Welcoming God

Genesis 22: 1-14
Matthew 10: 40-42

Welcoming God

When you picture a welcoming home, there are certain things you expect for it to be considered a comforting and warm place. For some of us, it may be a fireplace in the living room, or a bunch of knick-knacks everywhere, or perhaps you find open spaces welcoming, and for others it is blankets on the chairs and lots of cushy pillows everywhere. When we think of welcoming people, most of us have the same kind of idea about what makes a person welcoming.

Most of us would agree when I say that people we find welcoming are those that smile when they open the door, they ask you to come in and sit down, they seem glad to see you and then you proceed to have a nice conversation. Perhaps they will ask you if you would like something to drink or eat while you talk. They may show you where the bathroom is or they will tell you to make yourself at home. These are all things that are done to make a person feel comfortable in another person’s home.

In the UCC, we have this idea called extravagant welcome. We feel that Jesus did not turn anyone away, and therefore neither do we. We understand that Jesus was all about welcoming people into his fold, there was never a person he refused to help or accept. Even as he hung suspended by his wrists he cried out for God to forgive his tormenters, “for they know not what they do.” 

The UCC believes that those who welcome others into the church, are giving thanks for what God has done for us. God welcomes, and also feeds the hungry, forgives sins, stands with those who are poor and oppressed, comforts the suffering, and becomes a home for those who wander. In gratitude, faithful Christians welcome strangers. A surprise in the Bible is the way you welcome a stranger expresses how you embrace the very presence of God as we see in Matthew 10.

Perhaps you are wondering why there is a story of Abraham offering up his son Isaac paired with this story of welcome in the book of Matthew. The reason is that faith and hospitality go hand in hand. Our faith comes from Jesus and the way we welcome God into our lives and the way we welcome strangers are linked together. Abraham is called the Father of our Faith because this man believed so strongly in God that he was willing to give up his only son because God had told him to. Let’s look back at Abraham’s story.

Abraham and Sarah were a wealthy, older couple living in what we would call a city today. One day, Abraham hears a voice calling to him and when he responds he finds out that it is God talking to him. God tells him to leave his nice home and friends that he has gathered around him in the last seventy years, and goes into the wilderness. God had a great new place – a new home for Abraham and if he listened, he would give him descendents as numerous as the stars in the sky. He tells his wife and they agree to head to this new place God has called them too. God has issued an extravagant invitation, and Abraham and Sarah have accepted this invitation on faith alone. Faith in God helps him welcome God’s call.

But everywhere they went and everything they did, Sarah was still barren. How can they have descendants as numerous as the sand at the shore if she could not have even one child? Sarah is afraid that they will get to this new place and she will not feel welcome at all, she’s going to be miserable and uncomfortable in this new home because she believed God’s promise and now she feels as if she has been duped.

So Sarah comes up with a plan and has her servant Hagar sleep with Abraham and she becomes pregnant. What Sarah did not realize is how hard it would be to watch her husband exclaim over the growth of the baby in Hagar’s belly or how Hagar would now be treated in some ways as well as Sarah despite her being a servant. I’m sure Sarah probably thought she would adopt the baby and call it hers, but that isn’t what happens. Instead, Sarah’s jealousy over the very plan she devised becomes too much for her to ignore so she threatens Hagar who runs away.

Sarah created an unwelcoming home because she lost faith in God’s promise. She tried to create her own happy ending by twisting God’s promise into something it was never supposed to be and made everyone around her suffer as a result. Thirteen years pass by and a couple men come to visit Abraham and Sarah sat in her tent and fumed because it turned out these men were angels sent to give Abraham a message.

The message was the same one they had been hearing for the last 20 years with no fruit to bear and so Sarah finds herself laughing bitterly in the tent when she hears them speaking. But the angels call her on it and she is left to think about where her lack of faith has gotten her. Sarah no longer felt welcome in her own home because of the things she had done due to her lack of faith in God. Her husband had a son by Hagar and Hagar was contemptuous of Sarah for her barrenness. Her husband was frustrated with Sarah’s lack of faith and she herself felt empty inside. Her disbelief in God’s promise created an unwelcome, unloving and inhospitable atmosphere for them all.

When Sarah does become pregnant and gives birth to Isaac, both Abraham and Sarah are very protective of him. After all they had gone through, after all they had given up and experienced, they wanted nothing to hurt or harm this precious boy. So when God tells Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, the amount of faith it took to go so far as to have the knife held over the boy’s heart – it took more faith than most of us have.

But you see, Abraham never lost faith in God like Sarah did. He believed in what God told him and was rewarded. There he was, his hand holding a knife over the heart of his beloved son and he hears God’s voice calling to him and he replies, “Here I am”. As he has always done, Abraham welcomes the voice of God, he welcomes the messages God gives and he believes and has faith in them. Abraham’s faith in God helps him to welcome, listen, and obey God’s hard requests.

Now Matthew 10 tells us that all who welcome us welcomes Jesus and therefore welcomes God. Those who give welcome to the sick, the poor, the hungry and all those in need will never lose their reward in heaven. As we have seen through Abraham and Sarah’s story, faith in God and our willingness to welcome God’s word and God’s people are linked together. There have been times in your life where you felt unwelcome and unloved. You may have felt like a burden upon those around you. But here in this church and in our denomination, we have made a promise to not do that to anyone who needs us because we know intimately the pain of being unwelcome.

