Things Get Worse Fast - Cain and Abel

May 28, 2017              7^th Sunday of Easter                Genesis 4

            One day Adam was walking along with his sons Cain and Abel.  They came across the ruins of the Garden of Eden.  His sons asked, “Dad, what is that place?”  And Adam replied, “That boys, is where your mother ate us out of house and home.”

            It’s a silly quip but it points to just how fast things fall apart for us humans.  In one scene Adam and Eve get expelled from the garden.  In the very next scene we have the first murder.

            Biblical scholars don’t know what exactly how to interpret the story of Cain and Abel.  What was wrong with Cain’s offering?  Did he have the wrong attitude?  Was his offering given grudgingly while Abel’s was willingly?  If Abel was a herder and Cain was a farmer is this the first instance of battle between farmers and ranchers?

            Most of them realize that these are the wrong questions to ask the text.  It wants us to come at it from a different direction.  But before we get to that, let’s note that this is the first story we’ve encountered in Genesis that is actually just a straightforward story.  As far as I can tell there’s no symmetry, and no patterns, and nothing fancy.  However, interpreting it from the direction the author intended does tell us how to interpret the whole of Genesis.

            If you were here last week you may remember that the first five books of the Bible, Genesis through Deuteronomy, form a literary structure of nested parallels.  Like those little Russian dolls that fit one inside another and inside another and another until you can barely believe there’s something left in the middle.

            So it is with Genesis through Deuteronomy.  Jews call these books the Torah and they are the heart of Jewish scripture.  The rest of the prophets, the psalms, proverbs and all the other stories are secondary.  And what is the core of the Torah?  Leviticus 16 where God gives Moses instructions for the Day of Atonement.  These were instructions for how people were to be restored to right relationship with God – or returning to at-one-ment with God.

            I suggest you use that as a lens to interpret everything you read in Genesis through Deuteronomy.  I don’t promise that everything will make perfect sense if you do that.  But you will pick up on the overarching theme of how to be in right relationship with God.

            The story of Cain and Abel is not about the two brothers so much as it’s about God.  It is about what God does and how God acts in light of human brokenness.

            You know the story.  As the story goes Cain is the firstborn, the first human to actually come about by birth.  Adam and Eve are crafted by God.  Cain can point to who is father and mother are.  Let your mind dwell on that thought for a moment.  God has instructed Adam and Eve to populate the world.  Their offspring are the height of creativity.  Adam and Eve are the first ones given the power to create beings in the image of God.  From the story’s perspective it is quite an honor.

But is Cain going to live in an honorable way?  The first thing we learn about this man is that he is a farmer.  The second thing we learn about him is that he makes an offering to God from what he has raised.  The third thing we learn is that he is jealous of God’s preference to his younger brother.  And of course the fourth thing is that he kills his brother.  So much for human creativity!  As the story goes Cain is not only a murderer, he brings about the first death ever. 

Now let’s look at it from the point of view of God’s actions.  When Adam and Eve mess up does God kill them – the punishment they are supposed to receive for their disobedience?  No. 

I was never a good sculptor.  In art class I groaned every time the teacher brought out the clay.  Oh, it was fun to squish it around and make shapes, but my talents were at their limits when I made a snake.  That’s about all the more complicated I could get.  Everything I ever tried to do ended up a non-descript lump.  Or a few times I did actually make something it usually collapsed.

Of course the good thing about clay is that when you mess up you can smash it and start over.  But easy as that is, does God do that with Adam and Eve?  Why not just smash these two messed up lumps of clay and start over?  Keep trying until you get it right and have something worthwhile!

But that is not what God does.  God does not kill them.  God is merciful and lets these messed up lumps of clay live.  It is Cain, a human, who exercises the power that causes death first. 

If I was in art class and I finally came up with a clay sculpture that looked like something and didn’t collapse under its own weight and then someone else came along and smashed it, I would not be a happy camper!  I’m not sure what I’d do, but it might involve taking my clay and making a highly accurate impression of the person’s face with it!

Is that what God does?  Does God then smash Cain?  No, God is merciful once again.

We’re going to discover that as we read through Genesis.  God is merciful over and over again.  I know it is easy to look at the Bible and think that the Old Testament is all about God being wrathful and the New Testament is about God being gracious, but not so.  The Old Testament is full of God’s mercy and grace too.

Now, does God say, “It’s alright Cain.  I know you were jealous.  You acted in fear and ignorance.  I forgive you.  Let’s try again.”  No.  There are consequences, there is accountability.  God tells Cain, “And now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand.  When you till the ground, it will no longer yield to you its strength; you will be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth.”

And there is also mercy.  When Cain says, “My punishment is greater than I can bear!  Today you have driven me away from the soil, and I shall be hidden from your face; I shall be a fugitive an a wanderer on the earth, and anyone who meets me may kill me.”

The story goes on to say that God puts a mark on Cain for his safety.  I wouldn’t spend too much time thinking about what this sort of mark would be.  The idea is that God provides protection for Cain.

We find again this story lacks credibility.  For by the story line there are only Adam, Eve and Cain at this point, yet Cain is worried about non-existent people killing him.  But as before, do not take these stories as literal historical accounts.  They never were intended to be.  They are intended to teach you about God and being in relationship with God.

So, what do you learn?  If you mess up, even messing up really big time, like deliberately killing another person who is created in the image of God, God responds.  God responds with both mercy and accountability.  If there weren’t accountability God would be nothing but a big puff ball.  Evil would run rampant.  God brings about accountability but the final word is mercy.  God does not kill Cain for his sins either.  God acts mercifully to him and even provides for his protection.

In your life of faith may you find God’s mercy.  And when accountability comes may you learn from it so as not to repeat mistakes.  Ultimately God does desire to gather us all up into his kingdom where the brokenness and sin and evil will be no more.  When we can be united and fully be as God intended always.

