February 26, 2023 Lent 1 Matthew 17:14-24

             It’s tax season.  It is said that the only two sure things are death and taxes.  You know the story of Jesus well enough to know that he does die by crucifixion.  And, from our gospel reading it looks like not even Jesus is immune from taxes.  The strange thing is that in the particular tax there it seems as if it is voluntary.  Some collectors of the temple tax come to Peter and ask, “Does your teacher not pay the temple tax?”  Does that mean that not paying the temple tax is an option?  Maybe Jesus was immune from taxes – but he pays them anyway.

            This particular temple tax is worth noting.  At the time of Jesus it was generally assumed that all loyal Jews would pay the two-drachma temple tax, precisely who should pay, how often, and how it was related to scripture was disputed.  How much a drachma was worth in those days is debatable.  Everyone agrees, though, that it is a small amount of money – less than a dollar.

            It originated with Nehemiah 10, where leaders of the Jewish population took it upon themselves to make a yearly donation to support the temple.  Later the Pharisees considered every male Jews throughout the world liable for a small annual fee, and they rooted it in Exodus 30.  The Sadducees thought it should be a voluntary gift and not an imposed tax, from which priests were exempt.  Historians of the era, Josephus and Philo say that Jews spread throughout the Roman empire also contributed to the temple.  The reclusive Qumran community, understood the tax to be a one time only contribution. 

            So, when Peter is asked if Jesus pays the tax it is an interesting question, and it could categorize Jesus into a particular sect of Judaism. 

            But we also have to remember that while Matthew writes about events that happened in the 30’s of the first century, he is actually writing from around the 80’s.  There was a different religious tax then.  You’ll remember that the Romans destroyed the temple in the year 70.  So, that would mean that for Matthew’s readers there’d be no more temple tax, right?  I mean, how can you pay to support what isn’t there?!?

            Well, the Romans weren’t so nice.  The Roman government had imposed a corresponding tax of two drachmas on all Jews for support of the temple to Jupiter in Rome.  Now we’re talking a matter of conscious.  Could you, a Jew; or could you, as a follower of Jesus, pay a tax to support a religion that was not your own?  That sort of thing doesn’t happen in the United States but it does happen in other countries.  How does it feel when your hard-earned money is used by the government in ways you find offensive?  In our case we live in a democracy.  But what if it was a country where you have no say at all?  I don’t like having my hard earned efforts taken to support something that is opposed to me, and then I don’t even have any say in the matter.

            Money is an interesting thing.  It is the fundamental way in which we live and convey value from one person to another.  If you have money you have power.  You can do things.  You can make things happen.  If you don’t have money then you have little power.

Money can be used foolishly.  Money can be used to exploit.  Money can let you get away with things.

Money can also equip you to help others.  It lets you make a positive difference in the world.    

Money can also be fundamental in helping us make value decisions.  If a car is damaged in an accident the insurance company will make a decision if the repairs will cost more than the car is worth.  There, money is a practical tool to determine if it’s a worthwhile investment of resources.

            Good or bad, practical or foolish, money is an interesting thing, especially when it comes to its relationship with faith.  Money helps us – you and me, humans – get things done.  But does God need our money?

            Could God not also get things done by other means?  Of course!  And that creates a very complicated thing for us.  Money is so central to our lives.  God invites us to use our resources and abilities for good, and yet God doesn’t actually need any of it at all.  There’s nothing we can buy, do, donate, or make that God can’t get done by some other means. 

            Does that mean we should just stop?  Should we stop using our money to help other people – perhaps stop giving to charities and church; or perhaps stop helping a parent or friend; or perhaps stop helping our children, even if they are very young.

            We live in this strange duality where so many depend on us and yet our money and efforts are simultaneously completely irrelevant! 

            Jesus says to pay the temple tax so as not to cause offense, even though the tax itself is nothing.  And the early Christians being forced to pay taxes to support the Roman temple to Jupiter should do so without a pang of conscious.

            With this bizarre contradiction we move a step back and look at the initial story in our gospel – the inability of the disciples to cure an epileptic, Jesus successfully curing the epileptic, the disciples asking why they couldn’t, Jesus says because they have little faith, and then says that if they had faith the size of a mustard seed they could move mountains.

            What?!?

            On the cover of the worship bulletin it says, “Jesus says that if you have faith the size of a mustard seed that you could move mountains!  Mustard seeds are tiny.  Does that mean that our faith is even smaller than that of a mustard seed?  That is good math but flawed theology.”

These passages from Matthew’s gospel do not make sense easily.  But if you spend some time dwelling in them you can see what is going on.  We should not infer the guilt-inducing conclusion that when hoped for miracles fail the problem must be our lack of faith; and that if we had “enough” faith we would be able to avert all tragedies and heal all afflictions. 

Neither can we infer that faith is somehow a power in and of itself that can do the supernatural.  It is God who acts, not an attitude called “faith”.

Faith as Jesus talks about it here is not a quantity at all; hence the tininess of a mustard seed.  It is instead a relationship of practical trust with the God to whom we pray. 

When it comes to the power of money, or the power of faith, or the power of prayer it isn’t about power at all.  It is about trust.

Let’s go back to whether the followers of Jesus should pay the tax to the temple to Jupiter.  Yes, pay it so as not to give offense.  But is it actually giving anything of real value?  No.  So don’t get fussed about it.

At the same time, God has equipped you with tremendous power and ability.  Your prayer, your abilities, your money, your time, your emotions are all quite capable – when they are applied to the world in an attitude of trust with God.

Said differently, it isn’t how much – not how much as measured in earthly standards – but the relationship of trust that it is applied with.

Your time, money, and other resources are only as powerful as your application of them in relationship with God.  With God anything is possible. 

Ask for God’s guidance in prayer first thing in the morning when you get up.  As God’s guidance in prayer when you plan out your calendar.  As God’s guidance in prayer when you put together your shopping list.  As God’s guidance when you’re giving someone advice, or making a medical decision, or figuring out a problem.  God’s guidance will be with you, even if you are having a hard time feeling it, and then you will always act in confidence.