It’s a relief to know that no matter what you wear, how you talk or what you do in your personal life, here in this church you will always be accepted as one of God’s children.

Amen.

Covered Ears

Acts 7:55-60
John 14: 1-14

Covered Ears

The two scriptures we read today seem at odds with each other. In one we have a man, a disciple of Jesus being stoned to death because he was doing what Jesus had asked them all to do – go out into the world and witness to the glorious acts of God and Jesus. In the other scripture we have Jesus telling the disciples that if they do as he had told them, anything they ask in his name will be done.

So why, if Stephen was doing as the Lord asked, why has God let Stephen be stoned to death? Didn’t Jesus say that all who believe in him will do wondrous works, greater even than Jesus himself had done? He said, ASK ME ANYTHING, ANYTHING in my name, and I WILL DO IT. Yet poor Stephen, doing as the Lord commanded, finds himself dragged out of the town square into the wilderness so the people could kill him.

If this was you or me, I’m sure we’d be thinking we just got the raw end of the deal. There are a lot of moments in life that mimic this story. There are instances in all of our lives where we can say we were doing exactly what we were supposed to be doing, at exactly the right time and still we got the raw end of the deal.

Think about it, there is always someone who worked really hard, but another person received all the credit. Someone in this room has probably been promised a promotion if only they did these few things and after they did, another person got the position. When you were a child, perhaps your sibling broke a lamp and you got blamed for it. These things seem to happen to the best of us, we are told one thing and we believe it and as soon as we put our faith into that thing, we are let down.

It seems incredibly unfair that Stephen is killed for doing the very thing God wanted him to do. It seems incredibly unjust of a supposedly righteous God to allow a disciple to be hurt for following the plan God had put in place. Reading these two scriptures does not give me a lot of confidence in following the Lord. What about you?

We need to think about this again. It doesn’t seem right that a good and kind Lord would do this. Who can put their faith in a capricious God, one that would place us like pawns on the chessboard to be gobbled up by the enemy? If Stephen, a wonderfully kind man who was a prophet can be killed, then what chance do all of us have? It sounds like we too would be expendable.

This was where I was at the beginning of the week. I had all of these questions floating in my head and I couldn’t figure out what God was trying to tell me. I wanted to force these scriptures to be something they weren’t and as soon as we try to force the scriptures to be something they are not, we have forced God to be something God is not. So finally, I stopped forcing and started listening. That was when God let me in on a little secret I will share with all of you.

Jesus tells us that anything we ask for in His name we shall receive - easy enough to understand. So then if we go back to Stephen’s stoning let’s see what he asked for. “But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. “Look,” he said, “I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.” At this they covered their ears and, yelling at the top of their voices; they all rushed at him, dragged him out of the city and began to stone him. Meanwhile, the witnesses laid their coats at the feet of a young man named Saul. While they were stoning him, Stephen prayed, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” Then he fell on his knees and cried out, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” When he had said this, he fell asleep”.

Stephen asked for Jesus to receive his spirit and then as he fell to his knees he asked the Lord to not hold this sin against his murderers. Stephen didn’t ask to be saved. Just like Jesus could have asked for a thousand angels to keep him from the cross, Stephen could have asked to be saved, but didn’t. Instead, Stephen understood that the greatest tragedy wasn’t his death because soon he would see his Lord in all God’s glory. No, the greatest tragedy was a group of people who refused to hear a word of truth about God. They refused to such great lengths as to kill another innocent person.

The violence of their reaction really strikes me. They covered their ears like it physically hurt them to hear those words from Stephen’s mouth. It was like a piercing beep inside their brains, they could not stand to listen and so they covered their ears, but it wasn’t enough. These words were pulling apart the very fabric of all they had believed in and so therefore it must be stopped. And so they silenced that piercing voice that spoke the truth.

It makes me wonder how often we do the same thing. It makes me think back to different times in my life where I refused to hear any opinion but my own. I refused to consider a different perspective because that would make my beliefs tumble down like a tsunami crashing against them. It’s scary to be challenged to think differently. It’s scary to think something you have believed your whole life could be wrong. We forget that sometimes our ideas about life hold us captive and that if those ideas change, maybe our captivity will change. Maybe we will be set free.

One thing I have learned in life is that as soon as we think we have our faith figured out, we need to go back to the drawing board. It is very dangerous to ever think we know for sure what God is all about. It’s dangerous to think we have all the answers or that God could not possibly continue to reveal more truth to us about what it means to be a Christian and God’s child. When we begin to think we have seen it all and done it all and know it all, we have become blind and deaf to the Lord’s Holy Spirit. We lose our ability to change and grow, we have lost our ability to become closer to God because we think we have this ‘being a Christian’ thing all figured out.

This is an example of covered ears and we need to ask ourselves where we have become blind to God’s voice. Perhaps there is something you believe about God, about Jesus, that isn’t true. Stubborn belief in something is not the same as having faith. Stubborn belief is just refusing to acknowledge any opinion but your own, not even God’s opinion matters to such a person. Faith is about understanding we know nothing completely, we understand nothing completely, but we believe completely in God’s love for us anyway.

