8.13.23 'With Jesus in the Jordan!" Westminster Presbyterian Church, Pasadena, CA

 Genesis 17.9-13; Acts 2.37-42

Everett Thomas Burton … is he the one?

Will he be anointed of God for some special task, some great purpose, something to change the world for good, and bless the world with peace?

Every parent dreams great things for their children, and so does God.

“This is my Father’s world,” as the hymn puts it … from the first light of creation to the very end of time, God at work, in all things, for good …

At the heart of it all, some very simple things:

People have children … there are families … and friends … uncles and aunts, grammas and grampa, networks of love … and next door neighbors … the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker.

All of this, like apple pie with a slice of cheddar cheese, is the story of life … and in the center of the story, God … 

though we don’t always see God … 

God is too good to be the star of the moment … 

God works anonymously, quietly, in all the apple-pie moments of life.

Everett Thomas Burton … is he the one?

God called Sarah and Abraham to the high task of being the parents of a new nation, a new element in the life of the world, a people who would pay attention to the things of God.

But what a work it would be … to the end of time.

God plays the long game … not just a few days, or a few years … not just a lifetime or two, or three … but centuries, millennia, tens of thousands of years, billions of years … the long game … and here we are, just like Abraham and Sarah … and all the rest of God’s people throughout the ages … in this moment of time, for these few moments, the curtain is pulled back a bit … and what we see is the love of God, in the love of family, in the gift of a child.

God gave to Sarah and Abraham a remarkable promise, the covenant …I belong to you, says God, and you belong to me … you AND your children, and your children’s children, and together, in spite of it all, we’ll make this a better world.

The mark of the covenant, circumcision … a rite performed on the male child, on the 8th day … the start of a new week, the beginning of new chapter.

Circumcision, the cutting off of the foreskin … the shedding of blood … 

With this mark in the flesh, the male child of the Hebrews belongs to God’s work of redemption … God at work, in the most intimate parts of the body, in the passion of procreation, through all the apple-pie moments of life … family and friends, food and fellowship, faith, hope, and love.

When Jesus is born, he, too, is circumcised on the 8th day … he, too, is one of the people … and, as it turns out, he IS the Anointed One!

At the start of his ministry, Jesus wades into the Jordan with John the Baptist, in the south of Palestine, near the Dead Sea … the very place where the people crossed over into the Promised Land after 40 years of wilderness-wandering. 

In this very place, this Borderland, between the past and the future, between the material and the spiritual, between death and life, between God and humanity … in the Jordan River, Jesus is baptized … 

He is one us, and we’re one with him … 

we belong to the Jordan River … 

we belong to John the Baptist …

we stand with Jesus in the River … 

we and our children, and so we bring a child to the church, to be baptized.

In the early days of the church, when the church was growing, and many were coming to believe Jesus to be the Anointed One … they asked, what all adults ask, What about our children? Are they a part of this great work? Do they, too, belong to God?

The answer was clear: of course they do. 

The church looked to the ancient rite of circumcision … the mark of the covenant.

God’s purpose has always included the children.

And now with Jesus,  some wonderful changes …

First of all, no more blood to be shed. 

In the ancient rite, the blood shed in the moment of cutting pointed to the cost; there is always sacrifice involved in the really important things of life. 

But now, in baptism, it’s the blood of Jesus, once, and for all … the blood of circumcision is now the water of the Jordan … 

water to wash away the sins of the world because Christ shed his blood on Calvary’s Cross … 

In baptism, we point to the future, a future grounded in what happened on the Cross … 

in the gift given by the Son of God … 

his blood, the final promise, the future opened up … 

rough places smoothed out, valleys filled in, high places brought down … the road ahead, a little straighter, because of Jesus and the Cross.

With the water, came a new element, the inclusion of girls … girls, too, were baptized … anyone who professed faith in Jesus was baptized … they AND their children, they and their families … because God plays the long game,

Everett Thomas Burton … is he the one?

