December 9, 2012 - "All Humanity Will See"

Malachi 3.1-6; Luke 3.1-14

Welcome to the Second Sunday of Advent … 

A little more waiting … as the Psalmist says:

Wait for the LORD; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the LORD!

Those who wait for the LORD shall inherit the land.

We wait for the LORD … but not sitting around twiddling our thumbs … we’re getting ready, doing something, preparing ourselves, our world, for the Messiah.

Prepare the way of the LORD! … and we begin with John the Baptist.

All four gospels introduce us to Jesus through John the Baptist …

John is more than a warmup act for the main show … John is part of the main show … Jesus goes to him for baptism … Jesus affirms John’s work and message … Jesus stands in the River Jordan with John … 

John is NOT the Messiah … John rightly says to Jesus, You ought to baptize me!

But Jesus makes it clear: I’m here with you John … we’re in this together … I will take your message and build upon it … I will say what you say in the course of my ministry … I will point to a level world for all God’s children … a world where mountains are brought low and valleys filled in … 

A world of fairness and opportunity … 

Jesus is more than John … but Jesus is not less than John … Jesus affirms John’s message - Prepare the way of the LORD.

In the Season of Advent, we do well to hear John’s message.

Get ready for the Messiah! To receive him in our time and for our world!

John says to the crowds: Don’t yak about being children of Abraham … God doesn’t care about your pedigree … your ancestry … where ya’ come from or what your mom and dad did … the only thing that counts is here and now … produce fruit, says John, that shows the world what salvation looks like … show the world that you have changed your hearts and lives.

Prepare the way of the LORD!

I do a lot of cooking … I’ve learned some important things:

1. Know the recipe; how it works: what comes first, what comes second.
2. Do the prep work before hand - dicing, slicing, chopping and mincing - measure out the spices, if precision is needed … if you don’t use measuring spoons, be sure you’ve done it enough to know what a teaspoon of salt looks like or tablespoon of salt … do the prep work … have it all there … at hand and ready.

Prepare the way of the LORD.

This is a big deal ...

Because the Messiah is big.

Bigger than we imagine … and sometimes the church makes Jesus very small! 

I’m reading an American history book right now … all about 1919 … the year after World War One ended.

It was a time when women couldn’t vote, and the church pretty much said, That’s right; women ought not to have a voice in the affairs of men … women are inferior and unpredictable; women can’t be trusted to make important decisions … they can’t preach, nor can they be elders or deacons … preachers quoted chapter and verse to make their point, and felt mighty good about it … 

A time when divorced men couldn’t hold office in the church … couldn’t be an elder, a deacon or a minister … preachers quoted chapter and verse to make their point, and felt mighty good about it … 

A time when Americans were spying on Americans for all sorts of reasons - if you were German, your were suspected of disloyalty … if you were Russian, you were suspected of being a Communist … if you were Italian, you were suspected of being an anarchist … and the church said it was good and right to love this nation, and protect it from mongrel races, revolutionaries, agitators, Reds and Communists, and Jews and African-Americans who would undermine the Constitution … preachers quoted chapter and verse to make their point, and felt mighty good about it.

A time for lynching - an average of 200 lynchings a year, mostly in the south, but in the north, too … 200 lynchings, and many more beatings, shootings and burnings … Black soldiers had fought in the war, and many were highly decorated by the French, only to return home to Jim Crow laws and discrimination - black soldiers in uniform were beaten, shot and lynched … some were stripped of their uniforms and made to walk home in their underwear … and the church pretty much turned a blind eye to all of it … and in some parts of the country, the church said it was all right, because people of color shouldn’t be uppity, and they need to know their place … white preachers quoted chapter and verse to make their point, and felt mighty good about it.

A time when interracial marriage was prohibited by law, and if a white woman professed love for a black man, she was considered insane, and the black man a seducer … the church pretty much said, That’s right - it’s an abomination to mix the races … the white race is superior, and the black race inferior … white preachers quoted chapter and verse to make their point, and felt mighty good about it.