God Creativity - Near and Far

May 14, 2017              5^th Sunday of Easter                Genesis 2:14-25

            Last Monday the radio talk show by WXXI, Connections with Evan Dawson, featured a debate over faith and science.  Guests were Dan Courtney, an atheist activist in Rochester and The Rev. Eric Thompson, pastor of St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Dansville.  Overall I felt the conversation went poorly, and it started off with the question that to have faith, or to believe something without (or in spite of) evidence, do we risk raising kids to be poor reasoners?   Dan Courtney agreed whole heartedly.  Rev. Thompson had a very articulate defense.  He made a number of points that I found myself thinking, “I wish I could come up with stuff like that!”  And yet when all was said and done I felt like Rev. Thompson was apologizing for faith and the Bible in light of the scientific method; essentially conceding that it is a product of the limited world view of ancient people. 

I say use the scientific method in the natural sciences.  And use the scientific method in your faith, especially in Bible study.  The Bible is a tough old book.  It can take anything and everything you want to throw at it.  Please, I beg you, please use the scientific method in your scripture studies, because along the way you’re sure to uncover many profound truths.

In a few weeks we’ll get to the Noah’s Ark story in Genesis.  I think that will be a good point to show a full behind the scenes view of the creation of the book of Genesis.  But for today, let’s use some scientific thought processes to open this writing to something more than its surface depth.

Last week we looked at Genesis 1.  It is the famous creation in six days account that sparks the evolution vs. creation debates.  Why people insist on Genesis 1 giving science is beyond me.  It is written in a poetic form and it lacks internal consistency, but people overlook those facts and insist on literal interpretation.  Then many people with good intentions unknowingly compound those mistakes by thinking Genesis 2, where we meet Adam and Eve, is a detailed continuation of Genesis 1.  But it isn’t.  Genesis 2 is an entirely different account of creation. 

If we open our minds we don’t have to get far into it to pick up that we’re in a different story.  Forget using fancy literary critical methods, the text tells us straight off:  How many days does creation take in Genesis 2?  One day.  Verse 4b reads, “In the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens…”  Then there’s the fact that things are created in a different order.

In Genesis 1 God creates land and seas, then plants, animals, and finally humans.  What is the order of Genesis 2?  God forms man, “Adam”, which means of dust, or of earth.  Perhaps we could call him Earthling or Earth Dweller.  Then God plants a garden in the east, in Eden.  Then God creates animals.  Finally, since this is Mother’s Day I’ll say, “Saving the best for last,” God creates a woman, or Eve.  Eve literally means “womb”.

So, the order of creation in Genesis 1 and its timeframe cannot be synchronized with Genesis 2.  Many people look at this and come to a very logical, but erroneous, conclusion.  Their logical, but erroneous, conclusion is that the author of Genesis is an idiot.

This is where you need to employ your critical thought processes rather than start apologizing for the Bible.  When we get to the Noah’s Ark story we’re going to see clear evidence that Genesis is not the work of one author.  It is a composite work by at least three authors.

When we read Matthew’s gospel I said repeatedly that we were reading the work of someone trained in the teaching techniques of the ancient Hebrews.  We discovered the ancient Hebrews often wrote with complex structures and patterns.  We also discovered that the ancient Hebrews would use contradictions in order to teach a deeper truth.

It goes without saying that Genesis comes from the ancient Hebrews.  We should expect to find the same techniques employed there too.  Next week I’ll show you that the entire Garden of Eden story is not a linear storyline but actually symmetrical; a collection of nested parallels.

Make no mistake.  The creator of Genesis was not an idiot!  He was brilliant.  And I believe God was inspiring him to share God’s actions in creation.  But how to do it?  He’s going to do it the way he knows how.  He clearly and deliberately put Genesis 1 and 2 side by side.  I know full well they contradict each other.  The creator of Genesis knew that too!  But he knew we needed both if we’re going to grasp God’s creative work.

 Take Genesis 1.  You find that God is this majestic and powerful creator.  God speaks.  Things happen on a cosmic scale.  God is big.  God is bigger than big!  Have you ever stared up at the stars on a cloudless night and been in awe of how big it all is?  Does it make you feel tiny and insignificant?  Leave Genesis 1 as the only account of God’s creative activity and we are left with a cold, distant, and impersonal God.  We are left seeing God as imperious and demanding, and we are but a speck of insignificance.

Enter Genesis 2.  Does God speak from a cosmic distance and command?  No.  If you can, vividly picture Genesis 2:7.  “Then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground…”  I imagine God kneeling down in the dirt and with God’s own hands deliberately and caringly shaping a man from the dirt.  Verse 7 continues, “…and [God] breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.”

Can you feel how close, personal and intimate this portrayal of God is?  God might be big and vast and cosmic.  But God carefully and deliberately crafted you.  And God crafted the person sitting beside you too.

God does not leave this human in a vast desolate earth.  God plants a garden.  God puts the man in the garden.  God sees that man is lonely and so God seeks to create a community for the man.  In partnership with the man God crafts all the creatures and names them.  None of them suffice for partnership.  So God also crafts another human, a woman.  And God, the man, and the woman share community in the garden.

I love scientific thought and exploring the origins of things.  As I said last week, don’t try to force Genesis to give you science.  You’re asking it to give you nonsense.  But it will give you truth that you need.  Science can’t tell you that you’re worthwhile.  Science can’t tell you that someone cares.

Genesis 1 teaches that God is majestic and powerful.  Genesis 2 teaches that God is careful, personal and loving.

Other biblical authors knew of the contrast between Genesis 1 and Genesis 2.  What are the first words of Genesis?  You know them well: “In the beginning…”  What are the first words of the Gospel of John?  “In the beginning…”  And then John goes on to describe the God we discover in Genesis 1:  “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God.  He was in the beginning with God.”

