The Waiting Game

The Waiting Game December 4, 2011 Franktown United Methodist Church Have I ever told you the story of Big Jake? Victor Pentz, pastor of Peachtree Presbyterian Church, tells the story kind of like this: Imagine an old West Texas town. One day a horse wanders in carrying a battered cowboy slumped over his saddle. The townsfolk rush toward the man just in time to hear him utter his final words: "Big Jake is comin'." With that his body went limp. Needless to say the townspeople started to get ready. They locked up the children in their houses. They barred the doors to their businesses and covered the windows in their homes. They crawled behind tables as their lips moved in inaudible prayer. And before long they heard the clap, clap of a horse’s hooves. They peered out the window and out on Main Street here came the biggest, meanest-looking cowboy they'd ever seen in their lives. The guy was seven feet tall, riding a black horse, with a rifle, two six guns and bandoleers criss-crossing his chest. He has an ugly scar along his jaw, one glass eye, and lips curled into a cruel sneer. He stopped in front of the saloon and tied up his horse and as he walked through the swinging doors, he tore them off at their hinges. He brought his fist down on the bar and yelled, “Whiskey!” With that he grabbed a bottle from the bartender’s hand and polished it off in a single gulp. The bartender said, "Well, h-h-how ‘bout another one?" to which the big cowpoke said, "You crazy? I’ve got to get out of here. Big Jake is comin’.”* You might imagine John the Baptist a little like that cowboy. Not that he was a whiskey-drinking, gun-toting giant. He wasn't any of those things. But he was somebody he caught your attention. Like the Old Testament prophets we read about - Jeremiah, Elijah, and Ezekiel and others - John was known for disturbing the peace. He wandered around the desert places, wearing clothes made out of camel skin with a leather belt around his waist. He ate locusts and wild honey. And, you know, none of these things would make him a fashion icon in our time, but they wouldn't have been all that strange to people who grew up with stories of Jeremiah and his ilk. You expect your prophets to look a little strange. What was remarkable was that people went out to see him. They went to the deserts to see John. They thought maybe he was the one they had been waiting for. But like the cowboy in the story, John said, "No. It's not me. Somebody more powerful than I am is coming. I'm not worthy to even untie the thong of his sandal" - the lowliest role that a servant could have. The people were waiting for a Messiah, but what they expected was someone seven-feet-tall and armed to the teeth. What they expected was a cataclysmic confrontation. But what John wanted to prepare them for was a savior who was not just going to challenge the enemies of God's people, but also challenge God's people themselves. In the Disciple Bible Study that meets on Sunday evenings we have been studying those Old Testament prophets and what we have discovered week after week is a really consistent message. The people of Israel and Judah are facing threats from foreign powers - Assyria, Babylonia, Egypt. They are hopelessly outmatched by these greater powers. It looks like the end is near. They are praying for God to deliver them. They look to the prophets and what do they say? Invariably the prophets say, "You have brought this on yourself. God has told you how to live and you ignored what God said. God said to care for the poor and you holed up in ivory palaces and ignored them. God told you to love only God - the one, true God of Israel and you worshipped other gods. God told you to give justice to the people in the gate where the legal cases are decided and you tipped the balance in favor of the well-connected. Why are you now surprised that things are going badly?" That's not all the prophets say, though. They talk about doom but they also talk about hope. They talk about a day of restoration that will come. It's almost like God is saying that even the worst thing that could happen to the people, and which will happen to the people, is not powerful enough to end the story of God's presence with the people. Big Jake is coming. Something greater than destruction is coming. Last week we saw how Jesus warned his followers about the things that would accompany his return to earth. We talked about the destruction and the division and the persecutions that would come and we wondered about Jesus' saying that that generation would not pass away before all these things happened. We wondered because that generation did pass away and we are still here. Still waiting. We're not the first to wonder. When Peter was writing his epistles to a group of Christians late in the first century AD, they were wondering, too. Why had Jesus not come yet? They had been looking forward to his return. When was it going to happen? In the passage we read this morning from 2 Peter, just before that section it says that people were beginning to ask, "Where is his promised return? For ever since our ancestors died, all things have continued as they were from the beginning of creation.” (2 Peter 3:4 NET) But the writer goes on to say, "The Lord is not slow concerning his promise, as some regard slowness, but is being patient toward you, because [God] does not wish for any to perish but for all to come to repentance." (2 Peter 3:9 NET) Our time doesn't work like God's time. We get moment after moment in a sequence so there is a sense of space between this moment and some time down the road. But God, who dwells outside of time, in eternity, doesn't experience things like that. "A thousand ages in God's sight are like an evening past," to quote an old hymn. But it's not even like that. No evenings pass for God. Everything is eternally present for God. And this passage from 2 Peter tells us that in the eternal present of God there is something more powerful than punishment and destruction. God is not just sitting around waiting to zap us for our misdeeds. "God is patient not wanting any to perish." And that shows us that along with God's justice we also get God's love. Now if love is the thing that really matters. If love is the engine that the universe runs on, then some extraordinary things happen. There can be destruction and fire and all the heavens may melt away. That's what 2 Peter says and that's what science tells us earth's final destiny is - it will be swallowed up by the sun some billions of years in the future. But that's not the last word over us. If love is the most powerful thing in the universe then the consequence of our sin is not to make us forever unacceptable to God. Jesus came into the world so that our sin would not have the power to end our relationship with God. When we repent God is quick to forgive, because Jesus lays bare our lives before God, lays bare our every weakness, every failure, every blemish and God says through Jesus, "Come to me. I love you even in your broken condition. I love you just as you are because I know who you can be." If love is the thing we are waiting for, then it is a sign that God will not accept our despair and our hopelessness. These are consequences of not being able to see as God sees. God knows what our destiny is - we are meant for God - every one is meant for God. And God waits on us to accept that we have been accepted by God and to repent, to turn around, to let go of our junk and to walk with Jesus. If love is what God is really all about, and it is, then it is also a sign that God will not ultimately accept even God's own despair over this broken world. God weeps at the tragedies of war and poverty and neglect. God weeps when children die of AIDS. God weeps when people turn to hate-filled philosophies instead of towards life. God weeps when religion is perverted to be an instrument for death. But God's weeping is not the last word. What's the last word? It's born in a manger. It's been whispering in the wind since the dawn of creation. It's been spoken through the prophets. But at Christmas the last word became flesh. The curtain was drawn back on the greatest mystery of creation. And suddenly what God has been up to all along was laid bare before all who had eyes to see. Some got angels in a neighboring field to tell them the news. Some got a star to call them across eastern deserts to let them know. And what we get is the story. John the Baptist would say that your sin is unacceptable. Your despair is unacceptable. Your belief that you are eternally unacceptable is unacceptable. Because no matter what you have done or what has been done to you, you cannot escape the God whose name is love. Psalm 139 has a section where the psalmist talks about fleeing from God and finding that no place he could go would take him from God's pursuing love. "If I were to say, 'Certainly the darkness will cover me, and the light will turn to night all around me,' even the darkness is not too dark for you to see, and the night is as bright as day; darkness and light are the same to you." (Psalm 139:11, 12 NET) "Darkness and light are the same to you." God sees in the darkness. God knows who we are. And God loves us anyway. Thanks be to God. *Dr. Victor Pentz, "The Baby that Rocked the World," Peachtree Presbyterian Church website, 30 Nov 2008, http://www.peachtreepres.org/downloads/sermons/20081130sermon.pdf. Accessed 3 Dec 2011.

