and said that “to secure these rights, governments are instituted”.

            We look to be saved from enemies, foreign and domestic.  Under our system, candidates seek office by promising to provide security and safety, and put themselves forward with the argument that they are the best person or the person with the best understanding of how to do that.

            Disillusionment follows when a leader cannot deliver.  In extreme cases, even the leader becomes disillusioned, and then there can be real problems for everyone.  Power becomes more important, and pride and self-preservation take over. 

            Jesus, arrested and convicted and executed, hardly presented much in the way of the power anyone has ever expected of a king.  So as he was dying, people mocked him.  He was not saving himself; what could he do for anyone else?  He had not kicked out the Romans.  Even the moneychangers he chased out of the Temple returned to their spots when he was gone.

            To call Jesus a king, or to claim that he saves, means that you have to see kingship and salvation in some way other than the usual.  It’s only in King Jesus’ willingness to set aside the usual trappings of rule that the hollowness of power and coercion and violence and pride is shown clearly once and for all.  

            It seems appropriate that the Bible starts out very early warning about the dangers of what the pharaoh wants to do to the Israelite slaves.  The symbol of the pharaoh’s world is the pyramid, with one stone on top and each row pressing down on the next one underneath.  The symbol of Jesus is the cross, with its body rooted in the earth and reaching to God while its arms stretch out in embrace, regardless of the pain.

            At the pharaoh’s order, the Bible tells us,

“The Egyptians became ruthless in imposing tasks on the Israelites, and made their lives bitter”.  [Exodus 1:13-14]
Jesus, in contrast, spoke to his followers,

“Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” [Matthew 11:28-30]
He can say that, because he takes the weight on his own shoulders.  He saves us by not saving himself.  He does the true work of a king by setting aside his privileges and prerogatives, and doing the work of a slave.

            As for us, we are called to life in a kingdom that follows those unearthly rules.

“Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves.  Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others.  Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,
who, though he was in the form of God,
    did not count equality with God
    as something to be exploited,
but emptied himself,
    taking the form of a slave,
    being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form,
    he humbled himself
    and became obedient to the point of death –
    even death on a cross.”  [Philippians 2:3-8]


Saturday, November 16, 2019

“Niggling Away” - November 17, 2019



II Thessalonians 3:1-13


            I recently heard from Citizen Advocacy, who try to match up people with disabilities with someone who can be a general buddy for them, help out with errands sometimes, maybe, but mostly just be friends.  They have a new person who loves to fish and wondered if we had someone who does, too.

            We have a bunch of people signed up to help out with Thanksgiving meals, which is terrific.

            We can always use more people to cook and serve the meals at St. Peter’s, and in the new year we may try to offer a monthly community breakfast here on Saturday mornings.

            There’s room in the choir for a few more voices.  You don’t need to know how to read music, and it really and truly is a great way to spend Thursday evenings.  If you don’t sing but enjoy making music, talk to Karen Bretzius about the handbells.

            2020 is the year for a youth mission trip and we are looking at Boston the last week of July.  Adult chaperones will have to be part of the mix.  That will be about a month after Vacation Bible School.

            Thanks to everyone who supported the United Methodist Women’s soup sale this week, to all the cooks as well as the customers, and to both the bakers and the eaters of the other goodies.

            Just a quick reminder that donations for Bridge of Hope can be given to Dot Wood by next Sunday.  That’s also the Sunday to bring donations of canned goods to church for our Harvest Home gift to the pantry at PACS.

            The Lamborns do a great job with the pill bottle collection, and I think Zellen Shelton oversees the collection of Campbell’s soup labels (though I’m not sure of that), but it would make their lives easier if someone else would learn the ropes; the same with the slide projection, which is really not at all complicated.

            We have a bunch of people who, in one capacity or another, are looking after an older relative.  If that’s you, and it would be helpful, we’ve been kicking around the idea of getting together at some point to swap ideas and war stories.

            Speaking of war stories, this past week we hosted an educational session for the conference about how the church can be supportive to current-duty military personnel and their families and to veterans.  I have the information from that available for whomever might want to look it over.

            Oh, let me see what the text of this sermon is.  Oh, yes:

“We hear that some of you are living in idleness, mere busybodies, not doing any work.  Now such persons we command and exhort in the Lord Jesus Christ to do their work quietly and to earn their own living.” [II Thessalonians 3:12]
No, that doesn’t sound like what we need to hear about.  How about this:

“Brothers and sisters, do not be weary in doing what is right.”  [II Thessalonians 3:13]
I actually prefer the older translation, here from the Revised Standard Version:

“do not be weary in well-doing.”
Don’t be overwhelmed by all the various opportunities for service.  Don’t burn out, which is easy to do.  Have you ever heard of “compassion fatigue”?  It’s real. 

