Thompson's Blog

The Most Highly Effective Habit

Matthew 4:1-11

1 Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. 2 He fasted forty days and forty nights, and afterwards he was famished. 3 The tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.” 4 But he answered, “It is written, ‘One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.'” 5 Then the devil took him to the holy city and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, 6 saying to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down; for it is written, ‘He will command his angels concerning you,’ and ‘On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.'” 7 Jesus said to him, “Again it is written, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.'” 8 Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor; 9 and he said to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.” 10 Jesus said to him, “Away with you, Satan! for it is written, ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.'”

This is one of my favorite passages of scripture. I can’t identify with the extraordinary discipline and faithfulness of Jesus, but it’s an interesting story to me. The way Jesus responded to those temptations is not how I can imagine myself dealing with those same situations, but this story does portray Jesus in a way that reminds me of his humanity. You might say this story shows how Jesus dealt with a dilemma, and who among us has not had to do that. Jesus always seems to have known what to do, and that’s not my experience, but it’s somehow comforting for me to know that he didn’t go through life without having to make hard decisions. This passage very clearly portrays Jesus as being in the position of having to respond to some difficult options.

This is a story I like to think about, and while I it’s clear that Jesus was in a very needy situation when he was approached by the devil to provide himself with some immediate relief, I primarily see this story as the portrayal of the way he came to understand who he was and what he intended to do. This story describes the way in which Jesus came to recognize the extent of his power, and it shows how he decided he was going to use it. The devil didn’t approach Jesus because he was weak. The devil came to Jesus in the wilderness because he had come to understand how powerful he was. The devil approached Jesus because he was someone who was poised to do great damage to the power of death.

While I was in seminary out in North Carolina I volunteered in an urban ministry program that put me in touch with some interesting characters. One of the men I became acquainted with had spent ten years in prison for bank robbery. His name was William Solomon, and he was a man with some keen insight. He told me he had gone on some extended fasts while he was in prison, and they were powerful experiences for him. He described them as experiences that helped him see himself. He said on more than one occasion he actually had to be coerced into eating again because he liked the state of mind it put him in. He said the fasting was hard for the first week or ten days, but after that he said he entered in to a whole new mindset. William Solomon didn’t function so well after he left the imposed discipline of prison. He soon got himself back in to trouble. But the man I knew who emerged from prison was a very wise man. There were ways in which he helped me see myself in a clearer way.

I had an interesting wilderness experience the summer after I graduated from high school. I went to an Outward Bound course, which you might say is a self-discovery program that takes place in a wilderness setting. I spent 3 weeks with a group of people I had never met before backpacking in the Gila Wilderness of New Mexico. The true challenge of the experience was getting along and cooperating with about 8 other people under some extreme circumstances. But the most difficult part of the experience was what they called the solo, which was when we were placed in a spot for three days and nights alone and without any food. I had access to plenty of water, but we weren’t to build a fire or to wander far from where we were placed.

I basically spent my time thinking about and documenting what I wanted to eat. It was to be a time of self-reflection, and I did learn something about myself. I came to see how foolish I can be. I got pretty cold that first night, and as I lay there in the cold I thought about how I could build a bit of a shelter with sticks and leaves and the pancho I had been given. But when the morning came and the sun came out I warmed up and decided it probably wouldn’t be so chilly that night, so I didn’t do anything other than create a better pile of leaf debris to lay on. The second night I got just as cold, but when the sun came up the next day I decided that since I only had one more night I would just deal with it. I had plenty of time on my hands, but for whatever reason I opted for misery over ingenuity.

I like to think I would use my time a little differently now than I did when I was 18, but who knows. I didn’t fast long enough to get to that sweet spot of having additional clarity about myself and ultimate reality, but I believe that it happens to people who are able to exercise such discipline. Fasting has long been recognized as a powerful spiritual discipline.

Jesus had needs after forty days, but as I say, the tempter didn’t come to him because he was weak. Jesus was tempted because he had come to understand his power. We’re told that Jesus was presented with three temptations, but the truth is they were just three variations of the same question, which is: How would he choose to use his power?

That was particularly important for Jesus to understand, but I believe this is something that’s critical for us all to understand about ourselves. Often we are more focused on how little power we have than how much power we do have, but we are all endowed with an element of power, and it’s important for us to decide how we are going to use what God has given us.

How we use our own power is something we all have to address on some level. As a pastor, I’ve been exposed to quite a few different forms of leadership development – which you might say is a form of power management. I’ve never been sent in to the wilderness for forty days, which, as I think about it would probably have been an effective way to get me focused on my task, but I’ve never actually attended that kind of workshop. I’ve spent a few afternoons in meetings that seemed to have gone on for an eternity, but I can testify that you can become a minister in the United Methodist Church without ever missing a meal.

I’ve been exposed to a good amount of good advice on how to best function as a church leader. I had a little training in the Stephen Covey time management system. He’s the person who wrote the popular book: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. I’m not saying I ever adhered closely to his system, but it made sense to me. You might say he was a Methodist in regard to the way he proposed being methodical in the way you respond to the various circumstances that present themselves in life. He was an advocate of being proactive in the way you use your time instead of being constantly reactive to whatever comes your way.

His seven habits make sense, but he wrote an additional book that was called The 8^th Habit: From Effectiveness to Greatness. Like the first 7 seven habits, of which I only have a rudimentary understanding, I don’t have a deep understanding of what he identified as the 8^th habit, but the thing I understand him to be promoting with the 8^th habit is the idea of finding your voice and helping others find theirs. He uses this word voice, to describe what it is that truly has meaning for us, and while Stephen Covey doesn’t define what everyone’s principles should be, he recognizes that simply being efficient doesn’t lead to satisfaction.

The thing he had come to recognize is that it’s not enough to simply be effective. He identifies the fact that in order to be satisfied we have to be more than effective – we have to be focused on the thing that gives us meaning.

And that’s a good thought. Being highly effective at a terrible undertaking is a recipe for disaster. You might say that the Nazis were highly effective, but that wasn’t an undertaking that provided satisfaction for anyone. What we see in the life of Jesus and in the way he responded to the options that were offered to him is a person who was totally focused on that most highly effective habit – which is to live in relationship with God. When offered all the kingdoms of the world, Jesus made it very clear that his primary desire was to serve God and God alone.

What Jesus did was to reveal to us what it looks like when a person combines effectiveness along with the thing that is the most meaningful. He reveals what it actually looks like to be focused on the most highly effective habit, and this is the challenge for each of us, but it’s not an easy thing for any of us to embody. Serving God and God alone is not necessarily a strategy for being a successful executive in a large organization, and I wouldn’t exempt the church from being one of those large organizations. I’m not saying that you can’t be a faithful disciple of Jesus Christ and also be the Pope or a bishop or even the pastor of a relatively small United Methodist Church, but I think this is the challenge we all face.

Our challenge is to continue to grow in our understanding of ourselves and in our relationship with God. And anyone who doesn’t think they can learn anything else about themselves probably can’t learn anything else about God. I believe our lives are totally intertwined with God. I believe we discover things about God when we learn things about ourselves, and I believe we grow in knowledge of ourselves when we come to understand more about God. I also believe it’s the work of the devil to try to separate us from God. It’s the devil’s work to make us think that we can find happiness apart from God.

We all know how impossible it is to fully define God, but we do have this one word that gets pretty close to defining who God is and that word is: love.

Jesus ended his encounter with the devil by saying we are to serve God and God alone. He didn’t say this at the time, but what he went on to do with his life and in his teaching was to show that when we practice love we are serving God.

We can be highly effective at many different things and create some remarkable organizations and structures. People figure out how to harness the power to do some amazing things, but there’s really only one thing we need to figure out how to do more effectively and perpetually that is: to love. To love God, to love ourselves, and to love our neighbors as ourselves. This is the one most highly effective habit we are to practice, and we have to keep practicing it our entire lives.

This story of Jesus being driven in to the wilderness has a great lesson for all of us. We all need to step in to some unfamiliar territory every now and then – that’s where we learn more about ourselves and our relationship with God. Of course stepping in to uncomfortable places isn’t something we easily make ourselves do, but fortunately there are those things that send us to places we would never have chosen to go. I don’t know if Jesus was hesitant to go in to the wilderness, but we’re told that it was the spirit that drove him there, and it was a good place for him to go.

It may not always be the spirit that drives us to places we don’t want to be, but you can trust that the Holy Spirit is with us wherever we are, and wherever we are there’s an opportunity to grow in our knowledge of ourselves and our God. And we will grow if we will always remember to exercise love – the one most highly effective habit.

Thanks be to God.

Amen.

In God We Trust

Matthew 6:24-34

 ²⁴ “No one can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.^[a]

²⁵ “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink,^[b] or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? ²⁶ Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? ²⁷ And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life?^{[c] 28} And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, ²⁹ yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. ³⁰ But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? ³¹ Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear?’ ³² For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. ³³ But strive first for the kingdom of God^[d] and his^[e] righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.

³⁴ “So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today.

I was in a hurry last Tuesday morning when I needed to get my sermon text and title to Shirley, and I looked at the wrong liturgical calendar to see what the reading should be for today. Today is what the liturgical world recognizes as Transfiguration Sunday, but I chose a reading from the eighth Sunday of Epiphany. I’m guessing I’m the only liturgical geek in the room, and being liturgically confused has little impact on anyone other than a preacher, but it sort of messed with my preaching sensibilities. I could have ignored what I told Shirley and preached on one of the traditional transfiguration stories today, but there are rarely eight Sundays after the Day of Epiphany before the beginning of Lent, so we rarely read this particular passage of scripture, and I really like these verses. Consequently, I’m happy to have made this mistake. We can still call this Transfiguration Sunday, which is always the Sunday just prior to Ash Wednesday, but we aren’t going to read the story of Jesus going up on the mountain with Peter, James, and John and hearing how he became dazzling white along with Moses and Elijah.

We read that passage last year, and we’ll read it next year, but today we get some additional instruction from Jesus’ sermon on the mount. Like much of that sermon, what he has to say in this particular portion isn’t exactly easy to follow, but I think we can all agree that there’s something deeply comforting about these words. While it’s hard not for us to be anxious about many things and to have an inordinate amount of concern about our personal finances, I think we are all here today because we want God to be the one master we serve, and we want to live with a profound sense of trust in our one good master.

