Love, Love, Love

            This morning, a Sunday morning, my Sabbatical continued.  Instead of preaching at HillSong Church, my family and I worshipped for a 4^th week in a row at Citywell Church in Durham, NC.  Pastor Cleve May delivered a remarkable sermon on creation (Genesis 1).  He made the case that the creation account actually comes out of the writings of Jews in the exile, 6^th century BC.  The account is a response to the violent origins story of the Babylonian god Tiamat.  In the Tiamat creation drama, humans are the result of violent conflict among the gods.  In the Genesis story, the universe, the earth, and human beings are all created as expressions of “God’s overflowing abundance.”  A key quality in the creation is relationship.  God is relational.  The Genesis story flows from God’s love and shouts of God’s yearning for relationship.

            Pastor May’s thoughts on Genesis, and more importantly on the relationship of God and human beings, aligns well with the writing of the great author, pastor, and Bible translator Eugene Peterson.  In his sermon on Psalm 116 “Land of the living,” he says, “Every word [from God], every phrase, every sentence, every silence must be received relationally.  God does not reveal himself impersonally.”[i]  Creation is something God does.  Relationship is something God initiates.  We are created, but out of love, not violence.  We are invited, but not coerced. 

            The key is love – love between God and humans and love humans show to one another.  A Common Word (edited by Miroslav Volf, Ghazi bin Muhammad, and Melissa Yarrington) is a compilation of essays written to reflect upon the October 2007 letter written by Muslim leaders to Christian leaders.  The essence of the letter is that Muslims and Christians both have at the center of their respective faiths two central tenets or commands – to love God and to love neighbor.  Mark 12:29-31 is one of many places in scripture that make plain the centrality of these commands for Christians.  The Muslim authors who contribute to the A Common Word letter and essays to the book by the same title exhaustively demonstrate that similar commands are operative in Islam.  While both the Christian and the Muslim authors in the book recognize the likely irreconcilable differences in the two faiths, including nuanced understandings of “love,” both demonstrate that love is the key.  Furthermore, the Christian and Muslim authors make a compelling case that love is the ground upon which Muslims and Christians can meet in friendship and peace. 

            The key is love – in creation, in relationship, in drawing together parties that have experienced mutual enmity.  The theologian Miroslav Volf writes one of the Christian responses.  His essay is a tour de force of theological explanation as he explains the trinity even while demonstrating why the trinity cannot be explained.[ii]  On the love of God Volf writes, “God loves irrespective of the existence or non-existence of creation; … the contingent world is created by a God who is always love and just because God is love” (italics Volf’s).[iii] 

            One of the points of emphasis in my Sabbatical is a study of the differences between people and how those differences can be overcome for the sake of beautiful friendship, and more importantly that differences be overcome because we are family – brothers and sisters in Christ.  Admittedly, I have devoted much of my reading and conversation to the divide between European Americans (white) and African Americans (blacks) while knowing there are other divisions separating people.  I felt the black-white divide demanded my attention.  But, the animus many American Christians feel toward Muslims needs to be abolished too.  And maybe my study of A Common Word will yield reminders of the call of Christ to love that can become identity markers in interracial friendships and encounters in the church I pastor.  We Christians are called to, commanded to love our neighbors.  The church is to be the community that witnesses to the world the unity and diversity of the body of Christ.  We can do this when, within the church body, we see sacred neighbor love so powerfully that all who come in know from the start they are welcome and are at home among people who deeply care for them.

            From Pastor May’s word on God’s love as the basis for creation to Eugene Peterson’s display of God as the supremely relational One to Dr. Volf’s smart, straightforward account of God as God is Love, the point is abundantly made.  The root of who we are is love – God’s love.  My son and I saw Wonder Woman, and we thoroughly enjoyed it, but I snickered at the end when her final conclusion was “the most important thing is love.”  I smugly thought, “Well that’s just Hollywood cliché, its vapid fluffiness on full display. Wonder Woman kicks some serious bad guy butt and then in a reflection both hopeful and melancholy concludes, ‘the most important thing is love’?  Seriously?” 

Now, I’m saying the same thing. 

            I am because it’s how I was made.  I was created by love (you know, 1 John 4:16, ‘God is love’).  I was made in the image of the One who is love.  He who made me knows me and in spite of my selfishness and impatience commands me to love my neighbor.  He pours His Spirit and His love into me.  Created and commanded, I must love.  Also, I know that the hope for our church (HillSong) and for the church (Christians everywhere) is that we be the living embodiment of God’s love.  Only then are we truly God’s church.  And for peace and flourishing and joy, the world needs the church to truly be the church. 

            I can’t believe I am going to say it, but I have Cleve May, Eugene Peterson, Miroslav Volf, and Diana Prince’s endorsements (not to mention the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit’s).  And, seriously, who am I to question Wonder Woman?  The most important thing really is love. 

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[i] E. Peterson (2017), As Kingfishers Catch Fire, Waterbook (New York), p. 74.

[ii] Volf, Muhammad, and Yarrington, editors (2010).  A Common Word: Muslims and Christians on Loving God and Neighbor, William B. Eerdmans (Grand Rapids), p.130.

[iii] Ibid, p.126.  

“Fully Receive the Word” (1 Thessalonians 2:13-20)

Sunday, August 30, 2015

[prior to reading the text]

        Last week, we received spiritual prescriptions that contribute to us living spiritually healthy lives in relation to God as disciples of Jesus and as a church that stands on the foundation of faith.

        The first prescription is to read 1^st Thessalonians, 2^nd Thessalonians, and Acts 17.

          The second prescription is to the welcome the madness that is in the world, and we do this by creating an environment of love and grace as we invite broken people to come to faith in Christ.

          This morning, we receive additional guidance for a spiritually fulfilled life.  Our Bible passage is 1^st Thessalonians 2:13-20.