Now let’s swing to John’s account of the resurrection, close to the end of the gospel.  We read it as our gospel reading.  What was the setting?  A garden.  And we meet a man who is mistaken for the gardener.  And we meet a woman, a woman with a dubious past.

You know the story of Adam and Eve.  They mess up and God the gardener chucks them out of the garden.  It is no mistake on John’s part that, as he describes the resurrection, the garden is back.  The gardener is back too.  And this time, the woman with a messed up past is not chucked out.  Did she earn her way back into the garden?  Nope.  The gardener earned the way back for her.

I feel like a broken record as I repeat it, but the biblical authors aren’t idiots.  They’re brilliant.  Our problem is to let them speak on their terms, rather than demanding they speak on our terms.

When left to speak on their terms their voices are clear, powerful, and coherent.  And you are wise to use logic and rational thinking to meet them there.  God is big – Genesis 1.  God is tender and caring – Genesis 2.  God is forgiving – John 20.  Our ancestors messed up.  We mess up too.  But by Christ we are invited back in the garden anyway, only as a foretaste now, the fullness will come in the resurrection.  And along the way God’s Spirit is always with us.  

Creation Accounts on Their Own Terms

May 7, 2017    4^th Sunday of Easter                Genesis 1:1-2:4a

            As you may know there are lots of things that happened that didn’t make it into the Bible.  Here’s something about creation that didn’t:

God created the donkey and told him: you will work tireless from sun up to sun down, carrying heavy bags on your back, you'll eat grass, you will not have intelligence and you will live 50 years. You will be a DONKEY!
      
      The donkey answered: I'll be a donkey, but living 50 years is too much, give me only 20 years. And God gave him 20 years.
      
      God created the dog and told him: You will look after the man's house, you will be his best friend, you will eat whatever they give you and you will live 25 years. You will be a DOG!
      
      The dog answered: God, living 25 years is too much, give only 10. God gave him 10 years.
      
      God created the monkey and told him: You will jump from branch to branch, you will do silly things, you will be amusing and you will live 20 years.
      
      The monkey answered: God, living 20 years is too much, give me only 10 years. And God agreed.
      
      Finally, God created man, and told him: You will be Man, the only rational being on this earth, you will use your intelligence to control other animals, you will dominate the world and you will live for 20 years.
      
      The man answered: God, I'll be man, but living 20 years is not enough, why don't you give me the 30 years that the donkey refused, the 20 years that the dog did not want and the 10 years that the monkey refused.
      
      That was what God did, and since then, Men live 20 years like a man, then he enters adulthood and spends 30 years like a donkey, working and carrying the load on his back, then when his children leave home, spends 15 years like a dog, looking after the house and eating whatever is given to him, then he gets into retirement, and spends 10 years like a monkey, jumping from house to house or from children to children, doing silly things to amuse the grandchildren.

Of course the creation account of Genesis 1 is far more serious and significant than that.  If ever a part of the Bible caused Christians serious problems in recent decades it is Genesis 1.  All too often it creates debates of creation vs. evolution.  Some Christians insist that God created the world in 6 days just like Genesis 1 literally says.  At the other extreme are scientifically minded skeptics who say Genesis 1 is a creation myth from the ignorant past, and anyone who believes its truth is laughably stupid.

            Of course there are many in between who attempt to reconcile the extremes.  They point out that Genesis 1 does go from greater chaos to more and more order, just like evolution.  They say that days don’t have to be taken as literal time periods, but they can be any length of time.

            Indeed this approach has its appeals, but as for me I reject both extremes and the middle!  To think it is literally true is to insult your intelligence.  At the other extreme, if you chalk this up as just a creation myth from the ancient world you do so at your own peril.  And if you take the appealing middle of the road approach you rob this story of its profound meaning and what it reveals about God and the world you live in.

            Never try to take a literal approach to Genesis 1.  Don’t do it because the text doesn’t want you to!  Notice it lacks internal logic.  There is light and darkness, days and nights, but the sun and moon aren’t created until Day 4.  I’ve seen footnotes in Bibles trying to wiggle out of this, but their arguments are nonsense.  And then there is the bigger logical problem of Genesis 2.  Genesis 2 is a different creation account which contradicts Genesis 1 in many places.  The biggest one is that in Genesis 1 it takes six days.  In Genesis 2 creation takes one day.

            We’re going to look at Genesis 2 next week, but for today just note that the creator of the book of Genesis was not blind to the fact that he put two contradictory stories side by side!  As we read through Genesis we’re going to discover that it is a finely and expertly crafted piece of literature.  The author wasn’t ignorant and he didn’t make mistakes.

            I say we need to let Genesis 1 speak on its own terms, not someone else’s.  We can’t use it to support our agenda.  It wants to create our agenda.

            What is it then?  It is an ancient Hebrew account of God’s power and activities.  It teaches you about God, about yourself, and about how you are to live in creation.  Learn from it and you will be blessed.  Balk against it and you will suffer.

            It is impossible to know this for sure, but the best a scientific study of the Bible can tell you is that Genesis 1 was probably created by a Jewish priest some 2600 years ago.  Unfortunately we do not have time to look at creation accounts from other middle eastern religions at the same time period.  If we did though, we’d discover the backdrop of thought this text is speaking to.

            Other cultures say there are multiple gods.  Other cultures have good gods and bad gods.  Some gods make mistakes.  Some do stupid and destructive things.  There are all sorts of mythical creatures and tales. 

What is the truth that Genesis 1 points to? 

-There is one God and only one God. 

-When this one God speaks things happen.  You know the phrase, “Talk is cheap”?  Well not with our God.  God’s word delivers results.