We are here because we believe Jesus to be the one who not only points to the path of true life, but who also enables us to travel on that path. Sometimes that path seems so clear and wide. Sometimes we know that we are beloved children in the hands of a loving God and we have complete trust that we are capable of serving God in all that we do. Sometimes we know exactly what Jesus Christ has called us to go and do, but then we get out of bed and things start getting complicated.

At least this is often my experience. In an instant I can go from feeling like I’m living in harmony with God and my neighbors into a situation where I’m confounded by my choices and distressed by what I choose to do. I don’t run in to this particular delima as often here as I did at my previous appointment, but a day hardly ever passed at my church in Little Rock where I didn’t encounter a relatively desperate person who needed something from me. I knew how to say no, but I tried not to be heartless about it, and it was a difficult thing to balance.

Here’s a case in point: one afternoon as I was about to leave the church I noticed that someone had set up camp in the back stairwell of the church – complete with a plastic curtain hanging from some pipes that stretched across the stairwell. This person had turned that small stairwell in to a bedroom. He had propped a piece of a palet up in a way that made a bit of a bed and there was a dirty foam pad on top of it along with some blankets. It wasn’t a nice bedroom but clearly this person had made a nest of sorts.

I didn’t like people sleeping outside of the church and I had made that clear to a number of people. I didn’t think it was safe for anyone involved – people inside the church or outside. I hated that people found themselves in such difficult circumstances that they felt like their best option was to sleep on our stairwell, but I just didn’t feel like that was a good solution.

This person wasn’t on hand for me to hear my rationale for why this wasn’t a good thing, but I decided to send that message by throwing the entire encampment in our dumpster – our locked dumpster. The only thing I left was the most significant article of clothing which was a rather heavy jacket. I didn’t feel too good about it, but it wasn’t a dangerously cold day, and there was a lot of daylight left. I’m not saying that’s what Jesus would have done, but it’s what I did.

I was a little anxious about how this person may have reacted to what I had done, so when I got to the church the next morning I walked back to that stairwell to see if they had left me any kind of message, and I was surprised to discover that the camp was totally reassembled and occupied. I was stunned by what I saw because as I say, I had put the entire encampment in our locked dumpster, and it was still locked.

I was both flustered and indignant and with as much authority as I could muster I announced to that sleeping man he had to wake up and move on and that I didn’t appreciate him turning our stairwell in to his bedroom. I heard a respectful apology come from behind the dirty plastic curtain, and as he began moving I went inside the church.  But I really couldn’t believe what I had seen.

The very things I had thrown in that locked dumpster had reemerged and the lock was still in place. Along with my confusion and indignation was also some curiosity, so I went back out and invited the guy to come inside for a cup of coffee. If nothing else, I wanted to know how he had gotten in that dumpster.

So he came in and over a cup of coffe I came to see him as a real person who had fallen on hard times and he came to see me as someone other than the jerk who had thrown away his stuff. His name was Don and he and I became pretty well aquainted with one another. Don was an incredibly resourceful person – with one of his skills being locksmithing. He had actually picked the lock on our dumpster.

What I experienced with Don and with many other people who found themselves living on the streets of Little Rock was the way in which God’s grace often abounds in the lives of people who don’t really have anything other than their wits and their trust in God. On one level, Don and people like Don have an existence that’s not unlike the birds of the air and the lilies of the field. I know in Don’s case, it wasn’t the life that he set out to live, but a couple of unfortunate events landed him without a home, and he had found a way to stay alive – both physically and spiritually.

I think that’s one of the things I’ve learned over my years in ministry. Peace of mind and inner security aren’t dependent upon having a well stocked pantry and a thick financial portfolio. Sometimes incredibly poor people have profound inner peace and sometimes very wealthy people have great anxiety about their circumstances. Certainly not having adequate food or medical care or housing is a terrible burden for many people and I don’t want to diminish the suffering that such situations create. It’s not unreasonable to be distressed when you don’t have access to such essential resources. And I hate that there are so many people who go without the things they need to fully blossom as the people God created them to be, but lack of access isn’t the only thing that keeps us from becoming fully formed in the image of God.

Many of us aren’t as troubled by what we lack in resources as we are by our lack of clarity about who it is we primarily serve. As surely as some people suffer from the problem of not having enough, some of us suffer from problems that come with overabundance. Many of us don’t worry about having enough to eat and drink and wear – we worry about having the right things, and making the wisest investments, and going to the best places. I don’t think any of us would want to trade the problems that come with having too much for the problems that come with having too little, but we don’t need to be unaware of the way in which our souls can be threatened when our bodies are comfortable.

Jesus is telling us not to worry, but I don’t think anyone has ever been able to stop worrying because they were told not to worry. In fact being told not to worry can become an additional source of anxiety when you find yourself unable to do what Jesus has instructed us to do. But it probably isn’t possible to simply quit worrying if there’s something you are worried about. But I think there are things we can do to live with less worry.

Sometimes the thing we are worried about is actually something we can do something about, and instead of worrying about it we need to get off the sofa and do something about it. I can testify that I can spend more time and energy worrying about something than it would take to actually address the problematic situation. I think we often consider worrying about something to be a good alternative to dealing with things, and that is rarely the best option.

But there are those things that come along in life that are simply out of our control. Many of the troubles that come our way just don’t have immediate solutions. Often we are helpless to fix the very real problems that invade our lives, and that’s often when we come to discover what it really means to put our trust in God.

Jesus told us to seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and I guess some people learn to do that without first seeking those forms of security that the world can provide, but it’s often when we encounter situations that money can’t fix or there is no money to provide the fix that we discover the riches of heaven.

We have gathered today because we trust in this wisdom that Jesus both taught and embodied. Jesus didn’t just tell us to place our trust in God. Jesus showed us what it looks like to trust God. It’s a challenge for us, and there are no guarantees that we won’t have to break in to a dumpster to retrieve what we need to get us through a night, but he didn’t just want us to be comfortable. Jesus wanted us to know the joy of ultimate security – which comes to those who trust in God.

Thanks be to God.

Amen.

God’s Perfecting Love

Matthew 5:38-48

38 “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ 39 But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also; 40 and if anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as well; 41 and if anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile. 42 Give to everyone who begs from you, and do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you. 43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ 44 But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. 46 For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? 47 And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? 48 Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

The lessons from the last few weeks are all a part of this larger narrative that’s known as the Sermon on the Mount. It’s a series of lessons that pretty much indicate that everything you thought you knew is wrong. It begins with these verses that highlight the blessedness of all the conditions we generally try to avoid. Jesus said it’s good to be be poor in spirit, and that mouring is valuable, that meekness is rewarded, and that you are doing the right thing if you’re being persecuted. In those first verses Jesus reversed the notion of what it is that will truly make us happy, and then he proclaimed the need for his disciples to let these principles define our lives.

In the second installment of that sermon he said we are to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world. Jesus came to reveal to the world a new way of living, but it wasn’t just him who was to live in that new way. Jesus wanted those of us who claim him as our Lord and Savior to exhibit such new life. We aren’t to hide our light under a basket or keep the salt locked up in the pantry. We are to shine and to share our flavor with the world.

But it was in the third section of the sermon that Jesus got really clear in regard to what he was talking about, and you might say it’s some of the most difficult instruction that anyone has ever uttered. What we heard Jesus say last week is that we aren’t just violating God’s commandments when we act on our self-serving intentions, but that we are guilty as soon as we harbor unrighteous thoughts about other people. I did my best to argue that he was wanting us to forget about being righteous enough to be acceptable to God, but that’s not the only thing Jesus was doing when he spoke those words. I believe he was advocating that we hold ourselves to the spiritual standards of the law and not just to the letter of the law. Jesus was telling us to have true integrity. He instructed us to be profoundly honest, and open, and genuinely good hearted.

As I say, we’ve had some difficult lessons over the past few weeks. Clearly Jesus didn’t intend to market this new movement in a traditional manner – he didn’t sell it in an appealing way. Although he seems to have known what he was doing because we’re still talking about what he said and did, but it’s not a message that matches up well with the way we generally operate. And today’s passage contains the most difficult instruction of all.

What we have in this morning’s lesson is pretty much the opposite of what we generally value and practice. Under normal circumstances, we hate our enemies. We cherish retaliation. We love to win in court. We are careful about who we lend to, we are suspicious of those who beg, and I’m not just talking about you unprofessional Christians. I’m talking about us all. I think I’m talking about most of us when I say that we are not inclined to operate the way that Jesus tells us to be.

And it may be true that we North Americans are particularly good at resisting our enemies, winning in court, and taking care of our money, but this isn’t anything new. I dare say this instruction from Jesus was as foreign to his peers in ancient Palestine as it is to us. We North American Christians are a lot like other imperfect human beings, but Jesus is telling us that we can be better than that. We aren’t to simply be like other human beings – we are to be like our perfect heavenly Father.

Speaking as a person who isn’t great at anything, I find the thought of becoming perfect a daunting quest. Now I’m not being overly modest when I say I’m not great at anything. There are things I would consider myself to be good at doing. As I’ve indicated in previous sermons I think I’m pretty good at building things. I’m not fast, and I’m not outstanding, but I’m good at figuring out how to put things together. And I think I’m a good-enough pastor and preacher. I’ve never experienced miraculous growth or sparked a spiritual revival, so I wouldn’t call myself a great church leader, but I think I’ve taken good care of the flocks to which I’ve been appointed. I continue to aspire to be a good golfer. I would currently call myself a decent golfer, but I want to step up to the next level and actually think of myself as a good golfer. It’s too late for me to become a great golfer, but I still harbor the fantasy of becoming a good one.

I could go on about the things that I think I’m good at or aspire to become good at. I’m good at talking about myself, but greatness is an illusive thing. I’ve just never had the drive to pursue greatness in anything. And I would be in total despair about this instruction of Jesus to become perfect if I thought it was going to require the same kind of effort it takes to become a world class athelete or musician or pastor for that matter.

No doubt there’s some practice involved in becoming a more perfect follower of Jesus Christ, but I don’t think there’s a level of effort that will get us there. I think what Jesus is calling for us to do is not so much a matter of working harder as it is of becoming more familiar with the one who can enable us to become more than we could ever train ourselves to be. If we want to become more than the average human beings that we find it natural to be, I think we must find ways to spend more time with the perfect One who made us.

I’m having a little lesson in this right now. I’m not taking a class on centering prayer or anything like that – although I think that’s something that might be good for me to do. But I am studying under a great master – that master mechanic, Tommy Clark. He’s not here today, so I feel free to talk about him. Tommy is currently revealing a great mystery to me. He’s guiding me through the process of overhauling the engine of the parsonage lawnmower.

