God is Enough

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

God asks a lot from the people that dare to believe in something greater than themselves. Many nonbelievers think being a Christian is all about love and forgiveness. They aren’t wrong, but it’s not the whole picture to what it means to be a faithful, active disciple of Jesus Christ. Throughout the last 3.5 years I have made it a point over and over again to remind all of you that we are a called people. That Jesus expects us to continue to follow him whether we are 8 years old or 80.

Helen Smith used to ask me all the time, “I don’t know why I’m still here. What is the point of my existing in this place, living out my life in a chair?” And I reminded her of the many people who stopped by to see her smile and grab a piece of candy she kept out for them. I reminded her of her roommate, who for the longest time was comatose and so whenever she spoke, Helen wrote down what she said and read it to her family when they’d come visiting every week. And then, when the lady came out of her comatose state, they became good friends that talked late into the night. Helen brought people hope until the day she died. Helen was a faithful disciple.

It wasn’t an easy choice that Helen made. She had her bad days. She had her doubting days. And then I’d come to visit and I’d remind her of these things and she’d say, “I guess you’re right. I never thought of it that way.” She’d remind ME of my reason for being a pastor – to help people see things in a new way. It’s a circle of trust and faith and doubt and pain and back to love and forgiveness and trust and faith. It’s a circle that we need others to help us with because being a Christian is about being in community with one another. You cannot be a Christian by sitting home alone.

Abraham and Sarah’s story is one of my favorites in the bible. It’s actually the first sermon I ever preached to all of you, my candidating sermon. The idea of this older couple, in the twilight of their lives, daring to believe such an audacious claim made by a God that doesn’t fulfill the promise made to them for another 20 years just astounds me. Their faith is a miracle. Their lives are a testament to what it means to follow wherever God would lead, no matter how crazy it seems to everyone else and sometimes to ourselves as well!

Then they have this beautiful, miraculous child and God isn’t done testing their faith. Hadn’t they been through enough with Hagar and with 20 years of waiting, and Sarah’s bitterness and Abraham’s foolishness? But no, God wasn’t done teaching them. He calls out to Abraham and tells him he must sacrifice his child, his precious Isaac that he’s waited 90 years to receive.

He didn’t tell Sarah what God had called him to do, you can bet on that! He didn’t even tell Isaac for when Isaac asks where the sacrifice is Abraham merely replies, “God will provide” to him. Abraham tells Isaac to lay down upon the altar and because he loves his father, he obeys. Abraham ties him down the way he would an animal and raises the knife high above his son’s heart.

What thoughts were racing through his mind? Were tears running down his face? Was the knife slick with his sweat as his arm trembled from the regret and pain he was feeling? Could he look upon his son’s face as he went to plunge the knife into his heart or did he look away, unable to bear seeing the life seep from his son’s eyes?

We know the ending of this story is a happy one. Abraham and Isaac had no idea. All we know is that Abraham’s faith is so radical and intense that he’s willing to let go of the one blessing he’s waited his whole life to receive. Are we that faithful to God?

I want you to think of your greatest blessing. Is it your child? Is it your family? Is it your career? Is it your ability to provide a roof over your head when you grew up dirt poor? Is it the respect of the community after a life of disrespect from your peers? Is it your ability to read and write and educate yourself when no one thought you’d amount to anything? Picture your blessing in your mind. And now picture being asked to let it go; to destroy it in the most horrific and intimate of ways.

Could you do it? Could you let go of your greatest blessing because God has asked you to?

Why did God ask Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, his only son? Well, this is the same God that sacrificed his own Son, Jesus for all of us. Is that why God did it? Was it a tit for tat sort of thing? Is God sadistic and cruel and vengeful? No.

God asked Abraham to remember that Isaac is a blessing provided by God. God was asking Abraham if now that he had received the ultimate gift from God, would he continue to follow and be faithful to what God has called him to do? God was asking if Isaac was gone, would Abraham also be gone or was Abraham’s faith and belief in God so strong that nothing could break the bond between God and him?

