8 Crazy Things Christians Do: Love Their Enemies

Imagine this scene with me. Jesus comes upon you as you sit by the side of the road. You have heard about him. You have been intrigued by him. You even suspect he may be the Messiah – the promised one of God come to bring salvation to a broken and wounded world.

He comes to you. You! Of all the people he could have come to, he come to you and looks you in the eye. You feel addressed to the deepest reaches of your soul. What he asks you will do. You know it even before he asks. What he says is simple: “Come, follow me.”

Then something else kicks in. What does Jesus mean when he says, “Come, follow me”? Does he mean that I should follow Jesus in a spiritual sense, acknowledging that he is who he says he is and trusting and believing in him? And if I do that then I am fulfilling the intent of what he has invited me to do and I won’t actually have to physically go and follow him. That would upset a whole lot of things in my life right now, after all. To actually follow Jesus, I’d have to leave behind my possessions, my attachments, my habits, my family, my friends, my small pleasures and daily routines. Would Jesus really want me to leave those things? Surely what Jesus means is that I should follow him with my faith and with my heart and not with my feet and my body.

No. No. No. That is ridiculous! When Jesus said, “Come, follow me” maybe, just maybe he meant, “Come, you, now and follow me.” Get up off your duff and put one foot in front of the other and take the risk that I mean what I say and that your salvation is bound up in doing what I say. This is Nike theology here. Just do it.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German theologian who died in one of Hitler’s death camps during World War II, struggled with this same question in his most famous book, Discipleship. He lamented that Christians in his day were paying lip service to following Christ but had convinced themselves that they could be lived out without changing their lives in any way. “Jesus’ call is to be take ‘absolutely seriously,’ but true obedience to it consists of my staying in my profession and serving him there, in true inner freedom. Thus Jesus would call: come out!—but we would understand that he actually meant: stay in!—of course, as one who has inwardly come out.”[i] And so the Christian Church capitulated to the Nazis and allowed themselves to be co-opted by the structures of evil and to allow the murder of millions of Jews and others, all the while maintaining that they were following Jesus spiritually, even as their bodies followed Hitler. The people who bore Jesus’ name were indistinguishable from the followers of Satan.

So here’s what disturbs me and what made me want to start this new sermon series today: I am wondering what it means to be a Christian today. I am wondering if we believe any longer that it makes a difference to look different from the world. Do we really believe that something like prayer matters? What is the value of worship? Why in the world should we forgive? What is the point of giving offerings to God? Do we really think these things matter?

I know. I know. These things are strange in this world. They don’t talk about forgiveness down at Sonny’s Barbershop. They don’t break into prayer over eggs and scrapple at the Captain’s Deck. When you go to school on Tuesday or Wednesday this week, they’re not going to be encouraging you to witness. These are things that belong to the people of God and the people of God, because they also live in the world, are not always certain they want to be different. It seems a little threatening. It seems a little uncomfortable. To tell you the truth, it seems a little crazy.

But I want us to get a little crazy over the next couple of months. I want to talk about 8 crazy things that Christians do – crazy according to the standards of the world around us. I could have picked more. I could have been more topical. I could have stayed on the lectionary. But I’m feeling a little desperate. I’m feeling a little disconnected myself. I want to know what it means to follow Jesus with my whole self. And I want to know what the world feels like, what I feel like, when I try to live out of the simple obedience Bonhoeffer talks about. This is risky business, you know, and I’m not sure what we’re getting ourselves into, but I want you to come along, because Jesus is still calling.

So today we go to Romans and Matthew and we read this command that immediately takes us to our first “yes, but…” "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” [Mat 5:43-44]. Love your enemies! Yes, that girl in your homeroom class who whispers behind your back and is always texting other people in class with nasty comments about you. Love her. Yes, that businessman who shafted you on a deal. Love him. Yes, that horrible boss who treats you like trash. Love her. Yes, that criminal who beat you up. Love him. Yes, that terrorist who is so blinded by religious ideology that he sees in you only a target for elimination. Love him.

“Yes, but…” There are no “yes, but”s here! Jesus didn’t qualify his statement by saying, “Love your enemies, except those who are truly horrendous.” There are no distinctions. All enemies are alike in the eyes of God and they are worthy of only one thing from you. They are worthy of your love.

“O.K., Jesus, but I don’t have to like them, right? I can love them in the abstract the same way that I love humanity but not have to really associate with them.” No, you can’t love them in the abstract. You must love them in the concrete. Paul makes that clear, "If your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink.” There are actions that should be taken. There are things that need doing. Loving your enemies is an active verb. Paul does at least give you a little bit of satisfaction in doing this because he says that when you do these things for your enemies “you will heap burning coals on their heads."

“But Jesus these people hate me.” Of course they hate you. They are your enemies. That’s what enemies do.

“But they don’t deserve it.” Of course they don’t, but they do need it. Who needs love more than your enemy? If your life has really been turned around by Jesus…if you have really experienced the love that God has offered…if you have been saved and transformed…then you will show love. What your enemy does with your love is none of your business, but what you do with your love makes a world of difference. You can love your family and those who do good to you, but how does that show that you have been transformed? As Jesus says, even tax collectors and Gentiles, (pretty low folks in the eyes of his listeners), can do that. Loving your enemy – now that’s radical.

Bonhoeffer, when he talks about this command, says that this command is what separates disciples from nonbelievers. This is what makes disciples different from the world around them. This is what makes them look peculiar or extraordinary. “What are you doing that is special?” Bonhoeffer asks. “The extraordinary – that is what is most offensive—is a deed the disciples do. It has to be done—like the better righteousness—and done visibly.”[ii] It is offensive to human nature and to our standards of justice to love those who wrong us. In that light, the most offensive thing Jesus ever said was uttered from a cross, after he had been battered and bruised and whipped and spit upon and nailed to a bar and strung up on a hill outside the city. And he said, “Forgive them, Lord, for they don’t know what they are doing.” Loving his enemies and dying for them. What an offense. And how many of us would do the same? And yet…it’s not about what our enemies might do with such a display of weakness…it’s about what Jesus has done by going to that extent.

