The Cross: Our Foundation (1 Corinthians 1:18-25; 2:1-5)

Sunday, July 14, 2019

            Each week at the end of the message I say, “Now is the time to respond to God.”  I invite us all to open our hearts to what God is saying to us and doing in our lives.  I invite any who feel the need to come to front for prayer, whether kneeling at the steps or with me or Angel, or in the back with the elder of the week. 

            I’ll close with this same invitation today.  I’ll say, “Look at the cross and think about what it means.” God in human skin, Jesus who was innocent of crime and had not sinned.  God accepted his sacrifice as atonement for the sins of all people.

            Think about the implications.  God will sacrifice for our benefit.  He didn’t need to die on the cross in order to be God, wholly sufficient and wholly loving and good.  But we need that because our sin separates from God and we all sin.  We make choices, speak words, and commit actions that indicate we have, in small and large ways, chosen ourselves over God. That sin separates us and we cannot wash the sin away with good deeds or with endless repentance. 

The sin is covered by Jesus’ death on the cross.  We are made right by Jesus’ death on the cross.  And Jesus was fully human.  It hurt his body as much as it would yours to be flogged and then crucified.  It hurt his pride and dignity as much as it would mine to be stripped, mocked, and paraded through Jerusalem carrying the beam on which I was to be nailed.  It hurt his heart as much at it would hurt mine or yours to be abandoned by friends, and then seemingly ignored by Heaven when he prayed for another way.  The cross is an indication of how much Jesus sacrificed to help us be right with God. 

So, I will say, “Look to the cross.” 

Then, I will say, “Be fully open, honest, and receptive with God.”  Open – don’t hold anything back, not before He who sees all. He knows your story, but God wants to hear you tell it.  Honest – don’t try to impress God; you can’t.  Don’t try to be tough with God; he knows the weakness in Chuck Norris, and even he has them; and God knows the weakness in you and me.  Don’t try to act like you don’t need God.  There are longings in our lives only God can satisfy, hungers only God can feed, holes in our lives only God can fill. 

Look to the cross.  Be open and honest before God.  Then I will say, “Come and receive what God has for you.”  You might need God to give you a nudge because you’ve hesitated when God said “Go.”  You might need forgiveness because you’re weighed down with guilt.  You might need courage because you’re facing great obstacles or threats in your life.  I don’t know what you need, but God does.  Look to the cross.  Be honest with God.  And come and receive from Him. 

Studying 1 Corinthians 1 & 2 this week, I became aware of just how important it is that we begin by looking at the cross.  Paul, writes in 1 Corinthians 2:2 “I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.”  In this letter, he touched on marriage, spiritual gifts, the proper way to observe the Lord’s Supper, sexual immorality, the supreme value of love, and the resurrection.  In fact 1 Corinthians is the core scripture text for many of our most cherished Christians beliefs. 

With much to say on so many topics, why does Paul write, “I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified”?  His Corinthians ministry takes place in a city that’s awash in competing ideas.  The Corinthian contenders jockeying to dictate the spirit of age includes Greek philosophers whose ideas determined the history of ideological development into our present age. 

However, Greek intellectuals weren’t the only ones trying to dictate the way people thought about the world.  Jewish theologians were as committed to monotheism as Greeks were to philosophy.  Jewish scriptures, more historically durable than any other writings in history, and their approach to wrestling with their scriptures – the idea of Midrash – continue to influence human thought today, nearly 2000 years after the writing of 1 Corinthians.  

One more contestant fought on this battlefield of ideas and ideals: the Romans with their power and organization.  They could not match Greek intellectualism or Jewish theology, but they held the power.  Whatever practice of living that would come out of Greek philosophy or Hebrew religion would have had to exist within a Roman system. 

Then Paul comes along and says, “I am not going to try to be smarter than the Greeks or better at religion than my fellow Jews or stronger than the Romans.”  In different ways – intellectual, religious and faithful, and political and militarily – the Greeks, Jews, and Romans, all vied for power.  Paul refuses to play this power game because He knew where real power was found.

Today we live in a swirling torrent of ideas where forces from all sides try to tell us what to think, how to think, what to believe, and how to practice our beliefs.  We have the American concept of freedom.  We are so indoctrinated into the American notion of liberty we believe it is the only way one can be free.