-What God creates is deliberate, thoughtful, and good.  Genesis 1 is in poetic form.  That’s why we read it the way we did.  You’ll notice the refrain after each day, “And God saw that it was good.”

-Another truth is that it is God who creates order out of chaos.  If you follow astrophysics and creation sciences you may have heard the phrase, “goldilocks conditions.”  The idea is that in an infinite universe there will be places where it is neither too hot nor too cold – things are just right – and in those places molecules can cluster and energy can become concentrated, and if things get even more perfect there can be complex chemical reactions and maybe even complex enough to be called life.

            I say that is pure nonsense!  I don’t say that from a faith point of view I say that from a scientific point of view.  I’ll never forget my college thermodynamics professor saying, “We let the biologists have their little creation myths, but we know it can’t work.”  In the natural world things always go from forms of higher order and energy to lower forms of energy and order.  Never ever the other way around.

            Where there is order and concentrated energy there is the creative hand of God at work… always.  The author of Genesis 1 recognized that.

-Genesis 1 warns us that if you mess with God’s created order you do so at your own risk.  Even very simply, you know never to mix bleach with ammonia.  It gives off a poisonous gas.  Ruth Halvorson told me that Knute would often come home from working in quarries and excavation sites and his clothes were filthy and stained.  She’d dump bleach and ammonia together in the washing machine to get the dirt out.  She did it because it worked.  When she told me that I looked aghast and said she’s lucky she didn’t kill herself and Knute.  She said when she found out she immediately stopped, but she didn’t know.

            Bleach and ammonia are a simple mix, but it speaks to much larger issues.  I grew up at the edge of anthracite coal mining territory.  Don’t process mine waste properly and you have an environmental disaster on your hands.  Handle radioactive materials wrongly and you’ve got an even bigger mess on your hands.

            God created a certain order to things.  We are smart creatures and can tinker with God’s created order.  That’s okay, but we must use care lest we unleash a disaster of chaos.

            I could go on and on about what Genesis 1 teaches but I want to end with one more thing.

            In Genesis 1 God creates in six days.  Then God rests.  If God rests we need to too.  If we live life working constantly and rushing from place to place we’ll burn out fast.  Rest is important.  It is in the created order of things.

            And along with that.  God creates in six days.  God rests on the seventh.  What does God do on the eighth?  God goes right back to the creative process.  God’s creative work continues even into today.

            Genesis 1 wants you to look at the world around you in awe and wonder.  God is so big that even the forces of nature obey him.  Everywhere you look, from your own body to the farthest of stars, you see the fingerprint of God’s action.

            Reject Genesis 1 and you’re living in a cold heartless universe.  Accept it and discover that God invites you to be a part of his creative enterprise.  Be bold, but be careful.  Genesis 1 tells you to enjoy creation and be in awe of God.

            Unshackle Genesis 1 from the creation vs. evolution debate we humans have bogged it down in and let it make your imagination soar; as it was intended to do.

            The universe is big.  Your God is bigger. 

The Great Commission

April 30, 2017             3rd Sunday of Easter   Matthew 28:16-20

            Here we are, the end of Matthew’s gospel.  We’ve read all the way through.  These five short verses a jam packed with key words.  They pull together just about every major theme in the gospel, and they point us to what we should do now that we’re here.

            Verse 16 starts off with some very basic math.  The eleven disciples…  We know there used to be twelve.  We’re down by one.  In Chapter 27, the climax of the gospel that we read on Good Friday, we learn that Judas kills himself.  His remorse is too great.  He goes to the religious leaders to return the money but they reject him.  It’s impossible to get inside the mind of Judas, but imagine the desperate depression of seeing that a friend is going to be executed wrongly.  You had a hand in it.  You try to undo your mistake but it is too late.  You turn to your faith but the religious leaders reject you.  What Judas does is not defendable, but he was in a situation where it felt like the whole world was crashing in on him.

            Judas wasn’t the only disciple who failed.  In 26:35 all of the eleven other disciples promised they would never desert Jesus.  Peter was the most vehement of them.  Yet every last one of them fled at Jesus arrest.  But before that they all fall asleep while Jesus is praying and greatly agitated.  After they flee Peter does manage to pluck up enough courage to follow at a distance, but you know the story well.  He denies that he even knows Jesus three times over before the rooster crows.

            Put yourself in the situation of Matthew’s original readers.  Times are tough and many are persecuted for their Christian faith.  It’s not at all unusual for someone to renounce their faith in fear or pain.  It is good for them to know that even Jesus’ closest disciples also failed.

            Then look at what the eleven do in contrast to Judas.  Despite their failings they obey Jesus.  He tells them to meet them on a mountain in Galilee and so indeed they do.  Jesus doesn’t condemn them for their failures, but accepts them and we’ll see in a couple minutes that he even empowers them.

            But first, there is what I think is a translation mistake.  That mistake has a huge impact on how we understand Matthew’s entire gospel.  Our English reads, “When they saw him they worshipped him; but some doubted.”  There’s no word “some” in the original Greek.  So it should read, “When they saw him they worshipped him but doubted.”  All of them worshipped, and all of them doubted.  The resurrected Lord is there right in front of them: real, solid, tangible; yet they doubt!

            The whole scene with the disciples is shaky.  They’re struggling to understand.  They’re struggling with their forgiveness.  And they’re struggling with their beliefs.  Matthews wants us to know that doubts go hand and hand with faith.  All too often I’ve heard pastors proclaim that if you believe thoroughly enough and have absolutely no doubts then your faith will be stronger.  Then you’ll be able to pray with certainty.  Then you’ll know God better.  But all of this ignores the truth Matthew presents.  While he wants faith to win the day he knows that doubts are going to be part and parcel with it.  Ultimately Matthew teaches that the opposite of faith is fear, not doubt.  And while a certain amount of fear is healthy, fear can lead to paralysis.  That is what Matthew wants to avoid.