Will Campbell is a crazy man like this. Campbell is a Baptist preacher from Mississippi who spent his life struggling to follow Jesus as literally as he could. In the 1950s that led him to be involved with the Civil Rights Movement. He was one of four people who escorted the first black students into a white high school in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1957. He worked to integrate schools and to ensure voting rights for blacks across the south. He thought he had a pretty solid handle on what he was supposed to do. He was loving everyone.

When Campbell talked about his work, he always thought about it as a matter more of faith than racial politics. When a friend who didn’t believe in God asked him to describe Christianity in ten words or less, he said, “We’re all bastards but God loves us anyway.”

Then one day he was forced to confront what he really believed. His friend, Jonathon Daniel, a seminarian, was in Alabama helping in a voter registration drive. As Daniel was exiting a convenience store with another white priest and two black civil rights workers, he was shot and killed by Thomas Coleman, a special deputy who was incensed by what the workers were doing. He got the news from his friend who did not believe in God.

His friend challenged him to test his belief. Was Jon Daniel, his friend, a bastard? Campbell was forced to admit, “Yes.” Was Thomas Coleman? That was easier. “Yes.” Well, then Campbell’s friend asked, “Which of the two do you think God loves the most?”

Campbell called it a moment of conversion, a time when he realized that the full implication of his faith was that God loved the victim and, yes, God loved the man who killed him. “That a man could go to a store where unarmed human beings are drinking soda pop and eating moon pies, fire a shotgun blast at one of them, tearing his lungs and heart and bowels from his body, turn on another and send lead pellets ripping through his flesh and bones, and that God would set him free, [was] almost more than I could stand. But unless that is precisely the case, then there is no Gospel, there is no Good News. Unless that is true, we have only bad news.”[iii]

Campbell went on to develop relationships with members of the Ku Klux Klan, something that his civil rights associates could not understand. But for Campbell it was the concrete thing that he could do to live out the love of Jesus. Of course he would love the victims. That was the easy part. Loving the enemy. That was the challenge.

Yes, this is crazy stuff that Jesus calls us to. But he must know something that we find hard to believe. He must know that love works. We pay it lip service. We say that we believe in it. But when it comes to the hard realities of life and the challenges we face we seldom think of love as the answer. Love is all fine and good until we have to face death and murder and war and abuse. Then we have to have recourse to something else. Fear takes over and we reach for different methods and different tools. But love is what Jesus left us. Love is the biblical method for dealing with enemies.

Bonhoeffer says that “Jesus does not promise us that the enemy we love, we bless, to whom we do good, will not abuse and persecute us. They will do so. But even in doing so, they cannot harm and conquer us is we take this last step to them in intercessory prayer. Now we are taking up their neediness and poverty, their being guilty and lost, and interceding for them before God. We are doing for them…what they cannot do for themselves.”[iv]

What I’m asking for you on this first day of this series is no easy thing. I’m asking you to follow Jesus and to follow him in loving your enemy. Think of the person it is hardest for you to pray for. That’s who Jesus is asking you to love. That’s who Jesus is asking you to bless. That’s who Jesus is asking you to pray for. That’s who Jesus is asking you to intercede for. Not because it’s therapeutic. Not because it’s got an immediate payoff. Not because it makes sense. It doesn’t. But because he’s come to the side of the road and picked you out of the crowd. He’s looked you in the eyes and has addressed you at the deepest reaches of your soul. And you know that what he asks of you, you will do. And he’s asking you to love your enemy. Who is it? What are you going to do? Jesus, take me by the hand. I want to follow. I don’t want to be afraid. I want to know that love is the engine that runs the universe and nothing else. Thanks be to God.

Romans 12:9-21 (NRSV)
Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good; love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honor. Do not lag in zeal, be ardent in spirit, serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints; extend hospitality to strangers.
Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another; do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly; do not claim to be wiser than you are. Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all. If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.
Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God; for it is written, "Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord." No, "if your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink; for by doing this you will heap burning coals on their heads." Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

[i] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Discipleship, Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works, Vol. 4, [Fortress Press: Minneapolis, 2001], p. 79.
[ii] Ibid., p. 145.
[iii] Will D. Campbell, Brother to a Dragonfly, [Contiuum: New York, 1977], pp. 217-224.
[iv] Bonhoeffer, p. 140.

Living Passionately

Ashley Body is an undergraduate at Texas Lutheran University. Like a lot of schools, Texas Lutheran has a meal plan for students where you pay in at the beginning of the semester and you have an account for meals that you draw from every time you buy food in the school cafeteria. A lot of students get to the end of the semester, though, and they find that they’ve got money left in the account and the problem with that is that if you still have money at the end of the semester, it disappears.

So at the end of one of the semesters she was buying a sandwich and she asked the cashier how much money she had left on her card. “About $60,” she was told.

“And how much is a sandwich?” she asked.

“About $3.50.”

Then Ashley did some quick figuring in her head – she was a business major – and she bought a bunch of sandwiches. She sat down at lunch with some of her friends, who were part of a Christian group on campus. They asked her what she was doing and she said, “Jesus said to feed to hungry so I’m going to feed the hungry.” So then they all started to think about what they could do. They got some friends together and they all went to the cafeteria to use up their accounts on sandwiches. They ended up with 450 sandwiches which they loaded up in cars and took to a park in Austin where they knew a lot of homeless people gathered. They found themselves doing something they would not have done if Ashley hadn’t been struck by the Holy Spirit. They were meeting a need and building relationships with the poorest of the poor.[i]

It was a spontaneous movement. Sure, there were other organizations working on hunger issues in Austin. Sure, there were other ways to address the need, but this group of college students saw something they could do and they did it. And now they have started a community called the Netzer Co-op which is very simply “a diverse community of friends who are seeking to participate in what God is up to in south central Texas.”[ii] That’s how they describe themselves.

