To Live a Public Faith

January 4, 2015

Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand
    and marked off the heavens with a span,
enclosed the dust of the earth in a measure,
    and weighed the mountains in scales
    and the hills in a balance?
¹³ Who has directed the spirit of the Lord,
    or as his counselor has instructed him?
¹⁴ Whom did he consult for his enlightenment,
    and who taught him the path of justice?
Who taught him knowledge,
    and showed him the way of understanding?
¹⁵ Even the nations are like a drop from a bucket,
    and are accounted as dust on the scales;
    see, he takes up the isles like fine dust.
¹⁶ Lebanon would not provide fuel enough,
    nor are its animals enough for a burnt offering.
¹⁷ All the nations are as nothing before him;
    they are accounted by him as less than nothing and emptiness.

          The Lord measured the earth’s waters in the hollow of his hand?  Weighed the mountains on a scale?  Can anyone reasonably-minded person believe such claims?

          But wait, someone says.  This is poetry, not to be read literally.  Of course, of course.  The speaker here, the prophet referred to as Second Isaiah, is an artist and words are his colors.  Still, his poetry points to what he claims as reality – the reality of an able, powerful, interested God.  He says ‘all nations are as nothing’ before him.

          All nations seem to be more than ‘nothing.’  He spoke and wrote in Babylon, a nation so big and powerful it enslaved entire peoples, the people of Judah being just one to fall under the Babylonian might.  How can he say Babylon is nothing before God? It sounds nice but does not appear rooted in reality.  How many American men and women have died in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan?  They are all much smaller countries than America, but I bet the families of the fallen soldiers would not consider these small countries nothing, countries some might refer to as ‘backwater.’

          The claims about God made by the prophets and especially in Isaiah 40-66 are so audacious, they sound unbelievable.  There is a lack of physical evidence.  We cannot scientifically research whether or not God can measure the depths of the ocean in the hollow of His hand.  How would we go about verifying that sort of thing?  The church today – the group of people who claim to represent this God – often appears no more righteous or helpful than other human institutions.  We’re supposed to be a holy body, but we are so infested by sin, we do not serve as evidence to God’s sovereignty. 

          Other religions make grandiose claims about God just as we do.  This scripture we rely upon, Isaiah 40, is something we inherited from our Jewish cousins.  They do not believe Jesus is the Messiah.  We cannot believe the scriptures that come from them could ever be fulfilled unless Jesus is the Messiah and Savior.  Muslims, the third relative in monotheistic faith also tell many of the Old Testament stories revered by Jews and Christians, and Muslims also talk about Jesus.  But for them, he cannot be the Son of God, and for them the stories of scripture only make sense when understood in the interpretation of the prophet Muhammad whom we do not recognize as a prophet.

          How can believe what we read in Isaiah 40?  How can we claim that God is the source of all wisdom, justice, and knowledge?  How dare we assert that this is true not just for us, but is universally true and defines the way the world really is?  But we do dare to make such claims.  We would not be a church of Jesus’ disciples if we didn’t.

          Isaiah 40 says the Lord sits above the circle of the earth (v. 21), not as a distant observes, but as a God who sustains everything.  The world would not spin were it not for God’s constant, active, involvement.  Do we believe it?  Of course!  We are all sitting in church.  It is Sunday morning.  Here, with great enthusiasm, we shout, yes, we believe!

          What about the rest of the time?  Away from church, in the normal places of our lives, do we believe this stuff about God that we find in the Bible and our songs and our tradition?  Do we believe in a way that is seen in the choices we make every day in life?  Do we make decisions based on our rock-solid assurance that God is real, is pay attention and is truly in charge?  Does this belief we claim reveal itself in how we manage our lives?  Does our faith determine how we see the world?  Does our “Yes, we believe” define us to the core?