The point of being a disciple of Jesus Christ is NOT the blessings we receive. It’s not just about the love and forgiveness and good things. God calls us to be faithful based on the one blessing that God gave the world – the blessing of His Son who died to bring us into an eternal relationship with the Trinity: Father, Son, and Spirit. And that’s what we ask ourselves today: If God asked us to give up our greatest gift, the best blessing we ever received in our lives – would we, could we obey?

God doesn’t actually ask us to give up what we’ve been given, but God does ask us to love God more than we love everything and everyone else in our lives. The only way to love God more is to be willing to let go of what keeps us from God. If you love your spouse more than God – then your spouse is your god. If you love your child more than you love God – then your child is your god. If you love your career or your car or your friends or alcohol, gambling, and drugs more than you do God – then they are your god. Whatever you don’t think you can’t live without and refuse to part with – that is a barrier between you and your Father in heaven.

It doesn’t mean you have to give it up forever, it’s about being willing to sacrifice the temporary for the eternal. It means giving your blessings into GOD’S hands to keep rather than trying to hold on to them yourself. What God has given, God will protect. We need to let go of our possessive hold and instead trust that Jesus has a purpose and plan for every one of us. Even the bad things have a purpose because from ashes of our old life and ways, gives birth the beautiful gifts of tomorrow.

Being a disciple of Jesus Christ means trusting that God is all the blessing we need in our lives, and everyone/everything else is icing on the cake. And we all know cake is sweet enough, which means God is enough without the extra blessings. When we understand and act like God is all we need – we are free of worry and guilt and fear as we try to hold and protect what God has blessed us with. We are free to give those blessings back to God for God to protect and hold onto. We are free to just be disciples of Jesus and we will be happier for it.

Amen. 

A Disciple's Cross

Genesis 21: 1-14
Matthew 10: 24-39

The passage we read today leaves us asking several questions because of the nature of what Jesus was telling the disciples. It doesn’t sound like the Jesus we have come to expect and that is what we will be looking at this morning.

What does it mean to be like Jesus? These words were directed at Jesus’ twelve disciples and now they are directed at us. A disciple is another word for a person who is willing to learn. A disciple is willing to ask the hard questions and to look inside as well as outside of oneself to become more like their teacher. Our teacher is Jesus and so first we must ask ourselves, what does it mean to be more like Jesus Christ?

Jesus normally appears to be a harmless man who is gentle and kind, but in today’s passage, Jesus blows this idea clear out of the water when he says, “I have come not to bring peace.. but a sword”. Why would Jesus say something so surprising? Apparently, there is peace and then there is true peace that God would like to give to us. Perhaps Jesus is telling us that the demands of being his disciple can sometimes feel like a sword that cuts through lesser loyalties and makes quick work of our flabby, commonsense morality that we have adopted to fit better into society.

Because let’s face it, if Jesus was truly the person we always try to portray him to be: kind, gentle, without a divisive bone in his body who merely wants to bring humanity closer to God then how did Jesus manage to always get into so much trouble during his three years of ministry? What made people call him such names like the prince of demons? Why would following Jesus wreck families as he implies in verse 36? And how, if Jesus was always kind and gentle and nonthreatening did he manage to get himself crucified?

We like to blame society for all of this. We like to think that the people back then were uneducated and ignorant and we would never have done anything like they had. WE would have seen that Jesus was God’s Son. WE would have known that Jesus came to save us. WE are nothing like THEM! But we are. We are exactly like them. Jesus is the one that is different. Jesus is the unexpected; he is the surprise ingredient that changes everything. Jesus was concerned about furthering God’s kingdom on earth and kingdom work, it turns out, is more controversial and subversive than the more conventional kindness we tend to associate with Jesus.

And if Jesus is controversial and offensive, how much more so will we as his students be? We are told to be more like Jesus and in doing so that means following in Jesus’s footsteps. Jesus was concerned about making God’s kingdom more visible to the world. As his disciples, our duty is to make the world see God more clearly and more often. True discipleship is the art of seeking the kingdom with a single-minded determination and letting the chips fall where they may. It means sometimes we WILL cause offense and we WILL say things that have people backing away from us. It means that sometimes we WILL suffer for the sake of the Kingdom just like Jesus did.

