Category: Sermon

“And God saw that it was good.”

On By J. Barrett LeeIn Sermon2 Comments
Image of the Carina Nebula taken by the Hubble Space Telescope

Trinity Sunday sermon from First Presbyterian, Boonville.

The text is Genesis 1:1-2:4a.

We read this morning from the story of creation in the book of Genesis.  This is one of the most familiar (and controversial) texts in the entire Bible.  It’s often used as a wedge and a weapon by those who would try to set up science and faith as mutually exclusive categories of knowledge.

Some say that this is a literal and historical account of what actually happened during the first week of existence for the universe (which they take to have happened about six thousand years ago).  These folks often have witty bumper stickers that say things like, “The Bible says it, I believe it, and that settles it” or “The Big Bang Theory: God spoke and BANG, it happened”.

On the other hand, there are those who say that this story is nothing more than an ancient legend made up by people who didn’t have the benefit of modern science at their disposal.  These days, they say, this story is useful only as a cultural artifact.  It should be studied in the same way that Greek mythology is studied: without regard for its truth or relevance to contemporary life.

So then, are these our only two options for understanding this text?  Do we reject, on the one hand, the findings of the scientific community as the deceptions of Satan or the product of secular humanist conspiracy?  Or, on the other hand, do we throw out the Bible as an ancient relic, abandoning it to be used and abused by ignorant bigots, like those who once believed that the earth is flat?

Or is there a third option?  Is there some way for us to lower our mental buckets into this well and bring up gallons of living water?  Can this text serve as a source of divine truth for us, even if we don’t accept it as literally and historically factual?  I think there is.

Let’s start by looking at the text itself.  You’ll notice that there is a lot of repetition going on.  “And God said, ‘Let there be… and God saw that it was good… and there was evening and there was morning, the [#] day.”  This happens over and over again, so much that you start to expect it.  There is a kind of natural rhythm to this passage.  Tell me, where else do you find rhythm and repetition in language?  In poetry!  This text reads like a poem.

What’s even more interesting is how the ideas and images in this poem develop as we read on.  Let’s look at the first six days of creation and the creatures that emerge on each day.  To make it easier to understand, we’re going to divide the days into two groups that stand side by side: days 1-3 and days 4-6.

On the first day, God creates light and darkness itself.  Parallel this with the fourth day, when God creates the sun, moon, and stars (i.e. those objects (beings) that dwell in the light and darkness of day and night).  On the second day, God separates the sky and the water.  Then look at the fifth day, when God creates birds and fish (i.e. the life-forms that live in the sky and water).  On the third day, God calls forth the land and vegetation from the sea.  Match this up with the sixth day, when God makes land animals and humans, whose job it is to care for the rest of creation.

On days 1-3, God creates a particular environment and then fills each environment with inhabitants on days 4-6, leaving human beings in charge of the whole thing.  Then, on the seventh day, God takes a break.  For this reason, the text tells us, every seventh day is set apart as sacred.  On this day, people are called to rest from their work and reflect on the goodness of God’s creation.

“Okay Barrett,” you might say, “it’s a nice poem, but what does it mean?  Why are these words and ideas laid out in the way they are?”  In order to answer that question, it would make sense to look at who wrote this poem, where and when it was written, and why they wrote it.

The problem is that we don’t exactly know the who, where, when, and why of this poem’s author.  Unlike modern writers, authors in the ancient world didn’t exactly sign and date their material.  And, as any teacher will tell you, it’s almost impossible to figure out who wrote a nameless and dateless paper, even when you know it was written in the last week!  Imagine trying to do it with a paper that’s several thousand years old!  Forget about it!

Biblical scholars have spent years trying to solve this mystery.  Their best guess is that this poem was probably written by a Jewish person sometime during the sixth century B.C.  Jews at that time were living in exile, working as slaves in the country of Babylon.  The Babylonians had conquered the holy land and dragged many of the people off to work for them elsewhere.  Removing people from their land was a common strategy used by the Babylonians to break people’s spirits and keep them submissive.  The Jews living and working in Babylon huddled together in sorrow for their lost home.  All around them, their Babylonian bosses made them feel like they were less than human.  They treated God’s people like machines or property.  They made fun of Jewish culture and religion.

“You God is so weak,” they said, “our god, Marduk, was able to beat yours in battle.  That’s why you’re our slaves now.  Why don’t you give up worshiping your pitiful little God and worship ours instead?”

Well, the Jews didn’t listen to that talk.  They got together and, once a week, these Jewish slaves went on strike.  They refused to work.  They huddled together to sing, pray, and tell stories.  They celebrated their faith and culture.  This is the Sabbath day.

On the Sabbath the Jews said to the Babylonians, “You might be in charge (for now) but you don’t own us.  We belong to our God, who made heaven and earth.”  That’s where scholars think this poem came from.  The sun, moon, and animals were all different gods to the Babylonians.  They worshiped them and made all kinds of sacrifices, but the Jews said, “Those aren’t gods!  The sun and moon are just lights in the sky.  The animals were made by our God and given to us to care for.”  Rather than bowing down, the Jewish people stood up to preserve their dignity and celebrate their faith that, one day, their one true God would free them from slavery and bring them home again, just like God once did with Moses in Egypt.  In the meantime, the Jews kept going on strike once a week.  They kept meeting together to worship.  “We’re not your property,” they said, “We’re God’s people.”

So this poem becomes a celebration of faith, hope, and human dignity in the face of chaos, destruction, and oppression.  The poem opens with the image of a dark and stormy ocean.  Nothing but a “formless void”, but God is there.  God is speaking.  And God is making something good out of this mess!

In the same way, you and I live in a dark and chaotic world.  The society around us laughs at our faith.  It would be so easy to become frightened or cynical.  Maybe we’re not exactly slaves, like the Jews were under the Babylonians, but we often get treated like we’re less than human.  Government bureaucracy treats us like cattle, shuffling us around and identifying us by our Social Security Number.  Corporate advertising calls us “consumers” and tells us that our only value as human beings comes from how much money we have to spend.

“It’s a dog-eat-dog world,” they say, “you’ve got to take whatever you can get or somebody else will!”

Can we, as people of faith, find the courage to stand up and say no to that?

Like the ancient Jews, you and I already gather here once a week to sing, pray, and tell stories like this one.  When you come here, you’re reminding yourself that you are more than just a consumer or constituent.  You are a child of God.  You have inherent dignity as a human being.  You matter.

That’s a message that the world around you will try to drown out, if it can.  It will try to swallow up your soul in that ocean of darkness and chaos.

The power of faith is the power to resist that fear and cynicism.  It’s the power of hope.  It’s the power of human dignity.  It’s the power to celebrate the goodness of creation.  It’s the power to say that our God is more real than the false gods of consumerism and ideology.  The power of faith is the power to say, “God is making something good out of this mess!”

Do you believe that?  Can you see in your life what the ancient Jews saw in this passage?  The truth in this text has little to do with how the universe began, whether it was thousands or billions of years ago.  It has everything to do with how you look at the universe today.  Are you a faith-full or a faith-less person?  My prayer is that God would open your heart in the midst of this life’s “formless void”, so full of darkness and chaos, and that you would somehow sense the mystery of God’s presence saying to you, “Let there be light.”

My (re)Ordination

On By J. Barrett LeeIn Sermon4 Comments

My leap over Hadrian’s Wall is now complete!  I am a minister of the Word and Sacrament in the Presbyterian Church (USA).

Click here to read the bulletin from the service.

Posted below is the sermon, which was written and delivered by my dear friend (and fellow Trekkie), the Reverend Naomi Kelly.  Naomi serves as pastor of Forest Presbyterian Church in Lyons Falls, NY.  This sermon is reprinted with her permission.

Her text is the Beatitudes, Matthew 5:1-12.

I’m sure that you’ve watched many Star Trek episodes, and I’m sure you’re familiar with the Episode from Star Trek: The Next Generation where Captain Picard becomes a little boy, there is some kind ionic cloud and passes over the shuttle craft and he, Guinan and Ensign Ro are genetically altered to the time just before puberty, they are pre-teens is you will. Captain Picard is very happy that he has hair, and when the antidote seems impossible and the he will be young and grow up again, and be given another chance to go through life, he begins to imagine what he can become, he was already a Star Ship Captain, maybe this time he will be an archaeologist, another one of his passions. But soon the ship is in danger and young or not he must act, he must do something to save his ship. It was very difficult for him not being able to command his ship the way he used to.  He  still has all his skills, only in a younger body. And he finds that when he changes his perspective and begins to see with the eyes of  a child he is able to do great things, he is able to use his childishness to save the ship. His perspective is changed as he figures out what he needs to do in order to succeed at his calling. When Jean Luc was able to humble himself, to become vulnerable,  to allow the child that he’d become to direct  his actions, he was able to do great things. Star Trek always has the ability to give us new and fresh perspectives on our culture by taking us outside ourselves just enough so that we can see where we fall short, where we need work, what we can do better.