 

February 19, 2023 Transfiguration Matthew 16:13-17:13

             I recently watched the Netflix movie Founder, which is about the birth and growth of the McDonald’s Corporation.  It is necessary to keep in mind that the movie simplifies things, and it interested in creating a villain and good guys, so I won’t credit it with much in the way of historical accuracy.  But the movie form does portray a dynamic all too common in the world.  Brothers Dick and Mac McDonald open a speedy service restaurant focusing on a simple menu of burgers, fries, and drinks.  Impressed by this concept, often-failed salesman, Ray Kroc offers to help the brothers expand the restaurant through franchising.  He struggles for a while and has limited success.  He becomes upset with the original brothers because they will not compromise on quality even though very small compromises could lead to much higher profits.  But Kroc is locked into his contract and so he must obey.

            Eventually, however, Kroc meets a man who has a clever property ownership scheme that will allow Kroc to see much greater profits from the franchises he is setting up without violating his contract.  His success quickly grows and in no time he has eclipsed the original brothers by the sheer magnitude of his wealth.  He starts to openly violate the original contract.  The original owners realize they cannot compete with the massive high-price legal team Kroc has assembled.

            And so, we see the original values of high quality food made from authentic ingredients, good employee care, and a certain wholesomeness to the whole operation get crushed by greed.

            A look at many of the industrial titans of our nation show the same thing.  Henry Ford was a scoundrel almost beyond compare.  Thomas Edison stole patents regularly.  Names like Rockefeller, Carnegie, and Vanderbilt are all synonymous with greed that crushed integrity.  The fastest surest way to make a lot of money is by exploiting people.  If I make an ironic twist on a doxology: as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever.  That is the way of humanity.

            Of course Jesus does not teach that.  Jesus taught the opposite.  It is no surprise that many people who live by Jesus’ teachings get crushed in the process.  But following Jesus is more than just being righteous in the face of a greedy world.

The gospel reading stretches from Matthew 6:13 to 7:13.  It covers a lot of territory, but the beginning verses bring up themes that go through to the end.

Jesus is with his disciples and asks who do people say that he is.  The answer John the Baptist, or Elijah or one of the prophets.  Then Jesus asks, “But who do you say that I am?”  Peter gives the famous answer, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”

Yay Peter for that insight!  Yay Peter for the revealer of the Father’s truth!

But Peter doesn’t fly high for long, does he?

With his identity known to the disciples Jesus goes on to explain the way he will be the Son of living God.  He will die. He will not just die, but he will first suffer at the hands of the religious leaders.  This is too much for Peter.  Peter says a very logical thing, “God forbid it, Lord!”  It is as if Peter thinks Jesus has become demon possessed and he needs to perform an exorcism.  What nonsense is this that Jesus spouts?  How can the Son of God be killed?

Then Jesus turns the exorcism back on Peter, “Get behind me, Satan!  You are a stumbling block to me;”  And notice the punch line.  Jesus does not say you are setting your mind on evil things or Satanic things or greedy things.  Jesus plainly says, “You are setting your mind not on divine things but human things.”

We see the unsettling truth that the human point of view is not a neutral point of view, but actually an evil point of view.  Perhaps we could look at the greed of the Vanderbilts and the Carnegies and say their ways were evil.  We could then stay in our own little realm of wholesome human righteousness.  But Jesus’ response takes it a step further.

The best way that I know how to get at that is to make a contrast between Christianity and Islam, for that is the way to get at the whole scandalous truth of Christianity.  I do not say the “scandalous truth of Christianity” lightly.  When Jesus tells Peter he is a, “stumbling block” he uses the Greek word “skandalon” (skandalon), from which you can easily tell comes our English word scandal.

We have to remember that our faith is a scandal to our intelligence, to our sense of logic and reason.

I’ve used the contrast between Christianity and Islam before.  I do so carefully because I do not want to portray Islam in a negative light.  It is just the most succinct way to do it.

Jesus plays a significant role in the Qur’an.  He is considered to be a major prophet – a major revealer of the truth of God.  Islam can celebrate Jesus.  However, where it diverges is that it rejects the idea of Jesus being crucified.  While Islam accepts the idea of the death and martyrdom of faithful followers, it cannot accept the idea of one of the prophets being killed.  No, the prophets, God’s messengers, will receive divine protection from earthly killing.  That does not mean the prophets will have an easy life.  To the contrary.  They will probably have a very difficult life.  But the prophets will not be killed in the line of doing God’s work.  They will die naturally.  They will certainly not be rejected and executed by the religious leadership.

The cross is a scandal.  All of human logic would say that God protects the faithful.  God would not let them be killed.  Yet we make the cross the central symbol of our faith.  Jesus says, “If any want to become my followers let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”

That is not the same as living a dignified life of righteousness.  A dignified life of righteousness lets you live with your hands clean and your public integrity in tack.  A dignified life of righteousness lets you set yourself up as an example of virtue for others to emulate.  You walk with pride.  You look at other needy people and, even in your humility, you still see yourself as being above them.

The crucifixion of Jesus saw him shamefully hanging in public surrounded by other criminals being executed.  There’s no pride in that.

Yet Jesus says, “For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.”  These verses must be handled carefully.  It is not about self-hate or self-denial.  Self-hate and self-denial just lead to emptiness.  Just giving up things will not make you a follower of Jesus.  It will just make you empty.  It is an orientation of life that is not focused on self at all, but it is living in the confidence that the future is truly and fully in God’s hands.  You focus there, not on yourself, not on human objects or status or honor.  It is just a focus on God.

It is to believe that God has acted decisively and ultimately in Jesus.  People make a mistake if they think Jesus’ words are some sort of good advice on how to live.  That’s pretty foolish if you think about it is the way Jesus lived that got him killed!

