Luke 2:22-40
Questions …
Children ask a lot of questions …
“Are we there yet?”
“Why are there stars at night?”
“Why do we have to go to church?”
Little Susy asked her mother, “Where did I come from?”
Mother, a bit stressed about this, tried with all of her might to answer the question without getting into too much detail.
After a labored effort, Susy looked at her Mom a little perplexed, “Well, I was just wondering. Today in school, Heather said she came from Phoenix and Brad came from Houston, so I was wondering where I came from.”
Questions …
Good questions … good faith …
Faith is less about answers, and more about good questions …
We’ve been asking a lot of good questions during Advent …
With Mary, How can this be?”
With Joseph: What now?”
With the Innkeeper: Can I make room?
And, the shepherds: Are we included?
Good questions …
Over the years of ministry, I’ve always made one promise – there’s a good answer to every question … but rarely a simple “yes” or “no” – faith-questions are challenging, and so are faith-answers … but there are answers …
Yet every answer seems to have more questions …
I think God designed the world that way, faith that way, so that we never quite get there … we’re always on the road … always questioning, always pondering, always probing and testing …
To keep faith alive …
To keep the doors wide open …
To keep on growing and thinking …
To keep love expanding …
But for every good question, there is a good answer … and today we settle back and enjoy what we know.
For a few moments, we put our questions to bed …
And just celebrate:
Hark the Herald Angels Sing …
Joy to the World …
It Came Upon a Midnight Clear …
O Come, All Ye Faithful …
The ineffable glory … the blinding light … the mystery and the majesty of God’s mighty love.
There’s a time to settle back and sit on down – enjoy what we know about this thing called faith, and our Savior, Jesus!
To Mary’s question, How can this be? – the answer: by the Holy Spirit, the power of God … Okay, said Mary …
To Joseph’s question, What now? - the answer: it’s gonna be okay, Joseph; God’s involved in this one … and Joseph said, Okay!
To the Innkeeper’s question, Can I make room? – the answer: of course you can – there’s always room somewhere for Jesus.
To the shepherds in the hills, Are we included? – the answer: Of course you are; everyone is … welcome to the kingdom of God!
Answers … of course … but I suspect even as I review our journey through Advent, you’re thinking to yourself … those answers are only begging for more questions …
And that’s right …
But there comes a time to sit down and relax … to enjoy what we know … about our Savior.
That’s what we’re doing today …
With Simeon …
A good and decent man devoted to the things of God.
God promised him, You’ll see the LORD's messiah before you die.
That day, the Holy Spirit guided Simeon into the temple, and there he sees Mary and Joseph, with baby Jesus …
Simeon takes the child into his arms … and praises God …
Such a sweet image of faith …
Taking Jesus into our arms …
And praising God …
Today, we do that …
For a few moments, no more questions …
Just sweetness and love …
We take Jesus into our arms …
Simeon says, Now I can go … my eyes have seen the promise of God … a Savior … salvation for all peoples … for the Gentiles and for Israel; for all the world … everyone … because no one is ever left behind.
Those special moments in life when everything seems just right – a fine evening out … a good meal … those lovely days we all have from time-to-time, and we go to bed at night rejoicing in God’s goodness and favor.
On Friday, Eva and I drove down the 405 to the 105, and on the interchange to the 105, as the highway arches high over the 405, you can see forever … and it was a clear day … we could see downtown … snow capped mountains to the east, and then Eva said, Palm trees … alright, I’m done!
There’s nothing more to see … this is amazing!
Those special moments in life when the puzzle is all pieced together … when things make sense … and we know who we are and where it’s all going.
Today, we enjoy what we know!
A Savior, and Jesus is his name.
There will be plenty of time for more questions …
Simeon hints as things to come …
This child will cause the rise and fall of many … and many will stand against him … because he will reveal their inner thoughts, and it won’t be a pretty picture …
And to Mary, Simeon says, Momma, your heart will be pieced with a sword … you will hurt for every hurt he suffers … you will know every pain he endures … you will feel the lash of the whip, the bone-crushing nails driven into the cross … you will see your son die.
Yes, there will be time for more questions …
But I love how the text works here …
Just as Simeon begins to grow dark …
Anna the prophet comes over to Simeon and begins to praise God … this child is the one, the redemption of Jerusalem.
Anna was 84 … a widow most of her life … not an easy time of it, but a life devoted to the things of God … a woman of prayer and spiritual discipline … giving thanks to God for the child …
Today, we enjoy what we know …
No questions today … there will be time for questions later on, but today, we celebrate our Savior.
For God has done a mighty work …
And the mighty continues …
In every heart and across the world …
In every faith and in every prayer …
In every church and in every temple …
In every mosque and in every synagogue …
Wherever women and men of faith gather to pray … to worship … to read their holy texts … to practice justice and love … forgiveness and mercy …
The mighty work of God continues …
Today we celebrate what we know …
Today, like Simeon, we take Jesus into our arms … he’s small enough for that …
We praise him because he’s the light of the world and the hope of humankind …
We give thanks for a salvation that includes everyone …
We give thanks for a great love that holds us every day of our life … a great love that embraces us when we die … a great love that provides for our wellbeing, in this life, and in the life to come.
We give thanks for love …
Because all love comes from God …
God is love … and where’re we see love, we see God!
We give thanks for grace …
The power to start all over again …
The power of hope … no matter what …
We give thanks for faith …
For the light that shines in the darkness …
For the bread of heaven and the cup of blessing …
For the water of baptism and the promise of the gospel …
For goodness all around us …
For mercy and merriment …
For children who ask lots of questions …
And for all the good answers that come, sooner or later …
And for more questions …
And today, for a few moments - pure joy …
Simeon said, I’m done!
Anna said, Me, too!
What we’ve waited for is here …
A book has been finished … a new book has been opened …
Dear Christian friends, I rejoice with you today in what we know …
As we end one year and begin another …
We take up where Simeon and Anna left off …
We sing for the world around us …
We hold Jesus in our arms … and show him to the world …
Merry Christmas dear friends …
Unto us a Savior has been born …
For all the world …
For you and me …
And for all those we love …
No one is left behind!
And Jesus is his name!
Amen and Amen!
Sunday, December 28, 2008
Monday, December 22, 2008
Shepherds: Are We Included? - December 21, 2008 - Advent 4
Luke 2:8-20
Ever feel on the outside of things?
One of the strangest moments in my life – years ago – a conference in Madison, Wisconsin … weather delayed my flight … so I arrived a day late.
In the day I missed, several hundred folks had already made connections, decided where to sit, and pretty well worked things out …
I was the odd-guy out …
I remember the feeling … made a deep impression on me …
But the conference leader made an effort to welcome me … and it worked … it wasn’t long before I melded into the event …
I’ve not forgotten the feeling … of being the odd-guy out … nor have I forgotten the effort by the conference leader to welcome me.
Ever feel on the outside of things?
Years ago in West Virginia, the early 70s – Donna and I had our first church … actually two of them – Camp Creek and Ridgeview – one built beside the road, with the rear half on stilts hanging over the creek, and the other, nestled up a holler against the mountain.
Boone County, he poorest county in the poorest state in the nation … coal miners out of work … a lot of men with busted backs and bad lungs … a lot of poverty … and all the sadness that goes with it …
Donna and I lived in a new manse, with new furniture – when we moved to West Virginia right out of seminary, we used some inheritance money from my grandfather to purchase new furniture … so we lived well - up the holler – at the foot of the mountain, next door to the church.
One day, a little old lady came to visit – cookies and coffee … she belonged to the church and did the best she could … she was a widow living on a meager pension and some Social Security … she lived in a very tiny house that had seen better days a long time ago … the only way to her home was a pathway over a rickety few planks for a bridge and up a little hill – next to a slag dump from an abandoned coal mine …
Donna heard her say quietly as she looked around our home, “This would be so easy to keep clean.”
Ever feel on the outside of things?
Remember Ted Haggard … former pastor of the Colorado Springs New Life Church … head of the National Association of Evangelicals …
It’s been a rough road for him …
In a documentary set to air on HBO January 29, Haggard says:
The reason I kept my personal struggle a secret is because I feared that my friends would reject me, abandon me and kick me out, and the church would exile and excommunicate me. And that happened and more, he says.
(http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,470038,00.html)
He struggles with his sexuality … his wife stands by him … he’s selling insurance in a small town in Illinois … of his life right now he says, I am a loser.
Ever feel on the outside of things?
For me, one of the most horrible moments in grade school was gym – softball … the teacher would choose two goons who could hit the ball across Lake Michigan to be captains, to choose the rest of us for their teams …
I couldn’t hit the ball with a tennis racket …
So, there I am, standing like a sheep about to be slaughtered … as the goons handpick their team … Jimmy, Johnny, Chuck … even Susie and Carol, for crying out loud … but not me … no, I’m the last victim standing, and then the teacher would point and say, Tommy, you’re on their team … they’d groan, and I’d slouch on over like Quasimodo.
Ever feel on the outside of things?
Clint Eastwood’s latest, “Gran Torino” – set in Detroit – he’s a retired autoworker living in the same house he’s lived in for 40 years … he’s a widower, and the neighborhood has changed – Hmongs live next door, and he’s a stranger in his own land …
Several years ago in Northern Michigan, had some car work done, so after I dropped my car off, a courtesy ride home – the driver was a retired autoworker now living up north for ten years – he was telling me how he loved it up north, and that he rarely gets back to Detroit – then he said, When I get back there, I feel like a stranger – so many foreigners have moved in …
Mickey Rourke’s latest, “The Wrestler” – at the end of the road … poor health, a failed relationship with his adult daughter – living on the margins – living off the past … taking a job at the local grocery story deli counter; humiliated by the manager … in a painful conversation with his daughter, he says, I’m just a beat up piece of meat.
I suspect we’ve all had moments when we were on the outside looking in … feeling like strangers in our own world … no one picks us for the ball team; we sit home on prom night … left out, left behind, ignored, discriminated against … humiliated and embarrassed by circumstances …
Remember Rodney Dangerfield, his finger in a tight collar, pulling on his tie, I get no respect …
What a childhood I had, why, when I took my first step, my old man tripped me!
My psychiatrist told me I’m going crazy. I told him, “If you don’t mind, I’d like a second opinion.” He said, “All right. You’re ugly too!”
I was so ugly, my mother used to feed me with a slingshot!
I tell ya when I was a kid, all I knew was rejection. My yo-yo, it never came back!
When I was a kid I got no respect. The time I was kidnapped, and the kidnappers sent my parents a note they said, “We want five thousand dollars or you’ll see your kid again.”
We all laughed at Rodney Dangerfield … he touched a part of life – when we don’t belong, when we don’t fit in … that others think less of us … and we think less of ourselves …
I’m a loser,
I’m a flub,
I’m a failure …
On the outside looking in …
What’s the point?
God takes a special interest in “losers” …
Abraham and Sarah were too old for children, but God said, I’m going to give you a family.
Jacob was a cheat and a liar, but God made him the father of the 12 tribes of Israel …
Ruth was an outsider, a foreigner, but she became the great grandmother of King David …
God chooses the unlikely for the softball team … no one is used up as far as God is concerned … no one is unacceptable!
No one is ever left behind!
God never shuts the door on anyone!
The welcome mat is always out …
The light is always on …
In the middle of the night, heaven’s choir paid a late-night visit to shepherds in the hills …
Now that sounds sweet and lovely to us … and it is.
We sing songs about it … and we should.
Angeles singing to shepherds …
The stuff of Christmas cards and pageants …
It is sweet and lovely …
But there’s a message here …
A golden thread woven into the story …
God pays special attention to the down and out …
Shepherds, the lowest of the lowly …
They were tagged as unclean …
In spite of the fact that Israel had “sentiment” about shepherds …
Psalm 23: the LORD is my shepherd …
Ezekiel uses the image of the good shepherd to describe God’s love and care …
Israel’s greatest king, King David, was a shepherd boy …
Jesus himself uses shepherd imagery, I am the good shepherd, and I will find my lost sheep …
But sentiment and reality don’t always parallel …
When I was child, my Dad told how poor he was growing up … his mother used to mix pork fat and molasses together, and they’d spread it on bread … and he said, It was so good.
So Mom and Dad decided to make it … I remember it well – side pork was fried … the grease drained off, cooled … and then mixed with molasses … it looked pretty good – smooth and creamy … spread on bread …
And then the moment of tasting …
My Dad took one bite and grimaced – this is horrible … I never even tried it … the batch was thrown away, and that was the last we ever heard about pork fat and molasses.
Sentiment and reality don’t always parallel very well.
Though the shepherds raised the sheep for temple sacrifice, and the meat everyone ate, shepherds were on the bottom of the heap socially … considered scoundrels and petty thieves … and besides, they smelled!
Maybe we’re getting the picture now …
That night, God said to one of the Archangels … pay those shepherds a visit … and bring the choir …
What did you say?
Them?
Aren’t there a few other people we might better visit?
Palaces and princes?
The powerful and the beautiful?
Why shepherds?
What good are they?
God says, Trust me!
The Archangel says, Okay!
And off they go …
An angel of the LORD appeared … light and glory …
Don’t be afraid …
I bring you good news … today, a savior has been born … in David’s town … you’ll find a baby wrapped in simple blankets lying in a manger … in a simple place … a place that will welcome you … you’ll feel right at home in the Savior’s birth place …
And suddenly, a GREAT company of the heavenly host appeared …
Glory to God in the highest heaven,
and on earth peace among those whom he favors!
God pulled out all the stops …
The best of the best … for the least of the least …
For shepherds in the hills …
No palaces …
No princes …
Not the beautiful and the powerful …
Because everyone counts …
Everyone’s important …
Everyone belongs …
So, what does this mean for us …?
The first is this: God pays special attention to us when WE’RE on the outside looking in …
We’re never alone in our sorrow …
We’re never alone when the road turns south …
And life turns mean …
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of the death, I will fear not evil, for thou art with me …
That night in the hills, the best and the brightest paid a visit to those on the far side of life …
As the rest of the story turns out … Jesus spends most of his time on the far side of life …
The woman caught in adultery …
Zacchaeus up a tree …
Blind Bartimaeus …
The woman at the well …
The leper …
The lonely …
The low-down and the lost …
And you and me …
Just to balance things out … the world’s favor goes to the rich and famous … God’s favor goes to the least …
To keep things steady …
To give special attention to the forgotten …
That’s how God does it …
The second piece of the story?
When we’re on top of the heap …
When things are good for us …
When our roof don’t leak and the car is clean …
Remember the shepherds in the hills …
Look at others with my eyes, says God …
The young waitress with an accent you don’t understand …
The man selling flowers and socks in the median …
The guy playing his guitar hoping a few coins might be tossed his way …
The tough looking gal on the street corner …
A thousand folks we see everyday …
REALLY see them, says God. Remember how much I love them … remember the night I paid a glorious, over-the-top, visit to the shepherds in the hills …
Share your best and brightest with the lowly and the least.
Jesus says it well:
For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me [Matthew 25:34-36].
To be the church of Jesus Christ …
To follow in his footsteps …
We have a commission:
To even things out …
Keep the world in balance …
Don’t let the lost go too far a-field …
Keep our eyes open …
Work together … work for a just and fair world …
Share our love …
Be generous and kind …
Build the kingdom of God …
Thy will be done ON EARTH as it is in heaven …
Amen and Amen!
Ever feel on the outside of things?
One of the strangest moments in my life – years ago – a conference in Madison, Wisconsin … weather delayed my flight … so I arrived a day late.
In the day I missed, several hundred folks had already made connections, decided where to sit, and pretty well worked things out …
I was the odd-guy out …
I remember the feeling … made a deep impression on me …
But the conference leader made an effort to welcome me … and it worked … it wasn’t long before I melded into the event …
I’ve not forgotten the feeling … of being the odd-guy out … nor have I forgotten the effort by the conference leader to welcome me.
Ever feel on the outside of things?
Years ago in West Virginia, the early 70s – Donna and I had our first church … actually two of them – Camp Creek and Ridgeview – one built beside the road, with the rear half on stilts hanging over the creek, and the other, nestled up a holler against the mountain.
Boone County, he poorest county in the poorest state in the nation … coal miners out of work … a lot of men with busted backs and bad lungs … a lot of poverty … and all the sadness that goes with it …
Donna and I lived in a new manse, with new furniture – when we moved to West Virginia right out of seminary, we used some inheritance money from my grandfather to purchase new furniture … so we lived well - up the holler – at the foot of the mountain, next door to the church.
One day, a little old lady came to visit – cookies and coffee … she belonged to the church and did the best she could … she was a widow living on a meager pension and some Social Security … she lived in a very tiny house that had seen better days a long time ago … the only way to her home was a pathway over a rickety few planks for a bridge and up a little hill – next to a slag dump from an abandoned coal mine …
Donna heard her say quietly as she looked around our home, “This would be so easy to keep clean.”