         

          In 2015, we as a church body will explore what it looks like to live a public faith.  We live our Christianity out in the open.  None of us will be a secret, under cover disciple.  By this I do not mean we announce every time walk in a room, “Alert, alert, Christ-follower on board.”  I do not mean we constantly wear “Jesus saves” t-shirts.  I do not mean we throw away our CD’s and replace them with recordings of hymns.  If you enjoy hymns, great.  If you want to listen to Bruno Mars or Taylor Swift, do so.  I wear shirts that might described as ‘witness wear,’ or ‘spirit wear.’  I also wear shirts that have message about my favorite sports teams.  And sometimes I have conversations with people away from church and I am not trying to convince them of Christianity.  I am trying to convince them the Lions will win a playoff game. 

          When I say we are to spend significant time exploring what it looks like to live a public faith, I mean we will attempt to live in our Christianity so that it defines us.  Through prayer, through conversation with fellow believers and with nonbelievers, through reading and study, through worship and missions, and in numerous other ways, we are going to examine and try to live out a Christianity that is essential to who we are.  You could not be you apart from who you are in Christ.  I could not be who I am apart from Him. 

          We will live for this in 2015 and additionally, and this is a natural development of living a public faith, we will explore how to live in such a way that our lives are pointers.  People see us and come to us and realize that our lives are pointing them to Jesus.  They discover through us – through our witness – that in Jesus there is comfort, forgiveness, joy, healing, abundant life, and eternal life.  A public faith is a life that bears witness to God as we know God in Jesus.

          One source among many that will be a helpful guide is Yale Divinity School theologian Miroslav Volf.  He offers several thoughts on how a public faith interacts with the broader culture.  Another way of saying this is how we live in the world – a world disinterested in the Christian testimony about God.  Here are four of his observations[i]:

1.    Christian Faith that is Public Faith is prophetic.  It seeks to mend the world by being active in every arena of public life.  Arts, business, production, science, education, government – Christians participate in all arenas seeking to mend the world which is most certainly broken.

2.    Christian Faith that is Public Faith brings grace and is marked by the way we give grace.

3.    A Christian living a public faith cares for others and works for their flourishing.

4.    A concern for human flourishing is what brings the Christian into the public conversation.  Our mission is to announce that Jesus Christ is Lord, that with him comes the eternal Kingdom of God, and that salvation for all is found in him.  What propels us into public debates is our commitment to human flourishing – humans living as God intended, as God’s image-bearers. 

Volf’s writings would serve as a guide as will other theologians and Christian writers and thinkers.  Our primary source for our living as witnesses to Jesus is the Holy Spirit.  First and foremost we are guided by the Spirit. 

We encounter the Spirit is within the Christian community, the church and the traditions of the church.  The Spirit is present in all places and speaks at God’s initiative.  We cannot predict when or where the Spirit will shout, when the Spirit will whisper, or where the Spirit will remain silent.  We seek, we listen, and live in acknowledgement that we are Spirit-dependent people.

We are connected people.  Not a one of us is a solitary Christian.  We live in relationship with one another.

The third essential primary source besides Spirit and Church is the Bible.  A lot of evangelicals put the Bible at the top of the list.  The great man of the reformation, Martin Luther, declared we are informed by sola scriptura – scripture alone.  Of course his own followers were not informed by scripture alone.  They met God in the Bible as Luther taught the Bible.  Evangelicals today, who furiously declare that their authority is the Bible and only the Bible, read the Bible through an interpretive lens.  They read as they have received from Augustine, Martin Luther, John, Calvin, Jonathan Edwards, and many others. 

In our quest to live as Jesus’ disciples publically, as witnesses, our primary sources are the Spirit, the church community (including tradition), and the Word (the Bible).  These three primary sources of guidance and truth are interconnected.  We understand each by way of the others. 

In January 2015, our focus at HillSong will be on Second Isaiah.  Some readers of the book of Isaiah believe one man named Isaiah wrote every chapter, 1-66.  Other readers look at the difference in themes and in life situations, and they believe the prophet named Isaiah is responsible for chapters 1-39, written before the exile.  Then an anonymous writes chapters 40-55 during the exile.  Then after the exile a third author, sometimes called 3^rd Isaiah, writes chapters 56-66.  The Word of God does not change whether you think one man is responsible for the entire book Isaiah, or you are open to the possibility that there is a first, second, and third Isaiah. 