Jesus does that too, (you see Star Trek always copies Jesus) Jesus gives us new perspectives on life, like His Sermon on the Mount. The Beatitudes give us one such twist. Seasons of the Spirit, a commentary on “Year A January 30, 2011 says:  “In these saying, Jesus turns human notions of happiness upside down. What kind of living brings God’s blessing? Jesus teaches that the blessed ones are those who are humble of heart, who are gentle, who show mercy, who hunger and thirst for God’s ways. Those who mourn will be comforted; those who make peace will be called God’s children. Those who are persecuted in the cause of justice will find themselves part of God’s transforming reality.”

The Beatitudes give us a beautiful vision of what the world can be like. It is a vision that allows us to see the world from a different perspective.  Like Paul says in the letter to the Philippians we need to be humble as Jesus was humble, to be more Christ like- that gentle merciful nature that is part of us, that we hide away, because we think it makes us vulnerable is what Jesus reminds us to show to the world. The kind of power that we’re used to, is not God’s idea of power.

These stories are revealing of the church in a way, they remind us that at one time the church took itself too seriously, that we began to want more power and influence in the world, and now all the mainline denominations are struggling, perhaps we lost the vision of Jesus’ teachings, perhaps the world doesn’t need what we have to offer anymore.  I don’t know about you, but I often think I know better than God, I have all the answers, this kind of attitude leaves us inflexible, and not humble at all.

It is time for new a perspective again, it is time to reform and always be reforming, it is time to read the words that we have had handed down to us with new eyes, in a new light, and see where we need to change our perspective. The Spirit of Christ enables us to do that, gives us the insight and vision to change. Just as the young Jean Luc was able to change his perspective and use the skills of a pre-teen to save his ship, we are able to open to new ways of being church to make a difference in our world. And we can say, Blessed are the weak because when we are weak then God is strong and can influence and change our lives and our behavior.  Blessed are the flexible for they will survive the changes that come along.

Blessed are the young at heart for they will able to transform the church to serve the world and each other.

We Are All Ordained

On By J. Barrett LeeIn Sermon3 Comments

William Wilberforce, as portrayed by Ioan Gruffudd in Amazing Grace (2006)

This week’s sermon from First Presbyterian, Boonville.

The text is Acts 2:1-21.

William Wilberforce had a problem.  He was trying to figure out what to do with his life.  Most youth and adults know what that’s like.  However, what makes this case different is that Wilberforce was already a successful member of the British Parliament.  In American terms, he would be called a Congressman.  To be where he was (especially in 18th century England), one would assume that he had already climbed the ladder of success!

The thing that had Wilberforce all worked up about his future is that he had recently experienced a profound and life-altering spiritual awakening.  His personal relationship with God had suddenly taken over his life to such a degree that Wilberforce was thinking of quitting politics for good and entering ordained ministry in the Anglican Church.  He was at a loss over what to do.

While he was in this state of mind, Wilberforce was introduced to a group of Christian activists who were campaigning heavily for the abolition of the slave trade in Great Britain.  The beginning of Wilberforce’s involvement with this group (later known as ‘the Clapham sect’) is depicted beautifully in the 2006 film Amazing Grace.  Seated around his dining room table, they showed him examples of the irons used to restrain captured slaves during their journey across the Atlantic.  Conditions were so brutal that no one was guaranteed to survive.  They introduced him to Olaudah Equiano, a liberated slave who became an active abolitionist.  Equiano showed him the scars on his body.  While Wilberforce’s mouth was still hanging open in shock, Thomas Clarkson and Hannah More delivered what I believe to be the best line in the film:

Thomas Clarkson: Mr. Wilberforce, we understand you are having problems choosing whether to do the work of God or the work of a political activist.

Hannah More: We humbly suggest that you can do both.

And I think they were right.

The members of this group understood one very important truth that most Christians tend to forget.  It’s a truth that we celebrate every year on the feast of Pentecost.  And here it is: The Holy Spirit ordains all people to preach good news to the world.

Not just some, but all.  Have you ever noticed something strange about the early church in the book of Acts?  Most other radical movements in history emerge with a chain of successors once the initial founder is out of the picture.  There was even biblical precedent for this.  After the prophet Elijah ascended to heaven in a chariot of fire, people everywhere recognized his apprentice Elisha as his chosen successor.  They said, “The spirit of Elijah rests on Elisha.”

But that didn’t happen in the early days of Christianity.  Jesus Christ had no heir or replacement.  The title ‘Messiah’ did not pass to a predetermined chosen one after his departure into heaven.  Instead, the Holy Spirit, the very power and presence of God, came to dwell within the entire community of faith.

We read, “When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.”

This kind of thing was totally unprecedented, although the ancient prophets had prayed for something like it to happen.  One time, when people complained to Moses about unauthorized prophets in the Israelite camp, Moses said, “Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets, and that the Lord would put his spirit on them!”  Later on, God spoke through the prophet Joel saying, “I will pour out my spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions. Even on the male and female slaves, in those days, I will pour out my spirit.”

And that’s exactly what happened.  The entire community of believers on Pentecost was filled with the Holy Spirit and each one started “speaking about God’s deeds of power” to people from “every nation under heaven”.  There was no seminary course or board-approved examination.  They simply opened their mouths and started to speak “as the Spirit gave them ability.”

There was no single successor to Jesus’ ministry.  There was no special order of priests or prophets.  The only qualification for speaking forth good news in the power of the Holy Spirit is that you had to believe.  “Out of the believer’s heart,” Jesus said, the Holy Spirit would flow, like “rivers of living water”.  He never said, “Out of the apostle’s heart” or “Out of the pastor’s heart”.  No, Jesus said, “Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water.”

Anyone with an open heart and an open mind about Jesus is a vessel for the Holy Spirit.  This is an important piece of good news for us to hear, on this day of all days.  Later today, a new pastor will be ordained in this church.  But, if we take the message of Pentecost seriously, then we must admit that there is a very real sense in which all of us are already ordained as ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ.  Therefore, each of us has a responsibility to answer God’s call on our lives and preach good news to the world around us as the Holy Spirit gives us ability and opportunity.

Of course, that doesn’t mean we all need to become experts at delivering sermons.  That’s only one way to preach the good news.  A single act of kindness can be a sermon unto itself.  You can even preach by listening while people tell you about their problems.  You might not have fancy theological answers to questions about Christianity, but the simple fact that you’re letting someone ask a tough question is sometimes enough to speak to that person’s heart.

William Wilberforce found his way to do the work of God and the work of politics at the same time.  He devoted the rest of his life to fighting slavery.  He sent petitions, lobbied Members of Parliament, spoke out in the House of Commons, and wrote legislation.  Finally, in 1807, he succeeded in ending the British slave trade once and for all.  He never became a member of the clergy, but this was his life’s work as an ordained minister of the good news.

In the same way, each one of you is an ordained minister of the good news.  You will leave this church today and go back to your neighborhood, your family, your school, your shop, or your office.  As you go, let this reality sink into your heart.  Let this mentality take over your brain:  You are a missionary.  The place where you stand is your mission field.  Be open to whatever ministry opportunities the Holy Spirit may bring into your life today.  Be faithful in your calling as an ordained minister of the good news of Jesus Christ.

It Gets Better

On By J. Barrett LeeIn Sermon1 Comment

Today’s Sermon from First Presbyterian, Boonville.  We celebrated Ascension Sunday and Youth Sunday.  Today also happens to be More Light Sunday for some churches in the PC(USA).  Visit www.mlp.org to find out more.

My text is Ephesians 1:15-23.

Billy Lucas, Cody Barker, Seth Walsh, Tyler Clementi, Asher Brown, Harrison Chase Brown, Raymond Chase, Felix Sacco, and Caleb Nolt.  These nine names belong to nine teenagers who took their own lives during the month of September 2010.  Nine youths in a single month.  What’s even more shocking is that each one of these nine people were driven to suicide by the same thing: each of them was being bullied and tormented by classmates, roommates, and peers because of their sexual orientation.

