Soundings: Money

Here’s a word of warning. Today’s sermon is likely to make you nervous. It makes me nervous. We’re going back to the Bible for one more sounding, an exploration on a topic that has made people nervous for centuries. We’re going to look at something that has occupied our dreams and possessed our souls. It’s something we never seem to have enough of and yet something that can be dangerous even when we only have a little. It is money and we still don’t know what to think about it after all these years, even here in America.

Ben Franklin said, "Money never made a man happy yet, nor will it. The more a man has, the more he wants. Instrad of filling a vacuum, it makes one.” That’s one great American philosopher said. Another one, actress Bo Derek, said, "Whoever said money can't buy happiness simply didn't know where to go shopping."[i] So who are you gonna believe?

Well, let’s go to the Bible and see what it says. Like I say, it’s going to make you nervous, because it has a consistent message and it is this: money has some pretty dangerous side effects and should not be taken lightly. The principle danger is that it can make us forgetful – forgetful of who we are, of what our responsibilities to other are, and forgetful of God. Those are some pretty bad side effects.

Now it’s not that the Bible condemns money and wealth. If it were so easily dealt with it wouldn’t be mentioned so much, and it is mentioned a lot. In some places wealth is seen as a sign of blessing. In Genesis we read in chapter 13, verse 2 that “Abram [the inheritor of God’s promise] became very rich in livestock, in silver, and in gold.” Isaac, his son, in chapter 26 verse 13 becomes rich. “He prospered more and more until he became very wealthy.” Jacob and Joseph, the next two in the line, were also very prosperous eventually.

But God knows how easily we confuse material wealth with divine blessing. I begin to think, “Well, if I am rich, that must mean that God is pleased. So what’s wrong with showing it off?” And that’s how bling was born. So the Bible also tells us some other things about money.

Psalm 49 verses 16 and 17 tell us “Don’t be afraid when some become rich, when the wealth of their houses increases. For when they die that will carry nothing away; their wealth will not go down after them.” You’ve probably heard this verse in its shortened form – “You can’t take it with you.” Ecclesiastes warns us that money will not make you sleep better at night. Chapter 5 verse 12 says, “Sweet is the sleep of laborers, whether they eat little or much, but the excess of the rich will not them sleep.” Isaiah the prophet says that money will also tempt us to go after things that are not good for us. Chapter 55 verse 2: “Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy?” There’s many a gambler in Vegas who needs to hear that voice in their head.

And then there’s Jesus. Jesus talked a LOT about money. He seemed to know about these dangerous side effects and he offered some pretty radical remedies for them. He did spend a lot of time among the poor, but Jesus also seemed to spend time among the wealthy. He ate at Zaccheus’ home, and even though little Zack was short of stature, he wasn’t short of cash. The Bible says he “was a chief tax collector and he was rich.” [Luke 19:2] Joseph of Arimathea, a wealthy man, was a follower who provided the tomb that Jesus borrowed for a weekend. [Matt. 27:57-60] Rich people often came to him for advice and Jesus loved them.

A rich young man came to Jesus asking him what he must do to inherit eternal life. The gospel writer, Mark, tells us that when Jesus saw how sincere this young man was – he really wanted to know the answer – chapter 10 verse 21 says, “Jesus, looking at him, loved him.” But then Jesus goes on to tell him a very hard thing. He knew that the young man’s possessions were standing between him and the life he needed to live. So he tells him, “You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me."

It was this kind of talk that even made the disciples, who had left everything, nervous. After this episode, Jesus took them aside and said, “How hard it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of heaven.” [Luke 10:23] This was too much for the disciples. They say, “Wait a minute. Then who can be saved?” That’s when Jesus reminds them what this whole salvation thing was based on. It’s ultimately not about what we have and what we can do that determines our relationship with God. It is what God has done and is doing through grace that gives us entry. In Jesus’ words: “For human beings this is impossible, but not for God. For God all things are possible.” [Luke 10:27]

There were other disturbing things that Jesus said. He pronounced woes on the rich “because you have received your consolation,” he said. [Luke 6:24] He warned that “no slave can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.” [Luke 16:13] As Bob Dylan might put it, “You’re gonna have to serve somebody” and it can’t be money.

Jesus also told disturbing stories, like the one we read this morning. Luke 16 verses 19 through 31 tells the story of a rich man and Lazarus. There couldn’t be a bigger contrast between these two figures. The rich man sits around in the best clothes and eats the best food -- it’s like take-out from the Exmore Diner every day. But outside the gate of his house there sits a poor man, Lazarus, who is covered with sores and who longs just to eat the crumbs that fall from the rich man’s table. But Lazarus doesn’t do things. Things are done to him. So he lies there as the dogs come and lick his wounds.

Then both of them die and the contrast continues, only this time Lazarus is carried off by angels to be with Father Abraham in the Jewish conception of heaven. The rich man, by contrast, goes to hell. We don’t know why they end up where they do. Jesus seems to suggest that it’s because of how the rich man ignored the poor, but all we really know is that the rich man hasn’t followed the law of Moses.

We also know that rich man hasn’t changed much in hell. Even though he’s in torment, he’s still trying to command people. “Father Abraham, send Lazarus over here to quench my thirst with a finger dipped in water. Send him to my brothers to warn them.” Do this. Do that. But it doesn’t work. Abraham tells him that “Between you and us a great ditch has been fixed.”

A ditch? A canyon? A chasm? Who put that there? If it was Abraham or God, surely God could find a loophole or an escape clause to extend mercy when the situation (or those being tortured) cried out for it. But then the story doesn’t say that God put that ditch there. Maybe it’s the same huge divide that existed in life between the rich man’s table and his outer gate where Lazarus lay…a divide that only the dogs could seem to cross. And who put that divide in place?

I think we’ve found one of those scary side effects of money. When we use our money, or our obsession with money, to insulate us from the world and from the poor and from others, then we start constructing barriers that persist in our souls and on into eternity. We can use our money to connect us to the world. Through our giving and offering up of all that we have to God’s use then we can overcome some of those divides. But we can also turn inward and forget that God is calling us out from our cocoons to the fields and villages where God can show us how to love.

This is why there are so many warnings in the letters of the early church about loving money too dearly. Hebrews 13 verse 5 says, “Keep your lives free from the love of money, and be content with what you have, for [God[ has said, ‘I will never leave you or forsake you.’” 2 Timothy 3 verse 2 says that in the last days one of the prevailing evils will be that “people will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money.” The book of James is shot through with warnings about the preferential treatment that the rich are receiving over the poor in the church.

Then there is the famous verse from 1 Timothy 6 that we also read in our readings this morning. 6 verses 9 and 10 warn about pursuing riches instead of God. “Those who want to be rich fall into temptation and are trapped by much senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, and in their eagerness to be rich some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pains.” Our riches can establish a huge divide that affects our vision, our humility, our relationship with the world, our relationship with God, and ultimately even our salvation.

On a shelf in my office I have a picture of a Mexican teenager standing in the middle of her family’s small grocery in the front room of their house. The picture is just as I want to remember her. Her face is serious -- I think only Americans feel the need to smile in every picture -- but there is a hint of bemusement there. She is wearing a track suit because she is an athlete at her school, but at the same time there is a sense of calm about her. And the fruits and vegetables that surround her in the store are alive with the strong flavors and exotic textures that I have come to associate with Mexico.

