Hint: If not, it'd be an even shorter sermon than usual.
Here it is; comments and constructive criticism welcome.
Acts 11:1-18
Now the apostles and the believers who were in Judea heard that the Gentiles had also accepted the word of God. So when Peter went up to Jerusalem, the circumcised believers criticized him, saying, "Why did you go to uncircumcised men and eat with them?" Then Peter began to explain it to them, step by step, saying, "I was in the city of Joppa praying, and in a trance I saw a vision. There was something like a large sheet coming down from heaven, being lowered by its four corners; and it came close to me. As I looked at it closely I saw four-footed animals, beasts of prey, reptiles, and birds of the air. I also heard a voice saying to me, 'Get up, Peter; kill and eat.' But I replied, 'By no means, Lord; for nothing profane or unclean has ever entered my mouth.' But a second time the voice answered from heaven, 'What God has made clean, you must not call profane.' This happened three times; then everything was pulled up again to heaven. At that very moment three men, sent to me from Caesarea, arrived at the house where we were. The Spirit told me to go with them and not to make a distinction between them and us. These six brothers also accompanied me, and we entered the man's house. He told us how he had seen the angel standing in his house and saying, 'Send to Joppa and bring Simon, who is called Peter; he will give you a message by which you and your entire household will be saved.' And as I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell upon them just as it had upon us at the beginning. And I remembered the word of the Lord, how he had said, 'John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.' If then God gave them the same gift that he gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could hinder God?" When they heard this, they were silenced. And they praised God, saying, "Then God has given even to the Gentiles the repentance that leads to life."
Revelation 21:1-6
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them as their God; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them; 4he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away."
And the one who was seated on the throne said, "See, I am making all things new." Also he said, "Write this, for these words are trustworthy and true." Then he said to me, "It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give water as a gift from the spring of the water of life."
John 13:31-35
When he had gone out, Jesus said, "Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him. If God has been glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and will glorify him at once. Little children, I am with you only a little longer. You will look for me; and as I said to the Jews so now I say to you, 'Where I am going, you cannot come.' I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another."
This is the Word of the Lord.
I wonder if it struck you like it struck me, the one word that seems to pop up in every one of our readings. Jesus gives us a new commandment. The One who is seated on the Throne says “See, I am making all things new.” Peter’s testimony is all about how God is doing a new thing among the Gentiles.
I talked a little last week about how advertising tries to make us believe that the same old thing is “new and improved,” how what we have isn’t good enough, and so on. And sure enough, this week we are confronted with God’s version of “new and improved!”
But, really, how new is all of this? We’ve had these words in our readings today for close to two thousand years. They’ve been translated, commentated, pontificated, evaluated, argued over, and put on plaques and sold in Christian bookstores. Is the commandment, is what God is doing – is what Peter experienced – really “new?”
I want to submit to you this morning that, in fact, it is. It’s new because even now, with all of these millenia of understanding and all these generations of experience, we still don’t really understand it.
“I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
Jesus says, “Just as I have loved you,” and I think that this is where we miss it so often; we really don’t understand the breadth and depth and intensity with which God in Christ Jesus loves us.
When we say that Jesus loves us, do we really understand what this means? Looking in the Gospels, who did Jesus show God’s love to? The Jewish people, certainly, but also to the Samaritans, a people at theological and cultural odds to the Jews. There were also the Gentiles, both those who lived on the borders of Judea and those who were part of the occupying forces of Rome. There were rich people and those who lived in poverty, and even the lepers – people feared and loathed because of a disease. The love of God in Jesus Christ knew no limitations – no borders – no qualifications – no prerequisites.
It is that kind of extravagant, unrestrained love that Peter saw when he visited the Gentiles. Now, we may have forgotten, in our day and age, just how big a step this was for Peter, and how shocking and confusing such a thing would have been for the believers in Judea. After all, things were happening very fast. Not only were thousands of Jewish people responding to God’s grace, but now there was news out of Samaria that even Samaritans were coming to the faith, and sure enough, Peter and John had confirmed it. Follow that with Philip bringing a eunuch to the faith, a eunuch! For these believers whose whole understanding of God was defined by the culture that had lived in all of their lives, the ground was shifting beneath their feet. They must have thought, even with all of these new things happening, at least Samaritans follow the Books of Moses, at least they understand the Law and don’t eat unclean things. At least the Ethiopian was a Jewish eunuch.
Then Peter goes and sits on the roof in Joppa while they’re making lunch, and everything changes yet again! And once they hear Peter’s testimony, and comprehend Peter’s evidence – because, make no mistake, Peter is indeed on trial here – they have no choice but to agree that God’s love in Jesus Christ extends even farther than they could have ever imagined. God’s love doesn’t look like they want it to look, and God’s beloved don’t look like they want God’s beloved to look. Left to their own devices, the disciples would have been quite happy to let the Good News stop at the borders of Judea and Samaria… but in Peter’s testimony they begin to see that God’s love truly is unstoppable!
“I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
To love like Jesus loved is to love without reservation. To love like Jesus loved is to love friends and enemies. To love without hesitation and without limitation. It is a radical, unheard-of love, and yes, even in this day and age, it is new. It is love lived not in thought or emotion or in words, but as a verb – as an act of the will, deliberate, direct, and in spite of the consequences.
Our reading from the Book of Revelation, like last week’s 23rd Psalm, it’s one we hear most often at funerals, and rightly so, because the words bring comfort and assurance. But we also read something amazing in that passage – God is no longer in heaven, up there, out there, away somewhere we do not and cannot know. Quite the contrary: God, who has made all things new, comes to dwell with mortals! How amazing that, even in the end, when all of God’s enemies have been defeated, even when there are no more victories to be won, we do not go to where God is, God comes to us!