This rash of suicides last fall received a lot of attention in the media.  Many people were wondering what caused such a sudden spike in such tragedy.  Personally, I wonder if it was happening around us all along, but we just weren’t paying attention until then.  Whatever the case, the events of last September caught the attention of a journalist named Dan Savage who decided to do something about it.  He launched a video campaign on YouTube to reach out toward other teenagers who might be considering suicide for the same reason.

Dan wanted to send a message of hope to these kids.  He wanted them to see videos of adults who persevered through the bullying and went on to find happiness, health, success, and love in their lives.  The message of the project is that, no matter how hard life might seem right now, it gets better.  In fact, that’s what the project is called: ‘It Gets Better’.

‘It Gets Better’ has been a huge success.  200 volunteers had uploaded videos by the end of the first week, telling their stories and offering their lives as an example of hope.  By the end of the second week, they had already reached the 650 video limit imposed by YouTube, so they had to open their own website.  Since then, over 10,000 videos have been produced and submitted.

Most of the videos are posted by regular people who have firsthand experience with being bullied for their orientation; others come from people who simply want to voice support as allies.  People from all walks of life have contributed: students, artists, police officers, soldiers, clergy (including the pastor of this church).  Pretty soon even community organizations and churches were jumping on board.  There are several famous household names who have volunteered as well: Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber, the Boston Red Sox, Dane Cook, Tom Hanks, Neil Patrick Harris, Jennifer Love Hewitt, even the President of the United States contributed a video!

The message of ‘It Gets Better’ is all about hope, which is the same thing we’re talking about today, on Ascension Sunday.  The Ascension is not just a neat magic trick that Jesus did once.  It’s an event that has significance for us all.  Whenever we recite the Apostles’ or Nicene creeds together, we affirm that the resurrected Jesus “ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father.”

In today’s epistle reading from the book of Ephesians, the author talks a lot about what the Ascension of Christ means for believers today.  It starts with a prayer.  The author prays that God will give people “a spirit of wisdom and revelation” so that, with “the eyes of [our] heart enlightened”, we might come to believe in the power of hope.

The author looks to Christ’s Ascension as the basis for that hope.  By virtue of the Ascension, Christ holds dominion “far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the age to come.”  In other words, all of the powers-that-be in this world bow down to Christ as the Ruler of the Universe.  This would be incredible good news for Christians in the first century.

As many of us already know, Christians were hunted and killed during the first centuries of their existence.  The Roman Empire branded Christians as terrorists (because they refused to worship the emperor) and atheists (because they had no statues of gods).  It was a dangerous thing to “come out of the closet” as a Christian in those days because one could face the death penalty for doing so.  It seemed like the powerful Roman Empire was bound to eliminate this radical new Christian movement from the face of the earth.  The situation was utterly hopeless.

But the author of Ephesians has a different perspective on the matter.  All the guts and the glory of the Roman Empire was like a drop in the bucket.  As an international superpower, Rome was one of the “powers that be” in the world system of that day.  All “authority, power, and dominion” led back to Rome (and the house of Caesar).  But Ephesians sees Rome as just another pawn in God’s big chess-game of the universe.  According to Ephesians, the entire Roman Empire existed “under [Christ’s] feet.” Even the great Rome was accountable to a higher authority.

This means that Rome would not have the last laugh.  They could hunt Christians all day long (which they did), but they would be unable to bring a stop to the work of redemption that God completed in Christ.  The bad guys could not win.  The battle was already won.

The problem is that it didn’t look that way to the average person in the street.  For them, the Empire looked stronger than ever and was stepping up its ferocity in hunting believers.  Any logical analysis of the situation would lead a rational person to believe that the Christian church at that time was on its way out of existence and would amount to a footnote in some distant history book.

You and I, as people who live on this end of history, know full well that this didn’t happen.  In fact, it was the Roman Empire that faded away while the Christian Church has survived and thrived in almost every part of the world.  But how, we might ask, could the author of Ephesians be so sure that this would be the future of the Church?

The answer, of course, is that the author didn’t know for sure.  The power of hope is something that can’t be proved.  It has to be believed in.  So, when it comes to inspiring hope in these persecuted Christians, the author doesn’t construct a rational argument, but instead prays that “the eyes of [their] heart [would be] enlightened”.

That’s how hope works.  I have days sometimes when I feel really bitter and cynical about my life or the world.  What brings me out of that funk is usually some story or song that speaks to my heart more than my head.  There’s this inner voice that speaks without words from somewhere between the notes of the music.  When it happens, it feels like a hunch or a gut instinct.  If I were to try and put the voice into actual words, they would probably sound something like this: “It’s okay.  You’re going to be alright.  You’re not alone.”  Personally, I believe that’s the voice of God, speaking light into the darkness of my heart and inspiring hope.  I try to hold onto that feeling, even though I might not have a logical reason for believing in the power of hope.  I believe this is what it means in Ephesians when it says,

I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, 18so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which [God] has called you.

This kind of hope is what the contributors to the ‘It Gets Better’ project are trying to inspire in the hearts of bullied teenagers who might feel so frustrated with their circumstances that they’re considering suicide, which is really just a permanent solution to a temporary problem.  As they make these videos, they’re praying that maybe some teenager who already has one hand on that gun, that bottle of pills, or that rope might stumble across one of these videos online and sense the eyes of their heart being enlightened by the power of hope.  And maybe they’ll put down that gun, those pills, or that rope and decide to live.

“Hope” is what comes to my mind when I say that I believe in the risen Christ, who ascended to the right hand of God, “far above all rule and authority and power and dominion”.  To me it means that the power of hope inspired by Jesus is stronger than all the powers that be in this world.  Stronger than the forces of injustice and inequality.  Stronger than hate.  Stronger than the bullies.  Stronger than that voice inside your head that says, “You’re no good” and “Nobody loves you” and “Life isn’t worth living”.

I don’t know your circumstances this morning.  Maybe you too are being bullied because of your sexual orientation.  Maybe you’re facing a crisis in your job, family, or relationship.  Maybe the headlines of TV news are making you feel cynical about the future.  Maybe you’re even considering a permanent solution to a temporary problem.  The still, small voice of hope might just sound like a silly little hunch or whisper, but listen to it!  Believe in it!  That voice has the power to transform your world.  It’s the voice of the Creator God, speaking again into the darkness and chaos, saying, “Let there be light”, “I love you”, and “It gets better”.

This is a video of the choir at Immanuel Presbyterian Church performing with the Gay Men’s Chorus of Los Angeles for the ‘It Gets Better’ project:

This video is my humble contribution to ‘It Gets Better’:

All Truth Is God’s Truth

On By J. Barrett LeeIn Sermon4 Comments

This week’s sermon from First Presbyterian, Boonville.

My text is Acts 17:22-31.

Legend has it that, sometime around the year 600 BCE, there was a plague that struck the ancient city of Athens, Greece.  At a loss over what to do, they called in the philosopher Epimenides, who came promptly.  The plague, so they thought, was due to one of the gods being angry with the city.  In order for the plague to be lifted, that deity would have to be appeased by a sacrifice.  But the ancient Greeks had so many gods, how were they to know which one was upset?

Epimenides proposed a solution.  He took a group of sheep to the Areopagus (a.k.a. “Mars Hill”) and released them to go out in every direction.  He ordered attendants to follow the sheep and, wherever one laid down to rest, there they built an altar and made an offering to whatever god or goddess was associated with that place.  In this way, thought Epimenides, they would cover all their bases and increase their chances for beating the plague.

But there was still one problem: what if the sheep lay down in a place that had no affiliation with any deity?  “Well,” he said, “build an altar anyway!”  Maybe there was another god or goddess who was not in their pantheon.  In that way, they would really really cover all their bases.  So, according to this legend, that’s how it came to pass that Athens had altars that were dedicated “to an Unknown God”.  After the plague had passed, the Athenians maintained the altars in remembrance of what had happened there.

Centuries later, the apostle Paul happened across one of these altars during his visit to Athens.  And Paul, ever the conscientious preacher, decided to use it as a sermon illustration.  The leading citizens of Athens invited Paul to speak in the Areopagus, the exact same place from which Epimenides had originally sent out the sheep, and they listened to what he had to say.

While the sight of so many altars to so many different gods and goddesses made Paul extremely uncomfortable, he was nevertheless very affirming of the Athenians’ religious practice.  “Athenians,” he said, “I see how religious you are in every way.”  He then went on to describe how he had come across Epimenides’ “altar to an Unknown God” during a stroll through town.  Paul also praises their philosophical insight, quoting directly from Epimenides himself, “In [God] we live and move and have our being”.