I Was There

Some of you may remember a television program that came on back in the days when the TV only came in black and white and there was no such thing as TiVo, LCD displays, plasma and direct dish satellite networks. Does anybody remember those days? Well, I can remember a program hosted by Walter Cronkite in which he would introduce reenactments of historic events, like the disappearance of Amelia Earhart over the Pacific, or the crash of the Hindenburg or the Salem Witchcraft trials. The goal of the program was to take you back and help you live the events as if they were happening right now. The program was called “You Are There.” And it usually ended with Uncle Walt delivering this line: “What sort of day was it? A day like all days, filled with those events that alter and illuminate our times... and you were there.”

That’s a powerful line, isn’t it? It sounds impressive. There’s some authority to it. Now, it’s not only history that you’ve been talking about. Uncle Walt wanted you to experience that history so that you could make the ultimate claim to truth – “Not only did it happen but I was there.”
TV may now be in color now and we may have many other ways to establish truth, but that impulse is still there. We still want to be able to say, “I was there.” How many of you have ever called somebody on a cell phone during a concert just to prove that you were there? Have you ever done that? You hold your phone up so that your friend who didn’t get tickets can be sure to hear it and you say, “Dude, it’s Hannah Montana and I am here!” Maybe you even take a picture of yourself and e-mail it to them. Your friend hates you for it but it’s thrilling, isn’t it? You are there.