Ever feel on the outside of things?
Remember Ted Haggard … former pastor of the Colorado Springs New Life Church … head of the National Association of Evangelicals …
It’s been a rough road for him …
In a documentary set to air on HBO January 29, Haggard says:
The reason I kept my personal struggle a secret is because I feared that my friends would reject me, abandon me and kick me out, and the church would exile and excommunicate me. And that happened and more, he says.
(http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,470038,00.html)
He struggles with his sexuality … his wife stands by him … he’s selling insurance in a small town in Illinois … of his life right now he says, I am a loser.
Ever feel on the outside of things?
For me, one of the most horrible moments in grade school was gym – softball … the teacher would choose two goons who could hit the ball across Lake Michigan to be captains, to choose the rest of us for their teams …
I couldn’t hit the ball with a tennis racket …
So, there I am, standing like a sheep about to be slaughtered … as the goons handpick their team … Jimmy, Johnny, Chuck … even Susie and Carol, for crying out loud … but not me … no, I’m the last victim standing, and then the teacher would point and say, Tommy, you’re on their team … they’d groan, and I’d slouch on over like Quasimodo.
Ever feel on the outside of things?
Clint Eastwood’s latest, “Gran Torino” – set in Detroit – he’s a retired autoworker living in the same house he’s lived in for 40 years … he’s a widower, and the neighborhood has changed – Hmongs live next door, and he’s a stranger in his own land …
Several years ago in Northern Michigan, had some car work done, so after I dropped my car off, a courtesy ride home – the driver was a retired autoworker now living up north for ten years – he was telling me how he loved it up north, and that he rarely gets back to Detroit – then he said, When I get back there, I feel like a stranger – so many foreigners have moved in …
Mickey Rourke’s latest, “The Wrestler” – at the end of the road … poor health, a failed relationship with his adult daughter – living on the margins – living off the past … taking a job at the local grocery story deli counter; humiliated by the manager … in a painful conversation with his daughter, he says, I’m just a beat up piece of meat.
I suspect we’ve all had moments when we were on the outside looking in … feeling like strangers in our own world … no one picks us for the ball team; we sit home on prom night … left out, left behind, ignored, discriminated against … humiliated and embarrassed by circumstances …
Remember Rodney Dangerfield, his finger in a tight collar, pulling on his tie, I get no respect …
What a childhood I had, why, when I took my first step, my old man tripped me!
My psychiatrist told me I’m going crazy. I told him, “If you don’t mind, I’d like a second opinion.” He said, “All right. You’re ugly too!”
I was so ugly, my mother used to feed me with a slingshot!
I tell ya when I was a kid, all I knew was rejection. My yo-yo, it never came back!
When I was a kid I got no respect. The time I was kidnapped, and the kidnappers sent my parents a note they said, “We want five thousand dollars or you’ll see your kid again.”
We all laughed at Rodney Dangerfield … he touched a part of life – when we don’t belong, when we don’t fit in … that others think less of us … and we think less of ourselves …
I’m a loser,
I’m a flub,
I’m a failure …
On the outside looking in …
What’s the point?
God takes a special interest in “losers” …
Abraham and Sarah were too old for children, but God said, I’m going to give you a family.
Jacob was a cheat and a liar, but God made him the father of the 12 tribes of Israel …
Ruth was an outsider, a foreigner, but she became the great grandmother of King David …
God chooses the unlikely for the softball team … no one is used up as far as God is concerned … no one is unacceptable!
No one is ever left behind!
God never shuts the door on anyone!
The welcome mat is always out …
The light is always on …
In the middle of the night, heaven’s choir paid a late-night visit to shepherds in the hills …
Now that sounds sweet and lovely to us … and it is.
We sing songs about it … and we should.
Angeles singing to shepherds …
The stuff of Christmas cards and pageants …
It is sweet and lovely …
But there’s a message here …
A golden thread woven into the story …
God pays special attention to the down and out …
Shepherds, the lowest of the lowly …
They were tagged as unclean …
In spite of the fact that Israel had “sentiment” about shepherds …
Psalm 23: the LORD is my shepherd …
Ezekiel uses the image of the good shepherd to describe God’s love and care …
Israel’s greatest king, King David, was a shepherd boy …
Jesus himself uses shepherd imagery, I am the good shepherd, and I will find my lost sheep …
But sentiment and reality don’t always parallel …
When I was child, my Dad told how poor he was growing up … his mother used to mix pork fat and molasses together, and they’d spread it on bread … and he said, It was so good.
So Mom and Dad decided to make it … I remember it well – side pork was fried … the grease drained off, cooled … and then mixed with molasses … it looked pretty good – smooth and creamy … spread on bread …
And then the moment of tasting …
My Dad took one bite and grimaced – this is horrible … I never even tried it … the batch was thrown away, and that was the last we ever heard about pork fat and molasses.
Sentiment and reality don’t always parallel very well.
Though the shepherds raised the sheep for temple sacrifice, and the meat everyone ate, shepherds were on the bottom of the heap socially … considered scoundrels and petty thieves … and besides, they smelled!
Maybe we’re getting the picture now …
That night, God said to one of the Archangels … pay those shepherds a visit … and bring the choir …
What did you say?
Them?
Aren’t there a few other people we might better visit?
Palaces and princes?
The powerful and the beautiful?
Why shepherds?
What good are they?
God says, Trust me!
The Archangel says, Okay!
And off they go …
An angel of the LORD appeared … light and glory …
Don’t be afraid …
I bring you good news … today, a savior has been born … in David’s town … you’ll find a baby wrapped in simple blankets lying in a manger … in a simple place … a place that will welcome you … you’ll feel right at home in the Savior’s birth place …
And suddenly, a GREAT company of the heavenly host appeared …
Glory to God in the highest heaven,
and on earth peace among those whom he favors!
God pulled out all the stops …
The best of the best … for the least of the least …
For shepherds in the hills …
No palaces …
No princes …
Not the beautiful and the powerful …
Because everyone counts …
Everyone’s important …
Everyone belongs …
So, what does this mean for us …?
The first is this: God pays special attention to us when WE’RE on the outside looking in …
We’re never alone in our sorrow …
We’re never alone when the road turns south …
And life turns mean …
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of the death, I will fear not evil, for thou art with me …
That night in the hills, the best and the brightest paid a visit to those on the far side of life …
As the rest of the story turns out … Jesus spends most of his time on the far side of life …
The woman caught in adultery …
Zacchaeus up a tree …
Blind Bartimaeus …
The woman at the well …
The leper …
The lonely …
The low-down and the lost …
And you and me …
Just to balance things out … the world’s favor goes to the rich and famous … God’s favor goes to the least …
To keep things steady …
To give special attention to the forgotten …
That’s how God does it …
The second piece of the story?
When we’re on top of the heap …
When things are good for us …
When our roof don’t leak and the car is clean …
Remember the shepherds in the hills …
Look at others with my eyes, says God …
The young waitress with an accent you don’t understand …
The man selling flowers and socks in the median …
The guy playing his guitar hoping a few coins might be tossed his way …
The tough looking gal on the street corner …
A thousand folks we see everyday …
REALLY see them, says God. Remember how much I love them … remember the night I paid a glorious, over-the-top, visit to the shepherds in the hills …
Share your best and brightest with the lowly and the least.
Jesus says it well:
For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me [Matthew 25:34-36].
To be the church of Jesus Christ …
To follow in his footsteps …
We have a commission:
To even things out …
Keep the world in balance …
Don’t let the lost go too far a-field …
Keep our eyes open …
Work together … work for a just and fair world …
Share our love …
Be generous and kind …
Build the kingdom of God …
Thy will be done ON EARTH as it is in heaven …
Amen and Amen!
Monday, December 15, 2008
The Inn Keeper: Is There Room? - December 14, 2008
Audio Version HERE.
Good morning, Covenant on the Corner … I’m glad to be here … thanks for inviting me.
Let me introduce myself … my name is … uh, well … that’s irrelevant, I guess …
I don’t have a name … as far as the story is concerned …
I’m just the Inn Keeper … in a little tiny town called Bethlehem … and not really an inn at all … just a spare room for folks … not much at all … but it brings in a few extra shekels now and then …
I remember the night … our “good friend” Quirinius was doing a census, so the Romans could tax us all the more – those dirty dogs … we didn’t like it one bit … but, we had to do what they said … “Everyone to their hometown … to register …”
So things got a little crowded … we were full – mostly family … my brother and his wife and three kids … two cousins and an uncle, and an old friend from childhood … plus my wife and my four boys, and two daughters …
We finished eating that night … sitting around the courtyard fire … a fine evening it was … cool and clear … bright stars … we were complaining about the Romans … they leave us alone most of the time, but, you know, they call the shots … they tell us when to jump, and we have to ask, “How high?”
But we try not to complain too much - life is mostly good for us … and it was good to see some of the family and my old friend … the dinner was good, and we were enjoying a last cup of wine …
And then a knock at the gate … “Now what?” I groaned … I got up and went to see who it was …
I opened the peephole … a young couple standing there … in the moonlight, I could see her leaning on him … she didn’t look so good …
“Do you have some room?” he wearily asked … “we’re here for the census … we don’t know where to stay … and my wife … she’s due any time.”
“Oh my,” I said … “there’s no room for you in the inn.”
Well, THAT was a fateful remark …
Down through the centuries, I’ve been the bad guy of Bethlehem … I’ve been scolded and scorned … thousands of sermons preached about me - what a crummy guy I was … “no room in the inn” – shame on me, shame on any of us who have no room for Christ … well, you know the story … you’ve probably heard a few of those sermons a time or two … even musicals and stories about me, what a louse I am.
But let me tell you the rest of the story.
“Come on in,” I said to that weary young couple.
I opened the gate and they made their way into the courtyard …
“We have a few more guests,” I said to everyone gathered around the fire …
And then turning to the young couple, “What are your names?”
“Joseph and Mary, from Nazareth … we’re here for the census.”
“Sit down,” I said, “you must be hungry.”
My wife came over with a couple bowls of stew and some wine … yes, they were hungry, and tired, too.
And from the looks of it, the young lady was close to her time … she looked a tad bit miserable … and what a shame to have to be on the road at a time like this …
“We have no room in our living quarters … but we can put you in the stable area … it’s not much, and the animals are in for the night … but I just put in clean bedding, and it’ll be safe and private for the two of you … we’re glad you’re here, and we’ll make room for you … it’s gonna be just fine.”
“And Joseph, was your daddy Heli? I knew him some years ago; fact is, we were shirttail relatives … they moved away and I never saw them again.”
Joseph nodded and said, “We moved to Nazareth – my dad thought they’re be a little more work up north. And there was, and I’m a carpenter, too, just my Daddy.”
Looking around the courtyard, he said, “Thanks for letting us in; it’s been a long time since I’ve been back in Bethlehem.”
Mary smiled and leaned her head on Joseph’s shoulder … she was tired.
We put up their donkey … and their few belongings … and took them to the stable … a quiet corner; safe and private … and the rest of us headed up to the living quarters … we were all tired and ready for sleep.
Well, wouldn’t ya’ know it …
My wife awakened me in the middle of the night … “It’s time,” she said.
“Time for what?” I asked, sleep clouding my mind.
The young lady is going to have her baby.”
My wife and my sister-in-law stepped down to the stable area … the rest of us, now wide awake … listening, waiting … goodness, this on top of everything else …
Our women helped the young lady … Joseph came up to sit with us … he was worried, I could tell … he sat on the floor, arms wrapped tightly around his knees … a quiet man, he was.
Well, it wasn’t long before we heard the first cry … my wife poked her head up to the living area and said, “It’s a boy!”
Thank God for the women … they had things well in hand … and when the child was cleaned and wrapped, they put him in one of the mangers … clean straw, comfortable … it’s the best we could do, and not too bad at that.
So ended the hope of any sleep for us … but who cared … new life was here … and that’s always a miracle … and who knows, he might be the Messiah.”
Every household wondered when a boy was born – Is he the One?
Will he set the people free?
Put the world right?
Get rid of the hated Romans?
Rebuild Israel?
So there we sat … too excited to sleep … too tired to do anything else …
Toward morning, there was some rapping at the gate … “Now what?” I fumed to myself …
I walked to the gate, and opened the peephole – a bunch of shepherds … what in the world are they doing here?
“Can I help you?” I asked warily …
“You won’t believe why we’re here. Sorry to disturb you so early, but we saw angels in the sky – no, we’re not drunk – we really did; we really saw angles … they sang to us, and told us that a Savior had been born in Bethlehem … that we would find him wrapped in simple blankets lying in a manger …”
“You’re the first house on the road … do you know of a newborn in town?”
Do I know of a newborn?
Yup, you came to the right place, all right. A boy, just born a few hours ago, right here … a young couple from Nazareth, here for the census.”
When I said “census,” the shepherds spit on the ground … how we despised our overlords …
I opened the gate, and in they came – “Good grief, what a smell.”
I took them to the stable, and what a chatter … they poured out their story … there they were, in the hills, watching the sheep late at night … nodding off … when suddenly, angels … a whole bunch of ‘em … singing … loud … and one angel in particular … a big thing, said … “Don’t be afraid … we’ve got good news for you …”
“And then, poof, they were gone … just like that … so, now what? We were pretty shook up, but we figured we’d better see what’s up, so here we are.”
“And it’s true what those angels said … a child wrapped in simple blankets, lying in a manger. This must be the One.”
We were all amazed by their story … you know - sometimes you hope for something, you hope for a long, long, time … and then it happens, and you don’t know what to do with it.
Those smelly shepherds took leave and headed back to the hills, and there we stood … mouths hangin’ down to the floor …
“What in the world was that all about?”
And that’s what I remember about the first night …
There was no room in the guest room, and our quarters were full, but we made room for them in the stable, and that’s all they needed. They were decent folk, and we did the best we could.
They stayed with us for a couple of weeks … on the 8th day, our rabbi came by and the boy was circumcised, and they named him Jesus – “God saves” – what a great name, in this crummy time of ours … faith, hope and love … it’s gonna work out for us … we people of the covenant don’t ever give up … we believe that God will save us when the time is right.
A few days later, off they went to Jerusalem for their purification and to present their firstborn to the LORD.
That was the last we saw of them.
After their visit to Jerusalem, they returned home to Nazareth.
And that’s the end of the story … at least for thirty years … until we began to hear strange reports … “a prophet has arisen in the land … a man of authority … who speaks clearly and forcefully about the kingdom of God … who heals the sick and casts out demons … his name is Jesus, Jesus of Nazareth …”
Was this the little boy born in our home that night so long ago?
Well, there’s always more to a story then meets the eye, but let me pause here for a few moments …
I want you be clear about one thing – I’m not a bad guy. What the centuries did to me wasn’t right. But everyone loves to have a bad guy, I guess, and it was easy for folks to single me out.
Glad to know that you’re finally getting the story straight … it took a long time, but that’s okay. I’m a patient man.
Your archeologists have been really helpful, digging around like they do … well, they’ve actually uncovered some ancient homes in Bethlehem … they have a better idea … we were a small town …
We didn’t have inns, so to speak … Holiday Inns or Ramada Inns with dozens of rooms … we were a small town, and my wife and I were blessed to have a little extra space – you see, our homes were built with a stable attached … we slept on the upper level, and the heat of the animals warmed us during the night … and attached to our quarters, a guest area … folks thought we were pretty well off …
We cooked our meals and ate in the courtyard most of the time … we have a wonderful climate, you see, sort of like you folks here in LA – we’re outside most of the time.
When Luke says, “There was no room in the inn,” the word for inn really means living quarters, and he’s right, there was no room – we full up with family and friends for that dadgum census.”
But we MADE room that night.
I guess there’s always room, and a little more food for weary travelers.
And if I may, let me remind you that our God is content with whatever space we have to give.
Sometimes you Christians forget just how humble God is … what with your big buildings and fancy schmancy programs … we Jews had our problems, too, with that big temple of ours, and the Pharisees and the Sadducees all decked out in their extravagant robes and prayer shawls with the long fringes … would you believe, they competed with one another for just how fancy it was, and how long the fringe?
So, we’ve had our problems, too.
But that night in Bethlehem, we learned again what we always knew … our God is a humble God … loving and kind, and doesn’t ask much of us … and doesn’t need much of us … just a little room will do, whatever we have to offer.
Sometimes you Christians put too much pressure on yourselves … as if God were so fancy, and you had to have your soul just right, your life in order … but God doesn’t work that way … God doesn’t need the best, whatever that means … God just needs a simple place in your heart, and maybe, just maybe, THAT is the best!
No one ever gets their life all straightened out … things are too hard for that.