I’m challenging you this week to be open to other opinions but your own. I challenge you to keep your ears uncovered so that you may hear the word of God whispering in your ear. I hope that whatever you have been holding onto so stubbornly will stop holding you back from experiencing the truth of Jesus Christ. Allow your hearts, eyes and ears to be opened by the Holy Spirit and may the Lord bless you in ways you never expected because of it.

Amen.

The Road of Broken Dreams

Acts 2: 14a, 36-41
Luke 24: 13-35

The road of broken dreams, the road to Emmaus is where Jesus finds us and brings back to fullness and light.

Sometimes we are blinded by our pain and loss and confusion, and we wonder if even God knows what comes next for us. In the midst of our pain, do we sometimes limit our viewpoint, and obscure our own vision from seeing the pattern and path that we are to follow?

The road leading away from the holy city these two men are traveling is the road we are taking too. Where have our wounded hearts and downtrodden spirits blinded us to the truth that Jesus walks with us and talks with us? The text today makes us ask ourselves if faith can be found in the garbage of a shattered life and faith? Well, the heart knows more than the head!

As the men are walking along, Jesus shows up on the road and they begin to talk to him. They mention what has happened in Jerusalem this last week when Jesus asks questions about it. Sadly, they tell him they had hoped Jesus would redeem Israel, and now something even more strange has happened in that the women in the group had been told by an angel that Jesus was no longer in the tomb, but had risen from the dead. They had gone to the tomb and it was as the women said, but they did not see the angel or Jesus himself.

Jesus’ response to their pain is to begin a long recitation of the Torah scriptures. Where is the sensitivity of the one they called Messiah? But Jesus shows his connection to the faith tradition of these men’s past when he begins speaking of the Torah to them and making connections between those scriptures and the one they had hoped would redeem Israel. He is forming a bond with them since they have yet to recognize him AS the risen Messiah. He is merely a stranger walking the road to Emmaus with them and who does not seem to know what has taken place these past few days.

These two men walking down the road, know that the women of the group had seen Jesus as well as an angel. They had heard that “Easter” had arrived in the resurrected body of their beloved Messiah, but it has not sunk in yet. They do not feel it in their heart and souls. They are dejected and miserable because of the awful way Jesus died. The humiliation and pain he suffered as well as the horror they felt at the killing of not only Jesus, but their hope in a greater good. Their anguish prevents them from fully believing what Mary and Mary Magdalene had seen that Easter morning.

And so, it is for us sometimes. We go through the 40 days of Lent, and we try to pray more and seek out God’s face and to feel the Holy Spirit more truly in our lives. And then comes Good Friday and we experience the utter loss of hope and then Easter arrives and for whatever reason, the joy is not present. We cannot get past our pain. The anguish in our souls is too heavy and deep to experience true happiness at knowing that the Christian story does not end in death and loss, but in the joy of a resurrected Savior and life eternal for us.

Easter does not always come in three days. Stones are rolled away, but sometimes we stay deep in the tomb. There are a lot of things that prevent us from enjoying Easter the way we are meant to. Sometimes our hearts are burdened with too many cares for us to fully let joy bubble to the surface on Easter morning.

What should we do when we have reached our wit’s end, when what we thought was worth our lives has left us washed up emotionally, financially, physically, and spiritually?

There once was an ant that felt imposed upon, overburdened, and overworked. You see, he was instructed to carry a piece of straw across an expanse of concrete. The straw was so long and heavy that he staggered beneath its weight and felt he would not survive. Finally, as the stress of his burden began to overwhelm him and he began to wonder if life itself was worth it, the ant was brought to a halt by a large crack in his path. There was no way of getting across that deep divide, and it was evident that to go around it would be his final undoing. He stood there discouraged. Then suddenly a thought struck him. Carefully laying the straw across the crack in the concrete, he walked over it and safely reached the other side. His heavy load had become a helpful bridge. The burden was also a blessing.

Sometimes we are so blinded by our burdens that we cannot see how they could possibly become a blessing. But the truth of the matter is that if we stop our grumbling for a moment, if we close our eyes and take a deep breath, if we allow for just a moment our minds to empty of our troubles we are able to see things more clearly. When we stop our busy-ness and our complaints, it gives the Holy Spirit a chance to speak to us. It gives us a chance to open our eyes and see the troubles in our midst hold a purpose and the stranger we encounter on this journey is there to help us.

As the two men walked along the road to Emmaus, Jesus walked with them until the end and then he went to leave them until the men protested and asked him to join them for dinner. Jesus had given them renewed hope as they walked along, and then he offered them a choice. Did they want him to continue to walk with them or will they let him walk away? They ask him to dinner and it is as he takes the bread, blesses and breaks it and gives it to them that they finally see that the wise man on the road walking with them is none other than their risen Lord and Savior, the one they had mourned and missed the last three days.

Jesus always leaves us free to turn our backs on him. We must choose to let him into our hearts. It’s always a choice to see the hope rather than the darkness; to enter the light of the garden rather than stay in the darkened depths of the tomb. I urge you to invite Christ back into your heart today. I urge you to see where God has been working in your life, even in the darkest and most trying moments you have experienced. I urge you to remember that your God is one that does not leave you alone to walk through the desert, but instead he is ahead, behind, and with you at all times.