But hold your horses because along with American notions of freedom, we are lured to material wealth.  Capitalistic forces convince us the key to happiness and a life of meaning is found in stuff that we buy or experiences that we buy.  When we consider how relentlessly advertisers bombard us in the attempt to get us to buy what they’re selling, how could we deny that materialism is a force that’s attempting to define the spirit of the age in America, 2019?

Besides American Liberty and Western Materialism, on this spiritual/intellectual battlefield, Personal autonomy wants its say.  You are your own master and your own moral standard.  Do what’s right for you.  In the Marvel Avengers movie Infinity War, the character Star Lord is asked, “What master do you serve?”  Angrily he responds, “What do you expect me to say, ‘Jesus?’”  He goes on to vehemently declare that he serves no master except himself.  Of course, his name is Star Lord. 

Paul’s response to Greek wisdom, Jewish Theology, and Roman power is our response to the attempts made to dominate our souls by American Liberty, Capitalistic Materialism, and Personal Autonomy.  Paul said, “The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing”; those without Christ.  “But to us who are being saved it is the power of God.”  He doesn’t claim to have earned it.  Paul does not save.  He counts himself among those being saved. 

We are in that number.  We also need to be saved.  The good news is on the cross, Jesus began the work of our salvation.  How, the wise Greek asks, can this one who died so shamefully save the world?  It’s scandalous, the faithful Hebrew declares, to glorify one who dies as a common criminal.  It’s weakness, the mighty Roman roars, to hang there, defeated.  But Paul writes, “God decided, through the foolishness of our proclamation, to save those who believe.  For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to the Jews and foolishness to the Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God” (1:21-24).

Note, even as Paul refutes the different ways we humans define power, he invites all of us into the salvation of Jesus Christ.  In his day, there were Jews who accepted that Jesus was the Messiah and the fulfillment of all their religious hopes.  There were Greeks who came to see that Jesus was the epitome of superior knowledge.  There were Romans who left behind their notions of might and power as they, born again in Christ, surrendered – think about a Roman surrendering – to the power of God.  Paul himself was a child of a Roman-Jewish union, and his right hand man Timothy, the child of a Jewish-Greek union. 

Ethnicity doesn’t matter.  Mixed-race families are fine.  All are saved when we give up our hold on power and surrender our hearts fully to God, confess faith in Jesus and receive the Holy Spirit.  This hodgepodge of people was the New Testament church, and it is the church today.

American Liberty says our country’s story is the definition of freedom for all people.  In Christ, we claim that our greatest freedom is found when we give our hearts to God and become God’s possessions.  As jolting as it is to say it this way, we believe we discover our greatest freedom when we are enslaved to God. 

Capitalistic Materialism has completely bought into the idea that whatever we hope for in life can be purchased.  If I just get that house …; when I have enough for that car I really want; I just need to be able to retire in luxury and ease.  In Christ, we find joy in being extravagantly generous, giving away as much as we can to help others flourish.  In Christ, we claim that our money, possessions, relationships, time, and our very selves – belong to God.  Our greatest happiness is found when we are used by God for His purposes. 

Personal Autonomy insists that we are each endowed with inalienable rights that include the right to determine our own personal destinies.  It doesn’t say anything about inalienable rights in the Bible.  In Christ, we don’t determine who we are.  God tells us who we are.  We come with a story, tell that story to God, and then He is takes our story and invites us into His.  We don’t write our own stories.  We step into the story God is writing. 

Paul “decided to know nothing except Jesus Christ and him crucified” because that’s the foundation.  Life is built when we die on the cross and are raised by God to new life in Christ.  Standing on that foundation, Paul can talk about current issues, theology, households and relationships, worship practices, and creation care.  Paul’s worldview develops after he sets the foundation, his encounter with Jesus at the cross. 

The 21^st century has already seen explosive growth in communication, technology, and scientific understanding.  We engage this complicated world after we have met Jesus at the cross.  Whatever new modes of relationships, sexuality, and our understanding of human gender arise in our time, our engagement with the world as it is happens after we meet Jesus at the cross. 

Whatever changes come to the world in the next 100 years – it does not matter.  We meet every new idea or new way of living as followers of Jesus – the crucified, resurrected one.  On the foundation of the cross, disciples are built.  I earlier mentioned the swirling torrent of ideas and change in which we live. The way to stand in swirling winds is to be anchored to a firm foundation and we are when we are anchored to Christ.  