                                                                                                      

¹³ We also constantly give thanks to God for this, that when you received the word of God that you heard from us, you accepted it not as a human word but as what it really is, God’s word, which is also at work in you believers. ¹⁴ For you, brothers and sisters,^[d] became imitators of the churches of God in Christ Jesus that are in Judea, for you suffered the same things from your own compatriots as they did from the Jews, ¹⁵ who killed both the Lord Jesus and the prophets,^[e] and drove us out; they displease God and oppose everyone¹⁶ by hindering us from speaking to the Gentiles so that they may be saved. Thus they have constantly been filling up the measure of their sins; but God’s wrath has overtaken them at last.

¹⁷ As for us, brothers and sisters,^[g] when, for a short time, we were made orphans by being separated from you—in person, not in heart—we longed with great eagerness to see you face to face. ¹⁸ For we wanted to come to you—certainly I, Paul, wanted to again and again—but Satan blocked our way. ¹⁹ For what is our hope or joy or crown of boasting before our Lord Jesus at his coming? Is it not you? ²⁰ Yes, you are our glory and joy!

        In 1^st Thessalonians 2:13, Paul says the people in Thessalonica received the word of God not a human word but as God’s word, which works in us.  Note, Paul did not hand out Bibles – the New Testament had not been written and bound books were not available.  We hear the phrase ‘word of God,’ and we think Bible.  Paul meant his preaching.  When he went to Thessalonica and preached to the Jews in the synagogue, he felt that his sermon was the word of God. 

          Something similar should happen here.  When you come to HillSong or to another church, here is what should happen.  The experience should be one in which you encounter the living God.  I don’t say this because my words are necessarily the Word.  I do my part.  I study.  I pray.  I try to write a sermon that is interesting, well-informed, and includes a message that meets a need people have.  But, you receiving the word of God is not contingent upon my competence as a preacher.  Some weeks I do well, some weeks, I really stumble and stink.

          Some weeks, I finish, and I sit down, and I think, “Boy, I am glad that’s over because my preaching was just awful.” Inevitably someone will come and say through tears, “That’s the best sermon you’ve ever preached.”  Do you know why that happens?  God was at work in that person on that Sunday.  They need to express the overwhelming sense of the holy they have had.  How do they express that?  They don’t know.  So they complement me.

          Sometimes people listen very carefully and give me feedback that is directly tied to something I said and I am grateful in those moments whether the feedback is critical or affirming.  But sometimes, people have actually been dealing with God and did not really hear me at all.  They have to react and the easiest thing to do is say something nice to me. 

          I’ll admit it does feel good to hear affirmations and ‘attaboys.’  But, this morning, I think the word in 1^st Thessalonians is calling us to go beyond the easy and immediate reaction.  We need to step toward a more life-changing engagement with the word.  And by the phrase “the word,” I mean the sermon, the Bible, and the voice of the Holy Spirit speaking into hearts as we go through the entire Sunday morning exercise of worship at church. 

          We need to fully receive the word and that requires full engagement of each of us.  Be aware of your life – the good, the bad, the ugly.  Be aware of your spirit.  Are you happy, in a good place right now?  Are you going through difficult times?  Is your life kind of inert, it feels dull, boring?  Is this a season of radical change?  Does all the new that’s pouring to your life leave you feeling unsettled and unsure of what’s next?  As we sit together as a community of faith and encounter God’s word, know yourself, your emotions, your dreams, your situation.  Bring all of it before God.

          When Paul preached at the synagogue in Thessalonica, obviously Jews were present.  Greeks were too.  Non-Jews attended because they found something in the Jewish faith to be attractive.  It was a world of Roman power, Greek culture, and Jewish religion.  Many there knew that the tense situation in Jerusalem.  Certain groups were intent on using military force to evict the Romans.  It would be a suicide mission as Israel was a meager force in the face of the might of the Roman army. 

          The Jews and Greeks who gathered at the synagogue in Thessalonica knew of this.  They heard Paul claim that Jesus, who was crucified, a shameful, loser’s death, had been raised and was the Messiah.  They knew this message was way outside of anyone’s expectations, whether they be Greek, Jewish, or Roman.  How could Paul, a Jew, make such a far-fetched claim?  Yet, he did.  A few Thessalonican Jews believed him and wanted to become disciples of Jesus.  So too did a few Thessalonican Greeks.  Many others got so mad they kicked Paul out of town. 

          In writing the letter 1^st Thessalonians, Paul picks up on this ongoing story of struggle and persecution.  When he says, “You received the word as God’s word,” included in this is the acknowledgement that to follow Jesus is to suffer.  Verse 14, “[You Thessalonians] became imitators of the churches of God in Christ Jesus that are in Judea, for you suffered the same things from your own compatriots as they did from the Jews.”  Please remember, in both churches, the Thessalonican and the Judean, many of the Christ-followers were Jews. 

          Bible scholar Calvin Roetzel writes how suffering brought “the suffering churches of Thessalonica and Judea together into a community of shared suffering.”  In this passage, “Paul emphasized the bond between himself and his readers.”[i]  He suffered.  They suffered.  Christians in other cities suffered.  And ultimately, God can identify with all of this because on the cross, Jesus suffered. 

          Suffering of course is not the heart of the faith Paul taught; just the opposite.  In 1^st Thessalonians he is moving to show that God welcomes suffering people.  If you are having a tough go of it, that is not a sign that you’re cut off from God.  Sin cuts us off.  If you’re suffering, God understands and so too do all God-followers.  The answer to the cross and to your pain and mine is the resurrection.  We are united in that we are broken and that we have hope that God will clean up our mess, fix what is broken, heal what’s hurt, and make us new. 