On a regular basis now they conduct what they call Likewise Experiments like this one that Ashley initiated. The name comes from the story of the Good Samaritan when Jesus tells the story of the foreigner who helps a man beaten by robbers and then tells his listeners to “Go and do likewise.” So they are trying to live that out. As their mission statement says, “We see this as more than just a call for good deeds, but really a call to recognize that the kingdom of God is here, not somewhere else, if we can learn to embrace it. We learn in that story that the kingdom looks a lot like taking care of those around you despite circumstance, race, economic status, sexual orientation, or any other ‘good reason.’ So our mission statement is then really just as simple as Christ’s easy answer, ‘Go and do likewise.’”[iii]

When I look around at the state of Christian life in the 21st century, I know that there a lot of worries. Christianity is not as large a presence in our national life. Churches are struggling. A whole generation of young people seems to be missing from many congregations. Even Christians themselves don’t seem to be living up to their calling.

But I also see new things emerging. Who would have believed that alternative services like our 8:30 service would have become so prevalent twenty years ago? Christian book stores and Christian music are now mainstream. And then there are groups like these college students at Texas Lutheran who are doing something radical. Radical means going back to the roots, you know, and what these college students did was to go right back to what Jesus said and tried to do it. What a concept! And, sure, we might want to say – why are they trying to rebuild the wheel? Why are they not working through existing churches or existing organizations? And, sure, as even they admit, some of their Likewise Experiments work and some don’t. But they have recognized that following Jesus means submitting yourself to a lifestyle that doesn’t always conform to expectations.

Conforming to expectations. Do you ever do that? Do you do things just because you want to be more popular? More respectable in the community? Do you do things or not do things because you are afraid you might fail? Do you do things because everybody is doing them? Or not do them because nobody is doing them? That’s when we are conforming to expectations.

“Be not conformed to this world,” Paul says in today’s scripture reading from Romans in the King James Version, (which just sounds right to convey this point). “Be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.” Don’t be conformed to the world around you. Do you know what is conformed? Jell-O. Jell-O is conformed. It takes the shape of whatever you put it in. You put it in a mold the shape of a circle, it comes out shaped like a circle. You put it in a mold the shape of a possum, it comes out shaped like a possum. But you are not Jell-O. You are not supposed to be conformed to the world around you. You are not supposed to take on the shape of the expectations of others. You are not supposed to be shaped like an adulterer or a liar or a drug dealer or a gossip or a sloth or a polluter or a Grinch. You are not even supposed to be shaped like a consumer or a victim or a loner or a superhero. Don’t be conformed to this world and the things it would shape you to be.

Be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind. Be transformed. You were meant to be something more. You were meant to look different. You were meant to bear the image of God. You were meant to be growing ever more into the likeness of Christ who is our salvation. If your mind is being renewed, your actions will follow. If you think different you will act different. And if you act different the world around you will change and begin to look more and more like another place. It will begin to look more and more like the kingdom of heaven which Jesus tells us is not only at hand but it is also among us.

Do you know why Jell-O shakes when it comes out of the mold? Do you know why it jiggles? It’s afraid. I don’t care what Bill Cosby says. It’s afraid and it’s afraid because it has no moral fiber. It has no backbone. It had no sense of what it is to be apart from the mold. And so it trembles, knowing that without the world and without God is has no defense against whatever might be thrown at it.

So, I say again, you are not Jell-O. You are non-conformists. You are being renewed in your mind so that you can know what God intends for you and for the world. But even as Paul tells us this he gives us three pieces of good news. The first thing he tells us is that if we give up conformation for transformation then we will be realistic about who we are. “You don’t have to think more of yourself than you ought to,” he says to the Romans. If you’ve got an inflated ego, you can be liberated from that and you can give it up without fear of loss, because the gift of getting closer to Jesus is that you also get closer to your own true self. The same could be said for those who think too little of themselves, because you need to be liberated from that, too. And the closer you get to Jesus the more you will realize that you were made for far more than the small vision you have for who you are.

“Get real,” Paul says. You were given gifts. You were given graces. You were made for more and some of you are not living up to that. Some of you were made to be prophets. You have been given visions of what God is doing and wants to do through us and you have been holding back. You are not Jell-O – you are a prophet.

Some of you were made to be teachers and you are hiding you light. Maybe because you think you don’t have what you need to offer. Maybe because you are afraid that your gift will be despised. Maybe because you feel like there are too many obstacles in the way. Maybe because you feel you aren’t seeing any effects from your teaching. But you are not Jell-O. If you have the gift to teach, you should be teaching.

Paul says it. I say it. Some of you are preachers and you need to be preaching. If you have the gift of giving, you should be giving. Why are you holding back? What are you afraid of? If you have the gift of compassion, why are you depriving yourself and the world of the joy of sharing it? Your true self is waiting for you to discover if you will only be transformed. You are not Jell-O, you are Christ’s own.

So the first piece of good news is that you will have a realistic vision of who you are if you give yourself over to transformation. The second piece of good news is that you will not do it alone. Jell-O stands in fear because it stands alone, but you are part of the body of Christ. Each of us is a member of one another and our gifts are not exercised alone. We each have a role to play and we are part of a larger community.

This week was Vacation Bible School here at church and it was a great week. We got to play with goo and sing and do experiments and wear goofy clothes. But the best part of the week for me was getting to do it all together. We got to learn about God together and each of the leaders had a certain role to play. Some of us made snacks. Some were crew leaders. Some were doing crafts or drama or Bible time. But all together we experienced something greater than any small part. And we learned that Jesus gives us the power to be brave. To be ourselves.

The last thing to say, and it is great news, is that the life that we gain when we give ourselves over to be transformed is one that is lived passionately. Paul doesn’t tell his readers to give their interests or their spare time or their hobbies or even their souls over to God – he tells them to hand over their bodies – their whole selves – as a living sacrifice. This is spiritual worship, Paul says, to give our whole lives to an adventure that is bigger than any one of us or any part of us. When I see students like Ashley Body doing something as simple and yet as radical as converting unused cafeteria money into a social justice action I see people living passionately – with their whole lives – to follow Jesus.

Over the last two weeks we’ve had the opportunity to watch the greatest athletes in the world in competition at the Olympics. They have trained to the utmost for a chance to get a gold medal. Sometimes they do it, like Michael Phelps or Usian Bolt, and sometimes they don’t. One athlete who caught my attention this week was Lolo Jones, who had run the fastest time in the world in the 100m hurdles this year. She took off at the beginning of the race and was only two hurdles from a sure gold medal when her toe caught the top of a hurdle and she stumbled. Six others passed her and she was out. You could just tell by her whole demeanor that she was crushed. I pray that she will come to see that day as a day when she lived as fully as she could and when she lived out the obvious gifts she had been given. Lolo Jones may not be on the medal stand, but she was being her true self.