So, look to the cross.  Open yourself completely to God’s love and forgiveness.  In honesty, come, tell God your story and then give it to Him and receive the new story He has for you.  In Christ, you are His beloved child.  Come to Him.

AMEN  

Christmas Eve, 2018 (a sermon)

December 24, 2018

Christmas Eve Candlelight Service

“An angel of the Lord stood before them.” The refers to the shepherds who were tending their flocks in the fields outside of Bethlehem.  Luke writes, “they were terrified” (2:9). You would be too; so would I be trembling in awe if visited by a divine messenger.  Whenever angels appear in the Bible, humans are overwhelmed. It is the reason the most common first word angels speak is “Fear not.”  To Zechariah, the Father of John the Baptist, the angel had to tell him, “Don’t be afraid.” Similarly, to Mary, “fear not;” and the same to these shepherds.  

Can we even hear the words of the message or are we simply too shaken from the encounter with something otherworldly?  Hopefully, we can hear.  “Angel” literally means messenger.  When an angel comes, what he has to share comes straight from God.  It’s a message we need.

That night in the fields near Bethlehem, the message was, “I am bringing you good news of great joy for all people; to you is born this night in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord (2:11).   All people.  The world is so big.  Life along the North Carolina coast moves at a different pace than here in the triangle; and our daily experiences are not the same as our fellow North Carolinians west of here, in the mountains.  And do some of our traditions differ from the folks in Cherokee, North Carolina? I think so. This vast diversity is just in our state. Think of the numerous cultural expressions in the the rest of the U.S., and the rest of the world!  The angel speaking to those trembling shepherds promised good news for all people - including the millions we never meet.

In the mid ‘80’s our family had only lived in Virginia a few years.  Every December we drove back to Detroit where we stayed at my Grandmother’s house.  My’ mom’s mother lived alone on 7 mile road. On Christmas Eve, we would go out to the suburb of Clawson, where my Dad’s very large family lived.   My mom’s mother would come with us. We stayed out late Christmas Eve every year, enjoying time with family.

One year, we returned to grandma’s Detroit home to discover there had been visitors: robbers.  They opened all the presents and stole anything they thought was valuable. We felt pretty violated, but quickly we gained perspective.  We weren’t hurt. The things they took were just that - things. We had each other. We had just enjoyed a night of great happiness with family.  How broken were their lives that they thought the best way to spend Christmas Eve was to break into someone’s home and steal from them.

I am bringing you good news of great joy.

To you is born this day a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord.

It’s a message for all people because all people need a savior.  

We’re here together enjoying familiar Christmas songs.  Not 2-3 miles from here are families struggling so badly they have to decide whether to pay the heating bill or buy food.  Forget presents and a Christmas tree and decorations. They just need to survive. But they can’t forget presents and trees and decorations.  They live hand-to-mouth in this land of plenty; the wealth of others is in their faces as they struggle to make it through each day.

I am bringing you good news of great joy.

To you is born this day a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord.

It’s a message for all people because all people need a savior.

Maybe sadder than the desperately poor family is the wealthy one with $50,000 cars sitting in the driveway of their million-dollar home.  Yet, love and laughter is absent from that home. This wealthy family has experienced divorce, suicide, addiction ...

I am bringing you good news of great joy.

To you is born this day a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord.

It’s a message for all people because all people need a savior.

Tonight, Christmas Eve, soldiers from our country and other countries are on duty.  They carry rifles and look for enemies. They are far from home, far from the families they love.  Why, why on this night is this the story? Because war doesn’t take a holiday. Nation against nation, man against man, we humans kill each other.  

The angel promised this to all people, I am bringing you good news of great joy.

To you is born this day a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord, because all people need a savior.

Police are on duty tonight.  Why? As my story from 30 years ago attests, crime doesn’t take Christmas Eve off.  The world is broken and broken people either sit in their own hurt or do things to hurt others.  We need that angel’s word.

I am bringing you good news of great joy.

To you is born this day a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord.

It’s a message for all people because all people need a savior.

We have had a lot of joy in and around our church throughout the holidays.  There have been beautiful worship services, much laughter, meaningful moments, some surprises, and a full share of joy and good cheer.  Our joy comes from the beauty and power of the story we tell - the story of Jesus’ birth. Right in the middle of this story, from the mouth of the angel, we are reminded that we need a savior and promised that he has come, for everyone.  Even if you think you have it all together, you still have as much need for a savior as anyone else in the world.