The kind of love that imitates Jesus recognizes that God living with humankind is not just something for the unknown future, not something simply for the end of the twilight. The kind of love that imitates Jesus recognizes that, in the Holy Spirit, God is already present with humankind, and responds in the only appropriate way: by loving, actively and deliberately, with extravagant abandon.
If you’re waiting on me to define what that kind of active, unbridled love looks like for you, I can’t do that. We are individuals, with our own histories and unique experiences, and what love looks like will be as personal and unique as each of us are. But think of the person or people you find least loveable. The ones who disgust you, or frighten you, or who seem not worth the effort. Oh, and don’t forget the ones you find most loveable – the ones who bring you joy, comfort, who energize you. Oh, yeah, and everyone in between. All of them.
Love them. Find a way. That’s what Jesus did.
Showing posts with label God's love. Show all posts
Showing posts with label God's love. Show all posts
Sunday, May 2, 2010
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Are There Any Questions?
This sermon gives me the chance to use my two favorite analogies. Hopefully I'll have the time to get a paper cup and poke a hole or two in it for a visual.
If you ever get the chance, read Dr. Edward Welch's book "When People are Big (and God is Small)." It's about overcoming codependency and peer pressure, but the lessons within (like Derek Webb's song "Wedding Dress") should be included in the New Testament canon.
What follows is either an OK, if longish, sermon, or the worst piece of crap I've ever written.
Jeremiah 1:4-10
Now the word of the LORD came to me saying,
"Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
and before you were born I consecrated you;
I appointed you a prophet to the nations."
Then I said, "Ah, Lord GOD! Truly I do not know how to speak, for I am only a boy." But the LORD said to me,
"Do not say, 'I am only a boy';
for you shall go to all to whom I send you,
and you shall speak whatever I command you,
Do not be afraid of them,
for I am with you to deliver you,
says the LORD."
Then the LORD put out his hand and touched my mouth; and the LORD said to me,
"Now I have put my words in your mouth.
See, today I appoint you over nations and over kingdoms,
to pluck up and to pull down,
to destroy and to overthrow,
to build and to plant."
Luke 4:21-30
Then he began to say to them, "Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing." All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth. They said, "Is not this Joseph's son?" He said to them, "Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, 'Doctor, cure yourself!' And you will say, 'Do here also in your hometown the things that we have heard you did at Capernaum.'" And he said, "Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in the prophet's hometown. But the truth is, there were many widows in Israel in the time of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, and there was a severe famine over all the land; yet Elijah was sent to none of them except to a widow at Zarephath in Sidon. There were also many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian." When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with rage. They got up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they might hurl him off the cliff. But he passed through the midst of them and went on his way.
1 Corinthians 13:1-13
If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong 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. If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.
Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.
This is the Word of the Lord.
Ah, the “Love Chapter.” You've no doubt heard this chapter at weddings and such. It's one of those passages I love to read out loud just because it sounds so good, deep and profound and poetic and lovely. Reading it makes me wish my voice had the depth and resonance of, say, James Earl Jones. But if you've read the New Testament for any length of time, you probably suspect, like I do, that nothing's ever just poetic and pretty when it comes to the Apostle Paul... and this is especially true of his letters to the church at Corinth.
The church at Corinth had so many problems, and was doing so many things wrong... well, if the Jerry Springer Show married every reality-TV program ever married, the Corinthian church would be their child. They were fighting over who was better based on who baptized who, they were getting drunk during the agape meal, there were weird love connections going on, and in all of this they were forever at each others' throats over who was more spiritual.
The Corinthian church was broken, sick, and an embarrassment. There was only one solution, and it wasn't to disband the church and try to start over somewhere else; it wasn't to declare one “side” right and the other wrong, it wasn't to come in screaming and breaking chairs. The solution was love.
It's often been said that you can't define love. If we're talking about the emotion, the state of being, then that might well be true; I know I've never been able to do it justice with words. Yet right out of the gate, Paul is defining love by what it is, is not, and what it does and does not do. “Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.”
In reading that short definitional passage, it would seem that in all their struggle to be right, to be first, to be better than, more spiritual than, more important than, more right than, the Corinthians had become impatient, unkind, envious, boastful, arrogant and rude, they insisted on their own way, were irritable and resentful, they celebrated wrongdoing, avoided any truth that didn't agree with their preconceptions... in other words, everything that love is not.
They were, in that respect, not so different from the residents of Nazareth on the day Jesus preached in their synagogue.
Nazareth was a hard place in which to be a devoted Jew. It was too far away from the good influence of Jerusalem and the Temple, and too influenced by the pagan Gentiles and heterodox Samaritans that surrounded it on three sides.
The town, indeed the whole region of Galilee, had a bad reputation; that's why Nathaniel could say to Philip, when told about Jesus of Nazareth, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”
So it isn't a stretch to think that the townspeople were looking to Jesus to come and set things straight: restore right thinking and right practice to the faithful, drive out the evil Gentiles and Samaritans from the city limits, maybe do a few miracles to razzle-dazzle the crowd and drive his point home. After all, Jesus was a hometown boy, and he owed it to the place he grew up to take care of things at home first, right?
Well, here's what drove the crowd crazy, to the point of trying to kill Jesus: far from agreeing with them that the influence of Gentiles and Samaritans was a bad thing, he shared two accounts from the Scriptures where God had apparently shown preference to the pagans and the Gentiles! With all the widows starving during the famine, the one who was saved from death was in Sidon; with all the lepers suffering in Israel, Namaan of Syria was the one God cleansed! Was Jesus saying that God preferred those who worshiped idols? That those who chased after false gods were better than those who had given their lives to the one true God?
