sin – Page 4 – Salvaged Faith

born this way

Posted on March 17, 20111 Comment

A good friend helped me to find a post by Brian Kirk called “Lady Gaga, Lent, Teens, and Original Sin.” It is a good read, but there are a few tweaks that I might have made to his argument.

In his article, Kirk shows how Lady Gaga’s latest song “Born This Way,” helps teenagers to claim their own place, their identity, in a world that sometimes tells them they have no value. He connects this message with the Jesus that loves the unloveable and who reaches out to those others have deemed unworthy.

Kirk also spends a bit of time thinking about the counter for this argument, “what about sin?” Kirk responds by talking about while Lent has traditionally been a time in which we confess all that is wrong with us and look to Jesus for salvation, there are some that don’t hold that to be true. He writes:

For those of us who do not literalize the story of Adam and Eve, there is no need to literalize the Christian interpretation of Genesis in which humankind fell from a perfect creation into an imperfect one and thus had to wait, mired in sin, until a savior could come and pay our ransom. This theological perspective that sees all persons as born into sin is not persuasive for those Christians who acknowledge that we now live on this side of Darwin.

I read Kirk’s response as: “what sin?”

I may not read the story of Adam and Eve literally, but I do recognize that this world we are born into is far from perfect. The institutions we inhabit are tinged with sin. The choices we make from the very beginning lead us into temptation. While I might not ever consider an infant to be riddled with original sin that taints their very existence, sin is an ever present reality that surrounds us. If there were no sin, there would be no violence, no war, no destruction, no oppression, no bullying, no shame, no guilt, no hate…

We each have a personal role and responsibility in the systems of sin that surround us. From the things we purchase, to the food we eat, to the ways we treat one another, we participate in sin. Sometimes that sin is a conscious rebellion and turning away from God and neighbor… other times it is subtle, hidden, and ignorant.

No matter how much we might ignore sin, it has consequences in our lives. When we act recklessly, we hurt people. When we ignore the cries of the needy, they suffer. When we waste and pollute, our environment is damaged. The cup of coffee I purchased this morning has implications and consequences from people I have never met and will never see. The length of time I spend in the shower this morning has financial, social, environmental implications. Sin is real. Consequences are real. We were born this way, too.

The song calls us to remember:

I’m beautiful in my way
‘Cause God makes no mistakes
I’m on the right track baby
I was born this way
Don’t hide yourself in regret
Just love yourself and you’re set
I’m on the right track baby
I was born this way

The real question is how we hold these two things together.

How do hold together the fact that we are fearfully and wonderfully made (Psalm 139:13-14) with the reality that we have all sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23)?

I recently began reading N.T. Wright’s After You Believe: Why Christian Character Matters. He talks about the process of developing virtue in our lives by the thousands of choices and decisions we make in our lifetimes. In the process of doing so, he talks not only about following the rules, but also following our hearts.

This is the same divide that I see between these passages in Psalms and Romans. If I am wonderfully made, if God loves me, then I can do what I want and follow my heart. But if I am sinful, then I need rules to tell me right from wrong and to save me.

Wright reminds us we need both. We need to form our character through the “rules” and to hold one another accountable to what is good. But we also need to let who we have been created to be shine through… not the “me” that does whatever the hell I want, but the “me” God intends me to be – loving, compassionate, serving one another, humble. The reality is, that “me” is inside of us. We were born to perfectly love God and serve our neighbors. God didn’t make any mistakes in doing this. But we get off track. We let the world tell us who we should be, instead of our creator. We turn our backs on that reality. We sin. Christ takes all of those missteps, all of the sin inherent in our structures, the reality of evil, death, destruction, greed, power… he takes it ALL onto the cross, he dies, and he takes it all down with him. In Christ, we are finally free from all that which holds us back, from all that prevents us from being who we were truly created to be.

Kirk gets so caught up in sacrifical atonement that he forgets there are other metaphors for the work of Christ on the cross. Christ liberates our true selves from all that prevents us from being Godly. Christ shows us how we were supposed to live our lives, according to Abelard. Jesus is also the Cosmic Christ who transforms all of creation.

This time of Lent reminds me that I was fearfully and wonderfully made and that I have fallen short of the glory of God that lives inside of me. It challenges me to claim the work of Christ in my life and to be better, to grow, to allow God’s grace to continue to transform me.

Lady Gaga’s lyrics say: I was born this way hey! I’m on the right track baby.

Maybe we should take that as a question. Who were you born to be? And are you on the right track? Are you living the way God intended? And if not, how do you get back there?

You are fearfully and wonderfully made. No matter how it is that you were made – black, white, outcast, bullied, gay, straight, male, female, rich, poor – you were fearfully and wonderfully made. Are you on the right track?

The Karma Question

Posted on September 13, 2010Leave a comment

On the season six finale of House, a woman is trapped in a building and Dr. House is right there beside her while they try to get her out.

The situation is desperate. We learn a little bit about who she is, her husband waiting back home, her hopes and dreams. But there she is. Stuck. And unable to get out.

At one point, she turns to Dr. House and asks him to pray with her.