Isn’t this odd?  A Christian missionary preaches a sermon where he praises the polytheistic religious practices of the Greeks, doesn’t mention Jesus (except indirectly), and fails to reference even a single verse of the Bible.  In fact, he takes as his text a poem written by Epimenides, a pagan philosopher!  I don’t know about you, but I can imagine pastors getting fired from their churches for less than that!  Yet, this is the great apostle Paul, the Church’s preeminent theologian, a New Testament author, and the preacher who supposedly set the standard by which all others would be judged.  What in the world was he trying to do here?

First and foremost, I think Paul was making a statement about God by the way in which he paid respect to the philosophies and the religious practices of the Athenians.  Paul was saying that the Christian God honors wisdom and devotion wherever it is found, even when it is found in those who are not Christians.

“All truth is God’s truth.”  This is a scandalous statement.  It has serious implications for us all, especially those of us who live in an era of history that has seen so much division and conflict along religious lines.  If the God we worship as Christians is the same God who Paul preached about to the Athenians, then we too are called to honor and celebrate truth wherever we find it, even when it comes from non-Christian sources.  While this does not mean that God is calling us to give up what is unique and special about our Christian faith, it does mean that God is calling us to look for the best (not the worst) in our neighbors of other faiths.  It means that Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims, and Atheists are not our enemies.  It means that God is calling us all to learn from each other and grow together.

Augustine of Hippo, a famous theologian from the fifth century, said it this way, “A person who is a good and true Christian should realize that truth belongs to [God], wherever it is found, gathering and acknowledging it even in pagan literature.”  (On Christian Teaching II.75)

“All truth is God’s truth.”  This statement also has implications for our lives outside the specifically “religious” sphere.  It means that the discovery of truth in fields like science, medicine, art, government, and commerce has a divine quality to it.  In our society, which tries to keep the sacred apart from the secular, there is an assumed conflict between “faith and science” or “faith and politics”.  But if we take Paul’s implications seriously, then the line between sacred and secular is blurred.  Suddenly, the fight to cure diseases like cancer and AIDS becomes a holy quest.  Likewise, those who work to further the common good in both private and public sectors are engaged in a spiritual vocation.

In the sixteenth century, the reformer John Calvin wrote, “If we regard the Spirit of God as the sole fountain of truth, we shall neither reject the truth itself, nor despise it wherever it shall appear, unless we wish to dishonour the Spirit of God.”  Calvin goes on to describe disciplines such as politics, philosophy, rhetoric, medicine, and math.  He finishes, “No, we cannot read the writings of the ancients on these subjects without great admiration. We marvel at them because we are compelled to recognize how preeminent they are. But shall we count anything praiseworthy or noble without recognizing at the same time that it comes from God?”  (Institutes 2.2.15)

While Paul proclaimed his deep admiration for the Athenians’ wisdom and devotion, it’s important to note that he also challenged them toward growth.  He invited them to “repent”, that is, metanoia, which is Greek for “change the way you think” or “think differently”.  Paul’s particular challenge to the Athenians had to do with their relationship to their objects of worship.  He said, “The God who made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by human hands, 25nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mortals life and breath and all things.”  Quoting the philosopher Aratus, Paul continues, “29Since we are God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the deity is like gold, or silver, or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of mortals.”  Paul invited his Athenian listeners to open their minds and think beyond the level of surface appearances to the deeper spiritual reality in which we all dwell.  He said, “26From one ancestor [God] made all nations to inhabit the whole earth… 27so that they would search for God and perhaps grope for him and find him—though indeed he is not far from each one of us. 28For ‘In him we live and move and have our being’”.

In the same way, we as Christians have something to say to world around us.  The word “evangelism” has become kind of a bad word in our society.  It conjures up mental images of TV preachers asking for money.  For others, it makes them think of religious groups who use guilt and fear in in order to convert and manipulate others.  Well, evangelism doesn’t have to mean any of those things.  In fact, the word itself literally means “gospel” or “good news”, which is the exact opposite of guilt, fear, and manipulation.

Don’t we have good news to deliver to the world around us?  Don’t you?  What kind of difference has God made in your life?  What does your faith mean to you?  Maybe it gives you a sense of continuity with the past or hope for the future.  Maybe your faith in God helps you find strength and comfort for today.  You should feel free to share that experience with others as you participate in respectful conversation that celebrates their own wisdom and devotion.  Who knows?  You might find that someone is quite touched by what you have to say.  They might even start to feel more interested in or attracted to Christianity.  If so, that might be a good time for you to invite that person to attend church with you.  I know it sounds cliché, but it’s a big and lonely world out there.  Some folks feel lost in it.  They’re looking for something to believe in or somewhere to belong.  If one of your friends is searching in that way, why not invite them to explore that feeling together with us?

Evangelism doesn’t have to be a dirty word.  In fact, it doesn’t have to be a word at all.  Some of the most powerful sermons are the ones we preach with our actions.  After all, a single act of compassion says more about God than all the books in a theology library.  As you have often heard me say, “Preach the gospel always.  Use words when necessary.”

It’s The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)

On By J. Barrett LeeIn Sermon1 Comment
"What, Me Worry?"

This week’s sermon from First Presbyterian, Boonville.

The text is John 14:1-14.

“Do not let your hearts be troubled.”

These are good words to hear from Jesus on the morning after the end of the world.  According to Harold Camping, president of Family Radio, the Final Judgment of humanity was scheduled to begin last night (May 21, 2011) at 6pm.  Mr. Camping came up with this conclusion using a combination of literal and symbolic interpretations of certain biblical texts and then combining those interpretations with some fancy mathematics.  Judging from the fact that so many of us are still here today, I think we can safely say that Mr. Camping’s calculations were (at least) slightly off.

This is not the first time someone has made such precise predictions about the Apocalypse.  In fact, Mr. Camping himself previously insisted that the end of days would arrive promptly on September 6, 1994.  Before him, there was the very famous case of the Millerites.  This sect of believers followed the teachings of one William Miller, who predicted that Christ would return and the world would end before March 21, 1844.  After this day came and went without incident, the deadline was extended to April 18 and then October 22.  After his third failed prediction, Miller’s followers gave up on him.  However, several of them went on to found the Seventh Day Adventist and Jehovah’s Witness churches in subsequent years.

So yes, apocalyptic enthusiasts are nothing new to Christian history.  In fact, Jesus even warned us to watch out for folks like this.  When the disciples asked Jesus about the end of the world, he told them in Matthew 24,

…if anyone says to you, ‘Look! Here is the Messiah!’ or ‘There he is!’ —do not believe it. 24For false messiahs and false prophets will appear and produce great signs and omens, to lead astray, if possible, even the elect. 25Take note, I have told you beforehand. 26So, if they say to you, ‘Look! He is in the wilderness,’ do not go out. If they say, ‘Look! He is in the inner rooms,’ do not believe it. 27For as the lightning comes from the east and flashes as far as the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.

Instead, Jesus comforts his followers with these words from today’s gospel reading:

Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. 2In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? 3And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also.

When it comes to this “end of the world” business, Jesus is essentially saying, “Don’t worry about it” and “Trust me.”  Nevertheless, there always seems to be someone out there who claims to have the inside scoop on when and how the world is going to end.  They claim to know “the way” to secure one’s eternal destiny in light of the coming devastation.  Well, Jesus had a thing or two to say about that as well.  He reminded his followers they already knew “the way” to God.

“Wait a minute,” one of them said, “what ‘way’ are you talking about, Jesus?  I don’t remember you saying anything about a ‘way’!”

“Sure you do,” Jesus said, “It’s me.  I am the way.”

Now, if you’re still feeling confused as you read this, don’t worry.  It’s supposed to be confusing.  This is another classic example of Jesus talking right over the heads of his disciples.  He uses these cryptic images in order to shake people out of their normal way of thinking.  Jesus wants to expand their (and our) minds to operate on a spiritual level, far above that of ordinary reasoning.

With this famous phrase, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life”, we are venturing into territory that makes Christianity unique among the religions of the world.  In many world religions, there is usually founder or other figurehead who acts a messenger for the Divine.  That person is given a message that will guide the world toward salvation or enlightenment.  Moses received the Torah, Muhammad received the Qur’an, and the Buddha received the Eightfold Path.  In each of these cases, it’s the message, not the messenger, that’s most important.  The unique thing about Christianity is that the messenger is the message.  God is not revealed through a book or a teaching, but through a person, namely, Jesus of Nazareth.  To know Jesus is to know God.  If you want to know what God is like, look at Jesus.

