Stay Salty (Matthew 5:13; Mark 9:49-50; Luke 14:34-35)

Sunday, October 9, 2016

            Several of our youth are into sports – ultimate Frisbee, soccer, basketball, gymnastics, parkour, and cross country.  This past Thursday I__ Tennant and J__ Baker competed in a middle school cross country meet.  The Bakers and Candy and I are very grateful that youth leaders from our church came out to see the event.  Kelly and Jared Heinly came and so did Enam and Carlin Jordan.

            On this course, the runners started on the football field, headed into the woods, ran a loop, and then came of the woods for a final 100 yard sprint across the football field to the finish line.  We gathered around field, watched them begin and disappear into the woods, and then 10-15 minutes emerged for the final sprint to the finish.  The first 5 or 6 came through – the top runners, and we cheered them to the finish.

            Then came the next group.  These are fast kids but not quite at the top.  A couple of theme came out of the woods, one from Culbreth Middle School, one from Smith Middle School.  As they sped up field, the Culbreth runner tried to get to a line where he’d have a straight shot to the finish.  In doing this, he shoulder checked the runner from Smith and sent him sprawling.  The body check would make a hockey coach smile.  I thought it might have been intentional until I saw what came next. 

            He took three steps and abruptly stopped.  He whirled around to check on the Smith runner and helped him to his feet.  The Smith runner quickly shrugged off the fall.  And a second later the two of them were furiously racing toward the finish. 

            How do you feel about what happened?  As I watched it, a voice inside me shouted, “No, don’t help him up.  This is competition and you’re losing time.”  It is good that in high school I played football, where knocking people down is sanctioned.  But, as a 46-year-old pastor who believes that while competition is valuable in sports but cooperation is more helpful in life, I have great admiration for what this kid did. 

Imagine the cross country meet as a metaphor for life. Two attitudes are in play.  One attitude is I must win at the expense of others.  If knocking someone down and even hurting them helps me, I’ll knock them down and hurt them.  Winning is the top value.  This attitude defines winning in terms of accumulation, accolades, accomplishment.  How many awards do I have?  How much do I own?  My winning stands on comparison.  In order for me to win, you must lose.  That’s the attitude of the runner who knocks the other over and never looks back.

            A second attitude is I must do my best while helping others do their best so that together we can create beautiful things.   And all can share in this beauty.  In this attitude, I will give up things – possessions, time, money; I will give of myself in order to help others flourish.  This is what I saw in the cross country meet.  The boy stopped, sacrificing his own time, in order to help his competition.  Then together, they created something magnificent: a photo finish as they raced hard down the final 100 yards.  It’s the highlight of any race, and it happened when a kid made a choice, the kind of choice a disciple makes.

            Following Jesus is awareness of and openness to the Holy Spirit.  And it is a series of daily choices; daily choosing to walk the path Jesus sets before us.  I mention the Holy Spirit before getting into us making choices based on who we are in Christ because we have to keep in mind that we are not generators of good.  God is the giver of good things and our daily contact with God is the ever present Holy Spirit.  Choosing the right actions and words is impossible without the Spirit’s help.  We have to keep our mind on God and listen to the Spirit constantly.  When we do, we are empowered to live in Christ.  The choices we make, like the choice to help a fallen runner, reveal that we are in Christ.

            One of the images of a disciple in the New Testament is salt.  Jesus told his followers, “You are the salt of the earth.”  The Gospel writers Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John wrote 30-60 years after the resurrection.  Each one had sources: people they talked to who had been with Jesus; traditions that had become established in the early church; their own memories and experiences; and the Holy Spirit.  Each wrote his gospel with a particular audience in mind and with a specific narrative slant.  They weren’t just telling the story of Jesus.  They were telling it in a way intended to shape the church as the nascent body of Christ matured moving from the first into the second century. 

            Matthew, Mark, and Luke, all remembered Jesus’ statement about disciples being salt.  You are the salt of the earth.  They each remembered it differently. 

            In Matthew, Jesus is in the opening of his great Sermon on the Mount.  He has given the beatitudes.  “Blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted; blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they will be filled;” and so on.  And then Jesus says, “You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored?” 

            Candy will be making something – she’s wonderful cook – and she calls me in the kitchen, shoves a spoon in my mouth, and asks, “Does it need more salt?”  I am the kind of eater that really doesn’t know the answer.  I just shovel food in.  I__ has a much more refined palette.  I answer her with a shrug of the shoulders.  He answers with great confidence.  Yes, more salt!

            Matthew takes Jesus’ use of salt to mean taste.  Does salt make the soup taste better?  Does a disciple make the world better?  With God speaking through our lives, how do we exert a beneficial influence in the world around us? 

            How do we add the flavor of heaven to situations of our lives? It could be a simple matter of doing something with honesty when everyone in the crowd cheats or takes shortcuts and calls you childish for not joining them.  You’re not behaving with integrity because you want to broadcast your own righteousness.  You just do the right thing because you are a Christ follower.  You don’t call attention to yourself.  But your choice indicates that something is going on inside you.  That “something” is God at work in you.  Whether the choice is integrity when others cheat, generosity when others hoard, the choice to turn the other cheek metaphorically or literally, or the choice to not do something like view a raunchy movie or laugh at a crude joke, the choice will season that entire situation with the flavor of heaven. 

            People around you might not appreciate such divine seasoning.  They may want to bask in being ungodly.  Jesus did not say, “You are the salt of the earth and will become rich and popular when you do the right thing.”  Being the salt might be hard sometimes but the flavor we add, the flavor of heaven, is sorely needed even by people who think they don’t want it.  Put plainly, people who don’t know Christ and those who do need to see how a Christ-follower thinks and acts in daily situations of life.  Know the Gospels.  Stay in tune with the Holy Spirit.  And sprinkle the flavoring of heaven all around.  Stay salty.