I keep Berenice on my shelf partly because she gave me the small picture frame in which I have placed her picture, but also because she once paid me the extreme honor of not making me feel like a guest in her house. Her family is one of modest means. Her father is often away for months at a time, working in Dallas or Chicago or northern Mexico or wherever he knows there is work. Her mother runs the small grocery with the help of Berenice and her older brother. They don’t have much. But they are willing to share what they have.

In the fall of 2001 and again in the spring of 2002 I got to stay with them as part of mission trips I took to work with the Mexican Methodist church in Cortazar. But Berenice did not let me be a guest on either occasion. She asked me to help her with her English homework. She called me out of my room to watch the Arizona Diamondbacks and the New York Yankees in Game 6 and 7 of their World Series. We watched on the fuzzy screen of a small television set in the front room, nestled among the chayote squash and the avocados. There was a lot that made me stick out like a sore thumb in that family, but in the bottom of the ninth of game 7, I sure couldn’t have told you what those things were.

It seems to me that the best place to learn the lesson of money is in the classroom of the poor. That’s where the rich man in Jesus’ story needed to learn it: where all pretensions to greatness are shown up as high comedy and all the anxieties of the wealthy and revealed as internal tragedy. I’ve sat in the classroom once or twice in my life. It smells of avocados and cilantro and the chairs are not always comfortable. The picture on the screen is a little fuzzy. But as much as I’m sure the people passing in the street must have done a double take to see me sitting with Berenice and the rest of my Mexican family, for that night it was my Mexican family and I had no way to make that so. I had been accepted for reasons beyond my control.

There are some dangerous side effects to money. It can make us forgetful. It can make us start to believe we’re in control. But here’s the good news: God is in control. And with God all things are possible - including the salvation of the world, rich and poor alike. Thanks be to God.

Luke 16:19-31
There was a man who was rich and he would dress himself in expensive clothes and fine linen and feast sumptuously every day. A poor man named Lazarus was laid at his gate and he was covered with sores. He desired to feed from the table droppings of the rich man, but even the dogs came and licked his wounds.
In time, the poor man died and was carried off by angels to the bosom of Abraham. Then the rich man died and was buried. In Hades he raised up his head, being in torment, and he saw Abraham at a great distance and Lazarus enfolded in his care. He called out to him and said, “Father Abraham, have mercy on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am suffering in this flaming fire.”
But Abraham said, “Child, remember that during your lifetime you received your good things, and Lazarus, in like manner, evil things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in agony. Besides all this, between you and us a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who might want to pass from here to you cannot do so, and no one can cross from there to us.”
He said, “Then, father, I beg you to send him to my father’s house – for I have five brothers – that he may warn them, so that they will not also come into this place of torment.”
Abraham replied, “They have Moses and the prophets; they should listen to them.”
He said, “No, father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.”
He said to him, “If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.”

[i] http://thinkexist.com/quotations/money/

Soundings: War

I thought about doing a very short sermon today. I mean, I want to do a sermon on biblical perspectives on war. And I thought, well, one way to sum it all up would be to come out here with a little bit of funky brass and say, “War. Huh. Good God, y’all. What is it good for?” Then you would respond, “Absolutely nothing.” And we’d all go home.

But that’s a little too easy. And it really doesn’t require us wrestling with the Bible, which is what we should be doing in here. It also isn’t nearly all that we want to say or want to know about war. Edwin Starr gave us a great song to sing when we are fed up with the evil that is war, but there’s a lot that we struggle with as Christians when our nation goes to war. We want to hear more. It’s great to know what Edwin thinks, but we also want to know what God thinks. So once again, let’s go to the Bible, this great, frustrating, complex, wonderful record of God’s dealings with the people of God through the centuries, and see what we can get out of a sounding on war.

I have a story before we head into this exploration. It’s a story of how history weighs so heavily on us when we come to this. I was a history major in college and one of the reasons that I was…the main reason that I was, was because of a professor of Southern History. Eddie Ayres was from the deep South and he knew the mythology of the Old South, which is what I grew up with. He knew the truth of William Faulkner’s saying, “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”[i] The Civil War and the weight of southern history had endless fascination for Faulkner, a Mississippi writer, for Eddie Ayres, a Louisiana history teacher, and for me.

In his book, Intruder in the Dust, Faulkner wrote a passage that captured perfectly how I felt about this mythology of my history. He says, “For every Southern boy fourteen years old, not once but whenever he wants it, there is the instant when it's still not yet two o’clock on that July afternoon in 1863, the brigades are in position behind the rail fence, the guns are laid and ready in the woods and the furled flags are already loosened to break out and Pickett himself with his long oiled ringlets and his hat in one hand probably and his sword in the other looking up the hill waiting for Longstreet to give the word and it's all in the balance, it hasn't happened yet, it hasn't even begun yet, it not only hasn't begun yet but there is stll time for it not to begin against that position and those circumstances which made more men than Garnett and Kemper and Armstead and Wilcox look grave yet it's going to begin, we all know that, we have come too far with too much at stake and that moment doesn't need even a fourteen-year-old boy to think This time. Maybe this time with all this much to lose and all this much to gain: Pennsylvania, Maryland, the world, the golden dome of Washington itself to crown with desperate and unbelievable victory the desperate gamble, the cast made two years ago....”[ii] I was that fourteen-year-old boy.

But as I grew older I came to the struggle that Faulkner and Ayres had with that history. Why did a white society with such hideous scars fascinate us so much? Underneath the magnolias and Spanish moss, there was a legacy of hatred, racism, slavery and subjugation. That war about which we knew so much, down to the fact that I know Stonewall Jackson liked to suck on lemons when he went off into battle, that war was one of the most horrific experiences we ever went through as a nation. It’s a story of unspeakable violence and death. But that’s why it stayed with us. The wounds weren’t just done to our ancestors, they remained in our flesh. So when Eddie Ayres told the stories of the old South and made us struggle with them in all their wonder and horror, it was like he was telling my story. I was hooked. And I, who at that time was a pacifist and very aware of how troubling the Vietnam War had been and very opposed to it and anything that looked like it…I spent my undergrad years studying a war that was still alive in me. The Civil War.

I say all that to say that when we look at the Bible and what it says about war we will recognize that it is not enough to say that war is evil and good for absolutely nothing. We also have to say that war is inescapable. We all carry within us the wounds it has inflicted on people in our families, even it was a generation ago. War is a constant in human history from Genesis to Revelation to the Crusades to Gettysburg to Fallujah. And the questions we bring to God about war are also consistent: Under what circumstances, if any, should God’s people be engaged in war? How do we know what God’s will is in the midst of fighting? Is there such a thing as a just war? How do we love our enemies in a time of war?

So let’s get at it. The first thing we need to say about the biblical witness on this question is that it seems very mixed, which is a kind way of saying that it doesn’t seem to fit together all that well. Think of some of the things that the Old Testament tells us about war and violence. On the one hand we have a commandment about this. Commandment number 6 on the list of the Top 10 is “Thou shalt not…kill.” Exodus 20, verse 13. The translation of that verb has always been in dispute. You may see a note in your bible that says this verse could also be translated “You shall not murder.” And that does put a different spin on it, but I think the intent is very clear. God’s presumption is always that life is to be valued, honored and preserved. It’s one of our core values as human beings. Most of us have an innate sense that killing is a violation of what God intends and even when it is done in justifiable circumstances, as in defending someone from an attacker, we recognize that something has been violated. Hunters even know this in killing animals. Most hunters I have known have a deep sense of respect for the life that they are taking. The presumption built into the commandments and into us is that life is good and it is not to be taken by murder.