In fact, Jesus was reintroducing to the Nazarenes that central theme of the Law and the Prophets – a theme which Paul later reminds the Corinthans of, and which runs throughout both Testaments, and our readings today: Faith in God, devotion to our Creator, is not best defined by doctrines and theologies, not by lists of acceptable and unacceptable behaviors or (God forbid) people, not by buildings or memberships. If we can say, with the Apostle John, that “God is love,” and affirm that the focus of our journey is to become more and more the personification of Jesus Christ in our daily lives, then faith in God must be defined at its core by the pursuit and practice of love.
In his book “When People Are Big (and God is Small),” Dr. Ed Welch identifies one of the central difficulties many human beings have with this idea of practicing and pursuing love: it's a basic misunderstanding of the role of love in our lives and the lives of others.
In the context of love, whether the love of others or the love of God, the tendency is to view ourselves as containers to be poured into. “Love cups,” Dr. Welch calls them. The problem is that we aren't really made for the job; our love cups have holes in them... so no matter how much love is poured in, it's never, ever enough. We keep running out and needing more. No one can keep up with our demand to be filled and fulfilled.
Now, like every analogy, we can carry it too far. We Christians are filled with the Holy Spirit, so there are contexts in which being vessels to contain God's love are accurate. In the context of the kind of love which Paul speaks of though, the kind of love Jesus was an example of for us, who we are and how we function as members of the Body of Christ is in fact quite different, and it's related beautifully in a story shared by author Robert Fulghum:
"Are there any questions?" An offer that comes at the end of college lectures and long meetings. Said when an audience is not only overdosed with information, but when there is no time left anyhow. At times like that you sure do have questions. Like, "Can we leave now?" and "What... was this meeting for?" and "Where can I get [something to] drink?"
The gesture is supposed to indicate openness on the part of the speaker, I suppose, but if in fact you do ask a question, both the speaker and the audience will give you drop-dead looks. And some fool-some earnest idiot always asks. And the speaker always answers. By repeating most of what he has already said.
But if there is a little time left and there is a little silence in response to the invitation, I usually ask the most important question of all: "What is the Meaning of Life?"
You never know, somebody may have the answer, and I'd really hate to miss it because I was too socially inhibited to ask. But when I ask, it's usually taken as a kind of absurdist move – people laugh and nod and gather up their stuff and the meeting is dismissed on that ridiculous note.
Once and only once, I asked that question and got a serious answer. One that is with me still.
First, I must tell you where this happened, because the place has a power of its own. In Greece again. Near the village of Gonia on a rocky bay of the island of Crete sits a Greek Orthodox monastery. Alongside it, on land donated by the monastery, is an institute dedicated to human understanding and peace, and especially to rapprochement between Germans and Cretans. An improbable task, given the bitter residue of wartime.
This site is important, because it overlooks the small airstrip at Maleme where Nazi paratroopers invaded Crete and were attacked by peasants wielding kitchen knives and hay scythes. The retribution was terrible. The populations of whole villages were lined up and shot for assaulting Hitler's finest troops. High above the institute is a cemetery with a single cross marking the mass grave of Cretan partisans. And across the bay on yet another hill is the regimented burial ground of the Nazi paratroopers. The memorials are so placed that all might see and never forget.
Hate was the only weapon the Cretans had at the end, and it was a weapon many vowed never to give up. Never ever.
Against this heavy curtain of history, in this place where the stone of hatred is hard and thick, the existence of an institute devoted to healing the wounds of war is a fragile paradox. How has it come to be here? The answer is a man. Alexander Papaderos.
A doctor of philosophy, teacher, politician, resident of Athens but a son of this soil. At war's end he came to believe that the Germans and the Cretans had much to give one another--much to learn from one another. That they had an example to set. For if they could forgive each other and construct a creative relationship, then any people could.
To make a lovely story short, Papaderos succeeded. The institute became a reality--a conference ground on the site of horror--and it was in fact a source of productive interactions between the two countries. Books have been written on the dreams that were realized by what people gave to people for a summer session. Alexander Papaderos had become a living legend. One look at him and you saw his strength and intensity--energy, physical power, courage, intelligence, passion and vivacity radiated from this person. And to speak to him, to shake his hand, to be in a room with him when he spoke, was to experience his extraordinary electric humanity. Few men live up to their reputations when you get close. Alexander Papaderos was an exception.
At the last session on the last morning of a two-week seminar on Greek culture, led by intellectuals and experts in their fields who were recruited by Papaderos from across Greece, Papaderos rose from his chair at the back of the room and walked to the front, where he stood in the bright Greek sunlight of an open window and looked out. We followed his gaze across the bay to the iron cross marking the German cemetery.
He turned. And made the ritual gesture: "Are there any questions?"
Quiet quilted the room. These two weeks had generated enough questions for a lifetime, but for now there was only silence. "No questions?" Papaderos swept the room with his eyes. So I asked.
"Dr. Papaderos, what is the Meaning of Life?"
The usual laughter followed and people stirred to go. Papaderos held up his hand and stilled the room and looked at me for a long time, asking with his eyes if I was serious and seeing from my eyes that I was.
"I will answer your question."
Taking his wallet out of his hip pocket, he fished into a leather billfold and brought out a very small round mirror, about the size of a quarter. And what he said went like this:
"When I was a small child, during the war, we were very poor and we lived in a remote village. One day, on the road, I found the broken pieces of a mirror. A German motorcycle had been wrecked in that place.
"I tried to find all the pieces and put them together, but it was not possible, so I kept only the largest piece. This one. And by scratching it on a stone I made it round. I began to play with it as a toy and became fascinated by the fact that I could reflect light into dark places where the sun would never shine--in deep holes and crevices and dark closets. It became a game for me to get light into the most inaccessible places I could find.