Let’s end with this final thought.  Living the way I just described is pretty hard.  I’m sure there are days when you feel strong and capable and able to overcome every challenge.  And there are days when you feel God’s presence strongly at work in you.  (Of course you can deny yourself and take up your cross and follow Jesus!)  But there are surely also days when it doesn’t feel like that at all.  It may be many days, months, seasons, years of life even.

Learn from Peter’s example.  One minute he is praised for his faith.  The next he is being likened to Satan.  He sees the amazing transfiguration on the mountaintop and he denies Jesus three times over when Jesus is arrested.  Yet he is a faith-filled disciple.  So know that the times of failure and weakness and questioning are all a part of it.  That should be no surprise.  It is not a smooth easy path of glory.  It is a journey with ups and downs, but know that God is indeed with us always.

February 5, 2023 Wisdom and Innocence Matthew 11:20-30

We’re going to make an intellectual dive; at least to start. We’re going to come out through our gospel reading, and hopefully some practical applications for life, but we’re going to start at a far different place.

We’re going to start with feminine images for God.

For decades I’ve felt a push from some scholars to consider the Holy Spirit to be feminine. At its best, it is an attempt to draw our understanding of God to be something more than exclusively masculine. I agree completely that we fundamentally misunderstand God if we picture God as only male. The problem is that using the Trinity to do that simply creates a mess. The Trinity is described as: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Well, it is of course tough to make the case of Father as feminine. It is similarly tough to make the case of Son as feminine. The Holy Spirit seems like the perfect place. The justification for doing so is that the word for spirit in Greek is a feminine word. Greek words have gender.

The most obvious problems to this are that you’ve made a very weak argument at best. Also, that you’ve ignored the Gospel of John, which distinctly refers to the Spirit as “He”. And finally (and perhaps most disastrous) you’ve made a fundamental mistake of interpretation that Christians easily make without knowing it.

The idea of the Holy Trinity does not exist in the Bible. It is a doctrine that began to form in the early church. It was complex and controversial. So in the 4th century, when Christianity became legal, the Council of Nicaea did, among other things, work to hash out the complexity. The result is the Nicene Creed.

Now don’t get me wrong. There is nothing whatsoever wrong with the Nicene Creed. However, it is easy for us to put the cart before the horse. It is perfectly possible to read the Bible and logically come to the doctrine of the Trinity we find in the Nicene Creed. But you’ve put the cart before the horse when you’ve decided to use the Nicene Creed as a lens to see the Bible. The result is at best a stretch. At worst it is total garbage.

When you try to make the Holy Spirit feminine you are doing things backwards. The Bible has a highly developed masculine understanding of God. And, it also has an equally highly developed feminine understanding of God. But if you keep reading it through Nicaea, you’ll never see it.

Underneath our gospel reading for today is a very rich feminine understanding of God. We easily miss it. That’s mostly because Jesus refers to God as Father. But the biblical authors don’t make a crisp male/female distinction in God. It is we who read that into it. It’s also because it is not direct. Jesus’ words there are based on ancient Jewish wisdom literature. And to the ancient Jews, Wisdom, or Woman Wisdom, was the feminine expression of the Divine. We saw that in the first reading from Proverbs 8.

Woman Wisdom/Divine Wisdom, not human cleverness called “wise” as Jesus criticizes in what he says in verse 25, is the revealer of God’s hidden truths. Here these words from the book of Sirach, which is ancient Jewish wisdom literature that Jesus references but isn’t in Protestant Bibles:

Sirach 51:23-30

23 Draw near to me, you who are uneducated,
and lodge in the house of instruction.
24 Why do you say you are lacking in these things,
and why do you endure such great thirst?
25 I opened my mouth and said,
Acquire wisdom for yourselves without money.


26 Put your neck under her yoke,
and let your souls receive instruction;
it is to be found close by.


27 See with your own eyes that I have labored but little
and found for myself much serenity.
28 Hear but a little of my instruction,
and through me you will acquire silver and gold.


29 May your soul rejoice in God’s mercy,
and may you never be ashamed to praise him.
30 Do your work in good time,
and in his own time God will give you your reward.



Do you see where Jesus is getting it when he says, “Come to me, all you that are weary and carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden light.”

Here Jesus is the revealer of God’s hidden truths. Actually more than that, he is the Divine Wisdom.

When we allow this ancient feminine understanding of God to speak with its full voice in this gospel reading, we start to understand its words for us today.

We start to be stunned by this passage from Matthew because all of those who should recognize the revelation of God taking place in their midst fail to get it.

Last week we read that John the Baptist, who had baptized Jesus, who knew his own unworthiness, and had heard the heavenly voice did not get it. Also those who had their own games to play and found that neither John nor Jesus met their own criteria of what God should be like, didn’t get it.

In our gospel reading today Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum, where Jesus had lived and worked didn’t get it.

The scholars and the wise, who could explain much but missed the revelation in their midst didn’t get it.

Those who did get it were the “babies,” the unpretentious “little ones” who made no claims, but could be given the gift of revelation, which comes from God alone.

When we talk about receiving God as a child we aren’t wrong to say that it is to receive God with childish innocence. Nor are we wrong to say that it is to receive God with childish dependence. But we aren’t grasping the whole picture if we don’t include that to receive God as a child means that we receive it as a simple gift.

Do you come to understand God, do you come to have faith in God, through: logic, reason, education, philosophy, and other human tools? You can certainly use all of those things to develop a more rich grasp of God. But none of those things will create faith or point you towards God.

To receive God as a child means that we receive it as a simple gift.

That is an easy simple concept. And it plays out across our entire lives.

When you receive something as a simple gift that you did not earn it doesn’t allow for pride, or arrogance, or haughtiness, or rudeness. (You may note I’m pulling on 1 Corinthians 13 there.) It creates humility, an authentic -and ironically- deeply powerful meekness, and creates a serenity of purpose within yourself. That is the kingdom of God at work within you. That is what Jesus brings. That is Wisdom.