Either way, what we find in this incredible witness, is a person who follows God and lives his faith publically.  He makes incredible claims about God.  We are going to spend this month looking at those claims, deciding whether or not we can believe them, and whether or not we are willing to live our lives in complete worship and surrender to the God who is the subject of those claims. 

So, we see where we are headed.  In 2015, we are going to as individuals and as a body of believers strive to contribute to human flourishing as we announce the kingdom of God and salvation in Jesus in the everyday places of our lives.  We will do this by living a public faith. 

To set the challenge, we hear a bit more from Second Isaiah 40. 

²⁶ Lift up your eyes on high and see:
    Who created these?
He who brings out their host and numbers them,
    calling them all by name;
because he is great in strength,
    mighty in power,
    not one is missing.

²⁷ Why do you say, O Jacob,
    and speak, O Israel,
“My way is hidden from the Lord,
    and my right is disregarded by my God”?
²⁸ Have you not known? Have you not heard?
The Lord is the everlasting God,
    the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He does not faint or grow weary;
    his understanding is unsearchable.
²⁹ He gives power to the faint,
    and strengthens the powerless.
³⁰ Even youths will faint and be weary,
    and the young will fall exhausted;
³¹ but those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength,
    they shall mount up with wings like eagles,
they shall run and not be weary,
    they shall walk and not faint.

          This week, read this chapter over and over.  In the depths of the soul ask, do I believe it? Ask, can I look into my own life and say, yes, right there, that’s where the belief I speak actually defines who I am?

          Also this week, acknowledge if you have doubts.  If you’re not sure if you believe it or not, go there, and name your doubts. 

          If you know someone who doubts the reality of God or the ability of God or the goodness of God, think about that person this week.  Pray for him or her and consider how your public faith can point him or her to Jesus. 

          Ask …

-         Do I believe it?

-         What are some signs from my life that show I believe it?

-         Do I have doubts

-         Do I know someone who has doubts?

-         How can I bear witness to the one I know who doubts?

I pray for all us that this week we begin in new ways to understand how to live our faith in the world. 

AMEN

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[i] Volf (2011).  A Public Faith: How Followers of Christ Should Serve the Common Good Brazos Press (Grand Rapids, MI), p.xv-xvi.

Christmas Salvation

December 24, 2014 – Christmas Eve Worship

          When Jesus was born, God entered humanity.  The God of unmeasurable greatness, of knowledge so vast we cannot comprehend it, reduced God’s own self to a newborn baby.  The theological word for this is incarnation.  The most important moments in salvation history are the crucifixion of Jesus and then his resurrection.  Neither matter unless the incarnation happens. 

          Pastor Jenny Warner of Oregon feels strongly about the importance of incarnation prior to crucifixion and resurrection.  I had not really thought about the sequence or the idea of distinguishing among these theological treasures, but her words make it clear why thinking first on incarnation can be quite powerful.  She writes:

Every year of my life, the sentiment goes stronger, the belief grasps tighter, that it is the incarnation that saves me, that incarnation is the germinating seed containing the healing of the world, that incarnation may be Christianity’s best hope for a relevant future. Easter is not possible without Christmas. In fact, Easter may be just one more manifestation of the incarnation.

Flesh infused with God. God encountering flesh. Holiness embedding itself into a human life and revealing itself with compassion, healing, truth-telling and relentless embrace. I want that.

Give me incarnation before you give me resurrection. The end of my life may be a long way off, but today my life feels like a Bethlehem barn. Hay is scattered everywhere. Children must be fed and nurtured. The list of things to do is longer than the hours in my day. There is no time for reflection. I need to know that mystery resides in the most mundane and profane realities of my life.[i]

          Does life ever feel like a “Bethlehem barn?”  It’s noisy.  The other day, Candy decided to have some of M__ and H__’s good friends over for decorating Christmas cookies.  It was Candy and 8 children, 7 of them elementary school-aged.  I__r, the 8^th, was her helper.  She said the two young boys in the crowd were a little jumpy.  Noise.  Cookie decorations everywhere.  Eight kids bouncing off the walls because school is out and Christmas is almost here.