"I kept the little mirror, and as I went about my growing up, I would take it out in idle moments and continue the challenge of the game. As I became a man, I grew to understand that this was not just a child's game but a metaphor for what I might do with my life. I came to understand that I am not the light or the source of the light. But light --truth, understanding, knowledge--is there, and it will only shine in many dark places if I reflect it.
"I am a fragment of a mirror whose whole design and shape I do not know. Nevertheless, with what I have I can reflect light into the dark places of this world--into the black places in the hearts of men--and change some things in some people. Perhaps others may see and do likewise. This is what I am about. This is the meaning of my life."
And then he took his small mirror and, holding it carefully, caught the bright rays of daylight streaming through the window and reflected them onto my face and onto my hands folded on the desk.
Much of what I experienced in the way of information about Greek culture and history that summer is gone from memory. But in the wallet of my mind I carry a small round mirror still.
One of the earliest names given to those who followed Jesus was “Christian,” meant disparagingly and translated originally as “little Christs.” The idea was that these early believers were acting like little replicas, little reflections of their God. Not “love cups,” not “masters of their own domain,” or “first among equals,” ot “the most spiritual person,” but reflections.
Love that bears all things and believes all things is not found in how spiritual we are, how pure our theology is, or how rigidly we hold to doctrine.
Love that hopes all things and endures all things is not found in taking care of number one, and is not a commodity we can own. The love that never fails is a thing to be done, and to be pursued, and shared, and enacted. Done. Reflected.
Are there any questions?
Let us pray.
If you ever get the chance, read Dr. Edward Welch's book "When People are Big (and God is Small)." It's about overcoming codependency and peer pressure, but the lessons within (like Derek Webb's song "Wedding Dress") should be included in the New Testament canon.
What follows is either an OK, if longish, sermon, or the worst piece of crap I've ever written.
Jeremiah 1:4-10
Now the word of the LORD came to me saying,
"Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
and before you were born I consecrated you;
I appointed you a prophet to the nations."
Then I said, "Ah, Lord GOD! Truly I do not know how to speak, for I am only a boy." But the LORD said to me,
"Do not say, 'I am only a boy';
for you shall go to all to whom I send you,
and you shall speak whatever I command you,
Do not be afraid of them,
for I am with you to deliver you,
says the LORD."
Then the LORD put out his hand and touched my mouth; and the LORD said to me,
"Now I have put my words in your mouth.
See, today I appoint you over nations and over kingdoms,
to pluck up and to pull down,
to destroy and to overthrow,
to build and to plant."
Luke 4:21-30
Then he began to say to them, "Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing." All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth. They said, "Is not this Joseph's son?" He said to them, "Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, 'Doctor, cure yourself!' And you will say, 'Do here also in your hometown the things that we have heard you did at Capernaum.'" And he said, "Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in the prophet's hometown. But the truth is, there were many widows in Israel in the time of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, and there was a severe famine over all the land; yet Elijah was sent to none of them except to a widow at Zarephath in Sidon. There were also many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian." When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with rage. They got up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they might hurl him off the cliff. But he passed through the midst of them and went on his way.
1 Corinthians 13:1-13
If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong 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. If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.
Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.
This is the Word of the Lord.
Ah, the “Love Chapter.” You've no doubt heard this chapter at weddings and such. It's one of those passages I love to read out loud just because it sounds so good, deep and profound and poetic and lovely. Reading it makes me wish my voice had the depth and resonance of, say, James Earl Jones. But if you've read the New Testament for any length of time, you probably suspect, like I do, that nothing's ever just poetic and pretty when it comes to the Apostle Paul... and this is especially true of his letters to the church at Corinth.
The church at Corinth had so many problems, and was doing so many things wrong... well, if the Jerry Springer Show married every reality-TV program ever married, the Corinthian church would be their child. They were fighting over who was better based on who baptized who, they were getting drunk during the agape meal, there were weird love connections going on, and in all of this they were forever at each others' throats over who was more spiritual.
The Corinthian church was broken, sick, and an embarrassment. There was only one solution, and it wasn't to disband the church and try to start over somewhere else; it wasn't to declare one “side” right and the other wrong, it wasn't to come in screaming and breaking chairs. The solution was love.
It's often been said that you can't define love. If we're talking about the emotion, the state of being, then that might well be true; I know I've never been able to do it justice with words. Yet right out of the gate, Paul is defining love by what it is, is not, and what it does and does not do. “Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.”
In reading that short definitional passage, it would seem that in all their struggle to be right, to be first, to be better than, more spiritual than, more important than, more right than, the Corinthians had become impatient, unkind, envious, boastful, arrogant and rude, they insisted on their own way, were irritable and resentful, they celebrated wrongdoing, avoided any truth that didn't agree with their preconceptions... in other words, everything that love is not.
They were, in that respect, not so different from the residents of Nazareth on the day Jesus preached in their synagogue.
Nazareth was a hard place in which to be a devoted Jew. It was too far away from the good influence of Jerusalem and the Temple, and too influenced by the pagan Gentiles and heterodox Samaritans that surrounded it on three sides.
The town, indeed the whole region of Galilee, had a bad reputation; that's why Nathaniel could say to Philip, when told about Jesus of Nazareth, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”
So it isn't a stretch to think that the townspeople were looking to Jesus to come and set things straight: restore right thinking and right practice to the faithful, drive out the evil Gentiles and Samaritans from the city limits, maybe do a few miracles to razzle-dazzle the crowd and drive his point home. After all, Jesus was a hometown boy, and he owed it to the place he grew up to take care of things at home first, right?
Well, here's what drove the crowd crazy, to the point of trying to kill Jesus: far from agreeing with them that the influence of Gentiles and Samaritans was a bad thing, he shared two accounts from the Scriptures where God had apparently shown preference to the pagans and the Gentiles! With all the widows starving during the famine, the one who was saved from death was in Sidon; with all the lepers suffering in Israel, Namaan of Syria was the one God cleansed! Was Jesus saying that God preferred those who worshiped idols? That those who chased after false gods were better than those who had given their lives to the one true God?