So what are we to make then of all the killing that takes place in the chapters that follow this commandment? The people of Israel start to move through the wilderness and they run into other nations who do not worship the same gods and who are hostile to them. And the people, at God’s direction, start to prepare for war. The book of Numbers gets its name from a census that God commands. God tells Moses to take a census of “every male individually from twenty years old and upward, everyone in Israel able to go to war.” [Num. 1:2-3]

Before that book finishes the Israelites have gone to war with the Midianites and it is a bloodthirsty campaign. Now remember that Midian is where Moses had gone when he fled from Egypt. His wife was a Midianite. His father-in-law was a Midianite. But Chapter 31 of Numbers records how the peoples had come into conflict. God tells the Israelites to go to war and they get a thousand men from each tribe, 12,000 soldiers, and they go out and kill all the men of Midian. But even this wasn’t enough and Moses tells the people to kill the adult women, too.

Now this is hard stuff. When we talk about the violent stories of the Qur’an, the scriptures of Islam, we need to recognize that we have some of those same stories, too, and Christians have sometimes been guilty of trying to recreate them without regard to what the rest of the Bible says. Hearing these stories now, we wonder, as someone asked me this week, “Why does God give us these?” What purpose do they still serve?

We read them as lessons on how God demanded exclusivity from the people God had liberated from Egypt. They were learning how to be faithful to the one, true God and as part of that they had to learn to put away everything that would keep them from serving God and they understand that to mean putting away even the peoples who would lead them astray. Was this part of their journey? Were they not yet enlightened enough to hear God’s call to be a light to the nations? The Midianites had led the people into sexual immorality. Were their passions causing them to misunderstand what God wanted? Then why did they preserve this story even after they had come to a new understanding of God?

I’ll be honest. I have a hard time understanding the stories of God’s command to wipe out the Midianites and the Amelekites and all the other peoples on the way to the Promised Land. I’m glad that our ancestors didn’t try to sugarcoat the story they passed along. They knew they had a disturbing history with some disturbing characters in it but they also knew that God was working even through all of that. So we shouldn’t be surprised that treachery, torture, idolatry, and even genocide are in these pages. They are definitely the stuff of human history, and, as we know from our headlines, they still are.

But here’s what I believe. Stories like Numbers 31 are a minority report. Even in the Hebrew Scriptures there are passages that tell us something different about how God views war. In fact, even in Numbers 31 there are hints of this. In verse 2 there, as God tells Moses that the Israelites will avenge themselves on the Midianites, God says, “afterward you shall be gathered to your people.” It seems like there is a connection. “Moses, do this terrible thing and then you will die.” There is a price that must be paid for all the horror. Later in verse 19, Moses tells the warriors, “Camp outside the camp seven days; whoever of you has killed any person or touched a corpse, purify yourselves and your captives on the third and on the seventh day. You shall purify every garment, every article of skin, everything made of goats' hair, and every article of wood." The act of killing has made them unclean and there is a price that must be paid for all the death.

Later in the Old Testament, in the midst of all the wars that led to the united kingdom of Israel, David stops to lament the price that was paid when the king, King Saul, was killed along with his son. Even though David had been fighting against Saul and Jonathan he says, “How the mighty have fallen, and the weapons of war perished!” [2 Samuel 1:27] There is a price that must be paid.

In the Psalms there are certainly songs to the God who strengthens the warrior for war. Psalm 18 says, in verse 34, “God trains my hands for war, so that my arms can bend a bow of bronze.” Psalm 144 begins with similar words: “Blessed be the Lord, my rock, who trains my hands for war, and my fingers for battle, my rock and my fortress, my stronghold and my deliverer, my shield, in whom I take refuge, who subdues the peoples under me.”

So there are songs that are sung by people headed off for battle, but there are also psalms like Psalm 33, which says, in verses 16 and 17, “A king is not saved by his great army; a warrior is not delivered by his great strength. The war horse is a vain hope for victory, and by its great might it cannot save.” The people had started to trust in war itself as a sign of blessing and strength, but their trust was misplaced. God was the source of their strength. And then you get Psalm 120 where it says, in verses 6 and 7: “Too long have I had my dwelling among those who hate peace. I am for peace; but when I speak they are for war.” Again, it seems like the people were forgetting a more fundamental desire of God. God does not desire war; what God wants is peace and if war is the only means to that peace it is a sign of the tragic fallenness of the human race. People had begun to glory in war.

Later on in the Old Testament, the prophets offer a new vision of a day of peace that will come. Isaiah and Micah both describe it with the same image. In Micah chapter 4, verse 3 it says, “God shall judge between many peoples, and shall arbitrate between strong nations far away; they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.” At the end of all things, war will come to an end.

But it’s in Jesus that we see the really new message of how God views war. Jesus seems to recognize that war is a continuing reality for us and will be for some time. He talks to soldiers and centurions and does not tell them to leave their professions. They end up following him and remaining in those roles. He told parables about kings planning for war. And he says, in Matthew 24, verses 6 and 7, “You will hear of wars and rumors of war; see that you are not alarmed, for this must take place, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom.”

Jesus was also not averse to using violent imagery either. He says in Matthew 10, verse 34, “Don’t think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not yet come to bring peace, but a sword.” And just before his arrest in the garden of Gethsemane, in the story we read this morning, he says to his disciples, “Now the one who has a purse must take it and likewise a bag. And the one who has no sword must sell his cloak and buy one.” Then the disciples pulled out some swords and said, “Lord, look, here are two swords,” and Jesus says, “It is enough.” [Luke 22:36-38].

But it’s pretty obvious that Jesus was about a very different ethic of violence than the rest of the world had. He was not about inflicting violence but about suffering violence. He told Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor, that his kingdom worked differently than the kingdoms of the earth. In John 18 verse 36 he says, “My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.”

Jesus’ kingdom demanded something different from his followers. That’s why the things he had to say were so hard for his disciples. In the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5, verses 43 and 44, Jesus says, “You have heard it said ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy,’ but I say unto you, ‘Love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you.’” Love your enemies. Can we do that? Luke 6, verse 29: “If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also.” Can we accept violence and respond to it in a different way?

It’s not that we are not to fight. We are definitely at war. But Jesus comes to tell us not to get distracted by the hatred that so easily pops up in us. Paul tells us in Ephesians chapter 6, verse 12, that we need armor, but “our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” We love our enemies because they are just as much in the grip of the evil powers of this world as we are. They are just as much in need of God’s redemption as we are. The structures of our nation, our governments, our international bodies, all of these are fallen and can be corrupted by the present darkness. So we are called to love our enemies because in the end we share much more than we think.

As I come to the close of this sermon, I realize that there are a lot of unanswered questions here and we will need to come back and talk more about this subject. We’ve only begun to scratch the surface of a biblical view on this. But two final places to touch down, because I know we have more than just an academic interest in this question.

First, Iraq. It has been hovering in our minds this whole hour and for the last five years. We are a nation at war and we are in the midst of a deep national struggle to understand why we went there, why we are still there, and how we can do any good. I believe this is a tragic war that was begun under the flag of some high-sounding values that represent the best of what we hope for for the world. Apart from the security concerns and the weapons of mass destruction that never materialized, there was a group of leaders who really believed that this war could transform the whole region with new democracies upholding the same ideals our government holds up. They still believe this. But so many things have gone wrong and so much blood and money has been wasted. And we have lost the ability to speak honestly about what it is happening. We are having to learn again the lessons of what military power, even the greatest military power in the world, can and can’t do. And what it can’t do is bring peace by itself. We need to pray for our nation and its leaders, for our soldiers who so often seem confused and caught in the rhetoric and the policy. To pray for the people of Iraq and that they and we may be true to the ideals of justice and humanity expressed in our faith.