          We won’t receive the word fully unless we attend to it fully and that means bring everything before God when we come into the worship.  The preacher stand to preach and we’re all here – with all our junk.  Our hearts are fully present and so too are our brothers and sisters in Christ around the world.  Our challenges are linked to those who languish in poverty just a few miles from here.  Our story is a part of the story of the faithful believe drowning in a sea of apathy and atheism in post-Christian Europe.  We are connected to the Christian starving in solitary confinement in a North Korean prison.  It is all connected.

          When Paul told the Thessalonians they were receiving the Word as they heard Him speak and when I say here that God’s word is spoken during my sermons, there is a lot more going on than just a guy as microphone offering commentary on the Bible.  God is bringing us all together in Christ. 

          N.T. Wright says it this way.  “I believe [Paul] regarded [his own] work as being to set up cells loyal to Jesus as Lord across the world where Caesar was lord, raising small but significant flags which heralded the dawn of a different empire, a different sort  of empire.”[ii]  We see several things happening.  One is we, in our brokenness are invited in to find what we need, whatever it is, in a community that is based on faith in Jesus Christ as the Savior of all and Lord of all.  Our hope is in Him.

          A second thing at work in this Word of God is the unity we have with one another, with churches and with people from almost 2000 years ago – Thessalonia, Jerusalem, Paul, Silas, and with churches around the world today.  We who have our hope in Christ are connected to all others who have their hope in Christ because we’re all broken and we all have hope of healing from the same source: the crucified, resurrected Lord.

          A third thing in Paul’s letter which Dr. Wright so astutely observes is that we who are healed and connected through the Word we have received are commissioned to announce that Jesus is Lord.  We are to look at the governments of today and the situations of the lives we lead and we are to be today’s heralds of a new kind of empire.  The word we have received heals us and then propels us just as it did Paul to announce the Gospel, the good news of life in Christ.

          I preach this same message just about every week.  I use different words and the themes vary, but the idea that we meet God in Christ, are healed and made whole, and then are sent into the world in His name is at the core of what I think the Bible says we are to be as His followers.  So discipleship and proclamation is always a part of what we do and say.

          Last week we received a prescription of 3 Bible readings and one orientation – an orientation of welcome to all people.

          This week the word is in the form of exercise or spiritual therapy.  I got to doctor in hopes a magic pill that will my shoulder pain disappear.  No, he says, you don’t get medicine.  You have to go through physical therapy.  It takes time and commitment and it is hard work.  But I can tell you, it is worth it!  I didn’t like the exercises, but 6 weeks later, my shoulder was working properly again.

          This spiritual version of physical therapy is demanding.  (1) We need to come to worship with the family of God – the church.  We need to come every week.  (2) When we come – whether here or elsewhere, whether with me preaching or with Heather or Nathan – we need to be fully present.  This doesn’t mean we hang on every word Rob speaks.  We need to come fully present to God. 

          To be fully present, we have to give God our attention.  Distractions happen, but we keep our minds and hearts open to God as the Bible is read and the preacher speaks.  Fully attentive, fully open, prayerfully waiting, we are ready to receive what God has for us.  In that moment, when we sit fully ready and the Holy Spirit awakens us to new truth and revelation God has for us, that is when we receive the word as God’s word.  It may be directly related to the preacher’s sermon; it may not.  Either way, we have received God’s word.

          Finally (3), we carry what we have received into the world so that we are ready to share the healing and to invite the lost and hurting world around us to the hope that we have in the resurrection of Jesus.

          Come, be fully present, and carry with you what’s been received.  These three spiritual practices need to be done regularly for spiritual health and the transformation of the heart. 

          N.T. Wright marvels at this message we proclaim.  He’s amazed that it actually does anything.  He says, “I have often reflected on the strangeness of the task to which Paul devoted his life: telling pagans that there was a single creator God rather than a multiplicity of gods was bad enough, but adding that this God had made himself known in a crucified Jew, who had then been raised from the dead was bound to cause hoots of derision and, if Acts is to be believed, sometimes did.   Yet Paul found that when he told this story, when he proclaimed that this Jesus was indeed the world’s true Lord, people (to their great surprise, no doubt) found this announcement making itself at home in their minds and hearts, generating the belief that it was true, and transforming their lives with a strange new presence and power.”[iii]

          Yes, it is strange.  Come every week.  Listen so presently and intently you meet God.  Go out and share that God in Christ is the answer to the world’s problem.  We don’t have to participate in this exercise to breathe or have a heartbeat.  But to truly live, we do this.  And, as the apostle says, we have joy.

AMEN

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[i] C. Roetzel (2003).  Paul: A Jew on the Margins.  Westminster John Know Press, Louisville, p.32.

[ii] Wright (2005).  Paul in Fresh Perspective.  Fortress Press, Minneapolis, p.170.

[iii] Ibid, p.100.

Joy Carriers (Psalm 126)

Sunday, December 14, 2014 – 3^rd Sunday of Advent

          “May our Homes be filled with Dancing.  May our streets be filled with joy.”  Jesus has come, salvation is offered to all who repent and turn to him.  He promises to return and invite all who are his to inhabit the Eternal Kingdom of Heaven as children of God.  Yes, dancing and joy; yes, that sounds right. 

We heard it when Tim and Laura lit the candle and read Isaiah 61:  I will greatly rejoice in the Lord; my whole being shall exult in my God.

Mary, the mother of Jesus: “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.

The Apostle Paul writing to the Thessalonians: Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. 

Our songs, our scriptures, our reading, our ears – we are full of joy and we should be.  It is Jesus’ birthday.  We are reminded that we have been born again in Christ.  At Christmas we celebrate our birthday, our awakening to God, our receiving forgiveness, cleansing, and eternal life. 

Psalm 126 offers a beautiful expression of what we have in Christ.  We are who we are because he is who he is.  “Our mouth was filled with laughter, our tongue with shouts of joy.  May those who sow in tears reap with shouts of joy.  We were like those who dream.”  That last line calls to mind the prophet Joel (Joel 2:28).  You and I will dream.  We will see the Kingdom of God. 