In fact, Jesus was reintroducing to the Nazarenes that central theme of the Law and the Prophets – a theme which Paul later reminds the Corinthans of, and which runs throughout both Testaments, and our readings today: Faith in God, devotion to our Creator, is not best defined by doctrines and theologies, not by lists of acceptable and unacceptable behaviors or (God forbid) people, not by buildings or memberships. If we can say, with the Apostle John, that “God is love,” and affirm that the focus of our journey is to become more and more the personification of Jesus Christ in our daily lives, then faith in God must be defined at its core by the pursuit and practice of love.
In his book “When People Are Big (and God is Small),” Dr. Ed Welch identifies one of the central difficulties many human beings have with this idea of practicing and pursuing love: it's a basic misunderstanding of the role of love in our lives and the lives of others.
In the context of love, whether the love of others or the love of God, the tendency is to view ourselves as containers to be poured into. “Love cups,” Dr. Welch calls them. The problem is that we aren't really made for the job; our love cups have holes in them... so no matter how much love is poured in, it's never, ever enough. We keep running out and needing more. No one can keep up with our demand to be filled and fulfilled.
Now, like every analogy, we can carry it too far. We Christians are filled with the Holy Spirit, so there are contexts in which being vessels to contain God's love are accurate. In the context of the kind of love which Paul speaks of though, the kind of love Jesus was an example of for us, who we are and how we function as members of the Body of Christ is in fact quite different, and it's related beautifully in a story shared by author Robert Fulghum:
"Are there any questions?" An offer that comes at the end of college lectures and long meetings. Said when an audience is not only overdosed with information, but when there is no time left anyhow. At times like that you sure do have questions. Like, "Can we leave now?" and "What... was this meeting for?" and "Where can I get [something to] drink?"
The gesture is supposed to indicate openness on the part of the speaker, I suppose, but if in fact you do ask a question, both the speaker and the audience will give you drop-dead looks. And some fool-some earnest idiot always asks. And the speaker always answers. By repeating most of what he has already said.
But if there is a little time left and there is a little silence in response to the invitation, I usually ask the most important question of all: "What is the Meaning of Life?"
You never know, somebody may have the answer, and I'd really hate to miss it because I was too socially inhibited to ask. But when I ask, it's usually taken as a kind of absurdist move – people laugh and nod and gather up their stuff and the meeting is dismissed on that ridiculous note.
Once and only once, I asked that question and got a serious answer. One that is with me still.
First, I must tell you where this happened, because the place has a power of its own. In Greece again. Near the village of Gonia on a rocky bay of the island of Crete sits a Greek Orthodox monastery. Alongside it, on land donated by the monastery, is an institute dedicated to human understanding and peace, and especially to rapprochement between Germans and Cretans. An improbable task, given the bitter residue of wartime.
This site is important, because it overlooks the small airstrip at Maleme where Nazi paratroopers invaded Crete and were attacked by peasants wielding kitchen knives and hay scythes. The retribution was terrible. The populations of whole villages were lined up and shot for assaulting Hitler's finest troops. High above the institute is a cemetery with a single cross marking the mass grave of Cretan partisans. And across the bay on yet another hill is the regimented burial ground of the Nazi paratroopers. The memorials are so placed that all might see and never forget.
Hate was the only weapon the Cretans had at the end, and it was a weapon many vowed never to give up. Never ever.
Against this heavy curtain of history, in this place where the stone of hatred is hard and thick, the existence of an institute devoted to healing the wounds of war is a fragile paradox. How has it come to be here? The answer is a man. Alexander Papaderos.
A doctor of philosophy, teacher, politician, resident of Athens but a son of this soil. At war's end he came to believe that the Germans and the Cretans had much to give one another--much to learn from one another. That they had an example to set. For if they could forgive each other and construct a creative relationship, then any people could.
To make a lovely story short, Papaderos succeeded. The institute became a reality--a conference ground on the site of horror--and it was in fact a source of productive interactions between the two countries. Books have been written on the dreams that were realized by what people gave to people for a summer session. Alexander Papaderos had become a living legend. One look at him and you saw his strength and intensity--energy, physical power, courage, intelligence, passion and vivacity radiated from this person. And to speak to him, to shake his hand, to be in a room with him when he spoke, was to experience his extraordinary electric humanity. Few men live up to their reputations when you get close. Alexander Papaderos was an exception.
At the last session on the last morning of a two-week seminar on Greek culture, led by intellectuals and experts in their fields who were recruited by Papaderos from across Greece, Papaderos rose from his chair at the back of the room and walked to the front, where he stood in the bright Greek sunlight of an open window and looked out. We followed his gaze across the bay to the iron cross marking the German cemetery.
He turned. And made the ritual gesture: "Are there any questions?"
Quiet quilted the room. These two weeks had generated enough questions for a lifetime, but for now there was only silence. "No questions?" Papaderos swept the room with his eyes. So I asked.
"Dr. Papaderos, what is the Meaning of Life?"
The usual laughter followed and people stirred to go. Papaderos held up his hand and stilled the room and looked at me for a long time, asking with his eyes if I was serious and seeing from my eyes that I was.
"I will answer your question."
Taking his wallet out of his hip pocket, he fished into a leather billfold and brought out a very small round mirror, about the size of a quarter. And what he said went like this:
"When I was a small child, during the war, we were very poor and we lived in a remote village. One day, on the road, I found the broken pieces of a mirror. A German motorcycle had been wrecked in that place.
"I tried to find all the pieces and put them together, but it was not possible, so I kept only the largest piece. This one. And by scratching it on a stone I made it round. I began to play with it as a toy and became fascinated by the fact that I could reflect light into dark places where the sun would never shine--in deep holes and crevices and dark closets. It became a game for me to get light into the most inaccessible places I could find.