This makes people uncomfortable.  A personal God is too unpredictable and too intimate for most people.  The only way to be in a relationship with a personal God is to come to know, love, and trust that person.  Most people (including Christians) feel much more at ease with a God who can be contained within a body of teaching (like the Bible) or an institution (like the Church).  Protestants do it just as much as Catholics.  So-called “liberal” Christians do it just as much as so-called “conservatives”.

Let me give an example:

Many people in our society are quite familiar with the traditional evangelical presentation of the Christian message: Jesus Christ was born, so they say, in order to die on the cross as a sacrifice for the sins of humankind so that people can go to heaven when they die.  The way to God is through the cross of Christ.

On the other hand, many people are also quite familiar with the progressive and “liberal” presentation of Christianity: Jesus Christ was an inspirational activist and philosopher whose teachings offer humankind a system of ethics that will lead us toward a more spiritually enlightened society.  The way to God is through the teachings of Jesus.

I think both of these perspectives fall short of Jesus’ intention.  Both the cross and the teachings of Christ are of paramount importance in the larger scheme of things, but they are only parts of the whole.  It’s the person of Jesus Christ who is the final revelation of God to humankind.  Jesus is the way.  If we want to get to know God, we must get to know Jesus.

How do we do that?  I don’t have an answer to that question.  Sure, I could hand you a list of activities (like reading the Bible or going to church) that are supposed to help you get to know Jesus, but that would be just another way of putting God into a manageable box that can be unlocked with the right formula.  The fact is that there are as many ways of getting to know Jesus as there are ways of getting to know any other person.

Think about the last time you were really in love or had a crush on someone.  What did you do?  You spent a lot of time thinking about that person.  You hung on his or her every word.  You gazed longingly over your shoulder whenever that person walked by.  You studied every feature on his or her face.  You spent as much time as possible with that person.  Your friends probably got sick and tired of hearing you talk about it.

In the same way, getting to know Jesus is more like falling in love than signing a contract.  The only difference between us and his earliest followers is that we don’t get the luxury of his physical presence with us.  We have to get to know Jesus in other ways.  I can’t tell you how it’s going to happen for you, because it’s different for everybody.  However, I can offer you some ideas about how it might happen.

For some people, getting to know Jesus happens dramatically and suddenly, like falling head-over-heels in love.  For others, it happens gradually over a long period of time, like sharing a cup of coffee with an old friend.  For some people, it happens through conventional channels, like going to church or reading the Bible.  For others, it happens in very surprising and unconventional ways.

My favorite story of an unconventional encounter with Jesus comes from the autobiographical work Traveling Mercies by Anne Lamott.  (I should warn you that this vignette will be edited for content, as Anne is known for being a somewhat foul-mouthed saint.)  This scene opens with Anne living on a houseboat at the end of a dock, deep in the throes of her addiction to alcohol and drugs.  One week prior, she’d had an abortion and was still bleeding profusely.  During this time, she would occasionally visit a Presbyterian church near her house, but would always sneak out before the sermon.  Anne continues:

Several hours later, the blood stopped flowing, and I got in bed, shaky and sad and too wild to have another drink or take a sleeping pill.  I had a cigarette and turned out the light.  After a while, as I lay there, I became aware of someone with me, hunkered down in the corner, and I just assumed it was my [late] father, whose presence I had felt over the years when I was frightened and alone.  The feeling was so strong that I actually turned on the light for a moment to make sure no one was there—of course, there wasn’t.  But after a while, in the dark again, I knew beyond any doubt that it was Jesus.  I felt him as surely as I feel my dog lying nearby as I write this.

And I was appalled.  I thought about my life and my brilliant hilarious progressive friends, I thought about what everyone would think of me if I became a Christian, and it seemed an utterly impossible thing that simply could not be allowed to happen.  I turned to the wall and said out loud, “I would rather die.”

I felt him just sitting there on his haunches in the corner of my sleeping loft, watching me with patience and love, and I squinched my eyes shut, but that didn’t help because that’s not what I was seeing him with.

Finally I fell asleep, and in the morning, he was gone.

This experience spooked me badly, but I thought it was just an apparition, born of fear and self-loathing and booze and loss of blood.  But then everywhere I went, I had the feeling that a little cat was following me, wanting me to reach down and pick it up, wanting me to open the door and let it in.  But I knew what would happen: you let a cat in one time, give it a little milk, and then it stays forever.  So I tried to keep one step ahead of it, slamming my houseboat door when I entered or left.

And one week later, when I went back to church, I was so hungover that I couldn’t stand up for the songs, and this time I stayed for the sermon, which I just thought was so ridiculous, like someone trying to convince me of the existence of extraterrestrials, but the last song was so deep and raw and pure that I could not escape.  It was as if the people were singing in between the notes, weeping and joyful at the same time, and I felt like their voices or something was rocking me in its bosom, holding me like a scared kid, and I opened up to that feeling—and it washed over me.

I began to cry and left before the benediction, and I raced home and felt the little cat running along my heels, and I walked down the dock past dozens of potted flowers, under a sky as blue as one of God’s own dreams, and I opened the door to my houseboat, and I stood there a minute, and then I hung my head and said, “F**k it: I quit.”  I took a long deep breath and said out loud, “All right.  You can come in.”

So this was the beautiful moment of my conversion.

The Great Shepherd

On By J. Barrett LeeIn Sermon1 Comment
Himalayan shepherd. Image by Raja Selvaraj.

This week’s sermon from First Presbyterian, Boonville.

The text is good old Psalm 23.

Over the course of these past seven months, I’ve been getting to know all of you as I begin my tenure of service as your pastor.  During that time, one thing has become quite clear to me: it’s been a long and hard road for you in your search for a new pastor.  There’s been a lot of heartbreak and frustration.  Mistakes have been made.  New hopes have turned into false starts on more than one occasion.

I know something about how that feels.  Today, I’d like to share some of my story with you.  I’d like you to know something of the road that has brought me to you at this particular time.  I’ve had my own share of mistakes, heartbreaks, and frustrations along the way.  But I’m sharing my part of this story because I believe that, in spite of all the setbacks, the Holy Spirit has brought us together at exactly the right time.

As most of you already know, I began my career in ministry as an Episcopal priest.  The denomination I served was not the large mainline Episcopal Church that most people are familiar with.  (In other words, it was not the same denomination that’s associated with our good neighbors down the road at Trinity Episcopal on Schuyler Street.)  I served a small independent group that was founded as a separate organization about ten years ago.  Out of respect for that church and the people in it, I won’t be naming any names this morning.  I was initially attracted to their ministry ideals and their commitment to serving the poor.  But I discovered in time that a denomination that small comes with its own set of problems.  The top-down hierarchy meant there was little accountability for those at the top of the organization.  Sadly, abuse of power was bound to happen in that kind of situation.  And it did happen.

It would be inappropriate for me to go into gruesome details about the nature of the abuse, suffice to say that it eventually reached a point where I found it personally and ethically impossible for me to continue serving as a priest in that church.  So I made the decision to leave.

This was the hardest decision I have ever had to make.  Years of prayer and preparation had gone into my process of ordination to the priesthood.  The decision to serve that church was not one I made lightly or rashly.  The decision to leave was even harder.  I consulted several trusted friends, family, and professionals.  I went through some very long days of struggle and self-doubt about my sense of call to the ministry.  Yeah, it felt like I was walking “through the valley of the shadow of death”.  Not my physical death, but the death of my dreams, the death of certain close relationships in my previous church, and the death of my plans for the future.

Yes, I’ve been through that valley.  I know you’ve been through that valley as a church.  I also know that many of you have been through that valley as individuals.  So, this morning, I’d like for us all to keep our own personal experience of this “valley of the shadow of death” in mind as we explore the 23rd psalm.

First of all, this is one of the most famous passages in the entire Bible.  I had us read it together this morning in the King James Version because that’s the version in which most people are used to hearing it.  The language may sound archaic, but to many of us, it’s also comforting.