The tension comes when we take our eyes off Christmas and the magic and wonder, the holiness and love, and we look around us. Reading Psalm 126 rubs against the hard edge when we step out of the warm soft light of worship into the biting winds of the world around us. 

We won’t let go joy.  We won’t.  We hold it, proclaim, live in it, and spread it because of Jesus.  However, we do this with eyes wide open.  We do this full of compassion which demands that we have empathy for people whose experience of life is different than our own.  That means we have to be joy carriers.  We have to carry joy to people who are having trouble seeing it right now. 

America has blown up in a 21^st century version of racial strife.  Much of the vitriol is spilled all over Twitter and Facebook.  These media can be pathways where we share the Gospel.  I have participated in redemptive conversations on Facebook. 

However, there is no filter.  So, people can tweet, post, or email extremely insensitive thoughts.  Readers see a message and respond with aggressive words.  Insults are thrown back and forth and what started as a thoughtful even hopeful discourse is, in the end, a hate-stained verbal battle ground. 

Remember the Psalm – our mouth was filled with laughter, our tongue with shouts of joy.  We won’t let go of joy.  We will spread it.  This is the feel-good seasonal joy that can be reduced to a greeting card (not that I oppose Hallmark, I don’t).  No, we are here talking about the deep joy of Heaven.  That is what we in Christ are called to share. 

Michael Brown’s family is having trouble with laughter.  Their son is dead.   

Eric Garner’s wife is not raising shouts of joy.  Her husband, a black man, died when a white officer used an illegal choke hold to subdue him.  Conservative commentator Bill O’Reily condemned the actions that led to Garner’s death.

The one that gets me is Tamir Rice, the 12-year-old child in Cleveland, Ohio who was shot by police men because he had a BB gun.  My 12-year-old son runs through our neighborhood all the time playing with his friends playing with pretend guns and swords and having fake battles.  Boys love BB guns.  I don’t have to worry about my son being confronted by police – he’s white. 

But my younger son is black.  All my kids are adopted and the younger two are black.  My neighborhood is mostly white we a few Chinese and Koreans also there.  It is educated, middle class America.  Is my neighbor going to call the police because my black son is playing too aggressively?  When my white son plays that way, it is “boys will be boys.”  Why doesn’t my black son get the same space and grace?  If my neighbors call the police and they come and confront my black son for doing what all his white playmates have done all around him all his life, then what happens? 

He’s seven.  He was listening as we had NPR on recently.  He asked my wife “Is it going to be hard for me because I am black?”  She had to be honest and say, “Yes.  It might be.”

This is real.  A few years ago, someone in our neighborhood saw two black boys going door-to-door through neighborhood.  She emailed the neighborhood list serve asking if she should call the police.  They were football players from Chapel Hill high school selling calendars to raise money for the team.  Why didn’t she ask the same question a year before?  She didn’t ask because a year before, the players who went door-to-door were white. 

So just to be clear, parents of black boys have to teach their kids not to play with BB guns – you might get shot.  Parents of black boys have to teach their sons to be careful if you go through a neighborhood because your football team needs money – someone might call the police. 

Our mouth was filled with laughter, our tongue with shouts of joy.  We cannot let it.  We are of Christ.  We are in Christ.  We know what this season, why joy is the word for it.  Nor can we blithely proclaim joy as if everything is alright.  Everything is not alright.

Much of what I have said is toxic and divisive.  Some white people stand with their black brothers and sisters; other white people decry aspects of black culture they find unappealing.  Some people damn the police – all police.  Others rush to the defense of the police. 

I read an impassioned appreciation shared by the daughter of a law enforcement officer.  I really could feel her heart as she thanked her dad and all officers for his service in protecting the public.  The work the police do is essential in keeping our society safe and ordered.  When you are listening to K-Love or another radio station and the public service announcement comes on calling for thanks and prayer for those in the armed forces, also say a prayer of thanks for police officers and fire fighters.  We need the people who do these tough jobs. 

My only question is this.  Could a black woman offer the same word of appreciation to the police?  Or would her experiences of police pulling her son over to ask why someone like him was driving such a nice car lead her to a different statement?  Does she feel forced to plead with the officials to give her son the same grace and guidance and protection they white boys?  That such a question even warrants asking shows the complexity and difficulty in our culture. 

We have to name it.  We have to insert ourselves into tension and carry the joy of Jesus into it.  As I said, I understand the appreciation for policemen and women I read this week.  That makes sense.  I think I understand that groups of people are fearful of the police.  That also makes sense. 

Many times in recent weeks, reading about Ferguson and Staten Island and grand juries, I have been at a loss for what to say. This morning, with the light of Christmas filling my heart and the even brighter light of Christ illuminating all of life, I know what we have to do.  We have to carry joy to people whose hearts are soaked with tears so that the Holy Spirit can give laughter to those who need it most.  How do we do this?  I have a few thoughts.

First, we listen.  I urge Christ followers to find people whose perspective is different than our own and hear what they have to say.  We listen without judgment and without condition.  Just see the whole picture from their perspective.  Feel their pain.  We listen to them and with them and we do so with compassion and understanding.  You don’t have to agree with everything they say.  Just stand with them and offer compassionate embrace.  It will be uncomfortable, and awkward.  Accept that and go there. 

Second, we pray.  We pray before we listen.  We pray as we listen.  And we pray as we watch.  You turn on the news, find out the grand jury is not going to indict and the rioting and looting starts.  Before we post on Facebook how evil rioting is, we turn our hearts to Heaven and think about with Jesus.  Imagine simply sitting – you and Jesus together – thinking together.  Why does someone see the death of a teenager as an occasion to rob stores?  Because that person, that looter, does not know the joy of Jesus.  He is so lost, his great joy this Christmas will be the TV he stole from a Ferguson store.  You and I want to rant and rave about how stupid looting (and it is).  Is Jesus joining us in our indignation? 