Now, anyone who is familiar with the show knows that Dr. House is not a man of faith. He thinks religion is superstitious nonsense that his patients should be rid of. He frequently butts heads with colleagues and those he is supposed to care for. God is the farthest thing from his mind.

So when House is asked to pray, his first response is a resolute, “no.” He follows up with the thought that he doesn’t believe in God. Which leads our stuck woman, Hanna, to reply back – “neither do I.” The two sit for a few moments in silence, presumably joining together in a moment of silent prayer to a God that neither is sure exists.

When the moment has finished, Hanna says that she used to think that if she was a good person, if she tried to do the right thing, that everything would be okay. But here she is, stuck underneath a building. How do these things happen?

It’s a question we all struggle with. Why do bad things happen to good people? Is there anything that we can do to avoid the perils of this world? And if God is so good, why is there so much pain in the world? Well, maybe those are three different questions. But at the root, it’s a question of theodicy. It’s a question about the power of God.

My simple answer to this question is that this is not yet the new creation. This world is fallen. And that is not only a statement about human sin, but about the totality of creation. Natural disasters, accidents, illness – all of these things are signs that the world is not as it should be.

The answer to this fallenness is that God has put into motion a plan to make it all new again. God has already begun to act in the saving work of the creation. Already, signs of the inbreaking of the Reign of God can be seen. The earth quakes in birth pangs… God is redeeming it all.

But it’s not done yet. It’s not whole yet. We are still living in a fallen, broken, messed up creation. And so in this world, even when we do everything right – that doesn’t mean we get a happy ending.

God Loves Sinners

Posted on September 12, 2010Leave a comment

I am a person who does not get lost. Never in my life can I remember a time when I didn’t know where I was or how I was going to get where I needed to go next. I have always been a very spatial person, and so if you give me a map, I can not only find my way somewhere – but on the route, I can tell you alternative directions. I am an EXCELLENT navigator… at least when I can remember my rights from my lefts.

In high school, I was a part of speech and drama and music – which meant we went to many contests at other schools throughout the year. The group was always trying to find their way around the new building and in the first half hour that we had been in the building, I had it all figured out. I knew where to be when, I helped out others who were lost. I never got lost.

The same goes with driving. I like to figure out new ways to get places and sometimes I run into obstacles or dead ends, but that just presents new opportunites to learn about what way not to go next time. When my friend, Stasia, was learning how to drive – her mom would often suggest that I accompany her in the car… and we never got lost as long as we were together. I do not get lost.

I do, however, lose things. Oh boy, do I lose things. This past week, I had to buy a new pair of earbuds – little headphones that fit into your ear canal very comfortable, because I lost the pair I had. And in nearly every single move that I have made in my life – I have lost my car keys. When I moved out of the house I lived in at Simpson College – I literally packed my keys up with my other belongings and sent them home in the truck… two hours later, I realized my keys were back in Cedar Rapids and me and my car were still in Indianola.

And of course… I lost one of my monkeys this morning =) [Reference to the children’s moment… sent the kids out in the sanctuary to find my lost monkey]

Today, in Luke’s gospel we get to spend some time in the parables of the lost… the lost sheep, the lost coin, and if we kept reading – the lost son… the child who takes his inheritance and runs off, squanders it all and returns home. Now that word, parable, is simply a short brief story that tells us a moral lesson… kind of like the story of George Washington chopping down the cherry tree. It doesn’t matter if its true or not – the point is what it teaches us about who we are and how we live.

Luke groups all of these lost parables together, because Jesus has a message for us about who we are and how we are to live.

You see, at the beginning of this chapter, Jesus has sat down for some supper with some quite unsavory characters. He was eating with tax collectors and sinners. Ooooo….

What? Does that not trouble you? The idea that Jesus would sit down with a tax collector? That’s probably because tax collectors today – our friendly and unhelpful IRS agents are not typically people we think of as unsavory. But who would be? Who would be scandalous to eat with here in Marengo?

Perhaps a gathering of area gays and lesbians invited Jesus over for dinner? Or the Muslim community in Cedar Rapids? Or prostitutes from Waterloo? What if Jesus was sitting down to eat with a bunch of liars and adulterers? Or murderers and meth makers?

Would we be upset? Would our feathers be ruffled just a little bit? Would we stop in our tracks and stare?

The Pharisees sure did. They walked by the house where Jesus was having this grand old feast with a bunch of sinners and they started to whisper. They started to grumble. They started to complain… that fellow welcomes sinners! And not only that – he eats with them!!!

Photo by Martin Baldwin

And so loud enough so that they could hear – Jesus begins to tell these stories about the lost. About the shepherd that leaves behind the entire rest of the flock to seek out the one lost sheep. About the woman who burns the oil a single coin was worth in order to seek out the coin that was lost.

And when they find those lost things – Jesus said – there will be great rejoicing… and in the same way God seeks the lost people of this world… and God rejoices when he finds them.

I may not know what it is like to be lost and not know my way home… but I do know what it is like to have lost something. I know the desperation of seeking out that thing that I need – the thing that I love. I know how important it is.

And so in some small way, I can understand what it might be like for God when he seeks out the lost of this world.