So here’s what I’m thinking today: How do we know that what we say about Jesus is true? How do we know that he is who he says he is? How do we know that the scripture we read today has got it right? I mean maybe Peter, James and John were seeing things when they went up that mountain with Jesus. Maybe when it says that Jesus’ face shone like the sun it just means that he got sunburned. Maybe when Moses and Elijah appeared it was Moses Crockett and Elijah Bundick who lived down the road. Maybe the cloud was a fogbank. And that voice from heaven that says, “This is my beloved Son with whom I am well-pleased, listen to him”? Maybe James left his radio on. I mean there could be a lot of perfectly reasonable explanations for the Transfiguration, couldn’t there?

That is not the witness of the Bible, though. And if what the Bible says about Jesus is not true, or if he turns out to be somehow less than what we imagine him to be, then you wouldn’t be here today. You wouldn’t crawl out of a nice, warm bed on a cold February Sunday morning to come hear about Moses Crockett. You wouldn’t be baptized in the name of Jesus Johnson. You wouldn’t sing praises and give your life to a man, even if were a really great man, if he weren’t a savior. And the reason you can come here with confidence…the reason you can sing so loudly and proudly…the reason your life has been transformed is because you were there.

Really? I was there? Alex, I thought you just told me you used to watch history programs on TV. How can you say I was there? I wasn’t there. I didn’t go up that mountain. I didn’t see his face shine with the brilliance of heaven. I didn’t see the cloud descend. I didn’t hear the voice ring out. I didn’t see his eyes looking off in the distance toward Jerusalem and a cross and a tomb. I was there? No, that dog won’t hunt, Alex.

Why, then, do we sing that song on Good Friday every year? You know the one I’m talking about. “Were you there, when they crucified my Lord?” What do you think the right answer is to that question? It’s ‘YES’. Yes, I was there. I was there when they crucified my Lord. I was there when the nailed him to the tree. I was there when the sun refused to shine. I was there when they laid him in the tomb. I was there when he rose and conquered death. Were I there? Yes, I were!

Now we say this in a different way than Peter did. In the other scripture reading we had for today, Peter tells a group of early Christians who had not been with Jesus, “I’m not just repeating clever little tales when I tell you who Jesus was. When I tell you about the power of Jesus…when I tell you that Jesus will come again, I’m not just repeating tales out of school. We were eyewitnesses. We heard that voice on the mountain. I was there. So, you’d best listen to what I have to say. Pay attention. Think of this story as a lamp in a gloomy place that you light until the day returns. This story is so good it couldn’t be made up. It’s not just because I want it to be true that I’m telling it. It’s because the Holy Spirit is bearing it to you through me.” And the implication is, “Because you are hearing me say it, and I am a faithful witness…because I was there…when the Holy Spirit speaks through me to you…you were there, too.”

Why is this important? Because there a lot of people out there who would have you believe that not only were you not there, but nobody was there. There are those who believe that we live in a world where great mysteries don’t happen. Where everything can be explained by science or power or any number of perfectly rational explanations. There are those who would have you believe that the world is disenchanted…that religion and faith are just wishful thinking...that when you get to the center of everything there is nothing there, like peeling an onion down to its core – once you do, there’s nothing to see.

But are you going to accept that version of what the world is like? Is that world a livable world? Is that world a lovable world? A world where there is no guiding principle above self-interest? A world where it’s only survival of the fittest? Where love has no purpose and no goal? Who’s going to stop for a Good Samaritan or see God in the face of their neighbor if there is no Jesus on the mountaintop?

This is the thing that Christians know – it is impossible to talk about the reality of the world…it’s impossible to talk about the true nature of the universe…it’s impossible to talk about life and hope and mystery and love and all the things that make for meaningful existence without talking about a particular moment in history, a particular historical figure and the relationship we have with a living savior. For Christians, it’s all about Jesus. Jesus in the morning, Jesus in the evening, Jesus when the sun goes down. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, sweetest name I know. When the movie opens, it’s Jesus and when it gets to the last reel, it’s Jesus. When the world begins, it’s Jesus and when it ends, it’s Jesus. When Paul Harvey talks about the rest of the story – it’s Jesus.

Or to use more biblical language, we can turn to Colossians 1:15 and we read that Jesus “is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created…all things have been created through him and for him. He himself is before all things and in him all things hold together.” [Col. 1:15-17] It all hangs together because of Jesus. It all makes sense.

So when Christians get together to do this crazy thing that we are doing today they are making a claim about the world that nobody else makes. We are making the outrageous claim that Jesus is the reason we hope. And we have seen Jesus in some amazing ways. We have met Jesus in the world of the here and now. We can say, though it defies everything we think we know about how the universe operates…we can say, “I was there.”