If you want to do any long-term good, you have to realize that you are not going to be able to do it all.  There’s something for everybody, and everybody should be doing something, but nobody should expect themselves to do everything.  And do not think that whatever you do, whatever your ministry is, has no lasting value, even when it seems to leave no mark on the world. 

            There was a time in the late 1930s when J.R.R. Tolkien was trying to write The Lord of the Rings but not getting very far on it.  The problem wasn’t writer’s block or laziness.  The problem was that he was a professor with papers to grade and research to do.  He was a father with children to raise and a husband who understood that marriage means couple-time.  He was a Christian who was called upon to take part in the life of the Church.  It was about then that he wrote a short story called “Leaf by Niggle”[1] and I am going to read a few sections from it. 

“Niggle was a painter.  Not a very successful one, partly because he had many other things to do.  Most of these things he thought were a nuisance; but he did them fairly well, when he could not get out of them: which (in his opinion) was far too often.  …he was kindhearted, in a way.  You know the sort of kind heart: it made him uncomfortable more than it made him do anything; and even when he did anything, it did not prevent him from grumbling, losing his temper, and swearing (mostly to himself).  All the same, it did land him in a good many odd jobs for his neighbour, Mr. Parish, a man with a lame leg.  Occasionally he even helped people farther off, if they came and asked him to. …
He had a large number of pictures on hand; most of them were too large and ambitious for his skill.  He was the sort of painter who can paint leaves better than trees.  He used to spend a long time on a single leaf, trying to catch its shape, and its sheen, and the glistening dewdrops on its edges.  Yet he wanted to paint a whole tree, with all of its leaves in the same style, and all of them different.”
Here I need to summarize a little.  He tries to work on this painting, and it gets to be so big he has to work on it in a shed outside the house, but Mr. Parish keeps bugging him an needs to borrow his ladder all the time, and Niggle doesn’t get anywhere close to where he wants to be with his painting when he suddenly is forced to leave everything and go on a long trip.  The story gets a little dreamlike at this point.  He’s picked up by a mysterious driver, put onto a train, left at a station someplace he has never been but at the same time recognizes.  He finds his bicycle right there and starts riding, and after awhile, writes Tolkien,

“… A great green shadow came between him and the sun.  Niggle looked up, and fell off his bicycle.
Before him stood the Tree, his Tree, finished.  If you could say that of a Tree that was alive, its leaves opening, it branches growing and bending in the wind that Niggle had so often felt or guessed, and had so often failed to catch.  He gazed at the Tree, and slowly he lifted his arms and opened them wide.
‘It’s a gift!’ he said.  He was referring to his art, and also to the result; but he was using the word quite literally.
He went on looking at the Tree. All the leaves he had ever laboured at were there, as he had imagined them rather than as he had made them; and there were many others that had only budded in his mind, and many that might have budded, if only he had had time. …Some of the most beautiful – and the most characteristic, the most perfect examples of the Niggle style – were seen to have been produced in collaboration with Mr. Parish: there was no other way of putting it.”
            Before the story goes much further, there are birds singing in the Tree, and Niggle can see a mountain that he had painted in the background off in the distance.  Moreover, Niggle realizes that the Tree he had worked on, his Tree, was just one Tree in a whole forest of Trees.  Apparently, a lot more had been going on, and was still going on, than he realized.  The small brushstrokes he had tended to had much larger effect than he knew, and were part of some far larger work than he could comprehend, even when he had somehow landed in the middle of it. 

Or maybe it had been around him the whole time.  The gift was that he got to see it.

“Brothers and sisters, do not be weary in well-doing.” [II Thessalonians 3:13]
And, by the way, the Bell Tree will be going up in the narthex next week.