It was also a time when white men could rape a black woman without penalty … and have children with a servant girl, and everyone thought, That’s just the way it is … 

A congressman from George proposed a constitutional amendment banning interracial marriage: he said, “No more voracious parasite ever sucked at the heart of pure society, innocent girlhood, or Caucasian motherhood then the one which welcomes and recognizes the sacred ties of wedlock between Africa and America … the term ‘negro’ or ‘person of color,’ … shall be held to mean any and all persons of African descent or having any trace of African or negro blood” [Savage Peace, p.287].

The churches of America closed their eyes to most of this, raised their voices and sang, What a friend we have in Jesus.

Truth be told ...

Women still struggle in the American church and throughout the world …

As for racism, human beings have an infinite number of ways to hate one another.

Doors remain closed in much of the church to gays and lesbians - lots of preachers say it’s all right to hate gays and lesbians - and how they love to use the word abomination -and if gays and lesbians happen to get beat up and killed, that’s okay; some of your may recall the Briggs Initiative of 1978 here in California - to fire all public school teachers who were gay or lesbian … the initiative failed!

In some parts of the world, to be gay is criminal, with prison time and even execution … preachers quote chapter and verse, and feel mighty good about it.

Painful, isn’t it, all this history?

I’m sorry to share all of this with you … it’s painful for me to know such things, and I’m sure it’s painful for you to hear it … but if the gospel message is going to have any real meaning for us, we have to know these things … we cannot ignore the truth … it’s sin these stories highlight, and if Jesus comes to deal with sin, then sin is what we must understand … 

Sin is real, and sin is social … sin rips apart the human community, one from the other, pitting human beings against each other, filling the mind with suspicion and fear … the sins of the past are always the sins of today, wearing differing clothes, using cell phones rather than index cards.

We remember the sins of the church because truth requires it …it’s painful to remember, but memory is the key to honesty, humility, and hopefulness.

Things swept under the carpet will only trip us up again and again.

Those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it … 

Our work is far from done!

Wild and lone the prophet’s voice

Echoes through the desert still,

Calling us to make a choice,

Bidding us to do God’s will:

Turn from sin and be baptized;

Cleanse your heart and mind and soul.

Quitting all the sins your prized,

Yield your life to God’s control.

John’s message is vital to our times … keep Jesus big … big enough to open the big doors of compassion and mercy … big doors of intelligence and kindness … big doors that are big enough to welcome God and the world God created and loves.

Our work is far from done!

Prepare the way of the LORD! 

Amen and Amen!

March 29, 2009 - Marriage - Part 2

Audio Links: prayers, anthem and message HERE.

Ephesians 5:21-33; Matthew 22:23-33

Marriage … to stand with one another for the duration:
In plenty and in want; in joy and in sorrow; in sickness and in health; as long as we both shall live.

A sizeable commitment!

On the simplest level of life: we all want to love someone, and to have someone love us!
And we only have so much love to give.
In heaven, as Jesus notes, there will be no marriage.
In heaven, love will have blossomed full and complete.
We will love one another as Jesus loves us.
Without limit, without need, without sin!
But here and now,
Love is limited, and sin is real.
We do our best.
And we hope for love.

We fall in love, they say.
It just sort of “happens.”
We see someone – something clicks deep inside of us – a doorway is opened … and love begins to flow.
Scientists study our glands and follow the neurons; poets write of flowers and springtime … philosophers wax eloquent and profound … but whatever falling in love is, it’s powerful stuff.

But falling in love is only the preface.
Staying in love is our hope.

But love is tested and tried …

Who doesn’t wake up in the morning and take a look at the person sleeping next to you, and ask, “Who are you? And why are you here? Was I crazy? If only I had listened to my mother.”

Love is tested by the vagaries of life … by the reality of the person we love – no one ever totally conforms to our expectations and needs … neither our lovers nor our children.

The other day, I saw a child dash toward the street; the mother ran and caught it quickly, and gave it a couple of firm swats and said, “Don’t ever run to the street again!”

