4.28.24 "Circles" Westminster Presbyterian Church, Pasadena, CA

 Psalm 22.25-31; Acts 8.26-40

Once upon a time,

A long time ago,

In a land far away,

A most wonderful day.

The Spirit said to Phillip: Get up and go … 

And not just anywhere, but head down south,

The road to Gaza … a road in the wilderness.

Prepare ye the way of the LORD … a voice crying in the wilderness …

In the wilderness, the children of Israel wander for 40 years … to get some things figured out …

In the wilderness, 40 days of fasting … Jesus discerns his purpose.

In the wilderness, the Ethiopian Eunuch, advisor to the Queen.

He’d been in Jerusalem to worship.

Conducted some business, I’m sure … purchased a few souvenirs for friends and family, and now he’s on his way home.

Reading a scroll … like any one of us picking up a book while on vacation …  

The Spirit says to Phillip - Go over to that chariot and join it.

 

The chariot - more than the Ben Hur kind … it’s luxurious … room for a driver or two, seats for several occupants, covered to provide shade … like a carriage. 

Phillip hears the man reading aloud, and asks: Do you understand what you’re reading?

The man replies: Who or what is Isaiah talking about?

Phillip tells him about Jesus …  

The man stops the chariot by some water … What is to prevent me from being baptized?

Phillip and the man step into the water … a deep pool? a small stream? a puddle? … water it is, in the wilderness … and there the man is baptized.

No muss, no fuss, no problem at all.

What’s the point of the story?

How large is the love of God?

A hotly debated question for the people of ancient Israel - who’s in, and who’s out? … who’s welcome, and who isn’t?

In the Bible, books like Nehemiah and Ezra draw a small circle - other books, like Jonah and Ruth, draw a large circle … the Prophet Isaiah draws the circle even larger.

The Bible has more than one voice on the question …

Who’s in, who’s out … 

The early church faced the same questions.

The earliest Christians were all Jews … 

Circumcised

The material center of their faith, The Temple.

They honored the Dietary Laws.

The three essential elements: circumcision, temple, diet.

Those elements remained in place for the first Christians … with the addition of a fourth element: Jesus, the anointed one - who fulfills the prophecy of Isaiah, the very words the Ethiopian Official was reading that day in the wilderness.

Ultimately, the three original elements were modified … 70 years after Jesus was born, the Temple was destroyed … Paul the Apostle said: Circumcision is no longer required … and the Apostle Peter revised the dietary laws.

How large is the circle?

The man from Ethiopia is part of that story … the incoming of Gentiles to the Christian Community … should they be circumcised? should they obey the dietary laws?

Throughout Christian History, the same questions … conflicts often bloody, wars fought, people imprisoned, tortured, and killed … all in the name of Jesus.

Christians fought with Muslims and killed Jews … after the Reformation, Protestants fought with Catholics, and later, Protestants fought with Protestants …  

I remember growing up … if a Catholic attended a Protestant Church, it was accounted a mortal sin … Protestants thought Catholics were all going to hell … within each group, bickering, debate, denunciation, and fistfights … Lutherans didn’t like Presbyterians, Presbyterians didn’t like Baptists, and everyone thought Episcopalians drank too much wine.

Who’s in? Who’s out?

In America, many a religious conflict along racial lines … 

And then immigrants … 

White Christians from Europe defined who was in and who wasn’t, who could be a Christian, and who could be an American.

Women paid a huge price: they couldn’t joining the inner circles of the church, forbidden to offer the sacraments, and never to preach …

Presbyterians had strict rules about communion, who could come to the Table and who couldn’t … we had our ways!

During the Civil War, Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, divided over the question of slavery … within each group, further in-fighting … just recently, the Methodist Church split over gender-identity.

Presbyterians have split repeatedly in the last 150 years over women’s ordination, how to read the Bible, dancing, card playing, theater attendance, the specifics of the Westminster Confession of Faith, and gender. 

Baptists have split over all sorts of questions, too, questions about salvation, heaven and hell, and how to be saved.

And always, the Bible is quoted, papers written, pulpits pounded. 

Who’s in, who’s out?