Let the world play its games of pretense and wealth, its shallow games of looks and entertainment, its lies of fulfillment and purpose.

Instead, we discover in Jesus the invitation to learn and become a disciple. We discover a life orientation towards God’s kingdom. We realize that while the yoke is easy and the burden is light, we do not feel content to sit back and do nothing. No, we feel “response-able” in the world around us. And we give thanks and praise to God for the gift that leads to it all!

January 22, 2023 Disciples First Missionary Work, Matthew 10

             In our gospel reading Jesus sends his disciples out on their first missionary journey.  I believe the only directive that Jesus gives that unsettles us more than the idea of going out and spreading the gospel is the one of selling all that you own and giving the money to the poor!

            Now, that one may unsettle us more.  We’ll cover that when we get to it.  For today we focus on going out and testifying.  We should ask ourselves why that so unsettling for us.  I think answering that will go a long way to making us more comfortable with it, and also make us more effective at it.  Because ultimately the same command comes to us.  Some things haven’t changed.  The harvest is indeed plentiful, and the laborers are few!

            I think part of our discomfort with testifying is that we’ve all been annoyed by a Jehovah’s Witness or Mormon who greets us at our door and annoys us by wanting to talk about faith.  We’ve probably also at some point experienced someone on an airplane or similar place we can’t escape decide to evangelize to us.  Christianity can easily come across as annoying.

            Many of us may have been taught that faith is something you keep private.  You don’t really talk about faith outside of church events.  You may not even talk about it much at home.  Americans are known for: championing rugged individuality, being a ‘self-made man’, or being capable and independent.  There is something weak about truly having Christian faith.  Christian faith suggests brokenness, neediness, and incapability.

            In the last hundred odd years the divide between faith and science has grown significantly.  If you speak of Christian faith people think you must be an ignorant simpleton who believes myths and fairy tales.  Oh, it’s okay to be a church member, because at its best the church is a do-gooder organization, but to take it seriously and to proclaim it in public is another thing entirely.

            And then add to it the way the clergy abuse scandals rule news stories, and stories of judgmentalism and hypocrisy, and you realize just how hard it is to be public with your faith.  Our society is functionally agnostic and presses hard to keep it that way.

            My one colleague has a daughter who is in second grade.  In Sunday school she received a bunch of colorful cards with pictures and Bible stories on them.  They’re from Augsburg Fortress, our denomination’s publishing house.  You can be sure they are good quality, show critical scholarship, and are non-judgmental.  In other words, they are solidly good stuff!  This girl enjoys looking at them and imagining the stories.  A couple weeks ago she took the cards with her to school.  She was looking at them on the bus and some of her friends were curious.    So, she gave cards to everyone who wanted one.  Being a pastor’s kid, she knew she could get plenty more.

            How much more sweet, authentic, and wonderful can it get than a little girl sharing colorful Bible story cards with her friends who are interested?

            By that afternoon my colleague got a text from her teacher.  Apparently a parent of one of the kids who received a card contacted the school, who contacted the teacher, who contacted my colleague who gently asked her to not allow her daughter to pass out religious materials on the school bus.

            Perhaps we could get angry.  A child has the constitutional right to pass out religious materials on the school bus, after all!  It was not an official school lesson or anything like that.  It was not endorsed by the school or passed out through the school’s formal channels.  But still, the social pressure is very strong to not express faith in a public place.

            My colleague could fight it.  And she would certainly win the legal battle hands down.  But it would be embarrassing and ultimately counter-productive.

            Yes, keep your faith to yourself.  No one wants to hear it.  It makes people uncomfortable.  They don’t like that.

            Imagine you were at a meeting at work.  The company wants to move forward with something that is counter to your faith.  Are you going to raise your hand and object?  Are you going to say you’re uncomfortable with it because it goes against your Christian principles?  That’ll take guts if you do it!  And people will look at you like you’re weird.  If you raise ethical objections you’d better find something other than faith to base them on!

Jesus warned his disciples that the work of spreading the good news of God’s love wouldn’t be easy.  And in their case you’d think it would be very easy!  They had just heard Jesus’ great Sermon on the Mount outlining an ethical foundation of authenticity, humility, and grace for a way of life.  They’ve just witnessed numerous miracles.  You’ll remember we read two chapters full of them last week.  There’s no counter-Christian movement out there to cause them trouble.  But trouble they will have. 

It’s not easy.  It’s never been easy.  I doubt it ever will be easy.

So let’s learn five things from what Jesus tells the disciples as he sends them out with their newly minted faith.

First, their tactics are to be invitational, not judgmental.  They are not to use fear or guilt.  Every Thursday morning when I drive to Lyons to work with the church there I pass the LED sign of another church.  It usually has some message of fear or anger on it.  Last Thursday it proclaimed that Jesus is coming soon, and then red letters overlaid the frame with VERY SOON.  That’s a threat.  That’s intended to cause fear.  And Jesus never set a time frame.

Second, they are to be respectful.  If people aren’t interested, then just move on.  When he tells them to shake the dust off their feet from the towns that will not respect them he is not suggesting they become angry or spiteful.  Shaking the dust off your feet when you left a town and returned home was standard practice.  Jesus is basically saying don’t worry about it.  When it comes to consequences for their rejection of God’s messengers, the Sodom and Gomorrah reference we heard is just saying that that is God’s concern, not theirs.

Third, they are to be creative; cunning and clever even.  He says to be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.  Use your brains.  Use your creativity.  God gave them to you for a reason, so use them!

Fourth, they are to carry out their actions without fear.  If and when they receive pushback know that there is nothing that humanity can do that is ultimate.  God is the only one who can do something ultimate.

There is a fifth thing that is not exactly relevant to us, but that it will tear apart families and friends.  There will be serious conflict.  So be ready for it.  We can consider ourselves fortunate that expressing our faith will at most get us social disapproval and not imprisonment or execution.