Now I’ve had a basic understanding of how an internal combustion engine works for as long as I can remember, but I had never actually taken an engine apart until about a week ago. And I never would have undertaken such a project if I didn’t have someone like Tommy Clark in the shop telling me what to do next. A person might could have found enough youtube videos to guide them through the project, but that wouldn’t have worked for me. I’m glad to have a live person on hand who knows the territory and who provides me with the confidence that we’re actually going to get the thing back together. Everything we’re doing makes sense to me, but it’s not something I would ever have done without his assistance.

Now granted there’s some difference between learning how to put new rings on a piston and learning how to engage with an enemy in a loving way, but the similar thing is the necessity of a partner in the mission. Jesus isn’t telling us to independently gather our resources together and teach our hearts and minds to do everything differently from the way we’ve been conditioned to behave for our entire lives. Jesus knew enough about us to know that we don’t have the wherewithal to behave in an entirely new way because we’ve been told to do so, but he also knew that we aren’t on our own in this endeavor.

He told us to be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect. I don’t think any of us have the discipline to do all of the things Jesus said to do on our own. None of us would ever become adequate disciples if it was up to us to train ourselves to react to our adversaries and our solicitors and our tormentors with anything other than predictable resistance and conventional wisdom, but through Christ we have access to some unconditional love and some unconventional wisdom.

Jesus isn’t just giving us some verbal instruction on a new way of living, Jesus is providing us with access to a new form of instruction and a new resource for life. Jesus isn’t just telling us how to behave, he’s telling us to give ourselves to the One who can enable us to be different.

These aren’t easy days for us to know how to treat one another. This world is an unpredictably dangerous place. Certainly there’s a level of conventional wisdom we need to exercise in order to keep ourselves and our families safe from people who are guided by malice and greed and endless need. But Jesus doesn’t want us to simply be safe and removed from the needs of other people. Jesus wants us to abide with God in heaven. Jesus wants us to open our hearts to the presence of God, and to allow God to instruct us on how we treat other people.

Learning how to treat our enemies and our adversaries with something other than animosity and revenge is an incredibly difficult thing. It’s not as easy as loosening some bolts and inserting some new parts. It’s an overhaul of our soul, and it requires some work that’s beyond the expertise of anyone other than our heavenly master-mechanic.

There is some work for us to do, but I don’t believe we are just to try harder to be nicer people. I believe our work is to become more committed to opening our hearts to the loving presence of God. I don’t really know how to instruct you to do this, but I believe we all have an instructor within us who is seeking to guide us in that more perfect way of living. We call that instructor the Holy Spirit.

Now I hate to think of having to do something like this, but maybe what some of us need to do is to spend more time with the television off. Maybe it means being being less attached to our phones and computers. Maybe it means spending more time alone. Maybe it means making yourself more available to other people. The Holy Spirit has unique instructions for each of us, but I believe there’s something each of us can to to make ourselves more available to the guiding hand of God in our lives.

Our objective is clear – we are called to become perfect. It’s a high standard, but Jesus wasn’t you’re average self-improvement coach. Jesus didn’t just want us to get a little better at being spiritually minded. Jesus wanted us to be born again as children of the most high God. It’s the challenge of our lives. It rewards for eternity.

Thanks be to God.

Amen.

The Underlying Good News

Matthew 5:21-37

5:21 “You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, ‘You shall not murder’; and ‘whoever murders shall be liable to judgment.’ 22 But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment; and if you insult a brother or sister, you will be liable to the council; and if you say, ‘You fool,’ you will be liable to the hell of fire. 23 So when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, 24 leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift. 25 Come to terms quickly with your accuser while you are on the way to court with him, or your accuser may hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and you will be thrown into prison. 26 Truly I tell you, you will never get out until you have paid the last penny. 27 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ 28 But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart. 29 If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away; it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. 30 And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away; it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to go into hell. 31 “It was also said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.’ 32 But I say to you that anyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of unchastity, causes her to commit adultery; and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery. 33 “Again, you have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, ‘You shall not swear falsely, but carry out the vows you have made to the Lord.’ 34 But I say to you, Do not swear at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, 35 or by the earth, for it is his footstool, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. 36 And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black. 37 Let your word be ‘Yes, Yes’ or ‘No, No’; anything more than this comes from the evil one.

I’m guessing this isn’t anyone’s favorite passage of scripture. It’s not mine – not because I don’t think there’s something good for us to hear, but because I always have this fear that someone is going to walk out of the sanctuary while it’s being read. Without doing a little probing in to what this actually means for us it’s sort of a terrifying passage. I mean we’re inclined to think that Jesus was more forgiving of people’s failures than we understand the Jewish authorities to have been, and I don’t think that’s an improper understanding, but this passage makes him sound like a member of the Taliban.

I don’t think it’s wrong to think of Jesus as expecting us to hold ourselves to high standards of living, but I don’t think the point of this passage is to beat ourselves up for falling short of those expectations. In fact at the same time that Jesus is very clearly directing us to live our lives with the highest levels of integrity, I think he’s also telling us to let go of our usual standards of judgement.

I mean there may be someone in the room who has never been angry with anyone, but if you’ve got a pulse, you have probably stepped in to that territory that Jesus very clearly identifies as a bad place to be. And I don’t want a show of hands of people who have violated Jesus’ definition of adultery, but he expands the definition in a way that is beyond anything you will find in a dictionary.

People who have personally experienced divorce don’t need any more scrutiny than what they’ve already undergone, so we don’t need to further highlight that unfortunate turn of events, but these words aren’t intended to heap a blanket of judgment upon the divorced among us. Jesus was addressing a culture where men were totally in control of the divorce proceedings, and he was pointing his finger at those men who took advantage of a loophole in the religious law to serve their selfish pusuits. And there’s a larger principle here that we all are capable of violating – it’s probably not so hard for any of us to serve ourselves at the expense of someone else in a socially acceptable manner.

I’m not exactly sure what to say about this business of making oaths other than to say that Jesus saw something going on that was disturbing. I think he must have witnessed the way people sometimes used a flurry of words to obscure what they were actually saying. I’m thinking Jesus would have a lot to say about the way in which we try to manage our images regardless of how we behave or what we actually do. Jesus valued honesty over image. He considered it to be essential for there to be no room between what we say and what we do, and I’m not sure who has a perfect record in that regard.

So while it sounds like Jesus was taking a page from John the Baptist’s playbook when he spoke these words, I don’t think the message we are to take away is that we’re all doomed. I think Jesus would say that we are all doomed if our hope is built on our ability to live up to all the standards of the law, but I don’t think our relationship with God depends upon our ability to meet every expectation. I think Jesus spoke these words because he was wanting us to see ourselves more clearly than we are often inclined to do. And by recognizing our internal blemishes he wants us to become less judgemental of others and more open to the new life that can come to us when we let go of who we think we are.

I think Jesus actually wanted us to experience some despair when we heard these words. This isn’t anyone’s favorite passage of scripture because he wasn’t trying to make anyone feel good when he spoke these words. He was wanting us to let go of any illusion we may have about our religious righteousness in order for us to experience a more authentic relationship with God.

Now the truth is, we United Methodists aren’t so legalistic when it comes to many things. We actually greet one another in the liquor store, we own up to not knowing everything about human sexuality, and we don’t ostracize people for getting a divorce. In fact these are some of our best recruiting tools. I know a good number of United Methodists who were former members of other denominations until they got a divorce or came out of the closet. I’m glad we’re less judgemental about these things than are some other denominations, but this doesn’t really help me to be a less judgemental person. I can feel overly judgemental about those other denominations who are so legalistic. This issue of judgementalism is an insidious problem. Intolerance can take on many different forms.

We don’t experience religious shaming in the way that the first generation disciples would have known it to be practiced. Our culture wars are different from theirs, but there aren’t any of us who are unfamiliar with the feeling of being shamed. Some of us may have had parents who were experts in the field of shaming. Some of us may continue to hone our own expertise in that field. Of course you don’t have to be a parent or a religious authority in order to do some powerful shaming. Facebook and twitter have made it possible to shower some righteous indignation upon the heads of so-called friends, aquaintances and perfect strangers. Social media shaming has become a new art form for some people.

We don’t experience the same sort of legalism that those first generation disciples experienced, but I don’t think any of us are unfamiliar with either end of this problem. And Jesus was serious about our need to overcome this problem. In fact he was pretty graphic about it. He said that when we identify the perpetrator of this problem we should eliminate it, and he wasn’t talking about eliminating flawed individuals from our community. He was talking about eliminating the obstacles that exist within ourselves. If it’s your eye that offends you pluck it out. If it’s your hand – cut it off.

Clearly I think we’ve got some hyperbole going on here, but you may remember the story from a few years ago of the rock-climber who’s hand was trapped by a boulder when he and the boulder slipped down into a tight canyon, and he literally saved his life by cutting his hand off. His name is Aron Ralston and he wrote a book about the event entitled: Between a Rock and a Hard Place. The story has been made into a movie called “127 Hours”. I haven’t seen the movie or read the book, but I saw a special about him one evening so I’m almost an expert on the matter.

It’s an incredible story, and I was struck by the degree of clarity he experienced in regard to what he needed to do in order to live. It’s an epic story, and while it’s an extraordinary case of a person having to do an unfathomable thing, I think it points to the way in which our priorities become very clear when we recognize what’s keeping us stuck. We all get caught between a rock and a hard place every now and then, and that’s often where we are when we recognize what we need to do. The situation that unfortunate rock-climber found himself in is more gruesome than our usual painful place, but I think the common experience that we may all understand is that heightened sense of clarity that comes to us when we allow the illusions of ourselves to evaporate.

It’s sort of a terrible thing to realize we aren’t as capable, or righteous, or generous, or honest, or forgiving, or faithful that we would prefer to think of ourselves as being, but such moments of clarity can be powerfully humanizing. And it’s probably when we profoundly let ourselves down that we are most capable of seeing how God seeks to lift us up.

On one level, it seems like Jesus was being even more legalistic than the Pharisees when he equated anger with murder and lust with adultery, but what he was really doing was revealing the opportunity for transformation that comes to us when we let go of our illusions of righteousness.

Of course Jesus was concerned about all the ways in which we harm our relationships with one another and with God, but he wasn’t focused on the rules because he knew that the rules are much more complex than they are generally portrayed. Certainly it’s a bad thing to engage in murder or adultery, but it’s also hurtful to be angry or lustful. It’s also hurtful to be overly righteous. The good news is that it’s by coming to grips with such things that we open ourselves to richer relationships with ourselves, with other people, and with God.