So, don’t wait until you’ve got everything put together … that’ll never happen in this life … but that’s okay … it’s amazing what God can do with us when we’re willing to let God in …
Everyone has a little place somewhere, just right for God …
That night, I knew I had room, and so do you, dear friend.
Just open the door and let God in … Jesus will be born in your heart … I don’t know how it works, but it does.
Thanks for having me here this morning … God bless each of you … and the next time you’re in Bethlehem, stop on by … we’ll find room for ya’, even if it’s only in the stable.
Amen!
Good morning, Covenant on the Corner … I’m glad to be here … thanks for inviting me.
Let me introduce myself … my name is … uh, well … that’s irrelevant, I guess …
I don’t have a name … as far as the story is concerned …
I’m just the Inn Keeper … in a little tiny town called Bethlehem … and not really an inn at all … just a spare room for folks … not much at all … but it brings in a few extra shekels now and then …
I remember the night … our “good friend” Quirinius was doing a census, so the Romans could tax us all the more – those dirty dogs … we didn’t like it one bit … but, we had to do what they said … “Everyone to their hometown … to register …”
So things got a little crowded … we were full – mostly family … my brother and his wife and three kids … two cousins and an uncle, and an old friend from childhood … plus my wife and my four boys, and two daughters …
We finished eating that night … sitting around the courtyard fire … a fine evening it was … cool and clear … bright stars … we were complaining about the Romans … they leave us alone most of the time, but, you know, they call the shots … they tell us when to jump, and we have to ask, “How high?”
But we try not to complain too much - life is mostly good for us … and it was good to see some of the family and my old friend … the dinner was good, and we were enjoying a last cup of wine …
And then a knock at the gate … “Now what?” I groaned … I got up and went to see who it was …
I opened the peephole … a young couple standing there … in the moonlight, I could see her leaning on him … she didn’t look so good …
“Do you have some room?” he wearily asked … “we’re here for the census … we don’t know where to stay … and my wife … she’s due any time.”
“Oh my,” I said … “there’s no room for you in the inn.”
Well, THAT was a fateful remark …
Down through the centuries, I’ve been the bad guy of Bethlehem … I’ve been scolded and scorned … thousands of sermons preached about me - what a crummy guy I was … “no room in the inn” – shame on me, shame on any of us who have no room for Christ … well, you know the story … you’ve probably heard a few of those sermons a time or two … even musicals and stories about me, what a louse I am.
But let me tell you the rest of the story.
“Come on in,” I said to that weary young couple.
I opened the gate and they made their way into the courtyard …
“We have a few more guests,” I said to everyone gathered around the fire …
And then turning to the young couple, “What are your names?”
“Joseph and Mary, from Nazareth … we’re here for the census.”
“Sit down,” I said, “you must be hungry.”
My wife came over with a couple bowls of stew and some wine … yes, they were hungry, and tired, too.
And from the looks of it, the young lady was close to her time … she looked a tad bit miserable … and what a shame to have to be on the road at a time like this …
“We have no room in our living quarters … but we can put you in the stable area … it’s not much, and the animals are in for the night … but I just put in clean bedding, and it’ll be safe and private for the two of you … we’re glad you’re here, and we’ll make room for you … it’s gonna be just fine.”
“And Joseph, was your daddy Heli? I knew him some years ago; fact is, we were shirttail relatives … they moved away and I never saw them again.”
Joseph nodded and said, “We moved to Nazareth – my dad thought they’re be a little more work up north. And there was, and I’m a carpenter, too, just my Daddy.”
Looking around the courtyard, he said, “Thanks for letting us in; it’s been a long time since I’ve been back in Bethlehem.”
Mary smiled and leaned her head on Joseph’s shoulder … she was tired.
We put up their donkey … and their few belongings … and took them to the stable … a quiet corner; safe and private … and the rest of us headed up to the living quarters … we were all tired and ready for sleep.
Well, wouldn’t ya’ know it …
My wife awakened me in the middle of the night … “It’s time,” she said.
“Time for what?” I asked, sleep clouding my mind.
The young lady is going to have her baby.”
My wife and my sister-in-law stepped down to the stable area … the rest of us, now wide awake … listening, waiting … goodness, this on top of everything else …
Our women helped the young lady … Joseph came up to sit with us … he was worried, I could tell … he sat on the floor, arms wrapped tightly around his knees … a quiet man, he was.
Well, it wasn’t long before we heard the first cry … my wife poked her head up to the living area and said, “It’s a boy!”
Thank God for the women … they had things well in hand … and when the child was cleaned and wrapped, they put him in one of the mangers … clean straw, comfortable … it’s the best we could do, and not too bad at that.
So ended the hope of any sleep for us … but who cared … new life was here … and that’s always a miracle … and who knows, he might be the Messiah.”
Every household wondered when a boy was born – Is he the One?
Will he set the people free?
Put the world right?
Get rid of the hated Romans?
Rebuild Israel?
So there we sat … too excited to sleep … too tired to do anything else …
Toward morning, there was some rapping at the gate … “Now what?” I fumed to myself …
I walked to the gate, and opened the peephole – a bunch of shepherds … what in the world are they doing here?
“Can I help you?” I asked warily …
“You won’t believe why we’re here. Sorry to disturb you so early, but we saw angels in the sky – no, we’re not drunk – we really did; we really saw angles … they sang to us, and told us that a Savior had been born in Bethlehem … that we would find him wrapped in simple blankets lying in a manger …”
“You’re the first house on the road … do you know of a newborn in town?”
Do I know of a newborn?
Yup, you came to the right place, all right. A boy, just born a few hours ago, right here … a young couple from Nazareth, here for the census.”
When I said “census,” the shepherds spit on the ground … how we despised our overlords …
I opened the gate, and in they came – “Good grief, what a smell.”
I took them to the stable, and what a chatter … they poured out their story … there they were, in the hills, watching the sheep late at night … nodding off … when suddenly, angels … a whole bunch of ‘em … singing … loud … and one angel in particular … a big thing, said … “Don’t be afraid … we’ve got good news for you …”
“And then, poof, they were gone … just like that … so, now what? We were pretty shook up, but we figured we’d better see what’s up, so here we are.”
“And it’s true what those angels said … a child wrapped in simple blankets, lying in a manger. This must be the One.”
We were all amazed by their story … you know - sometimes you hope for something, you hope for a long, long, time … and then it happens, and you don’t know what to do with it.
Those smelly shepherds took leave and headed back to the hills, and there we stood … mouths hangin’ down to the floor …
“What in the world was that all about?”
And that’s what I remember about the first night …
There was no room in the guest room, and our quarters were full, but we made room for them in the stable, and that’s all they needed. They were decent folk, and we did the best we could.
They stayed with us for a couple of weeks … on the 8th day, our rabbi came by and the boy was circumcised, and they named him Jesus – “God saves” – what a great name, in this crummy time of ours … faith, hope and love … it’s gonna work out for us … we people of the covenant don’t ever give up … we believe that God will save us when the time is right.
A few days later, off they went to Jerusalem for their purification and to present their firstborn to the LORD.
That was the last we saw of them.
After their visit to Jerusalem, they returned home to Nazareth.
And that’s the end of the story … at least for thirty years … until we began to hear strange reports … “a prophet has arisen in the land … a man of authority … who speaks clearly and forcefully about the kingdom of God … who heals the sick and casts out demons … his name is Jesus, Jesus of Nazareth …”
Was this the little boy born in our home that night so long ago?
Well, there’s always more to a story then meets the eye, but let me pause here for a few moments …
I want you be clear about one thing – I’m not a bad guy. What the centuries did to me wasn’t right. But everyone loves to have a bad guy, I guess, and it was easy for folks to single me out.
Glad to know that you’re finally getting the story straight … it took a long time, but that’s okay. I’m a patient man.
Your archeologists have been really helpful, digging around like they do … well, they’ve actually uncovered some ancient homes in Bethlehem … they have a better idea … we were a small town …
We didn’t have inns, so to speak … Holiday Inns or Ramada Inns with dozens of rooms … we were a small town, and my wife and I were blessed to have a little extra space – you see, our homes were built with a stable attached … we slept on the upper level, and the heat of the animals warmed us during the night … and attached to our quarters, a guest area … folks thought we were pretty well off …
We cooked our meals and ate in the courtyard most of the time … we have a wonderful climate, you see, sort of like you folks here in LA – we’re outside most of the time.
When Luke says, “There was no room in the inn,” the word for inn really means living quarters, and he’s right, there was no room – we full up with family and friends for that dadgum census.”
But we MADE room that night.
I guess there’s always room, and a little more food for weary travelers.
And if I may, let me remind you that our God is content with whatever space we have to give.
Sometimes you Christians forget just how humble God is … what with your big buildings and fancy schmancy programs … we Jews had our problems, too, with that big temple of ours, and the Pharisees and the Sadducees all decked out in their extravagant robes and prayer shawls with the long fringes … would you believe, they competed with one another for just how fancy it was, and how long the fringe?
So, we’ve had our problems, too.
But that night in Bethlehem, we learned again what we always knew … our God is a humble God … loving and kind, and doesn’t ask much of us … and doesn’t need much of us … just a little room will do, whatever we have to offer.
Sometimes you Christians put too much pressure on yourselves … as if God were so fancy, and you had to have your soul just right, your life in order … but God doesn’t work that way … God doesn’t need the best, whatever that means … God just needs a simple place in your heart, and maybe, just maybe, THAT is the best!
No one ever gets their life all straightened out … things are too hard for that.
So, don’t wait until you’ve got everything put together … that’ll never happen in this life … but that’s okay … it’s amazing what God can do with us when we’re willing to let God in …
Everyone has a little place somewhere, just right for God …
That night, I knew I had room, and so do you, dear friend.
Just open the door and let God in … Jesus will be born in your heart … I don’t know how it works, but it does.
Thanks for having me here this morning … God bless each of you … and the next time you’re in Bethlehem, stop on by … we’ll find room for ya’, even if it’s only in the stable.
Amen!
Sunday, December 7, 2008
Joseph: What Now? - December 7, 2008
Audio Version HERE.
Matthew 1:18-25
Welcome to Advent, week 2 …
Last week, it was Mary …
This week, Joseph … next week, the Inn Keeper, and Advent 4 – the Shepherds …
Let me ask a question:
Is there anyone here who ever had to change plans unexpectedly?
Of course … live long enough, and unexpected changes are required … that’s living 101 …
A friend cancels lunch …
The boss wants us in Tupelo instead of Paris …
The car breaks down …
A thousand little things that require unexpected changes.
And sometimes big things … serious things …
Job loss …
Illness …
The death of a loved one …
What I call, A hard twist in the road …
What now?
Such was Joseph’s situation …
Engaged to Mary …
Wedding plans in hand …
Customs honored …
Things as they should be …
But, then, one of those “oh, oh” moments …
Joseph, I’m pregnant.
Let’s take a look at the story … please, open your Bibles to Matthew Chapter 1, verse 18 – p. 1 in the New Testament … ….
As I speak, “oh, oh” moments all over the place …
The auto industry reeling …
Wall Street stumbling …
Jobs lost …
Tens of thousands in foreclosure …
Consumer confidence - way down …
Retail sales – way down …
Vacations on hold …
College delayed …
Fewer gifts under the tree …
Less entertainment …
More meals at home …
Hot dogs instead of steak …
Even for the comfortable, the pinch is real … investments have taken a huge hit …
All kinds of “oh, oh” moments …
A friend of mine enrolled in seminary … a second-career guy with a calling – he had to make a lot of adjustments just get into seminary.
But then it wasn’t long after getting into the swing of things, that he developed heart problems … the road ahead suddenly filled with obstacles … what looked simple now became uncertain …
A tough transition …
Anger, frustration, fear …
Why did God call me? Only to put me through this?
But my friend made it …
He believed in God …
Trusted God …
Put his life into God’s hands …
He swore and cursed about it …
He cried about it …
Didn’t like it one bit …
But he made it …
Faith didn’t make the road easy; faith got him over the bumps and through the woods …
There’s always a way …
Always a way through, around, under or over …
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me …
Basic spiritual principle … God at work in ALL things for good …
But I don’t want God to always be at work in all things for God … I want to grumble and groan, mope and moan … feel sorry for myself … and get others to feel sorry for me … it’s fun to host my own pity party!
If God is really at work in all things for good, then I have to think again about my attitude …
I have to put on my spiritual eyeglasses – to look for God; look for the good … because God is there … and so is the good.
And another spiritual principle: God will keep us in the hard place until we learn to find the good … until we learn the lessons of gratitude and humility …
Like an old gold mine – we think it’s played out; there’s nothing here … but God says, Dig a little longer, dig a little deeper … there’s still gold in this mine.
The truth is this: If I’m not grateful for the grace of God in hard times, what makes me think I’ll be grateful for the blessing of God in the good times?
If I don’t practice kindness right now, when will I do it?
If I’m not a person of faith, hope and love right now, when?
Next month, next year, next job, next marriage, next relationship, next whatever …?
No, it has to be now.
It can be now!
As I was preparing this message, I thought of one of my favorite stories from the Book of Acts …
Paul the Apostle had his plans …
Paul wanted to go East …
Listen to the Tex- Acts 16:
When they had come opposite Mysia, they attempted to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus did not allow them; so … they went down to Troas … (Acts 16:6ff).
Who hasn’t planned on going to Bithynia?
Who hasn’t been stymied?
But there’s always Troas …
There’s always a way through, around, over or under.
When life hands you a lemon,
Add a little sugar and make lemonade.
A friend of mine reaching back 40 years …
A fellow-pastor …
Lost his wife 15 years ago to a brain aneurysm … a bitter loss that turned his world upside down … the church he was serving at the time couldn’t cope with his grief and asked him to leave … he stumbled and struggled …
But I’ve watched him add sugar …
The sugar of faith …
None of it easy … his lemonade is made with tears and trembling …
Along the way …
Another women came into his life …
She, too, a widow … having lost her husband tragically …
Love blossomed … and both have helped each other grieve the loss of a first love …
They add the sugar of faith to a bitter chapter in life …
It’s still bitter-sweet for them …
But they rejoice in love anew …
There is always a way through, around, over or under …
Poor Joseph … a righteous man …
Not self-righteous … but really righteousness … a God-lover, serious about the things of God … a man of faith …
In other words, Joseph wanted to do it right!
Joseph decides to call it off quietly … “give the ring back” so to speak … no fanfare, no public announcement … just end it quietly … she must love someone else.
Here’s where the story reveals a lot about Joseph:
He could have put Mary on trial …
The law allowed for an adulterous woman to be stoned to death … (Deuteronomy 22:20-21) …
Remember the story of the woman “caught in adultery”?
The mob brought her to Jesus … they were ready to stone her.
But Jesus writes in the dust … wish I knew what he wrote … and then said to the mob, The one without sin can cast the first stone … and with that, the mob melted away …
Jesus had a fatherly example in mind …
Not just a heavenly Father …
His fatherly father, Joseph …
Joseph refused to humiliate Mary and bring her to trial …
The law would have been on his side …
But are some things in this life more important than just being “right” …
Joseph chose the better way …
Only then did God break in …
An angel dream …
Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.
Why did God wait so long to clear things up …?
Was God waiting to see what Joseph would do?
Was God waiting to see what kind of man Joseph really was?
What kind of father he would make for Jesus?
What kind of an example he would be for God’s own son?
Paul the Apostle would write thirty years later to Christians in Corinth … about a way of life … a still more excellent way …
Not law, but love …
Not about being “right” but being righteous …
If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gone or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.
Joseph was more than right, he was righteous …
He chose the better way …
And that’s when God stepped in …
God stepped in to finish the deal … God enabled Joseph to take the next step.
To take Mary for his wife, and be the earthly father to the Son of heaven.
A partnership between a man of faith and a faithful God … Joseph had to choose, and choose he did, the better part … and God helped Joseph finish it …
When things fall a part …
When the unexpected happens …
When there’s a hard twist in the road and we end up in the ditch …
There is always a way through, around, over or under …
But we have a role to play …
A choice to make …
A faith to live …
I can’t think of a better example than Joseph …
Faced with a lousy “oh, oh” moment …
Joseph chose love …
And God’s love finished the deal!
Amen and Amen!
Matthew 1:18-25
Welcome to Advent, week 2 …
Last week, it was Mary …
This week, Joseph … next week, the Inn Keeper, and Advent 4 – the Shepherds …
Let me ask a question:
Is there anyone here who ever had to change plans unexpectedly?
Of course … live long enough, and unexpected changes are required … that’s living 101 …
A friend cancels lunch …
The boss wants us in Tupelo instead of Paris …
The car breaks down …
A thousand little things that require unexpected changes.
And sometimes big things … serious things …
Job loss …
Illness …
The death of a loved one …
What I call, A hard twist in the road …
What now?
Such was Joseph’s situation …
Engaged to Mary …
Wedding plans in hand …
Customs honored …
Things as they should be …
But, then, one of those “oh, oh” moments …
Joseph, I’m pregnant.