          Does life ever feel like a “Bethlehem barn?”  Some are spending Christmas far from family.  Their kids are grown and it was too expensive to fly home this year.  Every TV show has teary-eyed family reunions with heartwarming holiday music on.  The list of who to shop for is lengthy.  And the only emotions that won’t go away are disappointment and sadness.  Christmas isn’t going to be quite what the Hallmark special makes it out to be.

          I imagine Joseph and Mary had disappointment.  After the trauma of birth without midwife or any help, they were out in the cold.  No one in their family came.  Except for Mary’s cousin Elizabeth, no one in their family approved.  That noisy, stinky barn was the cradle of new life, the Son of God.  But sadness crept from the dark corners.

          The Bethlehem barn is not an easy place.  Think of actual Bethlehem today and the Middle East in general.  A few generations ago there were significant communities of Middle Eastern Christians – Palestinians, Syrians, Iraqis.  Many have died off in the unending wars of religion and territory.  Many Syrian Christ followers this year are spending their fourth Christmas in the Bethlehem barn – refugee camps. 

          Pastor Warner knows salvation is in the cross and resurrection, but she also know it is not only there.  And sometimes those events seem so Godly, so out of reach and she needs something that feels real.

Today life feels like a Bethlehem barn. Hay is scattered everywhere. Children must be fed and nurtured. The list of things to do is longer than the hours in my day. There is no time for reflection. We need to know that mystery resides in the most mundane and profane realities of life.

          We need the salvation we have in the living Christ and in the life Jesus led.  It began at his birth.  It began before his birth.

          Isaiah 62 is originally a prophetic poem about God’s salvation of the city of Jerusalem.  Jerusalem in both testaments represents that place where God is at home.  In the Gospel of John, Jesus says true worship is not place-dependent but can happen anywhere people worship God “in spirit and in truth” (ch. 4).  The New Testament and the church that grows out of it is a ‘sending out’ church.  We are to spread out over the world proclaiming salvation in Jesus.

          Still we have much to learn of God from the words about Jerusalem and in the end, we who have “gone out to tell” will be gathered to God, to God’s Holy City.  We will be called home to rejoice in eternal life lived in God’s presence. 

          Before that eternal life, we live in this one.  God stepped into humanity the way we all do, as a baby.  And on the occasion that we remember his birth, the lectionary organizers have us read Isaiah’s words.  “See, your salvation comes; his reward is with him, and his recompense before him” (v.11). 

          How does it all tie together?  Why do present day scholars read a 5^th century BC prophet who imagines a new Jerusalem and connect his promises to the birth of Jesus?  Why does an Oregon pastor sometimes feel more hope filled by a powerless newborn than a courageous savior who embraces the cross?  She still knows the cross and resurrection are the key events.  But, for this night, she actually focus on the salvation we have in Jesus’ birth and life.

          Remember, Jerusalem – the city of Shalom – that is where God is at home.  If people want to be at home with God they need to be there.  If one is not at home with God, that one is truly lost.  Christmas like no other time can magnify an individual’s feeling of being abandoned, lost, alone, disappointed.  If our hurts are blown up and made even bigger than they seem around Christmas it would appear that in such a state of despair we are farther from God than ever.

          Ah, but then, don’t we see the genius of the incarnation.  People who feel like their lives are a mess are the very people who can most easily identify with Mary and Joseph at their lowest moments.  When they were ready to quit and the journey to Bethlehem seemed too much, Mary and Joseph epitomized human frailty.  A person alone, sobbing in grief on Christmas Eve epitomizes human frailty.  And that is where God appears.  

          The baby in the manger is God who can be touched.  Jerusalem is the Holy City that is where God is at home and to be at peace with God we have to get there.  But most people can never get there.  The incarnation, Jesus in the manger, is God’s recognition that we cannot, try as we might, get there.  The only way we can live in peace with God is if God will meet us in our own Bethlehem barn.  The birth of Jesus is God’s statement that God is willing to do just that. 