            Mark also includes Jesus’ teaching about salt in his gospel, but frames it differently.  Jesus says in Mark 9, “Everyone will be salted with fire.  … Have salt in yourselves and be at peace with one another.”  Salted with fire sounds odd.  Jesus is shamelessly mixing metaphors.  He has in mind preservation and perseverance.

            Salt is a preservative and Jesus wants the faith he’s planting in his disciples to last.  He wants them, as leaders in the church that will be born after his ascension, to preserve the community of his followers.  He has just finished saying “If your foot causes you to stumble [meaning sin] cut it off; it is better for you to enter life lame than to have two feet and to be cast into hell” (9:46).  Mark’s Jesus does not say “Be the salt or stay salty,” he says, “Everyone is salted.”  Everyone goes through temptation and persecution.  Do we come out of it stronger in our faith or do we abandon faith?

            I recommend adding the Voice of the Martyrs email updates to your own prayer life.  Voice of the Martyrs tracks Christianity around the world and especially in places where other religions are dominant, like Hinduism or Islam.  VOM sends accounts of the ways Christians suffer – job loss, imprisonment, physical attack, and even death.  VOM urges the church worldwide to persevere in prayer so that the church in areas of persecution may be preserved. 

A regular discipline of praying for persecuted Christians can do two things.  First it connects us to believers around the world and gives us a voice on their behalf as we go to our God for them.  Second, as we enter the stories of real, present day persecution, we are heartened to strengthen our witness when it feels like it is hard to be a Christian in our own lives.  Jesus says in Mark 9, “Have salt within yourselves.”  We’ve been salted.  We receive in order to build up the church’s witness in the world.

Stay salty and spread the flavor of Heaven.

Be salted and persevere when following Jesus is a hard thing to do.

What does Luke remember of Jesus when he remembers the teaching about salt as a metaphor for discipleship?

In Luke 14, Jesus says, “Salt is good; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored?  It is fit for neither the soil, nor the manure pile.”  Luke initially sounds like Matthew, talking about lost taste.  But then he says ineffective salt is unfit for the manure pile.  What does that mean?

Religion Professor Anthony Bradley sites studies of agricultural uses of salt.[i]  This is not flavoring, nor is it a preservative.  The salt is needed for the fertilizer to stimulate growth.  The context in which Luke cites Jesus is a teaching about hard discipleship.  Jesus has just said, “Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brother and sister, yes, even life itself, cannot be my disciple.  Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple” (14:26-27).  Jesus doesn’t want us to literally hate our families or our own lives.  He uses extreme language to make the point that being true to Him has to be a top priority above else. In a world that will either ignore us, mock us, or harm us, remaining faithful is the mark of a real disciple. 

Moreover, by making the decision to follow Jesus no matter the circumstances, no matter the cost, we encourage other disciples and our perseverance stimulates growth in them.  In America, we won’t deal with physical harm because of our faith.  We mentioned this when we discuss Mark’s uses of Jesus’ salt image as a marker of perseverance.  There we join with our brothers and sisters in other parts of the world, areas where faith may literally lead to risking one’s life or willingly losing one’s life.  In America, we are more likely to see Christian witness marginalized.  When that happens, we stand as disciples and speak out as disciples. 

We raise our voice so that the truth about Jesus – the truth that Jesus is Lord and Salvation can be had in Him – is told.  In this effort – the work of verbal witness and commitment in spite of marginalization – in this, we encourage the faith of others.  We become stimulants in the soil of fellow believers’ lives. 

I had a friend in the National Guard who was salt in my own life in the manners Jesus mentions in Luke 14.  Enlisted infantrymen in the National Guard use down time to tall crude joke and raunchy misogynistic stories, most of which aren’t true.  Or, in the down time, soldiers debate politics, argue about movies, and talk about religion.  Preston Willifred and I discovered each other, two committed Christians in the guard.  He never laughed at the dirty jokes.  If I did, he called me on it, harshly, in front of everybody.  Preston was younger than me, but his faith had a boldness that mine lacked in those days.  I admired the strength of his testimony, I tried to duplicate it in my own life.  He was the salt, I was the soil, and a more mature faith was the crop.  Many people in this church family have acted in this for me and for each other. 

Stay salty.  Add the flavor of Heaven to the world around you.

Be salted.  Persevere and preserve the faith of those who are persecuted.

We are salt.  We can stimulate growth in each other and other disciples we meet.

I talked with the young man after the cross country race, just to compliment him on his admirable act of helping a fallen opponent.  His mother told me a story.  In previous race, his legs tangled with another runner and he was the one to fall.  No one stopped to help him.  His legs were cut up pretty badly in the gravel and he was upset, but he finished the meet.  Afterward, talking to his parents, he was mad.  But they encouraged him.  Together, he and his parents decided if it happened in another race and if he had the opportunity, he would help his opponents.  He would do what no one did for him.

Here at church, we are like that conversation he had with his parents.  We are the community that encourages each other to go out into the world and be salt.  The opportunities are going to come.  We will be discouraged in life of following Jesus and we will meet other people who are discouraged.  Here, as we worship together, pray together, and encounter the word together, we build one another up.  Then when we go out we are ready for opportunities we know will come.  We are ready to add the flavor of Heaven, to preserve the faith of those under fire, and to stimulate growth in Christ in those who are discouraged. 

You’ve heard the silly beer ad which says, “Stay thirsty, my friends.”

In Christ, we are brothers and sisters.  “Stay salty.”

AMEN

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[i] A. Bradley (October, 2016), Christianity Today, p.72-76.

He Went with Him

“He Went with Him” (Mark 5:22-43)

Rob Tennant, HillSong Church, Chapel Hill, NC

Sunday, November 8, 2015

          Ok then, today, ecclesiology.

          Say what? Ecclesiology, you say?  What’s that?

          Do what everybody does.  Type it into Google and see what comes up.

          E-c-c-l-e-s-i-o-l-o-g-y …  Ah, the first hit.  The common definition of ecclesiology: that which “refers to the theological study of the Christian Church.”[i] Some of you will find this seriously fascinating.   OK, a few of you.  Others are mentally checking out as I speak.

