"What We Shall Become" - November 2, 2014

I John 3:1-3

(All Saints' Sunday)

            The United Methodist Book of Worship suggests that funeral services start with these words:

“Dying, Christ destroyed our death.

Rising, Christ restored our life.

Christ will come again in glory.

As in baptism [this person] put on Christ,

            so in Christ may [this person] be clothed with glory.”

It continues with the words we heard earlier today from the first letter of John [3:2-3]:

“Here and now, dear friends, we are God’s children.

What we shall be has not yet been revealed;

but we know that when he appears, we shall be like him,

            for we shall see him as he is.

Those who have this hope purify themselves as Christ is pure.”

This morning we have celebrated a baptism, and we are holding our yearly remembrance with thanksgiving for those who have gone before us into death.  This scripture is key in connecting the dots for us today, because they are connected in a deep way.

            Both baptisms and memorials are reminders that we are on a journey that moves us forward toward a destination we haven’t seen yet, but that lies somewhere ahead in God’s eternity.  We know where we come from.  We have some idea of where we are.  We trust God for where we will end up.

            Where we come from is that we are part of God’s creation.  God made everything and called it good.  Don’t ever let anybody tell you that Christianity says that people are born sinful.  What we say is that babies are born into a sinful world, and that all human beings who live in this world are connected to one another, which means that we begin to get messed up from the earliest point onward.  We need help from one another and from God to muddle through.

                        “With God’s help we will proclaim the good news

                                    and live according to the example of Christ.

                        We will surround these persons

                                    with a community of love and forgiveness,

                                    that they may grow in their trust of God,

                                    and be found faithful in their service to others.

                        We will pray for them,

                                    that they may be true disciples

who walk in the way that leads to life.”[1]

All human beings are children of God, but baptism brings us from the yard into the house and sets us down at the table, and says, “Here you go.  This is what you need to grow strong.  Mind your manners.  Now, eat up, and then you can have seconds.”

            We need that.  We need it, because we are meant to grow.  Baptism is a beginning, not an endpoint.  It tells us where we are.  We are tangled up in the world’s shortcomings, but they are not what define us.  If we want to know who we are, we don’t see it in ourselves, we see it in Jesus, the one person who lived successfully free of their constraints, free of sin.  That is who we emulate because that is who we also were meant to be.  We were meant to be people who embody God’s love, as he totally and completely embodied it.

“Here and now, dear friends, we are God’s children.

What we shall be has not yet been revealed;

but we know that when he appears, we shall be like him,

            for we shall see him as he is.”

No, we are not there yet.  But that is the direction that we are headed, the direction that God points us, and the place that, by God’s grace, we will go.  So we are expected to do our part, too.

“Those who have this hope purify themselves as Christ is pure.”

            The value in taking time to remember people whose earthly lives have run their course is in recognizing just how much God has done in and through them.  It isn’t that we celebrate people as being perfect or sinless.  It is that we celebrate how much good God does though the ordinary, flawed, sometimes loveable and sometimes aggravating, sometimes beloved and sometimes annoying people that are part of our own ordinary, flawed, loveable, aggravating, beloved, annoying lives.

            The promise of where we are going is summed up in that.  If God can and does build his kingdom on earth through people like us, then we can expect amazing things even of ourselves when we are more fully in God’s presence after death and better able to live by his grace alone.

“Here and now, dear friends, we are God’s children.

What we shall be has not yet been revealed.”

Or, as Paul said,

“For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see

face to face.  Now I know only in part; then I will know

fully, even as I have been fully known.”  [I Corinthians 13:12]

---

[1] Prayer from “The Baptismal Covenant I” in The United Methodist Hymnal (Nashville: The United Methodist Publishing House, 1989), p. 35.

"Tax Policy" - October 19, 2014

Matthew 22:15-22

“Tax Policy”

October 19, 2014

How do you balance conflicting loyalties?