Let’s take a look at the story … please, open your Bibles to Matthew Chapter 1, verse 18 – p. 1 in the New Testament … ….
As I speak, “oh, oh” moments all over the place …
The auto industry reeling …
Wall Street stumbling …
Jobs lost …
Tens of thousands in foreclosure …
Consumer confidence - way down …
Retail sales – way down …
Vacations on hold …
College delayed …
Fewer gifts under the tree …
Less entertainment …
More meals at home …
Hot dogs instead of steak …
Even for the comfortable, the pinch is real … investments have taken a huge hit …
All kinds of “oh, oh” moments …
A friend of mine enrolled in seminary … a second-career guy with a calling – he had to make a lot of adjustments just get into seminary.
But then it wasn’t long after getting into the swing of things, that he developed heart problems … the road ahead suddenly filled with obstacles … what looked simple now became uncertain …
A tough transition …
Anger, frustration, fear …
Why did God call me? Only to put me through this?
But my friend made it …
He believed in God …
Trusted God …
Put his life into God’s hands …
He swore and cursed about it …
He cried about it …
Didn’t like it one bit …
But he made it …
Faith didn’t make the road easy; faith got him over the bumps and through the woods …
There’s always a way …
Always a way through, around, under or over …
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me …
Basic spiritual principle … God at work in ALL things for good …
But I don’t want God to always be at work in all things for God … I want to grumble and groan, mope and moan … feel sorry for myself … and get others to feel sorry for me … it’s fun to host my own pity party!
If God is really at work in all things for good, then I have to think again about my attitude …
I have to put on my spiritual eyeglasses – to look for God; look for the good … because God is there … and so is the good.
And another spiritual principle: God will keep us in the hard place until we learn to find the good … until we learn the lessons of gratitude and humility …
Like an old gold mine – we think it’s played out; there’s nothing here … but God says, Dig a little longer, dig a little deeper … there’s still gold in this mine.
The truth is this: If I’m not grateful for the grace of God in hard times, what makes me think I’ll be grateful for the blessing of God in the good times?
If I don’t practice kindness right now, when will I do it?
If I’m not a person of faith, hope and love right now, when?
Next month, next year, next job, next marriage, next relationship, next whatever …?
No, it has to be now.
It can be now!
As I was preparing this message, I thought of one of my favorite stories from the Book of Acts …
Paul the Apostle had his plans …
Paul wanted to go East …
Listen to the Tex- Acts 16:
When they had come opposite Mysia, they attempted to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus did not allow them; so … they went down to Troas … (Acts 16:6ff).
Who hasn’t planned on going to Bithynia?
Who hasn’t been stymied?
But there’s always Troas …
There’s always a way through, around, over or under.
When life hands you a lemon,
Add a little sugar and make lemonade.
A friend of mine reaching back 40 years …
A fellow-pastor …
Lost his wife 15 years ago to a brain aneurysm … a bitter loss that turned his world upside down … the church he was serving at the time couldn’t cope with his grief and asked him to leave … he stumbled and struggled …
But I’ve watched him add sugar …
The sugar of faith …
None of it easy … his lemonade is made with tears and trembling …
Along the way …
Another women came into his life …
She, too, a widow … having lost her husband tragically …
Love blossomed … and both have helped each other grieve the loss of a first love …
They add the sugar of faith to a bitter chapter in life …
It’s still bitter-sweet for them …
But they rejoice in love anew …
There is always a way through, around, over or under …
Poor Joseph … a righteous man …
Not self-righteous … but really righteousness … a God-lover, serious about the things of God … a man of faith …
In other words, Joseph wanted to do it right!
Joseph decides to call it off quietly … “give the ring back” so to speak … no fanfare, no public announcement … just end it quietly … she must love someone else.
Here’s where the story reveals a lot about Joseph:
He could have put Mary on trial …
The law allowed for an adulterous woman to be stoned to death … (Deuteronomy 22:20-21) …
Remember the story of the woman “caught in adultery”?
The mob brought her to Jesus … they were ready to stone her.
But Jesus writes in the dust … wish I knew what he wrote … and then said to the mob, The one without sin can cast the first stone … and with that, the mob melted away …
Jesus had a fatherly example in mind …
Not just a heavenly Father …
His fatherly father, Joseph …
Joseph refused to humiliate Mary and bring her to trial …
The law would have been on his side …
But are some things in this life more important than just being “right” …
Joseph chose the better way …
Only then did God break in …
An angel dream …
Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.
Why did God wait so long to clear things up …?
Was God waiting to see what Joseph would do?
Was God waiting to see what kind of man Joseph really was?
What kind of father he would make for Jesus?
What kind of an example he would be for God’s own son?
Paul the Apostle would write thirty years later to Christians in Corinth … about a way of life … a still more excellent way …
Not law, but love …
Not about being “right” but being righteous …
If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gone or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.
Joseph was more than right, he was righteous …
He chose the better way …
And that’s when God stepped in …
God stepped in to finish the deal … God enabled Joseph to take the next step.
To take Mary for his wife, and be the earthly father to the Son of heaven.
A partnership between a man of faith and a faithful God … Joseph had to choose, and choose he did, the better part … and God helped Joseph finish it …
When things fall a part …
When the unexpected happens …
When there’s a hard twist in the road and we end up in the ditch …
There is always a way through, around, over or under …
But we have a role to play …
A choice to make …
A faith to live …
I can’t think of a better example than Joseph …
Faced with a lousy “oh, oh” moment …
Joseph chose love …
And God’s love finished the deal!
Amen and Amen!
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Mary - November 30, 2008
Audio Version HERE.
Luke 1:26-37
Goooooood morning, Covenant on the Corner … and welcome to the season called Advent … a series of four Sundays, laying a foundation, preparing the way … getting us ready, to celebrate the birth of the Messiah …
Year after year …
Why do we do this?
Well … why Thanksgiving every year … why not every five years, or ten years …
How about birthdays … well, maybe every five or ten years would be a good thing …
But lunch with a friend …
Listening to Handel’s Messiah …
Telling our best jokes … all over again …
Going to the beach on a Sunday afternoon …
Our favorite restaurant …
Good things bear repeating …
And some things, big things, important things, deserve a special place in our lives … because we never totally understand … never totally discover all the meaning … there’s always something new, something fresh and surprising about great things …
Like Psalm 23 … or the LORD's Prayer …
Or Mary’s Magnificat … and the announcement of good news to the shepherds in the hills …
So … welcome to Advent … again … and like never before …
This year, four questions …
Mary asks, How can this be? When the angel tells her she’s going to conceive …
For Joseph learning of Mary’s pregnancy, What now?
From the Inn Keeper: Is there room?
From the Shepherds: Are we included?
Advent is an epic tale … a big story … big ideas … a big-screen story …
Like “Gone with the Wind,” “Lawrence of Arabia,” “LORD of the Rings,” “Australia” …
Colorful characters …
Great dialogue …
Drama and romance …
A journey for the soul …
Welcome to Advent … 2008 … a journey for the soul!
Today, Mary … and her question, How can this be?
If you grew up a Roman Catholic, Mary was very much the center … you grew up with the Rosary:
Hail Mary, full of grace, the LORD is with thee.
Blessed art thou among women,
And blessed is the fruit of they womb, Jesus.
Holy Mary, mother of God,
Pray for us sinners,
Now and at the hour of our death.
Amen.
For our Roman Catholic sisters and brothers, images of Mary are found everywhere, Mary Queen of heaven, wearing a crown and holding a scepter … Mary and her child … and one of the most famous of all images, the Pieta – Mary holding the crucified body of her son …
The 10th Century formalized the idea of Mary’s immaculate conception – that’s conception … not reception, as in football … Mary’s immaculate conception.
Early church dogma taught that sin was physically transmitted in the act of conception … this idea of sin physically transmitted goes back to St. Augustine in the 4th Century: sin - physically transmitted in the act of conception … which is why the Roman Church requires celibacy for priests and nuns – people in the religious profession should not pass sin on …
So Mary had to be sinless … so some theologians crafted the idea of her immaculate conception …
No sin in her flesh …
So that her son Jesus, could be born without sin, as well.
But it was only in 1854 that the idea was officially recognized as dogma, official teaching … required now of every Catholic …
But there’s even more …
In 1950, Pope Pius the XII formalized the dogma of Mary’s bodily assumption into heaven … before death could undo her, Mary was taken up into heaven, body and soul intact …
For many Roman Catholics, Mary is the center of their faith.
In Central and South America and Eastern Europe …
Mary is venerated …
Festivals and feasts …
Trinkets and treasures …
Plastic beads to diamonds and gold …
Prayers are said to her …
Pleas are made in her name …
Her solace is sought …
Visions of her are common in these parts of the world …
Her face strangely appears on walls and in clouds …
Her statues weep …
Her eyes move …
Mary, the Mother of God …
Now, if you grew up a Protestant, as I did,
You knew very little about Mary …
And for many a Protestant, we didn’t even celebrate Advent … we jumped right into Christmas, and that was that … and all we knew was that Christmas came after Thanksgiving … and Easter was way back there somewhere.
Ever since Vatican 2 in 1962 – convened by Pope John XXIII Protestants and Catholics have been talking and sharing …
Protestants began to adopt the liturgical year … seasons and festivals … including Lent and Advent, and lectionary preaching …
Protestants began to think and talk about Mary …
This morning, we’ll spend some time with Mary … and her question to Gabriel, How can this be?
Let’s open our Bibles and read some of her story … …
In order to understand this epic tale, we have to step back to Genesis 2, when God paid Adam and Eve a visit …
Expecting to find Adam and Eve enjoying the Garden, God finds them hiding in the bushes, afraid to come out … afraid of God.
They heard the sound of God walking in the Garden, they said, and they were afraid.
At every turn, when God shows, folks are disconcerted … even the most faithful don’t know what to do …
I think we’re all afraid of God … yes, really … it’s now in our genes, our spiritual makeup …
That’s why human beings invent religion … a way of taming the divine … putting in a firewall between us and God … something manageable, something we can tinker with – we can call it god, but it isn’t God … not even close!
We’re still in the bushes …
But God happens to love this world, and God loves you and me.
So what’s God to do?
I’m a dog-lover …
I get along with dogs and dogs get along with me …
But a friend’s dog was a different story …
My friend got Freddie from a pound …
And though Freddie loved my friend, he was afraid of me … one sniff, and that was that … a growl and a retreat to another room …
No matter what I did, it never worked … Freddie was always afraid of me …
Now, what might have happened if I could have become a dog … and with a little doggy language, say to Freddie, There’s no need to be afraid … remember that guy who used to frightened you? Well, that’s me, but I’m now just like you … I’m a dog, too … and you see, there’s no need to be afraid of me.
As goofy as this sounds, that’s the story of the incarnation … God becomes one of us … says to us in human tongue: remember that God you were always frightened of? Well, that’s me. Here I am. My name is Jesus. I eat and sleep; I laugh and weep. I live and I die. You see, there’s no need to be afraid of me.
God becomes one of us!
And how did this happen?
The angel Gabriel pays Mary a visit …
You’re going to be the mother of Israel’s Messiah …
You’re going to conceive a son, and he shall save the people.
Mary asks her question: How can this be?
How can this be, since I’ve not yet known Joseph?
I’ve not been with a man …
How can this be?
Mary’s young, but she knows how things happen …
Gabriel has no answer …
But Gabriel offers assures …
Whatever is going to happen is God’s work …
The Holy Spirit will come upon you Mary …
Something profound … something wonderful … a mystery, a joy, a delight … not of human doing, but of God’s mighty work.
At the heart of the story: Mary’s response
Here I am,
The servant of the LORD;
Let it be with me according to your word.
The cry of surrender …
I give myself to you in faith and obedience …
Thy will be done!
What do we know about Mary?
She’s smart …
When she visits her cousin Elizabeth, Mary sings a song of praise … we call it the Magnificat – from the LORD for magnify … my soul magnifies the LORD, sings Mary.
Mary’s Magnificat is an eloquent recital of God’s promises …
God is no pansy …
But incredibly patient …
And there is coming a time when wrongs will be righted, the oppressed set free … the proud brought down, and the lowly lifted up …
Mary knew her Bible.
What we call the Old Testament …
Jewish children at her age had memorized huge portions of the Bible … and Mary would have been around the age of 13 …
Children were well-taught by the rabbis and scribes …
They knew how to read Torah …
They heard it every Sabbath in the synagogue …
It was rehearsed in their prayer life …
And every Passover feast …
And other festivals throughout the year …
It was on their parents’ lips all the time …
First Century Palestine was Scripture-soaked …
Everyone knew their Bible …
Mary knew her Bible …
She knew it well enough to sing a song filled with it …
What do we know about Mary?
She wasn’t afraid … she was daring and willing …
She asked her questions …
Time and again, we’re told: she tucked things away, she pondered them in her heart …
Mary was a thinker …
And when others might have been afraid, she was just perplexed … and wondered, What’s up with this?
She was comfortable with God.
The angel assures her all the more: Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God
Greetings favored one! The LORD is with you.
What do we know about Mary?
She’s savvy … she’s spiritual … she’s a thinker …
At the heart of her heart …
Trust and surrender …
Frightened people will not surrender to God …
Only confident people can take their life into their own hands and deliver it unto God … freely and confidently:
Here I am,
The servant of the LORD;
Let it be with me according to your word.
That’s why God works so hard to remove fear from our lives …
Can we learn from Mary?
She’s a clear and abiding example for all of us …
To walk humbly with God, writes Micah …
A child holding hands with a parent …
Two friends out for a hike in the mountains …
Lovers on the Santa Monica Pier …
Over the years of ministry, I’ve pondered the nature of surrender …
A friend said to me one day, and he was a Christian, The word surrender bothers me …
It became clear in further conversation: My friend was afraid of losing control … it was important for him to maintain boundaries, remain in charge …
My friend grew up in the church …
Knew the stories … lived a virtuous life …
But didn’t feel safe with God.
It’s the Adam-and-Eve-in-the-bushes syndrome …
But here’s where Mary is instructive for all of us …
She’s young as age goes …
But wise in the ways of God …
What was her strength?
We have a clue in her Magnificat, her song of praise …
She knew her Bible …
She knew it in the depths of her heart …
Not just a verse here and there, not just slogans and sayings, but the story, the whole story, and nothing but the story: the great themes and exulted ideals … the power and the glory … the goodness of God.
Mary was no stranger to the things of God.
When she asks, How can this be?
Gabriel says, This is all I know Mary; it’ll be God!
Gabriel’s simple answer is right …
We don’t have the details …
It’s always a mystery …
Paul the Apostle says it well: we see through a glass darkly.
The simple answer from Gabriel: It’ll be God’s work Mary – that’s how it’s going to happen.
That simple answer was good enough for Mary.
Because she was already comfortable with God.
If Mary were here today, she’d say to us: If you want to get anywhere with God, if you want to get beyond square one, surrender you life!
You see, all of us are a Mary in waiting …
We have a heart …
Call it a womb …
A place where God wants to take up residence …
A place where the Messiah is conceived …
You see, Gabriel still comes to us …
To tell us that God wants to get inside of us …
God wants more than religion …
God wants a relationship …
Up close and personal …
To be conceived within us …
So that God can be born into the world through us.
For this Season of Advent: Mary’s surrender:
Here I am,
The servant of the LORD;
Let it be with me according to your word.
Amen and Amen!
Luke 1:26-37
Goooooood morning, Covenant on the Corner … and welcome to the season called Advent … a series of four Sundays, laying a foundation, preparing the way … getting us ready, to celebrate the birth of the Messiah …
Year after year …
Why do we do this?
Well … why Thanksgiving every year … why not every five years, or ten years …
How about birthdays … well, maybe every five or ten years would be a good thing …
But lunch with a friend …
Listening to Handel’s Messiah …
Telling our best jokes … all over again …
Going to the beach on a Sunday afternoon …
Our favorite restaurant …
Good things bear repeating …
And some things, big things, important things, deserve a special place in our lives … because we never totally understand … never totally discover all the meaning … there’s always something new, something fresh and surprising about great things …
Like Psalm 23 … or the LORD's Prayer …
Or Mary’s Magnificat … and the announcement of good news to the shepherds in the hills …
So … welcome to Advent … again … and like never before …
This year, four questions …
Mary asks, How can this be? When the angel tells her she’s going to conceive …
For Joseph learning of Mary’s pregnancy, What now?
From the Inn Keeper: Is there room?
From the Shepherds: Are we included?
Advent is an epic tale … a big story … big ideas … a big-screen story …
Like “Gone with the Wind,” “Lawrence of Arabia,” “LORD of the Rings,” “Australia” …
Colorful characters …
Great dialogue …
Drama and romance …
A journey for the soul …
Welcome to Advent … 2008 … a journey for the soul!