Obviously, the language of this psalm paints a picture of God as the Great Shepherd.  Shepherding was an important job in the ancient world.  Livestock was a measure of one’s wealth in those days, much like an investment portfolio is for us today.  The richer you are, the more you need a shepherd’s help.  Ironically, the shepherding profession itself was not held in high esteem.  Shepherds were thought of as dirty hillbillies.  This was not unusual in ancient agricultural societies.  More “civilized” farmers who settled down and established a homestead on a particular piece of land often looked down on the nomadic shepherds, who had to travel wherever there was sufficient pasture and water for the sheep.  Farmers spread lots of nasty rumors about shepherds.

In fact, this farmer vs. shepherd rivalry is so long-standing, some biblical scholars think it may have been the inspiration for the legendary Cain and Abel story in Genesis 4.  These two brothers were the first sons born to Adam and Eve after their expulsion from the Garden of Eden.  Cain, the elder, stronger, and more “civilized” brother was a farmer, while Abel, the younger and weaker brother was a nomadic shepherd.  I could go into more interesting detail about their story, but that would be an entirely different sermon.  For now, it helps us to see that shepherds were looked down upon in the ancient world.

What does it mean that God was identified with this necessary-but-despised profession?  I like to think it means that God, the Great Shepherd, isn’t always present to us in ways that are nice and pretty.  Sometimes, God seems to be very “rough around the edges”.  This makes me think of the character Strider in J.R.R. Tolkien’s classic, The Lord of the Rings.  Strider is a dark and mysterious wanderer.  Nobody knows if he can really be trusted, but it turns out that he is actually destined to be a great king over the land of Gondor.  In spite of his rough appearance, Strider is one of the most noble and trustworthy characters in the book.  I think that God, the Great Shepherd, is quite similar to Tolkien’s Strider.

As Psalm 23 progresses, we learn more about God’s job as the Great Shepherd.  We learn first that the Shepherd is a Guide.  The flock is destined for “Green pastures” and “still waters”, places of rest and refreshment, while they walk with God.  Even in the darkest valley, the sheep are never alone or abandoned.  Their final destination is the place where God lives, the place where a home has been prepared for them by the Shepherd.

The second thing we learn is that the Shepherd is a Guardian.  The “rod” and “staff” mentioned in verse 4 are actually weapons used to fight off wolves that might try to attack the sheep.  As flocks of sheep wandered through the wilderness, they would often have to worry about predators that might be stalking them from behind.  Who knows what kinds of dangerous and wild animals might be following the flock?  But the sheep says in verse 6 the Great Shepherd is so good at the job that only “goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life”.  No wild animals here!

Third, we learn that the Great Shepherd is a Host.  The sheep says that the Shepherd “preparest a table for me in the presence of mine enemies”, therefore “my cup runneth over.”  The nomadic life of sheep and shepherds often looked unstable to outsiders.  They had little control over outward circumstances.  How could one know whether there would be sufficient food or water at the next stop?  I’m sure it was nerve-wracking.  Faith in God’s providence for our lives can be just as unsettling.  We never know whether feast or famine lies around the corner.  It feels more sane and stable to trust in the fragile and fabricated security systems of wealth and power in our society.  But the fact is that we cannot effectively “insure” our health, life, or property any more than helpless sheep can safely find their own way to food and water in the deserts of Palestine.  We need a guide and provider.  Will we trust the Shepherd to do this for us?

Fourth, we are told that the Shepherd is a Healer.  The sheep says that the Shepherd “restoreth my soul” and “anointest my head with oil” (a common medicinal practice in the ancient world).  Tending to sick and wounded sheep was a big part of the Shepherd’s job.  More than anyone else in this room, I’m sure our veterinarian friend, Terry Hausserman, could tell us detailed stories about animals in need of tender care.  God promises to do this for us.

All of these roles for the Great Shepherd (Guide, Guardian, Host, and Healer) have been much needed by me and the people of this congregation during this long and difficult period of transition.  Can God be trusted to fill these roles for us?  Well, I can tell you what I’ve seen in my own experience:

After I decided that it was time for me to leave my previous denomination, I made a call to my friend Naomi Kelly, who is the co-chair for the Committee on Ministry in this presbytery.  I explained the situation and she was sympathetic.  It would be an understatement to say that these colleagues received me with open arms.  The committees and the stated clerk of presbytery literally bent over backward to welcome me as one of their own.  It didn’t happen overnight.  Paperwork and exams were involved.  There was also the issue of receiving a call.  In order for me to come on board, I would need to receive a pastoral call from a congregation.

Well, it just so happens that, the next Sunday after my initial phone call to Naomi, I was scheduled to preach here in Boonville.  My decision to leave my previous denomination was so fresh, I wasn’t yet talking about it to anyone outside of my inner-circle of close friends.  I came here that morning and did what I always do.  But then, after the service, a group of elders basically cornered me in the sanctuary.  “What will it take,” they said, “for you to consider coming here to be our pastor?”  Let me tell you, I was totally blown away.  There was no way that any of these folks could have known about the decision I had just made in the previous week.  How is it that they picked that exact moment to approach me about becoming the pastor?  I wanted to come right out and tell my whole story right then, but prudence dictated otherwise and I simply said that we should consult the presbytery’s Committee on Ministry and ask for their guidance.

But there was obviously someone bigger than a committee that was guiding us in that moment.  In spite of the dire circumstances of that “dark valley”, I can honestly say that I have never in my life felt so clearly the presence of God the Great Shepherd as Guide, Guardian, Host, and Healer than I did in that moment.  Even as God was leading me away from an unhealthy situation, God was also leading me toward this new future in ministry.  God’s timing was impeccable.  So yes, I’ve been through the “valley of the shadow of death”, but I also know that I need “fear no evil” for the Great Shepherd is with me.  Throughout my ordeal, God has been my Guide, Guardian, Host, and Healer.

I can see the hand of the Great Shepherd at work in the life of this congregation as well.  Yes, it’s been a long and hard road in your search for a new pastor, but you’ve never wandered alone or abandoned.  In fact, you’ve always had what you were looking for.  Did you know that the word “pastor” is actually Latin for “shepherd”?  You’ve been searching for a new pastor, but all along you’ve been under the care of the Great Shepherd (the Great Pastor).  In a very real sense, I’m only serving this congregation as the “assistant pastor”.  It’s not my job to guide, guard, host, and heal you.  I’m here to help you look for the ways in which God is already doing those things.  “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want”.  God has been your pastor all along; there is nothing you lack.  And let me tell you, as a pastor, God is a tough act to follow!

As you sit here this morning, you may be walking through your own personal “valley”.  Maybe it’s the loss of a job, a relationship, or your health.  Your circumstances will inevitably be different from mine, but the question is the same: Can God be trusted as Guide, Guardian, Host, and Healer?  I invite you to look around in your present situation.  See whether God has already been present and active in these ways.  Also, I invite you to be patient and see what might be coming around the bend.  Ask God to show you these things.  As Jesus promised, those who seek will find.  And those who trust in the Great Shepherd will dwell in God’s house forever.

Not Thomas’ Problem

On By J. Barrett LeeIn Sermon3 Comments

This week’s sermon from First Pres, Boonville.

The text is John 20:19-31.

There is a phrase attributed to the French philosopher Voltaire that goes something like this: “God created man in his own image, and then man returned the favor.”

What Voltaire meant by this is that people tend to conceive of God in ways that match their view of themselves and the world.  To liberals, God is a liberal.  To Tea Partiers, God is a Tea Partier.  To chauvinists, God is masculine.  To feminists, God is feminine.  To self-haters, God is judgmental.  To narcissists, God is all about them.

As finite human beings, we inevitably have to use limited human language to describe our infinite God.  We rely on images like “Shepherd” and “Parent” to understand the relationship between God and creation.  These metaphors can be helpful, because they take what is ultimately unknowable and present it in terms that are familiar to us.

The problem comes when we hold onto these images and ideas too tightly.  We try to squeeze the infinite mystery of God into finite boxes of our own making.  We try to force God to relate to us on our own terms.

Psychologists call this kind of behavior “delusional”.  The biblical authors called it “idolatry”.  People would rather bow down to visible and tangible gods of their own making than stand in awe of an invisible and eternal mystery that moves outside the realm of their understanding.

When people in our society think of “idolatry”, they imagine ancient polytheists offering various sacrifices before stone statues.  But the truth is that idolatry is not limited to one kind of religious practice.  Even Christians fall prey to idolatry.  They do it every time they try to squeeze God into the walls of a church or the pages of the Bible.  Don’t get me wrong: churches and Bibles are wonderful tools that can guide us in our relationship with God.  They can show us how to find God in our daily lives, but they are only a means to an end.  When Christians do the opposite, when they treat the means as an end in itself, and they stop looking for the divine presence in the world around them, then they are guilty of the sin idolatry.  By limiting God’s sphere of operation to a book or a building, they force God to meet them on their own terms (so they think).  This is exactly the sort of thing that we can see going on in today’s gospel reading.