Finally, I want to lift up a flyer I saw the other day. I was across the bay for a church meeting and I was walking outside a shop and I saw a flyer for a cagematch. These have become popular, these fighting matches in a ring surrounded by a cage. Two guys, or girls, I suppose, will go at it so that there can be blood and spectacle.

What it tells me is that, in men especially, there is an implanted need to defend something worth defending. All of us need something worth living for and if it is worth living for, then it is worth dying for. If we do not fight for the things that really matter then we will end up doing something stupid like getting into a cage and fighting for no reason at all. We will end up turning our anger in on ourselves in depression. Or we will fight someone in the grocery store because they took 13 items in the 12 item lane.

Jesus knew that there was something worth dying for. It’s why he invited us to take up our cross and follow him. It’s why he warned us against the false gods that we would be tempted to serve. It’s why Paul tells us to put our armor on. It’s the kingdom of God’s love that is worth dying for and living for. And anything that does not advance that kingdom is not worthy of our lives. And so we test the spirits of this age. Thanks be to God.

Luke 22:47-51 [NRSV]
While he was still speaking, suddenly a crowd came, and the one called Judas, one of the twelve, was leading them. He approached Jesus to kiss him; but Jesus said to him, "Judas, is it with a kiss that you are betraying the Son of Man?"

When those who were around him saw what was coming, they asked, "Lord, should we strike with the sword?" Then one of them struck the slave of the high priest and cut off his right ear.

But Jesus said, "No more of this!" And he touched his ear and healed him.

[i] Act I, Scene III of Requiem for a Nun
[ii] Intruder in the Dust

Soundings: Salvation Through Christ Alone

It’s probably the theological question I get asked the most. It certainly was the one I was asked most often when I was a campus minister working with college students. It was a question that, I’m sure, had its roots in many late night talks with people from other nations and other cultures. Maybe it came from living with a roommate or falling in love with a boyfriend who was of another faith or who professed no faith. But then they would come to worship or to a Thursday night dinner and we would talk about Jesus and we would sing about how “Jesus is savior to all, Lord of heaven and earth” and we would pray to God in the name of Jesus. And they would start to think about their friends and their roommates and their professors and all the other people who did not do this strange thing that we did. They weren’t worshipping Jesus and yet, weren’t some of these other folks good people? Don’t some of them express faith and hope and live ethical lives? The question arose and eventually it would make its way to me in its theological form, “What about those folks who aren’t Christian? Do we really believe that salvation comes through Christ alone?”

That’s the question I want to offer up today as we do a second week of soundings – exploring the Bible with an issue in mind and seeing what God might have to say to us. What do we believe about Jesus and salvation? What does the Bible say about this? And then how do we relate to a world that is going to find whatever answer we come up with at best unusual and at worst offensive?

I have to start by saying that I am tempted to say that this is a misplaced question. There’s something a little strange about it. That we should be worried about being a Christian having everything to do with Christ – that’s a little strange. It’s right there in the name. And if Jesus is the one who has shown us the way to God, would we really want to give up on the new life we’ve gained because we think it could have happened differently? It’s a little bit like someone giving up on Shakespeare’s plays – and all of their beauty and insight in what it’s like to be human – because they were written in English rather than Urdu. If Jesus has given us entry into the kingdom and told us that we can be children of God, are we really going to shy away from talking of him as The Way, The Truth and The Life?

This is the verse that is at the heart of this question. John chapter 14, verse 6: “Jesus said, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.’” We get hung up on the last part of that. No one? Really? Except through Jesus? No one?

But this is a consistent message through the Bible. God is an exclusive lover and God wants exclusivity in those who come to love God. What is the first commandment? “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, you shall have no other gods but me.” [Ex. 20:2] The Shema, the great focus verse for Judaism, in Deuteronomy chapter 6, verses 4 and 5, says, “Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord alone. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.”

When the people of Israel enter the land that they are promised after the long journey through the wilderness God tells them to tear down the altars to other gods because “you shall worship no other god, because the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God.” [Ex.. 34:14] What Israel has to learn is that when they stay close to the God who has claimed them and liberated them and brought them to a new land they will thrive. But when they forget God they will fall. God talks about their faithlessness in Deuteronomy chapter 32, verse 21: “They made me jealous with what is no god, provoked me with their idols.” There is an emptiness and nothingness is the other things that we make our gods.

So it is not surprising that Christians would talk about Jesus in the same sort of ways. Jesus is the full expression of God’s intentions for humanity. Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Jesus is the one who goes to the cross to prove that God’s love bears all things. Jesus is the one who goes forth from the tomb to prove that God’s love conquers death. Jesus is the one who opens the door for lost people to be found, for wounded people to be made whole, for sick people to be healed, for dead people to be made alive, and for oppressed people to be set free. Jesus is the one we call Immanuel – God with us. Jesus is the one on whom God’s Spirit descended and of whom God’s voice said, “This is my beloved Son – listen to Him.”

So it’s not a surprise to hear Jesus saying, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.” It’s not a surprise to hear in Acts, chapter 4 verses 11 and 12,, Peter saying that Jesus is the cornerstone. “There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among mortals by which we must be saved.” It’s not a surprise to read in 1 Timothy 2, verse 5: “There is one God and there is also one mediator between God and humankind, Christ Jesus, himself human, who gave himself a ransom for all.” It’s not a surprise to read Paul in Romans chapter 10, verse 9 saying, “If you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” It’s not surprising to hear these things because they were written by people whose lives had been turned upside down and absolutely transformed by their experience with Jesus Christ. They knew, because it had happened to them, that Jesus was the way to God, the way to new life, the way to salvation. They didn’t stop to consider whether there were other ways or other paths, because they had found the Way. There was no other way.

Like a man on his knee proposing to his intended bride, there is no room for considering alternatives. It may be a foolish thing he is doing. It may, from the outside, appear that he is being a little excessive, a little rash, a little over the top. But from the inside, in what is happening between these two, it is the most natural thing in the world. So in addition to the biblical message that God is a jealous God, a God who loves exclusively and desires our total selves, our entire love in return…in addition to this we can also add that the Bible says that Jesus is the full expression of God’s intentions and it is right that we should come to God through him alone.

But there’s more to this story. We’ve been talking about exclusive love but you know that the message of the Bible is not a message of exclusion. The thing that threatened the Pharisees about Jesus is not that he was exclusive but that he was inclusive. He included people that they thought should not have been included. He hung out with sinners. He consulted with tax collectors. He consorted with prostitutes. And Jesus seemed to enjoy these people.

I ran across a great sermon by a preacher named Samir Selmanovic this week. He’s a convert from Islam from Croatia and now is starting a new church in Manhattan called Faith House. Selmanovic says that what really ticked off the Pharisees about Jesus was not that he loved people but that he seemed to really like them. You know how easy it is for us to say, “Well, I love that person as a Christian, but that doesn’t mean that I have to like them.” The Pharisees could have said something like that – loving people in the abstract but despising them in person.