This war-torn, crime-filled, drug-addicted, heartbroken, lonely world is the way it is because of sin.  Sin cuts us off from God. Sin is the overall category for choices we make that hurt ourselves and others; and sin is the decisions we make in life that offend God and take us off God’s path.  And every one of us sins every day. This is why Jesus had to come and be in the role he was in. To us is born a Savior, Christ the Lord.

This Christmas Eve, as I wish you happiness, I invite you to consider your own need for a Savior.  As you ponder that, consider that the Gospel of Luke presents Jesus as the Savior you need.

Throughout his gospel, Luke repeatedly shows his sense of the salvation Jesus brings.  Salvation is reversal of status. We were in tension with God, but with our faith in Jesus, we are in right relationship with God.  We were enslaved by sin, unable to break free. Jesus breaks the chains. He is the truth and when we know Him, we are free. Right now we live in a world of war, crime, addiction, broken relationships, and death.  He brings a new kingdom - the kingdom of God, a kingdom of justice and peace. When the Savior visits and we receive forgiveness, we then have new life. We become new creations and a part of a new community as we are adopted as sons and daughters of God.  

When can we hope to begin to see this salvation?  In Luke 4, Jesus, the baby grown up, says “today the scripture has been fulfilled.”  It will be finalized at His Second Coming and we long for that day when pain and death are finally and completely overthrown.  But even today as we live in the world with sin around us, upon giving our lives to Christ, we begin to lean into the eternal kingdom and live a kingdom ethic of love and grace right here, right now.  Salvation begins the day we visit the manger, and recognize that the baby there is our Savior and thus we worship Him as our Lord.

Who is this salvation for? Trust God’s messenger, the angel.  The promise made to the shepherds is good for each and every one of us.  “I am bringing you good news of great joy for all people.”

Who is salvation for?  For you. Only you know all the details of your story, but whatever the good and the bad, your story needs a Savior - the Savior.  The same Jesus who will save the world from humanity’s attempts to destroy it loves you and wants to save you from the pain and heartache you have to carry.  If you’d like to learn more about how this Savior, born Christmas night, can be your Savior who completely changes the direction of your life, I’d love to hear your story.  Maybe together, we can talk and pray and ask the Lord to come into your life and change your life’s direction. Please see me after the service, or connect with me in the next couple of weeks.

I wish all of you a very Merry Christmas.  We will close our service by singing together “Silent Night.”

AMEN

One Life to Live (Hosea 1:1-11)

Sunday, June 10, 2018

            Be ambitious.  Don’t fear embarrassment.  Make messes.  Jump into the unknown.  We only have one life to live. 

            I agree with all these meme-worthy sentiments.  I say, live the way my high school football coach told us to play defense, with reckless abandon.  Try new things.  Go new places.  This life is the only one we get.

            However, that idea that we have but one life to live means more than just make the most of opportunities.  It is also true that we cannot separate our life into fragments.

            Bill is a lawyer, a golfer, a deacon and Sunday school teacher, and the father of a middle schooler.  On Sunday, he teaches his class the New Testament, the book of James, chapter 5, verse 12.  “Let your ‘yes’ be ‘yes’ and your ‘no’ be ‘no.’  For 45 minutes he solemnly extols the virtues of honesty and integrity. On Monday, he goes to trial where he knowingly violates the ethical standards he swore a vow to uphold.  Win the case at all costs! That’s how he justifies his actions. 

On Tuesday night at home, he verbally harangues his 8^th grade son when he hears the boy tell an off-color joke.  In his Thursday golf league, he tells the same joke to the 3 other attorneys in his foursome, and they stand on the fourth tee box, doubled over laughing. 

            In all those places, Bill is Bill.  There’s no separating lawyer-Bill from golfer-Bill from Bill-the-dad from Deacon-Bill.  Nor can we break up our lives.  We only have one life.  We don’t act the same way in all relationships.  But we are who we are.  There’s no leaving the religious me at home tonight so I can go out drinking and doing all the destructive things that come after too much alcohol.  If I get sloppy drunk, all that I have said I believe about God in more sober moments still holds.  Theology professor Michael Fishbane writes, “We are not one kind of person when we walk the earth feeling hunger or love, and then an entirely different sort when we listen to music or talk about [God].  We are always one and the same.”[i]

            When we talk about God, we speak of the boundaries of our existence.  Venturing beyond God is impossible and even nonsensical.  There is nowhere that God is not.  Our God-thoughts and God-talk, our theology, sets our reality.