          Check back in.  I am going to give you my ecclesiology, my thoughts on God and church, but I promise not to use technical terminology. 

Instead, let’s get personal.  “In the midst of our stories, my life, your life, our stories, our lives – how in the middle of it do we each bear the image of God?” 

You and I are created in God’s image.  How do we live the life we were created to live?  As we pay taxes and discipline children and tolerate that intolerable boss and cheer at the football game and complain about the overhyped movie and call the power company about the outage and plan the Thanksgiving trip to grandma’s and recoil as we watch the news TV and vote and deal with cancer and pray – as we live, how do we do it as God’s image bearers?

One of the main purposes of church is to help people live life in Christ.  The church helps the people who make up the body of Christ live as God-worshipers, God-followers, and joyful, thriving witnesses to the truth of the Gospel and the promise of life Jesus gives.  Church does more than that, of course, but what I describe here is, I firmly believe, a crucial aspect of Church.  Church helps all who attend live the abundant life Jesus promised. 

The gospel writer Mark shows a couple of people who were having trouble living that abundant life.  In chapter five we meet a man and then a woman, two image-bearers, who for different reasons were in great pain. 

First came Jairus, a leader in the synagogue.  We don’t know if he initially scoffed at Jesus and the phenomena around him the way many other religious leaders did, or if Jairus had faith from the beginning.  But, when his daughter’s life hung in the balance that did not matter.  His little girl was going to die.  He knew it.  Everyone around him and his family knew it.  The sickness she had brought death.

So he did what dads do – whatever they can for their kids.  Everyone knew Jairus had a prominent role in public life.  He was a synagogue leader.  Everyone knew Jesus was popular, on the rise, and everyone witnessed the tension that was growing between Jesus and religious leaders.  Would Jairus join the chorus of those who critiqued Jesus?  Or would he go out on a limb and support the rabbi from Galilee?

Jesus had recently driven 1000 demons out of a man in the Gentile region of Gerasenes.  The people in that community saw the miracle, feared the power of God, and asked Jesus to leave and he did.  He and the disciples traveled back across the Sea of Galilee.  Upon arrival, Mark writes “fell at [Jesus’] feet and begged him repeatedly” to help (5:23.) 

We see Jairus’ stance.  Did he sing along with his colleagues?  No way!  As they were challenging everything Jesus said, he fell at Jesus’ feet.  What was Jesus’ response?  Mark write, “He went with him” (v.24).

That’s what Jesus does.  Last Tuesday, I went to vote.  Jesus went with me.  I don’t know if Jesus had specific choices for town council in Chapel Hill.  But I know the Holy Spirit of the Lord was with me then and is with me now. 

At same time that he was with me in that voting booth, that same Holy Spirit was with you.  Coaching a youth soccer team?  On the commute home from work?  Recover from a chemo therapy treatment?  Studying for an exam?  The Lord goes with us, always, reminding us that wherever we are, whatever we are doing, we are belong to God. 

So, they went, in process from the shore, through town, to Jairus’ house.  Jesus, 12 disciples, Jairus, probably other family members and friends from the synagogue.  There may have been more than 20 people in this cluster.  It would have been a site, the kind of thing that makes your head turn and take notice, this little motley grew trouping through town. 

One who noticed, a woman whose proximity to other people was itself problematic, wormed her way through the throng so that she was right next to Jesus.  Mark tells us she had been “suffering from hemorrhages for 20 years” (v.25).  While scholarly opinion about what exactly this means varies widely, we can say a few things with confidence.  First, her condition was not normal or healthy, was a sickness, and made her life extremely lonely and painful. 

Second, she was unclean.  Anyone who came into contact with her would also be ritually unclean.  When she forced her way through a crowd, she touched everyone.  Thus her desperate hope that Jesus might heal her from a malady that had ruined her life led her to an action that affected a lot of people.  But she did it.

Desperation leads synagogue leaders to beg in the dust at Jesus’ feet and it leads untouchable women to ignore all social conventions and wade right into the crowd they’re supposed to avoid.  All of it comes as Jesus is in the flow of his own mission to announce the Kingdom of God.

Jesus heals the woman and the way he does it tells us a lot about the church.  He notices; he senses that power has gone out of him.  When he realizes it is because someone who is both sick and cut off from the community has sought him, he is filled with compassion.  He calls her daughter.  He commends her faith.  He sends her on her way in peace.   

The church today is the body of Christ in the world.  The church is where hurting people encounter the Holy Spirit of God in life-changing ways.  Of course the Spirit touches people outside the church too, but even in those cases, the person who has met God then comes to the church to make sense of it.  We – the people who make up the church – must notice those around us who in pain, who struggle, who need help, and who find themselves in desperation.  We must notice as Jesus noticed and respond with compassion, the compassion of the Lord.

In the delay that came with helping the woman, the daughter of Jairus died.  Everything that occurred there happened while Jesus was on the way to help someone else.  And when Jesus was asked to help Jairus’ daughter, that request came as he was on his way somewhere.

Someone came, reported that the daughter had died, and told Jairus to stop troubling Jesus.  Jesus would have none of such talk.  A hurting person in absolute need was not a bother to him.  Jairus was not troubling him.  Helping a person in such a state reclaim God’s image is why Jesus came. Don’t trouble the teacher?  Oh no!  Once again, Jesus went with him.  He told him to have no fear, but to believe.  The he brought the dead girl to life.

Through his church today, he continues to bring life through the love of a welcoming community.  Specifically, I imagine our church to be an island in the middle of a broad, fast-moving river.  Our community is the river – people moving through.  Some come as visiting faculty and are here a year or less.  Some are graduate students.  They stay anywhere from 3-5 years.  The community is transitory.  It is different in the school year when students are on campus and we feel it as those who rent parking spaces fill our lower lot. 

Then, in early May it clears out.  We find it easier to get around on Franklin Street.  Our town changes.  In those times, many in our church go on vacation or away for the weekend.  It is like this at holidays too.  You never know who will be here.  Our Sunday morning crowd has consistent attendees, but it is different every week, sometimes slightly different, sometimes very different.  The river keeps flowing by.  As it does, we here so people can meet God here and be reminded of who we are supposed to be – those who bear his image. 