Today, Mary … and her question, How can this be?
If you grew up a Roman Catholic, Mary was very much the center … you grew up with the Rosary:
Hail Mary, full of grace, the LORD is with thee.
Blessed art thou among women,
And blessed is the fruit of they womb, Jesus.
Holy Mary, mother of God,
Pray for us sinners,
Now and at the hour of our death.
Amen.
For our Roman Catholic sisters and brothers, images of Mary are found everywhere, Mary Queen of heaven, wearing a crown and holding a scepter … Mary and her child … and one of the most famous of all images, the Pieta – Mary holding the crucified body of her son …
The 10th Century formalized the idea of Mary’s immaculate conception – that’s conception … not reception, as in football … Mary’s immaculate conception.
Early church dogma taught that sin was physically transmitted in the act of conception … this idea of sin physically transmitted goes back to St. Augustine in the 4th Century: sin - physically transmitted in the act of conception … which is why the Roman Church requires celibacy for priests and nuns – people in the religious profession should not pass sin on …
So Mary had to be sinless … so some theologians crafted the idea of her immaculate conception …
No sin in her flesh …
So that her son Jesus, could be born without sin, as well.
But it was only in 1854 that the idea was officially recognized as dogma, official teaching … required now of every Catholic …
But there’s even more …
In 1950, Pope Pius the XII formalized the dogma of Mary’s bodily assumption into heaven … before death could undo her, Mary was taken up into heaven, body and soul intact …
For many Roman Catholics, Mary is the center of their faith.
In Central and South America and Eastern Europe …
Mary is venerated …
Festivals and feasts …
Trinkets and treasures …
Plastic beads to diamonds and gold …
Prayers are said to her …
Pleas are made in her name …
Her solace is sought …
Visions of her are common in these parts of the world …
Her face strangely appears on walls and in clouds …
Her statues weep …
Her eyes move …
Mary, the Mother of God …
Now, if you grew up a Protestant, as I did,
You knew very little about Mary …
And for many a Protestant, we didn’t even celebrate Advent … we jumped right into Christmas, and that was that … and all we knew was that Christmas came after Thanksgiving … and Easter was way back there somewhere.
Ever since Vatican 2 in 1962 – convened by Pope John XXIII Protestants and Catholics have been talking and sharing …
Protestants began to adopt the liturgical year … seasons and festivals … including Lent and Advent, and lectionary preaching …
Protestants began to think and talk about Mary …
This morning, we’ll spend some time with Mary … and her question to Gabriel, How can this be?
Let’s open our Bibles and read some of her story … …
In order to understand this epic tale, we have to step back to Genesis 2, when God paid Adam and Eve a visit …
Expecting to find Adam and Eve enjoying the Garden, God finds them hiding in the bushes, afraid to come out … afraid of God.
They heard the sound of God walking in the Garden, they said, and they were afraid.
At every turn, when God shows, folks are disconcerted … even the most faithful don’t know what to do …
I think we’re all afraid of God … yes, really … it’s now in our genes, our spiritual makeup …
That’s why human beings invent religion … a way of taming the divine … putting in a firewall between us and God … something manageable, something we can tinker with – we can call it god, but it isn’t God … not even close!
We’re still in the bushes …
But God happens to love this world, and God loves you and me.
So what’s God to do?
I’m a dog-lover …
I get along with dogs and dogs get along with me …
But a friend’s dog was a different story …
My friend got Freddie from a pound …
And though Freddie loved my friend, he was afraid of me … one sniff, and that was that … a growl and a retreat to another room …
No matter what I did, it never worked … Freddie was always afraid of me …
Now, what might have happened if I could have become a dog … and with a little doggy language, say to Freddie, There’s no need to be afraid … remember that guy who used to frightened you? Well, that’s me, but I’m now just like you … I’m a dog, too … and you see, there’s no need to be afraid of me.
As goofy as this sounds, that’s the story of the incarnation … God becomes one of us … says to us in human tongue: remember that God you were always frightened of? Well, that’s me. Here I am. My name is Jesus. I eat and sleep; I laugh and weep. I live and I die. You see, there’s no need to be afraid of me.
God becomes one of us!
And how did this happen?
The angel Gabriel pays Mary a visit …
You’re going to be the mother of Israel’s Messiah …
You’re going to conceive a son, and he shall save the people.
Mary asks her question: How can this be?
How can this be, since I’ve not yet known Joseph?
I’ve not been with a man …
How can this be?
Mary’s young, but she knows how things happen …
Gabriel has no answer …
But Gabriel offers assures …
Whatever is going to happen is God’s work …
The Holy Spirit will come upon you Mary …
Something profound … something wonderful … a mystery, a joy, a delight … not of human doing, but of God’s mighty work.
At the heart of the story: Mary’s response
Here I am,
The servant of the LORD;
Let it be with me according to your word.
The cry of surrender …
I give myself to you in faith and obedience …
Thy will be done!
What do we know about Mary?
She’s smart …
When she visits her cousin Elizabeth, Mary sings a song of praise … we call it the Magnificat – from the LORD for magnify … my soul magnifies the LORD, sings Mary.
Mary’s Magnificat is an eloquent recital of God’s promises …
God is no pansy …
But incredibly patient …
And there is coming a time when wrongs will be righted, the oppressed set free … the proud brought down, and the lowly lifted up …
Mary knew her Bible.
What we call the Old Testament …
Jewish children at her age had memorized huge portions of the Bible … and Mary would have been around the age of 13 …
Children were well-taught by the rabbis and scribes …
They knew how to read Torah …
They heard it every Sabbath in the synagogue …
It was rehearsed in their prayer life …
And every Passover feast …
And other festivals throughout the year …
It was on their parents’ lips all the time …
First Century Palestine was Scripture-soaked …
Everyone knew their Bible …
Mary knew her Bible …
She knew it well enough to sing a song filled with it …
What do we know about Mary?
She wasn’t afraid … she was daring and willing …
She asked her questions …
Time and again, we’re told: she tucked things away, she pondered them in her heart …
Mary was a thinker …
And when others might have been afraid, she was just perplexed … and wondered, What’s up with this?
She was comfortable with God.
The angel assures her all the more: Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God
Greetings favored one! The LORD is with you.
What do we know about Mary?
She’s savvy … she’s spiritual … she’s a thinker …
At the heart of her heart …
Trust and surrender …
Frightened people will not surrender to God …
Only confident people can take their life into their own hands and deliver it unto God … freely and confidently:
Here I am,
The servant of the LORD;
Let it be with me according to your word.
That’s why God works so hard to remove fear from our lives …
Can we learn from Mary?
She’s a clear and abiding example for all of us …
To walk humbly with God, writes Micah …
A child holding hands with a parent …
Two friends out for a hike in the mountains …
Lovers on the Santa Monica Pier …
Over the years of ministry, I’ve pondered the nature of surrender …
A friend said to me one day, and he was a Christian, The word surrender bothers me …
It became clear in further conversation: My friend was afraid of losing control … it was important for him to maintain boundaries, remain in charge …
My friend grew up in the church …
Knew the stories … lived a virtuous life …
But didn’t feel safe with God.
It’s the Adam-and-Eve-in-the-bushes syndrome …
But here’s where Mary is instructive for all of us …
She’s young as age goes …
But wise in the ways of God …
What was her strength?
We have a clue in her Magnificat, her song of praise …
She knew her Bible …
She knew it in the depths of her heart …
Not just a verse here and there, not just slogans and sayings, but the story, the whole story, and nothing but the story: the great themes and exulted ideals … the power and the glory … the goodness of God.
Mary was no stranger to the things of God.
When she asks, How can this be?
Gabriel says, This is all I know Mary; it’ll be God!
Gabriel’s simple answer is right …
We don’t have the details …
It’s always a mystery …
Paul the Apostle says it well: we see through a glass darkly.
The simple answer from Gabriel: It’ll be God’s work Mary – that’s how it’s going to happen.
That simple answer was good enough for Mary.
Because she was already comfortable with God.
If Mary were here today, she’d say to us: If you want to get anywhere with God, if you want to get beyond square one, surrender you life!
You see, all of us are a Mary in waiting …
We have a heart …
Call it a womb …
A place where God wants to take up residence …
A place where the Messiah is conceived …
You see, Gabriel still comes to us …
To tell us that God wants to get inside of us …
God wants more than religion …
God wants a relationship …
Up close and personal …
To be conceived within us …
So that God can be born into the world through us.
For this Season of Advent: Mary’s surrender:
Here I am,
The servant of the LORD;
Let it be with me according to your word.
Amen and Amen!
Sunday, November 23, 2008
Rescue - November 23, 2008
Audio Version HERE.
Ezekiel 34:7-31
Is there anything ultimate?
Anything so real, so final, so good, so absolute – that no matter what else happens, it remains true and good?
I recently saw the film, “The Boy in the Striped Pajamas” – set in Nazi Germany – a father who’s promoted to be the commandant of a concentration camp, his wife who knows nothing about it as of yet, and two children: Gretel, a 12-year old girl, and Bruno, an 8-year old boy who, by accident, befriends an 8-year old boy “on the other side of the fence” – Shmuel, a little Jewish boy who wears striped pajamas, because “the soldiers took away our clothes.”
Bruno says, “My father is a soldier, but he wouldn’t take clothes away.”
What we see in this film is a portrait of evil … great evil … systemic evil … evil baked into the fiber of a culture … evil so commonplace, that only a few can recognize it, and fewer still speak out about it.
Tolkien’s masterpiece, “Lord of the Rings” spins an epic tale of evil and the struggle of a white wizard named Gandalf and his motley crew of hobbits, elves and dwarves – to defeat the Lord of the rings and return the earth to goodness.
C. S. Lewis in his wonderful series, “The Chronicles of Narnia” …
S.K. Rowling in her incredible Harry Potter series …
These writers deal with the mystery and power of evil …
Paul the Apostle writes: Our struggle is not against enemies of flesh and blood, 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 (Ephesians 6:12).
The Apostle Peter writes: Like a roaring lion your adversary the devil prowls around, looking for someone to devour (1 Peter 5:8b).
EVIL is real …
Dafur and the Sudan …
Bosnia …
Iraq and Afghanistan …
An economic meltdown of unimaginable proportions … a world of suffering and sorrow for millions … lost jobs, lost homes …
Countless horrors enfolded in the history of humanity …
EVIL is pervasive and real … that we know …
But is there anything beyond the darkness sitting on our doorstep, the monster in our closet, this elephant in the living room?
Is there something so real, so good, so beautiful … so true and right … that no matter what happens, no matter how powerful the present darkness may be …
Is there some Reality, with a capital “R,” which underpins the universe for good?
Psalm 46 says:
We will not fear,
Though the earth should change,
Though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea;
Though its waters roar and foam,
Though the mountains tremble with its tumult.
There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God.
The LORD of hosts is with us;
The God of Jacob is our refuge.
Jesus said to his disciples moments before his ascension: I am with you always.
We say in the Creed, I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth …
The ancient writers of Israel believed there was a capital “R” Reality, a reality of goodness and light …
The ancient writers of Israel believed in God … the creator of the heavens and the earth … the God who called out to Adam and Eve, Where are you?
Who called out to Cain, Where is your brother?
The God who said to Moses, Go back to Egypt and set my people free.
The ancient writers were not naïve.
The ancient writers knew full-well the horrors of war and natural disaster … slavery, betrayal and murder … war and rumors of war, hopes dashed again and again …
The ancient writers knew full well the dark side of life …
But they said to their children, there is a goodness to life greater than the darkness …
There is a God, just and kind … a God of great love …
A God hard at work in a fierce and dangerous world …
A God who takes a deep and personal interest in the wellbeing of humanity, a God whose love is small enough to fit inside the human heart …
There is an ultimate goodness …
An ultimate love …
Yahweh Elohim Sabaoth … the LORD God of Hosts …
God loves the world …
God loves us personally and intimately …
Rescues, saves, and makes all things new …
The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob …
The God of Sarah, Rachel and Leah …
The God who called Israel for the sake of the world …
And gave Israel a message:
Good is greater than evil …
Love greater than hatred …
Hope greater than despair …
Life greater than death …
Truth greater than all the lies humankind will ever tell …
Eternity woven into time …
And time headed toward a real future.
The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want …
Ezekiel’s imagery of the shepherd …
Jesus uses Ezekiel’s imagery to describe his work and purpose: I am the good shepherd, says Jesus.
In the Parable of the Lost Sheep, Jesus tells of a shepherd who leaves 99 sheep in order to find the one lost sheep.
When Jesus restores Peter after Peter’s monumental failure, Jesus says to him: If you love me Peter, feed my lambs, tend my sheep, feed my sheep (John 21:15-17).
The love of God … the Good Shepherd …
Personal and close at hand …
I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I will make them lie down, says the LORD God. I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak.
But the love of God is more than sunshine and light …
The love of God is just and right …
The love of God restores balance and equity …
The LORD lifts up valleys … and brings down mountains …
The love of God addresses crimes committed … crimes of inequity and power … crimes of exclusion and manipulation …
Fat sheep feed on good pasture and trample the rest of it …
Fat sheep drink clear water and foul it for others …
Fat sheep push with flank and shoulder … butting the weak until the flock is scattered far and wide.
God says: I will set things right … I will feed justice to the fat sheep who didn’t care about the weak.
God’s justice sets things right … God’s love addresses the crimes …
Never directed to the lonely and the weak …
Never directed to the lost and the lame …
But to the powerful … priests and politicians of Israel …
Well-fed and the comfortable …
Who have received much but will not give …
Blind to the needs of others because they’re too busy taking care of themselves …
Jesus takes up this image of judgment in (Matthew 25) …
Sheep separated from goats …
And the goats protest: LORD, if we had only known you were the hungry man by the road … if we had only known you were the thirsty little girl dying in her mother’s arms … LORD, if we had only you were stranger we feared and hated … if we had only known you were the naked prisoner we humiliated … we would have done something about it.
But Jesus says:
You had your chance …
You knew better …
You’re a human being … and you treated your fellow human being with cruelty and harshness …
You were given so much and you gave so little …
You knew the Golden Rule … but you choose to do unto others what you would never allow anyone to do to you …
Where there was need, you took even more …
Where there was pain, you added to it …
Where there was hatred, you joined the chorus …
Where there was little, you took what was left …
Where there never enough, you took all the more …
And just like Cain, you claim innocence …
You deny any responsibility …
You have earned your wages well …
You have your reward …
Be gone from me …
To a place of fire and regret …
A place created by your own ingenuity and pride …
A place well suited to a hard heart and a self-serving will.
“Preacher, enough of this,” you say!
We don’t want to hear about judgment.
We don’t want to hear about such hard things.
Let’s get on with the love of God.
Well, yes, let’s get on with the love of God.
But the ancient writers would have us hear the whole counsel of God … all of God’s love …
Jesus would have us hear the rest of the story.
It’s not about the sins so often decried by some Christians …
Sin isn’t a pregnant young girl who gets an abortion …
Sin isn’t about gays or lesbians who fall in love and want to marry …
Sin isn’t about not believing in Jesus …
Sin isn’t about movies and books that offend our sensibilities …
I wish sin were that easy!
The real sins of the world are sins of power and control – fat sheep butting the weak out of the way …
Sins of manipulation for personal gain – wealth without conscience, commerce without kindness, worship without sacrifice, and politics in service of the fat sheep.
Sin is a world upside down …
W world where children die before the age of 5 from simple diseases so easily cured if we but had the will to do it.
Sin is always the sin of Cain who denies knowing where his brother is, and shuns responsibility - “Am I my brother’s keeper?”
The answer is clear: Yes, you are your brother’s keeper!
Real love is just!
A love that rights what’s wrong … and rescues the lost!
God has rescued US … that’s why we’re here this morning … we’re the rescued ones …
We were lost and injured, but the Good Shepherd came to OUR wilderness and found us … shouldered us when we were unable to make the journey ourselves … bandaged our wounds and fed us …
We are the rescued ones!
And now God wants the rescued to become rescuers for others.
We have to ask Ezekiel’s questions …
Who are the injured in our world today?
Who are the weak?
Who are the wounded?
Who are the lost?
Who needs to be rescued?
A 12-year old girl in a third-world factory sewing shirts 12 hours a day for a pittance?
A family in Flint, Michigan facing the loss of everything?
Who needs to be rescued?
A man of power who wears a $25,000 wristwatch and still doesn’t have the time of day to think beyond his own prestige and power?
Who doesn’t need to be rescued?
But let’s be clear about one thing:
To those to whom much has been given, much is required.
The 12-year old girl has no choice and no chance …
The man with the wristwatch should know better!
We might look at God and ask, “Where are YOU in all of this?”
And God looks at us and asks, “Where are YOU in all of this?”
Can you be my rescuers as I have rescued you?