The apostle Thomas, who is often called “Doubting Thomas”, gets an undeserved reputation from this passage.  There are some who chastise him as the one apostle who was unwilling to believe the truth of the resurrection.  Others praise Thomas as the father of all skeptics who demands facts before faith.  Doubt is the sentiment most closely associated with Thomas.  But I don’t think he deserves that distinction.

After all, wouldn’t you or I do the same if we heard that one of our loved ones had suddenly returned from the grave?  We would want to see it for ourselves, wouldn’t we?  Any of us would ask a lot of hard questions before we accepted the reality of a dead man walking.

Also, in his questioning of the other apostles, Thomas was only following one of Jesus’ own commandments!  In Luke 21:8, Jesus said, “Beware that you are not led astray; for many will come in my name and say, ‘I am he!’ and, ‘The time is near!’ Do not go after them.”  How can we blame Thomas for doing his job as a faithful disciple of Jesus?  So, from both rational and religious perspectives, one can understand Thomas’ reticence to accept these rumors of resurrection.

Doubt is not Thomas’ problem.  Doubt is the sign of a clear head and an honest heart.  If Thomas has a problem it has to do with one word: “Unless”.  He says, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.”  With this one word (“Unless”), Thomas is demanding that Christ meets him on Thomas’ own terms.  In the arrogance of his ignorance, Thomas is convinced that he, more than all the other disciples, has what it takes to establish the criteria for true faith.

As it was with Thomas, so it is with us.  You and I live in a society that is becoming increasingly polarized in more ways than one.  People on all sides of the religious and political spectra have stopped listening to one another and started insisting on certain ideological criteria that must be met before we validate the intelligence and good faith of those who disagree with us.  Even though much of this debate takes place in the name of Christ, I fear that too little of it takes place in the spirit of Christ.  People on all sides are quick to squeeze God into boxes with labels like “biblical truth” or “human rights” and demand that Christ meets them on their own terms (whatever those terms may be).

So then, what are we to say?  Is there any hope for us “Thomases” out there?  Does this passage offer any relief from this impasse?  I think so.  John’s gospel continues the story on the next Sunday, when Thomas and the other disciples were once again gathered together.  It says at verse 26: “Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you.’”

In spite of Thomas’ roadblocks to faith, in spite of the “shut doors” that surrounded this motley crew of disciples, Jesus is present.  No barrier is sufficient to keep the risen Christ at bay.  Jesus encounters Thomas in the midst of his struggle.  He doesn’t wait until Thomas has resolved his issues.  He even offers to meet Thomas’ criteria for belief.  Jesus says, “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side.”

I find it most interesting that John’s gospel doesn’t tell us whether Thomas actually did reach out and touch Christ’s wounds.  That much is left up to the reader to decide.  Whether he did or didn’t, the emphasis of the story is on Christ’s offer and Thomas’ response, “My Lord and my God!”  When faced with the real presence of the crucified and risen Christ, Thomas’ issues seem to just melt away.  In the words of the philosopher John Hick, Thomas moves from “self-centeredness” into “reality-centeredness”.  All of a sudden, his agenda, his criteria, his arrogance, and his terms just don’t seem to matter as much as they used to.  This new openness paves the way for Thomas to rejoin the fellowship of disciples and believe the truth of the resurrection, even if he wasn’t quite clear on the facts.

This gives me hope for all of us as well.  It gives me confidence that the infinite God who dwells in our midst will continue to come bursting out of our finite little boxes.  The presence of the risen Christ speaking peace to struggling unbelievers in a room full of shut doors gives me fuller assurance that the “shut doors” in my own arrogant, ignorant, and unbelieving heart cannot and will not keep the peace of Christ away from me.  This is true for you as well.  It is true for all of us.  This week, as you go back out into the cacophony and conflict in your work, home, church, and society, I invite you to meditate on this Easter truth.

The apostle Paul puts it so well in Romans 8:38-39:

I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Rejecting Rejection: An Easter Sermon

On By J. Barrett LeeIn Sermon1 Comment
The Risen Christ by He Qi

My first Easter sermon at First Presbyterian, Boonville.  The text is Matthew 28:1-10.

Philip Gulley and James Mulholland tell a story in their book, If Grace Is True (HarperCollins: 2003), about a scene that is probably familiar to all of us (especially those of us who are parents).  It goes like this:

When I was about five years old, I demanded my mother buy me a certain toy.  She refused, explaining she didn’t have the money.

I recall flying into a rage and screaming, “I hate you!”

My mother was utterly unperturbed.  She didn’t spank me and send me to my room, though that would have been understandable.  She didn’t break into tears.  She didn’t drag me to a therapist.  She most certainly didn’t buy the toy.  She simply said, “Well, I love you, and your hate can’t change my love.”  (p.110)

I think most of us have been there, am I right?  If you haven’t experienced it firsthand, you’ve probably seen something like it in public.  As the father of a two-year-old, I’m intimately familiar with what goes through a parent’s head in a moment like that.  I worry about making a scene.  I wonder what other people must be thinking about me as a parent.  I’m scared that, no matter what I do, I might be psychologically scarring my child for life.

But when I see other parents dealing with similar meltdowns in public, I don’t judge them.  In fact, my heart goes out to them.  I don’t think they’re bad parents.  I see others like me who are just doing the best they can in a difficult moment.  The only parents I worry about are the ones who return the rage in kind.  You know what I’m talking about.  All of us lose our cool with our kids on occasion, but it’s pretty obvious when a parent in public crosses the line verbally or physically.  In the effort to maintain control of the situation, they lose control of themselves.  Those are the parents that other people tend to worry about.

Imagine what people would think if the mother in Gulley and Mulholland’s story had shouted, “I hate you, too!” and stormed out of the store, leaving this five-year-old little kid to find his own way home.  We would be horrified!  We would run to the child’s aid and probably call the police.  We would say that such a mother deserves to be locked up in jail.

Unfortunately, there are those among Christians past and present who believe that this is exactly how God behaves.  Those who turn their backs on God, so they say, are doomed for eternity.  Those who reject God will be rejected by God.  They claim that God, who is infinitely holy and righteous, must respect the freewill of these unrepentant sinners and allow them to receive exactly what they deserve.  Most Christians who believe this can quote lots of Bible verses to support their position.

What I can’t understand is this: if we would call the police on any human mother who abandoned her child in that way, then why wouldn’t we do the same for a parental deity who abandons even one of God’s children to eternal torment?  Why should we worship God for doing that for which we would incarcerate a human?  It doesn’t make sense.

Fortunately for us, that is not the God who we worship.  The God of love revealed in Jesus Christ is more like the mother in the first story from Gulley and Mulholland’s book.  When we scream, “I hate you!” at God, God responds, “Well, I love you, and your hate can’t change my love.”  This God rejects the rejection of the rebellious children.

This God would rather leave the ninety-nine sheep in the field to go search for the one who is lost.  Jesus tells us in Luke 15 that this good shepherd searches until that lost sheep is found and carries it home rejoicing.  Jesus teaches his followers to love their enemies because that’s what God does.  He says, in Matthew 5:44-45,

Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for God makes the sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.

Not only did Jesus teach us about God’s love, he showed it to us in the way that he unconditionally accepted the most messed-up and undesirable people of his day as members of his own family.

More than any other story in the scriptures, the story of Jesus’ death and resurrection shows us just how far God is willing to go in order to reject our rejection.  Last Sunday, and then again on Good Friday, we heard the story of how the powers that be in the world rejected Jesus.  The political and religious authorities wanted to shut him up.  His closest disciples betrayed, denied, and abandoned him.  Last week, we also looked at the hard fact that you and I are really no different from the crowds who shouted, “Hosanna!” on Palm Sunday and “Crucify!” only five days later on Good Friday.  The cross stands as a reminder of the lengths to which we, the people of this world, will go in order to reject Jesus.  Like five-year-olds throwing temper tantrums, we scream, “I hate you!” to God at the top of our lungs.  With all our pretended power, we lash out with the very worst torture and death that we can muster.  Intoxicated by our ability to inflict death, we delude ourselves into thinking that we’re so strong.  We can even make God go away… permanently!