We have cited numerous life is broken and bearing the image of God is hard.  It seems impossible for someone just surviving each day to think of herself as one made in God’s image.  Our church is here to help her see that.

Our church is an island in this river. Some pass by and we have them for a summer or a semester or three-five years.  Others, are moving through but decide they love it here.  A semester turns into 20 years.  Someone began here as 18-year-old freshman and is now on the elder board.  That’s our church.

With God present, the woman, ailing from this uncontrollable blood flow – sick and cut off and alone – is healed.  She is healed, she becomes a daughter of God and she has the peace of God.  She forces the community to take another look at those who have been pushed to the margins. We realize that when God is present, no one is marginal or overlooked, unnoticed.  Everyone is God’s image bearer. 

With God present, a father who has been reduced to begging for his child is given that child alive and healthy.  Her restored to life is life for him and for the entire synagogue community.  The entire community now has to reckon with what it really means to say God is present.  It means death will never win.

Our church, planted in the middle of the unending flow that is UNC and Chapel Hill and the triangle, our church is a reminder that God is present.  When God is present that means something. 

In your life, what does it mean?  Are you the woman, injured, feeling totally outside of mainstream life?  Jesus sees you and has healing for you.  Meet him in this church family and allow your life to be remade.

Are you Jairus?  Do you feel powerless as some oppressions threatens to rob you of your joy and of your life?  Meet Jesus here, in this church, and reclaim the image of God in you.

Are you one of the disciples riding the billowing waves of the sea as you follow Jesus wherever he leads?  Where will He lead you next?  What is he going to do next?  What will be your part in it?  Meet Jesus in this place this morning and once again say, “Here I am Lord.  I am yours will do what you say to do, will say what you tell me to say, and will go where you lead.”

See?  Ecclesiology – the study of church; our church family is an island in a river where people are constantly flowing past.  Those who stop in meet Jesus in this place.  They are healed, restored, and reminded of what it is to bear the image.  Whether they stay go some other place because that’s where He led them, they meet Him and become His disciples. 

AMEN

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[i] https://www.google.com/search?q=ecclesiology&oq=ecclesiology&aqs=chrome..69i57.3360j0j7&sourceid=chrome&es_sm=93&ie=UTF-8

Palm Sunday Sermon

Parade, Protest, Procession, Prelude (Mark 11:1-11)

Palm Sunday, March 29, 2015

        Picture it.  Jesus sits on the donkey, slowly moving toward Jerusalem.  His followers and crowds, either curious or hopeful, line the roadway and wave palms.  “Hosanna,” they shout.  “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.  Blessed is the coming Kingdom of our ancestor David.”

          This event in scripture, Jesus’ slow ride into the city on the Sunday before his crucifixion, has been titled “the triumphal entry.”  The title fits.  Crowds are calling out their hopes and laying those hopes on Jesus’ back.  He is the star of this show.  This is his parade.

          It certainly looks like a great triumph.  Recall Mark chapter 3.  Scribes – legal experts – traveled from Jerusalem to the north where Jesus was teaching and healing and driving demons out of people.  The scribes came and checked out the fuss being made over Jesus.  They called him “Beelzebu” (3:22), a demon.  His own family tried to rein him in.  Now, here he is parading into the great city of David.  Crowds praise his name.  And this is all happening around the time of Passover.  Victory will be his.  Yes, this certainly looks like a parade for Jesus.

          We cannot stop there.  We have to go deeper into the story.

          Yes, Jesus is ushering in the Kingdom of God.  But it is not a kingdom the Romans would respect.  The Kingdom of Jesus stands on love and compassion, not intimidation and force.  The Romans would have appreciated the “shock and awe” military campaign our nation tried to impose a little over a decade ago.  We’ll force our will by way of power.  It is very Roman, very military; it is not very Christ-like. 

Some scholars believe that around the same time Jesus rode his humble donkey into Jerusalem, maybe even the same day, another procession was parading into town.[i]  The Roman governor Pontius Pilate was processing, on gallant stallions, with all the pomp, circumstance, power, and intimidation the legionnaires could muster.  They would should these denizens of Jerusalem what real power is.  Jesus showed Jerusalem and the world what God is about.

His Kingdom was not for Rome, nor was it for the Jewish temple scribes.  They are in the privileged class and they enjoy the benefits their position brings.  Jesus, the Son of God, identifies with the lowliest in society – shepherds, the blind, children, prostitutes and tax collectors, women, and even gentiles.  Who are those people in our world you might think of morally base or of low status.  Jesus locates himself with them.  The elites of Jerusalem, themselves heirs of Abraham just as Jesus was, would feel threatened by his identification with the humble of the world because he came to lift the lowly.

          Thus his “triumphal entry,” as it is sometimes called, his parade was a protest march.  His actions communicate a resounding “no” to politics of power.  His stance negates the idea that might makes right.  He also protested the calls of the revolutionaries who were in the crowd shouting “Hosanna.”  They wanted him to lead the sword-bearing charge that would evict Roman.  Many people in the crowd that waved palm branches in his honor had patriotism and nationalism in mind.  Jesus had the salvation of all humanity in mind.  There were conflicting agendas. 

          He protested the Romans who worshiped power, the Jerusalem establishment who cozied up to that power, and he protested those who would have him play a role other than the one God intended.  He was not a violent revolutionary.  His victory would come through sacrifice.  No one around him was prepared for what was coming.  This parade, which was in actuality a protest march, was also a funeral procession.

          Jesus had said so on three occasions. 

          Mark 8:31, “³¹‘Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.’ ³² He said all this quite openly.”

          Mark 9:31, “‘The Son of Man is to be betrayed into human hands, and they will kill him, and three days after being killed, he will rise again.’ ³² But [the disciples] did not understand what he was saying and were afraid to ask him.”