What is harder to understand is that I am someone who has been and who probably still is lost. What is harder to accept and acknowledge is that we are sinners, that there are parts of our lives we still hold back from God. We are really good at being oblivious little sheep, wandering away from the flock and not realizing it.

Whether it is a habit of telling lies, or the anger you harbor in your heart. Whether it is simply the fact that you like spending more time playing football than thinking about your faith journey. Whether it is the way that you use and abuse the gifts of God’s creation, or the prideful idea you have stuck in your head that you can do it yourself and you don’t need God’s help… We are all sinners who have fallen short of the glory of God.

That is an ugly fact about each and every single one of us. As much as we might try to white wash it and pretend its not so – at the very least, let us take comfort in the fact that we are all sinners. We are in this together. We have all fallen short of the glory of God.

That is what Paul reminds his young friend Timothy in our first reading from today. Paul – that great pioneer of the faith – proclaims out loud for all to hear that he was a blasphemer, a persecuter, and a man of violence – a man who loved to do violence for violence sake… a torturer. I am the foremost of sinners, Paul says. Note, he doesn’t say – I was the foremost of sinners… but I am the foremost of sinners. It is like how addicts are taught to think of their addictions not in the past tense, but in the present tense… I am an alcoholic. I am a chocoholic. I am a sinner. I will always live my life with the temptation to sin at my doorstep. I am a sinner.

And not only that, Paul says, but I am the foremost of sinners. I’m the worst one out there, because I killed people who followed Jesus and I liked it. I took pride in it. I was the best at what I did. And yet… And yet… God chose ME to serve his church.

God sought me, the foremost of sinners out, because God seeks the lost. Jesus came to save sinners. God came to save me, and God came to save you.

Can I hear an Amen!

There is one last piece of this story that I think we need to remember… a man named Rodger Nishioka tells the story of a time he was a part of an ecumenical team in Alaska: Presbyterians working alongside Russian Orthodox. In the course of their work, he had referred to this so familiar “Parable of the Lost Sheep” with some of the RO folks when someone interrupted him and asked him which parable he meant.

For a moment there, I can imagine Mr. Nishioka thought these Russian Orthodox folks didn’t know their bibles very well. And so he summarized the story about the shepherd looking for the one sheep that had gone missing from the flock of 100. The Russian Orthodox priest looked at him and said, “Oh! You mean the Parable of the incomplete flock.”

In the eyes of that tradition, God was concerned about the one sheep that went missing, because without that one sheep – the 100 would not be complete. God desires all of his children to come home… and the family is only complete when each and every single one of us is sought out.

Many of you know that my family is incomplete right now – that there is division on my dad’s side of the family that I have no idea how to reconcile. And it hurts. I know that many of you have experienced this kind of separation and pain in your lives, too. To be incomplete as a family is an ugly and bitter thing…

But if we remember from last week, God desires us to move beyond our immediate families and to follow him. To follow him in seeking out our brothers and sisters in this world who are lost. To follow him in his diligent search to find them and tell them how much they are loved.

Our family is incomplete without the rest of our brothers and sisters. The family of God is incomplete without the folks from the county jail, and without those prostitutes in Waterloo, and without our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters, and without our Jewish and Muslim and Buddhist brothers and sisters.

Our family is incomplete as long as we hold those people at a distance who we believe are unworthy, or unfaithful, or uninterested. Our family is incomplete if we act in hatred and anger towards our brothers and sisters. Our family is incomplete if we are unwilling to sit down and have a meal with one another.

As much hatred and anger and division is in the world… we know that God seeks out his children. And I know we are called to seek out our brothers and sisters in love and in respect. Let us be found by the Lord our shepherd… and let us go with him to all the world.

Amen.

The Gift of Goodness

Posted on July 25, 2010Leave a comment

We’ve heard of goody-two-shoes. Good riddance. Goodness gracious great balls of fire. And Goodbye. Things can taste good, we like to read good books and tell good stories. We tell our children to be good and to get good grades.

But what does it really mean to be good?

The Random House dictionary has 41 different definitions for the word… and that’s just the adjectives.

But in general, I think we usually say that something is good if it fulfills our expectations – if it does what it is supposed to – and if we get some kind of benefit from it.

Take our cookies for example. If we had taken a bite of the cookie and they were old or dried out… they wouldn’t be so good. They wouldn’t have been all that they were made up to be.

In the same way… we are good when we fulfill the expectations of ourselves and others and if we benefit others as we do so.

I keep using the word benefit… and that is because there are lots of things that fulfill their purpose that we would never call good. For example – those cookies might taste good – but if you never got to eat them… if I never shared them… they would have been good to no one but myself.

Or, think about what makes a good chef’s knife. It is sharp, it cuts the way that it is designed to, and we can use it to prepare food and to eventually be fed. We benefit from the design and use of a good chef’s knife.

But in the hands of someone unskilled, like a child, the knife becomes dangerous and what we thought was good could harm them.

In the hands of someone who is angry or revengeful – the very thing that we called good only a moment ago can turn into a weapon. It still has the same qualities that fulfilled its purpose… only it is being used for ill rather than good.