But Jesus doesn’t do that. He goes in the midst of the people and tells his followers to welcome them. Selmanovic says that Jesus allows himself to need others and that this is the sign of true love. “You don’t truly love the other,” he says, “until you can take what the other needs to give you.”[i] And so Jesus tells a woman at a well in Samaria that he needs a drink of water from her. He tells his disciples in the garden of Gethsemane that he needs them. Jesus is unafraid to be inclusive and to accept that others have something to offer. Selmanovic wonders if maybe that doesn’t affect our evangelism as Christians. “We withhold being teachable from the world and the world, in turn, withholds itself from us.”[ii]

The reading from Acts today points us in this direction. Paul is taking the faith to Athens, a place of great learning and great religious ferment. There are all kinds of option for believing in Athens. Paul goes to the Areopagus, where the philosophers and religious thinkers gather, and he does what Jesus does – he looks at how God is already active in the lives of the Athenians. Chapter 17 verse 22 says, “Paul stood in front of the Areopagus and said, ‘Athenians, I see how extremely religious you are in every way. For as I went through the city and looked carefully at the objects of your worship, I found among them an altar with the inscription, ‘To an unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, I now proclaim to you.’” Paul sees that God is already present there.

This too, is biblical. God speaks in other peoples and even in other faiths. Even we who have fallen in love with God through Christ and have given our lives over to him can hear in others a word that illuminates the world. In the Hebrew scriptures we see God using the Persian king Cyrus as an instrument. God says to Cyrus in Isaiah chapter 45 beginning with verse 4: “For the sake of my servant Jacob, and Israel my chosen, I call you by name; I surname you, though you do not know me. I am the Lord, there is no other; besides me there is no god. I arm you, though you do not know me, so that they may know from the rising of the sun and from the west, that there is no one besides me.”

In the New Testament Jesus talks in John chapter 10 verse 16 about having “other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice.” Peter, in Acts, the same disciple who declared that there is no other name given for salvation, also recognized that God was throwing the door wide open, not closing it in Jesus. After his revelation in the sail cloth in chapter 10 verses 34 and 35 he says: “I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.” It was his mission to help all those who were searching to hear how God had come with a message of salvation for all in Jesus Christ.

This, perhaps is the most important message we can take from this biblical exploration. If we hear Jesus’ claim to be the Way as a threat to those who do not claim salvation in Christ, then we have misunderstood it. If we hear the claim that there is no other name by which people may be saved as a way to sort out the world into who’s in and who’s out so that we can feel justified or superior, then we have misunderstood it. Those are the fears I hear when people ask me the question about their non-Christian friends.

What we want people to hear is not that we think their lives are a mess without Jesus. They know that already. We know how much Jesus still has to work on in us even after we accept Christ. What we want people to hear is that God wants a full chorus. That God’s work in the world is not condemnation and division but reconciliation. John 3 verse 17 says, “God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that world might be saved through him.” 2 Corinthians 5 verse 19 says, “In Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us.” Psalm 22 verse 27 promises that “all the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord; and all the families of the nations shall worship before him.” God speaks in Isaiah chapter 49 verse 6 to say, “I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach the end of the earth.”

I don’t think we should be anxious for the salvation of the world. God is about that work and what God promises, God fulfills. God needs agents for this work and that is why Jesus’ final words in Matthew’s gospel are “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them…and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.” [Mat. 28:18—20] But he also promises there: “Remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” God is reconciling the world in Jesus Christ. That’s why we say that there is salvation through Christ alone. But that’s not a weapon, it’s an invitation. And we are called to live our lives as Christians in such a way that people will see, not us, but the power of transforming good news.

Samir Selmanovic tells a story in the sermon I quoted about a woman named Sue. One Christmas week, she showed up at his church service, partly because it was so cold and she had nowhere else to go and partly because she was attracted by his sermon title, which was “The Magic of Christianity.” That was attractive to her because she was a witch, a Wiccan who called herself a white witch.

But she got intrigued by what she heard. She became friends with this pastor. They went to watch “Lord of the Rings” together and she joined a Bible Study in the church.

Some time later the church hosted a conference for pastors starting new faith communities and as part of it there were testimonies of failure from six of the pastors. They decided at the conference that they needed a time to talk about how hard the work of telling the good news was, too, and most conferences only focused on the successes. So they had this time scheduled.
Selmanovic wanted to offer a blessing to the pastors as they finished their testimonies and he tried to think who could do this. Suddenly it came to him. I’ll ask the witch. So he asked Sue to bless them and at first she said, “Yes, if I can pray to God as a mother.” Selmanovic was uncomfortable with that and thought it would be distracting to the purpose of the conference, but they eventually agreed that she could offer a prayer to God as the Holy Spirit.

So when these pastors shared the pain of their failures at this conference, Sue got up at the end and prayed this prayer: “Dear Holy Spirit, I am not a Christian, but I and my son are cared for in this church. One day, I might become a believer. These pastors are worn out in their service for you, doing good to people. Please make them see how important their work is. What would the world be like without them? May they walk on so that I and people like me can find a way one day and come to believe.”

One of the pastors leaned forward and whispered in Selmanovic’s ear, “Thank you, Jesus.” Selmanovic said, “Her words lingered in the air like a wonderful heathen scent. We were hoping that if we just stayed quiet that there would be more words coming. We were basking in the love, hope and faith of this woman.” And it was a hope and faith that she was longing to see in Jesus and his followers.

Will Willimon, our United Methodist bishop in North Alabama, says, “On the basis of our daily experience of walking with Jesus, we have difficulty imagining any other way for people like us—inherently selfish, violent, idolatrous, cowards that we are—to get abundant life other than through a crucified and risen Savior like Jesus. But why should we try to imagine other possible ways, truths, and lives? We’ve got our hands full just trying to keep up with Jesus. Cannot we joyfully, lovingly testify to the unique, unsubstitutable way that has led us to such abundant life?”[iii]

And if we do, we might add, might we not invite others to see what life can be like when lived in God’s light? Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. But the bigger question is: Is Jesus your way, your truth, and your life? Thanks be to God.

John 14:1-14 [NRSV]
"Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also. And you know the way to the place where I am going."
Thomas said to him, "Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?"
Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him."
Philip said to him, "Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied."
Jesus said to him, "Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, 'Show us the Father'? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own; but the Father who dwells in me does his works. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; but if you do not, then believe me because of the works themselves. Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father. I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it.”

[i] Samir Selmanovic, “Finding Our God in the Other,” http://www.crosswalkministries.com/cw/realmedia/102106avs.ram
[ii] Ibid.
[iii] William Willimon, “Preaching on the Way of John 14:6,” Circuit Rider May/June 2007

Soundings: Children

I’m beginning a new sermon series today and as part of it I would like to reintroduce a book that we ought to know a little bit about as Christians. It’s called The Bible and if you didn’t bring one with you today, or weren’t presented with one while you were here this morning, you’ll find a copy in the pew racks. There are several reasons for this reintroduction. For one thing, I have a conviction that sermons ought to be biblical. Maybe you believe that, too. But I recognize that there are many ways of being biblical and I am willing to explore some new ways of doing that.

I have a bias toward the story of scripture. By that I mean that when I turn to the Bible I like to take one text and really wrestle with, get the shape of it, learn the background of it, and hear what God is saying through this particular story. Sometimes I will do that with allusions to other parts of the Bible or to the shape of the scriptures as a whole, but my belief is that God has so much to say in one passage that it’s worth giving it a deep listen.

Today we’re going to do it a little bit differently. We’re going to take a theme or a question and look at how it appears throughout the Bible. I’m calling this a sounding. You know, a sounding is when you take a line with a lead on it and drop it into a body of water to measure the depth. There are more sophisticated ways of doing that now, but that’s the image I want you to keep. Because what we’re going to do is to take a question and do a sounding through the Bible – going down to look at how the question looks from different perspectives in this book.