"I kept the little mirror, and as I went about my growing up, I would take it out in idle moments and continue the challenge of the game. As I became a man, I grew to understand that this was not just a child's game but a metaphor for what I might do with my life. I came to understand that I am not the light or the source of the light. But light --truth, understanding, knowledge--is there, and it will only shine in many dark places if I reflect it.
"I am a fragment of a mirror whose whole design and shape I do not know. Nevertheless, with what I have I can reflect light into the dark places of this world--into the black places in the hearts of men--and change some things in some people. Perhaps others may see and do likewise. This is what I am about. This is the meaning of my life."
And then he took his small mirror and, holding it carefully, caught the bright rays of daylight streaming through the window and reflected them onto my face and onto my hands folded on the desk.
Much of what I experienced in the way of information about Greek culture and history that summer is gone from memory. But in the wallet of my mind I carry a small round mirror still.
One of the earliest names given to those who followed Jesus was “Christian,” meant disparagingly and translated originally as “little Christs.” The idea was that these early believers were acting like little replicas, little reflections of their God. Not “love cups,” not “masters of their own domain,” or “first among equals,” ot “the most spiritual person,” but reflections.
Love that bears all things and believes all things is not found in how spiritual we are, how pure our theology is, or how rigidly we hold to doctrine.
Love that hopes all things and endures all things is not found in taking care of number one, and is not a commodity we can own. The love that never fails is a thing to be done, and to be pursued, and shared, and enacted. Done. Reflected.
Are there any questions?
Let us pray.
Sunday, January 17, 2010
God Has Not Forgotten You!
I purposely do not use the name of that multimillionaire evangelist blowhard because I do not want to give him the publicity, even with my limited reach. He deserves obsolescence.
Oh, and John Stewart as God's messenger to the people of Haiti? Hey, why not?
Isaiah 62:1-5
For Zion's sake I will not keep silent,
and for Jerusalem's sake I will not rest,
until her vindication shines out like the dawn,
and her salvation like a burning torch.
The nations shall see your vindication,
and all the kings your glory;
and you shall be called by a new name
that the mouth of the LORD will give.
You shall be a crown of beauty in the hand of the LORD,
and a royal diadem in the hand of your God.
You shall no more be termed Forsaken,
and your land shall no more be termed Desolate;
but you shall be called My Delight Is in Her,
and your land Married;
for the LORD delights in you,
and your land shall be married.
For as a young man marries a young woman,
so shall your builder marry you,
and as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride,
so shall your God rejoice over you.
This is the Word of the Lord.
The year was 538 BC. Under a blistering summer sun, the travel-weary caravan neared the crest of the last hill before their destination, Jerusalem.
It had been a long trip from Babylon, the travelers pushing on day after day in the excitement of their newfound freedom. The exile is over, and at last the Jewish people can go home. The Levites spoke in hushed tones about how to handle restoring worship on the Temple mount, others dreamed about establishing their homes and livelihoods in an all-but-abandoned city which many of them had never seen.
When they topped that last hill and looked across to Jerusalem, their hearts sank. It was worse than anyone could have imagined. Much of the city was rubble. Little remained of the city walls, and the Temple was completely destroyed. What excitement had survived the long journey now evaporated, and in the hearts of the weary travelers, the same old nagging questions began to whisper, “Has God forgotten us? Has God given up?”
Less than seven hundred miles off the Florida coast, the tiny nation of Haiti suffered a devastating earthquake this past week. Much of the country is in ruins, corpses are stacked in the streets of major cities like Port-au-Prince, food and water are in short supply, and time is running out for thousands of people still alive but trapped in the rubble.
One can look at Haiti and wonder how much more a nation can take. Since declaring its independence from France in 1804, the island nation has seen dictatorships, military juntas, foreign occupation and de-facto enslavement, astounding and blatant political corruption, and war upon war, in an almost continuous chronological line. In the past 206 years, the world's oldest black republic, and the second-oldest republic in the Western Hemisphere has seen less than seventy years of truly freely elected democratic rule. The current elected government, in power since 2006, depends on the help of peacekeeping troops to maintain order. The people are profoundly poor, with few options and little hope in the best of times. And now, this. One could forgive a now-homeless and bleeding Haitian, digging by hand in the rubble of her home to try and find her children, of accusing God of having given up. Of having forgotten Haiti.
And then there are the smaller, personal disasters. Common to everyone from time to time, whether financial, medical, emotional or spiritual, even committed Christians experience devastating upheavals in life. Times when our own world shatters and we view the rubble and wonder if God has forgotten us, if God has given up on us. And all too often, either because we don't want to appear to be weak in the faith or because we have been taught somewhere that speaking negatively is unspiritual, the questions, the doubts, the fears remain hidden in our hearts.
It is in these times – standing on that last hill, looking at the rubble-strewn Temple Mount in the distance, trying to understand... these times, looking at the images of impoverished human beings left utterly destitute by a natural disaster... these times, when our own life seems to be little more than smoldering ruins... that God has said and does say to each and every one of us, “The nations shall see your vindication, and all the kings your glory; and you shall be called by a new name that the mouth of the LORD will give. You shall be a crown of beauty in the hand of the LORD, and a royal diadem in the hand of your God. You shall no more be termed Forsaken, and your land shall no more be termed Desolate; but you shall be called My Delight Is in Her...”
I think, or at least hope, that it is not my style of preaching to do “feel good” sermons, all butterflies and rainbows and God's love for you means you should always be happy and content, there are no problems, only opportunities, you know, the kind of things the TV preachers are big on these days. Still and yet I find myself, over the past few weeks, returning to this concept, this breathtaking theme of God's grace, of God's unconditional love, of how each of us, individually, are precious to God.