You are a religious Jew living in a land occupied by a foreign army and are asked to pay taxes that will ultimately support the occupation.  If you don’t pay them, the army may take it out on everyone by force.  What’s worse, the coins that are in circulation picture the emperor as a god, so you who are a part of a people who have been taught to avoid idolatry at all costs and to worship God and God alone are now being asked to carry what is essentially a pagan idol in your pocket to pay those taxes. 

“Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?” [Matthew 22:17]

What’s the answer?  When the Pharisees asked Jesus that question, it was because they “plotted to entrap him in what he said.” [Matthew 22:15]  No matter whether he said, “Yes,” or, “No,” he could be made out to be disloyal, whether to his own people or to the ruling authorities or to God. 

Thank goodness none of us ever find ourselves trying to make decisions like that.  None of us ever have to evaluate whether to vote for a political candidate with whom we agree on some things and disagree on others.  None of us ever have to ask how far we can allow latitude for disagreement before we compromise our integrity.

Within the United Methodist Church these days, that’s a big question for clergy, because of the same-sex marriage issue.  Those who believe the time has come to allow it are nonetheless under the operating rules of the Book of Discipline that strictly forbids United Methodist clergy from officiating, and the Book of Discipline can only be altered by General Conference, which meets every four years.  The next session is in Portland in 2016 and is unlikely to make that change.  So they are stuck between loyalties.  Those who oppose it find themselves part of a denomination where they feel that a large proportion of people have forsaken biblical standards and they wonder if, by remaining, they are supporting an organization that they consider to be on the edge of corruption.

How do you balance conflicting loyalties?

Sports teams now regularly hold games and practice on Sundays.  Even if they stay away from Sunday morning, which is not always the case, an away game held across the county or further that starts at 1:00 means that players need to be on the road by 11:00 or so.  (By the way, you will often see an acolyte at our early service wearing a uniform so that they can both go to church and play in a game.  Not every church has an 8:30 service, though.)  The recognition that is offered to athletes in our society at all levels is pervasive, and the desire to belong is very strong in children and adolescents.  Parents want the best for their children, and sports teach them many important lessons.  At the same time that both the kids and the parents recognize the importance of Sunday School and church, if they skip church no one is going to say they cannot be here next week.  If they miss practice or a game, that may very well be it for the season.  The next thing you know, it has been months since we’ve seen them.

How do you balance conflicting loyalties?

Have you ever heard the term “Sandwich Generation”?  It refers to people of a certain age who may be the parents of those kids on the sports teams or who are in school plays or taking tuba lessons or who need extra help with their school work or a ride to Brownies; people who also have older parents who need a ride to the doctor or have to get to the Acme because they just ran out of eggs, milk, and butter yesterday and the forecast is for six inches of snow tonight; people who have been asked to work overtime this evening because that same snow storm may close work tomorrow.

How do you balance conflicting loyalties?

You know that your family needs the support you give them through the wages you earn.  There are taxes to be paid.  There are insurance bills and co-pays.  PECO does not accept payment in chickens and eggs.  So you work long hours to make ends meet, so long that your husband or wife, who is also working hard, has already turned in by the time you get home three or four nights a week.

Jesus’ answer about loyalties was brilliant in the way it threw things back onto the people trying to entrap him. 

“Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” [Matthew 22:21]

Basically, he’s putting into words what we all know: that there are hard choices to make and that we make them, like it or not; and that they cannot be made without remembering to include God in your calculations.  The Pharisees were asking for one, hard-and-fast rule.  He refused to give that, but insisted instead that people consult their consciences.

That could mean that people of good faith could very well end up on opposite sides of the most difficult questions.  There’s a story about how Rose Kennedy taught her children about voting.  She is said to have told them, “When you enter the voting booth and the curtain closes behind you,” (which is how the machines were designed in those days), “there will be a lot of little levers that you can ignore.  There will be two larger ones, labeled ‘Republican’ and ‘Democrat’.  If you press the one marked ‘Republican’, God will strike you dead.”  You do know that’s a joke, right?  You do also know, I hope, that you should pray very seriously about every decision that you make as a citizen.