A few years ago I was riding down a road in South Texas when I saw Jesus do a miracle. I was with a group of college students on a Spring Break mission trip and we were on the way to the beach. We had been working on both sides of the border for a few days and we had taken the afternoon off to go to the beach and dip our feet in the Gulf of Mexico. It had been a dramatic week. We had been helping to build houses for low-income people in McAllen. We had been building a church in Nuevo Progresso, Mexico. We had met with a Border Patrol officer who talked to us about his frustrations in trying to police a border that often didn’t seem like a border at all. We had met with a woman who ran a refugee center for political refugees from Central America. We had been gleaning grapefruits in the orchards.

Now we were driving to the beach and sitting next to me in the van we had borrowed from the local Methodist Church was a student who was really struggling with what to do with her life. She had a big heart and a strong sense of justice. She knew that there were many things broken about the world and she felt a strong calling to make them right. As we were talking about the things we had seen on the border that week she said, very simply, “I could see myself living here.” It was a just a stray comment. Something you and I might say in the moment that never comes to fruition. But as soon as she said it we both knew it was true. She would work on the border. A call was forming even as she said the words.

That student went on to work with an organization called Borderworks on the Arizona border, taking students on mission trips to gain greater understanding of the people and issues that affect the border region. Later she got a call into ordained ministry and now she is attending seminary preparing for the Episcopal priesthood. And I look back on that moment driving through the South Texas desert and I know I was present as Jesus did a miracle in her life. How do I know? I was there.

I venture to say that many of you have been there, too. Maybe it was last summer when the youth went on a mission trip to Christiansburg and worked on the homes of needy people in the mountains. Was there a moment then when you saw Jesus? Maybe in the face of one of the people you served? You can say it. You were there.

Maybe it was the Sunday when we welcomed the Arcangels class into membership in the church and we saw Jesus in the faces of each person who came forward. You can say it. You were there.

Maybe it happened when you were helping out at Food Bank one Friday and you realized that all the work and resources that go into putting boxes together were really so that you could meet Jesus in the people who came for help. You can say it. You were there.

Maybe it happened when your child was born and you held her in your arms for the first time and you knew it was a holy moment. Maybe it happened at a church camp when you were young and gave your life to Jesus. Maybe it happened when you held the hand of a loved one as they passed from this life to the next and you could do it with confidence that they were in the Lord’s care. You can say it. You were there.

Maybe it happened when the Spirit took hold of you at a revival. Maybe it happened when you met the love of your life and you knew that nothing would ever be the same. Maybe it happened when a respected elder took notice of you and took you aside and told you that you had gifts you never thought you had. Maybe it was at an altar call. Maybe it was in a conversation. Somewhere in your life I’m betting that you had an experience of meeting Jesus, so go ahead now. Say it. You were there!

Karen Hatch and Lena Watts and I were at a conference this week as a follow-up to our experience of hosting Eddie as a ministry intern last summer. We were meeting together with congregations from across the country who were doing similar things and who were trying to be congregations that lift up the call to vocation and ministry. There were churches there from D.C. and Illinois and Iowa and Georgia and Texas.

What we learned is that the call comes when we notice what God is doing in a young person’s life, when we name that calling in ways that they and we can hear it, and when we nurture that call. This congregation has been doing that for many years. As we got ready to go to this conference we did interviews with several of you and we asked when it was that you felt a sense of belonging and that you were making a difference. Many of you talked about how people in the congregation noticed you, called you by name, and nurtured you in your faith and your life. You talked about you felt closer to God and enabled to follow Jesus because of the claim that people here made on your life.

The thing of it is that we can make outrageous claims about the power and presence of God because we have experienced God’s presence. We know who we are and we know that we are Jesus’ own people. Look around you. You not only were there. You are there. Jesus Christ is alive and present.
On this day, as every day, we can say it: What sort of day was it? A day like all days, filled with those events that alter and illuminate our times... and I was there. Thanks be to God.

2 Peter 1:16-21
Now we were not following clever little tales when we made known to you the power and the anticipated coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. No, we were eyewitnesses to that magnificence. For when he received honor and glory from God the Father, a voice was borne to him such as from the magnificent glory, saying, “This is my beloved son in whom I delight.” We heard this voice borne from the heavens because we were with him on the holy mountain.

So we hold secure this prophetic word that you would do well to pay attention to, as to a lamp in a gloomy place, until the day shines through and the Morning Star rises in your hearts. We know this above all, that all prophetic writings are not known through one’s own explanation, because prophecy is not borne through the will of a person but rather through the Holy Spirit bearing it for people to speak from God.