Sometimes it's important to remind ourselves that God has not given up on us.
Sometimes it's more than just comforting, but vital, to be reminded that God has called us by name, that in life, in death, and in life beyond death we belong to God, to be reminded that this twilight means the dawn is certainly coming. In this season of Epiphany, perhaps the greatest thing we as followers of Christ need to discover, or rediscover, is the simple, yet profound truth that transcends theology, doctrine, denomination, race, or higher orthodoxy: God loves us, collectively and as individuals.
If I may paraphrase Max Lucado, “If God had a refrigerator, your picture would be on it. If [God] had a wallet, your photo would be in it. [God] sends you flowers every spring and a sunrise every morning. Whenever you want to talk, [God will] listen. [God] can live anywhere in the universe, and... chose your heart. What about the Christmas gift [God] sent you in Bethlehem; not to mention that Friday at Calvary. Face it, friend. [God is] crazy about you.”
We need to remember this at those times when we are at our darkest, lowest points, when God seems far away, yes. God has not forgotten you. God has not given up on you.
God has engraved you on the palms of God's hands.
But like that first leper in the book of Mark, healed by Jesus and sternly ordered to keep it to himself, the knowledge that God is on our side is explosive. It's revolutionary. It cannot be kept silent!
The great good news of God's abundant grace, of God's unconditional love, cannot, and must not be, kept silent, and the events of this past week are a good example of it.
Following the earthquake in Haiti, a well known TV evangelist, a multimillionaire with his own TV network, blamed the earthquake on a supposed pact with the devil that nineteenth-century Haitian revolutionaries made in order to drive the French from their country. That this is simply not true is almost beside the point when you consider that this man took an opportunity to proclaim God's love, to pray for those devastated by the disaster, and to offer guidance in supporting relief operations, and squandered it by saying, in effect, that the Haitians deserved what they got.
But the fact that God's message of love – the assurance that God has not forgotten Haiti, that God has not given up on Haiti, cannot be silenced was demonstrated in a truly amazing way. Comedian John Stewart, host of “The Daily Show,” quoted on his show just three examples from Scripture of the promises God makes to all those who are suffering, all those who face disaster, devastation, and ruin:
Psalm 34:18, “The LORD is near to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit,” the last part of Psalm 71:20, “from the depths of the earth you will again bring me up,” and finishing with Isaiah 54:10, “'Though the mountains be shaken and the hills be removed, yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken nor my covenant of peace be removed,' says the LORD, who has compassion on you.”
And even though the Bible verses were quoted in the context of discrediting this particular TV evangelist, the message of those words calls out loud and clear. These are the things we need to be saying, and acting upon, whenever disaster strikes. The church must be in the forefront of relief and rebuilding efforts, and most vocal in reassuring the suffering that God indeed has not forgotten them, God has not given up!
And as individual believers, we must be at the forefront with support for relief efforts – if we can't go there, we must provide finances and material support in whatever way we can. You can even give to the Red Cross by text message these days! Our denomination's disaster relief program is in full swing in Haiti right now, and organizations like the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability can offer guidance toward other trustworthy Christian ministries offering relief in Haiti.
Further, though, and with regard to everything else in life, we must be proactive in our support of one another, and for everyone in all facets of our life. Here's one example: do you ever get the notion, out of the blue, to pray for someone? Do, it, and let them know. Twice this past week, a friend of mine in another state has sent me a simple text message, a message I got at exactly the right time: “I'm praying for you, brother.” Simple things like that shout the grace of God into the lives of those around you.
God loves you. God loves (fill in the blank). God has not forgotten you. God has not forgotten (fill in the blank). God has not given up on you, and God has not given up on (fill in the blank). You get the idea. Now rejoice in the idea, and share that idea!
Let us pray.
Oh, and John Stewart as God's messenger to the people of Haiti? Hey, why not?
Isaiah 62:1-5
For Zion's sake I will not keep silent,
and for Jerusalem's sake I will not rest,
until her vindication shines out like the dawn,
and her salvation like a burning torch.
The nations shall see your vindication,
and all the kings your glory;
and you shall be called by a new name
that the mouth of the LORD will give.
You shall be a crown of beauty in the hand of the LORD,
and a royal diadem in the hand of your God.
You shall no more be termed Forsaken,
and your land shall no more be termed Desolate;
but you shall be called My Delight Is in Her,
and your land Married;
for the LORD delights in you,
and your land shall be married.
For as a young man marries a young woman,
so shall your builder marry you,
and as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride,
so shall your God rejoice over you.
This is the Word of the Lord.
The year was 538 BC. Under a blistering summer sun, the travel-weary caravan neared the crest of the last hill before their destination, Jerusalem.
It had been a long trip from Babylon, the travelers pushing on day after day in the excitement of their newfound freedom. The exile is over, and at last the Jewish people can go home. The Levites spoke in hushed tones about how to handle restoring worship on the Temple mount, others dreamed about establishing their homes and livelihoods in an all-but-abandoned city which many of them had never seen.
When they topped that last hill and looked across to Jerusalem, their hearts sank. It was worse than anyone could have imagined. Much of the city was rubble. Little remained of the city walls, and the Temple was completely destroyed. What excitement had survived the long journey now evaporated, and in the hearts of the weary travelers, the same old nagging questions began to whisper, “Has God forgotten us? Has God given up?”
Less than seven hundred miles off the Florida coast, the tiny nation of Haiti suffered a devastating earthquake this past week. Much of the country is in ruins, corpses are stacked in the streets of major cities like Port-au-Prince, food and water are in short supply, and time is running out for thousands of people still alive but trapped in the rubble.