In fact, every major decision should be made with prayer, regardless of whether it’s a public or a private matter.  It’s safe to say that God likes to be consulted on things, and that our own lives turn out better when we take the time to do that.  That is a good principle to observe when the trickiest conflicts come along.  Marilynne Robinson, who won the Pulitzer Prize in 2005 for her novel Gilead, is someone who is good at lifting up the complexities of life.  She says of herself,

“I find that my praying turns into thinking.  It’s like trying to contain something, and then perhaps it turns into prayer.  It’s almost impossible for me to maintain it as a purely distinct activity.”[1]

That is just as it should be.  Pray with your mind, and think with your prayer.  That is balance, and how to find it.  Then, and only then, will you know the best way to “give to God the things that are God’s.”  [Matthew 22:21]

            Whatever is left over, the emperor may have.

---

[1] Marilynne Robinson, interviewed by Sarah Pulliam Bailey, found at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/08/marilynne-robinson-lila_n_5955202.html?ncid=fcbklnkushpmg00000051

"Called and Chosen" - October 12, 2014

Matthew 22:1-14

This is one of those parables that leaves me saying, “You have to have been there to get it.”

On the surface, what you have is a deeply disturbing story.  There’s a wedding and the king who is the father of the groom invites guests who don’t come.  Some of them send their regrets even though their excuses are lame.  Others decided it’s their chance to make a political statement and it gets very ugly.

“‘Tell those who have been invited: Look, I have prepared my dinner, my oxen and my fat calves have been slaughtered, and everything is ready; come to the wedding banquet.’ But they made light of it and went away, one to his farm, another to his business, while the rest seized his slaves, maltreated them, and killed them.”  [Matthew 22:4-7]

That’s when the king loses his temper.  It’s the end of the road for some of them.  When the smoke clears, he has random people dragged in off the street to the wedding banquet.

So far so good.  It’s an understandable, if extreme, response.

Then the weird part is tacked on.

“When the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing a wedding robe, and he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding robe?’ And he was speechless.  Then the king said to the attendants, ‘Bind him hand and foot, and throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ For many are called, but few are chosen.”  [Matthew 22:11-14]

How is it that someone who hadn’t planned on being there can be blamed for not being dressed for the occasion?

Like I say, you have to have been there.

Last spring, we held an event at Steel City Coffeehouse at the corner of Bridge and Main Sts.  We called it “The Spring Thaw Concert”.  I’ll spare you a lot of the details, but it took a good bit of legwork to pull off.  When the evening of the concert arrived, I got there and found that the staff hadn’t been notified of the nature of the event and had written on the signboard that the place was reserved for a private party.  I had that changed right away.  It was about an hour before the concert.

The musician arrived thirty minutes later.  He had called earlier in the day to let me know that he would be a solo act instead of half of a duo because the bass player’s grandmother in Ireland had died the day before and he was on his way across the Atlantic for the funeral.

Fifteen minutes later, a friend I had invited arrived and stationed himself near the door, against the wall.  Five minutes afterward, two people from church came in.  The soundcheck began.  It was concert time, with three people there.  That’s when the evening switched from a fundraising event to an outreach event.

The bouncer and I went out onto the sidewalk and began to invite people in as they went by.  “Free concert and free refreshments tonight!”  “Got some good music going on.”  “First United Methodist is throwing a concert tonight.”  As it turned out, it was an unusually slow night all along Bridge St. and even Molly Maguire’s was looking empty, but a few people did wander in.  “Free music and free coffee!”

I enjoyed talking to the bouncer, and we did have time to talk.  I also enjoyed talking with some of the people who sat down for awhile.  There was one woman who was there with her son, who was about eleven years old.  She told me she goes to a Mormon church and then pointed to her coffee and whispered, “But I do indulge sometimes.”  The couple who were there from the church shared a pizza that they had brought with a younger couple who had come in.  All of that was fine.