So to be good… we must fulfill the expectations of ourselves and others and benefit others as we do so.

Throughout the scriptures – we hear stories of men and women who were good: Noah was a good man and so his family was saved from the flood. Lot was a good man and so his family was rescued from the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. Rahab the prostitute took in the spies from Israel and her family was saved from the battle of Jericho.

But there are plenty of people who were not so good. Who didn’t do what was expected of them. Who lived not to benefit others, but to benefit only themselves.

And it is to such people as these that the prophets were sent. Prophets like Samuel, Elijah and Elish, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Habbakuk, Hosea… and our prophet for this morning: Nathan.

We have here a story of paradox. David was a man after God’s own heart. We always think back on all of the good things that he did – his trust in God, his loyalty to Saul, his music, and his love… but in some ways, David was a kind of bad dude.

As we heard this morning, David breaks two commandments all in a weeks time. He sleeps with another man’s wife… one of his soldiers Uriah’s wife Bathsheeba… and then to cover up the fact that he has done so – he has Uriah killed out on the battlefield.

Nathan’s job here is simple… bring God’s judgment upon David for these acts. But what I want to look at this morning is how the goodness of Nathan shines through.

First, Nathan helped the truth to come to light… Ephesians 5 says that God’s children live as children of light… “for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth.” He didn’t shy away from the fact that David had done wrong, but made sure that David knew that he had done wrong.

Second, Nathan knew what David had done wrong… He knew that he was unrighteous

The right thing to do as soon as David confessed would be to have David stoned… but goodness goes beyond simple righteousness… goodness goes beyond simply pointing out the wrongs in others.

He not only told the truth, but nowhere do we have any indication that Nathan is prepared to follow the letter of the law. He instead waits for a response from David.

As people of faith, too often we are quick to bring judgment upon others and stand waiting with signs of condemnation. We are good at bringing unrighteousness to light. We are terrible about leading people into repentance.

When our righteousness is only about what is right and what is wrong, it becomes a weapon of judgment.

But by telling David a story, Nathan does just that. He helps him to see what is wrong, and in doing so, he also provides an opportunity for David to confess, to repent, and to live a different life.

Third, Nathan blessed David because of his repentance

He didn’t just bring the right thing to light, but he went the extra mile. Nathan did what was needed to set David back on the right path… what was needed to build him up and to help him live a better and more faithful life.

There would be consequences from his actions… and yet there was also room for God’s grace and mercy to flow back into David’s life and Nathan not only acknowledged that, but helped to point it out.

As Christians, we believe that all have fallen short of the glory of God. All of us are in need of grace and repentance.

I believe the basis of righteousness is fact that God sets us right. God forgives us. God leads us on the right paths. It has nothing to do with how many answers we get right or how many good deeds we do. It has everything to do with God.

But you see, that grace and that mercy that flows into our lives is not ours alone. It is meant to be shared.

If we fail to extend grace and mercy and love and forgiveness to our brothers and sisters, than we merely turn the precious gift we have been given into a weapon of destruction.

The Gift of Love

Posted on June 20, 2010Leave a comment

This week, my husband and I had two houseguests… our niece and nephew. They had the distinct honor of being able to have a sleep over at our house and boy, were they excited!

For the most part, I think that excitement came from hanging out with their favorite aunt and uncle. But a few hours into their visit, I got a hint of a different reason for their joy.

Our nephew loves to play with the wii. They have one at his house, but he is limited to 20 minutes per day of playtime. We were attempting to enforce that rule, but he stood up and looked at us very seriously and said: But this isn’t my dad’s house. His rules don’t work here!

Every rule that governed their lives at home – about bedtime, playtime, what they had to eat, what they could wear – these two assumed went out the window when they came over to Aunt Kaky and Uncle Spicy’s house. We were going to love them and spoil them and let them get away with anything and everything… or so they thought.

I think that many times, in our Christian faith, we too believe that rules go out the window when we believe in Jesus. More than a few times in my life, I have heard people say that all of the law and judgment of the Old Testament is done away with when Jesus comes. It’s like we magically are transported to a new world where all the tired rules from the past are done away with. We didn’t like all of those rules about not wearing poly-cotton blends, or staying away from shellfish, anyway. An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth sounds pretty barbaric in our minds. And really… how can we be expected to not covet our neighbor’s possessions when their new car looks so nice and we want one just like it?!

It doesn’t help that Jesus says things like “I have come not to do away with the law but to fulfill it,” but then in the next breath he is breaking some Sabbath law by eating grain out in the field and saying things like “the law is made for man, not man for the law.”

How do we know what rules to follow? How do we keep ourselves from being too legalistic, without slipping in the other direction and becoming too lax in our moral compass?

It’s simple. We keep at the front of our minds the standard by which all laws are held: love.

The mixing of materials like polyester and cotton has nothing to do with love or how we treat our neighbors… we consider laws like this to be ceremonial by the standard of love we aren’t too concerned with them in our daily lives in the 21st century.

But there are many other laws that have everything to do with love. Like the ones Paul reminds us of in Romans: don’t commit adultery, don’t murder, don’t steal, don’t covet… in each of these laws, we are faced with relationships. And love is the absolute standard for how we are to behave.