The wording in this passage is harsh, and frankly it leaves me feeling like a damaged good because it brings focus to my inability to be as loving, faithful, honest, and kind as I understand God wills for me to be, but these words also keep me from being as judgemental toward other people as I am sometimes inclined to be. Jesus was exercising some judgement, but Jesus didn’t just want us to live our lives with false understanding of ourselves or of God. He didn’t just want us to be righteous, he w wanted us to experience the power of God’s resurrecting love. Such redeeming love would be more fully revealed after he was crucified, but I believe this transforming love is something that we can experience in small ways throughout our lives.

I don’t want to diminish the pain that we experience when we find ourselves in terrible places, but it’s only when we recognize where we are that we see what we need to do. We aren’t redeemed by our ability to be righteous. We are redeemed when we encounter the grace of God at those moments when our needs overshadow our capabilities. It’s not that God is waiting for us to grovel, but it’s hard for God to touch a heart that’s full of self-satisfaction.

The good news is that there’s nothing that disqualifies us from growing in our relationship with God, but what Jesus has to say isn’t all good news. It is possible for us to behave in ways that get in the way of our relationship with God and one another. In fact there is no end to the ways we can get in the way, but thanks be to God there’s always a way back. Our relationship with God is always a work in progress – as it is with everyone else. May God’s grace abound as we seek to find our way through the canyons of life and into the light of God’s eternal kingdom.

Thanks be to God.

Amen.

Salt and Light

Matthew 5:13-20

13 “You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled under foot. 14 “You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. 15 No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven. 17 “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. 18 For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. 19 Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, will be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. 20 For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”

I love salt. I probably fall under the category of being a salt fiend. I don’t like low-sodium canned goods, and I think it would be easier for me to eliminate meat from my diet than salt. I love meat, but I love to put salt on it. I don’t know if I would like it very much if I couldn’t put salt on it. Now I’ve also got high blood pressure, which could be a big problem, but I’m so grateful that there’s this little pill that I take each morning that keeps my blood pressure under control in spite of my love for salt. There may be people who eat more salt than I do, but I would compare my love for salt with that of anyone else. So I find this morning’s imperative to be the salt of the earth a compelling message.

Of course there are a number of uses for salt, so there are a number of ways for us to interpret what it means to be the salt of the earth, but I like the idea of living as such a valuable substance. And one way for us to take this is to think of ourselves as those who bring out the goodness of others. In a sense, we are to enhance the flavor of other people.

When I was in campus ministry I witnessed a situation that I hope never to forget. One of the best things that went on at the UALR Wesley Foundation, was the way in which it functioned as a crossroad. I encouraged people to simply stop by and hang-out, and it became a place where new friendships were formed and sometimes former connections were reestablished. So I was visiting with a former student named Mickey one day who had dropped by for a visit when a current student named Charles wheeled in on his electric wheelchair.

I introduced them but it turned out they had previously encountered each other. Charles wasn’t aware of their connection, because it had occurred right after he had had the accident that put him in a wheelchair. He was at UAMS, and that period of time was largely a blurr for him. Mickey was working there as an orderly at the time, and what he witnessed made a powerful impression on him.

Mickey said he had never seen such a remarkable parade of people stop by to check on anyone. Mickey and Charles didn’t officially meet at the hospital, but after seeing all of the people who dropped by to check on Charles, Mickey said he made a vow to himself. He didn’t know who Charles was or what he was like, but he decided he wanted to live the kind of life that would be so well appreciated by other people. I think Mickey was already a pretty nice guy, but it gave him a new sense of focus and resolve to be a good friend and family member.

We don’t always know how we affect the lives of other people. We can be powerful influences on other people without even knowing it. And it can be the small things that we do that can have powerful impacts. As we all know, a little salt can go a long way. I’ve owned up to being a salt fiend, but I’m not really somebody who drowns my food in salt. I just like a little salt on everything. And I think that’s a good way for us to think of discipleship. We don’t always need to make large productions of our efforts to follow Christ. We just need to let Christ inform all that we do.

Just as a little salt can bring out the flavor of a great piece of meat, a little salt can turn some of the most bland foods in to really nice things to eat. You know, I love to smother a hot baked potato in butter and sour cream and cheese and peppers and olives and of course salt, but I also love to pick up a cold left-over baked potato and eat it with nothing but some salt on it. And I think there’s a lesson there about discipleship.

When Jesus tells us to be the salt of the earth I think he’s telling us we can help create opportunities for abundant life regardless of what’s going on in life. As surely as a little salt can turn a bland starch into a memorable late night treat, I believe a person of faith can provide great hope and comfort in the midst of any situation.

Many people know of the courageous and bold leadership that Dietrich Bonhoeffer provided during his work as a pastor in Nazi Germany. At great personal risk he provided guidance for people of faith who sought to resist the evil ways of Hitler’s government, but what’s not so well known is the simple pastoral care he provided during the last few months of his life. He was imprisoned during that time, and following the war the survivors who were with him in prison as well as some of his guards testified to the way in which Bonheoffer provided them with simple forms of comfort. He brought a form of life into a very deathly situation. He provided some salt for a tastless situation, and it made things better for everyone.

Of course, there are many different uses for salt.  Really salty water can gag you or make you sick, but it’s so good to gargle with when you have a sore throat.  Using salt for a medicinal purpose is not as appetizing as the seasoning image, but it does carry with it the idea of bringing relief and healing, and that is certainly an aspect of discipleship as well.  There are some obvious wounds and sore spots in this world that would benefit from the application of some disinfecting salt solution. There are a number of ways for us to be the salt of the earth, and we disciples need to engage in some strategic thinking about how we can enhance life and heal wounds.

There are many lessons that can be drawn from the salt proclamation, but maybe the most important thing for us to keep in mind is the way in which it’s value is derived from how it’s used. Salt has very little value in and of itself. We aren’t just called to be an inert substance that can kill about anything, but on it’s own can’t keep anything alive. As salt of the earth, our value is in how we relate to one another.

But Jesus didn’t just want us to think of ourselves as salt. He also called for us to think of ourselves as the light of the world.

Because we have have had the good fortune of encountering the grace and peace of Jesus Christ we have become equipped to be the bearers of that same grace and peace. Jesus hadn’t been around his disciples long before he told them they were the salt of the earth and light for the world. Hearing the words of Jesus and following his teaching is all that we need in order to become these essential elements.

Embracing the image of discipleship as light is a timely image right now because the world of lighting has undergone a revolution. A trip to the lighting aisle of any store reveals a whole new world of lighting options. You can still find relatives of Thomas Edison’s incandescent light bulbs, but those have largely been replaced by a newer generation of lighting devices. You probably don’t need me to recall the recent evolution of lighting in the USA, but think about how this has played out over the last few years.

Thomas Edison’s style of light bulb served us well for over a hundred years, but the truth is that such bulbs actually create more heat than light. When you see an incandescent light bulb you are witnessing a tungsten wire having enough electricity pass through it to make it glow, which means it has reached a temperature just over 4000 degrees, but it doesn’t burn up because it’s in a vacuum and there’s no oxygen to enable it to actually catch on fire. It was an ingenious invention, but it’s not the most efficient way to generate light, and fortunately we’ve become more sensitive to the value of energy efficiency.

Fluorescent bulbs have been around for a while, and they are much more efficient because they create light by passing electricity through a gas that glows under very specific circumstances. It took a while for scientists to figure out how to package that process in a bulb small enough to screw in to a conventional light fixture. These compact fluorescent lights or CFLs were an improvement, but they contain a trace of mercury vapor in each bulb – which is a toxic substance, so they didn’t prove to be an optimal solution to our lighting needs.

And that leads us to this new form of lighting that has largely replaced both incandescent and compact fluorescent light bulbs. Light Emitting Diodes or LEDs have found their way in to our world. I don’t really understand the science, but what I do understand is that they are even more efficient than CFL’s, they’re more resilient, they’re smaller, they don’t create much heat, there are no toxic disposal issues, and they can create some cool colors.

LEDs have revolutionized the lighting world, but there is a sense in which we’ve had some LED’s on hand for the last 2000 years. Jesus didn’t think to call his followers LEDs, but that’s what he wanted us to be – light emitting disciples. You may have been wondering when this science lesson was going to turn back in to a sermon, and this is that moment because I see a lot of similarity between theses two types of LEDs. You pass a little energy through a light emitting diode and you get some colorful light in an efficient and resilient manner, and I’m thinking the same can be said of a light emitting disciple.

You touch a light emitting disciple with some power from the Holy Spirit and the world becomes a more illumined place. We are called to be the bearers of God’s light, and that calls for us to be both the recipients and the transmitters of that form of grace that can be well described as light. And we need to be as wise as those people who are constantly researching the way to make a better light bulb. We need to think about how we can be more efficient in our transmission of God’s grace in to the world. How can we be more resilient and colorful and enduring in our work to share God’s love? It’s a beautiful thing that Jesus has invited us to be.

We’ve been challenged in two very different ways, and there are innumerable ways for us to live out these divine possibilities. Some of us are more salty than others. Some of us burn a little brighter than others. But we all have our opportunities to be the bearers of God’s gracious presence to people who are needing a taste of heaven and some light on their path.

God be with us as we seek to embody these powerful words of Christ.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

The Art of Living

Matthew 5:1-12

 1 When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain; and after he sat down, his disciples came to him. 2 Then he began to speak, and taught them, saying:
3 “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
4 “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
5 “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
6 “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
7 “Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.
8 “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
9 “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.
10 “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
11 “Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.
12 Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

I’m not exactly sure how to reconcile my affection for duck hunting with my trust in the wisdom of the Beattitudes, but I have unapologetic passion for both of these things. This isn’t the only contradiction I’m aware of in my life, but this one is particularly fresh, and I know I’m not alone in this regard. There are others here who love the words of Jesus as well as the opportunity to fire a 12-guage at a duck.

I know there isn’t a direct contradiction between the desire to acquire a limit of mallards and these words from Jesus, but you have to admit that there’s some discord between the aggressiveness of hunting and the serenity advocated by the Beatitudes. I mean it’s just not easy to explain how the explosiveness of a shotgun at daybreak fits with the admonition for peacemaking, but while this seems to be a blatant case of disturbing the peace, I’m sure this isn’t the worst way in which I neglect to bring peace into the world.