          We have role in the story and that role is to recognize our own brokenness and from that place of brokenness to reach out to God.  “Upon your walls, O Jerusalem” says Isaiah 62:6.”  “Upon your walls, I have posted sentinels.  All day and all night they shall never be silent.  You who remind the Lord, take no rest, and give him no rest until he establishes Jerusalem and makes it renowned throughout the earth” (v.6-7).  That’s right.  Our job is to pester God! 

          Remind the Lord?  Give him no rest?  That is what it says.  So, let this baby born Bethlehem remind us that God loves us so much God made God’s own self accessible.  The holy God of the universe reduced himself so that humans could not just approach but embrace, eat with, laugh with, and cry on his shoulder. 

          Now, we get blinded by our pain, or the business and stress of life becomes all we see, or the bad things that go on like police officers being killed, like wars, and numerous other problems become obstacles – all of it obstructs our view of God.  We forget about God to the point that we think God is gone and we’re on our own.  God isn’t gone.  But He’s out of our view.  And we aren’t living in Jerusalem any more, in that place of being at peace in God’s presence. 

It is then that we “remind” God of who He is – our Savior.  In this reminder, we also reiterate what God does – saves us from lives of meaninglessness and pain.  He gives us abundant life.  Isaiah tells the sentinels to give God no rest, but to continue to pray day and night.  Our job, in the depths of our depression, is to pray day and night, reaching out to God constantly until we have received His blessing.

We also do this on behalf of others.  A part of our spreading out as New Testament people is we look around and see who is hurting.  We reach to them with whatever help is needed – comfort, friendship, hospitality, etc.  At the same time, we reach to God on their behalf.  In their pain, they cannot see that God is as easily touched as a new born baby’s cheek is stroked.  We reach to God for them that He might reveal himself to them that they would see His salvation.

In here excellent message this past Sunday, Heather made this point.  She said even though Christmas falls at the end of the calendar year, it is the beginning of the lectionary year.  Christmas is the beginning of the story.

At the cross, Jesus pays the ultimate price for sin.  That is a dramatic, one-time event.  That is the story for the ages.  Christmas is the opening chapter in that story.  Our Christmas salvation is the arrival of God in a way that we can see every day.  It is the promise that God is not just saving for Heaven after we’ve trudged through the miseries of earthly life.  God is trudging through the miseries with us. 

God helps us host the 7 elementary school and we need that help when we do that having just gotten over a week of sickness.  God helps those Syrian believer find joy even if their Christmas is in a refugee camp.  Because He is with them, it can still be a celebration.  God helps the lonely person for whom Christmas seems terrifying.  It can have happiness too, because God brings that.  God is in everything with us.  God is in the Bethlehem barn and thus the Bethlehem barn becomes that place where God is at home and one can have peace with Him. 

Wherever we are, we find that we can have “Immanuel,” God with us.  That is our Christmas salvation.

AMEN

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[i] http://www.patheos.com/blogs/jennywarner/2012/12/why-an-incarnation/

A Conversation ... about Humanity

A Conversation … about Humanity

          Ferguson, Missouri; Staten Island; Cleveland; it has happened.  Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice were each killed, black males killed by white police officers.  This is the latest sad chapter in America’s history of problems between races. 

          At HillSong Church, we cannot solve the problem.  No church or pastor can or group or individual can.  To the ears of the world or to those who have been wounded by Christians that fail to act as Christ would, this sounds trite or empty.  But, the only hope is Christ.  The only hope for the tension that rips humanity apart, that leads people to hate each other because they from different backgrounds or different groups, the only hope is Jesus taking over the hearts of women and men.  That is the only hope.

          At HillSong Church what we can do is join our hearts to each other as we pray together.  And we can listen to one another.  On January 21, we will begin a 4-week conversation about race using new Cooperative Baptist Fellowship curriculum written by a diverse group of scholars, thinkers, and pastors.  These conversations will take place on Wednesday nights, 6:30-7:45.