Saturday, November 9, 2019

“Two Hills” - November 10, 2019




II Thessalonians 2:1-12

The most faithful way of reading the Bible is to ask what was being said to and heard by the people to whom each section was first given, and then to hear the same thing said to us in our own situations. 
The good folks in the church at Thessalonica were not wrapped up in trying to piece together a schedule of future apocalyptic events involving people unborn and places unknown.  What they were doing was trying to make sense of living faithfully under persecution.  When they heard about someone who
“opposes and exalts himself above every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, declaring himself to be God” [II Thessalonians 2:4]
they didn’t have to go scrambling to invent prophetic timelines to project that figure into the future.  They knew exactly who it was.  It was the emperor, any emperor. 
From Augustus in 14 B.C., right on from there, every Roman emperor claimed to be no mere mortal, but divi filius, the son of a god, and therefore divine and therefore worthy of worship.  The two strong columns of religion and political power held up the sky, and the emperor was the sun that shone from its apex.  Rome saw those two aspects of social control working together.  (I say “control” because control was what they were after.)  Both were absolutely necessary to hold the world in place.  Let me use a totally different analogy, maybe. Think of religious submission and political obedience like the two halves of a taco shell; break either one of them, and everything spills out all over the place and is ruined. 
Not even the Jews were exempted.  They had a special loophole in that they were allowed to offer sacrifices for the emperor instead of to him.  They were not allowed, however, to split apart the coalition of religion and politics.  The Romans approved the hierarchy of the temple in Jerusalem and the hierarchy did its best to make sure the taxes were paid and rebels were silenced. 
You could believe anything you want, of course.  As long as you were willing to play the game, offer the emperor’s statue a sacrifice, and allow that the emperor’s decisions and laws were the decisions and laws of a god, nobody cared if you were privately choking on that.  Just don’t undermine the system.  Don’t dare suggest that the emperor is not divine or that someone else is.
That left the Christians of Thessalonica and anywhere else in the empire in a vulnerable position.  It still does.  Christians cannot be trusted by earthly rulers to endorse every position that is judged to be in the interest of the state.  What is good for the country as viewed by those who would build up their own position may not be what is good for the entire world, which is God’s creation, placed into the hands of humanity as a whole.  What is convenient is not necessarily right.
Augustine of Hippo, the classic Christian observer of politics, described how a truly great ruler would, from a Christian perspective, never meet the standards that the Roman empire set up as its own measure of greatness.
“We Christians call rulers happy, if they rule with justice; if amid the voices of exalted praise and the reverent salutations of excessive humility, they are not inflated by pride, but remember that they are but men; if they put their power at the service of God’s majesty, to extend his worship far and wide; if they fear God, love him, and worship him; if, more than their earthly kingdom, they love that realm where they do not fear to share the kingship…”[1]
But where or when, he asked, have we seen any earthly ruler more eager to share control than to lay hold of it, or who does not go to great lengths, sometimes too far, to hold onto power?
            Christy Thomas, who blogs under the title “The Thoughtful Pastor”, says much the same thing.  She recently wrote about how tempting it can be to follow any leader uncritically, and how dangerous.  She uses the sort of end-time language we hear in II Thessalonians when she says:
“I’m now convinced that, in nearly every society, an anti-Christ has emerged. It’s not a one-time event, but an event that our human nature demands with boring regularity. The charismatic, influential leader, seemingly appearing from nowhere, who, if we only trust him/her/them enough to overlook the subtlety of the evil whispers in his/her/their ear, will solve our problems.
Such ones appear at every level—from heads of state to leaders of churches to entrepreneurial unicorns to garden club presidents and leaders of the latest in-group cliques.
Why trust this one? Because this one, yes, this one, holds the solutions to the evils of society or group or corporation if we will only believe what he/she/they say.

Yes, this one may cut some corners, may cost some lives, may utter unceasing lies, and both commit and commission evil deeds, but just believe and you, should [you] be one of the chosen ones, of course, will be safe, happy, and prosperous.”[2]
            Augustine pictured the Church as a people who are citizens of one city, living in another.  He wrote about us as people living in this world but with our true belonging in heaven. 
            I would suggest that as we spend the time God gives us in this world, we find ourselves not only between the earthly and heavenly cities, but that daily, in our life here on earth we also find ourselves in the in-between place where, one terrible Friday, the disciples stood.  We stand not inside any city but just outside the walls of Jerusalem. 
We stand and we can look up to the top of the city that climbs the hill behind them.  At the summit we see the temple and the Roman fortress that stood next to it and maybe just beyond that the palace of Herod.  In that direction we can see and even feel the power and the majesty of the sun reflecting off marble and gold leaf. 
But turn your head in the other direction and you see another hill, not so tall, unprotected by any wall.  It’s a place nobody wants to go.  On top of it stand crosses where people are nailed up without mercy to die.  On one a man who offended the emperor and his officials is hanging.  He has a crown of thorns jammed into his scalp and there’s a sign mocking him for his crime.  It says, “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews”.
We stand there in between those hills but cannot stand there forever.  Eventually you have to move.  Eventually you have to go in one direction or the other. 
Two hills: pick one.
Choose carefully.
Choose well.


[1] Augustine, City of God, I.v.24, trans. Henry Bettenson (New York: Penguin Books, 1972), 220.