Or do we see this from Jesus’ view?  Yes, Jesus hates sin.  Jesus also weeps when a child dies.  Are we weeping with Him?  Yes, looting is a sign of how broken the world is.  When Jesus rode into Jerusalem, another broken place, he wept (Luke 19:41).  Into Jerusalem, into Ferguson, into Cleveland, are we flicking our tongues in disgust or weeping alongside Jesus?  When our hearts are where Jesus is then we are poised to have our tears turned into laughter.  Only when Jesus has done this in us are we ready to carry his joy to another.

Third, seek.  Seek out good stories amidst the not so good.  In Richmond California, the chief of police led the protest march against police abuses of power.  His message to the community was I see with you that something is broken and my intent is to be part of the solution.  It can be wearing to constantly hear stories of more deaths, angry rants, and divisive rhetoric.  It is tempting to turn it all off and stick to schmaltzy Christmas movies. We are in Christ.  We cannot just stick to safe, nice things.  Jesus does not do that.  We have to go where Jesus is.  The media magnifies tragedy because bad news sells.  The media buries positive stories.  But those positives are out there.  We seek the good as we pray for all and listen to those whose perspectives differ from ours.. 

A fourth thought I have is to hold on.  Hold on to joy.  We cannot carry it and share it if we drop it because our hearts are full of other things – anger, irritation, judgment.  Let’s drop those things and hold onto joy.

If we listen, we see the other, whoever the other is – black, Asian, police gay, immigrant – we see the other as human.  Joy comes when human hearts join with each other.  Our differences become beautiful variety and likenesses are signs that we are all made in the image of God and in Christ adopted as children of God. 

If we pray, we submit ourselves to Jesus. We let go of everything.  He sets the agenda.  We have already seen in the scriptures that God fills us with laughter and joy. 

If we seek the good, we are inclined toward the light and without realizing it the light of God shines through us.  We gravitate toward stories of hope and people are pulled along with us. 

If we hold onto joy, we release other thing, negative emotions, hateful words.  We are all of limited capacity.  We can only carry so much.  Let joy be what we carry.

I have not mentioned protest – Christians participating in peaceful demonstrations like ‘die-ins’ and other things like that.  I don’t feel I understand protest movements enough to give thoughtful comment.  But I think if we commit to listening, praying, seeking the good, and holding tightly to joy, we will be equipped to be people of the light of Jesus if participate in protests.  If we choose not to participate, we are at least ready to love those who do.  Jesus calls us to love.

When the Lord restores [our] fortunes, we will be those who dream.

² Then our mouth will be filled with laughter, and our tongue with shouts of joy; then it was said of us, “The Lord has done great things for them.”

Healing the world is God’s work, which began with the coming of Jesus.  In the age of the church, we bear witness to Him.  In His perfect time, he will return to complete the work of the cross and resurrection.  This is God’s work.  We carry the message of God’s work to those who need it most and we do so with compassion.  Christmas highlights what God’s people are all year – joy carriers.

AMEN

Rooted and Grounded in Love

            You have a worldview.  So do I.  Everyone does.  The worldview is the lens through which we see … everything.  Often, we are unaware of our worldview or that we even have one, but we do.  How we see is colored by our family, our culture, our heritage – so many things.  It is extremely hard to change one’s worldview.  But every worldview, and there are many, evolves out of human culture which is tainted by sin.  In this sense then, we are born in sin because we are born into sinful systems – all of us.

We need to change our worldview, if we want to walk in the way of Christ.  We have help.  The Holy Spirit, the church (when it is a healthy community), the Bible, and the traditions of Christianity all equip us to see from the point of view of the Kingdom of God. 

            Imagine a 26-year-old young woman.  She has achieved an undergraduate degree in business from an Ivy League school, worked a year or two in Charlotte, and spent the last two years at the Kenan-Flagler business school getting her MBA.  Her upbringing, her socio-economic class, her education - everything that shaped her comes out of a worldview than in turn creates her worldview. 

The soil in which she has grown is Western liberal arts education.  The foundation on which she stands is the profitability of the business where she will work.  Neither is inherently evil, but the culture does not promote seeing the world through kingdom-of-God lenses.  The Western education encourages academic excellence.  The middle class American life encourages a certain standard of living.  Success in business encourages profit.  All can be good things, but none in and of itself promotes the gospel. 

            If her soil is education, business, North Carolina, what soil has produced you and me?  Family; culture; nationality?  We are rooted in something.  What?  And, on what foundation do we stand?  What’s supporting us?  What can we count on?

            The Apostle Paul wants to influence our world by inviting us to take up root in new soil and stand on a new foundation. 

His words in Ephesians 3 make up a prayer.  “I bow my knees before the Father” (3:14).  “I pray that according to the riches of [the Father’s] glory that you may be strengthened … with power through his Spirit” (3:16).  “I pray that you may have the knowledge … to know the love of Christ that surpasses all knowledge” (from vs.18, 19).  If these prayers are answered and the riches of the Father’s glory indeed strengthen us with the power of the Holy Spirit and we have knowledge of the unmatched love of Christ, I believe it will result in us seeing everything – everything – with a Kingdom-of-God worldview. 

Paul hopes Christ will dwell in our hearts as we are rooted and grounded in love.  Agape is the word used for love in verse 17 and again in 19.  This is selfless love, put-the-other-first love.  This is love that seeks no benefit for the giver but is given freely and abundantly for the good of the other.  This love makes up the soil in which disciples are grown. 

We see it in the gospel of John with passages like “For God so loved the world that he gave his only son;” and, “They will know that you are mine by this; that you love one another.”  In the essay entitled 1^st John, chapter 4, we read God is love.  In Galatians 5 we read of the fruit of the Spirit.  That fruit grows in the soil of love.  We are rooted in love.