            Everyone here made the effort to get out of bed on a Sunday morning and come to this building.  Along the way if someone asked, “What you doing?”  You’d say, I’m going to church.”  We’re here because we chose to be here, so we all probably believe in God or are at least open to the idea.  Many are even filled with passionate desire to worship God.  The Old Testament prophet Hosea would applaud such zeal for the Lord.  Hosea would also watch us closely after church, on Monday and Tuesday, on Friday night; Hosea wants to see if the songs we sing and the prayers we pray influence the words we speak and the things we do when we’re not here.

            Hosea was a prophet at a time when the ancient Jewish people had been divided into two separate nations.  The North was made up of the descendants of 10 of the 12 sons of Jacob whom we meet in Genesis 25-35.  Whenever you hear the phrase ‘the 12 tribes of Israel,’ it’s a reference to the descendants of Jacob’s 12 sons.  The nation was one people under the first three Kings, Saul, David, and Solomon.  Their stories can be found in the Old Testament books 1 and 2 Samuel, and also the first 11 chapters of 1 Kings.  In 1 Kings 12, the son of the deceased King Solomon, Rehoboam, alienates the 10 northern tribes, so they separate and crown Jeroboam as their king. 

            This event begins the period of the split kingdoms of the Jewish people with the north referred to as Israel and the south as Judah.  The stories of both kingdoms are intermingled in the Bible books 1 and 2 Kings.  The Northern Kingdom is lost to history when they are defeated by the Assyrian empire in 722 BC.  The Assyrians take of many of the Israelite people into exile and then force intermarriage with other peoples they relocate to Israel.  The descendants of these intermarriages are the Samaritans who figure so prominently in the stories of Jesus in the Gospels. 

            Thus the history of the Israelite monarchy is told from 1 Samuel through 2 Kings, essentially the years 1020 BC to 586 BC.  That period of history is seen from another angle in the books of the prophets, especially Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Hosea.  Hosea, who worked in the Northern Kingdom, spoke and wrote the word of God from roughly 780-730BC.  His writing is not to recount history but rather to reveal God’s truth in light of that history.  He wrestled with a terrible burden.

            Hosea was visited by God’s Spirit in a way that is unique to Biblical prophets.  The prophets mentioned in the Bible reveal the heart of God.  Even though the world different in our day than in Hosea’s, the heart of God still beats.  People today rebel against God in some of the same ways. Hosea’s burden was he could see it all – God’s holiness and the people’s rebellion.  What Hosea had to say in the 8^th century BC speaks in the 21^st century AD. 

            He jumps right to it.  God gives Hosea an absurd instruction.  “Take for yourself a wife of whoredom.”  Marry a prostitute and have children with her. Parents wants their sons to marry women of virtue and good character.  Parents want their daughters to marry men who are gentle, trustworthy, and faithful.  I can’t recall anyone I have heard say, “Man, I hope my boy finds a lady of the night when he grows up.”  No one says that. 

Everyone involved in the exchange that happens in prostitution is broken.  Life has led that woman to think that her best or maybe only option is to sell her body.  That man paying the money needs deep meaningful connection.  But he doesn’t know how to find it.  So instead, he pays money for sex without relationship, without intimacy.  Prostitution is sad.  And evil.  Everyone involved in it is deeply wounded.  God told Hosea, marry a prostitute and have kids with her.

Hosea’s first work as a prophet was to enter a marriage none of us would ever consider.  However, for Hosea, it is a prophetic act.  He is enacting what Israel has been doing for decades.  Marry a wife “of whoredom,” because “the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the Lord” (v.2b).  The land – the Northern Kingdom – Israel is compared to a man who leaves his wife and goes to a prostitute.  The Israelites have worshipped other Gods.  That’s idolatry – turning away from the true God to worship stone idols.  Adultery is a having sex with someone other your spouse.  In God’s view, to worship anyone or anything other than him is spiritual adultery. 

And we do it all the time.  We cut God out of the picture and give our allegiance and our hearts to things: political movements; relationships; favorite past-times or hobbies; sometimes addictions.  Some people put their children in the place that belongs to God.  God wants us to love our families.  It is commanded in the Bible.  But we are not to worship our children.  They are not the ultimate.  God is. 