          Please join us and bring a friend.  Bring someone who will bless our conversation.  Bring someone who will be blessed by our conversation.  And bring your own desire to see people live as brothers and sisters in Christ.  I have been telling people this is a conversation about race, but really, it is a conversation about humanity.  We are those made in the image of God commissioned to be His image bearers in this world He has created.  Be a part of this conversation and help us figure out to live well as brothers and sisters who are responsible to love and care for one another.  

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

Isaiah 40:1-11 2nd Sunday of Advent

Second Sunday of Advent – December 7, 2014

          She hasn’t eaten in days.  Her son, 10, and daughter, 5 look at her with sunken, hungry eyes.  The Babylonian army has marched around Jerusalem for weeks.  Supplies have long run out. 

          Then, the assault begins.  It does not take long.  They break through the city walls.  There is no resistance.  The few soldiers who put up a defense are quickly impaled on Babylonian spears.  Families are dragged from their homes, kicked into the dust of the streets that flow with Israelite blood.  They are forced to watch as the Babylonians burn Solomon’s temple. 

          Then, the march.  Mile after mile, in chains, they walk to their new home, their new normal as slaves in Babylon.  She does not survive the journey.  Her son and daughter do. 

Now they live as people without rights on the bottom rung of the social ladder in Babylon.  The little boy and the little girl are now in their 70’s, the elder generation of Jews in this foreign place.  They must do what they can to keep memories of Israel alive.

          They have to tell the stories of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  Joseph and the amazing things he accomplished when he was in slavery in Egypt only lives on as they tell the stories.  They remember Moses and the Exodus through the Red Sea.  They tell of Joshua and settling the Promised Land.  They remember the victories of David and the golden age of King Solomon.  But now the brother and sister are old, tired, broken people – people who have spent their lives under heel in Babylon.  For decades they have listened to their Babylonian overlords mock their God. 

          Is it true?  Are the Gods of Babylon superior to Yahweh, the God of Moses, the God of David?  Is their God as dead as they feel?

          A rumor spreads.  A new young prophetic voice is rising in the Jewish quarter.  Young people are talking about what he has said and written.  At a make-shift gathering where one of the few available scrolls of the Torah is read on the Sabbath (thank goodness the Babylonians allow this), people are saying a Jewish prophet has something new to say. 

          This old man and old woman are too tired to hope.  Their dreams were shattered decades ago, a thousand miles way.  Everything they hoped for was violently ripped from them.  Still, they go.  Why not?  What else is there to do?

          It is the largest crowd of Jews they have ever seen and there is a buzz.  The young prophet is there and speaks.  The people who have lived in slavery for so long are overwhelmed by this prophet’s words. 

Comfort, O comfort my people,
    says your God.
² Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,
    and cry to her
that she has served her term,
    that her penalty is paid,
that she has received from the Lord’s hand
    double for all her sins.

          Can there be comfort?  The people of God have been swallowed by the sands of history, buried under the force of an enemy too powerful for God.  No, says the prophet.  What happened did not come about because Babylon was so strong.  Mighty Babylon; don’t buy it for a moment.  In dragging Israel off to exile in 586 BC, Babylon was simply a tool in the hands of the Almighty God, so says the prophet. 

          Exile did not happen because of Babylon’s strength but because of Israel’s sin.  Now the prophet says the penalty for that sin has been paid.  The Lord’s punishment has happened and now a new day begins.  The Lord Almighty allowed Jerusalem to be destroyed because Israel abandoned the conditions of her covenant with God.  God did not abandon them.  God does not do that.  God has always been and always will be faithful and sovereign. 

          To the Jews in Babylon, people stuck in their grief and their loss, Isaiah offers a new word from God. 

“In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord,
    make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
⁴ Every valley shall be lifted up,
    and every mountain and hill be made low;
the uneven ground shall become level,
    and the rough places a plain.
⁵ Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed,
    and all people shall see it together,
    for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”

          The prophet gives three commands.  The first is “comfort.”  Heavenly beings are ordered by the most-high God to give solace to His people.  No second rate Babylonian deity has defeated Yahweh, Jehovah, the God of the Bible. 