          Mark 10:32, “He took the twelve aside again and began to tell them what was to happen to him,³³ saying, ‘See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be handed over to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death; then they will hand him over to the Gentiles; ³⁴ they will mock him, and spit upon him, and flog him, and kill him; and after three days he will rise again.’”

          When Jesus rode into town to the tune of the hopeful “Hosanna’s,” he knew more was coming.  So too did the first community to read the book of Mark as a completed gospel.  The stories that informed Mark’s writing circulated through Christian communities from the very first days after the resurrection, but the document we find in our New Testaments as the book of Mark was not put together until after 60AD, maybe after 70 AD.

          When someone, maybe Mark himself, first stood and read this work in a worship service, the core group knew Jesus died on a cross.  And they believed it to be historical fact that he rose from the grave.  Some of the older members were probably among those who met the resurrected Jesus in person (see 1 Corinthians 15:5).  The disciples did not understand that after Palm Sunday would come Good Friday.  The day would only be called “good” for what it means, not how it feels. 

          As we go through Mark and see the utter lack of vision displayed by the disciples, we must extend them grace.  In their shoes, not knowing the resurrection was coming, we would do no better.  They, so close to Jesus and yet so blind, should be one more impetus to us to show grace upon grace.  That is why Jesus died out of love and as an act of compassionate love and grace for all sinners. For you and me.

          The shout, “Hosanna,” a quotation from Psalm 118:25 literally means “Save us, we pray.”  Those shouting it thought salvation would come with a new David, a new Goliath-slayer.  Clearly, they did not realize God had a different plan.  Their cry was appropriate though.  Jesus would save everyone in his death and resurrection.  Seeing the story as we do, from the standpoint of knowing how it turns out, we know that this parade in which Jesus protested violence, conquest, elitism, and many other pains that have resulted from the infestation of sin in the world – this parade was his funeral procession even before he was forced to drag his own cross to his place of execution.[ii]

          But it does not end there.  The story of Jesus and of us – following Jesus, running from Jesus, hiding from Jesus, denying Jesus, and ultimately being found by Jesus and made new by Jesus – this story does not end at the cross.

          It pauses there.  We cannot sing Hosanna’s Palm Sunday and then skip to the Hallelujah’s of Easter.  We have to go through the Thursday of bread and wine and washing feet.  We have to linger in the bloody, black darkness of Friday when our Savior was hung on the cross, nailed to it by our sins.  We have to worship in awareness of our dependence upon him. 

This drama plays out every time we gather.  We come as sinners saved by grace.  To say we are sinners means we have been hurt and we have hurt others.  It means we have cut ourselves off from God.  But, we are saved from this alienation and the death that comes with it.  We are saved to joyous eternal life, lived in relationships of love with one another as sons and daughters of God, brothers and sisters in the family of God.  The highs and lows of this story must never be forgotten.

We acknowledge the pause, while remembering we are a people defined by the light on the distant hill, the light that emanates from an empty tomb.  The parade that is a protest that is in fact a procession to death in the end is a prelude to a new age.  At Thanksgiving, at Christmas, on Palm Sunday, on a nondescript Tuesday in August, and on every day in between, we are Easter people.  We are born again.  We are made new, called into eternal life in Christ.  The story of Palm Sunday is the introduction to the great work of literary art that speaks in words, in images, on the screen, and in way we live our lives.  It is the prequel to the greatest story that can be told, the unending life lived in the Kingdom of God and the part God invites us to play in it. 

Palm Sunday is our lead-in prepping us for resurrection.  But, more on that next week. 

This week, we worship and rejoice because of who Jesus is and who we are in Him.

AMEN

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[i] I got this from Kirby Lawrence Hill who was citing speculation from Borg and Crossan - http://jointhefeast.blogspot.com/2009/03/april-5-2009-mark-111-11-kirby-lawrence.html

[ii] Fred Craddock (2003) http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=2702

Satan, Get Behind Us (Mark 8:31-39)

Satan, Get Behind Us (Mark 8:31-39)

Sunday, March 1, 2014 - 2nd Sunday Lent

            Jesus, in a private session with his disciples, explained that he, their teacher, the one they had watched calm storms at sea and conquer demons, must suffer.  The religious leaders and legal experts would reject him.  He would be killed.  It was coming.  It was inevitable.  Mark says in verse 32 that Jesus said this openly.  Throughout Mark’s gospel people heard Jesus but did not know what he was saying.  Misunderstanding was a consistent theme, but not here.  This was not cryptic.  Nothing was left for interpretation.  They would have no trouble getting the message, just difficulty swallowing it.

            Especially Peter.  It was too much.  He heard Jesus say, “the son of man must undergo great suffering … and be killed,” and that is all Peter heard.  Jesus said more, but Peter could not hear any more.  I imagine he grabbed Jesus by the arm and pulled him off to the side for a one-on-one session.

            Lord, you can’t say stuff like this.  You can’t lose your nerve, not now.  You’re scaring the other disciples.  I just stood up among everyone and put myself out there.  I have thrown my lot in with you.  I declared you the Messiah.  The Messiah restores Israel.  Don’t you know the stories, Jesus?  The Messiah makes things right.  The Messiah does not die.  We’ve followed you this far.  Now don’t lose the message.  No more talk about suffering.  You are Israel’s Messiah.  You can’t die. 

            Peter missed a key part of what Jesus said.  He mentioned being rejected, suffering, and being killed.  Right after that he said the Son of Man, which is how Jesus refers to himself in Mark, would rise from death.  But none of them expected the Messiah to be resurrected prior to the last day.  So novel was the idea of the Messiah’s resurrection preceding the general resurrection of all people the disciples simply did not hear it when Jesus said it.

Peter’s worldview demanded that he see everything in existence as it related to God’s selection of Israel as of his special people.  Sure, Peter wanted God to heal the sick, bring justice, and make the world right.  But that would happen when God set things right in Israel through the Messiah.  The world would be redeemed after Israel was established as the center of all human activity.  The Messiah would do this.  Peter believed Jesus was that Messiah.