There were some people, however, who just came in for a minute or two, saw that the place was pretty much empty, and went right back out.  I found myself becoming annoyed at them more than anybody else.  What got me was that they just didn’t give the whole thing a chance.

So when I read the parable now, I think I see something that I didn’t see before I found myself in a position similar to the father of the groom.  I see that there’s an incredible sense of frustration that comes along when something really good (and the music was terrific) is placed in front of someone unexpectedly and freely and when you go out on a limb to do that, and then it is turned down.

God offers us human beings a chance to be part of the exciting life of his kingdom.  He offers us a chance to hear its music and enjoy a seat at his own table.  He has gone to a good deal of trouble, and in the person of his Son has endured infinite pain so that the doors are open.  Then we human beings do what?  Yawn?

The wedding clothes that he looks for are not the outward things.  They represent the joy of being there, the surprise of being called to the party, the appreciation of God’s great generosity, the awareness of the amazing grace that saves a wretch like me.  They represent the sort of excited response that we call “discipleship”. 

“As they were going along the road, someone said to him, ‘I will follow you wherever you go.’ And Jesus said to him, ‘Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.’ To another he said, ‘Follow me.’ But he said, ‘Lord, first let me go and bury my father.’ But Jesus said to him, ‘Let the dead bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.’ Another said, ‘I will follow you, Lord; but let me first say farewell to those at my home.’  Jesus said to him, ‘No one who puts a hand to the plough and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.’”  [Luke 9:57-62]

Jesus was not some uncaring person who had no feeling for people’s physical, social, and emotional needs.  Far from it!  He did, however, have the awareness that discipleship includes a sense of urgency and isn’t anything to be brushed off or minimized.

            We are all called into the kingdom, and from there we are chosen for the excitement of discipleship.  So get ready.  John Wesley summed up what might or might not be asked of a disciple when he wrote a prayer that we often use around New Year’s.

“I am no longer my own, but thine.

Put me to what thou wilt, rank me with whom thou wilt.

Put me to doing, put me to suffering.

Let me be employed for thee or laid aside for thee,

exalted for thee or brought low for thee.

Let me be full, let me be empty.

Let me have all things, let me have nothing.

I freely and heartily yield all things to thy pleasure and disposal.”

Again, I say, “Get ready.”

"Other Tenants" - October 5, 2014

Matthew 21:33-46

            Usually, World Communion Sunday means a celebration of the way that faith in Christ is found in all parts of the world.  We have included part of that aspect today.  We have music drawn from different nations.  We have cloths on the altar that represent different parts of the world.  The bread we will use at communion is made up of many types that people around the world see on their table and think of when they pray, “Give us this day our daily bread.”  I hope that on the first Sunday of October, 2015 I will be standing right here saying something that simply highlights the variety of ways that the Lord is honored around the globe.  Today, however, because the Body of Christ is one in all the earth, I just will say a brief word about one part of the Body.

            In our day we are seeing, under tragic circumstances, a cataclysmic change in the Middle East.  We are seeing the suffering that is forcing the change and the suffering that the change produces.  Paul said that

“If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it.”  [I Corinthians 12:26]

That is part of what it means for us to be one. 

            Christianity is evaporating in the Middle East.  I hesitate to say anything about that area of the world because almost everything anyone says gets drawn into the vortex of issues that surround the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and the Iraqi Wars, and the role of the oil companies, and the disputes between the Kurds and Turks, and the arguments between Hamas and Fatah, and the shifting alliances among the Syrians and Egyptians and Lebanese and Saudis and Yemenis and the United Arab Emirates.  It’s the sort of mess where even simple facts are hard to determine because it’s all tainted with bias of one sort or another.  I do think that the BBC, the British Broadcasting Corporation is a reliable source.  In 2010, one of their reporters wrote, “A century ago, 20% of the population in the region was Christian. Today Christians account for only about 5% and their numbers are still dwindling.”[1]  Since the current terrorism has broken out in Syria and Iraq, thousands upon thousands of people have died or fled.  Not all of them are Christian, but many are, and the exodus of Christians from places where the faith flourished in its earliest days has left the area with a far lower proportion of Christians than at any time since the days of the Roman Empire.