Over the years of my life, my circle has grown larger … 

It’s a lotta work to keep people out … to keep drawing lines in the sand, building walls, digging ditches … manning the ramparts to fight off the enemies … it’s a lotta work to draw small circles.

Who’s in, Who’s out?

I guess we all have to make our own decisions … I’ve made mine, and it’s been in process of all my life … 

Given who I am, even as a small child, I had a deep and comforting sense of God’s presence … little Tommy Eggebeen always had a friend in Jesus.

As I grew, matured, experienced the good and the bad of life, the good and bad of my own soul … the LORD led me into ministry.

I continue to read the Bible, consult with theologians, historians, … women and men of color, who are doing some of the best theological work of the day … women called by God to become outstanding ministers … gay and lesbian friends who serve the LORD  … trans-gender friends who love Christ and give thanks every day for finding their identity in new ways of joy, freedom and faith … 

Who’s in, Who’s out?

Who’s a Christian, and who isn’t?

Who’s going to heaven, and who’s going to hell?

Who’s an American, and who isn’t?

How do you answer the questions?

How do you read the Bible?

How do you see your world?

What do you believe? … and why?

I believe, with all my heart:

The LORD Jesus Christ whom I know and serve, has saved me, guided me, loved me … forgives me again and again, sees me through, challenges me all along the way, comes to me in the midst of it all.

The LORD Jesus Christ has been my faithful companion from the day of my birth, 

Jesus witnessed my baptism, 

my confession of faith, 

my education and ordination, 

my marriage, my home, my work, my life and prayers … 

this LORD … this Jesus … this Christ, 

Draws a very, very, wide circle.

Hallelujah and Amen!

2.19.23 "Sneak Peak!" Westminster Presbyterian Church, Pasadena, CA

Exodus 24.12-18; Matthew 17.1-9 

Important things happen on high mountains … we call them “peak experiences” … 

There are plenty of such moments in the biblical story … 

Mt. Ararat, on which Noah’s ark grounded when the flood waters receded, and a new world emerged …

Mt. Sinai, on which God and Moses had several serious chats, in dark clouds, with lightening and thunder … down from the mountain came Moses with tablets of stone, upon which the hand of God had inscribed The Ten Commandments …

Mt. Nebo, where God took Moses at the end of his life … to see in the distance the Promised Land … as in all things, Moses could only go so far, and then, no further.

Mt. Carmel, on which Elijah the Prophet confronted the priests of Baal, like a shootout at the O.K. Corral … winner take all … the Priests of Baal shouted and danced, whipped themselves, cut themselves, nothing happened … then Elijah prayed … fire came down from heaven to consume the offering, the wood, the stones, the dust, even the water with which Elijah had soaked everything, just to make a point, God’s fiery love is greater than all the sin and sorrow of the world.

The Mt. of Olives, down from which our LORD road into Jerusalem amid the cheers and hopes of a troubled people … palm branches and cloaks laid down on the road, with people singing their hearts out … 

Mt. Zion, on which the city of Jerusalem was founded, and Solomon built the temple … the fabled temple, destroyed and rebuilt … built even greater by King Herod … the very temple in which Jesus preached the Kingdom of God, and overturned the tables of merchandise and coinage.

Mt. Tabor, the mount of transfiguration … our LORD meets Elijah and Moses, the law and the prophets … forging forever the bond between the covenants, old and new … the law and its wisdom; the prophets and their power … and Christ … the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.

Who doesn’t like a mountain view of things … an easy hairpin drive up to Mt. Wilson gives us a panoramic view of Pasadena … air is bright, breezes cool … there, beneath our feet, the world in which we live.

I’ve never been to Everest, but I’ve read about it … those first climbers, losing their lives, and then the moment when Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay, in 1953, made the first documented climb to the summit.

I’ve been on Lookout Mountain in Georgia … Pikes Peak in Colorado … California’s High Sierras … the Rock of Gibraltar, to look across the Mediterranean to the coast of North Africa.

It was Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. who said to the world, on the evening of April 3, 1968:

Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land!

And so I'm happy, tonight.

I'm not worried about anything.