            So, despite the disciples numerous shortcomings Jesus gives them what we call the “Great Commission:  “All authority…”  Remember back to the temptation of Jesus by Satan in the wilderness at the beginning of his ministry.  What does the Satan say to Jesus, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.” (4:9)  But look who really has authority now!  And again, consider Matthew’s original readers in their lives of persecution.  If all authority has been given to Jesus then they need not fear anything else claiming to have authority.

            Anyway, moving on: “All authority in heaven and earth has been given to me.  Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.”

            This shaky bunch of eleven disciples fresh from their failures is commissioned to spread the gospel throughout the world.  How could Jesus entrust something so important to a bunch of so woefully unqualified people?!?  If it were me I’d do a marketing study first – who am I trying to reach, how do they think, what will I have to do to connect with them?  Then I’d form a search committee of industry experts.  They’d scour the land, maybe employ ‘head hunters’, to identify and recruit potential candidates.  Then I’d interview them.  I’d see if I liked them and if they fit with my ideals.  Then I’d offer contracts and we’d negotiate.  They’d need to be relocated too. 

            But that’s not what Jesus does: fishermen, a tax collector, and a bunch of other ordinary tradesmen are the people he trusts.

            There’s no way to prove the authenticity of Christianity, but with this bunch there is no logical reason why Christianity should have survived if it weren’t for the serious support and ongoing nourishment of the Holy Spirit.  Judaism was started with a nation.  Islam was started by a charismatic leader and an army.  Buddhism was begun by a wealthy aristocrat.  Christianity?  One itinerant preacher and eleven first-century nobodies.

            At the end of the Great Commission Jesus promises the key thing, “And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”  More closely translated it is, “Behold, I with you, I Am, to the end of the age.”  Of course “I Am” is the name of God.  So, I Am is with you until the completion is with you.

            This is good news for the first people who read Matthew’s gospel.  In their fearful state of persecution they know that Jesus is with them always.  They need not fear.  They also can be bold to spread the gospel in the uncertain world around them.

This is also good news for us.  The Great Commission has never really been easy to fulfill.  It has always been challenging.  And it is growing harder every day.  Though we aren’t persecuted for our faith, the world around us is certainly uncertain.

At the church council retreat a few weeks ago we talked a lot about the future and direction of this church.  We noted the difficulty of engaging the Millennial Generation in church activities.  This generation often identifies itself as spiritual but not religious.  Some find Christian faith to be an outright turnoff.  Many find Christian faith to be an interesting faith expression, but not something to commit to; certainly not the core commitment to build life around. 

At best we could say that evangelism in America today is trying to present Christian faith in the least offensive light.  There seems to be no interest in its strengths, and no willingness to make a significant long-term commitment.  For those who love the church and want to see it flourish in the future, the future looks bleak.

But let’s take a lesson from our Lord in Matthew’s gospel.  We’re no better equipped to evangelize in this world than the original disciples were.  But we do it anyway.  The Church is God’s; yesterday, today, and tomorrow.  God is with us always, until God brings all things to completion.  And so we should not fear the future.  We should not worry about the Church.  God will do what God wants to get done.  Our job is the same as the disciples – to always authentically let the love of God show in our lives.  Sometimes that’s easy.  Sometimes it’s hard.  Our job is to share.  God’s job is to do the rest.

            So, I’ll end with Matthew’s final words from Jesus, “Go therefore to all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and teaching all that I have commanded you.  And behold, I am with you to the end of the age.

When the Truth is too Inconvenient

April 23, 2017             2^nd Sunday of Easter                Matthew 28:11-15

We consider ourselves to be logical people.  Show me proof and I’ll believe it.  Can’t show me proof?  Then expect me to remain a skeptic.

Or are we really as logical as we think?

Why then are there braille instructions on drive-up ATMs?

Why do drug stores make sick people walk to the back to pick up prescriptions while health people can buy cigarettes at the front counter?

Why do people order a double cheeseburger, large fries, and then a Diet Coke?

Why do people fill their garages with worthless junk while their cars worth thousands of dollars sit outside?

This has improved somewhat, but still, hot dogs come in packages of ten while buns come in packages of eight.

Why is lemon juice made with artificial flavoring buy dish soap contains real lemon juice?

And why oh why do jars of peanut butter have the label, “Warning, contains peanuts”?

Here’s the truth.  We’re emotional creatures.  We like to think that we like proof, but we don’t really accept proof when the truth is too inconvenient for us.

I think our gospel writer Matthew is playing on this human tendency when he writes about what the guards at Jesus’ tomb do after the resurrection.  First of all there’s the bizarre task of guarding someone’s tomb.  This is not an honor guard like The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.  From their perspective this is the tomb of an itinerant preacher whose followers all fled at his arrest.  I wonder what the guards talked about the whole time?

Whatever the case, we first met these guards on Good Friday when the chief priests and the Pharisees ask Pilate to have the tomb guarded.  Why guard the tomb?  They said to Pilate, “Sir, we remember what the imposter said while he was still alive, ‘After three days I will raise again.’  Therefore command the tomb to be made secure until the third day; otherwise his disciples may go and steal him away, and tell the people, ‘He has been raised from the dead,’ and the last deception would be worse than the first.”

Yep, there’s going to be deception going on, but it won’t be from Jesus’ followers.  As I just said, they all fled!

We meet these guards again at the resurrection.  You’ll remember if you were here last week that these big bruisers are so scared they act like dead men when the angel descends and rolls back the stone.  Meanwhile, the two women visiting the tomb are indeed afraid, but not to excess. 