So how are you holding back? What gifts do you have that you’re not even putting out on the track? What is that keeps you from living a life that is full? Will you be transformed and not conformed? Because, you know, you are not Jell-O. Thanks be to God.

Romans 12:1-8
Therefore I call upon you, brothers and sisters, because of the mercies of God, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, a real evidence of your service. And do not be formed by this age, but rather be transformed by the renewal of your mind so that you may test what is the will of God -- what is good and acceptable and whole.
For I tell everyone who is among you, because of the grace given to me, don't think more highly of yourself than you ought to think, but rather think as a straight-thinker, each according to the measure of faith God has measured out.
For just as in one body we have many parts, but all the parts do not have the same function - so we who are many are one body in Christ, and each of us are members one of another. But we each have spiritual graces of various kinds according to the grace which was given us:
prophecy, according to the proportion of faith;
ministry, in ministering;
the teacher, in teaching;
the proclaimer, in proclaiming;
the giver, in generosity;
the pastor, in devotion;
the compassionate in gladness.

[i] http://www.emergentvillage.org/podcast/.
[ii] http://www.netzercoop.org/.
[iii] Ibid.

God Does Not Forget

I had been sitting with her for some time. Outside in the hallways, the nursing assistants were busy with medications and others were collecting the trays from lunch. Another resident was calling out for a loved one who had long since died. Yet another sang an old tune whose words I couldn’t make out.

She, however, was calm and composed, still the figure of quiet dignity that I had always known. Occasionally she shared a story or a question – each of them disconnected. There was no current I could detect to what she was talking about. Her memory was gone – fragmented into a hundred little sections that made it difficult for her even to recognize me. I often wondered if she even registered that I was there. How many times did I think about how awful it was to lose your memory – to forget the names and faces of those who were closest to you?

Then as I got ready to go I asked if I could pray with her, something she was always ready to do. She bowed her head and closed her eyes. I reached for her hand and said a few words that I can’t remember. But then I started in on the Lord’s Prayer. About two lines in I heard her voice joining in with mine. “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done.” Her illness could not rob her of these words which she had been saying all of her life. “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” She was there. For a moment she was at peace, wrapped up in a prayer that had been with her at moments of joy and moments of crisis, Sunday in and Sunday out for 92 years. “For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.” She was smiling as I left.

A few weeks ago I was teaching in Dallas and it was the first time I had taught in the Course of Study School in two years. I noticed, as I tried to dust off my memory of Martin Luther and the Reformation and of more recent folks like Karl Barth and Billy Graham, that I was feeling mentally rusty. Things just didn’t flow as easily as I was used to. Once I got back into the stories, it was great. I remembered why I love this stuff. But I’m learning that it’s going to take more mental exercise to try to hold on to all that I’m used to holding on to.

All those old jokes about memory are starting hit home. Like the one about three aging men who are at the doctor's office for a memory test. The doctor asks the first man, "What is three times three?"

He says, "274."

The doctor rolls his eyes and looks up at the ceiling, and says to the second man, "O.K., it's your turn. What is three times three?"

"Tuesday," replies the second man.

The doctor shakes his head sadly, and then asks the third man, "Okay, your turn. What's three times three?"

"Nine," says the third man.

"That's great!" says the doctor. "How did you get that?"

"Simple," he says, "just subtract 274 from Tuesday." [i]

Makes perfect sense to me.

But here’s the thing that makes this a subject for a sermon. We may be prone to forgetting things or even to diseases that rob us of our memory, but God does not forget. That is good news.

It’s important for us to hear because we Americans can be pretty rootless. We stay on the move. Sometimes we are a long way from our extended families. Sometimes we want to escape who we have been and try to start all over at some new place. We are a nation of self-made men and women. Right?

But we can never really escape our roots. The people who loved us and cared for us as children never really leave us. Our parents and grandparents, our friends and neighbors - they leave an indelible imprint on our lives, for good or ill, and in whatever life we lead we take them with us, continuing a dialogue with them through our decisions and our actions.

I think about this whenever I go back to Southampton County, where most of my extended family used to live. It's a little like Northampton County actually - flat, tidewater, peanut country - full of sandy soil and pine trees. Really it's a very uninteresting county - not much to see, not much to do.

But it was always a magic place to me. Maybe that's because of all the stories my Dad and Mom used to tell me about the county - about my relatives from long ago and about their childhoods. Maybe it was magic because it was place where my parents were very relaxed and I was able to spend more time with them. Maybe it's because part of me was there - not so much in the land, but in my relatives, and I was able to discover myself in them a little bit more with each trip.

So where is the gospel in this reminiscence? Well, Christians need to have that sense of connection, too. We need to know what makes this world and our lives magical. Paul knew this when he wrote his letter of introduction to the Christians in Rome. We don't know what the Roman church was going through, and perhaps Paul didn't either, but we do know that the Roman Empire of that time had some features that were very similar to our own.

It was a place of great mobility. Great highway systems and a strong military presence made travel easy and relatively safe. Because of that mobility people might find themselves living hundreds and thousands of miles from the place they were born.

Also because of that mobility, new religious thoughts and trends and movements spread quickly, capturing the attention of a spiritually hungry people who were very interested in novelty and new things. Christianity was able to spread from Jerusalem at the eastern corner of the empire, all the way to Rome within a very few years. People were fascinated with it and there were a lot of new converts who found new life and new energy in Jesus Christ.

But Paul insisted that Christianity was NOT a new thing. Though he called himself an apostle to the Gentiles, he insisted that Jesus was thoroughly Jewish and that Jesus was a direct descendent of the great figures from the Jewish scriptures that we call the Old Testament. Jesus stood in the line of Moses and Abraham, of David and Elijah. And the covenant God made with the nation of Israel was a covenant that remained in effect.