In that little moment of panic, fear erupted – and fear always generates anger – in that little moment of time, the mother was furious.
The child was humiliated – that was obvious – with a kick of the foot and throwing down a school paper, the child was disgusted with Mom’s behavior.
The mother quickly recovered.
She picked her child up into her arms, glanced at me walking nearby, mustered all of her motherly reserves, and said to her boy, “Are you having a bad day?”

Love … we have just so much of it to give away.

Last week, we reviewed an important passage from the Bible, Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, wherein Paul establishes a spiritual foundation for marriage.

Now, at the outset, I want to be clear:
Statistics are not favorable for Christians.
In other words, Christians have as much difficulty with marriage as “other” folks do.
Because marriage is difficult!
But this much I know –
Our spirituality does and will make a difference, but spirituality has to be deep – our connection to Christ has to be greater than the power of sin, the power of the ego, the power of our past, and the power of the other person to hurt us.
Some folks are mile wide in their sentiments, but only an inch deep in their spirituality.
Now is the time to reach for Christ.
Now is the time to deepen the reservoirs.
Because drought will come. The harsh light of sin and sorrow dries up the shallow pools quickly; only deep reservoirs survive a drought.

Being a Christian is a grand and glorious business, and I wouldn’t trade my walk with Christ for anything in this world.
His love has kept me intact.
His love has seen me through some seriously bad times.
I think I’ve seen miracles.
Donna and I have been blessed to share a common heritage of faith … our family histories and our daily commitments - Christ runs deep in our veins.
Have we always done it right?
Of course not.
Have we always been true to Christ?
Hardly.

But the reality of Christ is greater than our faults and our failings.

In Christ, our true relationship to one another is revealed … out of reverence for Christ, says Paul, be subject to one another.

Love is mutual … no one’s in charge; no one’s the boss.
Giving and receiving … this is the way it is in our walk with Christ.

The rules of love never change … or shall I say, “the governance of love” …
Because love is the one rule that trumps all other rules …
Love is patient … love is kind.
Love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude.
Love does not insist on its own way.
It is not irritable or resentful.
It take no pleasure in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth.
Love is strong – it bears all things.
Love is trusting – it believes all things.
Love is forward looking – it hopes all things.
Love is strong – it endures all things.

The one law greater than all other laws.
The governance of love – to love one another as Christ loves us …

The love of Christ for us … within us, and all around us.
And our love for Christ … and one another.
The governance of love.

The spiritual foundation of marriage … the three laws of love:
Christ in the morning; Christ at noon, and Christ at night.

Loyal …
Faithful …
Forgiving …
Patient …
Profoundly centered in others.

To combat the power of the ego … the spoiled self … the “I want it, and I want it now” attitude … the “screaming child within” that wants the candy bar, and when denied, shouts, “I hate you.”
Look, there’s a little of that, maybe a lot of that, in all of us, and it never goes away entirely.
So we manage it, as best we can.
And the best of this life is Christ!

To fulfill the Golden Rule – to do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
Not to wait, but to act.
Conditioned by the character of Christ.
To give and not to measure what’s received in return.
To love, even when it’s unrequited.
To forgive deeply.
To not count our hurts, but count on Christ.

Whenever a pastor speaks about marriage, there’s a quiet question in most everyone’s mind: What about divorce?

When I begin marriage counseling, I always make two things clear: I am absolutely committed to exploring every avenue of reconciliation, every possibility of hope – every device, every strategy, for making marriage work.
But I advise divorce if a threshold is crossed … a threshold of harm that sometimes a couple reaches … the point of no-return:
Drugs and alcohol …
Verbal and physical abuse …
And sometimes just the bent of character – oil and water, or something like that.
Though some would say, “God can work miracles,” and I quite agree, because I’ve seen miracles, but sometimes life just doesn’t work as we might hope and pray.