The Israelites of Hosea’s day obeyed some of the religious practices prescribed in the Law of Moses, spelled out in in Exodus and Leviticus.  They certainly believed in God.  But they also worship local Canaanite deities and Egyptian gods.  God was about as happy with this as you would be with your spouse sleeping with someone else and then coming home and acting like everything was fine. 

God told Hosea to live out the situation in his own life.  Marry a prostitute.  Name the first son you and she will have ‘Jezreel.’  This name means “God sows” or “God plants seed.”  The second child, a daughter, will be Lo-ruhamah, which means “Not pitied.”  When Assyria comes to destroy Israel, God’s going to let it happen.  And when the Israelites cry out for salvation the way they did when they were slaves in Egypt in the days of Moses, God will show no pity.  The third child of Hosea and his wife, the prostitute Gomer, will be a son called Lo-ammi.  That translates “not my people.”

God sends Hosea into a marriage he would not have chosen and tells him what his children’s names will be.  Those names tell us that God plants destruction.  When that destruction comes and the people are defeated and exiled, God will not be sorry. 

How do we suppose God feels about lawyer Bill who plays the good Bible teacher at church, but when Sunday ends, he becomes the unethical lawyer who beats competitors that naively play by the rules?  By week’s end, Deacon Bill, Christian Bill, has chastised his son and then repeated his son’s lewd speech, laughing all the while. 

It’s just an example.  Maybe the preacher is making too much out of something that’s not a big deal, a mountain out of mole hill.  Preachers tend to do that.  I wonder if Hosea’s critics dismissed him as being a holier-than-thou loud mouth who made a lot of noise over nothing.  How do we suppose God feels when the choices we make and the words we speak as we live our lives Monday-Friday fail to match up to the faith we proclaim on Sunday?

The book of Hosea is about an integrated life.  Who we are in our faith, who we are in the world – it is all a part of us.  The prophet asserts that God is truly furious when we try to carve our lives into segments. 

Now, you and I, each one of us chose to come to church and sing and pray and smile and hug and meet God and feel joy.  I bet no one came seeking the God who forces his best people into doomed marriages as a way of expressing his divine anger.  We didn’t come to hear God tell us, “I have no pity for you and you are not people.”

And we know that God’s not like that.  Two weeks ago, we heard the Gospel of John say, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whoever believes in him should not become exiles in Assyria, but rather might have eternal life in the Kingdom of God.”  Every week we hear the Gospel: in Jesus Christ, the Kingdom of God has come near.  He went to the cross for the sins of the world and in his resurrection, death is defeated.  When we give our lives to Him, we have everlasting life. 

We know God is not vengeful.  God is not as weird as He seems in the opening of Hosea.  Hosea knew this too.  Hosea’s terrible burden is he could see the sins of the people more clearly than they could.  He could see God’s absolute fury when the people could not. 

Hosea’s glorious privilege was he was allowed to see the heart of God. 

Beginning in verse 7, we see a pattern that will be repeated in this book.  It is as if God vents the divine anger, but then suddenly remembers that he is God and God is love.  “You name that 2^nd child ‘no pity.’” But then, verse 7, “I will have pity on the house of Judah, and I will save them.” 

“You name that 3^rd child ‘Lo-ruhamah.’ They are not my people.”  Then verse 10 says, “The people of Israel will be like the sand of the sea.”  God made the promise to Abraham (Genesis 22:17).  His descendants would outnumber the grains of sand on the shore. Hosea 1:11 says, “The people of Judah and the people of Israel shall be gathered together … and shall take possession of the land.”

In 722 Israel went into exile in Assyria, with the only trace of the original people being the Samaritans.  In 586, the people of Judah went into exile in Babylon.  Before either of these events, the prophet promises God will reunite his people.  That’s the heart of God we see in Hosea.

By the time of Jesus, the Jews who made up Israel had disdain for their Samaritan cousins.  Yet, in both Luke and John, Jesus has moments in which it is clear that the salvation he brings is for these biracial people.  Jesus did not just come for Judah and Israel.  Jesus is the Savior in Samaria.  Maybe that’s one way the promise of reunification in Hosea 1:11 is fulfilled. 

In fact, in Jesus, all nations are drawn together into one family, united in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  We who know him as our savior are tasked to announce his salvation to the world.  We are not prophets with the authority and vision of Hosea.  But, we are heralds.  We are the announcers and the messengers.  We live our lives as people of faith – in all the places of our lives.  And in those places we invite the people we know into the salvation Jesus gives. 