It remains to be seen how it’ll all play out … but in this moment, we have the Jordan River and the promise of Jesus, to be one with us, that we might be one with God.

The promise to us, and to our children, God at work in all things for good …  

We have our work cut out for us, too … and most of it is challenging, most of it demanding, as we strive, with all our might, to be “thoroughly Christian,” to be followers of Jesus, faithful to his work, faithful to one another.  

The details of God’s work are not always clear … but this much I know, God’s love for all of us is absolute … God’s love for us is permanent, without change, in this life, and in the life to come; in all the apple-pie moments of life, joy and sorrow, the best of it, and the worst of it, from the beginning to the end, and beyond … God at work in the tides and turns of life.

Everett Thomas Burton - you are a part of God’s promise for the future. We promise to give you a story … we’ll tell you the stories of God, the stories of Moses and Miriam, Abraham and Sarah,  David and Goliath, Jesus and John the Baptist, the Apostle Paul and Lydia, even as you, Everett Thomas Burton, give us a future … that long after we’re gone, the good work of God goes on … the ceaseless love of God, at work, in all the apple-pie moments of life …

Everett Thomas Burton, you are the one … you - a child of God.

Amen and Amen!

May 19, 2019 "Presbyterian Heritage Sunday"

El Monte Presbyterian Church

Psalm 23; Luke 18.31-34

Good morning and God’s peace to all of you.

It’s good to be here … 

Today is Presbyterian Heritage Sunday … 

We celebrate our corporate story, and quite a story it is … it’s a good story, and sometimes a sad story … we’ve done it all … 

From the best of it, to the worst of it … but this much I can say, and say to you with confidence: our Presbyterian story is mostly a good story … a story of faithful people doing their best, relying upon Christ, seeking to make the world better …

We’ve opposed war and sought peace … we’ve struggled for civil rights and these days, we work for environmental justice. 

We’ve built hospitals and schools around the world … we’ve blessed the world with our medical missionaries, educators, preachers and teachers … we’ve done much to touch the world with the gospel of Jesus Christ.

We’ve done good.

But to every story, a story with many chapters … we’ve had our struggles.

The Presbyterian Church split over the issue of slavery … some of our Presbyterian brothers and sisters thought slavery was a good thing, something to defend … even as the  whole nation was torn apart by Civil War.

And it took us a long time to figure out that gays and lesbians are Christians, too … and have a place at the Table … one of the great joys of my life is that I can now officiate for all weddings, gay or straight.

I remember my first gay wedding … during the ceremony, there was a moment of revelation … “this is just another wedding” …  two people who love one another … who will face all the challenges of marriage and enjoy all of its blessings.

I’m grateful that we Presbyterians finally figured this out … it took us a long time, virtually of all of my career, too long I think, but we did it … we’ve done good on this one.

We’re doing good on immigration issues, too …

Because we Presbyterians recognize the great truth of God’s love for the world.

We are first of all Christians, and then we’re citizens of a nation.

Because we’re Christians first, we see people first, people, real people, mothers and fathers and their children, young people, old people … people, people hoping to find a better life for their children.

Is there anyone here who wouldn’t sacrifice everything for the sake of their children?

When we’re Christians first, before we’re anything else, then our eyes clear, we see people!

We see their hearts, their needs … we don’t worry about borders and boundaries … and for heaven’s sake, we don’t fret and fuss about legal and illegal … those are categories that have no place in the kingdom of God!

When we’re Presbyterians at our best, we rise above the usual ways that people and nations think … we think as Christ thought, as the great prophets thought … we think on a higher plane … we think and live the Kingdom of God.

And that means constant learning … throughout the centuries, we’ve learned a lot about the ways of God, and we are still learning, still growing … still discovering how deep and wide and broad is the love of God in Christ Jesus our LORD.

One of the sayings that come out of our story is this: The church reformed, the church always reforming.

Because God is infinite, Jesus is always out there, ahead of us.