            In fact Jesus was going to make the world right, but not in the way that Peter and most people in first century Israel anticipated.  The crucifixion was absolutely necessary.  Jesus had to die for us so we would not be eternally separated from God by our sins.  The resurrection was absolutely necessary because it was the signal that the death of our bodies would be a prelude to our resurrection.  Jesus gave the disciples the entire plan so that after he rose, they could understand the gospel and carry it throughout the earth.

           

            By sharing the plan with the disciples, Jesus was giving them a part in it.  Satan could not prevent this, but Satan could distract the disciples so that they failed to receive the invitation they had been given. 

Oh, you have been invited to follow this guy and to tell everyone that their sins can be forgiven when they turn to Him, give their hearts to Him, and follow Him.  Don’t believe it.  That’s the lie the enemy, the devil, whispered in the disciples’ ears.  He’s telling you the Messiah has to suffer and die at the hands of the religious leaders?  Whoever heard such nonsense?  That’s Satan.  He can’t hurt Jesus or those under Jesus’ protection.  But the disciples still had free will and could freely walk away from Jesus or impede Jesus’ progress in carrying out God’s design.  Satan could not get to Jesus, but could he derail Jesus’ followers?

Can he do so today?

We live as Christ followers in a family, a church family.  We don’t just come here because we like coming.  We come because we are invited by God.  God has purposes for us that are the same as those he gave the disciples.  We continue the work begun in them.  Our mission is to announce that Jesus is Lord and to help people become His followers.  We are to follow Him and help others join us as His disciples.  We are commissioned by the same Holy Spirit that formed the church in Acts chapter 2.

Our focus has to stay on who we are in Christ and who He is calling us to be and what He is calling us to think, say, and do.  Satan can’t stop us, but can put other thoughts in our minds.  We have to say to whatever distraction arises, “Get behind us, Satan!  For you are drawing our minds not to divine things, but to Human things.”  We need to keep our minds on the divine work God has given and the holy lives to which God has called us in Christ.Satan is right now trying to seduce HillSong into ignoring God’s word for us and instead focusing on human things.  We have to agree to say together, “Get behind us Satan.”

An example of Satan’s tactics can be seen in our church’s finances.  The report is in the bulletin each month and if you read that then you know we are way behind for January and February.  HillSong’s receipts are made up your tithes and we also have income from students who rent parking spaces, and outside groups that use our facility.  From these receipts we pay salaries, fund missions, pay the light bill, and any other costs that arise.  Currently our receipts are behind our costs.

The leaders of our church need to know this and pay attention to it and we are.  Satan wants our leaders to obsess about it.  Satan tells the truth, but manipulates it.  You know, since the beginning of last summer, eight families have left the church and they are all faithful tithers. [i]  That is true.  And our giving is down and it is quite simple to put the two together and say, we can’t hire a youth pastor right now.  We can’t fund a mission trip or expand our ministries right now.  We need to focus on belt-tightening. That’s what the enemy wants.

Yes, focus on the finances.  And the enemy wins. 

Our focus is on our mission to help people to become disciples of Jesus.  That’s our focus.  That is our mission.  It involves doing what we need to do to have a high quality youth ministry because we know that most people who make a decision to follow Jesus make that decision between the ages of 11 and 25. 

Part of doing our work is taking care of our money.  So, we stand before God and name the concern – our receipts and tithes are low.  We ask you, the church family to join the church leaders on our knees before God in prayer.  Together we ask Him to provide and to lift the anxiety we feel.  Number 1, we pray. 

Second, we make short term decisions without compromising our big-picture calling.  Heather and I are going to meet and discuss how we can tinker with the missions and ministry budgets.  We’re not going to change anything but we might put off spending until later in the year, after we have prayed and involved you, the church family in the process.  First is prayer.  Second is the leadership acknowledging the issue and keeping our eye on our calling – to make disciples.

Third we appeal to membership.  If you have given 10% of your income to church budget, could you give 12 or 13% this year?  If you can give more, we ask you to do so.  If you cannot, OK.  We want every member to join us in earnestly asking God to bring in new people who will participate in ministry and help us in our work of making disciples.

Prayer, leadership making short term decisions and keeping the focus on the big picture, and an appeal to members to pray and to give; this all leads us to the biggest step, number 4.  We believe.  We believe God can provide and will.  We believe God has given us a picture of our church, a safe space where people come to Jesus, are made new by Him, and sent into the world on mission for him.  We believe this is who God wants us to be.  We believe and we tell Satan to get behind us because our mission is the product of what Jesus did when he suffered and died.

We and churches like us around the world exist because Jesus was able to put Satan’s temptations behind Him and behind his disciples.  Those fishermen and tax collectors who are cowards and bumblers in the gospel become heroic in their witness in the book of Acts.  Jesus did not just defeat Satan.  He taught his followers how to put Satan behind them. 

Being reminded of who Peter becomes helps us keep our focus.  He moved past his initial difficulties and we can.  We have. 

Recall the years, 2008-2012.  The United States went through a recession and millions were hit financially.  Someone recently told me of a church they know where the members were so devastated by loss of income that they could not tithe as much and the church had to sell its building.  Now that church did not lose its focus.  It is a church called to lead people to Jesus and still does, but it had to carry on holding services in rented space at a fitness club.  They made changes and did what they needed to go to continue answering God’s call.

Now think about HillSong and how God has been at work here.  For the other church, it may be that God’s best for them in the recession years was to close the building but the keep the congregation alive.   

Our focus is on what God has done here and continues to do among us.  Since the recession of 2008, one way Satan has tried to get churches off track is to get us to obsess about belt-tightening.  In that period time, we hired an associate pastor and added expenses, and increased our mission giving.  Then we hired a youth pastor and began doing annual youth mission trips.  Along the way, we had to make cuts, but we never sacrificed.  The ministry work has only grown. 