The same God who called his people to live integrated lives in Hosea’s day calls us to one life today; a life of consistent, contagious faith.  May we live the one life we have to the glory of God, in Jesus’ name.

AMEN

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[i] Michael Fishbane (2008), Sacred Attunement: A Jewish Theology, The University of Chicago Press (Chicago), p.13.

The Political Palm Sunday (Luke 19:28-40)

March 20, 2016

            “Make America great again!”

            “Feel the Burn!”

            Words.

            A political rally was canceled due to threats of violence and physical altercations between protesters and supporters.

            At a political rally, a supporter punched a protester in the face.  The candidate at least for a time considered paying the legal fees his supporter would face for committing assault.

            Response.

            In words and in the ways people respond to words and to events and to movements, we have a window through which we can gain perspective on our country’s political scene. 

In words and in the ways people respond, we have a window through which we see Jesus’ actions on that fateful Sunday prior to his crucifixion.  I will not talk directly about the political movements of our day.  I certainly won’t endorse a party or a candidate.  We will look at the Jesus movement and how Jesus forms us.  Who we are in Christ absolutely plays into our approach to politics today and it shapes our response to what happens in politics. 

We are called to praise God, even in trying circumstances.  That’s the end game of Luke’s depiction of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem on the day we now commemorate as Palm Sunday.  The actions of Jesus, as told by Luke, are invitation.  We are beckoned into love and hope, called to worship and praise God. 

How do we get there? 

            As Luke sets the scene, there are many disciples following Jesus and the group has been growing ever since chapter 9, verse 51, when Jesus set his face to get to this point.  Through parables and teaching and actions, Jesus has over and over emphasized how challenging it is to be a disciple, yet people find him so compelling, they follow anyway.  They give up their money, they realign their relationships, they adjust their priorities, and they fix their lives upon following Him.

            A group, with Jesus in the lead, is nearing the city of God, Jerusalem.  He sends disciples ahead to the village on the outskirts of the city, Bethany.  They are to get a colt for Jesus to ride.  When they go to untie the owners ask what they are doing, just as Jesus anticipated.  They answer as he told them to.  “The Lord needs it.”  Nothing more is said or needs to be said. 

            This doesn’t appear particularly interesting, but in the Greek language the word translated “owners,” as in owners of this colt, is kurioi.  The word translated “Lord” as in the “the Lord needs it” is kurios.  It’s the same word. 

            The people who own the colt are the colt’s lords.  We might call them the animal’s masters or owners, but we wouldn’t say they are the beast’s ‘lords.’  We don’t use the word ‘lord’ that way.  However, when we see the contrast and also when we see how submissively the animal’s owners give it up when they realize who needs it, a deeper understanding comes into view.

            In our world, people are owners and masters, presidents and kings, CEOs and lords, lower case ‘l.’ Jesus is Lord with a capital ‘L.’ Everything in the world is under him.  He owns all including everything in my house, every penny in the church’s bank account, this building, everything in your pocket, and everything we can see or imagine and all that is beyond what we can see or imagine.  There are lords.  He is the Lord. 

            Words.  When we say “Jesus is Lord,” we are saying something significant.  We pray to God as Father and God as Savior and God as Lord.  What if we prayed to God as owner?  It feels weird to me, cold, impersonal.  But for us capitalists, it might make a lot of sense.  We recognize that however hard we might work to acquire capital so as to have an advantage in our capitalistic society, because we are Christians, we know Jesus is the Owner.

            Words.  Consider the words of the crowd as they herald the coming of Jesus to Jerusalem.  The crowd quotes Psalm 118:26, “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.”  That is how it reads in the Psalm and that is how it is quoted in Matthew and Mark and John.  Luke renders the quote differently.  In Luke it says, “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord.”

            Did Luke just make that up?  For his own purposes did he change the story, making it say “king?”  I don’t think so.  The wording is different in John, but John also makes the point that the crowd proclaimed Jesus to be king.  And I don’t think we’re dealing a contradiction.

            The gospel writers quote both Psalm 118:26 and Zechariah 9:9, which heralds the coming of the blessed king.  If crowds really line the roads shouting this prophecies like political slogans, they would have shouted over and over.  They would have conflated the quotations.  Luke selects a quote from many that were shouted as Jesus road into the city.  The question is not who was right, Luke or the other gospels.  The question what is Luke trying to convey in his decision to include the shout of the disciple who merged the Psalm and the prophet Zechariah as he praised Jesus?  What is about that word, “king?”