Scripture gives glimpses of a heavenly realm that is full of creatures we cannot understand or imagine.  There is no organizational chart.  The one clearly stated truth is God is supreme.  The heavenly beings mentioned in Genesis, Job, Daniel, Revelation and other places are superior to us, but subject to God.  This includes whatever otherworldly beings there were that oversaw Babylon.  “Comfort” – the word we see in Isaiah 40:1 – is a verb in the imperative form.  The heavenly beings must obey God’s order to comfort his people. 

A second command is “prepare.” The prophet prepares the way of the Lord – the way God will lead His people back to the Promised Land.  King Cyrus who will lead Persia to overthrow Babylon is to prepare the Jews by freeing them, sending them home in a second Exodus.  Centuries later, a wild eyed prophet named John prepares the world for the coming of Jesus by preaching repentance and baptizing those who come to him. 

And we who read the Bible and worship the Lord and believe God is real and is all powerful and does love us – we are commanded to prepare the world for Jesus’ return.  We do this when we bear witness to His grace and the salvation we have in Jesus.  We help clear the path into the hearts of friends who will listen to our testimony.  The clutter that obstructs the way into the heart is removed and they are made ready to meet God.

Comfort.  Prepare.  The third command is “Cry out.”  Proclaim God’s word.  The prophet knows this is to Him directly.  But, what he asks, is He to cry out? 

All people are grass,
    their constancy is like the flower of the field.
⁷ The grass withers, the flower fades,
    when the breath of the Lord blows upon it;
    surely the people are grass.
⁸ The grass withers, the flower fades;
    but the word of our God will stand forever.

All people are grass.  The King of Babylon is grass just like the blind beggar who lives in the ally mud, day after day, hoping someone will spare a bit of bread.  All people are grass. Eric Garner, Darren Wilson, Michael Brown, Bill O’Reilly – all people are equal.  All wither and fade.  What am I to “cry out,” Isaiah asks.  All people are grass. The wealthy slumlord and the tenant trapped in poverty stand before God in the same condition.  Right now one has it easy and the other suffers, but that inequality will not last.  Inequality and injustice will not stand, not before the almighty God.  Suffering happens for a season, but God will put all things right.

The tears that suffering brings are real and should be shed.  Maybe some here today have dealt with serious hurt and loss.  Tears pour forth from shattered hearts.  God sees.  God knows pain is on the prowl and death is claiming victims in our country, in our world right now.  God hears our cries. 

Isaiah does not whimsically dismiss the pain of right now as if it were not real.  Isaiah knows suffering.  The Old Testament knows disillusionment, defeat, and death.  And most of the Jews of the 6^th century BC were ready to give in as would people of any nation at any time.  But the prophet saw beyond the immediate dire circumstances.  The prophet was given God’s view.  The prophet knew and we can know that God is a deliverer. 

Get you up to a high mountain,
    O Zion, herald of good tidings;^[a]
lift up your voice with strength,
    O Jerusalem, herald of good tidings,^[b]
    lift it up, do not fear;
say to the cities of Judah,
    “Here is your God!”
¹⁰ See, the Lord God comes with might,
    and his arm rules for him;
his reward is with him,
    and his recompense before him.
¹¹ He will feed his flock like a shepherd;
    he will gather the lambs in his arms,
and carry them in his bosom,
    and gently lead the mother sheep.

Living as we do in the age of the church, we know the ultimate fulfillment of their words.  Isaiah knew God would gather his lambs in his arms.  We know how God did it.  We know Jesus. 

The birth of Jesus reminds us that God sees the inequalities and injustices that show how broken the world is.  God sees and has done something about it.  In Jesus, God empathizes with us and takes upon himself the worst of us and nails it to a cross.  Our sins, our pain, our grief, our loss – it has been crucified with Christ.  In Him, we are no longer slaves to sin.  We are new creations.  While we linger in the fallen world, we serve as today’s pointers.

We aren’t prophets.  From time to time, prophetic words must be spoken.  But we are not prophets like Isaiah.  We are witnesses.  In this age, the people of God, all who are in Christ, bear witness to what God has done, to the truth of His kingdom, and to the salvation we have in Jesus.