This was important for Paul to say, for there were many Christians who rejected the witness of the Hebrew Scriptures, the Old Testament, as the story of another God or a false God with a different people. Jesus Christ, these folks claimed, was the revelation of a new god in the history of the world. And the story of the Jews had nothing to do with them. One of these heretical leaders, Marcion, even fashioned his own Bible which included none of the books of our Old Testament, only one gospel and a few letters of Paul.

But Paul himself stood against this position. He struggled with the relationship of Christians to the old Law of Moses and he said that Christ really did bring about a new possibility for relationship. But when he came to the question of God's relationship with Israel and asked the question, "Has God rejected the people of God?" he answered it with an emphatic, "Of course not!"

Then Paul goes on to warn the Roman Christians not to believe that God's mission with Israel has ended. Despite the hardships that the early Christians faced in dealing with the Jewish synagogues, Paul reminded them that they as Christians had been grafted on to a tree with Jewish roots and not the other way around. There was no room for triumphalism or bitterness because God would not forget the roots.

Long ago God had chosen the people of Israel for a special relationship. It was not an easy relationship and Israel had failed God many, many times, but God had not abandoned the people. They had a covenant - a binding agreement that God had vowed never to break, despite the unfaithfulness of Israel. And though Paul noted the disobedience of the Jewish people of his day, he reminded the Christians that they, too, had been disobedient and it was the failure of all of them that had opened the door to God's new act of mercy and salvation in Jesus Christ. As God had done throughout their history, God took the sinfulness of the world and created a way of redemption.

What if God HAD rejected the people of Israel? What if God had forgotten that covenant? What if God HAD decided to start all over with Jesus and a new people called Christians? Could we be any more sure of our place than the Jews? If God had really rejected them completely, how could we be sure that God wouldn't also reject us? The issue is not just who's got it right. The issue really is the faithfulness of God. And God has remained faithful.

We forget this first covenant with Israel far too often and the results have been tragic. In York, England, where I lived for a year, there is a sign on the castle which says that in the 1500's a group of zealous Protestants cornered a group of 500 Jews in the castle, threatening them with death for their failure to convert to the "true" faith. The Jews inside set fire to the castle rather than submit to the crowd and they all died.

The Nazi Holocaust of the 1930's and '40's in which more that 6 million Jews died was made easier by their demonization of the Jews as unchristian. Today hate groups continue to call Jews "Christkillers" and in the name of Christianity violate Jewish cemeteries and synagogues. And major Christian denominations appoint special missionaries to "convert" the Jews despite this terrible history.

Paul said, "All Israel will be saved". God has not abandoned them or given them up or finished using them. But God has done a new thing in Jesus Christ. And we who follow him need to remember our roots. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. And all of us together stand before a God of judgment and mercy.

Paul reminds us that we have a lot of stories to tell as well - stories of wandering patriarchs and resourceful women - stories of all-too-human kings and crucified saviors. And unless we tell all the stories and remember who we are and where our roots lie, we will never begin to see this world for what it really is - a magic place, filled with the presence and the glory and the power of a faithful God who does not abandon us, despite our failures. God does not forget. And that is good news. Thanks be to God.

Romans 11:1-2a, 29-32
I ask, then, has God rejected his people? By no means! I myself am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, a member of the tribe of Benjamin. God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew. ...for the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. Just as you were once disobedient to God but have now received mercy because of their disobedience, so they have now been disobedient in order that, by the mercy shown to you, they too may now receive mercy. For God has imprisoned all in disobedience so that he may be merciful to all.

[i] Funnyhumor.com, http://www.funnyhumor.com/jokes/936.php.

The Perils and Potential of Walking on Water

A few years ago a show business lawyer by the name of Ron Major got an idea. He was not a particularly religious guy but he talked about his idea as if it were a vision from heaven. “It hit me like lightning,” he said. “I was driving from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv. It was night. I was alone in the car and suddenly I had it. Without any warning, it was there.” And what was ‘it’? Ron Major was going to help people walk on water.

That’s not exactly true. What Ron was going to do was to help people look like they were walking on water. You see, Ron’s vision was to build a 100 meter submerged hydraulic platform in the Sea of Galilee, not far from Capernaum, where today’s Bible story is supposed to have taken place. Then he would charge tourists, or pilgrims as he refers to them, about 2 dollars each to have the walking on water experience. And he would call it the “Walk on Water Experience.”

I can’t find any evidence that this thing ever got built. But just imagine what that would be like. You walk out on a big sheet of Plexiglas with a metal frame underneath it. The hydraulic pistons would adjust with the water level to be just out of sight below the surface. There were supposed to be catwalks on either side with nets to catch people who fell off. Lifeguards would be there to make sure that if you called out like Peter, “Save me!” somebody would be there to fish you out. It just loses something from the story in the Bible, though doesn’t it? Somehow it turns the whole story upside down. Instead of being a story about faith and doing things that don’t make any sense by the ways of the world this is using the mechanics…the ways of the world…to create the illusion of faith. Major said, “I don’t have any logical explanation for what I am doing.”[i]

I don’t either, because it seems to me that this points up our entire conflict about faith these days. We want the appearance of walking on water without the actual danger that we’re really doing it. We want to rely on steel instead of water. If we really took seriously Jesus’ call, we would live lives of risk-taking faith. But that’s the point of this sermon and I’m not supposed to be there yet. So let me back up.

Let’s start with the Bible. It’s a pretty straightforward story, if you’re used to stories with ghosts and storms and saviors who walk on water. It comes in the gospel of Matthew at a time when the disciples are just starting to feel that Jesus might be a prophet of a different order than others. Chapter 13 ends with Jesus going to his hometown and getting a less than warm reception. He doesn’t do any miracles there because of the unbelief of the people who can’t see anything except a carpenter’s son whom they had watched grow up.

Chapter 14 begins with Herod’s execution of John the Baptist, the prophet who had been a forerunner of Jesus. Herod was the Jewish ruler of the land and he took offense at John because he had dared to question his relationship with his brother’s wife. But he didn’t kill John right away because he was afraid of the people who saw in John a great prophet. Then Herod gets entranced by his stepdaughter dancing at a decadent banquet and promises her anything she wants. What she wants is the head of John the Baptist on a platter, which Herod provides.