Divorce always hurts, and that’s why I work hard to heal a marriage, but divorce happens, and like anything else, we can make the best of it, and Christ is there.
God knows we’re not in heaven yet.
And until that time when we stand in the light of glory, we live in the shadows and shades of time, doing our best.

We get married with the expectation that it will last.
Every marriage begins with faith, hope and love.
But time and tide take us places we don’t plan on.
And sometimes the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry.
And rather than forcing folks to live down what they cannot live up to, I believe there is a time when folks need to call it quits and go their separate ways … find healing, and chart a new course.
Divorce is serious, but marriage must never be a prison.

Sometimes one of the partners has to make the decision.
It’s painful and sad,
Humiliating and embarrassing,

But this much I know.
There is always a future.
God’s love for us remains intact.
There is nothing that can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our LORD.

To folks who’ve had a tough time of it, I remind them:
God is always more concerned about tomorrow than yesterday.
God’s grace is all about a new day.
A new way, a new path, a new life.
God doesn’t live in the past.
God forgives it.
It’s all about tomorrow!

To make the best of it …

Expect a lot from ourselves, and a little less from one another.
We all only have so much love to give – and there ain’t no one perfect.

To those who are married, work hard at it.
Enjoy your love and celebrate the day – be patient with one another and keep on laughing.

To those divorced, don’t despair.
You will find a way through it; you will find life and love again, in some form or fashion.

To those who are married again …
Let the past go, but don’t try to kill the past.
The past is always there … for better or for worse.
As one woman said to a friend, “I know there are perfect people in the world.”
The friend asked, “Perfect? How do you know?”
The woman says: “According to my husband, his first wife was perfect, and so was his mother’s apple pie.”

Pathways for love:

Work hard on the spiritual foundations of life.
Believe in God, and pray to God for help to believe all the more.
Go as deep as you can, and then some.
Seek first the kingdom of God, and all other things will be added unto it.
Love God with all of your heart, soul, strength and mind, and love your neighbor as yourself.
Forgive often, and forgive deeply.
Remove bitterness from your heart – confront it and confess it.
Pray often and read your Bible.
Worship regularly – have a Sabbath, and do it with others.
Be involved in good things.
Practice the fine art of apology.
Keep on learning.
Keep on growing.

Love is the desire of every heart.
Love is what life is all about.
Love one another as Christ loves us.

Amen and Amen!

March 22, 2009 - Marriage - Part 1

Audio version HERE.

Ephesians 5:21-33

Marriage is the stuff of comedy.

From Rodney Dangerfield’s “That’s no lady, that my wife” to a New Yorker cartoon – the wife opens a package and exclaims with delight to her husband: “You perfect angel. You got me exactly what I needed to exchange for what I wanted.”

A little girl and a little boy were at day care one day. The girl approaches the boy and says, "Hey Stevie, wanna play house?"
He says, "Sure! What do you want me to do?"
The girl replies, "I want you to communicate."
He says to her, "That word is too big. I have no idea what it means."
The little girl smiles and says, "Perfect. You can be the husband."

A dietitian was addressing a large audience in Chicago. "The material we put into our stomachs is enough to have killed most of us sitting here, years ago. Red meat is awful. Vegetables can be disastrous, and none of us realizes the germs in our drinking water. But there is one thing that is the most dangerous of all and we all of us eat it. Can anyone here tell me what lethal product I'm referring to?”
A young lady in the front row raised her hand, and said with conviction in her voice: "Wedding cake."

This week, and next, some things about marriage.

A single friend of mine, when she heard that I was going to do several messages on marriage, said, “You’re not going to make marriage the end-all and the be-all of everything, are you?”

I appreciate her comment.

Not everyone is married …
Some are married, but only for a time … a marriage might end with separation and divorce … or end with sickness and death … or end with a tragic accident.
Some chose to remain single …
Other chose to live with one another without the formal rites of marriage.

This morning, I’d like to reflect a bit on what it means to love someone … how to guard the love we have … and what does it take to keep on keepin’ on with love.