            Let me, however, look back to those days and even earlier.  The Church began on the day of Pentecost in Jerusalem, and flourished there.  It began to spread quickly.  The apostle Phillip shared the faith with a high official from Ethiopia, who carried it to Africa.  There were at least some disciples in Damascus by the time of Paul’s conversion, somewhere around 40 A.D., give or take a couple of years.  Nevertheless, the bulk of the community remained centered on Jerusalem.  And then, the book of Acts [8:1] tells us,

“a severe persecution began against the church in Jerusalem, and all except the apostles were scattered throughout the countryside of Judea and Samaria.”

Later on it says that people traveled even further afield.

“Now those who were scattered because of the persecution that took place over Stephen travelled as far as Phoenicia, [that means modern Lebanon] Cyprus, and Antioch, [which could refer to a city in Syria or one in Turkey] and they spoke the word to no one except Jews.” [Acts 11:19]

Even with those limitations, precisely because of the persecution, Christianity was on its way to becoming a world religion, no longer connected to a specific place or geography, the way that Judaism still focuses on Jerusalem and the Muslims focus on Mecca.  So, as terrible as it was, God used that time of trouble for good.  What Jesus had spoken of was coming to pass, when he had foreseen the kingdom of God becoming the common citizenship of many nations.

“‘Listen to another parable. There was a landowner who planted a vineyard, put a fence around it, dug a wine press in it, and built a watch-tower. Then he leased it to tenants and went to another country. When the harvest time had come, he sent his slaves to the tenants to collect his produce. But the tenants seized his slaves and beat one, killed another, and stoned another. Again he sent other slaves, more than the first; and they treated them in the same way. Finally he sent his son to them, saying, “They will respect my son.” But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, “This is the heir; come, let us kill him and get his inheritance.” So they seized him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him. Now when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?’ They said to him, ‘He will put those wretches to a miserable death, and lease the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the produce at the harvest time.’” [Matthew 21:33-41]

That didn’t go over well.  It never goes over well when anybody says that your most cherished and deeply-rooted customs are not always going to be “all that and a bag of chips”.

            The story of the world, what we call history, isn’t about any one culture or any one people.  It isn’t even entirely about people at all.  It’s about how God’s grace works itself out in the world, among people and among nations and cultures and languages. 

            The poet Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote a poem with the scary title “That Nature Is a Heracletian Fire and of the Comfort of the Resurrection”.  The first part of it is about how everything decays and falls apart and the sense of despair makes him think of himself as a ship in a storm, then at the last moment he draws up short and says,

                                                “…Enough! the Resurrection,

A heart’s-clarion!  Away grief’s gasping, ‘joyless days, dejection.

                        Across my foundering deck shone

A beacon, and eternal beam.’  Flesh fade, and mortal trash

Fall to the residuary worm: ‘ world’s wildfire, leave but ash:

                        In a flash, at a trumpet crash,

I am all at once what Christ is, ‘ since he was what I am, and

This Jack, joke, poor potsherd, ‘ patch, matchwood, immortal diamond,

                        Is immortal diamond.”

Tragic events are part of history and part of our lives: tragic events, but not tragedy, because the end of it all lies in God’s hands, not ours, and God has this habit of turning things in directions we little suspect, and always – always – for the good.