In Romans 13:8, Paul writes that we should owe no one anything, except to love one another. In saying this, he teaches “that our highest obligation toward men is our obligation to love them.” (Bob Deffinbaugh). More than our obligation to do the right thing, we are to love.

Of course, when love becomes your highest priority… the right actions naturally follow.

Because Love fulfills the law. When we act in love towards God and our neighbor, we are already living out the law. An act of love is never to commit adultery or murder. The love of Christ that should rule our hearts would never steal or covet.

Each of these acts would be unloving because they harm other people. Adultery destroys lives. Coveting is “desiring my good and my gain at my neighbor’s expense.” (Deffinbaugh)

Murder not only takes the life of another, but rips away from family members the life of a beloved. Stealing harms the economic wellbeing of our neighbors.

Bob Deffinbaugh summarizes what Paul teaches us in Romans 13 by saying: “We are to view our neighbor from the perspective of love. When we do, we will seek his good, avoid doing what is harmful to him, and thus fulfill the law.”

Love seeks the good for another. It doesn’t matter who they are – whether rich or poor, friend or enemy, neighbor or stranger. Love always seeks the good for others… even at our own expense.

That is the love that Christ showed us. Unconditional love. Self-sacrificial love. Love that bends down in service to others. Love shown to the stranger, to the sinner, to the rich and to the proud. Love that gives life.

Love like Jesus loved.

Love as if people, not laws, were more important.

Because the truth of the matter is, there are days when we will face a conflict between the laws of our fathers and the needs of humanity.

St. Thomas Aquinas once said that if a family is starving and the rich will not share their abundance with the poor – it is justified for a mother to steal to feed her children.

I think that Aquinas was able to make this bold and radical claim, because every time Jesus faced a conflict between the laws of the righteous and showing compassion and love to a sinner – he always came down on the side of love.

One of the most recognized examples of this is when Jesus came across a woman who was about to be stoned to death. In John, chapter 8, Jesus was confronted with one of the 10 commandments: a woman who had been caught in the very act of adultery.

Now, the first thing I wonder when I hear this passage is where the other offender was. If she was caught in the very act… certainly there was a man around somewhere who was also deserving of this same sentence. According to the law, both were required to be stoned.

But the man is nowhere to be found and the crowd is angry and ready to enforce the law to its fullest extent. But when Jesus enters their midst, he talks the crowds down, and helped her back on her feet. And then he spoke these amazing words to her: I do not condemn you – go and sin no more.

In his short and simple statement, Jesus shows us how love and the law fit together. God’s laws have been given to protect us. They are given to show us the good and holy ways to live. But love is always the standard.

When he says, “I do not condemn you – go and sin no more.” He is not saying that what she did wasn’t wrong. And he’s not saying that she isn’t responsible for her actions… because he asks her to live differently. He isn’t even saying that he accepts her apology, because nowhere in the text does this woman say anything, much less beg for forgiveness.

No, he simply forgives her. He loves her. He accepts her – no matter what she has done. When it comes to the law, the first thing Christ does is love. And then he asks her to respond to that love that he has shown by allowing him to change her life. (based on work by Gary DeLashmutt)

Yesterday, I drove to my cousin’s wedding in Iowa Falls and along the side of HWY 21, I saw a sign that said: “Hell is for deadbeat moms”. This being Father’s Day, it could have just as easily said: Hell is for deadbeat dads. All across our nation, all across the world, the first impulse of many Christians is to remind folks of their sin and to condemn them for it.

Most of these images are pictures not of love, but of anger… of hate… of judgement.

It is easy to do these things.

It is easy to point out the speck in the eye of our brother and ignore the log in our own eye.

It is easy to hate. It is easy to give up on someone and tell them they are going to hell… maybe even easier
still to send them to hell for their sin with a few stones or a firing squad.

But Jesus looks down upon the one who has done wrong and says – I do not condemn you…. Go and sin no more. Get up… let me help you.

Loving our neighbors is hard.

Loving the Lord with all of our heart, and soul and mind and strength is hard.

And unlike my niece and nephew, who thought they were getting a free pass to do whatever they wanted, we know that abiding in God what is asked of us may actually be harder than simply following the rules.

We will fail. Constantly we will fail in this charge to love.

But when we do, Christ will bend over and look us in the eye and say: I love you, I do not condemn you… get up… go…. And sin no more.

Amen.

disconTENTment

Posted on January 31, 2010Leave a comment

In our gospel reading this morning, we come across some very angry folks in Jesus hometown of Nazareth.

These are ordinary, run of the mill folks. They aren’t Pharisees who have a beef with Jesus. They aren’t disciples – those people who chose to follow Jesus and who should understand. No, these are small town people – a lot like you and me – who are just trying to get by.

Last week in our gospel reading, we remember that Jesus came back to his hometown after being away for a while. He walked in through the doors of the church and everyone was so happy to have him back again. I can imagine lots of handshakes and hugs going around as Jesus was passed from one person to the next. I can even imagine an older lady or two wanting to pinch his cheeks.