So it has been a bad time for the prophets of God. But Jesus is beginning to show signs that he is more than those around him might think. Right after the scene at Herod’s banquet we get a different kind of feast as Jesus feeds five thousand men plus women and children out in the wilderness. It was like something from another time – as when the people ate manna from heaven as they wandered through the desert after leaving slavery in Egypt so many centuries before.

The miracles have started and the disciples are beginning to suspect that Jesus is going to change their outlook on a lot of things. Later, of course, they will sit down at another meal with Jesus and he will tell them startling, impossible things. “This is my bread,” he will say. “This is my blood,” he will say. Eating would never be the same.

Now Jesus had sent away the crowds. He went up on a nearby mountain to pray and the boat went on across the lake. Late in the night the boat was struggling against the waves and the wind in the middle of Sea of Galilee. Jesus came to them walking across the waves and the response of the disciples is as you can imagine it might be. They are terrified and they don’t recognize him. “It’s a ghost!” they cry out, which, of course, they would. There is nothing solid or substantial about the water. This was long before Ron Major came along with his idea for a hydraulic platform. Ordinary people don’t walk across the water. No one solid or substantial would walk across water. So…it must be a ghost.

Only it isn’t. It’s Jesus and says, “Pull yourselves together. It’s me! Don’t be afraid.” Actually what he says is, “I am,” which makes you think again about the Exodus story when Moses asks God for a name and God responds by saying, “I am.”

This doesn’t seem to do it for the disciples. They’re still not sure what they’re seeing, so Peter devised a test. It’s not a very good test, but it’s the best he can come up with on the spot. He said to Jesus, “Lord, if it’s you, order me to come to you on the water.” You can see why it’s not a very good test. If it fails Peter drowns, but O.K., that’s what Peter’s got. And Jesus said, “Come!”

So Peter gets out of a perfectly good boat and starts to walk across the water. His test is work. He’s walking. He’s looking at Jesus. He’s on his way. He’s got some new ideas for fishing charter trips.

But then three things happen. First, he notices that the wind is pretty fierce and that’s a little unsettling. Second, he gets scared. A natural response, but that leads to the third thing: he starts to sink. As long as Peter was focused on Jesus things were great. But now he’s gotten beyond the command. He’s in uncharted waters. He notices that the water is not solid or substantial. There is no hydraulic platform down there. And he starts to sink and he cries out, “Lord, save me!”

Jesus stretches out his hand and he grabs a hold of Peter, and he says…as he thought about the people in his hometown…as he has said to the disciples before and as he will say to them again in the future…he says, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?”

“Why did you doubt? You were doing it, Peter. You were walking on water. When you threw caution to the wind, when you stepped out in faith…when you believed my command could change how the world as you know it works…when you took a risk and trusted that I am who I say that I am, you could walk on water.

“But when you listen to your doubts and fears, Peter…when you heed the fierce winds…when you are overwhelmed by the waves…when you believe the voice within you that says, ‘You can’t…he’s not…the world doesn’t work this way!’ then the world doesn’t work that way.”

Then the winds stop and Jesus and Peter get into the boat and the disciples worship Jesus saying, “You are the Son of God!” And we begin to see that they are getting it. Jesus is not just another prophet – he’s turning their whole world upside down. Walking on water is the least of it. Jesus is going to do something much more miraculous in their lives. Jesus is going to save them.

So what is substantial in this world? What is it that we can rely on to hold us up? Where will we put our trust? If the story is our guide, it says that the place that is most substantial is with Jesus. It’s not the people in the perfectly good boat who feel safe – it’s the person who has his eyes on Jesus, who walks toward him and who calls out to Jesus to save him – it’s Peter who learns that maybe the natural home for the Christian is not in the boat but on the water.

We say that we believe this as Christians, you know. We say that we are people of the water and we say that because of baptism. Baptism is the ground of our identity because in the waters of baptism God has come to claim us. In the waters of baptism we find the grace that finds us before we can ever turn toward God. And in baptism we express the faith that God has come in Jesus to save us and to save the world. When we forget who we are as Christians, we are supposed to go back to the water. That’s the water we walk on.

When I was in campus ministry at UVA we had a student who joined us in the middle of the year. When I first met him it was at a student activities fair where all the student groups were encouraging new people to join. I stood there with another member of the Wesley Foundation and talked with students as they passed by. Brian was at the booth next to us and he was dressed entirely in bamboo armor. He had a wooden sword in his hand. He was representing a Korean martial arts group, but the armor suggested something more. Brian was fighting with the world and fighting to find his place in it.

The student I was with invited Brian to come to one of our Thursday night dinners and he did. Then he came back the next Sunday. Soon he was a central part of our community and he was asking to be baptized. So we formed a small group that met through the spring and we explored baptism together and on Easter morning we baptized Brian in one of the most memorable days of my ministry.

Even more memorable to me though is what Brian said about being baptized and becoming a part of the Christian community. He said, “It was like before I was a kid out on the street playing with friends and then, one by one, mothers would come to the door and call them home to dinner. But no one ever called my name. Now I feel like someone is calling my name.”
Brian never stopped fighting though. He was still a warrior, but now he was becoming a warrior for a different cause. He joined the Peace Corps out of school and went to Haiti for awhile. Now he is married to another Wesley Foundation grad and when I last saw him, I could see that Brian is still fighting for the cause. It’s just that now he has been baptized into the cause of Christ and it changes everything.

Maybe you watched the opening ceremonies of the Olympics the other night. It was an amazing spectacle that offered us sights as wondrous as a person walking on water. There was a woman dancing on top of a platform that was supported by hundreds of people. There was a huge ball on which people were walking and dancing at all angles, some even upside down. And then when they lit the torch the final torch bearer was lifted to the top of the stadium and he ran in the air all the way around until he got to the cauldron where the Olympic flame will burn for the next few weeks.

The opening ceremonies expressed our greatest hopes for these games. There were great individual performances, like a man running in the air, but the aspiration was higher – that a world that knows war and struggle and economic distress might be lifted up for awhile by a spirit of cooperation and peace. That every individual could know that they are supported by a greater whole. In a sense the performers weren’t walking on air, they were walking on hope.
When I think about Peter it is easy to bring him down to my level. Silly man. Did you really think you could do it? Did you really believe that you could walk on water? And yet for a moment, he did. He believed that Jesus really had turned the world upside down. He believed that Jesus could open the door to a radically new experience of faith. Peter may have sunk, but he got out of the boat!