I’m not really troubled by my love for duck hunting. In fact I can testify that it can be a very humbling experience. While I am responsible for the recent death and injury of some beautiful birds, I had the very vivid experience of shooting three times at a large drake that was close enough to hit with a rock and not disturbing a feather. I don’t know if it was meekness that I experienced following that turn of events, but I assure you that left me with a profound sense of powerlessness. And on some level, I think these words of Jesus provide good news for people who are not operating from positions of authority, power and privilege.

It was a funny turn of events that I experienced the other day. I was in a really beautiful place. In fact, for a guy who loves to duck hunt I was in a bit of a paradise, but I stepped in to a place of deep misery – which then put me in touch with some spiritual truth. Failure to perform at a critical moment is not much fun, but there’s this interesting thing that can happen to us when we are not where we want to be. My duck hunting experience is pretty trivial, but it sort of sensitized me to the way in which our lives can be enriched by whatever comes our way.

These verses that we call the beatitudes point to the way in which there can be this odd reversal of spiritual fortune for us when we encounter the most difficult moments in life. And I’m thinking we’ve probably all encountered the remarkable way in which God’s grace is most available to us when we find ourselves in difficult places. Blessings don’t just come to us when we are at the top of our game. Some blessings are only available to us when we mourn, when we are poor in spirit, when we are hungry for righteousness, and when we are having to work for peace.

It’s interesting that the beatitudes are very much shaped like the teachings you will find in the Book of Proverbs. That’s a book Jesus would have been familiar with, but the wisdom Jesus shares is a bit different from what you generally find in Proverbs. The wisdom of Proverbs is more like good advice. They tend to provide instruction that will help you attain some success in life. Such as:

Pvbs. 10:17 Those who heed instruction are on the way to life, but those who ignore correction lose their way.

Pvbs. 10:23 Fools enjoy vile deeds, but those with understanding take pleasure in wisdom.

Much of what you read in Proverbs makes sense, but there is sort of an underlying assumption that the world operates in a reasonable manner. Many of the Proverbs indicate that if you do the right thing you will prosper and if you behave badly you will fail.

Pvbs. 16:3 Commit your work to the Lord, and your plans will succeed.

Pvbs. 22:4 The reward of humility and the fear of the Lord is wealth, honor, and life.

Now it may be that what Jesus is saying isn’t different from these Proverbs, but my sense is that Jesus didn’t assume things would always go well for people who love the things that God values. When Jesus speaks of the rewards that come to the poor in spirit, the meek, the peacemakers, the justice seekers and others who do the holy work of God, I don’t think he was speaking of traditional forms of rewards. The original hearers of the Beatitudes knew that the meek weren’t exactly inheriting large swaths of real estate. People who were doing all of the right things weren’t being well rewarded in their day and age. They knew what we know, which is that meekness is not what closes the biggest deals. Nor do we generally consider it a blessing to be poor or to be in mourning.

In some ways it’s hard for me to absorb what Jesus wants us to know. It almost seems that he instructing us to go out and find new ways to suffer and fail, but I don’t think that is the case. It’s some unusual wisdom that he’s sharing. Proverbs provide instruction on how to create the best opportunities for yourself, but the Beatitudes point to some good news that’s available to us when life doesn’t go so well.

The Beatitudes reveal that our relationship with God can flourish when our lives are not shaping up the way we might have hoped. And part of the wisdom that Jesus is imparting is the wisdom of being less connected to our own personal lives and more connected to the wellbeing of us all.

To embrace the Beatitudes is to value the most elemental aspects of life. These verses call for us to care more about living gently on the land and of seeking harmony with other people than for our own personal desires to be met. To harken back to my own experience earlier this week – I wasn’t very happy with my inability to shoot that drake that was right in my face, but I found myself being sort of happy for that bird that lived to fly another day.

These verses call for us to have a larger view than we are often inclined to have. Our primary concerns are often very self-oriented, and Jesus wanted us to live with a much larger sphere of interest.

And by having a much larger view of reality we can have access to hope when things don’t go so well at the moment. We all know that life is hard, but Jesus didn’t want us to have the attitude that life is hard and we should just get used to it. He wanted us to trust that there will come a time when we will experience a better world – a world that values mercy, humility, peace, and love. We may not all be alive to enjoy it, but if we can develop a sense of deep connection to others then we become connected to a community that extends beyond our own individual lives. Jesus wanted us to trust that better days will come and that we are to do what we can to help those days arrive.

As he said, blessed are the peacemakers, blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. Jesus wanted us to seek the world that we hope to see, and I believe God provides inner peace and wellbeing to those who do such holy work.  God wants us to trust that better days will come, and it will be a world where the meek and merciful will be at home.

These verses are very instructive to us on how we are to navigate this world and according to Jesus, compassion is to be our primary guide. We aren’t to be so caught up in ourselves that we don’t understand how connected we are to others, and that it is only through this effort to extend our connections that we will find happiness. It can be costly to exercise compassion, and this world doesn’t tend to reward compassion as much as it rewards self-promotion. Compassion can be viewed as weakness in a world that values aggressive strength, but Jesus didn’t want us to turn away from the costly enterprise of caring deeply for other people because he wanted us to experience the reward of true happiness.

Sometimes we get to enjoy the blessings of health and success and personal achievement. These are great things that are worthy of celebration, but Jesus didn’t want us to think that these are the things that can provide us with the most satisfaction. What Jesus taught is that we have access to a form of happiness that doesn’t depend on immediate rewards. Jesus wanted us to become so connected to the source of true life that we aren’t deterred by the turn of events of the day. Jesus wanted us to experience the kind of happiness that can come to us when the pronoun, we, becomes more important than I.

With these words we call the beatitudes, Jesus is inviting us all to engage in the art of living deeply happy lives. It’s not an easy art to learn, but to live a life guided by compassion for others and concern for the world is the most beautiful art we can ever produce.

Thanks be to God – Amen.

Catch and Release

Matthew 4:12-23

12 Now when Jesus heard that John had been arrested, he withdrew to Galilee. 13 He left Nazareth and made his home in Capernaum by the sea, in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali, 14 so that what had been spoken through the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled: 15 “Land of Zebulun, land of Naphtali, on the road by the sea, across the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles 16 the people who sat in darkness have seen a great light, and for those who sat in the region and shadow of death light has dawned.” 17 From that time Jesus began to proclaim, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” 18 As he walked by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea for they were fishermen. 19 And he said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.” 20 Immediately they left their nets and followed him. 21 As he went from there, he saw two other brothers, James son of Zebedee and his brother John, in the boat with their father Zebedee, mending their nets, and he called them. 22 Immediately they left the boat and their father, and followed him. 23 Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing every disease and every sickness among the people.

Most of us aren’t that familiar with Palestinian geography, so the reference to Jesus moving to the region around Capernaum doesn’t mean that much to most of us native Arkansans, but apparently it was not the area from which you would expect a Jewish messiah to come.  It was a multi-cultural region. Jews lived there alongside people of many other religions and traditions. Consequently, the Jews in that area were not highly respected by the Jews who lived in villages that were more purely Jewish.  Matthew refers to the imprisonment of John as one reason Jesus chose to move to that part of the country. It was a place where he could be more anonymous, but Matthew also found scriptural reasons to explain why Jesus would have chosen to live in an area that was outside of the region you might think of as the Hebrew Bible Belt.

Matthew used scripture to show that the messiah would come from that area, and it was his way of saying that Jesus had come for gentiles as well as the Jews.  Matthew wanted his Jewish readers to know that it was no accident that gentiles were brought into the fold.  It was God’s will for the messiah to launch his ministry from an area known more for it’s fishing than for it’s religious purity.

The fact that Jesus chose to live in a fishing village was an obstacle for some of the Jews. Many were expecting the messiah to emerge from the Temple, and they had some scripture to back up their expectations, but Matthew knew his scripture as well, and he provide some scripture to show that it was right for Jesus to begin his mission from an area that many believed to be spiritually corrupt.

But in addition to starting from a religiously questionable area, Jesus didn’t choose religiously trained personnel to join him on his mission. He didn’t select any religious authorities – he sought out some fishermen. Of course the fact that Jesus had an appreciation for fishermen is the thing that gives him the most credibility with some people, but that’s not the first move any of the religious experts would have predicted. It’s interesting the way Matthew portrays the authority of Jesus. He’s clear to show that it’s consistent with scripture, but the authority of Jesus wasn’t like anything anybody would have expected. Jesus was Jewish, but he was out of the box and off the chain.

Scribes and Pharisees didn’t get it, but fishermen dropped their nets and fell in behind him. No doubt, it wasn’t easy to be a fisherman in that part of the world. It would have been a job that required long hours, heavy lifting, endless repair-work, and meager pay, but it’s what you did if you were the son of a fisherman. I don’t think Simon and Andrew and James and John had settled on becoming fishermen after they dropped out of law-school or failed to get in to medical school. These men were expected to take up the nets that their fathers and grandfathers had been tending and repairing. It wasn’t the best job in the world, but before Jesus appeared it was probably the only job in their world-view.

But it’s probably not easy for us to put this fishing thing in it’s proper perspective. There are probably more people in our country who make pilgrimages to Bass Pro Shop than who attend worship on Easter morning. In this part of the world, fishing isn’t an occupation – for some it’s a reason for existence. We aren’t all infected with fishing fever, but we probably all know someone who is.

I’m not feverish about fishing, but I’ve come down with it every now and then. Sharla and I lived on the Little Red River for a couple of months during the summer prior to leaving for seminary in North Carolina. I caught a large trout on the first day that we were there, and I spent every available moment for the rest of that summer trying to catch another one.  I didn’t catch a tremendous amount of fish that summer, but I caught just enough to maintain my fishing affection.

So I’m not the kind of person who lives to fish, but I understand people who do. I understand how it can become an obsession. I don’t know how feverish the fishermen of Capernaum were inclined to be, but there’s something irresistible about hauling in large fish. It’s an overpowering experience. People who go after fish go after them with passion and ingenuity.  After living at Capernaum by the sea for a while, Jesus must have noticed this characteristic in the people who made their living fishing, and I think he saw that as a characteristic that would transfer well to the endeavor of Christian evangelism.

Jesus needed his disciples to be people who could give themselves to a pursuit with passion and ingenuity, and I think that’s why he first asked some fishermen to follow him.  And notice that he didn’t tell them that he wanted them to stop fishing and follow him, he told them that if they would follow him he would teach them how to catch people.