Withering grass and fading flowers reminded Isaiah that in the end, all are equal before God – equally small, equally sinful, equally lost.  The greatest athlete, the president of the United States, the handicapped homeless child, you, and me – we all fade.  But, Isaiah tells us that God gathers in his shepherd arms.  God holds us, feeds us, and lifts us up to where God is. 

Jesus uses different metaphors, a table, and a cross.  At that cross, we are all dead.  He invites we who are dead to the table – all of us.  The famous physician has a seat right next to the unemployed alcoholic.  The imperfect, the defective, the broken – we sit together in a community of love. 

We serve each other bread – his body broken, our sins covered.  We serve each other wine – his blood shed, eternal life given to us. 

As we walk in the promises of Isaiah, acknowledging that pain is real but has been defeated by the power of Christ, we walk to the table.  We walk arm-in-arm in a family of love – the love of God.  We dare to believe that God is real, can be trusted, and will make the world right.  We dare to live in that belief.  And then we go out and testify to life, life in Christ.  In this age – the age of the church – we walk as those who are in the light and we spend our lives bearing witness, telling of the God who gathers us in His shepherd arms and gives us comfort.

AMEN

God' Word at the End (2 Peter 3:8-10)

God’s Word at the End

Jesus said, “³¹ Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.  ³² But about that day or hour no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. ³³ Beware, keep alert; ^[f] for you do not know when the time will come” (Mark 13:31-33).  No one knows!  When it comes to the end of everything, Jesus asserts when cannot be known.

Scientists don’t necessarily agree.  National Geographic author Andrew Fazekas reports on a study that is based on science that projects the sun will grow hotter before burning out.[i]  The increasing temperature will burn out life on earth about 2.8 billion years from now.  And, the expanding sun may get so big it eventually engulfs our planet.

Can you imagine heat that obliterates an entire planet?  It is too big for me to be able to grasp the whole idea.  The author of 2 Peter did not have such conceptualizing difficulty.  Consider 2 Peter 3:10: ^“But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a loud noise, and the elements will be dissolved with fire, and the earth and everything that is done on it will be disclosed.”

I have previously read the projections from scientists that Fazekas cited and I have no reason to doubt them.  Based on the readings, perhaps the astrophycists are thoroughly correct.  What surprised me was how similar their description of the earth melting after the sun matures to “red giant” stage is to the way the Biblical author depicted the day of the Lord.  It is as if 20^th century physics caught up to what Christians in the earlier first century already knew. 

Of course I am being a bit playful here, but the point is God is in control.  Second Peter 3:8 says “with the Lord is like a thousand years.”  Some readers try to a make a code out of that and predict things.  So if we read in the Bible that something is going to happen in 3 days, that really means it will happen in 3000 years.  I think this may not be the best way to read 2 Peter 3:8.  I believe that verse is an indicator that God is not subject to time.  God’s purposes happen at God’s initiative and time has no bearing. 

We are subject to time.  We cannot transcend time or space.  God can and does.  God is unaffected by the possibility that the sun will heat up and expand and burn off our descendants a few million years from now.  Perhaps that is the way scientific observation accounts for what God has been planning all along.

Second Peter 3 is one of the prescribed readings for the second week of Advent (December 7, 2014).  These words about the end are joined to Mark 1.  There we see John the Baptist “preparing a way” for the Lord (1:3).  He was the set-up man.  Jesus is the Savior.  Because Jesus lived under God’s authority and is God in the flesh, the resurrected one, our hope suffers no setbacks by the realities of science.  In fact, when we are in Christ, our hope brings hope the entire world, in fact, to the universe.  God created this universe with all the natural phenomena in it.  God made it “good” and it will continue to exist under God’s watchful eye. 

In Advent, we remember that God is sovereign.  Through Jesus, the all-powerful God invites us into relationship.  We can celebrate the wonders of the universe and at the same time rejoice in our standing before God. 

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[i] http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/10/131028-earth-biosignature-doomsday-space-science/