But now the guards really are in trouble.  In those days if you were a prison guard and the prisoners escaped they didn’t exactly put you on paid leave while there was an investigation as to what happened.  If the prisoners escaped the guards were killed.  It tended to reduce corruption in the prison system!  So what is going to happen to guards guarding a dead guy who escaped from his tomb?!?

They go to the chief priests and tell what happened.  And let’s notice more parallels between these guards and the women.  The words Matthew uses are exact.  The women go and tell the disciples.  The guards go and tell the chief priests.  They are telling the same story – an angel, a stone rolled back, and a tomb sealed tight that is empty.  One group, the disciples, will respond positively.  One group, the chief priests, will respond the opposite to the same set of facts.

You’ll remember that the chief priests were worried about a deception by the disciples but who is doing the deceiving now?  In verse 12 we read that they devised a plan to give a large sum of money to the soldiers and tell them to perpetuate the lie: “His disciples came by night and stole him away while we were asleep.”  And if it comes to Pilate’s ears the chief priests will provide a cover up.

Notice a parallel with Judas too.  How much do they offer Judas to sell out Jesus?  30 pieces of silver.  A few weeks ago we calculated that silver was worth $256.65.  How much do they offer the guards?  We aren’t told.  It’s just, “A large sum of money.”  Also, on Maundy Thursday we read that Judas repented and went back to the chief priests trying to return the money.  He says, “I have sinned by betraying innocent blood.”  But they said, “What is that to us?  See to it yourself.”

Did they really care about Judas at all; Judas who is a fellow Jew and countrymen?  How about the foreign Roman soldiers who do not respect the Jewish faith or sovereignty?  They basically say, ‘Don’t worry.  We’ll cover for you.’

Don’t judge these religious leaders too harshly.  I don’t know if Matthew wants us to be offended by them, to roll our eyes at them, or to laugh at them.  The truth is they’re a lot like us.

We don’t like the truth when it upends our lives.  No amount of proof will change our minds if it is too inconvenient.  I’m not talking about nebulous things like climate change or potential dangers from immigrants.  I’m talking about real solid impact our lives directly things.

I remember a speaker at a seminar talking about this.  He said in crowds of senior citizens he sometimes asks everyone who’s had bypass surgery to raise their hand.  Then he asks how many of them changed their eating habits after the surgery.  Almost no hands go up.  One time he said I guy even held up a doughnut when he raised his hand!

My doctor says it is so discouraging that he wants to try to make people well, but what they really want is a prescription to fix their problems.  He says what people really want is for him to is to medicate against their lifestyle choices.

Families can be incredibly blind to the truth.  You may see it in your own extended family.  One person can never be right or good or successful no matter how much he or she accomplishes.  Yet another family member can do no wrong no matter what.

            A few years ago I did some hospital visits for a colleague.  The father had run a stop sign and caused a serious accident.  The mother was seriously injured, and while she would survive, she would never fully recover.  Yet the father blamed the driver who hit him.  The mother blamed the driver who hit them.  And the children blamed the other driver.  And all the other family members blamed the other driver.  Dad could do no wrong, despite whatever the evidence was.  That’s just the way some families work.

            Proof does not carry the day when the truth it points too is too inconvenient.

            We find this in the religious leaders.  No amount of proof would convince them that Jesus was resurrected.  They would go to great lengths to deceive and cover up.

            We do well to remember this in our own lives as Christians.  We are commissioned to spread the gospel throughout the world.  We’ll read that next Sunday.  But proof won’t convince anyone.  You can’t force someone to believe, not really.  Just like you can’t really force someone to change their mind.  You can’t legislate morality.  You can’t make a person have a loving heart.  Even the religious experts of Jesus’ day point blank refused to see what God was doing.

            And so, live the gospel.  Believe the good news of God’s love.  Spread it.  Share it.  Rejoice in it.  But know that it is not within your power to make someone else a Christian.  That is God’s work.  We do well to remember that God works in God’s own ways.  May we truly rejoice that it has been God’s work to bring his goodness to us.

Resurrection, the Possible Impossibility

April 16, 2017             Easter Sunday             Matthew 28:1-11

We all like things to be clear, crisp and straightforward.  We want to know what is right and what is wrong.  Is it true?  Is it false?  One of the things I found appealing in high school level science classes, and introductory chemistry and physics in college, is that the world seemed to fit into such neat and tidy categories.

But then I started to get into upper level classes.  Class work became not only more complex, but also less precise.  Right and wrong wasn’t so clear anymore.  One class in designing foundations for buildings and bridge piers always stands out in my mind as the epitome of uncertainty.  We were to design the footing for a bridge pier in a swamp; having no bedrock to speak of.  Steel or wooden piles would have to be driven deep into the muck, but how deep and how many?  There are mathematical equations you can use and scientific research to help you, but you don’t get anything definite.  All my classmates and I came up with the best answers we could.  Then to be sure we doubled or tripled the strength of our designs to make up for all the unknowns and to have a good factor of safety.

The professor said we were all wrong.  He said we should be using a factor of safety of at least five if not seven.  Five to seven times stronger than necessary!  And then he said something I’ll never forget.  “You use a factor of safety of five to seven; and then you just hope it stands.” 

You just hope it stands?!?  That’s the best you can do?  All your brilliance and all your resources and you just hope it works!  I don’t like that answer.

We long for life to be simple, but it’s not.  We want clear answers, but we don’t get them.  We want there to be no ambiguity, but it exists everywhere.

These days many people consider Christian faith and the Bible to be childishly simplistic; quaint at best, an insult to intelligence at worst.  If you’ve been here in worship over the last few months you’ve heard almost the entire gospel of Matthew read.  You know well that it is anything but simple or childish.  It is more like the work of a literary genius expertly using the highly sophisticated Jewish storytelling style.  You know well that Matthew likes complex things.  He’s not afraid to wade into even the murkiest of waters.  And he’s not afraid to leave his readers scratching their heads.