There are some significant differences between the fishing techniques that people used around Capernaum and the way that people fish around here, but I like to think that there’s no difference in the personality types of those who fished on the Sea of Galilee and those who go to the lakes and rivers around here. Jesus was looking for people who were wily, persistent, and undeterred, and that is often the case with people who like to fish. Of course people can get caught up in all kinds of pursuits, and I think it’s that capacity to get caught up in something that Jesus was looking for in his disciples.

But there are some clear parallels between fishing and Christian evangelism. In both cases you’ve got to understand what you have to work with and what it is you’re trying to do. Both of these endeavors require some strategic thinking and they both require an understanding of the mindset of others – whether those others are people or creatures. But probably the most essential characteristic of people who fish for fish or fish for people is persistence. Certainly not every outing gets results, but I think Jesus started with fishermen because they would have understood the value of hard work with little payoff. Even unsuccessful journeys onto the sea have benefits. Anytime you embark on an outing there is something valuable to be learned or experienced.

I may be making too much of the characteristics of fishermen. It may be that the most important characteristic we see displayed in this story is simple willingness. It was willingness that those first disciples showed when they were approached by Jesus.  They saw something in Jesus that motivated them to leave what they were doing and follow him.

Jesus was introducing people to something careful people didn’t talk about openly. The Kingdom of Heaven wasn’t the kingdom they knew to be the nearest. It was the empire of Rome that everyone knew to be in charge, and it was no small thing for Jesus to make mention of a more significant authority, so Jesus needed his disciples to be brave as well as willing. These first disciples wouldn’t have been unaware of the danger of this enterprise of discipleship, but they found Jesus’ call to be irresistible.

It’s not surprising that Jesus sought out people as resourceful as fishermen to join him in his mission to redeem the world, but he told them that they would be utilizing their fishing skills to catch people.

Now the thought of getting hooked isn’t a particularly appealing image, and I don’t think Jesus intended for his disciples to think of themselves as people who were to lure unsuspecting people in to hidden traps. The fishing for people metaphor breaks down at some point, but I think it’s fitting for disciples to engage in behavior that captures the attention of other people. It’s not a bad thing to lure people in to situations that would provide the opportunity for their lives to be transformed.

When I think of this fishing metaphor, I think we should engage in this practice of fishing known as “catch and release”. That’s when you catch the fish, but you don’t keep them – you let them go before they die. Certainly we followers of Christ aren’t to be in the business of roping people into irreversible confinement. We aren’t called to capture unwitting souls, but we are to function in such a way that we become captivating. And while we are to exhibit a way of living that is ethical and helpful, we aren’t called to dictate the way in which others are to define their lives. I believe that people find a radical form of freedom at the heart of Christian discipleship. Christians are guided by nothing but the love of Jesus Christ, and there’s nothing more liberating than the rule of love.

I believe our work as fishers of people is to utilize all of the resources we have to catch the attention of people who are hooked into bad situations, bad concepts of God, bad images of themselves, and bad ways of judging others and to point to the One who can redefine life.

The Kingdom of Heaven is still near, and we are invited to get caught up in it. Some people might not believe this, but there’s actually something better that having a giant bass on the line. The best thing that can happen to any of us is to get caught by the love of Jesus Christ and then to become released into the world as a new creature.

Jesus first found some fishermen to engage in this world-changing work, but he wasn’t just looking for some fishermen. He is looking for anyone who isn’t so caught up in their own business to be about his business, and that’s what makes us all available for that rich work of getting caught up in the Kingdom of God.

Thanks be to God!

Amen

Finding Jesus

John 1:29-42

29 The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him and declared, “Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! 30 This is he of whom I said, ‘After me comes a man who ranks ahead of me because he was before me.’ 31 I myself did not know him; but I came baptizing with water for this reason, that he might be revealed to Israel.” 32 And John testified, “I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him. 33 I myself did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’ 34 And I myself have seen and have testified that this is the Son of God.” 35 The next day John again was standing with two of his disciples, 36 and as he watched Jesus walk by, he exclaimed, “Look, here is the Lamb of God!” 37 The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus. 38 When Jesus turned and saw them following, he said to them, “What are you looking for?” They said to him, “Rabbi” (which translated means Teacher), “where are you staying?” 39 He said to them, “Come and see.” They came and saw where he was staying, and they remained with him that day. It was about four o’clock in the afternoon. 40 One of the two who heard John speak and followed him was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother. 41 He first found his brother Simon and said to him, “We have found the Messiah” (which is translated Anointed). 42 He brought Simon to Jesus, who looked at him and said, “You are Simon son of John. You are to be called Cephas” (which is translated Peter).

Last week I mentioned the unusual pacing that Matthew employed in the beginning of his account of Jesus. He covers about 2000 years of Jesus’ genealogy in the first few verses of his gospel then slams on the brakes and talks about what went on during the months prior to Jesus’ birth in the next few verses. The gospel of John begins with an even more dramatic time shift. Within his first chapter he goes from talking about what was going on at the beginning of time to explaining what happened around 4pm one afternoon. It’s like going from looking at the moon with a naked eye to looking at it through a telescope with the power to focus in on a grain of moon dust.

I’m not exactly sure what to make of these powerful time shifts, but I suspect John was wanting us to see how God’s love and intention for the entire universe can actually become a very personal experience. By going from talking about what God was doing in the very beginning to what was going on at 4oclock one afternoon I believe John was pointing out that this same power that called the world in to being can provide light and life for us as individuals.

There’s some good information in this text, but Jesus doesn’t provide an extensive amount of instruction in this passage. He asks the men who began to follow him what they were looking for, and they answer by asking him where he was staying, and he answers them by telling them to come and see.

This is a pertinent conversation for us to have as well. Jesus asks: What are you looking for? And while the response of these potential followers seems a bit out of conversational order, their question is a good one for us to ask of Jesus as well: Where are you staying? To which he responds: Come and see.

This is good information and it provides some clarity about what we are up to and what we are up against. We aren’t unlike these first disciples. Jesus knows we are looking for something. In fact I believe he knows we are looking for him. We have the good fortune of being in this faith community that recognizes the value of following Jesus, but we don’t have that optimum experience of seeing him first hand in the flesh. We don’t have direct access to the charisma that somehow exuded from his being. I find myself somewhat envious of these men who saw him walking by and were compelled to follow him. Of course Jesus was pointed out to them by someone they already trusted, and maybe Jesus didn’t give them the immediate impression that they were looking for because you might say they had to be told twice before they left John and followed Jesus.

I’m inclined to think it would have been easier to be close to Jesus if I had seen him walking down the road and followed him to where he was staying, but as I’ve said before, I think Jesus always challenged people’s expectations. Who he is is not generally who we think he’s going to be, because what he offers surpasses what we think we need. I don’t guess it’s ever been easy for someone to find their way to Jesus, but it’s no less available to us than it was to those first generation followers. They had their obstacles and we have ours.

In some ways there’s an element of randomness to the way these disciples came to Jesus, and I’m thinking this is probably true for anyone who finds their way Christ. These first disciples happened to be out with John the Baptist when they saw Jesus walking by. Being with John the Baptist put them in a good place to encounter God’s saving grace, but they could have been in some other good place that day.

I don’t think anyone ever knows exactly where they need to be in order to discover God’s transforming power. Those opportunities seem to find us, and they often arise in unsuspecting ways. Of course we live in a part of the world where Christianity is the dominant faith, and we who grow up in the church are conditioned to be seekers of Christ, but I don’t believe people become passionate followers Jesus Christ because of familiarity with our faith tradition. It’s a good thing to grow up in a church and to be exposed to all the means of grace that are extended by the church, but familiarity with the church doesn’t always translate in to passion for Jesus. There are a good number of people who feel pushed to church on Sunday mornings by parents, spouses, or peer pressure, and we all know the love of Christ isn’t the only thing you can experience in church. There are a lot of people who consider themselves to be in recovery from what they experienced in church, but even bad church experiences don’t prevent people from encountering the true living Christ. Nor do model churches touch everyone in powerful ways.

I’m inclined to think that there’s always some form of miracle that occurs that leads us to that spot where we encounter Jesus Christ in a compelling way, and we almost always come to that place in a circuitous manner. Maybe it’s something the preacher or the Sunday School teacher says, but it might also be the voice of silent desperation that opens your eyes to presence of Christ in the room. It happens in such a variety of ways. Maybe we followed the advice of a friend or a respected elder. Maybe we fled from such advice and then ran in to Jesus in the words of a stranger at a bar. There’s no single path to the place where Jesus stays, but you can bet it’s more of a path than a freeway. I’m sure there were more than two people on the road that day who encountered Jesus and chose not to go see where he stayed.

There’s some mystery to the way in which God touches our lives and provides us with opportunities for spiritual transformation. It’s interesting for me to think about the path I’ve been on in my search to find where Jesus stays. I don’t want to portray myself as someone who has always taken the right fork on the path. I can be as dispassionate and lost as anyone, but I don’t stay dispassionate and lost. I don’t hold myself up as a model disciple, but I’m not always stuck in the ditch. I believe I have encountered the grace of Jesus Christ in my life, and in my heart of hearts I know I want to follow him. I believe he is the source of truth and abundant life and when I’m at my best I know that’s what I want. I also know that I’m the beneficiary of good people who have pointed me in the right direction.

Most of you know I grew up in the Wynne First United Methodist Church, and I was well nurtured by that church. I was given a good impression of God by that church, but I wasn’t an easy customer when I got to be college age. I grew to be pretty critical of the institution, but I wasn’t hostile, so I went up to the church one summer day when the pastor invited a few of us to his office between our freshman and sophomore years of college. The pastor wanted to know what we were all doing and said I was about to transfer from Hendrix to Fayetteville. He told me I should drop by the Wesley Foundation, which was the United Methodist campus ministry because he thought I would like the director, Lewis Chesser. His advice was confirmed by the church Education Director, Emily Cockrill – who some of you may have known in the past, and so when I got to Fayetteville I looked him up.

It turns out that the Wesley Foundation became my home away from home. It wasn’t a very churchy place, and I was very stimulated by the conversations that went on around there. Lewis had a Sunday morning worship service, and that became my favorite event of the week. Lewis would preach a sermon, but he invited feedback from the small group that gathered each Sunday. That turned out to be a form of reintroduction to Jesus that really spoke to me.