Saturday, November 2, 2019

“Because a Tattle Phone Is Not Enough” - November 3, 2019




II Thessalonians 1:1-12


            The first Christians in Thessalonica, the ones who came to faith as a result of Paul’s preaching, had a fixation on how to think about the end of days.  At least that’s what it seems like from the letters that he wrote to them.  They especially wanted to know about the ultimate destiny of people among them who had died.  Considering that these letters indicate that they themselves were undergoing persecution, it was probably also a question that they were asking about what would happen to themselves if their trials took a fatal turn.

            It was all very well to have Paul’s congratulatory words telling them,

“we ourselves boast of you among the churches of God for your steadfastness and faith during all your persecutions and the afflictions that you are enduring,” [II Thessalonians 1:4]

but it wasn’t really any human approval that they were looking for.  What they wanted was God’s approval.  What they really, really, really wanted, though, was God’s vindication.  That’s a very human, understandable desire. 

            “This American Life” is a show on National Public Radio that focuses on people’s day-to-day experiences.  Last week’s show included a segment on the drama in a pre-kindergarten classroom.  A lot of a teacher’s time is absorbed by kids’ tattling on one another and trying to sort out all kinds of disputes.  David Kirstenbaum, whose sons had gone to that nursery school, reported on one teacher’s great idea.

She took a tissue box, hung it on the wall, and then took this plastic phone receiver and hung it in it and said something like, that's the tattle-phone. Tell it to the phone.”[1]

With the permission of the entire class’s parents, he installed a real phone that would record what was said throughout the day, and that provided the meat of his story.

            The tattle phone was very popular for awhile, and the teacher definitely liked it.  As time went on, though, he noticed that there were less calls, which made sense to him.  Before he ran the experiment in the classroom, he had set a tattle phone up at home for his sons, Max and Auggie.  He said,

“My kids used it a couple of times. And then our younger son Max was complaining that his brother, Auggie, who's a year older, had pinched him.
Tell it to the tattle-phone, I said. It's not working, he told me. I picked the phone up worried that there was some technical glitch. But it was fine. It's working, Max. No, he said, it's not.
Max
It did not do anything. It doesn't even work to me. It doesn't even do anything.
David Kestenbaum
It listened to your tattle.
Max
No, it doesn't.
David Kestenbaum
What do you mean? It listened.
Max
It didn't. It didn't stop Auggie pinching me.
David Kestenbaum
It didn't stop Auggie pinching me. I know, Max. I know. Sometimes you want more than just to speak. You want actual justice.”

            Actual justice is what the persecuted church in Thessalonica was after.  I have no doubt that there were those who savored the vision of the end-times that is found in this letter from Paul.

“For it is indeed just of God to repay with affliction those who afflict you, and to give relief to the afflicted as well as to us, when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus.  These will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, separated from the presence of the Lord.” [II Thessalonians 1:6-9]

It’s true that justice means that actions have consequences and nobody just gets away with anything.  Without that, all that anyone who is wronged can do is tattle away on deaf ears. 

Yet the vision of Jesus “inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God” is a two-edged sword.  To those who are persecuted, it is a comfort to know that they have a protector and a defender who stands up against the persecutors.  But the other side is his judgment “on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus”, which to my recollection includes the demand to “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” [Matthew 5:44]  Here is where we are asked to be more mature than a preschooler.  It may be that the failure of earthly justice teaches us to be careful about asking for divine justice.  As someone grows up, they learn to let things go sometimes.  They learn that there are injustices worth pursuing and others that are not worth the time or effort.  There are wrongs that need to be put right, but there are also wrongs that are better left to God.  And in all of it, there is the important caution:

“Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and do not make room for the devil.” [Ephesians 4:26-27]

My own way of looking at it – take it or leave it as it helps you – is that standing up on someone else’s behalf is part of loving my neighbor but that when it comes to myself, I do best to forgive as I would have God forgive me, and that means to tread very, very lightly.

            We have to move away from the understandable focus on what God is going to do to “them”, whoever that is, when the day comes; and move toward a focus on what God would want to do right here and right now, in you and me.

            Saints are not born.  They are made.  God makes people holy through how they live out whatever life brings them.  Holiness may be when someone with artistic talent puts it to work to lift up the beauty of God’s creation.  It may be when someone with a gift for gab tells a story that teaches what is right and wrong, or brings people joy.  Holiness may mean when someone who is quiet turns their stillness into listening or into prayer.  Holiness may come about when someone who has been hurt goes from blaming to asking how the persecutor has so lost their own humanity and sees the hurt in them.

            None of that can ever come about on our own, and none of it can ever come about if we decide to block out God’s Holy Spirit. 

“To this end we always pray for you, asking that our God will make you worthy of his call and will fulfill by his power every good resolve and work of faith, so that the name of Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.” [II Thessalonians 1:11-13]