We stand on love.  The well-known love passage, 1 Corinthians 13 says love never fails.  Three remain, faith, hope, and love, and the greatest of these is love.  No matter what comes along in life, love drives our responses.  Fear causes overreaction.  Fear leads me to yell at my wife or become defensive or shout out curses.  Fear leads me to react and I end up hurting myself and others.  Love helps us endure difficult things.  Rooted in love, standing on love, I can respond to anything in a measured, calm way, with bundles and bundles of grace and mercy.   We can count on the love of God in Jesus Christ.  It never leaves us and always guides us.  We are grounded in love. 

Rooted and grounded in love – this is the way of the gospel.

I offer three worldviews that I think a lot American Christians have; these are undoubtedly inherited, not chosen.  Yet, these are not Jesus-first worldviews.  And any time Jesus is not first, determining how we see everything else in life, then we are not oriented toward the Kingdom.  That love Paul prays for is not driving us.  We’re driven by something else, something that ultimately ungodly.

The first of these competing worldviews is the enlightenment.  We are products of the enlightenment.  We know the Earth goes around the sun and the not the other way around.  We know of molecules and atoms and particles smaller than that.  Even people ignorant of the methods of science live by what science produces.  This is true of discoveries that lead to cures.  It is true of  the technology that is responsible for how we produce food, entertain ourselves, and fight wars.  We have grown in the soil of scientific advancement.  This has created in us a cold, unfeeling worldview– the antithesis of the self-sacrificing love we see in Jesus. 

This is does not mean science is evil.  Our church is full of people who are in different fields of science.  Their discipleship is lived out in the pursuit of new discoveries and a love for knowledge.  One way they serve the Lord is in their research.  But disciples who are scientists acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord.

When the thirst for more knowledge takes over and we become rooted in curiosity instead of being rooted in love and we stand on intellectual achievement instead of standing on love, then science becomes an idol which dictates what we can and cannot think and say.  Followers of Jesus practice the various scientific disciplines with a commitment to excellence, but stay rooted and grounded in love.  In this way we are witnesses who tell about the Kingdom He will establish.

Science produces one competing worldviews.  A second contributor is capitalism.  Our democracy is a capitalist nation.  Just as the science produced by the enlightenment contributes to human flourishing and thus can be done in service to God, our capitalistic democracy is an environment in which we can flourish. 

Our system is based on money and we find ourselves rooted in money, standing on what we have – houses, cars, insurance plans, retirement accounts.  Nothing is wrong with this, but unless it is all seen to be in service to God, ultimately owned by God, it begins to take over.  Greed becomes the soil where we are rooted.  The acquisition of more stuff and newer stuff and upgraded stuff takes over.  This constant craving for more, newer, and better becomes an idol that demands everything from us.  Faith is pushed to a small corner of our lives, which shrinks and shrinks until God has no place at all. 

We need to be wise in the ways of money.  Root and grounded in love, our capitalistic democracy affords us unique opportunities to practice New Testament generosity in our own community and around the world and we use money in this way, as a tool to advance the Kingdom.  In this way, we give witness to the gospel of Jesus Christ.  If we find ourselves rooted in money, greed takes over and the gospel is crowded out completely. 

We are enlightened people, products of science.  We live in a republic where democracy truly speaks and capitalistic motivations drive us.  The enlightenment would have us rooted in science.  We, rooted in love, appreciate science but in service to God, not at the expense of our faith.  Capitalism would have rooted in money.  We use money and strive to make more of it.  But we are rooted in love.  We stand on love.  Money is a tool to help us spread the good news of Jesus.  A third force that would root us in something other than the soil of love is our nation – America.

With pride I say I am an American.  We envision ourselves as rooted in freedom.  Somehow though, this has evolved and we think it means we are entitled to do whatever we want whenever we want.  Freedom has become this sense that our desires ought to be met all the time. 

What foundation supports this self-centered notion?  Power.  Rooted in a distorted sense of freedom, we stand on what we believe to be the irrepressible power of the United States.  The terrorist attacks of 9/11 shocked America, but here 13 years later; our nation still had a sense of invincibility.  We still act like there will never come a time when America is not the most powerful country on earth. 

As Christ followers, we cannot put our confidence in a government, not even the American government.  We love our country.  We vote, in serve in the military, and show our devotion in numerous other ways.  We want to be good Americans.  But our rooting is not in the red, white, and blue.  This may be the soil in which we were born.  But in our baptism, we were transplanted and transformed.  We are now rooted in the love that Jesus showed when he went to the cross. 

For too many people, Christianity is a cultural expression, not a testimony that God has done a new thing in Jesus.  In Christ, we truly are different from the culture around us.  Enlightenment thinking and discovery, democratic capitalism, and American power – these forces lead to a worldview in which we see ourselves as smart, free, and powerful.  But the wisdom of God is lacking, we are slaves to sin, and our power is an illusion.

In Christ, we live in a worldview where God is in control, not us.  God, the creator of all that is good has a plan to redeem and renew his creation.  Ephesians 3:15 says every family in Heaven and Earth takes its name from God the Father.  We are all made in God’s image.  We are all fallen in sin.  And the greatest bond humans can enjoy is unity in Christ, which only comes when Christ is first in all things.  Paul prays in verse 19 that we would be filled with the fullness of God.  Once filled, we cannot be filled with anything else.  No other love can define us. 

            A young professional woman living several states away from the town where she was raised attends worship.  In this church, she has been welcomed, loved, and made to feel at home.  On this particular Sunday morning, she hugs the older lady, the one who reminds her of her grandmother.  Her Bible study leader leads a prayer time in which she hears her classmate’s requests and her heart goes out to them.  In the worship time, one of the songs ignites flames of deep love for God in her heart.  And the entire experience is rooted in Jesus’ love.