Will you keep the pastures green and the water clear?
God has told us what’s required:
To do justice, to love kindness and to walk humbly with God (Micah 6:8).
Can we do this? Of course we can! We are the Church of Jesus Christ!
Amen and Amen!
Ezekiel 34:7-31
Is there anything ultimate?
Anything so real, so final, so good, so absolute – that no matter what else happens, it remains true and good?
I recently saw the film, “The Boy in the Striped Pajamas” – set in Nazi Germany – a father who’s promoted to be the commandant of a concentration camp, his wife who knows nothing about it as of yet, and two children: Gretel, a 12-year old girl, and Bruno, an 8-year old boy who, by accident, befriends an 8-year old boy “on the other side of the fence” – Shmuel, a little Jewish boy who wears striped pajamas, because “the soldiers took away our clothes.”
Bruno says, “My father is a soldier, but he wouldn’t take clothes away.”
What we see in this film is a portrait of evil … great evil … systemic evil … evil baked into the fiber of a culture … evil so commonplace, that only a few can recognize it, and fewer still speak out about it.
Tolkien’s masterpiece, “Lord of the Rings” spins an epic tale of evil and the struggle of a white wizard named Gandalf and his motley crew of hobbits, elves and dwarves – to defeat the Lord of the rings and return the earth to goodness.
C. S. Lewis in his wonderful series, “The Chronicles of Narnia” …
S.K. Rowling in her incredible Harry Potter series …
These writers deal with the mystery and power of evil …
Paul the Apostle writes: Our struggle is not against enemies of flesh and blood, 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 (Ephesians 6:12).
The Apostle Peter writes: Like a roaring lion your adversary the devil prowls around, looking for someone to devour (1 Peter 5:8b).
EVIL is real …
Dafur and the Sudan …
Bosnia …
Iraq and Afghanistan …
An economic meltdown of unimaginable proportions … a world of suffering and sorrow for millions … lost jobs, lost homes …
Countless horrors enfolded in the history of humanity …
EVIL is pervasive and real … that we know …
But is there anything beyond the darkness sitting on our doorstep, the monster in our closet, this elephant in the living room?
Is there something so real, so good, so beautiful … so true and right … that no matter what happens, no matter how powerful the present darkness may be …
Is there some Reality, with a capital “R,” which underpins the universe for good?
Psalm 46 says:
We will not fear,
Though the earth should change,
Though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea;
Though its waters roar and foam,
Though the mountains tremble with its tumult.
There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God.
The LORD of hosts is with us;
The God of Jacob is our refuge.
Jesus said to his disciples moments before his ascension: I am with you always.
We say in the Creed, I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth …
The ancient writers of Israel believed there was a capital “R” Reality, a reality of goodness and light …
The ancient writers of Israel believed in God … the creator of the heavens and the earth … the God who called out to Adam and Eve, Where are you?
Who called out to Cain, Where is your brother?
The God who said to Moses, Go back to Egypt and set my people free.
The ancient writers were not naïve.
The ancient writers knew full-well the horrors of war and natural disaster … slavery, betrayal and murder … war and rumors of war, hopes dashed again and again …
The ancient writers knew full well the dark side of life …
But they said to their children, there is a goodness to life greater than the darkness …
There is a God, just and kind … a God of great love …
A God hard at work in a fierce and dangerous world …
A God who takes a deep and personal interest in the wellbeing of humanity, a God whose love is small enough to fit inside the human heart …
There is an ultimate goodness …
An ultimate love …
Yahweh Elohim Sabaoth … the LORD God of Hosts …
God loves the world …
God loves us personally and intimately …
Rescues, saves, and makes all things new …
The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob …
The God of Sarah, Rachel and Leah …
The God who called Israel for the sake of the world …
And gave Israel a message:
Good is greater than evil …
Love greater than hatred …
Hope greater than despair …
Life greater than death …
Truth greater than all the lies humankind will ever tell …
Eternity woven into time …
And time headed toward a real future.
The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want …
Ezekiel’s imagery of the shepherd …
Jesus uses Ezekiel’s imagery to describe his work and purpose: I am the good shepherd, says Jesus.
In the Parable of the Lost Sheep, Jesus tells of a shepherd who leaves 99 sheep in order to find the one lost sheep.
When Jesus restores Peter after Peter’s monumental failure, Jesus says to him: If you love me Peter, feed my lambs, tend my sheep, feed my sheep (John 21:15-17).
The love of God … the Good Shepherd …
Personal and close at hand …
I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I will make them lie down, says the LORD God. I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak.
But the love of God is more than sunshine and light …
The love of God is just and right …
The love of God restores balance and equity …
The LORD lifts up valleys … and brings down mountains …
The love of God addresses crimes committed … crimes of inequity and power … crimes of exclusion and manipulation …
Fat sheep feed on good pasture and trample the rest of it …
Fat sheep drink clear water and foul it for others …
Fat sheep push with flank and shoulder … butting the weak until the flock is scattered far and wide.
God says: I will set things right … I will feed justice to the fat sheep who didn’t care about the weak.
God’s justice sets things right … God’s love addresses the crimes …
Never directed to the lonely and the weak …
Never directed to the lost and the lame …
But to the powerful … priests and politicians of Israel …
Well-fed and the comfortable …
Who have received much but will not give …
Blind to the needs of others because they’re too busy taking care of themselves …
Jesus takes up this image of judgment in (Matthew 25) …
Sheep separated from goats …
And the goats protest: LORD, if we had only known you were the hungry man by the road … if we had only known you were the thirsty little girl dying in her mother’s arms … LORD, if we had only you were stranger we feared and hated … if we had only known you were the naked prisoner we humiliated … we would have done something about it.
But Jesus says:
You had your chance …
You knew better …
You’re a human being … and you treated your fellow human being with cruelty and harshness …
You were given so much and you gave so little …
You knew the Golden Rule … but you choose to do unto others what you would never allow anyone to do to you …
Where there was need, you took even more …
Where there was pain, you added to it …
Where there was hatred, you joined the chorus …
Where there was little, you took what was left …
Where there never enough, you took all the more …
And just like Cain, you claim innocence …
You deny any responsibility …
You have earned your wages well …
You have your reward …
Be gone from me …
To a place of fire and regret …
A place created by your own ingenuity and pride …
A place well suited to a hard heart and a self-serving will.
“Preacher, enough of this,” you say!
We don’t want to hear about judgment.
We don’t want to hear about such hard things.
Let’s get on with the love of God.
Well, yes, let’s get on with the love of God.
But the ancient writers would have us hear the whole counsel of God … all of God’s love …
Jesus would have us hear the rest of the story.
It’s not about the sins so often decried by some Christians …
Sin isn’t a pregnant young girl who gets an abortion …
Sin isn’t about gays or lesbians who fall in love and want to marry …
Sin isn’t about not believing in Jesus …
Sin isn’t about movies and books that offend our sensibilities …
I wish sin were that easy!
The real sins of the world are sins of power and control – fat sheep butting the weak out of the way …
Sins of manipulation for personal gain – wealth without conscience, commerce without kindness, worship without sacrifice, and politics in service of the fat sheep.
Sin is a world upside down …
W world where children die before the age of 5 from simple diseases so easily cured if we but had the will to do it.
Sin is always the sin of Cain who denies knowing where his brother is, and shuns responsibility - “Am I my brother’s keeper?”
The answer is clear: Yes, you are your brother’s keeper!
Real love is just!
A love that rights what’s wrong … and rescues the lost!
God has rescued US … that’s why we’re here this morning … we’re the rescued ones …
We were lost and injured, but the Good Shepherd came to OUR wilderness and found us … shouldered us when we were unable to make the journey ourselves … bandaged our wounds and fed us …
We are the rescued ones!
And now God wants the rescued to become rescuers for others.
We have to ask Ezekiel’s questions …
Who are the injured in our world today?
Who are the weak?
Who are the wounded?
Who are the lost?
Who needs to be rescued?
A 12-year old girl in a third-world factory sewing shirts 12 hours a day for a pittance?
A family in Flint, Michigan facing the loss of everything?
Who needs to be rescued?
A man of power who wears a $25,000 wristwatch and still doesn’t have the time of day to think beyond his own prestige and power?
Who doesn’t need to be rescued?
But let’s be clear about one thing:
To those to whom much has been given, much is required.
The 12-year old girl has no choice and no chance …
The man with the wristwatch should know better!
We might look at God and ask, “Where are YOU in all of this?”
And God looks at us and asks, “Where are YOU in all of this?”
Can you be my rescuers as I have rescued you?
Will you keep the pastures green and the water clear?
God has told us what’s required:
To do justice, to love kindness and to walk humbly with God (Micah 6:8).
Can we do this? Of course we can! We are the Church of Jesus Christ!
Amen and Amen!
Sunday, November 16, 2008
Again? - November 16, 2008
Judges 4:1-7
Audio version HERE.
Donna and I have always liked the song, “On the Sunny Side of the Street” … I’d like to share it with you this morning, but fear not, I’ll not sing it … our very own Kimberly Cronin will sing it for us this morning …
Grab your coat and get your hat
Leave your worries on the doorstep
Life can be so sweet
On the sunny side of the street
Can’t you hear the pitter-pat
And that happy tune is your step
Life can be complete
On the sunny side of the street
I used to walk in the shade with my blues on parade
But I’m not afraid...this rover’s crossed over
If I never had a cent
I’d be rich as Rockefeller
Gold dust at my feet
On the sunny side of the street
Two sides to the street …
A shadowy side …
A sunny side …
A dark side … a bright side …
There is no street with only a sunny side … and no street with only a shadow … always both … a shadowy side, a sunny side …
Reality – two sided …
Coins -two-sided, so is the moon … ya’ can’t have one without the other …
The Bible … two sided …
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth – that’s the sunny side of the street …
Now the serpent was more crafty than any other wild animal the LORD God had made - that’s the shadowy side of the street …
Vanities of vanity, all is vanity – the shadowy side of things according to the writer of Ecclesiastes …
But the very next book, Song of Solomon – a celebration of young love, food and drink – that’s the sunny side …
The book of Leviticus … shadowy …
Deuteronomy … sunny …
Genesis 12 has both sides in the same chapter …
Abram and Sarai are called to the greatest adventure even known – Get up and go … to a new land, a new world, a new way thinking and living … I’ll get you there, says God … but you’ve got to leave a lot of things behind … and if you do that, I’ll bless you mightily, and through you, I’ll bless the whole world …
But in the next few verses, famine sends Sarai and Abram packing to Egypt, and they get into a peck of trouble … Abram tells a terrible lie, jeopardizes Sarai’s life and nearly loses everything …
1 Kings 18 – Elijah is victorious over the priests of Baal … it’s a great day; Elijah’s on top of the heap … he’s on the sunny side of the street …
1 Kings 19 – Jezebel has a different idea; she issues a death edict - Elijah runs for his life, scared out of his wits – in a heartbeat, from the sunny side of the street to the shadow side with the blues on parade …
Psalm 22 – my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Psalm 23 – the LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want.
Two sides to the street …
What side of the street are we walking on?
It’s a choice … a conscious choice we make every day of our life …
A choice even God has to make …
In Genesis 6, God is utterly depressed … angry and disappointed …
God regrets making us …
God decides to walk on the shadowy side of things …
Let it rain, let it rain, let it train …
I’m gonna wash these people right outta my hair …
With the exception of Noah and his family …
The floods subside … the sun comes out … there’s a rainbow in the sky …
God takes a look at what God did … and I’ll never do that again!
The shadow side never works …
God says, When I see that bow … hanging there, like a hunter’s bow on the wall … I’ll remember my promise … I’ll not destroy the earth again … I’ll not walk on the shadowy side of things … I’ll grab my coat and get my hat and walk on the sunny side of the street.
From that moment on, God never crosses over again to the shadowy side of things …
Tempted?
You bet, but God stays on the sunny side of the street.
Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.
Jesus pays the price …
Because there is a price to be paid …
For all the wrong in our world … and there’s plenty of it …
But God pays the price …
All the way, to hell and back again … I will forgive and make all things new … carte blanc; the slate wiped clean …
Years ago, I heard a song at a retreat … I’ve never forgotten the words:
I owed a debt I couldn’t pay,
He paid a price he didn’t owe.
The sunny side of the street …
What side of the street do you walk on?
I love Winnie the Pooh stories … two characters …
Eeyore, a little donkey permanently gloomy …
Eeyore's favorite food is thistles. Eeyore's catchphrase is "Thanks for noticing me!"
And Tigger, perpetually happy …
He says of himself, Bouncing is what Tiggers do best.
In reality, Eeyore and Tigger live in each of us …
Some days, we’re Eeyore –
And some days, we’re Tigger –
Some of this is simple personality type … we’re all wonderfully different, but not that different … we all fall into basic patterns …
Sanguine …
Choleric …
Melancholic …
Phlegmatic …
All of these types have a shadow side and sunny side …
And Eeyore side … and a Tigger side …
I suppose the question is this … do we have any choices about this?
Can we really cross over from the shadow to the sun …
From the blues on parade to gold dust at our feet?
The lovely little movie, “Happy Go Lucky” … a marvelous parable of sunlight and shadow …
Poppy is a grade school teacher … always happy, always a smile, always making the best of everything …
She has her bike stolen at the front of the movie, so … she decides it’s time for driving lessons … she’ll get her driver’s license.
She’s a sunny-side-of-the-street kind of person …
Her driving instructor is her polar opposite … no smiles within a hundred miles … dour and grim, he’s depressed, angry, paranoid, short-tempered, judgmental … he lives in the shadow …
Poppy and her driving instructor … sunshine and shadow … ya’ can’t have one without the other, but choices are important … Poppy’s good nature clearly has an effect on her instructor, but in the end, to no avail.
He chooses to stay on the shadowy side.
It hasn’t been easy for Poppy …
She has to choose, too.
But she chooses the sunny side of the street.
At the end of the movie, she says, “It’s my purpose in life to put a smile on everyone’s face.”
Grab your coat and get your hat …
Leave your worries on the doorstep …
Life can be so sweet …
On the sunny side of the street.
The story of Jesus …
The sunny side of the street …
God doesn’t give up …
God doesn’t walk away …
God doesn’t quit in a great big funk …
God doesn’t rummage around in the past …
For God, it’s all about tomorrow …
And that’s the Gospel truth …
God doesn’t give up …
There’s no looking back …
It’s the future that counts …
God doesn’t care one whit what you did yesterday, no matter how crummy it was … nobody can undo it … and there’s no need to undo it …
God is a god of miracles …
And the greatest miracle of all …
The resurrection of Jesus from the dead …
God brings good out of sorrow and heartache …
God givse life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist (Romans 4:17).
There’s always a way through, over, under or around … always a way of working things out, finding the best, making the best of it …
When life hands you a lemon, make lemonade with it …
Add the sugar of kindness and the sweetness of love …
Grab your coat and get your hat …
Is this easy for God?
No, it’s not easy for God to walk on the sunny side of the street …
The tears of Jesus …
His anguish in the Garden of Gethsemane …
His cry of despair on the cross …
It’s not easy to walk on the sunny side of the street …
But it gets easier with every step …
Every time we choose the sunlight, it gets brighter, it gets better …
Every time this rover crosses over, it’s a little easier to walk on the sunny side of the street.
God reinvents the strategy again and again …
Whatever it takes to “put a smile on someone’s face.”
Years ago, Robert Schuller offered this advice, When someone asks you how you’re doing, always say, Terrific! … that’s your gift to them, your gift for the day.
Schuller knows what we all know … words have transformative power …
We can pretty much convince ourselves of most anything by the power of the words we use …
A negative word, said often enough, creates a negative world for us … a little bit like Eeyore, or Scott the driving instructor …
Life is no good …
People are not dependable …
I’m a loser …
Folks are out to get me …
I’m scared …
I can’t handle this …
There’s something wrong with me …
The power of words to create the world in which we live …
But maybe we can more like Poppy … more like Tigger …
Life is always good, even when it’s hard …
God is good all the time, and all the time good is good …
My life is filled with gifts and grace …
I’m a servant of Jesus …
I’m not afraid, because whatever comes my way, I will handle it, I’ll make something of it …
There’s nothing wrong with me …
Every day, I grow a little bit taller, wiser and gracious …
I choose to walk on the sunny side of the street …
Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me … thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me … thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies … thou anointest my head with oil, my cup runneth over … surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD forever!
The Psalmist knows all about the shadow side of things …
Death …
Evil …
Enemies …
But the Psalmist chooses to live on the sunny side …
Goodness and mercy …
A rich table …
Kindness and love …
To walk on the sunny side of the street …
God has shown us, says Micah:
Do justice, love kindness and walk humbly with your God.
Grab your coat and get your hat
Leave your worries on the doorstep
Life can be so sweet
On the sunny side of the street
Amen and Amen!
