Palms Westminster Presbyterian Church
"On the Road: Jerusalem to Jordan"
Mark 1:4-11
Goooooood Morning Palms Westminster …
An auspicious day …
A good day …
Time to celebrate …
Kick up our heels …
Give thanks and rejoice …
It’s always a great day when a church installs a new pastor … like opening a new book in a series of books by a good writer …
Like the Harry Potter series …
Or the Mitford series by Jan Karon …
Same author, same style …
But a whole new story …
God is still God, and God is still writing your history …
Same basic themes:
Love one another as I have loved you …
Forgive one another so that you can be forgiven …
Do unto others as you would have them do unto you …
And the same promises:
I am with always to the end of the age …
I will never leave you or forsake you …
Where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there!
But it’s a new book today …
A new story …
The Rev. Paula Mann … lately of the Mid-West … but now, having seen the light, a resident of Los Angeles, and soon-to-be, Palms Westminster pastor … in sickness and in health, for richer and for poorer … through thick and thin … sick and sin … for the glory of God, and the wellbeing of the neighborhood …
I can’t think of a better story for the day, than the story of our LORD's baptism …
The beginning of his rabbinic ministry …
If a man wanted to be a rabbi, he trained, and trained hard … memorizing the Text … passing through a series a qualification steps, and all things being equal, at age 30, a man could be a rabbi …
Just like Joseph, who entered the service of Pharaoh at age 30 … it’s a good age … and Jesus was 30 when he went down to the Jordan, the southern stretches of Palestine, where John was proclaiming a message of renewal … get into this water, and God will wash you clean … start all over again; repent and get serious about your life with God … and if you do this, you will be forgiven.
So what’s the big deal?
Well, let’s do some work here …
There are some early rabbinic writings that expressly forbid ceremonial washings in the Jordan River … interesting … why?
By the time of Jesus and John, there was a place where it all happened … forgiveness available … and the place was Jerusalem – not Jordan … Jerusalem - with its temple, its priest and scribes, Pharisees and Sadducees … musicians and singers … folks who swept the floors and keep the oil lamps a-burning … thousands worked there … and tens of thousands of rams and bulls and goats and sheep and doves and sparrows – blood sprinkled on the alter, and your sins are no more – gone, vanished, never to heard from again!
Stop by the temple … buy your sacrifice … quickly dispatched with a swift knife or a twist of the neck … it’s blood sprinkled, its fatty parts burned, the smoke reaching all the way to heaven, and God is pleased with the aroma … sins forgiven … absolute and final … sins no more …
Jerusalem the Golden …
We can do it for you.
We’ve done it this way for a long time …
Tried and true …
If it works, don’t mess with it.
If it ain’t broken, don’t fix it.
Come one, come all …
Jerusalem is the place …
David’s Holy City …
A temple to knock your socks off …
A wonder of the ancient world …
The blood of a thousand bulls …
Ten thousand sheep …
Forgiveness …
New life …
Peace with God …
It’s right here, friends, right in Jerusalem!
Jerusalem - a powerful place …
And powerful places don’t like competition.
Herod doesn’t like the idea of a king born in Bethlehem … so he sends in the troops … kills every child two years and under …
Rome doesn’t like competition … you’ll be hoisted on a cross before you can say Judas Priest …
Power doesn’t like competition …
Jerusalem doesn’t like competition …
Jerusalem doesn’t like John …
And neither did Herod when John got a little uppity about sexual shenanigans in the royal court …
And you know what happened to John – he lost his head.
And you know what happened to Jesus – they crossed him out … just like that …
Power doesn’t like competition …
And John was competition.
John offered an alternative …
Jordan water …
Not Jerusalem with all its traditions …
Just Jordan … simple and clean …
Anyone … easy … step into the water …
Repent … that’s it … a new chapter in your life with God.
A voice crying in the wilderness …
Jesus heard the voice in Nazareth …
He makes the trek south …
By-passing Jerusalem … he’d go there later … but now, to start off, he goes to a simple place … he goes to Jordan.
Where’s your Jordan?
Where’s the new place you’ve been visiting lately?
The new idea?
The change of pace?
Something different?
Let’s face it; we’re all creatures of habit …
We settle in and we settle down …
We eat in the same restaurants, drive the same way to work, have lunch with the same people, read the same kind of books, watch the same kind of TV …
Do me a favor – turn to your neighbor, tell them what brand of toothpaste you use … and how long have you used it?
…. …. …. ….