If we as a church and as Christians manage to walk through life without offending anyone or rubbing anyone the wrong way with our beliefs then we need to ask ourselves if we are truly following Jesus or are we following our own desires and that of the world? Jesus was not always peaceful and calming to the society. He got angry and he said things that made people upset and he even wielded a whip to get his point across to those that had corrupted the ways of God. Where should we be wielding a whip in today’s world?

The other question we have to ask ourselves about today’s text is what Jesus has against families? In the passage today, Jesus seems to want families to be against each other which seems at odds with Jesus’ own relationship to his Father in heaven! Well, the first people to read the book of Matthew were faced with enormous pressure to reject Jesus Christ as their savior. Perhaps these words were meant for them to bring them some comfort when their families turned their backs on them for their beliefs.

However, Jesus has more to say on families in other parts of the New Testament that are not favorable either! Jesus is not thinking about family values, but rather kingdom values and they are not always the same. There are many stories where Jesus is depicted as being in conflict with his own family such as when he tells the people around him that they are his mother and brother and sister when his family wants to speak with him.

Jesus insists that those that follow him put the Kingdom and kingdom values first above everything else. He is more concerned with the righteousness of God than keeping the peace between man and wife and parent and child. Transferring our loyalty only to God and God’s kingdom is going to cause friction between those we call our family and ourselves.

It’s not easy hearing criticism from your family about following God, but anyone who is a true disciple will hear these words from the ones that swear to know and love you the best. I didn’t realize the depth of truth in this passage until I became a pastor and my family suddenly realized my time was no longer theirs to command. I cannot even tell you how often I have had one of my sisters get angry with me and then mock my calling to make me feel bad that I’m not doing what they want me to do.

It’s not easy following Jesus and it’s not always easy to put aside our family loyalty and love to take up the cross that Jesus has asked us to carry. It requires sacrifice and it requires determination and it requires a willingness to be hurt and sometimes even abused by the ones that swear to love us unconditionally. The truth is that Jesus loves us more than anyone else ever will and our loyalty belongs to Him. We follow Jesus even to the places that we do not want to go and even when it might hurt to do so.

But in the doing we recognize that the one we call our Father in Heaven is helping us to become better people, and is trying to make the world a more peaceful place. When we keep our hearts focused on the ultimate outcome, we’re better able to accept the pain and heartache that the present offers us when being a disciple of Jesus gets tough. Because the truth is it will be tough sometimes, but Jesus promises that it will all be worth it. And a true disciple believes their teacher and through the doing of what our teacher says, we learn Jesus has spoken truthfully. When we stop trying to be what society tells us we should be and start being the person Jesus has called us to be – we have more peace and happiness and a lot less worry and doubt.

Take up your cross, the unique cross that Jesus has called you to and keep in mind that although the going will get rough at times, if you live true to your calling as Christ’s disciple – God’s Kingdom will be made visible to every person you come in contact with. You will be the instrument God uses to bring peace and hope and love into the darkest and most bitter parts of the world, and that is worth the sacrifices we make to have it happen!

Amen. 

Understanding the Unexplainable

Genesis 1: 1-2:4a

Matthew 28: 16-20

The words in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are so much a part of Christian services that we don’t realize how strange and precious they are or maybe even fully understand their significance. Today is Trinity Sunday, where we celebrate the declaration that only Christians can make –we believe in a God that is three persons and yet still one God. What a strange and bold statement we make every week!

This passage we read today in Matthew, the one we call the Great Commission is where we read for the first time about our Trinitarian God. Jesus tells us, “Go therefore making disciples of all nations baptizing in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” Up until this point, we knew that Jesus was God’s son and we knew that when Jesus went up to heaven he was going to send the disciples an Advocate he called the Holy Spirit. It is here, at this moment that we are given a true glimpse into the essence of the one we call Lord.