Jesus never said: Come and sit down here - no way … Jesus said, Come and follow me.

Always the road ahead, more to the story.

Our challenge in Christ: to keep on following, following Jesus, toward the Kingdom of God … thy kingdom come, we pray … seeking that which is yet to be … never satisfied with what is, but long for, working for, praying for, the better world.

The Presbyterian Story.

We begin in Geneva, Switzerland, with John Calvin … in the 1530s … and then with John Knox from Scotland … and throughout the British Isles … by the boatload, Presbyterians came to America, with bag pipes and energy … Presbyterians moved around the globe, from Asia to Africa, and throughout the Americas … we are a strong and resilient tradition … we’ve made our mistakes, and we’ve done right and good.

One of the key pieces of our story is a theological idea: the sovereignty of God … 

Whatever the task might be, God does the work, the heavy lifting … all along the way, God saves, God forgives, God paves the way, God opens doors, God gives new life … God at work in all things for good.

When the women came to the tomb on Easter Morn, they wondered who would roll away the stone … but fear not dear ladies, fear not dear people, God rolls away the stone.

I was privileged to attend a Christian High School in Grand Rapids, Michigan … a school of the Reformed/Presbyterian tradition, and one day, in a Bible class, a student from an evangelical church was arguing with the teacher about how salvation comes about … as most evangelicals believe, the student made it clear that he believed salvation is up to the believer … you hear the gospel, it’s up to you receive it, it’s up to you make Christ your savior.

The teacher then added something I’ve never forgotten, something that became a part of my life … the teacher said, Salvation is too important a thing to be left in our hands.

To even think for a moment that we had a hand in our salvation is an insult to the glory of God … never in my life have I ever said to anyone: Let me tell you how I accepted Christ. Because I never have accepted Christ. It was Christ who accepted me, embraced me, loved me, forgave me, and made me a part of God’s work … it was Christ who saved me, then and now, and forever, and it’s Christ still saving me unto to the finishing of God’s work of creation.

Because Christ alone brings about the great work of salvation … though it’s a mystery, it’s a mystery made clear in the love of God … God is trustworthy unto salvation … not only my salvation, but the salvation of the whole world, and our children, and our children’s children … we must never fear for their souls … because God is faithful to us, to them … faithful to creation, every bit of it.

Our hands are not strong enough, good enough, clean enough, to craft the wonder and the glory of our salvation. None of us could ever hang on a cross for the sake of the world … we could only hang on a cross, as did the thieves, as those deserving death; Christ alone hangs on a cross as the redeemer of the world, not deserving death, but giving life.

To God be the glory.

That’s why we practice infant baptism … when we bring a baby or a child to the water of baptism, we offer to the world the clearest picture of grace, a priori grace … the prior grace, the grace that comes before … before anything of our own being or doing … before we know anything about God, before we can do anything for God, before we believe in Jesus, God is already at work … faithfully at work, believing in us with a sovereign mercy … throughout the ages … forever and ever … 

And it’s true for a believer’s baptism … they didn’t decide to become a follower of Christ … that work was done in them already, a priori grace, the prior grace, before they even gave a thought. They didn’t decide to go forward; it was the Spirit that brought to Christ, and it’s Christ who’s brings us to the Father … and in the name the Father, the Son and the Holy, we baptize of any age, but particularly, infants and children, as a perpetual reminder that it is by grace, and grace alone, that we are saved, lest anyone should boast.

The Heidelberg Catechism says it best of all

That I am not my own, but belong with body and soul, both in life and in death, to my faithful savior Jesus Christ.

He has fully paid for my sins with his precious blood, and has set me free from all the power of the devil.

He also preserves me in such a way that without the will of my heavenly Father not a hair can fall from my head; indeed, all things must work together for my salvation.

Therefore, by his Holy Spirit he also assures me of eternal life and makes me heartily willing and ready from now on to live for him.

Dear friends in Christ.