Since the 2008 recession, we have increased the number of local mission projects we do.  We raised well over 1000 dollars for relief after the Haiti Earthquake, and our members went there on medical teams and construction teams.  We also saw over 40 of our members become sponsors for kids in Kombolcha Ethiopia, and we are about to make our 4^th trip there. 

More pastoral staff, new mission trips, annual youth group mission trips, expanded ministries, and new local missions, all in a time of financial crisis; why could this happen?  It happened because God enabled us to say, “Get behind us Satan.  We don’t want to look at the temptations you’re dangling before us.  We won’t give in to the anxiety you’re suggesting.  Get behind us. We want to see what Jesus has for us, so get out of the way.”

Our deacons and our treasurer Kent Stone are key leaders and their work of raising concerns is vital to our church life.  I appreciate them and our deacons, pastors, and elders are going to take this information, pray over it, and pour our hearts out to God for His protection, and provision.  We’re going to make responsible choices. What drives us is what God has called us to do.  We are called and we are sent to make disciples.  Nothing is going to stop that work or even slow it down. 

Jesus said, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. ³⁵ For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel,^[i] will save it. ³⁶ For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life?”

Is there some distraction in your life? If that distraction were moved out of the way, would you be free to follow Jesus wherever leads? 

You are invited to a time of silent prayer.  Ask God what it means in your life to take up your cross and follow Jesus.  Ask God what it means for you to deny yourself and to lose your life for the sake of the Gospel.  And ask God to help you say, “Get behind me Satan,” so that you can see and embrace God’s plan for redeeming the world and to live your part in that plan. 

We will pray and sing.  At any point, you are invited to come for prayer.  We will have people at the front and back to pray with you.

AMEN

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[i] Ginger Burkes, The Driggers, Matthew Lawrence, The Neumans, The Mooneys, The Parkers, The Sodens, and Sarah Stanley have all left the church.

The Kingdom of God has Come Near - First Sunday of Lent 2015

Sunday, February 22, 2015

1^st Sunday of Lent

          When John baptized Jesus and he was coming out of the water, verse 10 says, Jesus saw heaven “torn apart.”  The Greek word is ‘schizo.’  Note the English that’s derived from this – schism.  A split. 

          I wrote an Ash Wednesday sermon that I won’t get to preach this year.  Joel chapter 2 was my text.  The prophet Joel says, “Rend your heart.”  That is when we come before God in repentance, we are called to rip ourselves wide open so that all is exposed and we are shredded.  In the Gospel of John, chapter 15, Jesus uses the imagery of pruning to describe how God works in us when are doing the right thing, bearing fruit for the Kingdom.  God snips away the unproductive parts. 

          Cutting.  Ripping open.  Why are such violent images so fitting for our description of the Kingdom of God? 

          In Matthew and Luke, the Gospel writers provide background information about how Jesus came to be born.  The Gospel of John reaches all the way back, before creation, to establish Jesus’ divine identity.  Mark gives us neither the miraculous birth nor the assertion of Jesus’ divinity, at least not explicitly.  Mark dives right into his life on earth. 

          And yet, Mark does not necessarily ignore who Jesus is either.  John baptized hundreds.  Only when Jesus was baptized did God rip through the Heavens to witness the event.   Only here, at Jesus’ baptism, does God add His “Amen.” 

          Some English versions understate the drama.  The New King James Version says the Heavens parted.  That’s not strong enough.  Today’s English Version says Jesus saw Heaven opening.  The Living Bible is very similar.  It is not an acceptable translation.  In other ways, The New King James, The Today’s English Version, and The Living Bible are excellent.  I only raise the point here because if you read these or another version in which Mark 1:10 says the Heavens opened, something important is missing. 

An open door can be shut.  An open jar can have the lid put back on it.  At Jesus’ baptism, he knew who he was and why he had come.  We can debate about what Jesus knew prior to this.  Did he always realize he was God in the flesh?  We can have that conversation, but the Bible does not tell us any answer.  Our arguments would stand on theological reasoning and speculation but nothing more.  We know he was fully human. 

And we know at his baptism, a significant change occurred.  After this, he was on a mission to announce the Kingdom, demonstrate life in the Kingdom, and then die so people would not have to die in their sin, but rather in his resurrection could with him enter the Kingdom.  This baptism is the turning point for Jesus and the Heavens ripping open are a key.

Something ripped cannot easily be put back together.  That’s why God had his prophet Joel tell people to rip open their hearts.  All inside us is exposed before God.  Nothing is hidden.  We are our true selves before God, every bit of beauty and strength in us, every mistake we’ve made, and every sin committed against people, against ourselves, and against God – it is all there. We are ripped open and God makes us new.  God remakes us, forgiving where it is needed, healing, comforting, and raising us so that we are who God made us to be, his children.

Before that can happen, the ripping of the heavens had to happen at Jesus’ baptism.  Whatever wall stood to block us off from access to God, a wall built out of the raw material of human sin, it had to be torn away to never again stand.  The coming of Jesus, a completely human man and at the same the true Son of God, the Holy One, is the event that draws heaven in all its holiness and earth stained by sin together.

God confirms it.  When the heavens tear open and the division between God and man is in the process of being eliminated, God comes in the form of the Holy Spirit, gently falling on God in the form of a man.  With the grace of a dove, heavenly power comes over Jesus as the Father declares, “You are my son, the Beloved.  With you I am well pleased” (v.11).

That same Holy Spirit immediately drives Jesus to a place of unknown death – the wilderness.  Do not be deceived by the concept of wilderness.  Some of us love getting outside, out in the woods, away from it all.  Going to the wilderness for us is an escape in which we take in God’s beauty, breathe fresh air, and unplug.  In the first century, in a desert country, the wilderness was where one went to die.  It is true the wilderness is where Moses heard his call.  And Jesus did go to remote places for prayer and alone time with his Heavenly Father.  But this desert sojourn in Mark 1 was fraught with danger. 