I spent the next two and a half years hanging around the Wesley Foundation. It was my primary community, but it got disrupted when I went home for Thanksgiving during what should have been my senior year and I got invited to go live and work in Vail, CO for a winter. I wasn’t exactly focused on what I wanted to do professionally, so that kind of break made good sense to me. Against my parents advice I took off for Vail in January of 1980, and I spent that winter and spring in the Rocky Mountains. I got a job working in a Chinese food restaurant called the Hong Kong Café that was at the base of the main mountain. It was a great job. I learned the whole system. I prepped a few days a week cutting vegetables and meat and making egg rolls and won-tons, and I worked cooking and washing dishes a few evenings a week. Sometimes I did double shifts. I genuinely loved working at that restaurant. I also enjoyed the skiing atmosphere.

I was having a lovely time, but I clearly remember thinking it was time to go when the mountaintop Easter sunrise service got cancelled because of a blizzard. I hadn’t been to church while I was out there, and that was probably the longest stretch of time that I had ever been away from church. I was looking forward to going to that service, and there was just something in my Arkansas soul that felt violated by a blizzard on Easter. I think that was the day I knew I would be moving back to Arkansas when the ski-season ended.

The owner of the restaurant invited me to move to San Diego, where he intended to open a similar restaurant. I think he valued my work ethic and cooking interest, but his offer wasn’t very compelling. It might have provided an interesting career path, but there were some people that I missed. And I missed my church.

I went back to Fayetteville that next fall with clear resolve to graduate. In addition to that, two other significant things happened over the course of that next year. I decided I needed to convince Sharla to marry me, and I decided that I would seek admission to the Divinity School at Duke. Neither one of those things were easy, but I was really clear about it. I remember thinking that I wouldn’t give up on either endeavor unless I got a letter from a lawyer threatening legal consequences to my continued pursuit.

I’m still trying to figure out how to be a good husband and a faithful follower of Jesus Christ, but I’m pretty convinced that my time in Vail helped me understand more about who I was, who I wanted to be with, and what I wanted to do. You can’t really predict how a path that seems to be going in one direction will deliver you to a destination in a far different place, but that’s part of the mystery of life. And I also believe that the Holy Spirit is always providing us an avenue to the source of true life. It’s often a very circuitous path, and it’s always an ongoing journey, but I believe we do have periods of clarity about who we are and what we need to do.

It’s not easy to define what it means to find Jesus. Finding Jesus isn’t like discovering a motivational speaker who can provide all the answers to life’s perpetual quandaries. But I believe if we are paying attention and seeking the truth we will get some good instruction in one way or another. Some of those messages and instructions will come from some of the most unlikely people. The preacher who told me to go meet Lewis Chesser was one of the least gifted preachers I’ve ever witnessed, but he gave me some transformational advice. I will always be grateful for the impact he had on my life. God doesn’t just work in mysterious ways, God works in unlikely ways!

Finding Jesus isn’t like finding a magic potion that you can keep in the medicine cabinet until you need to make a problem disappear. But I do believe Jesus can provide the deepest form of comfort when we encounter deep wounds. In fact it’s not unusual to discover something new about Jesus when we are facing our most challenging circumstances.

It would be nice if we could figure out exactly where Jesus stays and never leave his side, but that doesn’t seem to be the way it works. I don’t believe we are ever apart from the love and concern of God, but it’s hard to hear the clear voice of Jesus telling us what to do at every turn. But the living Christ is in our midst, and it’s a worthy undertaking to continually seek to discover where he’s staying.

Jesus is alive, and we can find him. He doesn’t just show up at church, but I believe it helps to join with others who are seeking him. In fact I believe we can help others find their way to Jesus. Others have certainly helped me, and as surely as you have been helped I would encourage you to help others. Maybe you know someone who needs an invitation to come to church. Nobody likes to get hounded about anything, but I don’t think anyone has ever been offended by a simple invitation to come to worship. This is a good place to come if you’re looking for Jesus.

I can testify that God can speak through anyone – even you and I!

Thanks be to God!

Amen.

The Backstory

Matthew 3:13-17

13 Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan, to be baptized by him. 14 John would have prevented him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” 15 But Jesus answered him, “Let it be so now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.” Then he consented. 16 And when Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. 17 And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”

It’s interesting to think about the way Matthew begins his account of Jesus. He wants us to know where Jesus came from, so he begins the story by tracing his genealogy back to Abraham. Those begats don’t make for particularly compelling reading, but it’s an amazing thing to cover 42 generations of Jesus’ heritage in 15 verses. In the second half of the first chapter, Matthew describes the particular events that led up to Jesus’ birth, and then he takes an entire chapter to document the first couple of years of Jesus’ life. During those first two years Joseph was moving the family around quite a bit to escape the evil intentions of Herod and his son Archelaus. We get a good amount of information about that, and at the end of Chapter 2, Jesus was about the age of a toddler and they were living in the region of Galilee.

It’s an interesting pace of storytelling. In the first half of the first chapter, Matthew covers about two thousand years leading up to the introduction of Mary and Joseph, and the second half of the chapter takes us through the months leading up to Jesus’ birth. He documents the first two years of Jesus’ life in the second chapter, and then there’s about a 30-year gap between the end of Chapter 2 and the beginning of Chapter 3.

I don’t know exactly what to make of this, but one thing Matthew seems to be doing is pointing to a lot of history without getting bogged down in the details. This probably isn’t the way I would have done it. I have a hard time not sharing the background details of why I need to go to Walmart. But Matthew didn’t have that kind of trouble. He didn’t get caught up in the details of what led to the birth of Jesus, but he did point out that a lot had gone on prior to his birth. He didn’t tell the backstory, but he let us know that there is a backstory – a really long and significant backstory.

Matthew does share some significant details about the time of Jesus’ birth. He wanted us to know that Jesus was born in to a world that was full of political strife. I think that’s why he told us the business about Herod and Archelaus, but that’s all we know until Matthew begins telling us about John the Baptist at the beginning of Chapter 3. And that’s when we learn about the religious strife that was going on at the time. There was this tension that existed between the way the executives of the Jewish faith were managing God’s affairs and the way John the Baptist understood the need for faith to be more urgently exercised. We don’t know what prompted Jesus to show up at the Jordan River to be baptized by John, but from the way that John reacted to Jesus we know that there’s a story. We don’t know what that story is, but it serves as an invitation for us to imagine what may have gone on with Jesus over the course of those years.

Last week I mentioned the way my revered professor, Dr. Herzog, interpreted the nature of sin, which was the abuse of power. But the other most memorable thing about Dr. Herzog was the way he described the nature of Jesus Christ.

Jesus is understood in a lot of different ways. Many books have been written in hope of defining who Jesus was. There’s this ongoing effort to define the proper relationship between his divinity and his humanity. I haven’t read enough of those books to elaborate on the various ways in which Jesus is defined, but Dr. Herzog had a line that was very meaningful to me about Jesus. Dr. Herzog said: Jesus was the man nobody knew.

This is not to say that we can’t know anything about Jesus, but it is to say that Jesus has the capacity to surprise all of us, because on some level Jesus isn’t who we think he is. If you think about it, I don’t think there’s a story in any of the gospels where Jesus reacted to someone in a predictable manner – especially when someone thought they knew what they were going to get from Jesus.

This is the very case with Jesus showing up to be baptized by John. John thought he should be the one getting baptized by Jesus, but Jesus insisted that John baptize him, and that turned out to be what needed to happen. The Holy Spirit came down like a dove and confirmed the righteousness of the moment.

Matthew begins his gospel with some clear information about Jesus’ heritage, but he also includes this 30 year gap in the early life of Jesus. We don’t know what went on during those years, and I think this confirms the fact that we don’t exactly know who Jesus was.

We know a lot about the backstory of Jesus Christ. In fact every one of those begats that Matthew mentions is a whole series of stories that somehow reveal God’s way of thinking and God’s intention for our world, but there’s a limit to what we can know about the backstory to Jesus.

As I mentioned to the kids this morning, I recently went to see the movie: Rogue One. I like the Star Wars saga, and I think I’ve seen all of the films that have come out over the years, but I’m not really familiar with the way in which one episode fits in to the whole picture. By the end of any given movie I sort of understand how it fits in the grand scheme of things, but I’m usually the last person in the theater to get it, and I quickly forget it. Of course the movies make a lot more sense if you know going in what’s going on, so I don’t fully appreciate how clever the writing and the scenarios really are, but I can testify that you can be pretty entertained by the movies without keen awareness of the backstory.

It’s good to know the backstory, but it can get in your way as well. I’m not saying that a true Star Wars fan can’t enjoy a new episode as much as I can, but I’m probably not as critical of the films as an avid fan. I don’t have as many expectations, and expectations can get in the way.

What you already know can overshadow what you can learn. And I think this is particularly true about Jesus. It’s good to study Jesus, and it’s really helpful to know the history of Israel and what was going on when Jesus came along. We can never learn too much about who Jesus was and where came from so to speak, but we can never allow what we know about Jesus to fully define who he is and what he can do for us.

There is this problem of creating Jesus in our own image and of using Jesus to justify what we already believe and what we want him to do for us. You might say this was the main problem Jesus faced as he went about in Israel. Jesus didn’t meet the expectations that many people had for the savior of Israel, and this was so problematic for some people they were motivated to kill him. They were too attached to what they believed to be able to see what was true.

It’s good to know the old stories of our faith community, but we can never allow what we think we know to define what we are sure we need. Jesus knows what we need and it’s rarely what we think we want. Jesus is not necessarily who we think he is. I’m not saying that we don’t think highly enough of him. In fact some people think too highly of him. They think so highly of him they can’t relate to him.

It’s my understanding that the Catholic tradition of praying to Mary developed because people thought Jesus was too holy to hear their lowly prayers – they could relate to Mary easier than they could to Jesus. I’m not saying that Mary wasn’t a fine and compassionate person, but Jesus didn’t want to be seen as someone too important to be bothered by our petty needs. The elevation of Jesus as a distant deity is a distortion of who he is. Jesus Christ is in our midst, but his presence is illusive and particularly hard to find when we aren’t open to who he is and where we might find him.

It’s not that Jesus doesn’t want to be known. I believe the living Christ wants us to seek him and to follow him. Jesus has something to offer each of us, but we won’t know what that is until we make the effort to get near to him.

As surely as we are all dealing with our own set of challenges and obstacles, we are all in need of a different encounter with Christ. Some of us probably need to get near enough to him to hear him tell us to get off the sofa and go do something. Some of us probably just need to see that he’s sitting on the sofa with us and trying to provide us with the assurance that things are going to be ok.