One can look at Haiti and wonder how much more a nation can take. Since declaring its independence from France in 1804, the island nation has seen dictatorships, military juntas, foreign occupation and de-facto enslavement, astounding and blatant political corruption, and war upon war, in an almost continuous chronological line. In the past 206 years, the world's oldest black republic, and the second-oldest republic in the Western Hemisphere has seen less than seventy years of truly freely elected democratic rule. The current elected government, in power since 2006, depends on the help of peacekeeping troops to maintain order. The people are profoundly poor, with few options and little hope in the best of times. And now, this. One could forgive a now-homeless and bleeding Haitian, digging by hand in the rubble of her home to try and find her children, of accusing God of having given up. Of having forgotten Haiti.
And then there are the smaller, personal disasters. Common to everyone from time to time, whether financial, medical, emotional or spiritual, even committed Christians experience devastating upheavals in life. Times when our own world shatters and we view the rubble and wonder if God has forgotten us, if God has given up on us. And all too often, either because we don't want to appear to be weak in the faith or because we have been taught somewhere that speaking negatively is unspiritual, the questions, the doubts, the fears remain hidden in our hearts.
It is in these times – standing on that last hill, looking at the rubble-strewn Temple Mount in the distance, trying to understand... these times, looking at the images of impoverished human beings left utterly destitute by a natural disaster... these times, when our own life seems to be little more than smoldering ruins... that God has said and does say to each and every one of us, “The nations shall see your vindication, and all the kings your glory; and you shall be called by a new name that the mouth of the LORD will give. You shall be a crown of beauty in the hand of the LORD, and a royal diadem in the hand of your God. You shall no more be termed Forsaken, and your land shall no more be termed Desolate; but you shall be called My Delight Is in Her...”
I think, or at least hope, that it is not my style of preaching to do “feel good” sermons, all butterflies and rainbows and God's love for you means you should always be happy and content, there are no problems, only opportunities, you know, the kind of things the TV preachers are big on these days. Still and yet I find myself, over the past few weeks, returning to this concept, this breathtaking theme of God's grace, of God's unconditional love, of how each of us, individually, are precious to God.
Sometimes it's important to remind ourselves that God has not given up on us.
Sometimes it's more than just comforting, but vital, to be reminded that God has called us by name, that in life, in death, and in life beyond death we belong to God, to be reminded that this twilight means the dawn is certainly coming. In this season of Epiphany, perhaps the greatest thing we as followers of Christ need to discover, or rediscover, is the simple, yet profound truth that transcends theology, doctrine, denomination, race, or higher orthodoxy: God loves us, collectively and as individuals.
If I may paraphrase Max Lucado, “If God had a refrigerator, your picture would be on it. If [God] had a wallet, your photo would be in it. [God] sends you flowers every spring and a sunrise every morning. Whenever you want to talk, [God will] listen. [God] can live anywhere in the universe, and... chose your heart. What about the Christmas gift [God] sent you in Bethlehem; not to mention that Friday at Calvary. Face it, friend. [God is] crazy about you.”
We need to remember this at those times when we are at our darkest, lowest points, when God seems far away, yes. God has not forgotten you. God has not given up on you.
God has engraved you on the palms of God's hands.
But like that first leper in the book of Mark, healed by Jesus and sternly ordered to keep it to himself, the knowledge that God is on our side is explosive. It's revolutionary. It cannot be kept silent!
The great good news of God's abundant grace, of God's unconditional love, cannot, and must not be, kept silent, and the events of this past week are a good example of it.
Following the earthquake in Haiti, a well known TV evangelist, a multimillionaire with his own TV network, blamed the earthquake on a supposed pact with the devil that nineteenth-century Haitian revolutionaries made in order to drive the French from their country. That this is simply not true is almost beside the point when you consider that this man took an opportunity to proclaim God's love, to pray for those devastated by the disaster, and to offer guidance in supporting relief operations, and squandered it by saying, in effect, that the Haitians deserved what they got.
But the fact that God's message of love – the assurance that God has not forgotten Haiti, that God has not given up on Haiti, cannot be silenced was demonstrated in a truly amazing way. Comedian John Stewart, host of “The Daily Show,” quoted on his show just three examples from Scripture of the promises God makes to all those who are suffering, all those who face disaster, devastation, and ruin:
Psalm 34:18, “The LORD is near to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit,” the last part of Psalm 71:20, “from the depths of the earth you will again bring me up,” and finishing with Isaiah 54:10, “'Though the mountains be shaken and the hills be removed, yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken nor my covenant of peace be removed,' says the LORD, who has compassion on you.”
And even though the Bible verses were quoted in the context of discrediting this particular TV evangelist, the message of those words calls out loud and clear. These are the things we need to be saying, and acting upon, whenever disaster strikes. The church must be in the forefront of relief and rebuilding efforts, and most vocal in reassuring the suffering that God indeed has not forgotten them, God has not given up!
And as individual believers, we must be at the forefront with support for relief efforts – if we can't go there, we must provide finances and material support in whatever way we can. You can even give to the Red Cross by text message these days! Our denomination's disaster relief program is in full swing in Haiti right now, and organizations like the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability can offer guidance toward other trustworthy Christian ministries offering relief in Haiti.
Further, though, and with regard to everything else in life, we must be proactive in our support of one another, and for everyone in all facets of our life. Here's one example: do you ever get the notion, out of the blue, to pray for someone? Do, it, and let them know. Twice this past week, a friend of mine in another state has sent me a simple text message, a message I got at exactly the right time: “I'm praying for you, brother.” Simple things like that shout the grace of God into the lives of those around you.
God loves you. God loves (fill in the blank). God has not forgotten you. God has not forgotten (fill in the blank). God has not given up on you, and God has not given up on (fill in the blank). You get the idea. Now rejoice in the idea, and share that idea!
Let us pray.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)