So that’s one reason for the introduction, but there are others, not the least of which is that it strikes me that we don’t know our primary book nearly well enough. And if we are going to look different from the rest of the world, which is one of the things I suggested last week we should be doing, then one of the things that makes us different or distinctive is the fact that we believe that God is speaking to us through this book. Well, if God is speaking to us through this book and we keep it closed and we remain ignorant of what it has to say, what does that say about how much we really mean what we say? So blow the dust off the covers and let’s do some soundings.

Now this kind of preaching is going to be a challenge for me. You know I’m a storyteller so I’m going to be tempted to linger at every stop to tell the story of how we got this or that verse. If I do that too much, though, we’re liable to be here awhile. So to help guide me along I’m going to offer some provocative propositions to order our journey. These are the things that I want you to be testing with me as we look at these Bible passages. You may also start to develop some provocative propositions of your own, which is just fine.

So, having said all that, let’s look at the question of the day, which is, “What does the Bible tell us about children?” And my first provocative proposition is: We think with children. We think with children.

I remember right after Joel was born. It was probably the first day we were home from the hospital and Suzanne was getting some much-needed sleep. I was sitting on the sofa with this tiny child and he looked at me. Now I know that for a four-day-old baby the world is an incomprehensible blur. It’s all shapes and colors and faces that are becoming more and more familiar. But, I could have sworn, when he looked at me that something very meaningful happened. It was like I was meeting something holy. To be honest, it was like I was meeting God.

I wrote about it in a poem that I shared at a Christmas Eve service one year. This little baby seized the initiative from me. And it was not so much that we met face to face as face to grace.
Now I’ve since learned in many ways that Joel is not God and I think he’s beginning to suspect that I’m not God either, but it is certainly true that people represent for us more than just the people that they are. They play roles in our lives. They are husband or wife, protector or provider, lover or nurturer, caregiver or mentor. This is particularly true for children. They carry meaning and the Bible is very aware of this.

Let’s do some soundings. Genesis chapter 33, verse 5: When Esau looked up and saw the women and children, he said, "Who are these with you?" Jacob said, "The children whom God has graciously given your servant." The children whom God has graciously given your servant. Isn’t this the most natural thing in the world to believe? When a child is born, we say that he or she is a blessing from God. So when Jacob and Esau meet up after twenty years of estrangement, one of the signs for Esau that Jacob had been blessed by God was his children. The children were a sign.

But there is a hurtful counterside to this story. If children mean blessing then the absence of children was often interpreted as a curse from God. All you have to do is go back a few chapters in Jacob’s story and hear the pain in Rachel’s voice. Genesis chapter 30, verse 1: When Rachel saw that she bore Jacob no children, she envied her sister; and she said to Jacob, "Give me children, or I shall die!"

Now, it’s really hard not to tell this whole story because there are a lot of strange things to note about Rachel’s situation. She and her sister were married to the same man and there were concubines and all sorts of other things that would make this a great HBO series but the relevant point for today is that in the worldview of people living in the times of Genesis, not having children was tantamount to death. Children represented the future, they represented security, and they represented God’s favor. Psalm 128 offers us a vision of what the good life was for a faithful Hebrew. Verse 3 says: “Your wife will be like a fruitful vine within your house; your children will be like olive shoots around your table.” But for those who were left out of that vision, no children could be interpreted as a curse. It’s something that we still carry around with us and there is still great pain for couples who struggle with infertility. We think with children.

This takes another form in the Bible. Children become the symbol of the nation and the nation’s hope. When Moses’ mother places him in a basket in the river there are echoes of other stories and foreshadowing of others. Exodus chapter 2, verse 3 describes the scene: Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, has ordered that all the male babies born to the Israelites be thrown into the Nile and killed. But Moses’ mother can’t do that so…”When she could hide him no longer she got a papyrus basket for him, [the word for basket here is only used one other place in the Bible – it’s what Noah builds – she’s building an ark] and she plastered it with bitumen and pitch; she put the child in it and placed it among the reeds on the bank of the river.” And if we fast forward in the story we know that Moses is going to lead God’s people to safety through the waters of the Red Sea. This child is not just a child. He is going to be a representative of the people.

Later Isaiah is going to give us lots of images for children who represent the hopes of the people. Isaiah chapter 7, verse 14…you hear this verse every Christmas: “Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Look, the young woman is with child and shall bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel.” Later in chapter 9, verse 6 he says, “For a child has been born for us, a son given to us; authority rests upon his shoulders; and he is named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” The expectations of the people are centered on a child. And in Jesus those hopes are fulfilled. In the infant Jesus those hopes are fulfilled.

So one thing that you see throughout the Bible up until the coming of Jesus is that children carry a whole lot of symbolic value. God gives the people images of the future and these images often have a child in them. It’s important to realize how unusual this is. In early societies people tried NOT to give special significance to children. Infant mortality was high. Death was far more common than today. Childhood was not a stage of life people paid a lot of attention to. If you survived until adulthood, then you were significant. But here in the Bible we have a society where children had significance. And Jesus only deepens that significance by welcoming children.

So if you accept, (as you surely should), that my first provocative proposition is right and that we do think with children, then there are three other provocative propositions that are even more important. It’s one thing to recognize what we do…it’s another thing to know what we should do. So here’s something important to remember as we get there. Though children may symbolize many things for adults, children are people, too. This is provocative proposition number 2. Children are people, too. They don’t just live in stories that other people write about them. They are not just playing a role in a play where adults have all the leading roles. They are people in their own right.

That’s biblical, too. Children are showing up at some unlikely places, especially in the stories of Jesus. When Jesus feeds the multitudes, the gospels are very clear about noting who was there. Look at Matthew chapter 15, verse 38: “Those who had eaten were four thousand men, besides women and children.” Children were there and they get mentioned, even if they don’t get counted.

When the disciples try to push children away who are coming to see Jesus, they are reflecting the bias of the society that children are less important than the adults who were following Jesus. But how does Jesus respond? Look at Luke chapter 18, verse 16: Jesus called for them and said, "Let the little children come to me, and do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs. Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it." The children matter! In fact, they are models for the disciples to follow.

And then look at Matthew chapter 21, verse 15. To me this is the most fascinating passage of all. We sing songs like “Tell Me the Story of Jesus”, which talks about the children shouting “Hosanna” and waving the branches of the palm tree. But what they are doing is a political act. It makes the leaders nervous. Look at this verse:

But when the chief priests and the scribes saw the amazing things that he did, and heard the children crying out in the temple, "Hosanna to the Son of David," they became angry and said to him, "Do you hear what these are saying?" Jesus said to them, "Yes; have you never read, 'Out of the mouths of infants and nursing babies you have prepared praise for yourself'?"

So children are people, too and that leads to two parallel dangers for us as people who care about and have responsibilities for children. The first danger is that we will neglect our role as parents, disciplinarians, mentors, and elders. This is especially a danger for us in our youth-oriented society where no one wants to be the adult. But provocative proposition number 3 is that children thrive with discipline.

Now in a different age the first stop in talking about discipline would be something like Proverbs chapter 13, verse 24, which says, “Those who spare the rod hate their children, but those who love them are diligent to discipline them.” That usually gets shortened to the old saying, “Spare the rod, spoil the child.” But in an age where we have heard horrible stories about child abuse and beatings that children have suffered, we want a little more than this. Discipline is not the same thing as corporal punishment. I know there a lot of folks who believe that if we just brought back the paddle the education system would be a whole lot better, but I don’t think that’s true.