I want to wrap up with one thing to keep in mind, especially as we have our annual congregational meeting later today.  We have a lot of work to do as Christians to overcome the highly negative attitude our society has towards Christian faith.  Much of it is deserved.  The church has indeed not acted the way Jesus taught his disciples to act.  And yet much of it is undeserved.

Moving forward, I think we need to change a lot of long-held tactics.  In the past churches tried to create programs, ministries, and fun activities to attract people.  Worship tried to be a fulfilling splash of, if not entertainment, at least a well-crafted public performance: comfortable, inviting, good preaching, good music, etc.

I don’t think high quality worship should be the end goal of churches who want to evangelize.  I’m not saying worship should be careless.  I’m just saying that if churches think a great worship service to invite someone to is the key to evangelism they’re barking up the wrong tree.  The same goes for all programs and ministry options.

We have to remember something very significant.  Jesus never taught his disciples to invite people to church.  That’s obviously because the church didn’t exist.  But then again Jesus never taught his disciples to form churches!!!  He just taught them to spread the good news of God’s love into the world and invite people to live it in.  The church is the outcome, not the goal… and not the driving force.

In other words, don’t invite people to church.  Invite people to know that God loves them with abundance.  And that embracing that love is central to living a truly fulfilled life.  True Christian faith is authentic, honest, unafraid, deeply rooted, and empathetic.  There’s nothing offensive or ignorant in that.

Whether people know it or not, that is what they are seeking.  Fortunately for you, you have found it.  Finding it doesn’t mean life’s sorrows and problems go away.  Finding it means that you can manage life’s sorrows and problems with confidence.

Live like that and you will find opportunities to genuinely share the love of Christ with people who are truly interested.  You will probably even find them in abundance.  For indeed, the harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few.

January 8, 2023 Jesus’ Testing and Early Ministry Matthew 4

             When I began doing research for today’s sermon one of the first things I came across was the phrase, “practical atheism.”  (M. Eugene Boring, New Interpreter’s Bible, Volume 8, Pg. 164)  It was in reference to Jesus being tempted to bow down and worship Satan and thus be given the whole world.  Perhaps a story of a literal historical testing of Jesus by Satan sounds passe in today’s world, but let’s not be too quick to dismiss it just because the format seems scientifically impossible.  There is a deeply real thing to that test.  It is the very same test we all face each and every day.

When the devil shows Jesus all the kingdoms of the world and says, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.” he is simply inviting Jesus to accept the status quo of the world.  It is inviting Jesus to use his skills for his own personal fulfillment.  Think of the power and glory a person who can perform miracles could have!

But you don’t necessarily have to go that far.  It’s really just live life the way the world expects you to.  Go with the flow.  Do things the way everyone else does in search of self-fulfillment.

If we think this is a test to see if Jesus will disobey the will of the Father we would be right.  We can also easily go one step deeper and find a very practical application.

I had nothing on my social calendar for New Year’s Eve.  I decided I didn’t want to watch the ball drop all by myself at home.  So I went to see the fireworks at Finger Lakes Gaming and Racetrack.  They were being launched over the racetrack.  The only way to the grandstand overlooking the racetrack is to go through the gaming floor.  So before they opened the grandstand I wandered through the rows and rows of video lottery machines.  I also kept an eye on the Ohio State/Georgia game to see how that turned out.  The final quarter was certainly spectacular!  But aside from the game, I thought the whole place was an interesting commentary on the state of the human condition.  Setting aside any wisdom or biblical ethics about gambling, it was hundreds of people mindlessly pushing buttons on the lottery machines.  They weren’t thinking in what they were doing.  They weren’t having fun in what they were doing.  They weren’t being fulfilled by what they were doing.  They were doing what?  Hoping to hit some jackpot of significance that would give them enough money to rise above the pointless mundane lives they are currently living? 

I don’t know.

I do know that more money will not buy you a more fulfilled life.  And I do know that more power will not buy your more prestige.  And I do know that more will not buy you satisfaction.

The test for Jesus was to buy into that life philosophy though.  It is “practical atheism” because it is looking to the human systems of the world for fulfillment rather than looking to God.

That really shouldn’t surprise us.  All the way back to the Adam and Eve story we find that temptation: humans, seek fulfillment on your own terms rather than on God’s terms.

Put that way it seems so simple.  Just trust God.  But the world always offers us simpler, easier, quicker forms of fulfillment – or so they seem.

Jesus is alone, starving, driven by the Spirit into the wilderness.  Is he, the Son of God, going to use his powers to rise above the limitations of the human condition?

When God isn’t giving us answers as clearly or as quickly as we want – and I think I can say we’ve all been there – the world’s answers are very convenient.  We take them.  But they take us nowhere.

In a sense, the rest of Matthew 4 is along the same lines.  Jesus calls the first four disciples: Peter, Andrew, James, and John.  They are fishermen.

Some interpreters have suggested that these fishermen were struggling with their profession.  Or that they were dissatisfied and wanted a life of meaning.  But there is nothing in the text to support those conclusions.  Sure, professional fishing was hard work.  It was then.  It is today.  But it was good, honorable, decent, and meaningful work.  Who can argue with the value of a job where you provide food for people to eat? 

Jesus’ call to discipleship upends the lives of these four men.  While Jesus doesn’t exactly immediately call them away from their families and livelihoods (we’ll hear more about that in a minute), it is a call that is a life priority that is distinctly different from what they are living.  If they become Jesus’ disciples that will take priority over the other life agendas they would be living.

The question for them is, are they going to unquestioningly continue their current life direction because it is stable, predictable and straightforward, or are they willing to let their lives be interrupted by God’s kingdom.

I say they are not exactly being asked to leave their families and livelihoods because of something else we learn just prior to them being called.  We learn that Jesus has moved from Nazareth and made his home in Capernaum.  Capernaum was probably also the home of Peter, Andrew, James, and John.  If Jesus is living there and they are to then while they may have left their nets to follow Jesus that day, they have not left their lives entirely.  I suspect that many days they did continue to fish and that they did return home.