Jesus grew up among these folks. They knew him his whole life. And here he returns and they are just waiting for the hometown boy to make good. They are waiting for him to show off all of the stuff that he has learned out there in the big wide world.

So when the time comes for the reading of scripture, the scroll was handed to Jesus. And he found the place in Isaiah where it says: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

Now, Jewish custom in church was not to have one person give a sermon, but the leaders of the church would have the opportunity to comment on the reading and to bring up insights. In many ways, that’s what we do in our bible studies – especially the roundtable pulpit. Every voice is heard and respected.

Well, Jesus finished his reading and he too had a comment to make about this passage from Isaiah. All he said was, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

In Mark’s gospel – just giving that little speech sets the crowds off in a tizzy – they can’t believe his arrogance, they want to know who he thinks he is to claim such things. After all, he is the kid they grew up with, that little snot-nosed bugger from down the street.

In Luke’s version of the story – that is not what the people are upset by. In fact, they are pretty amazed at first. Oh my, could this really be Joseph’s son? Where did he learn so much?

No, what get’s the people mad and upset and full enough of rage that they want to throw him off of a cliff is that Jesus picks a fight with them.

After he’s been gushed upon and praised, Jesus starts to get a little concerned that perhaps the people need to have a little reality check.

“This scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing – but unfortunately, I’m not talking about for you. “

In Luke’s gospel – Jesus has been sent to be a light to the Gentiles. His mission is to bring about the kingdom of God, but he starts not with his own people from his hometown, not with the Jewish people, but with strangers and foreigners…

Maybe to think of a modern parable for this story, it would be as if someone that grew up here in Marengo, someone loved and respected, went off to college and graduate school. And then the came back into town with fanfare and that young woman told everyone – I’m going to lift this community out of poverty and rehabilitate all of the people in the prison, and I’m going to bring jobs and good things to this town, and I’m going to fill the pews of this church. And then, she choses to do so by working only with illegal immigrants in Williamsburg.

The kingdom was still going to come – they were just going to have to wait a little bit longer.

Would you be upset by that? Your hometown hero comes back to raise all of your hopes and then you think that they just dashed them to the ground.

The people were enraged – angry enough to kill – whipped up into a frenzy when they dragged Jesus to the brow of Nazareth Cliff… but it wasn’t his time, and he walked away from the fray without a scratch.

Jesus found himself coming home to a lot of discontented people. They were unhappy about how life had been going in their midst. They were hoping that maybe this one would turn out to be their savior… and he was, and he would be – but since he wasn’t exactly who they wanted him to be, their discontentment kicked in and they kicked him out.

There are people who live in a perpetual state of discontentment. In your bulletins, you may have noticed that that word is typed a little funny. That’s because I really want to focus this morning about the states we choose to live in. The attitudes we choose to clothe ourselves with.

Some people in this world are never happy. They can surround themselves with all of the good things in life and they will still find something to complain about. They can attend the best church in the city and they will still find something to be angry about and they will leave and try somewhere else. They can have the best husband or wife on the planet, and still they will nag and bicker. Do you know any of these people? Have they pitched their disconTENTment near you?

For the past few weeks, we have been exploring in Sunday school and our special Thursday night study the roots of this discontentment. Yes, we are talking on the surface about finances and money – but underneath all of that are things like greed, and pride, envy and sloth.

Underneath all of our financial turmoil is the simple fact that sin is present in the world.

While there are many ways that we can talk about sin – I think one of the best images for sin is turning our back to God. We turn our back to the good things that God offers us and instead seek our welfare, seek our happiness in things and money or food or alcohol or power or might.

In doing so, we are setting up the poles and laying out the stakes of discontentment. We may be erecting a fine and beautiful tent – it may be expensive and it might keep us warm… but it will never make us content. It will never make us happy.

There is only one thing that can bring us joy and happiness in this life. And we find a glimpse of it in 1 Corinthians.

Paul is writing to a group of Christians who have it all. They have people who are ready and willing to work – they have resources and money and gifts and talents. But they fight amongst themselves constantly. They are always trying to prove who is better, who is the most fit for leadership, they are always arguing about what color the carpet should be in the sanctuary and about who gets to hand out the offering plates and who should count the money.

Okay – well maybe those are a few 21st century things to fight about – but you get the picture. They may be faithful Christians, but they are still living in their old discontentments.

This would most assuredly be a church that would try to kick Jesus out of town if he ever really stopped by. He would probably have something truthful and challenging to say to them – just like he did to the people of his hometown – and they probably would have nothing to do with it.

Our Apostle Paul hears about the mess that they have made of their church and so he writes to them. (note: writing a letter is a whole lot safer than showing up in person sometimes!). He writes a letter to them and wants to encourage them to be their best selves. He tells them that they are the body of Christ and that each of them has an important role to play in the church. He tells them that each of them is gifted and that they should pay attention to and rely upon the gifts of others. He tells them they need to give and accept help and to treat all members with respect.

And then he launches into a beautiful part of his letter that is very familiar to us.

If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.

And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.