To baptize a person in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit could only mean that these are three separate names of the One God and we know that God is one because we’re told back in the days of Moses while receiving the Ten Commandments that there is one God and we are to worship only that one God. But even while we have grown up knowing there are three parts to our one God, it is hard to understand when we really try to think about it and very confusing to explain to a nonbeliever. This is something that is truly about faith because the essence of God is unexplainable. I had a professor once tell me that we make the statement and then we don’t try to explain it because we don’t even fully understand it.

But of course, throughout history people have tried because to nonbelievers the idea that we say such a strange thing makes them think we’re crazy and so we try to rationalize our faith. However, faith is not rational and God is never going to be fully explainable because we’re just not up to God’s speed! However, there’s an old Abbot and Costello sketch that tries to explain the Trinity that I’ll share with you.

Costello goes up to Abbot and says, “Bud, you’re a very smart man and you know many things. I bet you know a lot about religion.” Abbot: Well, yes Lou, I do. What would you like to know about religion? Costello: Last weekend I went to the park and there was a church group having a picnic and they had a big sign the said “Holy Trinity Church”. Well, Bud, I’ve driven around town and I have seen churches named St. Peter, St. Paul, St. Joseph, St. Thomas, but I never heard of this St. Trinity. Who is this St. Trinity? Abbott: Trinity is not a saint, Lou. Trinity is one of the ways that all Christians have come to understand God as revealed by Jesus Christ when he came to earth to live among us. The Trinity is God, One God – Three Persons, God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. Costello: That sure sounds like three gods to me. Abbott: No, Lou, one God, three persons – It’s a mystery Lou. Costello: Well, Bud, come to think of it, this is a very big world and universe and there are lots of people for God to watch. So probably the Father works the day shift, the Son the night shift and the Holy Spirit the graveyard shift.

Abbott: No, Lou. No shifts. God’s working all of the time. Costello: O.K. so if God’s working all the time, it’s still a very big world, so maybe God divides it up in thirds – a third for the Father, a third for the Son and a third for the Holy Spirit. Abbott: No, Lou, no thirds, no divisions, God is undivided. Lou scratches his head for a minute and then says to Costello: Well, Bud, let me ask it to you this way. I think God must be a baseball fan – after all the first words of the bible say “In the Big Inning”. Abbott: No, Lou, it’s “In the beginning” not “In the big inning”. Costello: Any way, Bud, you know how I like baseball. So let’s say that God’s team was playing a baseball game and God’s team was up to bat. The Father hits a single – Who’s on first? Abbott: God. Costello: Then the Son comes up and hits a single. The Father goes to second base and the Son goes to first base. Who’s on first?

Abbott: God. Costello: I thought God was on second base. Abbott: That’s right. Costello: O.K. – then the Holy Spirit comes up and lays down a perfect bunt. The Father goes to third base, the Son goes to second base and the Holy Spirit beats out the throw – Safe at first. Who’s on first? Abbott: God. Costello: I thought God was on second and third. Abbott: That’s right Lou. God’s on second and third. God is on first too. God is on all the bases. Costello: I don’t get it, Bud. Well, Bud can’t explain it and Lou can’t get it. And I can’t explain the mystery of the Trinity and we can’t get it. It is beyond our human comprehension to grasp the concept of the Trinity – three persons in one God, each fully God.

Abbot trying to explain the Trinity to Costello is a perfect example of the Great Commission and the Trinity if you think about it. Whenever you play a sport, the only thing you are concerned about is winning. If God has created a baseball field for us and God is on all three bases as the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, who does that leave on Home Plate for the swing? It leaves us. God is trusting on us to bring everyone home. This is why Jesus sent out the disciples, why Jesus continues to send us out.

We’re a called people and God has asked us to share God’s love with everyone we meet. That means understanding a little bit better the nature of our God and that means trying to understand the relationship between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. God is pure love and unity, and we are made in God’s image. It means while there are different parts to each of us that we show the world, we’re still just one person and yet we’re also a part of a whole community. We are called to work together, to love one another, to help each other, and to seek to know God by being more like Jesus every single day. We become more like Jesus by listening to the Holy Spirit’s voice and remembering the sacrifice of the Father in giving us His Son, a part of God’s self that lived and died and was raised from the dead for our salvation.