A little boy was eagerly looking forward to the birthday party of a friend who lived only a few blocks away. When the day finally arrived, a blizzard made the sidewalks and roads nearly impassable. The lad’s father, sensing the danger, hesitated to let his son go. The youngster reacted tearfully. "But Dad," he pleaded, "all the other kids will be there. Their parents are letting them go." The father thought for a moment, and then replied softly, 

"All right, you may go." Surprised but overjoyed, the boy bundled up and plunged into the raging storm. The driving snow made visibility almost impossible, and it took him more than half an hour to trudge the short distance to the party. As he rang the doorbell, he turned briefly to look out into the storm. His eye caught the shadow of a retreating figure. It was his father. He had followed his son’s every step to make sure he arrived safely.

We spend so much of our time wanting life to be a certain way and experiencing a much harsher reality that sometimes the scriptures seem to be unrealistic to our jaded eyes. You have spent enough time experiencing the desert wilderness. Although God has walked with you every step of the way, it is time for you to enter the garden, to find that Promised Land, to experience Easter joy at the idea of your Savior defeating death and sin for your sake.

Let your eyes be opened, feel that burning in your heart, and may your life be changed forever by the knowledge you do NOT have to stay in the darkened tomb! Come out and rejoice for Jesus has set you free!

Amen.

The Jesus Bridge

Acts 10:34-43

Matthew 28:1-10

There are a lot of things in this world that are unexplainable, but the human condition is very understandable and explainable. We're sinners. At the deepest level of the human condition we are sinners that hurt each other and ourselves without compunction. And it's not because we're evil. We're broken. We are a broken people that cannot seem to put ourselves back together. And that's where Jesus enters the story.

Jesus is the mystery that we think we understand, but we don't because when we truly start to think about what Jesus is we realize there is no way to fully grasp what he has done for us. Jesus is God. Jesus is God made flesh. Jesus is both God and a human being. THINK about that for a moment. Think about how weak we are as human beings, think about how weak this body is and how quickly it falls apart when we put stress and age upon it.

And now picture trying to stuff the magnificent awesomeness and almighty power of God into those bones, flesh, and sinew. Head hurt yet? Mine sure does!

But this is what we proclaim as Christians. Jesus is both God and human. Jesus is the bridge in the gap that separates Creator from creation. Jesus is the perfect human being and I'm not talking about today's idea of perfection with our unhealthy preoccupation for body image and popularity. Jesus is perfect in a much more profound way - his heart and soul are without blemish or sin. He never gave into temptation, not even the little temptation of eating the extra piece of chocolate cake when he's already had one piece. Or for him, turning a stone into bread after a 40 day fast in the desert!

We are left wondering how it is possible because it certainly wasn’t probable that God would decide to become a human being and then spend 33 years teaching and helping us to become better people. And as if THAT wasn’t enough, God decided we needed more than the bridge that Jesus became for us. God decided that human beings were worth saving after having lived with us and seeing the worst parts of what it means to be a human being. We cursed God. We threatened to throw God off a cliff. We accused him of terrible, awful crimes. And still Jesus forged on, riding a donkey into Jerusalem knowing that he was riding to a horrific death. For us.

The scriptures tell us the night before he was crucified he had dinner with his disciples, including the one that was to betray him. And unlike what we would have done, Jesus did not ask his disciples to avenge his death. He did not confront the one that was to betray him by asking the disciples to kill him or anything else vengeful. Jesus’ meal with the disciples was one of peace. He ate with them and when a dispute arose among them about which one of them was greatest, Jesus taught them one more lesson.

He told them that if we want to be recognized as Jesus’ disciples, as Christians, then we are to put the least first and the greatest last. We are to be kind to everyone because our perceptions of who is greatest and who is least are skewed. We tend to think those with power, money, and prestige are the ones that are great. We think the ones that are being served are the ones that we should emulate. And yet, Jesus served up his very life for our sake. Jesus took on the role of least to make us great. Jesus is God. Do not judge a man or woman by their outside appearance, but judge them by their works.

The words we say, the image we present is just what we want the world to think about us. The things we do tell the world who we truly are. Jesus understood that. It’s time for us to understand that as well.

Some of you are probably thinking this doesn’t sound like a very Easter-like sermon. Easter is not just one day. Easter is every day. Every day we go through our lives knowing that Jesus did not stay in the tomb. He did not stay dead. We are to live our lives understanding the legacy and love of Jesus Christ did not die the day he breathed his last on the cross. Jesus is risen and without the resurrection there would be no Christianity.

We are a people that not only have a God that became a part of us to understand us better, but we are a people that have a God that cannot be coerced, contained, or controlled. Jesus’ haters wanted him to go away forever. Jesus did not even stay dead a full week. Three days and he rose from the dead to cause more headaches for all those who wanted him silenced.

Jesus’ first words to his people, after being raised, were to not be afraid. This was unlike anything any of them had ever experienced and that’s the truth for us as well. Every time we give ourselves over to Christ, things begin to happen that have never happened to us before. And just like the disciples that saw him first, Jesus comes to us and says, “Do not be afraid.”

Do not be afraid to be the person God has created you to be. Do not be afraid to struggle with the mystery that is Jesus Christ. Do not be afraid to question this idea that God can be three persons, but still one God. Do not be afraid to look at the scriptures, particularly some in the Old Testament and wonder how they can apply to your life. The more we question and ponder and struggle, the more we give the Holy Spirit a chance to change us and help us grow.