Discipline is about training, not punishment. We are called to love our children – and by our children I mean the children of our whole community – by telling them who they are and how they should live…by caring enough to correct them when they go astray…and by giving them a grounding in what is right and what is wrong. The bible talks about it in terms of storytelling. When the Passover is celebrated the instructions, found in Exodus chapter 12, starting with verse 24, say:

“You shall observe this rite as a perpetual ordinance for you and your children. When you come to the land that the LORD will give you, as he has promised, you shall keep this observance. And when your children ask you, 'What do you mean by this observance?' you shall say, 'It is the passover sacrifice to the LORD, for he passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt, when he struck down the Egyptians but spared our houses.'"

Children need our stories. They need to hear how we know what to do, where we made mistakes, and how we listen for God. Children need to come to church and to learn the language of our faith. This is discipline, too.

Finally, there is this: We think with children and the danger we run into is that we will forget that they are actually people in their own right with their own fears and needs and dreams and their own future. So we dare not neglect our role in offering them guidance. But my last provocative proposition is this: We also dare not stop learning from children for they are gifts from God.

Jesus points us to this lesson. Matthew chapter 18, verses 2 through 6:
[Jesus] called a child, whom he put among them, and said, "Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever becomes humble like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me. If any of you put a stumbling block before one of these little ones who believe in me, it would be better for you if a great millstone were fastened around your neck and you were drowned in the depth of the sea.”

Unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. What could Jesus possibly mean by this? He doesn’t say. Jerome Berryman, an Episcopal priest who has studied the connections between Christianity and the Montessori Method that we are using in our new school here, writes about this passage:

Jesus did not define the child he told us to be like. To discover what we are to be like if we are to be spiritually mature we must consult Jesus parabolic sayings and actions in scripture, take a deeper look at the children around us, and inquire into [our] own childhood. Jesus’ parabolic method forces us to discover what adult maturity is for ourselves. He refuses to tell us more than where to look. It is the experience of that discovery, which prepares us to enter God’s domain.[i]

So something in the experience of a child can give us a glimpse of the kingdom of heaven. In fact, to become like a child is the key.

This week we started welcoming a bunch of kids here to Franktown. 12 preschoolers who are going to be regulars here. There were some tears and some stressful moments. And that was just the adults. But there is something miraculous about the first day of school. Everything is new. There are new experiences to be had. There are new relationships to be formed. And those children trusted Gillian and trusted their parents and trust us that what we say about them, we believe. They are God’s gift.

Last week I quoted Casting Crowns. Today I want to quote another Christian group – Jars of Clay. They have a song that is old now. It must be 10 years old, and it’s called “Like a Child.” In the song a little girl’s voice repeats things that seem so simple they can’t possibly be true, can they? She sings, “I’ve got joy like a fountain.” And she says, “Be kind to others.” And then she says, “In Jesus Christ, your son.” And then the chorus kicks in:

They say that love can heal the broken
They say that hope can make you see
They say that faith can find a Savior
If you would follow and believe
with faith like a child

Here’s the greatest promise of a biblical perspective on children. If we get it right we can claim the greatest gift. Read John chapter 1, verse 12: “But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God.” You know the greatest thing you can be called? To those who believe, God gives the power to become children of God. There’s a child who needs you and you need to be a child. Thanks be to God.

Luke 18:15-17 (NRSV)People were bringing even infants to him that he might touch them; and when the disciples saw it, they sternly ordered them not to do it. But Jesus called for them and said, "Let the little children come to me, and do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs. Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it."

[i] Jerome Berryman, “CHILDREN AND MATURE SPIRITUALITY”, 2005. http://www.godlyplay.org/uploads/pages/downloads/Children__Mature_Spirituality.pdf

Leaky Vessels and Living Water

There are some things that are just so wrong that you wonder why they were ever done. Like polyester leisure suits. (Been there.) Edible deodorant.[i] (It failed. Who knew?) And actors trying to sing. (Does anybody here remember William Shatner’s version of “Mister Tambourine Man” or Mae West singing “Twist and Shout”?[ii] Didn’t think so. Sad to say – it happened.) These are things that make you say, “What were they thinking? How could the people behind these projects have seriously thought that these were good ideas?”

Well, I’ve got some sad news today, brothers and sisters, and it’s not going to come as any surprise to you. The reasons these things happen and the reasons much more serious and tragic things happen is because we are human beings and as human beings we have an amazing capacity for self-deception. We are capable of some astoundingly good things, too. We are, as Psalm 139 says, “fearfully and wonderfully made” [Ps. 139:14, NRSV]. But we can also get disconnected from reality and from what is really important.

In addition we are forgetful. We forget who we are, who we are made to be, and who God intends us to be. We forget God. This is the most tragic thing about us. We are afflicted by spiritual amnesia and the results are devastating.

So today I want to bring a very simple message and it is this: God does not want any more edible deodorant. What God wants, what this world needs, is a people who are willing to be different. Really different.

I guess you know that this human condition I’ve described is not anything new. Back in 400 A.D. Augustine of Hippo, my favorite early church guy, was recognizing the same thing in himself and the people around him. In his book Confessions, which is one of the first autobiographies, he talks about how humans go astray.

It’s not that we intend to leave God. We pursue all sorts of things that we think will bring us fulfillment or make us successful or make us happy. But if we pursue these things without considering God or how our path strengthens or weakens our spiritual journey, then we often find that we have wandered a long way from home and don’t know where to turn next.

(Actually there’s a new DVD and curriculum out that addresses just this question. It’s called “Where Do I Go Now, God?” and the leader’s guide is $12. Available at your local Cokesbury store or online at Cokesbury.com. I promised the publisher I’d find a way to plug it in every sermon.)

But back to Augustine. Augustine’s way of describing this habit we have of wandering off was to use a version of the prodigal son story. The twist was that the home the prodigal leaves is his own true self. The prodigal who is us, leaves this home and travels into the far country. And the experience of salvation is really a returning to this true self. God doesn’t leave us, even though we may sometimes feel that God is very far away. The reason God seems so distant, Augustine says, is because we have become so detached from ourselves. God is there at home, with our true self, and we, through our sins and distractions and delusions and forgetfulness, have wandered off.

But we can go back even further than that. Our scripture lesson for today shows how deeply embedded this dynamic is within our natures. Jeremiah the prophet was writing around the sixth century before Christ. He spoke to a dying nation – the last days of the independent nation of Judah. It was a time when reform was in the air. When people were looking for new alliances to save them. But Jeremiah had a much more basic question for them.

Jeremiah speaks the word of Yahweh, the people’s God, and says: “What were you thinking?” That’s really at the heart of this passage. “What were you thinking that you would wander off from me? You have forgotten that I brought you out of slavery in Egypt. I led you through desert and darkness, drought and wilderness to bring you to a fertile land where you now live. But when you got here you kept going. You left me behind.

“It’s so bad,” God says, “that you have even stopped asking the question, ‘Where is God?’ It is not a question that occupies you. Even the priests and the keepers of the law and the prophets have stopped asking for me and have busied themselves with things that are worthless.”

So God prepares a case against the people. “I accuse you,” God says. “Look around you. No nation abandons its gods like you have. Even when their gods are not really gods at all, they do not leave them like you have left me. My people have exchanged their glory for something worthless.”

The people it seems have been too busy…too distracted…too disconnected from their own story to realize how far they had left God behind. Other gods seemed more enticing. Other pursuits seemed more profitable. Other things, (which were not really things at all…when you looked at them they were tissue thin), other things seemed more real than the God who gave them life.