When we understand the true depth of God’s sacrifice for us, then we can share the Gospel with others with humility and awe which holds great power for someone that has never heard of our Lord and Savior. The point about the Trinity is not that we have the perfect illustration, the point is that we learn about relationships, covenants, love and sacrifice by recognizing God has three distinct parts while still maintaining God’s oneness. We understand that Jesus is God and that means God died for us. We recognize that the Holy Spirit which we claim is in our hearts means that God is in our hearts. God, the unknowable and almighty is inside of your heart and will always be a part of you.

It’s a miracle we carry inside of us. And once we recognize that, how could we not behave and think differently? How can we not have joy and peace? God is truly with us and will always be with us because God loved us enough to make us a part of God. We are blessed beyond measure.

Amen. 

Jesus Christ's Representatives

Acts 1: 6-14
1 Peter 4: 12-14, 5: 6-11

When Jesus is lifted up into the heavens, the disciples find themselves gazing upward in amazement and trepidation. The one they have devoted their lives to; the one who had promised them great and amazing things would begin to happen had just left them. Jesus had left them to fend for themselves. They had to have felt hurt and lost and a little bit terrified. And so they stood there, gazing up into the afternoon sky and found themselves wondering, “What’s next?”

Well, two angels appear and tell the men to stop looking upward and start looking around instead. There are things to be done whether Jesus is here in the flesh or in the Spirit. Jesus had prepared them for this moment and it was no longer necessary for him to be there for the disciples to do great things in Jesus’ name. The training wheels were off and now it’s time for them to try this on their own.

If we wait until we feel ready and in control of everything, we would never get started on things, would we? Jesus understood that. When it comes to change, when it comes to doing something different and great, we never feel ready. We get comfortable where we are at and even if we’re miserable, we don’t want to change our circumstances because at least where we are at is something we can handle. The disciples may have had some scary days in the last 3 years, especially in the last 40 days, but they knew they could handle it because Jesus was always there to help them through it and to teach them how to overcome it.

But now Jesus was gone. Jesus had been lifted up into the heavens and they were standing there all alone and now they knew for sure, Jesus wasn’t coming back like he had before. He wouldn’t suddenly arise from the dead in three days. Yes, he had promised he would come back eventually, but he’d never given them a timetable or told them that it would be in their lifetime. They were on their own and they probably felt very alone.

Just like we are on our own and sometimes we feel very alone as well. But we’re not. Jesus may have been lifted up into the heavens, but he promised something amazing. He would send us the Holy Spirit to guide us, to teach us, and to protect us in His place. Jesus knew that we are always going to fall short of perfection; he knew that sometimes we would feel lost and that we would need some guidance. And next week, we will celebrate Pentecost where the Holy Spirit is given to every person that proclaims themselves to be a Christian.

The disciples didn’t really know what that meant, however. They had to stop looking up at the heavens and start looking around at what was going on in the world. They needed to reorient themselves. This reminds me of new Christians. The fire and zeal they feel when they first start to learn about Jesus Christ and the miracles he performed and the greatness of his actions. The idea that God had come to earth and became a human being, to suffer and die for us so that we could always be with God. It’s so amazing that new Christians become overwhelmed. Their heads are in the clouds and they walk around with these new ideals and ideas in their heads and Jesus Christ in their eyes.

New Christians often try to do everything at once. “I will never swear again!” they proclaim. “I will give 10% of my income to the poor and the church!” they continue. “I will never again say a bad word against Sam in cubicle 12 or my Aunt Tracy again!” they exclaim. “Every time I have a bad thought I am going to pray to God to remove those thoughts from my head!” they promise fervently. “I will not gossip, covet, lie, or disrespect anyone ever again because Jesus loves me and I love Jesus! I will honor Jesus by being a better person!”