Today is Easter Sunday. Today is the day we proclaim that our God cannot be killed. That death did not defeat God and instead God defeated death because Jesus is very much alive. Jesus is here with us today in the power and presence of the Holy Spirit! To the uninitiated and to even the long time believers, when we take the time to truly think about the things we have proclaimed for so long, it makes us wonder how it is possible.

Faith is what makes our belief possible. Faith is what got the disciples through the three scariest days of their lives. Faith is what helps us to face the horrible things in our lives and the many temptations we are confronted with and somehow still maintain our hope in Jesus. It helps when we understand that God truly gets what we are going through. That Jesus stood, dripping drops of sweat as big as blood drops as he prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane because he was nervous. He knew unspeakable pain was about to happen to his body, but it wasn’t just about the physical pain.

Jesus suffered emotional and spiritual pain as well as he died on that cross. The very people he had come to love and cherish deserted him. His mother and siblings had to stand by and watch him be accused and killed. His Father in heaven could not stop this because it had to happen. The angels wept while Jesus was flogged. Jesus bore the weight of everyone’s pain as well as his own as he hung on that cross.

And still he prayed, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.” If we have any doubt to God’s love for us we need to remember those words and what Jesus was experiencing in that moment. Think about the last time someone hurt you horribly. Were you praying that God would forgive them? Through the agony of betrayal, did you stop to think about what has brought this person to treat you so horribly? Jesus did and Jesus does.

This is the beauty of our claim today. In the power of the Risen Christ, we are told that our lives have meaning and purpose because God loves us. We are told that even though our bodies weaken and eventually die, our souls will continue on and eventually we will be raised from the dead. We are told today is the day when we may accept that death and sin have no hold on us because we have been claimed by God. We are God’s children because of the blood Christ shed in our honor.

Rejoice! 

The Secret Darkness

1 Samuel 16: 1-13
Ephesians 5: 8-14

It doesn’t take much to convince most people that they’re sinners. We all know our faults and our struggles and our burdens. We have all heard the sermons about how our wicked ways will lead us straight into Satan’s arms instead of Jesus’. However, even though we know we’re not perfect and that we are all sinful in some way, most of us sitting here probably believe we’re not terribly wicked sinners with no hope of salvation either. We’ve been raised to believe that Jesus can and has saved us from the lies we tell and the evils we commit.

 This passage in Ephesians about light and darkness, those who are wake in Christ and those who are asleep, reminds me of the Story of the Prodigal Son. We all know that the prodigal son was the bad apple. He is both the bad guy and one of the victim in the story, and at the end he receives a reward that he has not earned in the slightest. But we always forget about the Eldest Son. The son who although he always seems to do the right and honorable thing, is not the one in the story that ends up with his Father’s arms wrapped around him in love and forgiveness.

Martin Luther once said to “Sin boldly”. I think that the prodigal son was a bold sinner. He was a man that lived his life in a way that shames more honorable people, and yet he is the one that ends up having a transforming experience where he comes out of the darkness of his sinful life and enters into the light. The Eldest child starts out in the light and ends up in the darkness. How does this happen? How can someone good and dependable like the eldest son end up being the one that sits on the sidelines and watches as his good for only having a good time brother ends up receiving everything that he, the eldest brother, has worked so hard for his whole life?

I think this is our problem as Christians sometimes, those of us that are lifers. We have always believed in Jesus and we cannot remember a time when we didn’t believe that God has sent his son so that we wouldn’t be condemned, but instead we would be saved and have eternal life. We are the eldest child who attends church every Sunday and volunteers our time for various committees and community functions. We’re the ones that people depend on and we have come to see ourselves as not perfect, but pretty dang good people. We don’t really consider ourselves degenerate sinners, but we don’t consider ourselves saints either.

A couple years ago, I was on a CS Lewis kick and read the book, The Screwtape Letters, which is about the story of an older demon counseling a younger demon. At one point in the book, it says, "You will say that these are very small sins, and doubtless, like all young tempters, you are anxious to be able to report spectacular wickedness. But do remember, the only thing that matters is the extent to which you separate the man from the Enemy [God]. It does not matter how small the sins are, provided that their cumulative effect is to keep the man away from the Light.… Murder is no better than cards if cards can do the trick. Indeed the safest road to Hell is the gradual one—the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts."

Perhaps, this is why Martin Luther says to sin boldly so that everyone may know what are sins are and they will eventually come into the light. We’ll have to face the sins if people point them out to us, but if they are secret sins and ones that are committed with little guilt or thought, they can eventually pull us away from God just as effectively as committing murder. It’s hard to think that a few small sins can do the same amount of damage as murder, but yet, it does and sometimes more easily too.

You see, it is only human beings that put a gradient on sinful acts. We do not see a lie being as awful as murder. We do not see how disrespecting an individual can be as awful as raping a person. We do not see how constantly being jealous over what others have can be as bad as committing robbery. And yet, every person that commits murder, rape, and robbery all began with these so-called little sins too. And the more we do something, the less fantastic it seems and the more ordinary and okay it seems.