For centuries, marriage had little to do with love, and some might say, “That’s still the case.”
In centuries past, marriage belonged to the wealthy and to the powerful as a contractual means of guarding wealth and preserving power and passing it on to progeny … and who needs love for that?
Marriages were arranged between powerful families.
Hence, many a film and many a novel … about midnight rendezvous with a secret love.

In many parts of the world today, marriages are still arranged by the parents.
Though it may strike us as strange, partners in an arranged marriage often affirm it - “love is too unpredictable to rely upon when you’re young.”

In western culture, and surely here in America, it’s ALL about love … we are very much in love with love … the stuff of novels and movies and songs.

Where would country music be without love?
Tammy Wynettte’s “Stand By Your Man” …
Dolly Parton’s, “Jolene, Jolene … don’t take my man.”
And Nancy Sinatra’s “These Boots Were Made for Walkin’”
Love found, love lost, and love found again.

Ella Fitzgerald’s rendition, “I Can’t Give You Anything But Love” – which is probably a good song for tough economic times …

“Honey, let’s go out to eat.”
“Sorry, I can’t give you anything but love.”

Early in my ministry, I began to ask elderly couples about their marriage … how did they do it?

Over the years, responses were all very much the same … they look at each other, smile a bit, lift the eyebrows, and then say, “Well, we had our hard times, but we made it.”

Love isn’t easy, is it?
No matter how we slice it, dice it and serve it.

This morning, I want to encourage you in your life journey … wherever you happen to find yourself, whatever state of matrimony you may be in, whatever state of singleness or relatedness, or somewhere in between.

Keep on keepin’ on.

Our text this morning lays the groundwork for some very important things crucial to love.
Unfortunately, this passage has been quoted in piecemeal fashion by men, by the church, to subjugate women to the rule of men … nothing is further from the truth in this Scripture.

To the contrary, Paul builds a case for equality in marriage … with both partners on their knees before Christ.

Verse 21 says it well … Paul’s theme for all of life: Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ.
As someone once wisely observed: it’s a level playing field at the foot of the cross.

Paul begins where every Christian thought begins … with Christ!
And with Christ, and through Christ, a mutual regard for one another … out of a reverence for Christ!

Then, and only then, does Paul say:
Wives, be subject to your husbands as you are to the Lord.

Women are rightly very alert right now!
But it’s a graciously worded piece that undergirds a woman’s freedom … because it’s her relationship to Christ that sets the pace, the standard, for the way she relates to her husband.
So, we might ask, “What is it like being subject to the LORD?”

Think now of the LORD Paul knew … the LORD who met Paul in the light on the road to Damascus … the LORD who drained away Paul’s anger and violence, the LORD who bathed Paul in grace and gave him a life and gave to Paul a mission worthy of his strength and passion.

This LORD, who bore the cross of Calvary …
This Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world …
The Good Shepherd who leaves the 90 and 9 to seek the one lost sheep …
The LORD who meets the woman at the well …
Who calls Zacchaeus down from his tree …
Who heals blind Bartimaeus by the side of the road …
And raises a little girl back to life.

This LORD doesn’t take life away.
This LORD gives us life …
Abundant life … life filled with meaning and overflowing with purpose.
The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want …
The Lord fills my cup to overflowing …
Goodness and mercy follow me all the days of my life!

To even suggest that a woman relate to her husband as she relates to the LORD is a declaration of freedom and life …
The woman rightly expects to receive FROM her husband what she receives from the LORD …
Grace and love,
Affirmation and kindness,
Help and healing,
Encouragement and peace,
Forgiveness and mercy,
Companionship and friendship … all of that and then some!

Paul says to women:
What you receive from Christ, expect to receive from your husband.