            Upon leaving at the end, she does what she does every week.  She ask God to empower her so that in her profession, work she does very well, she can be light – the light of the Gospel.  She prays God will make opportunities for her to point people to Him.  She prays God will make her ready when those opportunities come.  She can pray this prayer because in this church, she really believes God hears and answers prayers like this.  The love of God in which she is rooted is also the foundation on which she stands. 

            Love – the apostle prays that you and I would know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge and be filled with all the fullness of God.

AMEN

The Life Hope Creates (Colossians 1:1-8)

Sunday, May 4, 2014

            Imagine a series of events that might happen in life, any scenario that comes to mind.  A trip to Food Lion because we’re out of eggs; a 50^th birthday party; the sinking feeling of the flashing lights in the rearview mirror and knowing you were going 50 in a 25 zone; finding a $20 bill on the sidewalk; reading your emails and coming across one that is surprisingly and extraordinarily negative; eating with your best friend at your favorite burger place; now, here is the question.  What difference does it make for you or anyone going through that situation, however important or banal, to go through it as one who is in Christ?

            This is not a suggestion that we ask, what difference does it make that I am a Christian? I have not forfeited the title ‘Christian,’ but it has been severely diluted by overuse.  Militants kill 100’s of Muslims and because they wear crosses, they are called ‘Christian.’  Christ did not endorse mass violence.  When they came for him, he rebuked his followers for resorting to violence (Matthew 26:52-54).  The term ‘Christian’ fits, but is unhelpful because it lacks descriptive power.

            Today we intensify a journey we’ve already been on, a quest to discover what it means for an individual and for a congregation to be “In Christ.”  As we discover this and grow in understanding of it, we live it.  We live in Christ.  Jesus not only influences, but is in everything.  So something as simple as going to the store or as weighty as deciding upon a major move doesn’t just involve our relationship with Jesus; it is determined by it.  Furthermore, Jesus does not just help us with decisions or ethics, “should’s” and “should nots;” Jesus defines who we are.  We cannot understand ourselves apart from Him. 

            Does it sound unrealistic?  Seriously, who thinks about Jesus all the time?  Maybe God is a part of my life, maybe even the biggest part.  Maybe church is very important to me.   Maybe I feel tremendous happiness in Bible reading and in worship.  Maybe I am proud to be a Christian.  But it is extreme to say, I cannot understand anything, not even myself, apart from God as I know God in Jesus Christ.  As right sounding as that maybe, it will never realistically be true.  Well, together, I want us to explore this.  Is it possible to be “in Christ” to the extent that Christ really, truly is in everything, every thought? 

            I am watching the Detroit Tigers.  Miguel Cabrera, the best player in baseball, is up to bat.  The Tigers are down 3-2 in the bottom of the 9^th.  So Jesus, what do think, will Miggy win the game for the Tigers with a big hit?  I do not say that.  I do not pray for Jesus to help the Tigers win.  That’s not what I mean.  No, I mean, Jesus is there, with me, and I know it.  How specifically does this affect me?  Any number of ways.

            Cabrera strikes out and the Tigers lose.  I do not fly into a cursing rage because Jesus would not approve.  But really, it is not about Jesus’ approval.  This is way beyond sin avoidance.  I do not fly into a cursing rage because that is not something someone ‘in Christ’ would ever do.  Because I am ‘in Christ’ and I am filled with the Holy Spirit, I just don’t do it and wouldn’t.  I am different – a new creation.

            And this “new me” or “new you” way of seeing and being is lived in all situations of life.  Of course the case of me watching my favorite baseball team is an example.  I am not holding myself up as a perfect example of what it is to be ‘in Christ.’  There are people in this church who model it better than me, but it is not really about “better.”  The beautiful thing about us all joining hands and together exploring life “in Christ” is no matter where or who we are we can enter the quest.  No previous qualifications are needed and it is not a continuum.  Your friend is not “more in Christ” than you, or less. 

Today, he might help you tremendously, and you may think, I can’t repay this.  The answer to your frustration would be of course you can’t repay it.  In Christ, there is no repayment.  There is generosity, there is peace, there is love; there is no debt; there is no hatred; there is no slavery.  There is joy and grace, mercy and faith.  Today, your friend in Christ helps you.  Tomorrow, you help another.  And that whole idea is just one way of countless ways of seeing, understanding, and living in Christ.

Just as living in Christ is fleshed out in more ways than we could possibly name, there are any number of places to begin looking for help as we strive to live in Christ.  We will begin in Colossians.  I don’t think of this as a sermon series in Colossians but rather, this New Testament epistle in tandem with the Holy Spirit will be our initial guide into life in Christ.  If you like reading ahead, read three short New Testament letters – Colossians, 1 John, and Ephesians.[i] 

This is not a four-part series in Colossians followed by a four-part in 1 John followed by four in Ephesians.  This is a journey.  As thoroughly unpredictable as it is, the journey itself will be part of the goal.  As we go, we discover what it means when we say we are disciples of Jesus.  As we discover, we live out discoveries realizing that everything changes from going on a simple errand to major decisions.  Nothing is ever the same once we give ourselves to Jesus and are filled with the Spirit. 

 “From Paul, chosen by God to be an apostle of Christ Jesus and from Timothy who is also a follower” (1:1).  The letter comes not from one, but from a group because when we are Christ, we are joined to one another; Paul and Timothy.  As we proceed, we will see many more than just these two in Paul’s work.  Epaphras, Tychicus, Luke; a few of the names sound funny to us.  These funny-sounding names and the more familiar ones were life for Paul.  His heart is joined to the disciples who walk with him.  In Christ, we are in a community, a family of believers.  We are connected to each other.  We belong to each other.

The different English renderings of Colossians1:3 show how deliciously deep is the meaning of what Paul wants to convey.  I am convinced that each of these renderings is near the mark on getting this verse right. 