Jeremiah was writing for his community almost three thousand years ago, but I bet you’re seeing where this is heading. We don’t read the Bible in here because it’s just a good history lesson. We don’t read the Bible because it’s a quaint old habit that we haven’t found a way to get rid of you. We read the Bible here because we believe that God still has a word to speak to us through these ancient words. So here’s Jeremiah talking to Judeans who have long since passed from the face of the earth. And what is he saying to us?

He could be living in 21st century America, couldn’t he? Are we a people who are busy and distracted and detached from the God who gives us life? Aren’t we a people who, even on the Eastern Shore, live our lives in the car, wandering the roadways in pursuit of things that seem worthwhile today but looking back on them we wonder, “Why did I spend so much time and energy on that?”? Aren’t we a people who are so in touch with pop culture that we know all about Sanjaya and the personalities of American Idol but we know next to nothing about the deep human longings of the psalms of David. Aren’t we a people who know Harry Potter but who can’t see beneath the story of Harry in that last book to see the deep images that could only be there because of the story of Jesus, the crucified King? In other words, aren’t we, just like our ancestors in Judah, just as disconnected from our root story and our primary relationship with God?

Jeremiah concludes with a powerful image. On the one side is a fountain of living water springing up with life for the people. This is God, who is the source of all that they are and whose blessings are sufficient for the crises they are facing. On the other side is a cistern, cracked and leaky, which is what the people have substituted for God…it is what we become when we try to do it on our own as if God didn’t matter. Leaky vessels or living water? What were they thinking when they chose the cracked pots? What are we thinking?

Denise Jackson, who is the wife of the country singer, Alan Jackson, has just written a new book in which she talks very openly about how her marriage to Jackson almost ended. It was 1998, when Jackson was at the height of his career. They had just had their third child and Alan Jackson, who had been her childhood sweetheart, came to Denise and said, “You know what, I can't live like this anymore, and I don't know if we know how to fix it." And he left.

It was a terrible shock. There had been problems in the marriage. It had not been perfect. But it was still a shock. And Denise’s response was to try desperately to do whatever it took to bring Alan back. Part of that was to pray, fervently, that God would bring her husband back.

Then one day she was talking with a friend who gave her some new advice. “You have been praying for Alan to come back,” her friend said. “Why don’t you pray instead that you will become the woman God wants you to be?”

That advice made all the difference. Denise began to concentrate, not on her relationship with Alan, but on her relationship with God. Suddenly all the pressure of having a perfect marriage and her insecurity about who she was started to melt away.

“I put so much pressure on myself,” Denise said. “Everyone, I felt, was looking at us under a magnifying glass and I had to be the perfect wife, who was the perfect size, who wore the perfect gown, who had the perfect jewels, and it was so stressful to live like that and to base your self worth on what you thought other people felt about you. So that's why it was so freeing to really come to the place in my life where I realized that I shouldn't base my self worth on any of that, that my self-worth really comes from being a child of God.”

Nine years later, her marriage has been restored, but I think she would recognize that not every story ends like this. Sometimes the thing we think we want restored doesn’t happen. But the title Denise Jackson’s book is It’s All About Him, and the ‘him’ is not Alan Jackson.[iii] She found new life and living waters, not by basing her life on the relationship she had with Alan Jackson, but by returning to the God who knew…who remembered who she was supposed to be.

Which all reminds me of an encounter another woman had with God. It was by a well in Samaria. A woman on the edges of respectability shows up at the community well in the middle of the day, a time when she was not likely to run into other women who might be about the same work. She brought her jar in the heat of the day to fill it with water.

She ran into a traveling teacher who seemed to know all about her life. He asked her for water, which was a pretty forward thing for a foreign man to do. But he probed right to the heart of her life. He knew about the men in her life, five of them, none of whom had given her what her soul most needed. And what did he promise her? Living water. “A spring of water gushing up into eternal life.” [John 4:14, NRSV]

What are you wasting your life on? We’ve all got something. What is the worthless thing you are dying to give up so that you can live? Is it your preoccupation with a relationship that you just can’t seem to make any headway with? Is it an obsession that you can’t seem to let go of, no matter how ridiculous it seems? Is it video games? Is it gambling? Is it drinking? Online pornography?

I’m telling you that none of those things is getting us closer to God. They are obstacles to becoming the people we are supposed to be…the people our dogs think we are…the people God knows that we can be. Because God has not forgotten. God remembers who you were when you were created, formed in your mother’s womb. God is waiting there at home, with our true selves, the selves we were enabled to become because of Christ’s death and resurrection. God is waiting for us to come to our senses and to give up the edible deodorant. God is waiting for us to give up the cracked pots for the living water that God offers.

And there is more. Jeremiah was calling the people as a whole. There is a greater work for us to do. Our nation has lost its way, too. We have wandered off into a war we don’t understand. We are a country whose leaders have been shown over and over to have feet of clay, feet you can easily see even when it’s not below a bathroom stall. We have not addressed the cries of the poor and the immigrant in our midst. Our health care system is an unholy mess. Our media is not serving the common good. Much of our popular music and entertainment encourages and celebrates our basest desires without pointing the way to something more. There is much for us to do and we should not say – “We are on the Eastern Shore. What can we do?” If the kingdom of God is coming here first (as I sometimes say), why shouldn’t we be helping to get the people ready?

Casting Crowns, a Christian band, has a new album out and the first song on it is one that says, “What This World Needs.” The last verse says, “What this world needs/ Is for us to stop hiding behind our relevance/ Blending in so well that people can't see the difference/ And it's the difference that sets the world free.”

What this world needs is not edible deodorant. What God wants, what this world needs, is a people who are willing to be different. And different because they know the God who loves them and loves this world and because of that is not willing to let them go untransformed. Thanks be to God.

Jeremiah 2:4-13
Hear the word of Yahweh, House of Jacob,
all you clans of the House of Israel.
Thus says Yahweh:
“What injustice did your ancestors find in me
that they went far from me?
They followed vapors and became vacuous.
They did not say, ‘Where is Yahweh,
who brought us out of the land of Egypt,
and led us through the desert plains,
a land of deserts and pits,
a land of darkness and drought,
a land where no one travels
and a place where no one lives?’
I brought you into a fertile land
to eat its fruit and its good things.
But you came and defiled my land
and my heritage you made into an abomination.

The priests did not say, ‘Where is Yahweh?’
Those who handle the Law did not know me;
the leaders rebelled against me.
The prophets prophesied by Baal,
and followed after things that are worthless.”

“Therefore, once more, I accuse you,” says Yahweh.
“And you children’s children I accuse.
So cross over to the coasts of Cyprus and look;
send to Kedar and examine with care;
see if there has ever been such a thing as this.
Has a nation ever changed its gods,
(even though they are not gods)?
But my people have changed their glory for something worthless.
Be appalled, O heavens, at this;
shudder with great horror,” declares Yahweh.

“For two evils my people have committed:
they have forsaken me,
the fountain of living water,
and have dug their own cisterns,
which hold no water.”

[i] “Garlic Cake and Edible Deodorant: When Products Go Wrong,” CBC News, 2/1/2000, http://www.cbc.ca/consumers/market/files/home/failedproducts/index.html.
[ii] Dave Barry, Dave Barry’s Book of Bad Songs, (Andrews McMeel Publishing: Kansas City, 2000), p. 22.
[iii] “Country Star’s Wife on Marriage’s Crash and Rebirth,” 8/31/2007, cnn.com, http://www.cnn.com/2007/SHOWBIZ/books/08/31/celeb.qa.denisejackson.ap/index.html.