Relate to your husband as you do the LORD.
Give yourself to your husband as you would to the LORD – creatively and thoughtfully – not slavishly or blindly as some have suggested, because no one gives their life to Christ that way, and never does Christ ever ask for anything so mindless.
And if I may go on a bit, often times the biblical mind works subtly on these points – sometimes what ISN’T said is just as important as WHAT is said.
The point?
If a woman fails to receive from her husband what she justly and rightly expects from the LORD, she is free to challenge her husband, counsel him, and if necessary, break the bond of marriage if the husband consistently fails to honor her!
If the husband will not give her fullness of life, she is under no obligation to sustain the marriage.
It takes two, not just one!
Paul is very clear: the way a woman relates to the LORD sets the pace for the kind of marriage a woman can justly expect!

A few verses later, Paul speaks to the husband: Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her … to make the church complete and beautiful – to be everything God intended the church to be … so it is, husbands – Christ sets the standard for our goals in life and the way we live.

This isn’t about dominance and control; this is all about self-giving, radical giving – to love your wife as Christ loved the church, and gave himself for the church.
It doesn’t get any more radical than that!

Paul drifts here between love for one another, and the love of God for the church – a great mystery, says Paul – how Christ loves the church … and when we think of Christ’s love for the church, we can only think back to what Jesus Christ said, No greater love than this, but to lay down our lives for one another.

So Paul says to the man: that’s why a man leaves his mother and his father, to be joined to his wife, the two becoming one flesh.
Who cares how your mama made apple pie and tucked you into bed at night … you’re married now, Bub, and you owe your life to wife!

Can you see how Paul is working with all of this?
Love is a mutual self-giving, a mutual surrender … as we lay down our lives for one another, at the foot of the cross.

To make one another the best we can be … for in the healing and health of the other, we find our own health and our own healing as well …
And it’s not just about marriage in the formal sense …
This is about love … any kind of love …
Paul goes on in his letter to speak about children and parents,
Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. “Honor your father and mother” - this is the first commandment with a promise: “so that it may be well with you and you may live long on the earth.”
And, fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.

And then to slaves and masters - though Paul does not decry slavery outright, Paul redefines the relationship for Christians:
Slaves, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, in singleness of heart, as you obey Christ…. Render service with enthusiasm, as to the Lord … knowing that whatever good we do, we will receive the same again from the Lord, whether we are slaves or free.
And, masters, do the same to them. Stop threatening them, for you know that both of you have the same Master in heaven, and with him there is no partiality.

Again and again, Paul seeks to put all of this in relationship to Christ – because it’s a level playing field at the foot of the cross.

At the end of his treatise on marriage, and the mystery of the church, Paul concludes: Each of you should love his wife as himself, and a wife should respect her husband.

Finally, be strong in the LORD and in the strength of his power. Put on the whole armor of God, so that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.

As I think about my own life, how I’ve loved Donna and how I’ve failed to love her, one thing is clear, painfully clear – the power of sin – the relentless self-interest that poisons the soul and disfigures our character.
We might do well to look at Christ once again.
Why in the world did he die?
Just for the heck of it?
So he could say, “Been there, done that”?
He died for the sins of the world … but let’s be careful here … the sins of the world, indeed … but that includes me, and that includes you …
All have fallen short of the glory of God.

One of the first things we learn in the love of Christ is why he died on Calvary’s cross … because I put him there, and so did you … and we put him there ten thousand times a day.
With grace amazing, and love immeasurable, Christ takes the nails we hammer into his hands and feet; he takes the thorns we press onto his head; we lash him with our pride and our relentless self-interest; we pierce his side with our vanity and our coldness of heart … we wrap him in linen woven by our own cleverness and spiced with our skillful excuses … even as we “worship” him, we bury him in a tomb hewn by our sin, far away from ourselves, lest his love change our heart and call us to newness of life.
“Thank you, LORD; we’d rather be left alone!”

Yes, all have fallen short of the glory of God!

That simple truth cuts to the core of our life … to heal us and bring us out of ourselves … this relentless self-interest prowling around the edges of our spirit.

In Christ, we learn … we grow … and we find our true selves.

In all of our relationships, Christ at the center …
In our friendships and in our families,
In our work and in our worship …
In our love for one another …
In our marriages …
Christ at the center!

Amen and Amen!