Mark does not give the details we get from Matthew and Luke.  He simply tells us Jesus contended with Satan and with wild animals and he immerged victorious.  When the Kingdom of God breaks loose, Satan more than people of earth realizes the threat.  Satan desires control.  More than anything he wants to be Lord.  If he can’t be the Lord, then he will draw people away from the Lord.  Satan and his demons recognize who Jesus is and what his coming means for them.  His coming opens the way for people to bask in joy and glory and freedom as we, washed in divine love, worship God. 

This is the precursor to Satan’s last defeat, his final death.  The encounter ends with angels meeting Jesus’ needs.  He comes back to Galilee and begins preaching that the Kingdom of God has come near.  However, his victory is with a cost.  John the Baptist was arrested.

In signaling the beginning of the demise of John the Baptist, the New Revised Standard Version, which I read most Sundays, translated the word by saying he was ‘arrested.’  The actual word would better be translated ‘handed over.’  Mark will use this word again in introducing the disciples.  In chapter 3, as he goes through the 12, when Mark comes to Judas Iscariot, he tells us this is the “one who betrayed him.”  That verb “betrayed” is the same as the one translated “arrested” here in 1:14.  Mark’s original readers, knowing the story, quickly caught the foreshadowing.  John was handed over.  Jesus also was handed over.  John came to a tragic end, so too would Jesus. 

This is the tension in the announcement that the Kingdom has come near.  Jesus’ declaration, “the time is fulfilled,” signals an event.  I don’t know what comes to your mind when you hear “Kingdom of God.”  Mark was not talking about a theological concept.  He did not mean something that would come in an unknown future.  When he said, “Kingdom of God,” he meant an event that had happened.  In Jesus – his life, death, and resurrection – the Kingdom has come near.

One of my favorite commentaries for any book of the Bible is on Mark and is written by David Garland of Truett Theological Seminary.  When Jesus said, “Kingdom of God,” his listeners would have had something in mind.  Mark’s readers, reading his gospel 30 years after the resurrection would also have a specific idea about the Kingdom.  Garland writes,

Many understood the arrival of the Kingdom of God to mean that God was visiting the people to bring grace and judgment, to put things right in the world, to vanquish evil and the malevolent powers, to oust the rulers of this world, to establish the kingdom of Israel, to conquer sin and eradicate sickness, and to vindicate the righteous.[i]

In fact, Jesus did come to make things right and to judge and extend grace.  But a lot would have to occur that people did not anticipate or want whether it was his day or Mark’s day or ours.   The Kingdom would grow within a world overrun by sin.  Jesus’ peers thought that Kingdom meant the rule of Israel.  Mark’s readers thought Kingdom meant the rule of the church.  Today, the prevalent thought is of a disembodied Heaven.  We imagine a faraway place where we get whatever we want.  None of these images is the Kingdom Jesus was announcing. 

If we want a sense of what Jesus meant when he said that the Kingdom has come near, we need to read the Gospels and pay close attention to his interactions with people.  He welcomed the humble, knocked the proud off the pedestals on which they stood, and he healed wounded hearts.  Yes, he performed miracle healings, but the lasting affect came when he turned people to God.  The Kingdom is not the rule of Israel or the rule of the church or a faraway Heaven where our wildest dreams come true.  The Kingdom is much better than that.  It is the rule of God.

In Jesus, that Kingdom is near to us right now.  The heavens that ripped open have not been repaired or replaced.  Humans are invited to access to God because Jesus has come.  The divide that separated God’s realm from ours is now gone because Jesus has come.  Sin has lost its power, death has been defeated, and Satan has been shrunk, reduced to slinking around in the shadows because Jesus has come.

Yet, there is still tension even now.  John the Baptist was handed over.  Jesus was handed over.  And we who have been filled with His Holy Spirit and thus seen the approaching eternal Kingdom know that the final fulfillment has not yet come.  We live between the then and the not yet, between the Holy Spirit’s arrival at Pentecost and the final fulfillment.  In this in between time, the Kingdom of God overlaps with the world utterly corrupted in sin.

Mark’s purpose in his gospel is to show his readers all the implications in the reality of Jesus.  Jesus says, “Repent.”  That means turn.  Turn from the world of sin.  Turn from a world in which terrorists kidnap journalists and make a public showing of their execution.  Turn from a world in which dental students are murdered in parking disputes.  Turn from a world in which adultery is so common many just kind of accept it.  Turn from a world in which sex, a beautiful expression of love between a husband and wife, is used as a marketing tool that plays on viewers’ lusts and lack of meaningful relationships.  Repent of letting this world define us.

Repentance does not mean we pretend the problems of the world have magically disappeared.  It means we are not defined by those problems.  We are defined by who we are in Christ.  We confront evil as it is manifest in violence, death, greed, and sexual sin and in a thousand other ways.  We confront evil with the grace and love of Jesus.  We turn from it and to Him.  We are defined by who are in Him.

The message can be summed up this way.  Jesus’ coming was so dramatic, Heaven was ripped apart, evil recoiled and tried to fire back (the desert temptations, the death of John the Baptist, and manifestations of evil today), but God wins and to be in on God’s victory, we need to be pointed toward Him as we know Him in Jesus Christ.  This Lenten season, find specific changes in your life that you can make to reorient yourself so you are turned away from sin and corruption and turned toward Jesus. 

One excellent way of doing this is participation in communion.  The broken bread and the cup, Jesus broken body and shed blood, remind us of our own sins and what it cost him to take those sins away.  As we makes ourselves ready for receiving the elements, consider your life. What needs to be confessed for your repentance to be complete?  What changes need to happen so that you are fully directed toward Jesus and he defines your life, your work, your relationships, everything?

We will pray in silence for a few moments.  In this time ponder what turning will look like in your life.  God has come.  He has come for you.  Will you turn to Him?  This question bears out for people who have been lifelong Christians and for those who have never given themselves to Jesus.  Will you turn to Him this morning?

We will pray in silence.  Then sing.  Then have communion.  If you would like someone to pray with you during the silence and singing, we will have folks at the back and at the front.  You can come.

AMEN

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[i] D. Garland (1996), Zondervan Publishing House (Grand Rapids), p.60