Dear Presbyterian sisters and brothers.

With you this day, I give thanks to God for the Presbyterian Story … 

The sovereignty of God … the power of Infant Baptism.

To God be the glory. Amen and Amen!

September 25, 2011 - "Brain Scan"

Philippians 2.1-13

Who doesn’t need their head examined now and then?

We’ve all been told that a time or two, haven’t we?

“You need your head examined!”

When my children were young, I’d look in one of their ears, wave my hand and three fingers by the other ear, and say, “By golly, I can see my three fingers. There’s nothin’ in there.

And we’d all laugh, of course … 

A friend of mine had a brain scan, and he jokingly said to me, “They didn’t find one!”

The Scarecrow in “The Wizard of Oz” sings, “If Only I Had a Brain” … I do all kinds of wonderful things.

And, indeed, with a brain, a mind, we do wonderful things … we can fly around the world … and tell a child we love them.

The Bible says: Be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

The renewing of our mind is mostly a miracle - by grace we are saved, not by works, lest anyone should boast … 

That’s the glory of infant baptism - God at work, before we know it, before we can do anything about it … God at work in our little souls. 

When we get a little older, there may be a moment when we accept Jesus as LORD and Savior, when we say “Yes!” but long before we accept Jesus, Jesus accepts us.

You didn’t choose me, says Jesus, I choose you!

God loves us first!

Before our decision, God’s decision - before the foundation of the world … can’t get anymore before than that!

Salvation is a gift!

But the Bible also says, Work out your salvation with fear and trembling … 

Working it out is mostly up to us.

We feed our mind with good reading.

We nourish our heart with prayer and worship.

We choose good thoughts and positive ideas.

We strive to be on the right side of history.

We practice doing good.

We forgive, and forgive quickly.

We apologize when it’s our fault, and even if we’re not sure whose fault it is - the power of the word “sorry” covers a multitude of sins.

We work out our salvation day-by-day … in ten thousand different scenarios …

Even Jesus has to work things out … when choices come his way:

A woman, caught in adultery, brought to Jesus by a crowd.

They’re ready to execute her … death by stoning - capital punishment.

Because the Bible says so! 

Are these mean people?

No, they’re law-abiding citizens.

They want to know where Jesus stands on the matter.

“Do you stand on the side of the law?” they ask him. “Are you a law-abiding citizen of Israel?”

The letter of the law, or something more?

Jesus makes it clear that day - there’s more to the law than the letter of the law … 

I came, not to abolish the law, but to fulfill it … expand it, make it larger, beyond the letter of the law, to the heart of the matter … 

When asked about the Law and the greatest of commandments - all 613 of them - Jesus chooses two - Love God with all that you are (from Deuteronomy), and love your neighbor with the same regard with which you love yourself (Leviticus).

And then adds the Golden Rule: Treat others as you would like to be treated.

Elsewhere, Jesus says, There is something greater here than the temple … something greater than Jonah … something greater than Solomon.

It’s the “something greater” that Jesus brings to us … Jesus choose something greater …

No stones for the woman caught in adultery … because of something greater.

Because love wins.

Love is something greater, greater than the letter of the law.

Faith, hope and love abide, but the greatest of these is love!

The mind of Christ for us!

Something greater ...

To let our shine so that the world can see our good works, and give glory to our Father in heaven.

That’s evangelism … works of faith … kindness, loyalty, mercy, gentleness, humility, intelligence, restraint, wisdom and welcome … and courage - Christ Courage - to stand up against the proud and the powerful, and Christ-Courage - to stand with the forlorn and the downtrodden … to build the better world - thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

The mind of Christ for us: Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. 

Dear friends, we need our heads examined now and then.

As our Psalmist wrote [139.23-24]:

 Search me, O God, and know my heart;

      test me and know my thoughts.

     See if there is any wicked way in me,

      and lead me in the way everlasting. 

A brain scan … just to be sure … that we have the mind of Christ. Amen and Amen!