Here is verse three in the New Living Translation: “We always pray for you, and we give thanks to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” 

Here is the same verse in the New Revised Standard Version: “In our prayers for you we always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Finally, the verse in the Common English Version.  “Each time we pray for you, we thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

The Greek grammar indicates an action – the prayer of thanks that happened and keeps on happening.  Paul and Timothy do not spend every moment of every day praying for the Colossian Christians, people they have never met.  Prayer is a constant in life, so when Paul and Timothy are doing other things- making tents, traveling, preaching – they are mindful of prayer and mindful of churches, those they know, and like the Colossian congregation, those they do not know.  Prayer and thanks are constant components of life for Paul and Timothy.  Neither man would be who he was without prayer and thanks.

The verb used might strike recognition, depending on your church background.  In Greek it is ‘eucharistio,’ a form of the noun ‘eucharistia.’  In English the word is Eucharist.  In many traditions this word refers to what we call communion or the Lord’s Supper.  Thus from Paul’s opening and from the prayer, we see that to be ‘in Christ’ is to be in a community where His followers are connected to each other, always praying for one another, thanking God each time. 

Faith and love: Paul delights in writing how the faith and love of the Colossians Christ followers sets them apart.  By love, he means that agape love, the love that is selfless, altruistic.  Someone in Colossae had done something so remarkable; Epraphas was moved to make a point of talking about it.  He did this so effectively that Paul makes a special effort to affirm the church as a faithful church willing to demonstrate Christ in her midst by acts of sacrificial love.

When we are in Christ, we love.  The fuzzy picture is coming into focus in just the opening verses of Colossians.  In Christ, we belong to one another.  We are in community.  In Christ, prayer is a constant; we could not imagine a life where prayer was not a core practice.  Furthermore, our prayer always involves thanksgiving.  In Christ, we have faith and it is a marker others see, something that distinguishes us.  Surely this comes through in our prayer life, in our conversations, in our ethical choices, in the tone of our speech, and in many other ways.  Finally, in Christ, we love with a self-giving, put-others-first kind of love.

Where does this come from?  Paul writes – “because what you hope for is kept safe for you in heaven. You first heard about this hope when you believed the true message, which is the good news” (v.5).  Note, he does not say it is saved “up in Heaven” as if Heaven were some place out beyond our galaxy.  It is not so much “up” as on an entirely different yet not necessarily distant plane.

Heaven is real and is a normal part of Paul’s conversation.  In Christ, we know about Heaven.  Moreover, we know the influence of Heaven.  The hope that is kept safe there is the hope of future resurrection after our deaths.  Just as Jesus rose so too Easter will come to us after we die, at the final judgment, when Jesus returns to unite forever earth made new and heaven made new.  While we wait for that consummation, Jesus is bodily in Heaven keeping the promised hope safe. 

What does that mean for us living here as we wait?  If we are in Christ, according to Colossians 1:3-5, our future hope creates for us here and now a life of faith and agape love.  Eternal life is not simply a promise that makes the present reality endurable.  Eternal life is something we live into; the values of God’s eternal kingdom are our values in our daily lives.  Colossians 1:5 is a clause in the midst of a long Greek sentence.  We could easily skim it without paying closer attention.  This might cause us to miss something profound.

Like us, those Colossian Christ followers wanted a blessed, pain-free eternity in the presence of God and the people they loved.  That is universal human desire – the longing to be free of fear and free to live in peace, prosperity, and happiness.  Everyone wants that.  Most religions have some version of an afterlife promise.  Epaphras has reported to Paul that the hope of resurrection, currently held in Heaven with Jesus but sure to come to all who follow him, has created a way of living for the Colossians: the way of faith and love, agape love.

In verses 9-14, Paul prays that God will guide the Colossians in their actions and in their thoughts.  “We always pray that God will show you … the wisdom and understanding that his Spirit gives” (v.9).  The reading closes with Paul reminding the Colossians that God has rescued them from Satan, freed them from sin, and brought them into the Kingdom.  They are already part of the Kingdom of God.    

This letter has been preserved by the Holy Spirit so churches like ours remember.  In Christ, God has rescued us from Satan, freed us from sin, and brought us into the Kingdom.  We are already part of the Kingdom even as we wait for its final consummation.    Our future eternal hope is held secure in Heaven.  And this brings us back around to the opening question.

What difference does it make in situations that come up in our lives, however important or banal, that we go through these situations are people who are ‘in Christ?’  Hope creates in us faith and love. 

I remember a church-going family, people who knew Jesus.  Because of their hope, they noticed the best friend of their 10-year-old son.  The boy’s parents were divorcing.  Mom was gone.  Dad worked nights.  Often the 10-year-old child had to fix meals for himself and his younger brother and sister.  These church goers, people ‘in Christ,’ did what they always did.  They went to church.  And they brought the boy and his younger siblings along.  Every Sunday.  For years. 

Now decades have passed.  The boy is an adult and he doesn’t often see that family that brought him to church, sometimes fed him supper, and had him over for sleep-overs.  When he does see them, there is joy and love, a family reunion for one not quite family but every bit family because he knows they made space in their lives for him.    They could not do otherwise.  They are in Christ.  Their hope made faith and love their life.   And so it is with us as Paul’s pray goes up for us.

“May [we] be made strong with all the strength that comes from [God’s] glorious power, and may [we] be prepared to endure everything with patience, while joyfully¹² giving thanks to the Father, who has enabled [us] to share in the inheritance of the saints in the light” (1:11-12).

AMEN

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[i] As an aside, I acknowledge that many scholars doubt that Paul wrote Colossians & Ephesians just as they doubt that someone named John wrote the letter we refer to as 1^st John.  These scholars have good reasons for their doubts, but I will nonetheless refer to Paul and John as I go through these books.  I believe the ideas originated with these two even if others ended up writing them in the form we now have the letters.