Okay, anyone want to share?
Brand and time used?
Sure, we’re creatures of habit …
We sit in the same pew …
We sing the same hymns …
We want our preachers to say pretty much the same thing …
We’re likely to repeat last year’s program … because last year’s program was a repeat of the year before, and the year before that … and it was pretty good then, and it’s pretty good now!
We do things like that …
We’re creatures of habit …
We live in Jerusalem …
Steady as she goes …
No surprises …
We’re comfortable with what we know …
And what we know is good … it really is!
Our home is Jerusalem … makes sense, and it works!
But Jesus bypasses Jerusalem …
He makes the trip down to the Jordan wilderness …
Down into a place most folks didn’t go …
A wild place … fierce heat and Santa Anna winds - rough gullies and deep canyons … lions and bears … the Dead Sea …
And a wild man …
Dressed in rough clothing …
Desert food … roasted locusts … hands sticky with honey …
Elijah … Elisha … Isaiah and Jeremiah … Micah and Obadiah … Daniel and Malachi …
The prophets of old …
Who spoke truth to power …
The kings didn’t like them …
The religious establishment didn’t trust them …
The power brokers despised them …
They were trouble-makers and disturbers of the peace …
They put a different twist on things …
When folks thought they knew what God was all about, the prophets said, “think again!”
Jesus went to Jordan to start his ministry.
He didn’t go to Jerusalem!
But when all is said and done, Jesus knows where it’s headed … headed to Jerusalem.
God’s paramount act of salvation would occur in that fabled city on a hill … not in Nazareth, not in Jordan, but in Jerusalem!
Jerusalem and Jordan belong together …
Like a fire and a fireplace …
A fireplace without a fire, may be lovely to look at, but nobody gets warm by a fireplace without a fire.
And fire, without a fireplace, is dangerous … might burn the whole house down …
Fire needs a fireplace … and a fireplace needs a fire.
Jerusalem and Jordan … they need each other …
But it’s an uneasy relationship …
Tradition on the one hand; innovation on the other …
The tried and the true … the new and the inventive.
Yesterday’s wisdom … today’s experiment.
The old hymns … and clap-your-hands praise music …
The church with pews and the church with folding chairs …
A church with bulletins … and a church with screens …
First Presbyterian Church downtown and a start-up church on a college campus …
Clergy in robes … and clergy in sport-shirts …
Jerusalem and Jordan.
We have both in our souls …
We live much of the time in Jerusalem … as we should … safe, predictable, dependable …
We get up when we should, shower and dress, get into the car and go to work.
How many times have we done that?
A thousand? ten thousand …?
We live in Jerusalem much of the time.
But who doesn’t have a day-dream?
An island in the Pacific …
Paris in the springtime …
Pack it all in and head for the hills … a place that exists in our imagination … to start all over again; adventure and risk – new people and places … and who knows what!
Jerusalem needs Jordan … to stay fresh and flexible.
We need Jordan …
We need to visit Jordan now and then.
Try a new brand of toothpaste … check out a new restaurant … think again about the way we do church!
Step down to Jordan now and then … get into the water.
Pay attention to the rare birds who actually live there … the Baptizers who stand outside the walls of the city … prophets who speak truth to power … folks who make us feel uneasy …
We need that …
Soccrates said, “The unexamined life isn’t worth living.”
I say to you: “A life unchallenged isn’t worth living.”
“A thought unchallenged isn’t worth thinking.”
“A faith unchallenged isn’t worth believing.”
When was the last time you were uneasy?
Challenged by a new idea …
A new way of doing things …
Years ago, a man said to me, “I’m too old to change.”
Balderdash …
Abraham and Sarah were over the hill and all washed up, and God called them to a new day.
Moses was ready to retire in the land of Midian, and God said, “Uh uh – you’re headed back Egypt way to set my people free.”
No, we’re never too old to change.
Maybe lazy … but not too old.
Maybe afraid … but not too old.
Never too old for the things of God!
So, here we are, Palms Westminster … the Rev. Paula Mann … the Presbytery of the Pacific … followers of Jesus our LORD …
An auspicious day …
A Jerusalem Day, for sure … decently and in order …
But a Jordan Day, too … fresh, new and unexpected …
Thank God for Jerusalem …
Thank God for Jordan …
Thank God for this day …
Thank God for Paula Mann …
Thank God for Palms Westminster …
Thank God for our Presbytery …
Thank God for all of it, and then some …
Thanks be to God!
Amen and Amen!
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