If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing

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All of this stuff that you think is so important – Paul writes – all of this stuff that you are arguing about, it means absolutely diddly squat if there isn’t love in the midst of your community. You could have the most money or be the most talented or live in the most beautiful house, or even have the most elegant prayers and the most book knowledge…. But all of it is for nothing if there is not love in your life.

Paul’s not just talking about the romantic love between two people. He’s talking about deep, sustaining love. He’s talking about the love that knits people and communities together. He’s talking about the love that only comes from God.

What if, instead of living in discontentment – we learned how to live content in God’s love?

How would our lives be different?

How would the response of Nazareth have been different if instead of being jealous and full of rage when Jesus went to minister among other people they had love in their hearts for the broken and hurting people of Capernum?

How would the church in Corinth be different if the people stopped fighting with one another and instead worked together to bring God’s love to the people of their city and the world?

How would your life be different, if you stopped working so that you could get things and be happy, and instead, in all things worked with God’s love at the forefront of your mind?

3 ways to be content from the book….
– “it could be worse”
– Count your blessings and give thanks
– Know where your true joy lies – know that only in the ground of God’s love are we sustained – only when we pitch our tent there will we find abiding peace.

Story of a man who was angry with his wife and so he stormed out of the house and grumbled to God. Just like that definition of sin earlier, he turned his back on his wife and the love that was there and he was discontented. But something happened. There was a change in his heart as God worked on him there. He turned around back towards his house – just like he was turning back to God. And he was reminded of all the wonderful things about his wife and began thanking God for them.

In our lives – too often we turn our backs on God and the good things that God blesses us with. We want things our way and we deny the contentment at our fingertips.

But we also have a chance to turn around. Did you know that the literal definition for repentence – the greek word – is metanoia. It means to turn around – to do a 180, to turn from living with our backs to God and instead turn and face him with our faces. To seek him as the source of all our joy and happiness. To live our lives in his love.

Today – that is our blessing. That God’s grace turns us around and we have a chance to face God once more. To lay aside all that has pulled us kicking and screaming into our discontented lives and to rest in the joy of God’s abiding peace.

What tent will you live in?

The Human Condition

Posted on January 10, 2010Leave a comment

What effect has the practice of ministry had on your understanding of humanity and the need for divine grace?

Over and over again I am reminded about our utter need for grace. In my own life and ministry the work I do would not be effective or positive if it were not for God’s grace. As someone who is beginning this journey of ministry I make more mistakes that I would care to admit, and yet somehow God takes my feeble and human attempts at faithfulness and transforms them mightily. This fall, I was called to the bedside of a congregation member who was actively dying and the family wanted me to say a prayer with him before he passed. In my vanity, I had worn this cute pair of boots, but they were very loud as I stepped into the room. Embarrassed, I tried to take them off so that I wouldn’t disturb the peacefulness and the quiet music in the background. By the time I got my boots off and moved over to the side of the bed and began my prayer, he was taking his last breath. At first, I was angry with myself for having worn the wrong shoes and for taking so long. But the first comment out of his son’s mouth was about how wonderful it was that his father had passed from this world in the midst of prayer.

My understanding of humanity has also been tried and tested in my congregational work. We welcomed a gentleman back into our congregation after he had been in some trouble. Overall, our congregation was very gracious and welcoming! After some time had passed, even connected with our community, he found himself in trouble once again. I think for the first time, I really saw the destructive powers of sin in someone’s life – sin that not only imprisoned his spirit, but also led once again to the imprisonment of his body. And yet through it all, we have continued to be in relationship with him. I was amazed by his power to seek and ask God’s forgiveness and the fact that he kept praying for us in the midst of his struggles.

I have also worked a lot with families in need in our area. As I work with them, I am reminded about how little power so many people have to change their lives. Sin (our own and that of others) digs us into deep holes and creates patterns that we cannot even imagine being different. It isolates us from the help we need and from relationships of love, kindness and mercy. Only by the grace of God can we as a church continue to have the patience to minister to these families and maintain the relationships… and only by the grace of God can their hearts and minds be transformed. But I am also reminded that as a part of this relationship there must be honesty and accountability – there must be confession and a desire for repentance in order for God’s grace to transform our lives.

Photo by: Mateusz Stachowski

Hebrews Part 5: The Cloud of Witnesses

Posted on November 1, 2009Leave a comment

We have spent the last few weeks wading through some pretty heavy stuff in the Letter to the Hebrews. Like the author makes clear – this isn’t easy material… we dove into the meat, the heart of the substance.

For those of you who have missed our explorations, in the last four weeks we have discovered that even though we at times feel unworthy – God chooses to make us worthy. And that happens through Jesus…

How it happens is another story. We looked at three ways that people understand what Jesus did on the cross: he set us free from sin and death; he paid the debt for our sins; he showed us a better way.

Usually, the church focuses just on the second one – that Jesus pays for our sins on the cross – but the book of the Hebrews talks about them all… Jesus paid our debt because he is the new high priest. But Jesus also shows us another way because he is a prophet of the most high, and Jesus can declare victory over sin and death because he is King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

Now, what we briefly mentioned at the end of last week is that unlike the way we understand grace, the writer of the Hebrews seems to believe that you can only accept Jesus into your life once. After that – if you sin you lose the benefits of what Christ has done. Really – this goes back to the thought that sin is like an addiction and a prison and what we are being asked to do here is to quit cold turkey and be set free. No turning back. No nicotine patches.