I was watching the show Bones the other day when the lead actress said something very interesting. She said that in an experiment, people were given goggles that made everything upside down when they looked through them. For three days, everything was upside down, but the brain adjusted to this disorientation and on the fourth day when they woke up, the world looked right side up until they took off the goggles. Then it took them another three days for their brain to adjust and again see the world the way it was. Our minds are amazing. God created our mind to help us adapt to whatever life throws at us so that we may survive.

In an effort to survive in a sinful world, sometimes we shut out our own sinfulness. We put levels on sinful acts and tell ourselves that the lie we told our spouse is not that big of a deal even though a lie is a sin. We get tired of the world beating us up, and to protect ourselves we make our own culpability less by thinking that the things we do, although wrong – do not really damage our soul and our connection to Jesus. But they do.

And the really scary thing is that the more we pretend that these little sins mean nothing in the long run, the blinder we become to when we commit larger sins. A couple years ago, I took a tour of a cave. The guide taught us an interesting fact about this. A person who lives in total darkness for just a few months will become irrevocably blind. Darkness not only hinders sight, it causes blindness.

This passage in Ephesians is asking us to wake up and see where we are living in darkness. It is reminding us that we are beautiful people that are filled with God’s Holy Spirit and therefore, we do not need to fear or live in darkness. But although we know this on an intellectual level, and even manage to believe it sometimes, we do not always live as children of the light. We do not own the person we are and the inheritance we have been given.

In the story of the Prodigal son, it took a man who faced a deep darkness to recognize where the light in his life existed. He didn’t want to become blind and lost, and he returned to the source of his greatest happiness – his father’s arms. The eldest child who never left his Father’s house and yet, had no joy in his heart was the one who gradually was pulled deeper into the darkness.

As lifetime Christians, it is hard sometimes to find joy every Sunday. We are weary of being the good person all the time, the dependable person, the one everyone comes to for advice. Sometimes, we just want to live our life free of commitments and obligations and worries. And we begin to grumble about those who seem to live a freer and more sinful life. We make comments about the way they dress or the things they do. We make up stories about why they weren’t at that social function this week and we refuse to forgive those who we feel have slighted us by not doing what we feel they ought to have done.

This is the way the Eldest child felt about his brother. He begrudged him the goodness and light he found. He felt jealousy and he coveted not only the easier lifestyle he imagined his brother had, but then at the end, he coveted the relationship his brother ended up having with his father. He was committing sins without even realizing it and we do the same thing.

That is why Jesus constantly tells us not to judge others and not to be so fearful and worried about what goes on around us. Sin boldly, and repent with a joyful heart. It is Lent and therefore it is time for us to see where we have lied to ourselves about who we are and face Jesus with bowed heads. Ask the Lord to bring us back into the light, to shine upon us and reveal where darkness has entered our hearts. It is time to let the Holy Spirit refine and purify our souls so that not only will we be in the light, but we will BE a light to those who are still in the dark.

Amen.

You're Justified, But Are You Sanctified?

Exodus 17: 1-7
Romans 5: 1-11

A few years ago, I chose this passage and tried to explain justification to all of you. When it came back around, I realized now it is time to explain what sanctification is all about. But first, let me remind you what it means to be justified through the blood of Jesus Christ, as Paul says to us in Romans 5. He tells us that “When we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly…while we were still sinners, Christ died for us...we have now been justified by his blood.”

Let's say you were caught speeding down this highway in front of the church. You were doing 100 mph, obviously slightly out of the acceptable speeding window. You go to court and just as the judge is about to throw the book at you, someone steps forward and says, "I will pay the fine. I will take the punishment." And you get off, without paying the fine, without any punishment at all. You have been justified, you have been made right in the eyes of the law. It doesn't change the fact that you were speeding, but the court sees you as innocent. That is what Christ did for us. That is what it means to be justified by the blood of Jesus.

Lent is well on its way and we are in the midst of trying to figure out who we are in the eyes of society as well as God. We are struggling to understand our role in the world and how it sometimes conflicts with what God would have us do in our lives. When we hear that Jesus died so that we would not have to take on the punishment for our sinful lives it is an amazing discovery. It is freeing and life-giving.

But this is where sanctification comes in. It is not enough to be merely free of the punishment of sin. That is what God has done for us. How do we show that God has done this amazing and miraculous thing for us? How do we share with the world that we are people who have been saved and transformed and forgiven though the life-giving blood of our Savior? Martin Luther said "There is no justification without sanctification, no forgiveness without renewal of life, no real faith from which the fruits of new obedience do not grow." 

Martin Luther seems to be implying that if we are truly justified by the blood of Christ, then something inside of us changes. Paul also tells us that when he says, “…but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. In today’s society, when someone says that we should be thankful for our struggles we look at them like they are crazy. Why would anyone be joyful over pain and heartache?

How could any person be thankful for constant despair? What could we possibly have to learn from the seemingly endless pain that living life brings? Think of the process of refining maple syrup. Maple trees are tapped with buckets hung under the taps, and out drips a sap which is thin and clear, like water. On a good day, 50 trees will yield 30-40 gallons of sap, but it is essentially useless at this point with only a hint of sweetness. 