Audio version HERE.
Donna and I have always liked the song, “On the Sunny Side of the Street” … I’d like to share it with you this morning, but fear not, I’ll not sing it … our very own Kimberly Cronin will sing it for us this morning …
Grab your coat and get your hat
Leave your worries on the doorstep
Life can be so sweet
On the sunny side of the street
Can’t you hear the pitter-pat
And that happy tune is your step
Life can be complete
On the sunny side of the street
I used to walk in the shade with my blues on parade
But I’m not afraid...this rover’s crossed over
If I never had a cent
I’d be rich as Rockefeller
Gold dust at my feet
On the sunny side of the street
Two sides to the street …
A shadowy side …
A sunny side …
A dark side … a bright side …
There is no street with only a sunny side … and no street with only a shadow … always both … a shadowy side, a sunny side …
Reality – two sided …
Coins -two-sided, so is the moon … ya’ can’t have one without the other …
The Bible … two sided …
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth – that’s the sunny side of the street …
Now the serpent was more crafty than any other wild animal the LORD God had made - that’s the shadowy side of the street …
Vanities of vanity, all is vanity – the shadowy side of things according to the writer of Ecclesiastes …
But the very next book, Song of Solomon – a celebration of young love, food and drink – that’s the sunny side …
The book of Leviticus … shadowy …
Deuteronomy … sunny …
Genesis 12 has both sides in the same chapter …
Abram and Sarai are called to the greatest adventure even known – Get up and go … to a new land, a new world, a new way thinking and living … I’ll get you there, says God … but you’ve got to leave a lot of things behind … and if you do that, I’ll bless you mightily, and through you, I’ll bless the whole world …
But in the next few verses, famine sends Sarai and Abram packing to Egypt, and they get into a peck of trouble … Abram tells a terrible lie, jeopardizes Sarai’s life and nearly loses everything …
1 Kings 18 – Elijah is victorious over the priests of Baal … it’s a great day; Elijah’s on top of the heap … he’s on the sunny side of the street …
1 Kings 19 – Jezebel has a different idea; she issues a death edict - Elijah runs for his life, scared out of his wits – in a heartbeat, from the sunny side of the street to the shadow side with the blues on parade …
Psalm 22 – my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Psalm 23 – the LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want.
Two sides to the street …
What side of the street are we walking on?
It’s a choice … a conscious choice we make every day of our life …
A choice even God has to make …
In Genesis 6, God is utterly depressed … angry and disappointed …
God regrets making us …
God decides to walk on the shadowy side of things …
Let it rain, let it rain, let it train …
I’m gonna wash these people right outta my hair …
With the exception of Noah and his family …
The floods subside … the sun comes out … there’s a rainbow in the sky …
God takes a look at what God did … and I’ll never do that again!
The shadow side never works …
God says, When I see that bow … hanging there, like a hunter’s bow on the wall … I’ll remember my promise … I’ll not destroy the earth again … I’ll not walk on the shadowy side of things … I’ll grab my coat and get my hat and walk on the sunny side of the street.
From that moment on, God never crosses over again to the shadowy side of things …
Tempted?
You bet, but God stays on the sunny side of the street.
Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.
Jesus pays the price …
Because there is a price to be paid …
For all the wrong in our world … and there’s plenty of it …
But God pays the price …
All the way, to hell and back again … I will forgive and make all things new … carte blanc; the slate wiped clean …
Years ago, I heard a song at a retreat … I’ve never forgotten the words:
I owed a debt I couldn’t pay,
He paid a price he didn’t owe.
The sunny side of the street …
What side of the street do you walk on?
I love Winnie the Pooh stories … two characters …
Eeyore, a little donkey permanently gloomy …
Eeyore's favorite food is thistles. Eeyore's catchphrase is "Thanks for noticing me!"
And Tigger, perpetually happy …
He says of himself, Bouncing is what Tiggers do best.
In reality, Eeyore and Tigger live in each of us …
Some days, we’re Eeyore –
And some days, we’re Tigger –
Some of this is simple personality type … we’re all wonderfully different, but not that different … we all fall into basic patterns …
Sanguine …
Choleric …
Melancholic …
Phlegmatic …
All of these types have a shadow side and sunny side …
And Eeyore side … and a Tigger side …
I suppose the question is this … do we have any choices about this?
Can we really cross over from the shadow to the sun …
From the blues on parade to gold dust at our feet?
The lovely little movie, “Happy Go Lucky” … a marvelous parable of sunlight and shadow …
Poppy is a grade school teacher … always happy, always a smile, always making the best of everything …
She has her bike stolen at the front of the movie, so … she decides it’s time for driving lessons … she’ll get her driver’s license.
She’s a sunny-side-of-the-street kind of person …
Her driving instructor is her polar opposite … no smiles within a hundred miles … dour and grim, he’s depressed, angry, paranoid, short-tempered, judgmental … he lives in the shadow …
Poppy and her driving instructor … sunshine and shadow … ya’ can’t have one without the other, but choices are important … Poppy’s good nature clearly has an effect on her instructor, but in the end, to no avail.
He chooses to stay on the shadowy side.
It hasn’t been easy for Poppy …
She has to choose, too.
But she chooses the sunny side of the street.
At the end of the movie, she says, “It’s my purpose in life to put a smile on everyone’s face.”
Grab your coat and get your hat …
Leave your worries on the doorstep …
Life can be so sweet …
On the sunny side of the street.
The story of Jesus …
The sunny side of the street …
God doesn’t give up …
God doesn’t walk away …
God doesn’t quit in a great big funk …
God doesn’t rummage around in the past …
For God, it’s all about tomorrow …
And that’s the Gospel truth …
God doesn’t give up …
There’s no looking back …
It’s the future that counts …
God doesn’t care one whit what you did yesterday, no matter how crummy it was … nobody can undo it … and there’s no need to undo it …
God is a god of miracles …
And the greatest miracle of all …
The resurrection of Jesus from the dead …
God brings good out of sorrow and heartache …
God givse life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist (Romans 4:17).
There’s always a way through, over, under or around … always a way of working things out, finding the best, making the best of it …
When life hands you a lemon, make lemonade with it …
Add the sugar of kindness and the sweetness of love …
Grab your coat and get your hat …
Is this easy for God?
No, it’s not easy for God to walk on the sunny side of the street …
The tears of Jesus …
His anguish in the Garden of Gethsemane …
His cry of despair on the cross …
It’s not easy to walk on the sunny side of the street …
But it gets easier with every step …
Every time we choose the sunlight, it gets brighter, it gets better …
Every time this rover crosses over, it’s a little easier to walk on the sunny side of the street.
God reinvents the strategy again and again …
Whatever it takes to “put a smile on someone’s face.”
Years ago, Robert Schuller offered this advice, When someone asks you how you’re doing, always say, Terrific! … that’s your gift to them, your gift for the day.
Schuller knows what we all know … words have transformative power …
We can pretty much convince ourselves of most anything by the power of the words we use …
A negative word, said often enough, creates a negative world for us … a little bit like Eeyore, or Scott the driving instructor …
Life is no good …
People are not dependable …
I’m a loser …
Folks are out to get me …
I’m scared …
I can’t handle this …
There’s something wrong with me …
The power of words to create the world in which we live …
But maybe we can more like Poppy … more like Tigger …
Life is always good, even when it’s hard …
God is good all the time, and all the time good is good …
My life is filled with gifts and grace …
I’m a servant of Jesus …
I’m not afraid, because whatever comes my way, I will handle it, I’ll make something of it …
There’s nothing wrong with me …
Every day, I grow a little bit taller, wiser and gracious …
I choose to walk on the sunny side of the street …
Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me … thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me … thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies … thou anointest my head with oil, my cup runneth over … surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD forever!
The Psalmist knows all about the shadow side of things …
Death …
Evil …
Enemies …
But the Psalmist chooses to live on the sunny side …
Goodness and mercy …
A rich table …
Kindness and love …
To walk on the sunny side of the street …
God has shown us, says Micah:
Do justice, love kindness and walk humbly with your God.
Grab your coat and get your hat
Leave your worries on the doorstep
Life can be so sweet
On the sunny side of the street
Amen and Amen!
Sunday, November 9, 2008
Clarity - November 9, 2008
Joshua 24:1-3a, 14-25
A college student was heading home to New York for the holidays.
When she got to the airline counter to check her luggage, she presented her ticket to New York. She said to the agent taking her luggage, "I'd like you to send my green suitcase to Hawaii, and my red suitcase to London."
The confused agent said, "I'm sorry, we can't do that."
She said, “I am so relieved to hear you say that because that's exactly what you did to my luggage last year!"
Getting to our destination isn’t always the easiest thing …
But we make it …
Maybe we’re late …
Maybe some of the luggage gets lost …
But we make it.
We made it here this morning …
From near and far
We gather here
At Covenant on the Corner …
We lift our voices and
We lift our hearts
In prayer and praise and hope …
For some weeks now, we’ve been on the road with Israel … Willie Nelson’s song, On the Road Again, might well have been written for God’s people … heading to the Promised Land.
Last week Sunday, we stood with Moses on Mt. Nebo …
There it is Moses, said God … there’s the Promised Land …
After 40 years of wilderness wandering …
But it’s time to say goodbye Moses.
Time to fold ‘em and leave the table …
Time for a new leader for a new day …
Joshua fit the battle of Jericho, and the walls came tumblin’ down …
Joshua took command that day … and mapped out the strategy.
They crossed the river and entered the land …
Getting into the Promised Land was easy …
Staying there was another matter …
Enemies on every side …
Doubt and fear within …
But they did it.
Our reading today is from the last chapter of Joshua … mission accomplished, if you will … the Promised Land is theirs after many a bloody battle … from Dan in the north to Beersheba in the south … they made it, they’re in … and now it’s time for Joshua to say goodbye …
To say a few final words …
Let’s open our Bibles and see what’s happening … [read text] …
Remember who you are – that’s the first piece here.
Remember who you are!
Once upon a time, says Joshua …
Our ancestors lived in a far away land … beyond the Euphrates River … and they worshipped other gods.
But God took our father Abraham …
The story of grace …
Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound,
That saved a wretch like me....
I once was lost but now am found,
Was blind, but now, I see.
God took our father Abraham from the land beyond the river …
This is our story, too, isn’t it?
Your story …
My story …
It’s been our story from the get-go …
We’re wandering in a far-away land … in the land of Nod, east of Eden … far from the presence of God …
But God pays us a visit …
God finds us …
Not one of us is here by our own will … nor our own strength …
We are born anew of the grace of God …not of blood or the will of the flesh or human will but of God (John 1:13).
In one of my favorite stories in the Bible, God sets aside the fig leaves, the flimsy fig leaves, the sad attempt we make to cover ourselves – fig leaves won’t do.
So God become a tailor, God makes clothing for Adam and Eve, durable clothing, costly clothing … the skins of animals, it says … life given in exchange for life.
The journey is long … good clothing needed … and there is no better clothing then clothing made by God.
Clothed in Christ, says Paul the Apostle to the church in Galatia … and to the church in California, to the church in Los Angeles, to the church called Covenant – clothed in Christ.
We are here today because God took us …
God took us by the hand and walked us into the kingdom of light …
Like a father takes his daughter’s hand and walks her through a storm …
Like a mother takes her son’s hand and guides him along a rocky pathway …
God has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins (Colossians 1:13-14).
You didn’t choose me, says Jesus.
I choose you.
Peter describes it like this:
You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, _ in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
Dear Christian friends … remember who you are …
We are here today because of grace …
Because of Jesus Christ …
It’s easy to forget who we are …
Spiritual things slip away in the cares of life …
We forget who we are and why we’re here …
We end up like Caden Cotard in the film, “Synecdoche” – a remarkable film, not for the faint of heart … starring Philip Seymour Hoffman, portraying a playwright always working, but no results… always rehearsing the play, but the play never has an opening night … until one day, he realizes that all the characters have grown old, many have died … and it’s too late; it’s just too late … there never will be an opening night …
The powerful film, “Remains of the Day” starring Emma Thompson and Anthony Hopkins … she’s the housekeeper in Lord Darlington’s manner in the fateful days leading up to World War 2, and he’s the head butler … she loves him, and all around them flow the great events of the day as the world builds toward war and the Holocaust… but he neither sees, nor hears, nor speaks … he avoids all feeling, even for that of his father, even as he watches his father fail and die.
In the end, it’s too late for feeling; it’s too late to regain love lost; it’s too late for everything – there is no going back!
He pays her a visit after many years have passed … they chat; the evening draws to a close she gets onto the bus for home … their hands clasp one last time – her eyes fill with tears for what might have been and never will be …
The bus pulls away … and there he stands, all alone …
Opportunity missed …
A wasted life …
Powerful stories that remind us of what Joshua said … “Don’t waste your time on this good earth.”
The God Project.
That’s what life is all about …
Love God with all your heart, soul, strength and mind, and love your neighbor as yourself …
God has told you, O mortal, what is good: and what does the LORD require of you, but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God (Micah 6:8).
Don’t waste your life on this good earth …
Serve the LORD!
Remember grace … God took Father Abraham from beyond the river and made something of him … God took us from the land of land of slavery, from the house of bondage and made something of us …
I gave you a land, says God, on which you had not labored, and towns that you had not built, and … you eat the fruit of vineyards and olive yards that you did not plant.
Joshua speaks to the people … Joshua speaks to us here and now:
You have an unparalleled opportunity …
Don’t waste the moment …
Don’t rest on your laurels …
Now is the time for renewed effort …
Years ago, I read something that forever changed the way I look at things … the author, long-forgotten, wrote: The greatest cause of failure is success.
Corporations and churches …
Nations and families …
Success comes, but only for a time …
New times requires new strategies …
Nothing stays the same …
Yesterday’s success lulls us to sleep …
And while we sleep, the thief breaks in and steals …
The greatest cause of failure is success.
God’s people were enormously successful in taking the land … they achieved so much … their dreams had come true …
But Joshua knows the danger of success … now, more than ever, vigilance and faith.
Now is the not the time to rest.
Now is not the time to settle down and take a breather …
Now is not the time to let down your guard … now, more than ever, vigilance and faith … a fresh determination to serve the LORD.
Serve him in sincerity and faithfulness.
Put away the gods from another time and place …
Choose this day what it will be.
Choose clearly … choose decisively …
One way or the other …
As for me and my house, says Joshua, we will serve the LORD.
The people protested.
Of course, we’ll serve the LORD. Far be it from us that we should forsake the LORD to serve other gods.
But Joshua doesn’t let up … You cannot serve the LORD … God is so much more than you think … you’re not determined enough, you’re not decisive enough, you’re not clear enough, to serve the LORD …
Joshua understands the moment … the people talk about God, but they don’t know God very well … they say, “LORD, LORD,” as if they knew what they were talking about … but Joshua knows better … and so does Jesus …
In one of the most remarkable passages in the New Testament Jesus says:
Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many deeds of power in your name?’ Then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; go away from me, you evildoers.’
And by the way, did you know that Jesus is the Aramaic equivalent of Joshua … Jesus and Joshua both push the people for clarity of commitment and full-hearted decision … it’s not a little of this and little of that, and maybe so and maybe not … it’s a clear and faithful decision to do the God Project …
Half-heartedness will not do …
Poorly framed thoughts and confused thinking will not do …
Resting on our laurels will not do …
Merely saying the words, “LORD, LORD” will not do …
Yesterday’s success will not do for the challenges of a new day …
Joshua pushes hard …
The people protest all the more.
Yes, we are ready.
We will serve the LORD and no other …
Are you sure? asks Joshua.
Yes, we’re sure …
Simple psychology, isn’t it?
We use it all the time with children …
Is this what you really want?
Do you really want the dog?
You’ll have to take care of it … take it for a walk … clean up after it … are you sure this is what you really want?
Joshua put it to the people – is this what you really want?
Good question for us here at Covenant on the Corner … we’ve come so far; we have a fine campus and glorious stories … but there’s no time to rest … no time to kick back and take a breather … we cannot rest on our laurels, nor relish our victories … so much more needs to be done … the God Project goes on.
Yes, said the people.
Yes, we really mean it …
Yes to God all over again …
When was the last time we said yes to God?
Twenty years ago, thirty or forty years ago … just last week?
It’s a renewable moment …
It needs to be renewed in a timely fashion …
To be fresh and relevant …
Being an 8th grade cheerleader doesn’t cut it in the board room …
Getting a gold star on your jr. high report card doesn’t stand the test of time …
Just because you scored the winning touchdown in the last game of your senior year guarantees nothing for the future.
Saying Yes to God needs frequent renewal … yes, all over again!
Because it’s a brand new day.
That day, the people said, Yes, this is what we really want!
Yes … we will serve the LORD!
Amen and Amen!
A college student was heading home to New York for the holidays.