I'm not fearing any man!

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord!!

The next day, the assassin’s bullet found its mark, and killed Dr. King … 

At the center of our faith stands Jesus the Christ … the child of Bethlehem, the boy growing up with wisdom and strength … the young man baptized by John the Baptist in the Jordan River … driven by the Spirit into the wilderness, there to be tempted, challenged, badgered, by the Evil One … a moment to decide, to make sure, to choose the right from the wrong.

For three years, Jesus wandered the highways and byways of Galilee and Judea … he crossed the sea of Galilee and healed a broken man … he crossed the border into Samaria to give life to a lonely woman … he set his face for Jerusalem, the deep center, where Rome and its military might, and the Temple with its religious power, walked hand-in-hand to work out a deal for the day … 

A deal that was cruel and oppressive … 

The deal that sealed the deal when Jesus entered the Temple and overturned the tables … 

The powers that be decided that no more of this troubling man would be what the doctor ordered … 

They arrest him, beat him, parade him through the noisy streets of a bustling city, to let people know who’s in charge, who’s boss, who calls the shots, and sets the pace … he’s taken to a small outcropping of rock, the Place of the Skull, Golgatha, and there, with two others, he’s crucified, dead, and buried … as the Creed puts it, he descended into hell.

Jesus said to the disciples: If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up the cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.

The stakes are set as high as they can get …  

Jesus demands of his disciples everything … all they are, all they hope to be … everything …

Six days later, Jesus takes with him three disciples, Peter, James, John … each different, each in their own way, a representative of the other disciples … a representative of all of us … they went up the mountain, a high mountain, says Matthew … because important things happen on high mountains …

A voice on the mountain, This is my son, the Beloved … with him, I am well pleased … listen to him …

There are high mountains all around us … literally … anyone of them might be enough to inspire our lives and call us to greatness …  

A high mountain might well be a very good book that sends us into the twilight zone, the wilderness, the arms of God.

Maybe it’s music … or art … visit the Huntingdon or Norton Simon - you may well be caught up on a high mountain.

Our trek to church, here in person, or home by the TV … a mountain to climb, a mountain of faith, hope, and love, who knows? … something said, some random thought … a song, a prayer … suddenly we’re there, with Jesus, Elijah, Moses, the disciples.

Within each of us is a mountain, a high mountain … a place within the soul, a pathway within the mind, where the gap between heaven and earth grows thin … God comes down to meet us in the upward reach of our soul … 

A moment in time … just a moment is all it is … comes quickly, closes quickly … and what’s left? who’s left? but Jesus … the Lamb of God.

Come now, says Jesus, there is work to be done.

Amen and Amen!

October 6, 2019 "Great Things, Great Purpose" - El Monte Community Presbyterian Church

Lamentations 3.19-26; 2 Timothy 1.1-14 

“The Culture of Remembrance,” he said … 

The Director of the Dietrich Bonhoeffer House in Berlin, Germany … “the Culture of Remembrance.”

I was there recently, and Jane Holslag, one of our missionaries, joined me for the tour … Jane had lived at Monte Vista Grove Homes for about year, and then some months ago, returned to Germany.

When I learned that I would be visiting Berlin, I contacted Jane, and she was kind enough to be a tour guide for a few days, and one of the things we did was to visit the Bonhoeffer House.

“The Culture of Remembrance,” said the director.

Germany has worked hard to remember in the last 25 years… though at first, after the war, no one wanted to remember anything, but just to get on with life. 

Everyone wanted a culture of forgetfulness.

But who can forget the horrors of World War 2, the death of 6 million Jews, and millions of others throughout Europe and around the world.

In recent years, Germany has worked very hard to remember, and not to forget … Germans have built memorials and museums … 

To remember what happened, and to remember why … why a madman like Hitler should be able to come to power, and in a few short years, drag the nation and the whole world into war.

Some things deserve to be remembered …

The culture of remembrance …

 To be sure that history doesn’t repeat itself … that hatred and bigotry will never again win the day, that Anti-Semitism will be identified and condemned quickly and thoroughly, and all forms of hatred and discrimination, that especially the churches will remain vigilant, and speak out against the false gods of nationalism, militarism, and racial supremacy.