---

[1] David Willey, “Rome ‘Crisis’ Talks on Middle East Christians” October 10, 2010.  Found at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-11509256

"If You Can Keep It" - September 28, 2014

Matthew 21:23-32

You’ve probably heard the story about how, when the U.S. Constitution was being hammered out, which was done behind closed doors, a group of curious and anxious citizens gathered outside Independence Hall and caught Benjamin Franklin as he was coming out and asked him, “Dr. Franklin, what form of government are you going to give us?” to which he replied, “A republic, if you can keep it.”  There’s a certain sense in which you could say the same thing about the Church. 

On the one hand, there is the kingdom of God, which is the sum total of all people who live under the merciful, kind, and righteous guidance of the Holy Spirit.  There’s something mysterious and miraculous about the kingdom.  It is not a human creation, but is given by God.  It transcends nations and centuries and even time, as those who are part of it receive eternal life as a gift from God in Christ.  It even goes beyond the human race, as when we celebrate the Lord’s Supper and offer our praise, “with angels and archangels and all the company of heaven”.  When someone is baptized, it is a way that God confirms that person’s welcome into the kingdom, which is why no one is ever baptized United Methodist or Roman Catholic or Presbyterian or Syrian Orthodox.  All are baptized simply as Christian.  That’s why we do not rebaptize anybody.  That would be like taking someone and saying we need to reattach the umbilical cord and then cut it off again.

On the other hand, as human beings who live in a specific time and a specific place, we live with particular details to our lives.  All humans need food, but last night I had a salad and a slice of meatloaf.  We all dream, but we dream about different things.  Everyone has different abilities and talents and interests, but we are all bring something to the whole.  In that sense, although the kingdom of God is general and the result of the action of God through Jesus’ ministry and the work of the Holy Spirit, the Church as we know it is the way that kingdom shows up in concrete and specific ways in our world in our day in our setting through our choices and activities.

That’s where this parable about two sons comes into the picture.  Jesus said this:

“‘What do you think? A man had two sons; he went to the first and said, “Son, go and work in the vineyard today.” He answered, “I will not”; but later he changed his mind and went. The father went to the second and said the same; and he answered, “I go, sir”; but he did not go. Which of the two did the will of his father?’ They said, ‘The first.’ Jesus said to them, ‘Truly I tell you, the tax-collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you. For John came to you in the way of righteousness and you did not believe him, but the tax-collectors and the prostitutes believed him; and even after you saw it, you did not change your minds and believe him.’”  [Matthew 21:28-32]

Jesus told this story to put the religious people of his day on the spot.  I believe that it still does.  It doesn’t call into question anybody’s place in the kingdom.  Both sons in the story remain sons of their father.  It does, however, highlight the way that we live as part of the Church.

            Let me be blunt.  There are a lot of things that need to be done and only get done when somebody does them.  “What form of government are you going to give us?” “A republic, if you can keep it.”  “What kind of Church are you going to give us?”  “Good question.  It’s up to you.”

            There are many ways of organizing a local church.  Some of them are, in my eyes, better than others.  There are some churches where the people expect the pastor to make all the decisions and to give orders and he -- because this kind of church rarely allows women to hold office -- he expects his orders to be carried out.  For example, an Amish bishop declares how long a man’s hair should be and what color dress a woman may wear, and everybody goes along with it.  Aside from that degree of micromanagement, that is not the United Methodist way, nor that of most mainline Protestant groups.  I do not say, “Go and work in the soup kitchen,” and someone says, “I go, sir!”  What we do is have set groups that are responsible for various areas of ministry and I go to people and say, “Would you be willing to chair the Missions Committee?” or “Would you consider serving on the Trustees?” or “We need some new blood on the Administrative Council and the Finance Committee,” and then wait for an answer.

            The problem that I have, that we have, is that a lot of people give the second son’s answer: “I will not,” and really mean it, and don’t ever reconsider like he did.  That is not to say there aren’t good reasons for saying, “No, I cannot do that right now.”  If that’s the answer, that’s fine.  I especially appreciate a direct “no” when it comes from someone who has at least considered things and either has a full plate or knows that they just are not cut out for a specific task.  The apostle James [3:1] pointed out that “  and he was right.  A bad teacher can do a lot of damage.  But if someone is a good teacher, they should be teaching.  The same is true of all other areas of service. 