Am I ready to get out that boat? Are you ready? Are we going to believe that our natural home is really out there following Jesus, or are we just going to pay lip service to a new life and go on doing everything just the same? Are we going to leave this place today and go right back to the tired, old ways that have gotten us to the same tired places we have been before. As Tyrone Gordon, who once preached this text said, “If we want to go somewhere we have never been, we’re going to have to do something we have never done. If you want a new life, you’ve got to get out of the boat.

I don’t know that we’re ready to pay the price for that. I don’t know if we’re ready to go out on the water in faith and risk looking different or foolish or weak or vulnerable. I don’t know if we’re ready to go out with our friends and act like Jesus. I don’t know if we’re ready to go to school and act like Jesus. I don’t know if we’re ready to go to work and act like Jesus. I don’t know if we’re ready to go back to our husband, our wife, our boyfriend, our girlfriend, our significant other, our main squeeze, our love of our lives and act like Jesus. I don’t know if we’re ready to go to our parents, whether they are 45 or 95, and act like Jesus. I don’t know if we’re ready to go to our children, whether they are 18 days or 18 years old, and act like Jesus. I don’t know if we’re ready to look in the mirror and act like Jesus.

Because living the way the world wants us to? That’s just what they’re expecting. But living like Jesus? That’s walking on water. I’d love for folks to think I walk on water. I’d love for them to think I’m out there, stretching myself, doing amazing things, believing impossible things. But the dangers that go along with it? Not so sure about that. I’d much rather have Plexiglas and steel below me than water, if I’m honest with myself. Because if I really took Jesus’ call seriously, I would have to risk living out what I say I believe.

But…but when I look at the water of baptism, I want to believe. I don’t want it to be only water. I want it to be life. And the promise is there. My baptism wasn’t effective because it happened to me or even because I claimed the vows that my parents claimed for me when I was baptized as an infant. My baptism was effective because God’s promise is in that water. And because Jesus walked on that water. And because Jesus calls me to get out of the boat and walk myself. Jesus calls you to get out of that boat and walk yourself.

You don’t have to pay the two bucks for the Walk on Water Experience. You only have to give your life. What are you waiting for? Get out of the boat! Thanks be to God.

Matthew 14:22-33
Immediately he made the disciples get into the boat and go before him to the other side while he dismissed the crowd. Having dismissed the crowd, he went up on the mountain by himself to pray. When evening came he was there alone.
Now the boat was already many yards distant from the land, being harassed by the waves because the wind was against them. During the fourth watch of the night, he came to them, walking on the sea. Seeing him on the sea walking, the disciples were terrified, saying, “It’s a ghost!”, and they cried out with fear. But immediately Jesus said to them, “Pull yourselves together; it’s me. Don’t be afraid.”
Peter answered him, “Lord, if it’s you, order me to come to you on the water.” So he said, “Come.” Getting out of the boat, Peter walked on the water and came to Jesus. But, seeing the strong wind, he became afraid, and as he began to sink he cried out, “Lord, save me.”
Immediately, Jesus stretched out his hand, grasped him and said to him, “You of little faith; why did you doubt?”
As they got into the boat the wind stopped. The ones in the boat worshipped him saying, “Truly, you are the son of God.”

[i] Robert Chalmers, “Walk this Way,” The Independent (London), April 9, 1999, http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4158/is_19990409/ai_n14225364/pg_2.

Wrestling Rings

It had been a long time since Jacob travelled this road. Twenty years had passed since he fled his parents’ home in fear for his life because he had tricked his brother, Esau, out of a blessing and out of his rights as the first born. On that first journey he had stumbled across an outdoor sanctuary of standing stones and had used it for a campsite. In that place, which he did not recognize as a holy place, Jacob slept. Afraid that his murderous brother might be just behind him….certain that an uncertain future laid just ahead…Jacob slept.

As he slept, God came to Jacob and promised to be with him…promised to bring him home at last to his parents’ land…promised to bless him with descendents so numerous that they could not be counted. But Jacob was a trickster, known as a deceiver, and so he didn’t put much stock in promises. He woke up and turned God’s unconditional blessing into a bargain. He said, “If God will be with me and take care of me and feed and clothe me and bring back in safety to my parent’s land, then this will be my God.” Even though he named the place Bethel – the house of the Lord and the gateway to heaven -- he didn’t think much about the blessing after that day.

He went on to his mother’s home in Haran and married the daughter of his uncle Laban in exchange for seven years of labor. Actually he married two of Laban’s daughters – Rachel and Leah – and he actually worked fourteen years for their hands, but Rachel was the one that he loved. It was just that Laban was as big a trickster as Jacob and he had deceived him into marrying Leah as well.

Jacob got him back, though. Jacob stayed six more years with Laban after his marriage term and convinced Laban that he would only take as wages the blemished sheep and goats from the flocks. Of course, Laban agreed – he would be able to keep the best of the flock while Jacob took the worst of them. But by using some creative breeding techniques Jacob was able to make all of the sheep and goats blemished. Jacob told his wives it was God’s doing, but we know better.

So did Laban. And his sons. And when tensions started to rise Jacob realized that it was time to leave. It was just like when he ran from Esau – he left very quietly and very quickly. Only this time Jacob was travelling light. He was a wealthy man now with flocks, servants and children to move as well.

He didn’t escape Laban. Laban caught him, but God was still looking out for Jacob. Why? I don’t know. But God told Laban not to threaten Jacob. So instead of a violent confrontation they just had a huge argument that ended with the two of them setting up a heap of rocks. They agreed to use the rock marker as a boundary which neither of them would go past.

Laban said, “May God watch you while we’re apart.” Not “May God bless you,” but “May God watch you,” because, you see, Laban didn’t trust Jacob any further than he could throw one of those stones in the heap. So Laban left and Jacob was left with his back now against this pile of rocks beyond which he could not pass and his face set toward…well, it was set toward Esau.