“The Culture of Remembrance” …

And that’s why we gather here for worship, Sunday after Sunday … we gather to remember … 

To remember why we’re here this morning … and who we are, and what needs to be done … we remember the words of Christ, the stories of creation, the politics of the prophets, the courage of the early church … we remember great things, and God’s great purpose.

First off, we’re here to say Thank You … the way of gratitude is the heart and soul of the Christian Life … it all begins and it all ends with these simple but profound words: Thank you!

Thank you to God for the gift of life, the mercies of Christ, the joys of creation, friends, and family … to give thanks to God Almighty that we belong to God … this is our first task when we gather together.

When we thank God, we have a chance to remember:

God’s promises … there is nothing than can separate us from the love of God … nothing in life, and nothing in death … nothing anywhere, or anyhow, that can break the bond of God’s covenant love for us, sealed upon our life by the waters of baptism, and confirmed for us in the bread and drink of the Lord’s Table …

“You belong to me,” says God.

You belong to me, and I will see you through all of life’s tumult and sorrow … I will be with you in the best of it, and in the worst of it …

I am with you always … I am the Alpha and the Omega … the beginning and end … I am your first breath, I’m your last breath … in time and eternity, in the frailty of the flesh and in the hope of the Spirit, I am there, says God, with you, for you and by you.

The culture of remembrance - that we not forget all the LORD’s blessings … but that we remember such things, so that we might live well before the world … and honor Christ with as much of life as we can.

And, then, a little bit more …

We’re here to welcome one another … to pay attention to each other … to listen to one another, to listen with care, to look upon one another with kindness and mercy …

We’re here to remember how to treat one another … to love one another as Christ loves us …

To remember, not just words and ideas, but to remember what Jesus did: how he put off his robes, and put on a simple towel around his waist, to wash the disciples’ feet …

In that moment, no longer the teacher, but a servant … no longer words of instruction, but deeds of kindness and humility … 

When Jesus washed their feet, it was the sign of welcome:

To welcome the disciples into the household of God … weary travelers they were, all of them, feet covered in dust and grime … the journey of faith is long and hard … and in such a kindly moment, the Son of God is the one who washes their feet.

And sets an example for us … 

It can be something as simple as eye contact and the nod of our head - “I see you, I acknowledge your presence, I will not pass you by, but I will give you my eyes, and I acknowledge your life.”

It can be a handshake, an arm around a shoulder, and even a hug.

It can be all kinds of simple things … to treat one another with dignity and respect … to do unto others as we would hope others would do unto us … and always, like Christ, to be the servant of the household of God.

Jesus washes their feet … and later, hosts the Table … 

It’s Jesus who blesses and breaks the bread, who pours out the cup … and serves the household of God … here’s some bread, and here’s some drink … eat to your hearts content, and drink deeply of the mercies of God.

All along the way, and throughout the three years of his ministry with the disciples, and his ministry to the world, Jesus shows us all how to treat one another … 

How to be the household of God … where all are welcomed, and none are turned away … because we are all one in Christ, in whom there is no longer the great cultural divides of race and religion, economic status, and gender distinctions … Paul the Apostle says it well:

There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.

The household of God … 

Where there are no boundaries, no walls to be built, or ditches to be dug, no families to be separated, and no fuss and fuming about who’s in and who’s out …

 In the church, we build bridges, and open doors, with words of welcome … fresh water to wash dirty feet, and good bread and drink to refresh hungry bodies and weary souls.

With our love, we bear witness to the world, we challenge our politicians to rise above party interests to care for the nation and all its people … and we challenge our politicians to care for the nation in such a way that every nation benefits, not just the United States, but the whole wide world.

And day-by-day, we strive to grow in the grace of Christ, even as Christ comes to us in a thousand different ways … to help us grow up into the things of God, to even do some great things now and then, with great purpose, all for the love of God.

Such is what it means to remember the goodness of God.

To be, for the sake of Christ, a culture of remembrance.

To God be the glory. Hallelujah and Amen!