Here is the interesting thing.  And here is where we see the way God works.  In today’s age if you wanted to start a movement to change the world perhaps you would gather some followers from around here.  You’d put together a plan and then head to Albany or Washington, along with your followers, to push for it.  You’d lobby.  You’d have rallies, or protests, or maybe even use civil disobedience.

Does Jesus do that?  Note that Jesus is not born in the power center of Judaism.  That would have been Jerusalem.  And he did not center his ministry by going to the religious and political leaders and trying to persuade them to his world view.  No, Jesus shows that God really sees no significant value in human centers of power and prestige.  God works on the outskirts with the people who are there.

We’re back to the testing of Jesus to live by the world’s ways and receive the world’s rewards, or live by God’s ways?

I think it could be said that from the point of view of many of Jesus’ followers, he was whipping up a following and then heading to Jerusalem to press for changes.  I think the religious leaders thought that was what Jesus was doing too. 

But no.  Jesus goes to Jerusalem simply to celebrate the Passover holiday.  While he knows full well what is coming, and while he does preach and teach in the temple – the center of Jewish religious power – he has not actually whipped up a following and brought them to Jerusalem to create a dramatic crisis.  Jesus is just a Jew celebrating a holiday in the holy city.  It is his opponents that raise it to a crisis. 

Practical atheism is what our society lives by.  It says there is effectively no God – or that there is effectively no God who will meaningfully be a part of your life.  Practical atheism says that you should be a good person because it is the moral thing to do for the betterment of the human system; and… if it turns out that if God really does exist then you want have a lifetime of morality to draw upon to get you into heaven.  But, practical atheism lets you be your own God.  That’s what we humans want.  We want to be our own source of fulfillment.  We want the video lottery terminal to give us a win for a life of meaning.

When Jesus says, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” he meant it in a very real literal way.  The kingdom of heaven – with its trust upon God, and its attitude of ‘there is enough for everyone to have what they need’, and that you can live a meaningful, solid, authentic life right here and right now is something for you to have.

Will you be immune from the often painful limits and realities of your humanness?  No.  Will your life be easier?  No.  But your life will be worthwhile.  It will be fulfilling even if it isn’t easier.

When Jesus says to Peter, Andrew, James, and John, “Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.” it may have been a radical life change, but it was not an earth shattering crazy daring change.  It was a change away from the world’s ways of practical atheism and into God’s kingdom.

The farther we go into the future I am sure that ways of Christianity will diverge from the ways of society.  By that I don’t mean the hot button political topics of abortion or immigration or climate change.  I do not want to minimize any of them, but they are ultimately side shows that draw us from the real truth.  The truth is where are you going to point your life for meaning.  Society’s ways will take you nowhere except ongoing anxiety and emptiness.  God’s ways, while difficult, will fill you.

It isn’t hard to start.  It takes no great revelation.  It just takes a critical look at why the world is doing what it is doing and what it hopes to accomplish.  And then turning to God’s ways of loving your neighbor and discovering the truth is there.  May you have such courage and sight.

January 1, 2023 John the Baptist Matthew 3

             Not all that many hours ago people were wishing each other, “Happy New Year!” and then we come to worship and hear John the Baptist say, “Repent for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”  Well, ‘Happy New Year to you too, John the Baptist!’

The thing is, I believe John’s repentance message can put us on the right track for the new year.  I think we can get at that by looking at a very famous person this time of year, although a fictional person, Ebenezer Scrooge.  He is certainly an example of repentance.  But it is important that we understand the true nature of his repentance.

Here is what it is not.  This is a Facebook post by Daniel Williams that has been going around recently.

Every single major life trauma to happen to Ebenezer Scrooge happened at Christmas time: his parents abandoned him at boarding school, his fiance left him, his beloved sister died. It's not like Ebenezer just woke up one day hating Christmas - it's painful for him, and so he does what a lot of us do: he ignores the pain, he tries to keep the painful reminders of his own loss at bay. So of course he gets upset and lashes out when other people (unknowingly) insist on reminding him of his trauma by telling him he *should* be in the Christmas spirit. Then what happens? An old friend recognizes his maladaptive strategy and forces him to get help from experts who allow him to: first, confront his past traumas; second, recognize other, healthier ways of coping with them; and, finally, understand the probable consequences of continuing with destructive strategies designed to avoid hurt by avoiding human relationships.

A Christmas Carol isn't a story about how you're so much better than the mean rich person. It's a story about how anyone, even the rich and powerful, can struggle with trauma.

Um, no.  Wrong.  If it’s been a long time since you’ve read Charles Dickens’ book, A Christmas Carol, or if you’ve never read it at all, I encourage you to do so.  It’s relatively short.  Lots of interpretations and adaptations have been made to it.  I think if this Daniel Williams reread the original story he’d realize just how wrong he is.  It is the right interpretation of the story that gets us to where John the Baptist is.

If you know the story well then you know that early on the ghost of Scrooge’s former business partner comes to Scrooge and warns him that he needs to change is ways or suffer the consequences.  Scrooge rejects this notion.

The first ghostly visitor, the Ghost of Christmas Past, shows Scrooge several scenes from his past.  We learn that Scrooge was indeed abused by his father and neglected as a child.  But we also learn that there were significant improvements in his father.  We learn that Scrooge had a fiancé who genuinely loved him and cared for him.  In the early days of their relationship Scrooge was loving in return.  But over time he began to distance himself from her and went down a path of greed.  She only leaves him when she realizes that despite her ongoing love, he has chosen earthly wealth over human relationship.

By the time Scrooge is done with his time with the second ghost, the Ghost of Christmas Present, we realize that Scrooge has had a change of heart.  He has decided to change.  He has decided to become a better person.

Dickens could have left the story off there.  It would indeed be the story of a rich and mean old man who has a change of heart because, and Daniel Williams says, he has seen the probable consequences of continuing with destructive strategies.  If that were the case the story would be no different than hundreds of other stories that show up on the Hallmark Channel.  If it were that sort of story it would have been forgotten in the dustbin of sentimentality over 150 years ago.