Then as the buckets fill, they are emptied into large bins that sit over an open fire. The sap comes to a slow boil; and as it boils, its water content is reduced and its sugars are concentrated. Hours later, it has developed a rich flavor and golden-brown color, but it must be strained several times to remove impurities before being reheated, bottled, and graded for quality. In the end, those 30-40 gallons of sap are reduced to one gallon of pure, delicious maple syrup, which is far better than the cheap, imitation, colored sugar-water that passes for maple syrup in the grocery store. 

It is the same when we come to faith in Christ. We start like raw, unfinished sap, which could have been tossed aside as worthless. But God knew what he could make of us. He sought and found us, and his skillful hands are transforming us into something precious, sweet and useful. The long and often painful refining process brings forth a pure, genuine disciple easily distinguished from cheap imitations.

Therefore, every struggle we endure and every heartache that we experience is a moment where we can learn how to rise above the pain and become more like Jesus. We can wallow in our despair or we can find strength of character that brings people to us. I heard a seminary professor once tell the class that people who have been wounded and allowed the wounds to heal instead of fester tend to have a sort of gravitas to them. They have the ability to pull people to them because the strength of their character, the purity of their wounded but healed soul shines forth clearly for others to see. People are drawn to them because they recognize that this person has not only known pain, but has risen above the pain to become a better, more Christ-like person.

That is what Jesus is calling us toward. A life of gravitas where people are drawn to the person we are because we have something more inside of us. We have the light and love of Jesus Christ, present in the power of the Holy Spirit, given as a gift from God. People who have risen above their pain to be a balm to other wounded souls are people who make the world a brighter place. It doesn’t mean they don’t endure suffering, but they do not let it defeat them. They let it refine them into someone who has grace and mercy in their heart.

Are we such people? Are we filled with the grace and mercy of Jesus Christ or have we allowed our past burdens and pain to create bitter hearts and judgmental attitudes towards those around us? Are we joyful or are we sorrowful? Lent is the time to analyze our character. It is the time we look deep inside ourselves and we pull out the ugliness that we don’t like to face any other time of the year. It’s the time when we recognize ourselves in the jeering crowd that rejects Jesus, our Savior. It’s when we see our sinfulness more clearly and we are convicted in our hearts and spirits to change.

A basic mark of true spirituality is a deep awareness of sin. In Scripture those who most despised their sinfulness were often those who were the most spiritual. Paul said he was the chief of sinners. Peter said to Jesus, "Depart from me, for I am a sinful man." Isaiah said, "Woe is me, because I am a man of unclean lips." Spiritual people realize they are in a death struggle with sin. For Paul, ultimate spirituality was to be like Jesus, and that is not something you could attain by any one-time experience.

We are justified by the blood of Christ, but that does not mean we are sanctified. Sanctification is a life-long process that starts by recognizing how unworthy we are to be children of God, and yet finding deep joy and gratefulness that we ARE God’s children and we are loved beyond anything we could ever imagine. And through that love, we change and become more like Jesus.

Paul told Timothy in 1 Timothy 3:15, "I have written so that you will know how people ought to act in God's household." While there are right and wrong ways to act when attending church services, Paul is not talking about attendance manners but rather how you and I are to act as part of God's household - the body of Christ. 

Stuart Briscoe explains that as a young man he joined the Marines. "Their magnificent dress uniform attracted me, and I thought that I would get one of those uniforms immediately. But they didn't give me one for months. When I asked about it, they told me, 'You are a Marine. The moment you walked through the gates, you became a Marine. You are a Marine to stay.' I said 'Give me another uniform then.' They replied, 'You are not fit to wear one yet. We will have to do something about your back, about your chest, and about your shoulders. We'll have to teach you how to march, how to walk, how to look like a Marine, and how to behave like a Marine. Then you can wear the uniform.' I was a Marine the moment I was sworn into that position, but it took me a long, long time to wear the uniform. 

We are sanctified the minute that we are washed in the blood of Christ. But it will take us the rest of our life to learn how to behave in a sanctified way. We will always be justified because we are washed in the blood of Christ at the moment of our baptism. However, it is a lifetime of learning and refining that makes us sanctified. And it is only possible to be sanctified if we recognize where we have fallen short of the glory of God. When we recognize how our sins have kept us from God. This is your time to become closer to God; to see yourself through Jesus’ eyes and to allow the Holy Spirit to chase away the darkness and bring you further into the light of God’s love. May you be so brave as to face who you are while seeing who you will become with God’s grace.

Amen. 

What's So Special about the Transfiguration?

Exodus 24: 12-18
Matt 17: 1-9

Every year we read the story of the transfiguration and I can remember as a child, not really understanding what the fuss was all about. So a couple guys show up and Jesus glows for a moment. Big deal – Jesus is God – doesn’t that mean Jesus might have a little something extra that makes him shine in ways that us mere mortals cannot? And the couple of guys showing up – that happens all the time in the Bible, why is THIS moment so special?

I remember that what really interested me was Peter’s response to all of this happening. Why in the world did he want to make shelters for the three of them? I mean, if they walk down the mountain there is probably food and shelter there already, why go to all the work of preparing special shelters? To my young mind, that was a much more interesting thing than these men appearing and Jesus shining brightly.