            So here’s the deal.  In the bulletin is an insert that lists a lot of the positions that we are going to need people to serve in the coming year.  Think back to the spiritual gifts inventory that we did at this time last year, and consider what God has equipped you for.  Please look it over and pray it over, and see where your name should appear. 

            Jesus pointed out to the people of his day that when the expected people didn’t always step forward, God would raise up people from beyond the religious community, people that Matthew identifies as “the tax-collectors and the prostitutes.”  I really don’t think we’re at that point, but I do trust that if we were, the Lord would find the right people.  It would just be sad for the ones who had the first opportunity and missed out on it.  We’ve been given a Church and it’s up to us to keep it.

In back of the church, in the narthex, are the pictures of all sorts of people who served in all sorts of different ways.  There is Richard Allen, who was born into slavery in Delaware and worked as a free laborer in Philadelphia, who became a great preacher and an advocate for social justice and for thirty-four years was part of the Underground Railroad.  There is Susanna Wesley, the wife of an Anglican priest and the mother of a large family, who was a tremendous teacher of the Bible and led classes in her kitchen that sometimes were better attended than her husband’s worship services.  There is Thomas Webb, who was a captain in the British army and whose gifts of both preaching and administration helped to start a church in New York that survived the American Revolution and the destruction of the World Trade Center in 2001.  There is Jane Addams, who helped immigrants find their place in a new country, and Martin Luther, who thought he was just being a good New Testament professor when he started up a reform movement that has been stirring up the Church for about five centuries now.

In the same place you will find a box where I invite you to place one of these service offering slips, today or next Sunday.  On the side are the words, “I go.”

"Condemnation" - September 14, 2014

John 3:13-17

“God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world.” 

What exactly does that mean?  How would anyone find themselves condemned by God living among us?  Isn’t it a good thing that God lived among us in Jesus?  Well, yes, but… It isn’t always such a comforting thing to be around someone whose life is so pristine, so pure, so (in Jesus’ case) perfect.  A bright light casts a sharp shadow, after all, and one that is focused will show the flaws in even the best diamond.  Jesus, simply by being who he is, can make the rest of the human race terribly aware of the things that are wrong with us. 

            When I was in college, I took organic chemistry, which was torture for me.  I’ll spare you the details.  No, honestly – I’m sparing myself details that I don’t want to remember.  I will note, though, that I was not the only student who struggled with the intricacies of synthesizing carbon tetrachloride from a can of Pepsi and a bottle of White-Out, or whatever we were supposed to do.  I know that because the professor one day, shortly after we had all gotten the results of our midterm exam, announced, “I just want to comment that a lot of you have said that you thought the exam had some unfair questions on it.  There was, however, somebody in this room who had a perfect score.  If he or she wouldn’t mind, would they identify themselves?”  And one hand went up, one hand attached to somebody sitting in the very front row (of course).  All around the room arose a low, echoing, universal “Boooo!”  Here was the person who had ruined, completely ruined the grading curve for everyone else.  Other people had struggled and strained and done their best, and for what? 

            It isn’t the folks who don’t care who get upset when they are confronted with someone better.  It’s the ones who have something riding on their own efforts.  I had to keep my grade point average up to maintain a scholarship.  A lot of other folks in that room wanted a good grade in organic chemistry on their transcripts before they applied to medical school.  Nobody wanted anyone else to fail, and I don’t think anyone really wished anything bad for the next person.  Having somebody in the class score a 100, though, was out of the question and there was real resentment in that booing, along with the laughter.  He wasn’t trying to show us all up, but that was the effect.