But Dickens continues the story.  There is one question remaining.  That question is, why has Scrooge changed?  If he has changed because he recognizes there will be dire consequences if he does not change, then his change would merely be a strategic move for his own ultimate gain.  But if he has changed because he has truly become a better person, then his change will not have a strategic benefit.

This is the part that Daniel Williams gets completely wrong.  Enter the third ghost.  As the ghost shows Scrooge horrific things in the future that happen to a dead person Scrooge eventually comes to realize that the dead person is him.  And he asks the ghost repeatedly -he even pleads with the ghost to know- can he, by making changes in his life, change the course of the future.

Now we are at the core of the story.  If you know the story well you know that the Ghost of Christmas Future never ever says a word.  All it ever does is point.  And so as Scrooge pleads for an answer… he never gets one.

This is where the magic of Dickens’ story happens.  If Scrooge changes it will be because he has become a fundamentally better person with no desire whatsoever for personal gain.  He will truly be generous, selfless, loving, and kind.

You know how the story ends.

This is the ultimate, deep, genuine repentance John the Baptist calls for in our gospel reading.  He is like the Joseph Marley character in A Christmas Carol.  He is telling people to repent or suffer the consequences.  But the repentance is to be absolute and real; not a strategy.

When John is so cruelly harsh to the Pharisees and Sadducees he knows that they fundamentally believe that they are good people.  At the beginning of A Christmas Carol Scrooge considers himself to be pragmatic and wise when it comes to the way he treats other people, especially those who are struggling.  I want to avoid drawing too strong a parallel between Scrooge and the Pharisees and Sadducees, but there are similarities.  If you have convinced yourself that you are good, and if you have surrounded yourself with life dynamics that affirm your goodness all the while keeping hidden the bad things that result from your life, then you feel no need for repentance.

John the Baptist did not invent the idea of baptism.  There are records from Judaism at that time that shows that Jews did have ceremonial washings.  But John is the one who elevates baptism to a one-time event meant to bring about serious and permanent life changes.  Baptism as John did it predates Christianity, but Christianity adopts it as its own initiation rite. 

For most of us living in a generally Christian culture baptism doesn’t really change much.  But in those days, being baptized into Christianity meant a serious life change.  It may mean many life changes.  It may mean stopping doing all sort of things.  It may mean changing one’s friends.  It may even mean being ostracized from your family.

And central to that is what John the Baptist had in mind – a genuine, authentic, enduring, fundamental change of heart and life direction.  No longer would a person live strategically for themselves.  No.  Now, it would be a life of genuine love and giving for the sake of God’s kingdom.

John the Baptist’s core message was, “Repent for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”  When John is arrested and goes off stage Jesus picks up the identical message, “Repent for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” 

The kingdom of heaven is when people genuinely live that life direction.

The Pharisees and Sadducees probably thought their lives just needed a little bit of a tune-up when they came to John to be Baptized.  He felt they also needed a major change in life priorities.

If you are driven to being kind and giving because it is a strategy to avoid negative consequences, well, I suppose that works.  But understand that your life is one of calculation and a constant subtle cost/benefit analysis.  If your life is one of constant cost/benefit analysis then joy will at best be fleeting, and you will live a half life of anxiety and exhaustion.  You will question your purpose, meaning, and direction in life.

If you are driven to being kind and giving because it is a natural flow from the love and goodness God has for you, then I make no promises as to how your life will go.  Remember, Scrooge received no promises from the Ghost of Christmas Future.  Things may go poorly.  Or they may go quite well.  But know that you will discover deep and enduring satisfaction, wholeness, and meaning. 

It is January 1^st 2023.  It is a new year full of new possibilities.  May it be a year where you become nothing short of excellent at living in God’s love and goodness. 

 

December 11, 2022 Arrival of the Wise Men Matthew 2

“We three kings of orient are bearing gifts, we traverse afar.”  So goes the words of the famous song, and the song we’re going to sing after the sermon today.  I think the gospel writer Matthew would take issue with it however.  Most obviously is that they are not kings.  They are of a foreign priestly class of diviners, astrologers.  The idea that they were kings comes from a later application of Psalm 72 and Isaiah 60 to the birth story of Jesus.  Second, Matthew never actually says how many of these wise men there were.  The idea that there were three comes from the idea that each one was bearing a different gift, and there were three gifts.

The third issue is where these guys actually came from.  Matthew just says from the East – not from the orient.  It’s safe to say that the “East” Matthew had in mind was the immediate east – the Parthian Empire.  We’ve talked about the importance of the Parthian Empire before and it is good to remember now.  At the time of Jesus’ birth Parthia was declining a bit but it still covered about 1.1 million square miles of territory.  In the first century it was about equal to Rome in power.  I put a map in your bulletins that shows the Parthian and Roman Empires are side by side.  Judea, where Jesus is born, is the eastern end of the Roman Empire.  It was a bit of a buffer zone right up against the western end of Parthia.  Neither empire could realistically conquer the other.  

The distances between their power centers was just too great to muster the massive armies necessary.  But Rome was an empire built around the coast of the Mediterranean Sea.  Controlling Judea was already a bit of a stretch, but it was strategically necessary.  Otherwise they’d lose the land route to the southern end of empire.  In other words, Rome needed Judea.  Parthia would have liked to have had it, but did not need it.

The Herod family, of dubious Jewish descent, was sort of in power when the Romans came in and took control decades before.  And the Romans found it beneficial to let the Herods stay and use them as puppet kings.  Defending the eastern end of the empire against the Parthians was costly.

So, put yourself in Herod’s place.  Some Parthian priestly officials come to you, you who have faked your family tree and are pretending to be the legitimate Jewish leader, and ask where was born the new king of the Jews?  They say they want to pay him homage.  But why pay him homage?  Because these Parthian officials, your arch enemy, are nice guys?  No!  Of course not!  For all appearances they have come to buy the favor of the newly born Jewish leader and swing Judea away from Roman allegiance and into the hands of the Parthians.