When I thought about this, I realized the Transfiguration was never really explained properly to me which is why I always just read the scripture and nodded my head and wondered what we were really celebrating here – that God talked to Jesus or the fact that Peter can sometimes be a dunce? The Transfiguration has special significance to us because this is the moment when the glory of God shines forth so brightly in Jesus that even dunce-ish Peter sees that Jesus is more than a mere mortal. This is the reason they had all dropped their nets to follow a man they had never met. That special, other-worldly power that radiated out of Jesus at special moments and otherwise was a gentle beacon that pulled people toward him.

The Transfiguration is the moment when we realize Jesus is a human being, but Jesus is also God. Jesus has come to save us; Jesus is the manifestation of a God that loves us so much that God became part of God’s own creation. God became human to understand us better and to love us more fully and so we could understand God better and love God more fully. This is a moment of great significance! This is where the prophecy of Immanuel comes true – Immanuel: God with us and present in the form of Jesus Christ.

Most other religions have a remote God. A God that while it sometimes cares about what is going on in its peoples’ lives, rarely interacts in any way with them. But not Christianity! In Jesus Christ we were given the most miraculous gift – that of a God that cares so much that God became one with us! God watched our struggles; heard our fears and complaints; listened to our hours of sorrow after our losses, and could not stay separate from us any longer. God became human to help us and to understand us. God could not stay a remote God that merely watched our lives; God wanted to be part of them.

Which is why what happens to Jesus is so hard for us Christians to bear. This week we begin our Lenten season with Ash Wednesday. We know the ending to the story. We know the pain and sorrow that is about to be revealed to us. We know the cross is coming and we do not want to carry it. We do not want to listen to how he was tortured and humiliated, and in light of this moment of the Transfiguration as Jesus sees our fear and tells us gently, “Do not be afraid” as he puts his hand on our shoulder – we realize we are afraid. We’re deathly afraid of what is to come.

Our lives are full of unknowns. We go about each day waiting for the day when our own cross will be too heavy to carry any longer. We are afraid of the ending; not just our Lord’s ending, but our own. We want to have faith in God. We want to believe that everything will turn out alright in the end, but this world is so often in chaos that it becomes hard to remember and trust. We see the same thing in Peter, James, and John in this passage.

They go up the mountain with Jesus after hearing the news of Jerusalem’s destruction and Jesus’ imminent death. It is only human that in their minds they play out the next few days and weeks. They begin to look for alternatives, desperate for a second opinion, a way to stop time. They want to build a safe sanctuary away from the world, to be content in the moment, saving Jesus and themselves from the heartache to come. They cannot, and neither can we.

We cannot stop those hospital room moments when we’re told that we have an incurable disease. We cannot stop those times when we hear our child is in jail or in some other serious trouble. We cannot stop those times when we are fighting with those we love most and it feels like our world is crashing around our ears and our hearts are about to burst from the pain of it all. We know that these moments exist and it isn’t until we see something good in the midst of all the bad that we are able to understand what Jesus is here to teach us. Like when we are at our lowest moment and our grandchild comes running up with a flower clutched in his sweaty hand and a big grin on his chocolate covered face and he says, “I love you.” That moment of happiness in the midst of great sadness is when we begin to understand that where there is suffering, there is also God. These are the moments when we realize God is present in suffering and sacrifice, just as God is present in the promise and potential of our lives.

But too often we forget about God’s presence. We become distracted and we allow the world to tell us that God doesn’t really care. C.S. Lewis wrote in the Silver Chair about this. He has Aslan tell everyone, “Here on the mountain I have spoken to you clearly. I will not often do so down in Narnia. Here on the mountain, the air is clear and your mind is clear; as you drop down into Narnia, the air will thicken. Take great care that it does not confuse your mind. And the signs which you have learned here will not look at all as you expect them to look, when you meet them there. That is why it is so important to know them by heart and pay no attention to appearance. Remember the signs and believe the signs. Nothing else matters.”

When we meet Jesus Christ in our lives, everything becomes clear for a brief moment. We do not wonder and we are not afraid in those moments of clarity. We know who we are – we feel contentment and peace. However, they do not last because the world takes its toll on our hearts and minds. This is what Aslan was warning his people about – that clarity is harder to come by and the peace and happiness is harder to feel in the middle of a chaotic world. He is warning them to not lose sight of God and we must not lose sight of who Jesus Christ is. The Transfiguration is so special because it is a moment of clarity right before the greatest trials and sorrows for the disciples. For us.

The transfiguration offers the disciples and us the paradox that while there is nothing we can do to save ourselves from suffering, there is also no way we can shield ourselves from the light of God that sheds hope in our darkest moments. This moment is the moment we hold on to when we feel lost in the darkness and feel hopeless and empty.

We cannot keep ourselves safe just as we cannot stop what is about to happen to Jesus. In our lives there will be joy and sorrow and both must be faced, but that does not mean we face these things alone. The Transfiguration is our reminder that God is indeed with us and that no matter where our life journey takes us, we have Jesus on our side and the Holy Spirit in our hearts and that God loves us so much that we have been given these great gifts despite doing nothing to earn them.

Yes, the Transfiguration is something to be celebrated. This is our moment of hope that will anchor us as Lent begins. We will remember the blessing of our God loves us so much that he became a part of us; that God suffered and died for us; this is our moment to remember no matter what crosses we bear – we do not have to carry them alone.

Amen.