I believe Jesus showed up to be baptized by John because he fully understood what it means to be a human being. I don’t believe Jesus was just like us because unlike us, I believe he was a human being with a perfect understanding of God. But I don’t believe he was so perfect that he couldn’t understand how flawed we can be. Jesus was the embodiment of the perfect love of God, and it’s that perfect love that enables Jesus to embrace our imperfect selves. I believe Jesus chose to be baptized because he wanted us to know that he is with us in every way. He is immersed in this world and he will be with us to the very end. The power of Baptism is a mysterious thing, but on some level it symbolizes the way in which the grace of God can have power over our lives.

The grace of God isn’t the only thing that shapes our lives. There are many different forces that have had impacts upon us – some of which we understand and some of which we don’t. We’ve all got our own backstories, and Jesus understands those stories better than we understand them ourselves. It’s often the pain of those experiences that moves us to seek closer encounters with Christ, and by the grace of God we can grow in our relationship with our living lord. We may not fully understand what we need from Christ, but I believe Christ knows how to touch us in the ways that we need.

The good news is that we don’t just have a backstory. There’s an ongoing story that we are each a part of, and our challenge is to allow the living Christ to be the director of that story. God only knows what that story may become, and that’s what makes this so exciting. We are invited to become incorporated in to the most epic saga of all time.

Thanks be to God for this opportunity to become evermore integrated in to this ongoing story of the way in which God is redeeming this world through the grace of Jesus Christ – the one who meets us where we are and guides us to where we need to be.

Thanks be to God.

Amen.

Heavenly Navigation

Matthew 2:13-23

13 Now after they had left, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Get up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you; for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.” 14 Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother by night, and went to Egypt, 15 and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet, “Out of Egypt I have called my son.” 16 When Herod saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, he was infuriated, and he sent and killed all the children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had learned from the wise men. 17 Then was fulfilled what had been spoken through the prophet Jeremiah: 18 “A voice was heard in Ramah, wailing and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be consoled, because they are no more.” 19 When Herod died, an angel of the Lord suddenly appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt and said, 20 “Get up, take the child and his mother, and go to the land of Israel, for those who were seeking the child’s life are dead.” 21 Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother, and went to the land of Israel. 22 But when he heard that Archelaus was ruling over Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. And after being warned in a dream, he went away to the district of Galilee. 23 There he made his home in a town called Nazareth, so that what had been spoken through the prophets might be fulfilled, “He will be called a Nazorean.”

On some level, the nativity stories serve to focus our attention on how lovely the world can be. Even though Jesus was born in a stable there’s something beautiful about it. While I don’t think anyone would chose to give birth in such a place it doesn’t come across as an unpleasant environment. It’s the portrayal of a good thing. We imagine this to be a good stable, where the hay is fresh and soft and the animals are all well behaved. It’s a miraculous place in that it’s both well ventilated and warm. It comes across as a lovely setting, and it reminds us that this world can be a hospitable place.

Christmas has come to represent the abundant goodness of this world, and I hope you’ve all been able to enjoy some of the pleasures that this world has to offer. I hope you’ve had some good food and some good company. And I hope you got some good stuff. This is the time of the year we give ourselves permission to indulge in all kinds of richness, but I know such indulgence is not a universal experience.

Relief from the troubles of this world doesn’t come to everyone at Christmas. In fact I know that the hype of Christmas serves to heap additional pain on some people. Christmas is supposed to be such a lovely experience. And when it’s not it can become a torturous affair.

It’s a beautiful thing the way God chose to be born among us, but today’s scripture serves to remind us of how ugly things can get in this world – even when God is on the scene.

This story of Mary, Joseph, and Jesus escaping to Egypt under the shadow of Herod’s murderous edict illustrates how badly things can go in this world. While this passage provides us with assurance that God isn’t absent when things take horrible turns, we also see that God’s good presence doesn’t bring out the best in everyone. In fact, one of the things this story so clearly reveals is the way in which God’s good presence often provokes some people to behave in the worst possible ways. The way God chose to redeem the world provoked a horrible reaction from this man who had the power to make life even more miserable for many who were already in difficult circumstances.

The birth of Jesus was not good news to Herod. I guess when you are in charge of a corner of the world you have no interest in a savior being born in your territory. I think there’s a timeless truth here – nobody who loves being in a position of power welcomes the arrival of someone who will somehow undermine their power. Few people act as ruthlessly as Herod did, but I think it’s probably accurate to say that people who love and crave power aren’t particularly drawn to Jesus.

People who really love their own power don’t really love Jesus, and people like that can make this world a hard place to be for other people.

Herod is the perfect illustration of this truth. When he realized the wise men were wise to his plan to destroy the newborn King he didn’t mess around. He sent soldiers to kill all of his potential rivals. There was nothing subtle or self-deceptive about King Herod. He had power and he knew how to use it. I guess there are some people in this world who operate in such clearly self-serving ways, but it’s rarely so blatant. Most power loving people have some self-deception about their misuse of power. Many times people confuse their own desires with holy causes. This would certainly be the case with the religious leaders who rejected Jesus, but I don’t think it’s unusual for any of us to get those things confused.

I think our own John Wesley had some confusion about that early in his ministry. As a young man he made a trip to what was then the American colonies. He was intent on being an evangelist to native Americans, but when he got to Savannah, GA he spent the bulk of his time trying to navigate the chaotic dynamics of pioneer life. Things weren’t as structured in Savannah as they were in Oxford, and he wasn’t really able to establish any kind of outreach ministry to the natives. He primarily functioned as a parish priest, and he established a bit of a romantic relationship with a young woman named Sophie Hopkey, but he was very conflicted about marriage.

Upon the advice of a friend Wesley cut off relations with her, but he didn’t engage in any actual communication about this to her. Nor did he let go of his romantic interest. In the meantime she got tired of waiting for him and she proceeded to marry someone else. This made Wesley mad and he responded by refusing to serve her the sacrament of Holy Communion when she and her new husband showed up for worship.

The situation deteriorated when they sued Wesley for defamation of character, and they had the upper hand because her uncle was the local magistrate and not someone who was particularly fond of Rev. Wesley. There was a trial and a mistrial and another pending trial when Wesley decided to take the next ship back to the Old World. Wesley left America with the sense of being a terrible failure.

It’s sort of a sad story, but Wesley responded to the unfortunate situation in a productive way. He engaged in some serious self-examination, and that put him in touch with some people who were able to minister to him in an effective way. All of this ultimately led to his rebirth as a man who felt forgiven by God and motivated to share this grace filled experience with others.

The way that power is used and abused in this world is generally so subtle these power dynamics are usually misunderstood and misinterpreted. I don’t even think most of us understand the way that power is at play in our own lives, and I think this is something we need to contemplate if we want to understand the way that God was revealed in Jesus. Yes, Jesus came to save us from our sins, but I dare say that you will find an abuse of power at the root of most sins.

The professor I most revered in seminary, the late Dr. Fred Herzog, was not someone I perfectly understood. He was a very thorough scholar and I was mediocre student, but I loved what I did understand him to say. And one of the main things he believed was that it’s easy for our understanding of Jesus to be colored by where we stand. People who are powerless have a different perspective on Jesus than people who are in positions of power and authority. He was very sensitive to the way in which our interests are shifted by access to power, and he believed that people who are in the most vulnerable situations often have the clearest understanding of the saving grace of Jesus Christ.

I loved the way Dr. Herzog interpreted the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. He thought the story of them eating of the forbidden fruit was not just a portrayal of disobedience – he believed it revealed the most elemental nature of sin. Dr. Herzog believed that the root problem of sin is usurpation. I had to look that word up, but what usurpation means is to take hold of something that doesn’t belong to you. If you are coveting, stealing, killing, or forming any other plans to acquire anything else that isn’t yours to have you are engaged in some usurpation – you are abusing power to get something that isn’t yours to have.

I had to go to seminary to learn that word, but nobody had to teach me how to do it. Usurpation is something we all understand whether we know it or not. We all know what it feels like to seize something that doesn’t belong to us. Most of us are probably pretty petty usurpers, but, it’s the root cause of the worst forms of God-less behavior. And I think it’s a pretty good way of describing how sin plays out in our world. I think if you examine any particular act we would identify as sin you will find it to be an inappropriate use of power. This is true on an individual level, it’s true for large scale conflicts and controversies, and it was certainly the case when Herod sought to eliminate the child that God had provided for the world.

We’ve got these inclinations to take hold of things that aren’t ours to have, but we aren’t alone in our efforts to resist those God-offending behaviors. What we see in this morning’s text is the way in which Joseph was warned in a dream to take measures to avoid the evil designs of Herod. God may continue to send messages in dreams, but that’s not the primary way God provides us with instruction. I believe there are a couple of ways God moves us to live in harmony with true life.

One thing I believe is that it’s really helpful to stay in close contact with other people who are seeking to live in relationship with God. I believe God speaks to us through the wisdom of other people. It’s important to be in touch with people who love God and who want to abide with God. People like that can help us find our own way. They can see things about us that we can’t see for ourselves. I believe this is why the church is so important. Yes, it’s good to come to worship and hear what the preacher has to say, but the best thing that happens when you get involved in a church is that you become connected with a number of other people who can help you navigate the trials of life. You are much less likely to do spiritually ignorant things when you are friends with spiritually sensitive people.

I also believe that God provides us with some direct knowledge of the truth if we will make ourselves available to hear God’s subtle instructions. Like I say, it’s not my experience that God comes to me in a dream and tells me to pick up and move or anything else. If God is speaking to me in my dreams God needs to be a little less random with the imagery. I believe God wants us to know the truth, and we are best able to hear God’s truth when we learn to clear out all of the noise we get from far less noble agendas.

I don’t know where those noisy self-serving messages come from, but it seems to me that they are much easier to hear than that voice of truth that comes to us when we learn to silence the noise. We aren’t on our own in the process of learning to live in union with God, but it’s not the easiest thing to do.

Living in relationship with God isn’t an easy undertaking, but it’s the only way to find true peace in life. There are many things that seem like they might provide us with what we need, but there’s only one thing that provides true peace, and that is to allow God to be the navigator of our life. It’s not easy to allow that to happen, but it helps to be around other people who are trying to live in relationship with God, and it helps to carve out some quiet time with God. God wants to be in touch with us. It can happen, and it will happen if we will be diligent in our desire to live in union with God.

Thanks be to God.

Amen.