If you ever deeply immerse yourself in Matthew’s resurrection account you discover that it is loaded with contradictions and impossibilities.  You almost wonder if Matthew isn’t toying with you the reader and getting a good laugh at your expense.  There’s also a lot of subtle humor.

I want to look at just one – the most obvious one - and let it also speak for the rest.

Matthew sets the scene for us:  It is dawn on Sunday.  Mary Magdalene and another woman named Mary go to see the tomb.  They aren’t going to be able to do much because according to Matthew guards have been posted at the tomb to insure no one steals the body and claims he was resurrected.

The women get there.  We aren’t told how long they wait but suddenly there is an earthquake and an angel descends from the sky.  I don’t know how you picture an angel, but I wouldn’t imagine some cute little cherub with wings and a halo.  No, picture a muscular body builder; totally ripped.  Matthew says his appearance is like lightening and his clothing is white as snow.

He’s so terrifying the guards shook and became like dead men – appropriate given that they’re already in a cemetery!  The women are terrified too.  The angel says to them, “Do not be afraid; I know that you are looking for Jesus who has been crucified.  He is not here; for he has been raised, as he said.  Come, and see the place where he lay.”

Did you put your detective hat on and pick up on the problem?  The tomb is sealed with a stone.  It’s guarded.  An angel comes down and rolls the stone away.  And the next logical thing that has to happen is that the resurrected Jesus walks out of the tomb and says something like, “It’s good to be alive!”  Or, “Wow, what a night!”  Or, “Being dead can give you such a crick in your neck!”  But he doesn’t walk out of the tomb!  Despite being sealed with a stone and guarded by soldiers the tomb is empty!

Where’d he go?  Is Jesus a ghost?  If so, then where is the corpse?

The women don’t get it either.  Nothing makes sense.  Dead people stay dead.  Sealed and guarded tombs just don’t turn up empty.  Every clear, logical, reasonable, scientific understanding of reality they have is gone!  But it gets weirder.

In their fear and confusion and joy they run to tell the disciples.  Suddenly Jesus meets them!  How can this be?  How could he have gotten ahead of them?  They come to him and clasp his feet and worship him.

They clasp his feet?  Okay, so he’s not just some nebulous spirit.  He’s real.  He’s solid.  But then, …how did he get out of a sealed tomb?

If you’re familiar with all the recorded resurrection appearances of Jesus you know that they are all strange.  Jesus comes and goes through locked doors.  He suddenly appears, then just as suddenly disappears.  Yet he lets people touch him.  He talks to people.  He eats with them.  One time he even builds a campfire and cooks breakfast for some of the disciples.

Critics of our faith have long looked at these accounts and labeled them the imaginative ramblings of Jesus’ early followers who just wouldn’t accept that their leader had been executed.  We must admit that they have a point.  Doubts easily creep into our hearts too.

Yet if you’ve learned anything about Matthew as we’ve read his gospel you discover that he’s not an imaginative rambler.  At the very least you must admit he is a literary genius.  Of course that doesn’t prove anything at all, but it does show that you are learning about your Savior in the hands of a thoughtful and careful teacher.

I’m quite certain that if Matthew could have given us bedrock proof of the resurrection that we could build the bridge pier of our lives upon in absolute confidence and certainty he would have done so.  But that is not the nature of faith.  And that is not the nature of life.

Reality is not like a high school science class, is it?  You know that I love to push science to its limits – the absolute extremes of what the human intellect can discover.  Take quantum physics – that’s about as far as you can get:

Time is relative, not absolute?  Matter doesn’t really exist without energy?  Distance is an illusion?  Quantum physics tells us that everything we think is solid and reliable and predictable isn’t.  All of those thoughts prove nothing, certainly nothing about God and nothing about Jesus’ resurrection.  I can’t prove that.  No one can.  But in my mind at least, as I encounter what Matthew (and other gospel writers) have done, I realize they are struggling to grasp the ungraspable.  They are speaking of realities beyond what any human mind can comprehend.  Inasmuch as they can, they are describing God and what God has done.

It is pretty hard to expect someone to believe something that you can’t even describe to them.  It is sure to leave doubts.  That goes for anything: faith, science, history, philosophy.  But as we read on in Matthew’s gospel we’re going to discover something remarkable.  Matthew knows his readers are going to have doubts.  He knows they’ll struggle to believe the resurrection actually happened.  That it was for real, and not just a fairy tale.  

In two weeks we conclude our reading of Matthew’s gospel and we’ll discover that doubts and disbelief are actually part and parcel of Christian faith.  Said differently, Matthew’s gospel teaches that to have faith is also to have doubts.  For Matthew the opposite of faith is not doubt.  The opposite of faith is fear.

What Matthew does ask us to do is to trust in God.  In the children’s sermon I talked in very simple terms about good guys and bad guys; would that life really were so simple.  But simple or complex, full of doubts or solid in belief, we trust.  We trust that God is indeed capable of making good on promises.  And that those promises will be make good on in this life and the next.

Whether you believe whole heartedly or are riddled with doubts, whether your life is simple or complex, and whether all things are calm and in order or if your life feels like chaos; trust in God’s goodness and God’s ability to do the impossible.

Judas and the Unnamed Woman

April 9, 2017  Matthew 26:1-16

Our gospel writer Matthew has put two short accounts of events side by side and I think he intends us to contrast them.  The first is Judas agreeing to betray Jesus.  The second is the unnamed woman who anoints Jesus.  Let’s briefly look at each one individually, then see a contrast between the two, and then apply that contrast to our world today.