When she got to the airline counter to check her luggage, she presented her ticket to New York. She said to the agent taking her luggage, "I'd like you to send my green suitcase to Hawaii, and my red suitcase to London."
The confused agent said, "I'm sorry, we can't do that."
She said, “I am so relieved to hear you say that because that's exactly what you did to my luggage last year!"
Getting to our destination isn’t always the easiest thing …
But we make it …
Maybe we’re late …
Maybe some of the luggage gets lost …
But we make it.
We made it here this morning …
From near and far
We gather here
At Covenant on the Corner …
We lift our voices and
We lift our hearts
In prayer and praise and hope …
For some weeks now, we’ve been on the road with Israel … Willie Nelson’s song, On the Road Again, might well have been written for God’s people … heading to the Promised Land.
Last week Sunday, we stood with Moses on Mt. Nebo …
There it is Moses, said God … there’s the Promised Land …
After 40 years of wilderness wandering …
But it’s time to say goodbye Moses.
Time to fold ‘em and leave the table …
Time for a new leader for a new day …
Joshua fit the battle of Jericho, and the walls came tumblin’ down …
Joshua took command that day … and mapped out the strategy.
They crossed the river and entered the land …
Getting into the Promised Land was easy …
Staying there was another matter …
Enemies on every side …
Doubt and fear within …
But they did it.
Our reading today is from the last chapter of Joshua … mission accomplished, if you will … the Promised Land is theirs after many a bloody battle … from Dan in the north to Beersheba in the south … they made it, they’re in … and now it’s time for Joshua to say goodbye …
To say a few final words …
Let’s open our Bibles and see what’s happening … [read text] …
Remember who you are – that’s the first piece here.
Remember who you are!
Once upon a time, says Joshua …
Our ancestors lived in a far away land … beyond the Euphrates River … and they worshipped other gods.
But God took our father Abraham …
The story of grace …
Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound,
That saved a wretch like me....
I once was lost but now am found,
Was blind, but now, I see.
God took our father Abraham from the land beyond the river …
This is our story, too, isn’t it?
Your story …
My story …
It’s been our story from the get-go …
We’re wandering in a far-away land … in the land of Nod, east of Eden … far from the presence of God …
But God pays us a visit …
God finds us …
Not one of us is here by our own will … nor our own strength …
We are born anew of the grace of God …not of blood or the will of the flesh or human will but of God (John 1:13).
In one of my favorite stories in the Bible, God sets aside the fig leaves, the flimsy fig leaves, the sad attempt we make to cover ourselves – fig leaves won’t do.
So God become a tailor, God makes clothing for Adam and Eve, durable clothing, costly clothing … the skins of animals, it says … life given in exchange for life.
The journey is long … good clothing needed … and there is no better clothing then clothing made by God.
Clothed in Christ, says Paul the Apostle to the church in Galatia … and to the church in California, to the church in Los Angeles, to the church called Covenant – clothed in Christ.
We are here today because God took us …
God took us by the hand and walked us into the kingdom of light …
Like a father takes his daughter’s hand and walks her through a storm …
Like a mother takes her son’s hand and guides him along a rocky pathway …
God has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins (Colossians 1:13-14).
You didn’t choose me, says Jesus.
I choose you.
Peter describes it like this:
You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, _ in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
Dear Christian friends … remember who you are …
We are here today because of grace …
Because of Jesus Christ …
It’s easy to forget who we are …
Spiritual things slip away in the cares of life …
We forget who we are and why we’re here …
We end up like Caden Cotard in the film, “Synecdoche” – a remarkable film, not for the faint of heart … starring Philip Seymour Hoffman, portraying a playwright always working, but no results… always rehearsing the play, but the play never has an opening night … until one day, he realizes that all the characters have grown old, many have died … and it’s too late; it’s just too late … there never will be an opening night …
The powerful film, “Remains of the Day” starring Emma Thompson and Anthony Hopkins … she’s the housekeeper in Lord Darlington’s manner in the fateful days leading up to World War 2, and he’s the head butler … she loves him, and all around them flow the great events of the day as the world builds toward war and the Holocaust… but he neither sees, nor hears, nor speaks … he avoids all feeling, even for that of his father, even as he watches his father fail and die.
In the end, it’s too late for feeling; it’s too late to regain love lost; it’s too late for everything – there is no going back!
He pays her a visit after many years have passed … they chat; the evening draws to a close she gets onto the bus for home … their hands clasp one last time – her eyes fill with tears for what might have been and never will be …
The bus pulls away … and there he stands, all alone …
Opportunity missed …
A wasted life …
Powerful stories that remind us of what Joshua said … “Don’t waste your time on this good earth.”
The God Project.
That’s what life is all about …
Love God with all your heart, soul, strength and mind, and love your neighbor as yourself …
God has told you, O mortal, what is good: and what does the LORD require of you, but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God (Micah 6:8).
Don’t waste your life on this good earth …
Serve the LORD!
Remember grace … God took Father Abraham from beyond the river and made something of him … God took us from the land of land of slavery, from the house of bondage and made something of us …
I gave you a land, says God, on which you had not labored, and towns that you had not built, and … you eat the fruit of vineyards and olive yards that you did not plant.
Joshua speaks to the people … Joshua speaks to us here and now:
You have an unparalleled opportunity …
Don’t waste the moment …
Don’t rest on your laurels …
Now is the time for renewed effort …
Years ago, I read something that forever changed the way I look at things … the author, long-forgotten, wrote: The greatest cause of failure is success.
Corporations and churches …
Nations and families …
Success comes, but only for a time …
New times requires new strategies …
Nothing stays the same …
Yesterday’s success lulls us to sleep …
And while we sleep, the thief breaks in and steals …
The greatest cause of failure is success.
God’s people were enormously successful in taking the land … they achieved so much … their dreams had come true …
But Joshua knows the danger of success … now, more than ever, vigilance and faith.
Now is the not the time to rest.
Now is not the time to settle down and take a breather …
Now is not the time to let down your guard … now, more than ever, vigilance and faith … a fresh determination to serve the LORD.
Serve him in sincerity and faithfulness.
Put away the gods from another time and place …
Choose this day what it will be.
Choose clearly … choose decisively …
One way or the other …
As for me and my house, says Joshua, we will serve the LORD.
The people protested.
Of course, we’ll serve the LORD. Far be it from us that we should forsake the LORD to serve other gods.
But Joshua doesn’t let up … You cannot serve the LORD … God is so much more than you think … you’re not determined enough, you’re not decisive enough, you’re not clear enough, to serve the LORD …
Joshua understands the moment … the people talk about God, but they don’t know God very well … they say, “LORD, LORD,” as if they knew what they were talking about … but Joshua knows better … and so does Jesus …
In one of the most remarkable passages in the New Testament Jesus says:
Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many deeds of power in your name?’ Then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; go away from me, you evildoers.’
And by the way, did you know that Jesus is the Aramaic equivalent of Joshua … Jesus and Joshua both push the people for clarity of commitment and full-hearted decision … it’s not a little of this and little of that, and maybe so and maybe not … it’s a clear and faithful decision to do the God Project …
Half-heartedness will not do …
Poorly framed thoughts and confused thinking will not do …
Resting on our laurels will not do …
Merely saying the words, “LORD, LORD” will not do …
Yesterday’s success will not do for the challenges of a new day …
Joshua pushes hard …
The people protest all the more.
Yes, we are ready.
We will serve the LORD and no other …
Are you sure? asks Joshua.
Yes, we’re sure …
Simple psychology, isn’t it?
We use it all the time with children …
Is this what you really want?
Do you really want the dog?
You’ll have to take care of it … take it for a walk … clean up after it … are you sure this is what you really want?
Joshua put it to the people – is this what you really want?
Good question for us here at Covenant on the Corner … we’ve come so far; we have a fine campus and glorious stories … but there’s no time to rest … no time to kick back and take a breather … we cannot rest on our laurels, nor relish our victories … so much more needs to be done … the God Project goes on.
Yes, said the people.
Yes, we really mean it …
Yes to God all over again …
When was the last time we said yes to God?
Twenty years ago, thirty or forty years ago … just last week?
It’s a renewable moment …
It needs to be renewed in a timely fashion …
To be fresh and relevant …
Being an 8th grade cheerleader doesn’t cut it in the board room …
Getting a gold star on your jr. high report card doesn’t stand the test of time …
Just because you scored the winning touchdown in the last game of your senior year guarantees nothing for the future.
Saying Yes to God needs frequent renewal … yes, all over again!
Because it’s a brand new day.
That day, the people said, Yes, this is what we really want!
Yes … we will serve the LORD!
Amen and Amen!
Sunday, November 2, 2008
Finally - November 2, 2008
Audio version HERE.
Finally … at least … we’re here!
We’ve made it; we’ve arrived.
Cross this river … and we’re home!
The Promised Land at last … Finally!
What do children ask on a road-trip? Are we there yet?
Every ten minutes … Are we there yet?
Forty years of wilderness … are we there yet?
Forty years of rock and sand … are we there yet?
Forty years to get ready for the Promised Land …
It took time …
Things like this don’t happen overnight …
Big things move slowly … important things take their time!
And where was Moses?
The Burning Bush man …
The man in Pharaoh’s court, Let my people go!
Where’s Moses now?
This glorious moment …
Ready to cross the river …
Everything Moses dreamed of …
Every prayer …
Sweat, blood and tears …
For this moment – the Promised Land.
Where’s Moses?
Just this side of the River, God takes Moses to the top of the mountain … Mt. Nebo …
And on that mountain, high and clear,
Moses could see Jericho City and the land of hope …
There it is Moses … the Promised Land … what you and I have been working for all these years …
Did God and Moses reminisce?
Remember when I called you at the Burning Bush?
Sure I remember; who could forget?
Like a couple of old friends, about the way it used to be, all the stories … the fiery pillar at night … the cloud during the day … manna in the morning … quail in the evening … water from a rock?
On Mt. Nebo … Moses could see the Promised Land …
Just across the river …
But this moment was the close of a chapter …
The end of a journey …
The last page …
God said to Moses:
This far Moses, and no further.
It’s time to say goodbye.
You’ve carried the torch of hope all these years …
You’ve been faithful and good … you’ve been my leader.
But it’s time to say goodbye,
To let someone else bear the burden and lead the way home.
It’s time to say goodbye Moses.
There, on that that mountain, Moses said goodbye … there on that mountain, within sight of the Promised Land, Moses died …
Moses was 120 years old … his eyes were good and his strength unabated … he was ready for more, but it’s time to say to Goodbye!
Nothing lasts forever!
The text says, He was buried in a valley in Moab … and to this day no one knows the place.
No monument … no shrine … no tourist trap …
Dust to dust … earth to earth …
God knows the place …
And that’s all that counts.
The torch of leadership was passed to Joshua …
Moses said goodbye!
Joshua said good morning.
This day would belong to Joshua …
A new generation …
A new leadership …
A new way for a new day!
The text adds a humorous touch …
The Israelites wept for Moses in the plains of Moab thirty days; then the period of mourning for Moses was ended.
That was that …
It was time for Moses to say goodbye.
They wept for 30 days … the obligatory time of mourning … they dried their tears, and on they moved …
It’s amazing how God replaces us …
Important as we may be importance is but for a season - there’s always a time to say goodbye, to lay our burdens down.
By the way …
Did Moses ever make it into the Promised Land?
Matthew 17:
When Jesus went up the mountain … Peter, James and John with him …
Remember the story?
We cal it the Transfiguration …
Jesus begins to shine … glory revealed … white and bright …
A luminous cloud enfolds them …
And in that cloud, two men …
Elijah the prophet … and? … Moses … talking with Jesus.
Moses made it to the Promised Land.
All in due time …
God is good all the time … and all the time God is good.
Moses said goodbye.
Joshua took charge.
Joshua said to the people: before we go anywhere …
Draw near and hear the words of the LORD!
A gathering … like what we’re doing right now …
The chemistry of the company …
Some things have to be done together …
Strength in numbers …
Side-by-side …
All together in a holy moment …
Draw near, says Joshua.
To hear the words of the LORD your God.
I can’t think of anything more important for us here and now … for Covenant on the Corner …
This is the God Project …
It’s not about Moses … it’s not about Joshua … it’s not about us … it’s not about Covenant … it’s not about the Presbyterian Church … it’s not about our pews, our buildings, our traditions, our memories, our comfort, our hopes and dreams …
That’s a tough message for any of us to hear.
Aren’t we always the center of our little universe?
Doesn’t the sun rise and set on our little plot of land?
Isn’t our take on things the right take on things?
It’s not about us.
That’s a tough message.
But it’s the truth …
And the truth sets us free.
There’s no smaller package in all the world than a man all wrapped up in himself.
God wants to unwrap us.
Unfold the arms …
Open our minds and open our hearts …
To welcome one another …
To help one another …
To devote ourselves to the God Project …
For therein is where we find our true selves …
The God Project …
To love God with all of our heart, soul, strength and mind … and to love our neighbor as ourselves.
Draw near, says Joshua, to hear the words of the LORD.
The God Project …
For the Israelites that day, the ark lead the way … the Ark of the Covenant …
We always have to ask ourselves … what or who is leading us?
Elders and Deacons ask this question constantly as they lead others …
Pastors and missionaries ask this question constantly as they teach others …
Who’s leading the leaders?
The other day, I read of a local preacher of some influence declaring to his congregation about Prop 8 – the marriage thing, and the gay thing … and the preacher said, vote for it; it’s the right thing to do, and then added, … I just preach the Bible” … and then paused, as if that settled it, as if that meant anything …
But what does it mean? I just preach the Bible.
Every Tom, Dick and Harry has claimed to preach the Bible … the Inquisitors torturing a young man - they were just preaching the Bible.
The Crusaders killing Jews and Muslims - they were just preaching the Bible.
The Salem Witch Hunters burning a woman at the stake - they were just preaching the Bible.
Andrew Jackson expelling the Cherokee out of the Carolinas and Jefferson Davis leading the Confederates States to keep slaves … they were just preaching the Bible.
Jimmy Jones in Guiana Town - just preaching the Bible.
Crackpots and loony tunes just preaching the Bible.
But so have good and thoughtful people.
Martin Luther King, Jr., in an Alabama jail, preached the Bible …
Mother Teresa, on the streets of Calcutta, preached the Bible …
William Sloan Coffin, Jr., at Riverside Church, preached the Bible.
And they preached welcome and acceptance …
They preached grace and kindness …
Mercy and tenderness …
Their preaching opened doors and made room …
They laid out a big table … and invited everyone …
There’s always room at the Table of our LORD …
There’s always one more chair … a little more food in the refrigerator … we’ll make do, because there’s plenty for everyone.
Preach the Bible?
We have to be careful … sort of like changing lanes on the 405 during rush hour … we don’t rush pell-mell into it … we do it carefully, thoughtfully …
Preaching the Bible isn’t so easy …
Last I week I said to you,
We have to speak from the center of the Bible … not from the edges …
We can find a verse to support every cockeyed idea that comes along … but it’s not about finding a verse or two or three … it’s about Jesus …
Jesus is the center!
Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so …
The rest isn’t so easy …
I preach the Bible … and I’ve done so, with all my heart, for 40 years …
And I believe Prop 8 to be the wrong idea at the wrong time.
I’m going to vote against it.
I hope it’s defeated.
But I’m not going to tell you what to do.
Nor am I going to hide behind any claim that I know the Bible better than you do … or all that I do is “preach the Bible” as if that made my word gold.
It’s all opinion … the preacher railing against homosexuality … and the preacher urging justice for everyone … yes, we all use the Bible … we all read and study it … we all have our favorite verses and our favorite stories … but like building blocks, it has to be put together … and we can put the blue block here, and the red block there … and then stack a few yellow ones on top … and someone else comes along, and puts the yellow blocks there, and then some green ones that we had forgotten, and a few purple ones, too.
We play with the building blocks of Genesis and Exodus, Matthew and Luke …
We rearrange the Bible all the time.
So we have to be careful …
We have to speak from the center of the Bible … not from the edges …
It’s not about finding a verse or two or three … it’s all about Jesus …
Jesus is the center!
Draw near, said Joshua, to hear the words of the LORD.
That’s the God Project …
A people devoted to God …
Paying attention … and praying …
It’s a lot of work dear Christian friends …
Jesus doesn’t ask to sit on down and relax …
He calls us to get up and follow him …
He doesn’t offer an easy chair …
He offers a cross.
Jesus doesn’t call us to a life of leisure, but a life of great love …
Jesus the Center … Jesus, the Ark of the Covenant …
Follow Jesus, and we’ll never be lost …
Follow him, and we’ll cross those rivers and find the Promised Land …
Follow him, and we’ll be able to play our part in the long march to glory …
Draw near and hear the words of the LORD your God.
Amen and Amen!
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