If you are Herod what are you going to do?  You’re going to call in your equivalent of the CIA!  You’re going to track these astrologers.  You’re going to let them lead you to the target.  And then you’re going to eliminate the target.  The Herods may have been cruel, but they didn’t get to power by being stupid!

The story in Matthew is highly troublesome.  The Parthian astrologers are warned by God in a dream.  They give Herod the slip.  Joseph is warned in a dream and he, Mary, and Jesus flee.  When Herod realizes the treachery he has all the children in and around Bethlehem under the age of two killed.

How can God let that happen?  Why should all those innocent families suffer like that?  Indeed, if you ask those questions of Matthew’s gospel you get some very disturbing answers!

But Matthew isn’t interested in answering those questions.  If it helps you feel better remember that Matthew is a theologian, not an historian.  While some parts of Matthew’s gospel can be independently historically verified, what we read today cannot.  There is no outside evidence of a star appearing, Herod killing the babies, or a trip by Parthian astrologers.

Matthew is, however, wanting to state some theological truths: Baby boy Jesus is bringing together two rival superpower empires.  Foreigners – definitely non-Jews, come to pay homage to this savior of the world.  Also, the Wise Men had good intentions.  Their act of devotion was genuine.  Even so, the powers that be weren’t happy.  All too often in life innocent people suffer.  Sometimes the saying, “Only the good die young,” is all too true.  Innocent people suffer every day.  We do well to keep that in mind.  When we pray, when we buy things, when we vote, etc., keep in mind the full impact of your decisions.  Power tends to protect itself.  Innocent people often suffer as a result.

But the suffering of the innocents is not the end of the story is it?  Will this baby boy Jesus grow up to become a hero whom all love as he rises to incredible power and stature, and live a long and happy and successful life?  No.  This baby boy Jesus will grow up.  He will cause controversy.  Though he doesn’t lift a finger to hurt, he himself will also be caught in the web of power and be an innocent sufferer.

That takes us to the three gifts: gold, frankincense, and myrrh.  Each one is symbolic.  As We Three Kings gets right, gold is a royal gift fit for a king.  While Jesus’ kingship will not be like any others, he will usher in the kingdom of God.  Frankincense is a gift for a priest.  Frankincense was used in temple worship as part of the sacrifices.  Priests were the go-betweens between God and the people.  Priests were the ones who pronounced forgiveness.  Though Jesus never performed official service in the Jerusalem temple, he will fulfill all those roles.

Myrrh is the mysterious disturbing gift.  The hymn says, “…its bitter perfume breathes a life of gathering gloom; sorrowing, sighing, bleeding, dying, sealed in a stone-cold tomb.”  For myrrh was a burial spice.  Its gift here at Jesus’ birth already anticipates the crucifixion.

If we put ourselves in Matthew’s story I wonder how Joseph and Mary felt about that gift?  How would you feel you had a new baby and someone stopped by offering you a gift of embalming fluid for your newborn!?!  Creepy!

And yet, this is perhaps a little joke in the Bible.  These Parthian astrologers appear to be quite knowledgeable about what is going on.  They have spotted what the Jewish leaders have not.  They have recognized the birth of a new king.  They have come to pay him homage.  They have brought highly significant gifts.  But this one they got wrong!

Jesus will die, yes.  But do you need embalming spices for someone who will be dead only three days?  Certainly not!  The gospel of John makes a bit of a joke about that when the man Nicodemus brings a whopping 100 pounds of myrrh for Jesus’ burial!  Jesus probably didn’t weigh a whole lot more than 100 pounds himself!

No, the resurrection is not anticipated in the three gifts.  That will be the twist in the story that no one but Jesus himself predicts.

And for our lives today, some 20 centuries later, what does this text mean for our day to day lives?

Two things stand out to me.  First is a challenge.  The Parthians wise men were not citizens.  They belonged to a rival enemy power.  The Parthian wise men were also not Jewish.  They were leaders of a pagan religion.  Yet God chooses to connect with them in order to celebrate the birth of Jesus.

We cannot automatically dismiss those who are Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, or any other religion.  They are not unworthy of God’s notice.  They are not unworthy of God’s love.  While I will never teach something so foolish as, “all religions are just different branches of the same tree,” for that is utter nonsense, other religions are worthy of our respect, our notice, and our Christian love.  We do not help ourselves, and we do not help the work of the gospel, if we fear them or attack them.  Though we disagree about God in ways that are insurmountable, in Matthew’s gospel we see that God is quite capable of working remarkable things through them.  All things are God’s.  God will take care.

The second thing is to not underestimate the power of what God is doing.  We hear this lesson over and over again, but we easily forget it.  God comes to human form in Jesus.  It will be God’s greatest and most significant act in the history of salvation.  Yet Jesus is born in basically a military buffer zone to parents of no account.  He will not be raised in a fine household.  He will not have a fine expensive education.  He will work with his hands, have dust on his feet from walking, and collect a group of followers; all of whom will betray him when he’s in trouble.

Yet no historian or religious skeptic can doubt that Jesus creates the largest and most significant organization in history – the Church.  The movement Jesus founds will outlast the Parthian Empire.  It will not only outlast, but help to bring down, the Roman Empire.  It will go on to spread to every nation on earth.

Never ever underestimate how important or powerful a seemingly insignificant action can be.  God works in unexpected ways.  God has absolutely no respect for things that look powerful or important.  Even the church itself cannot become cocky thinking itself grand and an end unto itself.

God works in powerful ways that the world misses utterly.  Never dismiss an opportunity to share the love of Christ no matter how insignificant it looks.  Never think anyone or any issue is too trivial to be important.  None are.

God is working.  God is working in hard and powerful ways all the time.  Keep your eyes open.  Be ready for the unexpected.  And rejoice in the surety of God’s success.