But then, on the third day, on that first Easter Sunday, something happened.  It says in today’s reading from Matthew that there was an earthquake.  Matthew is the only one of the four gospels to record this fact.  What does it mean?  I like to think it means that something fundamental at the very heart of reality shifted in that moment.  The power of life overcame the power of death.  The very worst of human hatred was undone by the very best of God’s love.  In the cross, the world rejected Jesus Christ.  But in the resurrection, God rejected the world’s rejection.  This is what Easter is all about!

As if this weren’t enough, look again at what happens in verse 10.  Jesus appears to the two Marys and gives them a message for his “brothers” (meaning the twelve disciples).  Remember that the last time we saw any of them in Matthew was in 26:56, when they were all running away from Jesus in his hour of need.  They rejected him.  But the risen Jesus nevertheless calls them “brothers” and invites them to return to the mission they had begun together.  He rejected their rejection.

This is (very) good news for people like me who struggle with our loyalty to God.  If God were to respect my freewill and give me what I deserve (and sometimes ask for), I would be abandoned like a five-year-old in a department store with no way home.  I am thankful that God does not respect my freewill, but goes out of the way to seek after me until I am found.  I am thankful that God has rejected my rejection.

What does this mean for all of us?

Maybe you are a Christian, but you struggle with things like sin and doubt.  Well, the good news for you is that you don’t have to impress God with your morals or your dogma.  The only thing for you to do, in the words of the theologian Paul Tillich, is “accept the fact that you are accepted.”

Maybe you’re here today and you’re not a Christian.  Maybe you want to believe in something, but can’t wrap your mind around some theological point or maybe you’re sickened by the judgmental hypocrisy of those who call themselves Christians.  The good news for you is that the God of love revealed in Jesus Christ is not the cold-hearted and small-minded bookkeeper of conventional religion.  The God I believe in is not standing at a distance, waiting to burn you in hell.  My God is just as angry about the pretended piety of so-called “saints” to which you have borne witness.  Likewise, God is not threatened by honest questions on a quest for truth.

Whatever your individual struggle may be, what I want you to take away from this Easter is that, in the resurrection of Jesus, God has rejected your rejection.  Sure, you might kick and scream like a kid having a tantrum.  You might even deny God’s existence or yell, “I hate you!” to the empty sky, but in those moments, the God I believe in just holds you that much tighter with an eternal love that will not let you go.

From “Hosanna” to “Crucify” in Five Easy Steps!

On By J. Barrett LeeIn Sermon1 Comment

Here is the Palm/Passion Sunday sermon from First Presbyterian, Boonville.

The texts are Matthew 21:1-11 and Matthew 27:11-54.

I’d like to paint a verbal picture for you.  Think of how you would feel if you bore witness to an event such as this:

Imagine that Air Force One lands in town.  The crowd goes wild as the President gets off the plane and walks down a red carpet, flanked by a crowd of people waving American flags.  The TV news cameras are rolling as the band strikes up “Hail to the Chief”.  The President is shaking hands and kissing babies as he goes by.  After a moment, the band starts to play “The Star-Spangled Banner”.  Everyone stops what they’re doing and turns to face the flag with hands over their hearts.  Now, imagine that all of this is happening on the 4th of July.

Can you imagine how the people in this Independence Day crowd that day might feel?  If so, then you can imagine how the people felt in the crowd on that first Palm Sunday, when Jesus rode into Jerusalem.  It was a quintessentially Jewish moment.  I mean this, not just in a religious sense, but in a national sense as well.

Let’s look at the details:

First, Jesus rides into town riding a donkey with her colt.  This is exactly how the Jewish prophet Zechariah said that God’s Messiah would come.  The Jews believed that the Messiah (“Anointed One” in Hebrew) would be a mighty king who would liberate Israel from foreign tyranny so the people could live and worship in freedom.  Next, we learn that the people were making use of palm branches as they saw him coming.  This is not a random choice.  The palm tree was a national symbol for Jews in the first century.  This would be like people waving all kinds of American flags as the President drove by.  Also, people were shouting, “Hosanna!”  This comes from a Hebrew word that literally means, “Save us, please!”  It would be like people shouting “Liberty” or “Freedom Now” in our country.  This phrase, along with “blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord”, is part of Psalm 118, an old hymn for Jews.  Finally, all of this was happening on the week before Passover, the greatest of holidays.  Passover, for Jews, was not just a religious holiday; it was also a national holiday.  During Passover, Jews told and retold the story of how they came to be who they are as a nation of God’s chosen people.  It was like celebrating the 4th of July for Jews.

So, when all of this happened at once (donkey, palm branches, Hosanna, and Passover), this crowd of people got really excited.  They thought that big changes were about to happen for them and their country!  However, we know that this excitement didn’t last very long.  Fast forward to five days later and the same people who were shouting, “Hosanna!  Hosanna!” had started shouting, “Crucify!  Crucify!” about the exact same person.  What could have gone so wrong during those five lousy days?  Personally, it makes me glad that our elected officials get at least one full term in office before people want to hang them out to dry!

I think the answer to what went wrong that week lies in the excitement we see in the people at the beginning of the week.  Excitement is great.  It gets people motivated.  It makes them feel good about themselves.  But it has a dark side.  Whenever people get super-excited about something, it usually means that they have some pretty big expectations to go with it.  And people definitely had some serious expectations about Jesus as their Messiah.

They wanted their Messiah to be a military commander, a political administrator, and a spiritual guide (at the same time).  That’s a lot to ask of one person, but it’s what they expected (and they weren’t going to budge on any of it).  When Jesus showed up, they certainly had mixed feelings about him.  On the one hand, he healed the sick, challenged the powers-that-be, and radically reinterpreted the Torah (their Bible).  On the other hand, he refused to take up arms and talked instead about suffering and forgiveness.  What kind of “Messiah” was this?

Their confusion lasted right up until the end of Jesus’ ministry.  On Palm Sunday, it looked as if their dreams were about to come true: Jesus was acting exactly like a Messiah should.  By Good Friday, it looked as if all their hopes were dashed: Jesus was acting nothing like a Messiah should.  The great irony is that Jesus really was their Messiah (at least, that’s what we Christians believe), but his idea of Messiah was very different from theirs.  He really did wear a crown, but it was a crown of thorns.  He really was hailed as “King of the Jews”, but it was written on a sign posted above his cross.  He really did gain victory over his enemies, but it was a victory of love and not a victory of violence.

It’s easy for us to look back and chuckle at the people’s flawed expectations of Jesus as Messiah.  We have the luxury of knowing what comes next (on Easter Sunday).  They didn’t.

But I think the question is worth asking: do we have flawed expectations of Jesus as our Messiah?  Do we think we have all the answers about Jesus figured out?  Have we put him in a safe little box that conforms to our own pre-conceived notions about the world?  The tendency I’ve noticed is that, if you ask people to describe Jesus, they’ll probably describe someone who is simply a bigger and better version of themselves.  For them, Jesus is American, Middle-class, Conservative/Liberal, Presbyterian, or Christian.

The challenge of Lent, as a season of penitence, is for us to realize that Jesus is none of those things.  He is Holy (which means “different” or “special”).  He rises above the categories and ideologies that we would impose on him.

But we, like the crowds on Palm Sunday, still come with our excitement and our expectations.  But, as Jesus fails to live up to our expectations, our excitement turns to confusion, confusion to disappointment, and disappointment to anger.  So that, by the end of the week, we too stand with that crowd, screaming, “Crucify!  Crucify!”

Yes, the challenge of Lent is for us to let Jesus break out of the box that we have put him in.  The challenge is to let go of those categories and those old ways of thinking.  But the hard fact of the matter is that we have failed to do so.  In spite of our best Lenten disciplines, in spite of the chocolate we didn’t eat or the TV we didn’t watch, in spite of our honest reflection and repentance during these forty days, in spite of all those things: we would still crucify him again.  He would still shock and offend our expectations to the point where we would use any means necessary to shut him up.  Our shouts of “Hosanna in the highest!” are no more lasting or genuine than the shouts of those people who lived in first-century Jerusalem.

That’s the harsh reality, but it’s not the end of the story.  That part comes next week.  If you want to hear it, I guess you’ll have to show up!  But for now, I’ll just offer this as a foretaste of the Easter gospel:

Jesus knew what was in hearts of those people.  He knew what they were going to do to him, but that didn’t stop him.  He still drew close to them.  He welcomed their praises, shallow as they were.  He loved them, even though they would come to hate him.

As it was with that crowd so it is with us.  As faithless as we are, Jesus still draws near to us… and loves us.