Sometimes I feel cynical. I hear new Christians say things like this and I remember back when I did the same thing. How I would promise never to use curse words again. How I would promise not to gossip or to think bad thoughts and how I was going to pray and read my bible every single day without fail because Jesus Christ died for me. I mean, it’s the least I can do, right? Somewhere along the way, we forget that zeal and passion for Jesus and we fall into an acceptance of our imperfections.

Maybe we get tired of feeling like a failure, and so we tell ourselves that new Christians still have their heads in the clouds and don’t understand reality yet. They don’t understand that they will curse when they stub their toe on the coffee table, and they will sometimes overdrink at the office party and talk bad about Sam in cubicle 12. They don’t understand reality, we tell ourselves. It’s how we justify our lack of passion.

But what if the new Christians have it right, but are just going about it in the wrong way? The disciples had to have been feeling the same way. They probably told themselves that without Jesus as their moral compass they needed to be better people. They needed to pray more and study the scriptures. They needed to not gossip or swear or lie. The disciples were now representatives of Jesus Christ for the world. They did need to be better than their fellow citizens.

Which means as Jesus’ disciples, WE need to be better than our fellow citizens. New Christians may think they will never lie or gossip again, but we know better. However, that doesn’t mean we aren’t able to stop ourselves from using lies to make our life easier and we can certainly prevent ourselves from opening our mouths to talk about others behind their back. If it is not something we would say to their face or discuss with them, then it is probably not something we should be talking about with anyone. New Christians think they can keep up this level of intensity all the time, but it’s a gradual process.

It’s kind of like exercising. When New Years rolls around, everyone wants to lose weight and they go out and buy new clothes and equipment and gym memberships. The first few days they’re working out constantly and barely eating anything. Their intensity level burns them out quickly and before long they’re sneaking into the fast food drive through for a burger and shake! Well, new Christians do the same thing with their intensity and then they become like us. Burned out on hopes and slightly cynical.

We need to start gradually. We need to acknowledge sometimes we will fail. The disciples didn’t get it right all at once either. We’re human and fallible. We’re going to make mistakes, but by the grace of God and through the guidance of the Holy Spirit, we can be better people than we were the day before. We can be a good example for the rest of the world. We can be accurate and good representatives of Jesus Christ. Because I think we forget that whether we acknowledge it or not, whether we think we are important or not, we ARE ALL representatives of Jesus when we proclaim ourselves to be Christians.

That means to someone who has never heard of Jesus, the way you act and behave says to them that is the way Jesus would act and behave. I don’t know about you, but that suddenly makes me a little more aware of all the things I do wrong in a day. It suddenly makes me wonder how many falsehoods about Jesus I am showing the world through my actions and my words and my thoughts.

Which means we need to start doing something about it. Just like the disciples. They had their heads in the clouds with Jesus when the angels came and said it’s time to look around and see what you can do here on earth. What can we do here on earth? How about an extra prayer today? How about a deliberately kind thought about someone you normally harbor anger against? How about actually saying something nice to Sam in cubicle 12 and calling up Aunt Tracy to talk? How about not taking the easy way out by lying or not spreading the gossip you heard about your neighbor? How about saying thank you to God for what you have in your life now instead of coveting what you don’t have?

Start out slow. Start with one extra kindness and good deed, thought and prayer a day. Work your way up until it feels natural and you’re doing it all the time. We’re not always going to be perfect, but we are always Jesus’ disciples and therefore we are always his representatives. We are the example others look at to figure out if they want Jesus in their life. The best way to spread the Good News and to spread Christianity and to get people into the church is to be a living example of Jesus Christ.

That kind of passion and love and sincerity cannot be faked or rushed, however. But we can do it. The disciples did it, and we can as well for we ARE Christ’s disciples. Each and every one of us makes an impact on this world whether we realize it or not. And we’re not alone in what we’re trying to accomplish. Jesus promised us the Holy Spirit as our guide and we have each other in this church to lean on. We can be a better church and a better people and a better example of Christ by working together.

Amen.