And in reality – why should we turn back? We’ve got a clean slate, the grace of God and the power of the holy spirit on our side! Hear how the Message translation puts chapter 10… Let’s do it – let’s keep a firm grip on the promises that keep us going. Let’s see how inventive we can be in encouraging love and helping out, not avoiding worshipping together as some do but spurring each other on… but you need to stick it out, staying with God’s plan so you’ll be there for the promised completion.

The only way we can do it – the only way that we can quit our former lives cold turkey and urge one another on is by trusting in the promises of God and together reminding each other of those promises. That’s what faith is all about.

Marilyn read for us today from chapters 11 and 12. And it sounds different than all of those chapters before about priests and prophets and blood and sacrifices. Here, Hebrews reminds us that countless people before us have been on this road before. Countless people before us have struggled to trust in God. Countless people before us have been called to have faith.

What you are missing in your inserts today are the names of those people – the pioneers of our faith listed in Chapter 11. People like Noah and Abraham who trusted in God’s promises so much that they took risks. People like Sarah who came to believe in the impossible. People like Isaac and Jacob and Jospeh, Moses and Rahab the prostitute, and David and Samuel… all of these people and countless others lived by faith in the promises of God – and with their own eyes never saw their hopes realized.

As the final verses of chapter 11 share with us – they haven’t received what was promised… yet… because God has a plan that makes sure they won’t be made perfect without us.

Basically – all of us – from the beginning of time to the end of time are all running the same race. We are all going on to the same goal and we are all called to trust that at the finish line glorious things await us. But unlike a race in this world where there are winners and losers, people who cross first and people who cross much later – this glory that awaits us is something we will all get to experience together.

When I traveled to Chicago a few months ago to learn at the feet of a theological giant – Jurgen Moltmann, I was struck by something that he said about death. He said, “I trust that those who died are not dead, they are with us, they are watching over us and we live in their presence. They also… are growing until they reach the destiny for which they were created.”

They are not dead – they are with us… like the cloud of witnesses in Hebrews, they are running with us and are urging us to set aside every weight and sin and to just run free this race together.

Today is a special day in the life of the church when we take a moment to acknowledge that there are others who continue to run this race with us. We acknowledge that the dead are still with us – still waiting just like we are to experience the glory of God.

I am only 27 years old and I have very little knowledge about the mystery of death. No amount of book learning can prepare us for what awaits. What I can say with certainty are some promises that we have in the scriptures.

One of those promises comes to us from the Wisdom of Solomon – the souls of the righteous are in the hand of God and no torment will every touch them… they seem to have died, but they are at peace… their hope is full of immortality.

One of those promises comes to the thief crucified beside our Lord – he is promised that today he will be with Jesus in paradise.

In the book of Revelation we have the promise of the day of resurrection – when we will all be raised and clothed in our recreated bodies and there will be weeping and crying and pain no more.

And then we have our gospel reading from John. After their brother has died, the sisters Mary and Martha are besides themselves with grief… each one pleads with Jesus – if you had been here, my brother would not have died!”

Martha knows in her heart – she trusts in the promise that on the last day her brother will be raised again. She knows that he and she and all of us are pressing onward toward that goal and that Christ is the Messiah – the Son of God who will bring us to the other side.

And surely her sister Mary understands this also. But that doesn’t take away their pain and grief at the loss of their brother in this life. No longer can they reach out and touch him or hear his laughter or look into his eyes. While they trust in the promises, it doesn’t take away their sorrow.

It doesn’t take away the grief that Jesus himself feels as he weeps before the tomb of his friend Lazarus.

What Jesus then does for us is that he gives us a glimpse of the resurrection. As Lazarus – who had been dead for four days – is called out of the tomb, we are reminded of what awaits us all.
We are reminded of the glory of God to come.
We are reminded to have faith and to trust in the promises.

This year, we have said goodbye to five people who were a part of this church family. In a few minutes we will light a candle in honor of each one of them as we remember that they are now a part of that cloud of witnesses who wait with us for the day of resurrection.

They join the countless other faithful who surround us with love and encouragement. They join the company of saints that we praise God with and that we feast with at every communion table. They join with those who have throughout history woven the fabric of our story – of our relationship with God.

I want each one of us to take those ribbons that we were handed this morning. These ribbons represent those saints in our lives who have and who continue to encourage us on in the faith. They are names that should be added to that list in Hebrews 11 – the names of people who took risks and showed us what trust was, people who taught us the faith, people who lived through tough times and survived, people who refused to give in, people who were kind to us when no one else was, people who believed in miracles.

Their stories are our stories. As we remember them, as we remember the promises that they trusted in, we find the strength to carry on.

Our table this morning is empty. The bread and the cup are here and are ready to be placed – but something else is missing. The stories of those who are also with us. The communion of the saints.

I want to invite you to come forward and to place your ribbon on the table. We are going to weave these names together into an altar cloth that will remind us every time we gather around the table that we do not gather alone.