            You know who got angry with Jesus?  It wasn’t the people who knew that they weren’t going to make the grade.  It wasn’t the Samaritans and the prostitutes and the tax collectors and the lepers and the untouchables who generally had a problem with him.  They welcomed him.  He didn’t threaten them in any way.  They already knew where they stood.  They were at the bottom, and for Jesus to enter their lives was an honor.  It was God’s declaration that they were every bit as important as the more respectable folks.  No, the people who got upset with Jesus were those respectable folks themselves, the scribes and the Pharisees. 

Those were people that Jesus pointed out to his disciples as being good teachers.   

“Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples, ‘The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat; therefore, do whatever they teach you and follow it;” [Matthew 23:1-3]

He knew that in many ways, they got it.  They knew right from wrong.  They knew the way that things should be.  But he also knew their failings and said,

“but do not do as they do, for they do not practice what they teach.” [Matthew 23:3]

He troubled them because he understood their shortcomings, which were as often as not the unseen things of the heart.  He understood, as they did, that what was inside did not always match the outside.

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint, dill, and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. It is these you ought to have practiced without neglecting the others. You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel!

 Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and of the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup, so that the outside also may become clean.

 Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which on the outside look beautiful, but inside they are full of the bones of the dead and of all kinds of filth. So you also on the outside look righteous to others, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.”  [Matthew 23:23-28]

That was why they found Jesus threatening.  He hit a nerve.  He messed up the grading curve.

            No wonder he had to let people know that wasn’t what he was there for.  He didn’t come into the world to condemn it.  There’s enough condemnation around already, and much of it comes from the people who try hard but still miss the mark, and end up judging themselves.  Then along comes Jesus, who gets everything right, both the letter and the spirit, and they see their failures and feel them sharply. Jesus came to help them as much as the folks who could use an obvious dose of forgiveness.  It’s just so very hard for people in that spot to open up enough about the needs of their souls to leave room for grace and mercy.  It’s hard to be the one who comes in second or third all the time. 

Nicodemus Visiting Jesus
               by Henry Ossawa Tanner

This very passage, where Jesus declares his purpose, is part of a discussion that he has with a man named Nicodemus, who was a Pharisee and a member of the ruling council, the Sanhedrin, that would eventually pass judgment on Jesus and hand him over to the Romans.  Nicodemus needed desperately to speak with Jesus at this point in his life, but he would only approach him after dark. [John 3:1]  When he did approach him, though, Jesus helped Nicodemus immensely, and even though he called himself old [John 3:4], Jesus helped him to experience the renewing power of God’s Spirit.  He changed in a way that gave him courage to stand up for Jesus at his trial in a way that no one else was able or willing to do, and to be one of the two people who risked their own position to give his body a decent burial.

            He came to help the people who fail big-time, but also the people whose shortcomings are known to them alone.  He came to help, not to embarrass, the person who tries and tries and tries to be kind, but often does it with resentment inside or with gritted teeth.  He came to help, not to make things worse for, the person who knows who knows to love God with heart and soul and mind and strength, but just cannot manage to love that neighbor God has asked him to love.  Jesus came to help, not to put down, the people who come so very close to getting things right but mess up at the very last moment every time.

“God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.” [John 3:17] 

            I’ve wondered, from time to time, why the chemistry professor asked the wunderkind to hold up his hand.  Surely he knew, and surely the professor knew, what kind of response would follow.  Maybe, though, somewhere in the lecture hall that day was someone who instead of being put off was able to see someone who could help.  Maybe there was someone who went up to him afterward and asked if he could explain benzene rings or left-handed chelation.  Maybe there was someone who knew that he was being put forward, at some risk to himself, because he could raise someone from a “B” to an “A”, or keep somebody else from failing.  Maybe there were a lot of such people. 

Maybe it wasn’t actually about explaining why so many grades were lower than expected, but about who could help us learn the actual material.  Maybe the real lesson had to do with more than chemistry.  Maybe it has taken me a long, long time to see that.

What do you suppose God was doing when he sent the Son into the world, knowing how we would respond?  Could it be that he wasn’t condemning the world, but saving it?