We’ll start with Judas.  He may be the most notorious villain in history.  Thus far we haven’t heard much about him though.  He’s only mentioned once before; Chapter 10, Verse 4.  There’s he’s just mentioned in the list of disciples, but he is noted as the one who betrays Jesus.

Even though Judas hasn’t gotten the individual spotlight he has been with us all along.  Every time Matthew mentions, “the disciples” we know Judas is among them.  Today though, notice that it is Judas who goes to the religious leaders.  He takes the initiative.  They have not put up “Wanted” posters for Jesus.  Many people want to clean-up Judas and invent motives for him.  Some suggest that he thought he was actually helping Jesus by getting him in front of the chief priests.  That would end this cat and mouse game that’s been going on for the last few days.  Some suggest that since Judas was part of God’s plan he should be forgiven.  Whatever the case, all of that is between God and Judas.  Matthew leaves Judas no excuses.  Judas comes into Jerusalem with Jesus and the other disciples.  He’s there for a few days and then decides to betray Jesus.  He goes to the leaders and says, “What will you give me to betray him to you?”  They offer him 30 pieces of silver.

Thirty pieces of silver is significant.  Our first reading was chosen to point that out.  In Exodus 32:31 we learn that 30 shekels of silver is the price of a slave.  If you injure one of my slaves so severely that he or she dies or can no longer work you would owe me 30 shekels for my loss. 

A shekel was approximately 14.5 grams of silver.  I looked up the current trading price of silver and on April 3^rd it was $0.59 per gram, or about $8.55 per shekel.  So for 30 shekels it would be $256.65.  So, Judas sells out his Lord and Savior for the price of a slave… $256.65.

I hope you are insulted.  Most people will do just about anything for the right amount of money, but most people wouldn’t betray a friend for $256.65!  Matthew wants us to be absolutely appalled at Judas here.  From then on Judas looks for an opportunity to hand him over.  Judas is filth.  Judas is scum.

Now we turn to a different person also on the bottom.  An unnamed woman comes to Jesus while he is at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper.  Notice that while we are told the name of the house owner we are not told her name.  John’s gospel suggests that it was Mary the sister of Martha.  Many people have speculated that it is Mary Magdalene.  Who knows?  Those ideas come from other sources.  I think it is important to note here that she is not named.  I believe that is deliberate.

She pours an entire container of very expensive ointment onto the head of Jesus while he at the table presumably eating.  This act was certainly bold!  I can just imagine such a scene with every social convention being broken.  You just don’t do this sort of thing!  The disciples are understandably angry.  They say, “Why this waste?  For this ointment could have been sold for a large sum, and the money given to the poor.” 

Now notice some contrasts with Judas.  Judas is named.  This woman is not.  Judas sells Jesus out for $256.65.  No amount is given for the value of the ointment.  Judas is in the innermost circle of Jesus’ followers.  This woman has nowhere appeared.  If you imagine this to be a stage show it is as if she just walks onto the stage, does her thing, and then walks off again never to return.  Yet which of the two is the better disciple?  Which of the two understands what is really happening to Jesus?

Jesus says, “Why do you trouble the woman?  She has performed a good service for me.  For you always have the poor with you, but you will not always have me.  By pouring this ointment on my body she has prepared me for burial.  Truly I tell you, wherever the good news is preached to the whole world, what she has done will be told in remembrance of her.”

            This may be puzzling to us, but let’s keep it in context.  In the Interpretation commentary of Matthew (pg. 294), Douglas Hare points out that rabbis debated the relative merits of helping the poor and burying the dead.  They considered burying the dead to be a greater priority because it could only be done at a certain time while the poor could always be helped; plus it was a personal service or connection.   In other words, this may well have been a common understanding of the time. 

Whatever the case, she is certainly a mark of a faithful disciple.

I suspect Matthew is being deliberate but subtle when he contrasts evil Judas, with specifics and details, while good comes in the form of an unnamed woman who does an extravagant act of unknown value.  What is the subtle message?  That evil is limited.  It is contained.  It can be defined.  By contrast good is unlimited, uncontained, unbounded by anything.

You may remember that Matthew’s original readers were all too familiar with bad things happening.  They could probably give the names of people who acted just like Judas turning in relatives for ransoms and betraying friends.  Evil seemed all too strong.  It was all too close every day.  By contrast God’s good work felt weak and nebulous.  Jesus wasn’t coming back as quickly as they thought.  Their faith wasn’t making their lives more bearable.  It was making their lives worse.

Today we do not face this same situation but I think the same tendencies happen.  Look at the news on the TV, the radio or in print.  Most everything is about problems, failure, crises.  Our politicians of both political parties know that creating fear gets them votes.  If they can make you think that a decision or some legislation is going to create a doomsday scenario, you’ll probably join in reacting against it.

What’s the most effective way of getting elected?  Is it mostly putting forth the goodness of your agenda or is it tearing down your opponents agenda?  There’s some of both but I think the balance is on showing how your opponent will be bad.

Where does the news about successes and good things usually appear?  Late in the newscast, near the back of the newspaper section.

I think we subtly believe that the world is a generally bad place and failure and evil lurk everywhere trying to undo us.  Good seems all too small; all too weak.

What does Matthew’s gospel teach us?  Evil is not limitless.  It is bounded.  Actually it is quite small: $256.65.  God’s good work: too big to be defined, too big to be limited by names, too big to get a dollar amount.

Our challenge is to ignore the world which would think all is falling apart and we must keep unlimited evil at bay.  Instead trust that God is working and that God is good.  Good triumphs always.

Now, that triumph will not be easy.  Jesus certainly isn’t going to have an easy time of it!  Good can be exceptionally costly.  But it overcomes, always.

May you trust in God’s goodness and fear the bad, which is really quite limited and definable.  And may your life know the goodness of God now and every day.