            There can only be one.  If Jesus is king, then Archaelus, the son of Herod is not king.  More significantly, if Jesus is king, then the Roman Emperor is not.  To declare the royalty of Lord Jesus is to declare one’s allegiance to the death.  And, after the resurrection, which is when Luke’s gospel was written and read, disciples were sent to the death because they insisted Jesus, not Caesar, is king. 

            Words.  Lord.  King. 

            Enter the Pharisees.  They won’t use these words for him.  “Teacher,” they say, “order your disciples to stop.”  ‘Teacher’ is an honorable title and they show respect in using it.  However, with this word, they view Jesus as their peer.  As his peers, as they see themselves, they assume the right of communal authority over him.  For the good the community, he needs to quiet this furor down immediately and they see it as their place to impose this.

            Word.  Lord – Jesus is to be worshipped and all belongs to Him.  King – Jesus is to be obeyed and given complete allegiance, even to death.  Teacher – Jesus is my peer and if he gets out of line it is my job to rein him in. 

            One more word demands our attention and it is tied to a response, so I will come back to it. 

            The disciples are the first to respond.  Jesus tells them to go ahead to the village, enter a yard of a home they have never visited and take a colt that is not theirs.  They respond in obedience.  I suspect the owners of the house and the yard and the cold were also his disciples, just unknown to those in his traveling party.  They also obeyed without question, giving up the colt. 

            Obedience is a response. 

            Praise is too – the response of the crowd.  They make noise as Jesus rides into Jerusalem because Jesus is worth the noise.  Their praise is not just a predetermined act of worship and political protest.  Luke says they raise their voices joyfully.  It is a response of the heart.

            The Pharisees offer a response of fear.  They hear how much noise the disciples are making.  They know that if they hear it, others will too: temple police; Roman soldiers in the area.  They fully understand the words they have heard, so they know any priests who hear this will fully understand it too.  They fear the powers that be – the temple, the puppet King Archelaeus, Roma – more than they fear God.  God is the one worshiped in the temple and the one who allows Rome to exist, but the Pharisees cannot see that God is in this man before them, Jesus.  So they try to shut the whole thing down. 

            Jesus’ response to the Pharisees raises the last word, the most important word.  We have seen that he is Lord and our response is worship.  We have seen that he is King and our response is obedience and loyalty.  We have seen an attempt to reduce him back to human size by calling him teacher.   He is teacher, but not now, not in this moment.

            Jesus tells the Pharisees if all were silent, the stones would praise him.  The only way the created order – animals, waters, trees, earth – the only way the natural world offers praise is if the praise is going to God.  That’s the only way stones shout out.  Jesus is God.

            He continues through the praises, through the Pharisees and their fears, and into the city.  And God weeps.  Jesus weeps and says to Jerusalem “You did not recognize the time of your visitation.”  God is here and you cannot see it. 

            Words:  Lord. King. God.

            Responses: Obedience.  Praise.  Worship.      

            We have confidence today in the truth in these words and responses to Jesus.  I don’t know if this past Tuesday’s primary results made you happy or fearful.  Maybe you believe Donald Trump can make America great again.  It doesn’t matter.  Maybe you are horrified at the prospect of a Trump presidency.  Doesn’t matter.  Maybe you feel burned because voters didn’t feel the burn for Bernie Sanders.  Doesn’t matter.  Maybe you are super excited at the thought of Hillary as president.  It does not matter.

            From the standpoint of America’s democracy, our presidential election is of course very important.  It always is.  But we are in church.  We have an eternal perspective.  We vote and play our part as law abiding citizens who contribute to society, but what happens in society, who is president, whatever crisis comes up, whatever war is going on – it does not change the fact the Jesus is Lord, King, and God.

            As despair mounts,  society crumbles, and people are at each other’s throats, we speak a word of hope amid the chaos.  The Lord and God and King who rides into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday died for our sins and then defeated death in the resurrection.  Our Palm Sunday politics transcend the temporary troubles that worry the world. 

Because of Jesus, we have a politics of life.  We know his visitation was a visitation of God and he brought salvation with Him – our salvation and the salvation of all who put their trust in him.  More than that, he came to save world including the rocks and stones.  No wonder they are ready with words of praise.  But praise is our job. 

AMEN