He was stuck between a rock, or a pile of rocks, and a hard place. The last time Jacob had seen his brother he was planning his death. Now he was going back. Jacob sent messengers ahead to Esau to let him know that he was coming back in peace. But the messengers returned saying that Esau already knew and he was coming to meet Jacob with 400 men. That was bad news. So Jacob split his company in two hoping that one half might make it while Esau destroyed the other.

Then Jacob did a strange thing, something he had never done before, as far we know. Jacob prayed to God. Oh, God had come to Jacob before. And Jacob had made a bargain with God before. But Jacob was praying to God now. He remembered the promise God made to him at that lonely sanctuary twenty years before on this same road. Jacob prayed for his life because he was afraid.

Jacob reminded God of the promise to “do him good” (which God had never really said) and of God’s promise to return him to his homeland and to bless him. Jacob reminded God that it would be really hard to keep this promise if he were dead.

God didn’t answer. So Jacob sent some of his wealth ahead as a bribe to Esau and sent his family on across the Jabbok River and he stayed on the far side as night fell across the land. Jacob, whose strength and wit and trickery had pulled him through every time before…who had accumulated a great caravan of wealth and a family…now stood alone, waiting for daybreak.

Then there’s an intermission in this story. It’s almost as if we can’t stand the tension anymore and we decide to switch on Wrestlemania. Because suddenly, out of nowhere, a man appears and he and Jacob start wrestling. What’s up with this? This is totally unexpected except that you can imagine that there is some wrestling going on within Jacob as he waits for the sun.

This guy is pretty good, too, because he keeps up with Jacob all the way up to dawn. And we know that very few people can beat Jacob at a contest. He’s a master at the game. But this man lasts until daybreak and then he strikes Jacob on the hip and dislocates it, but he still can’t overcome Jacob and he finally has to say, “Let me go. It’s daylight.” Almost as if to remind Jacob that he’s got somewhere to be.

Jacob can’t let any contest end without getting something out of it so he says, “I won’t let you go until you bless me.”

"What's your name?," says the man.

"Jacob," he answered.

The man says, "Your name isn't Jacob anymore - it's Israel, because you don’t just struggle with humans and win. You also struggle with God."

Then a curious Jacob asks, "What's your name?"

But the stranger responds, "Why do you ask my name?" as if to say, "Don't you recognize me, Jacob? I am the one who comes to you in the night, who meets you in your darkest moments, who promises to walk with you through your trials. I am the one who you have struggled with all of your life. And I am the one who blesses you in spite of yourself."

With that the man gives Jacob another blessing without being forced to. The only one who has ever given Jacob a blessing he didn't fight for was the God who spoke to him on this same road twenty years before. And Jacob knows that he is on holy ground, that he has been found out and named. His true identity had been revealed. All that he had done throughout his checkered life was not just a struggle to make his way in the world. It was a struggle with God. And though he wasn’t the man God might have wanted him to be – though he had failed and fallen – God would not let him go and would not let him force a blessing out of God. So he called the place Peniel which means "the face of God" because he had seen the face of God and survived.

Jacob left the place limping and later that day he saw the face of God again. For when he met his brother Esau coming to meet him with his 400 men, Esau met him with tears instead of spears. And Jacob said, "Truly to see your face is like seeing the face of God."

Peniel - a place to meet and struggle with God. A place of challenge. A place to meet God face to face.

You might think the last thing you need is another wrestling ring in your life. The world has more than enough wrestling rings and more than enough trials. The world doesn’t need to know that it has struggles, but it does need to know that the struggles we face are meant to be something more.

So here we are in this sanctuary, coming to hear a word of grace. Sometimes we come and sit down in the pew and wonder how in the name of heaven we can be a child of God…Sometimes we feel lost and want to know what it takes to be a follower of Jesus Christ…Sometimes we stand to sing a hymn and we don’t feel like we are worthy of the words…Sometimes we feel weighed down by sin.

Then…Then, when we hear the band play or the choir sing, when we hear the words of assurance and comfort in a prayer or in the words of the Bible, when some poor preacher like me dares to preach a sermon through which God can speak, when we are touched by a neighbor in a pew, when we take the bread and wine…Then…do we see our struggles in some new light? Do we start to believe that God uses ordinary, sin-laden, needy people like us? Do we start to believe that God really does mean it when God says, “You are mine”? Do we begin to recognize, “Hey, if God can use an old trickster like Jacob, then maybe God can use somebody like me”? Do we begin to see that the wrestling that we have been doing is giving us an opportunity to see God face to grace?

I don’t have to tell you that there are struggles in this world. Maybe you have been struggling with God this week and maybe it has been painful at times. Maybe you are limping away. But wrestling is really a challenge - a challenge to move on to new windows and new opportunities for growth. When we meet God it is not only in comfort, but sometimes in fruitful disturbance, as when a farmer turns the soil, breaks it up, so that new life can come again in the spring. Peniel was a place of wrestling.

This place has been a Peniel. This sacred place has been a place of grace and a place of struggle. It is a place where we gather to continue to be very ordinary people caught up in the extraordinary things God has us doing. And the promise to us is the same as it was to Jacob - God will be with us and God will not let us go until we recognize that we are a holy people.

We are bound together in a holy business, you and me. We don't know what we're doing and we sure don't deserve to be doing it. But we walk this road together, limping along at times, but always marching with the greatest power of all - the power of God's unmerited, extravagant love, poured out on unlikely characters…even us. Thanks be to God.

Genesis 32:22-32
In that night, Jacob got up and he took his two wives, his two maidservants and his eleven sons and crossed toe Ford of the Jabbok. When he had sent them across the wadi, he sent across all that he had. So Jacob was left all by himself. Now a man wrestled with him until daybreak. When the man saw that he could not prevail over him, he struck the socket of his hip so that Jacob’s hip was dislocated as he wrestled with him. He said, “Release me, because dawn has arrived.”
But Jacob said, “I will not release you unless you bless me.”
He said to him, “What is your name?”
He answered, “Jacob.”
The man said, “You name will not be Jacob any more, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with humans and you prevailed.”
Jacob asked, “Please tell me your name.”
But he replied, “Why do you ask for my name?” And he blessed him there.
Jacob called the name of that place Peniel because, “I saw God face to face but my life was preserved.” The sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel and he was limping because of his hip.