Category: Sermon

Jesus Gets His Hands Dirty

On By J. Barrett LeeIn Sermon2 Comments

Last week’s sermon from First Pres, Boonville.

The text is John 9:1-41.

One of the most annoying things about Jesus is that, when you ask him a question, you almost never get the kind of answer you expected.  He has this way of turning questions on their head.  His response tends to shed more light on the person asking the question than it does on the issue at hand.  Such is the case in today’s gospel reading.

The scene opens with Jesus and his disciples encountering a blind man while they are in Jerusalem for a religious holiday.  As they pass by, one of them asks a question that has plagued philosophers for thousands of years:  “What is the nature of suffering and evil?”

This question is especially troubling to those of us who believe in God.  People have come up with all kinds of theories that try to find an answer.  Some suggest that God is loving but not almighty.  In other words, God cares about suffering but cannot do anything about it.  Others say that God is almighty but not loving.  God could solve the world’s problems but just doesn’t care.  Finally, some suggest that God is both loving and almighty, but that all suffering is merely an illusion or a misunderstanding on our part.

For Jews in Jesus’ day, the most common answer was judicial.  They believed that everything happens for a reason.  If someone was happy, healthy, and prosperous, then that person was being blessed and rewarded by God.  If someone was suffering, then that person was being punished for their sins.  This judicial theory is probably what Jesus’ disciples had in mind when they asked, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”

Even though they had their own pet theory to explain why this person was suffering, it didn’t answer all their questions.  In fact, their pet theory left them with quite a dilemma.  You see, the man in question had been blind from birth.  There was no way he could have violated Jewish law before the onset of his blindness.  Therefore, God was either punishing this person for someone else’s sin or God was punishing this person for a sin that had not yet been committed.  Either way, God comes across as unfair.

Jesus doesn’t resolve this dilemma for them.  He lets it stand out like a hole in the middle of a donut.  He says, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him.”  Rather than taking a side in this debate, Jesus once again turns the entire question on its head.  He says, in effect, “You’re asking the wrong question.”  His response seems cryptic and mysterious because Jesus is answering the question they should have been asking all along.  He continues, “We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming when no one can work.  5As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”

What does that mean?  It means that Jesus is trying to shift their attention.  He’s saying, if you really want to look for God in the midst of these tragic situations, don’t waste your time looking at the cause of the pain; look instead at the response to the pain.  The most important thing, to Jesus, is that we be doing God’s work.  And what’s the very next thing he does?  The text says, “he spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva and spread the mud on the man’s eyes”.  In other words: Jesus got his hands dirty.  While other people were standing around and arguing about philosophy, Jesus was busy healing those who hurt most.

But the scene doesn’t stop there.  The recently-healed blind man quickly became the center of controversy in Jerusalem.  This time, the debate was all about whether Jesus had the proper credentials to work such a miracle.  Witnesses were called while scholars debated back and forth about the issue.  All the while, the healed person is stuck in the middle.  He doesn’t have any answers.  He was probably still using his brand new eyes to figure out the difference between red and blue.  When they push him, he says, “I do not know whether [Jesus] is a sinner. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.”  He stays true to his experience and simply tells the world what happened to him.

Eventually, it becomes pretty clear to this guy that he is simply a pawn being used in someone else’s religious and political agenda.  What I like best about this guy is his moxy (chutzpah).  Once he realizes what’s going on, he’s not content to play his part and go home.  No, he stands up and gives them a piece of his mind.  In more ways than one, his eyes were open.  Better than anyone else in the room, this “ex-blind man” was seeing things clearly.  So he stands up to this room full of rabbis and tells them off!

Well, these rabbis weren’t used to being spoken to like that!  After hurling a few choice insults about the nature of this man’s parentage, they voted unanimously to kick him out of the synagogue.  He was anathema, excommunicated, dis-fellowshipped, dishonorably discharged, and “don’t let the door hit you in the rump on your way out!”

So, there he was.  His situation seemed hopeless.  For years, he had been excluded from the life of his community because of his disability.  Now, he was kicked out and called a heretic.  What was he supposed to do now?  He probably felt further away from God than ever before.

I love that Jesus decides to show up again at this point in the story.  It says, “Jesus heard that they had driven him out, and… found him”.  Then Jesus affirms what the blind man had suspected all along: that he could “see” better than any of those rabbis and scholars.  In spite of their educated debate over this controversy, they had completely missed the point about what Jesus was doing.  But this blind man got it, and Jesus wanted to make sure that he knew it.  Jesus said, “I came into this world… so that those who do not see may see, and those who do see may become blind.”  Once again, Jesus makes sure that those who fall through the cracks of controversy and debate find their honored place in heaven’s economy.  The pawns become the kings.  The victims become the heroes.  Jesus shows us that these suffering and forgotten people are the ones who matter most to God.

For the past month or so, the world has been watching in horror at the multiple disasters that have befallen the country of Japan.  As if earthquake and tsunami weren’t enough, people are now facing the perils of radiation and nuclear meltdown.  The death toll has almost reached 12,000.

In times like this, many people instinctively search for answers in the midst of suffering.  They engage in controversy and philosophical debate because it’s easier than facing the reality of tragedy.  In the days immediately following the earthquake, one Christian blogger posted a statement in the style of the Old Testament prophets.  This person went on for quite a while, offering an itemized list of Japan’s sins.  The post read (speaking for God in the first person), “I will punish you for your sins with my passion, and destroy you completely Japan by earthquake and tsunami.  I will get you, the little island, back into the water, where you came from, and where you will be just like a piece of wrack (sic) sinking into the bottom of the sea.”

It’s easy to stand at a distance and pass judgment on an entire nation.  It’s harder to do as Jesus did: to get our hands dirty in the business of healing.  Our controversial issues and philosophical debates keep us at arm’s length from the suffering of our fellow human beings.  But Jesus goes out to meet these forgotten and suffering ones right where they are.

Thankfully, there are those who are doing just as Jesus did in the midst of this tragedy.  Earlier this week, I received an email from friends of my family in Japan.  It’s a statement made by an American living in Tokyo who is not a Christian.  He works in the Tokyo office of Goldman-Sachs.

Here is what the email said:

Friends

The response to the earthquake by many of the westerners here in Japan has been to head straight to the airport and get out of the country.

The Christian missionaries here have done just the opposite; they collect relief supplies and go straight to the disaster area to help out.

It is truly amazing what they have accomplished.

They collect supplies through donations from local citizens and international aid associations.

Then they get trucks, road permits and take the supplies to the 400,000 people who have lost their homes to the earthquake, tsunami and evacuations from the exclusion zone around the nuclear reactors.

Churches in the affected region are often used as distribution points.

Some of these churches have been damaged by the earthquake, and some are even without electricity.

This has been a 24/7 job for many of my missionary friends, but I have not heard a complaint from even one of them.

If someone were to ask me where I think God is in the midst of the Japanese tragedy, I would read them this letter.

When we go looking for God in the midst of suffering, whether it’s our own pain or the tragedy of an entire nation, let’s not get lost in philosophical debate over the causes.  Rather, let’s follow Jesus and get our hands dirty in the work of healing.  That’s where we’ll find God in all of this.

The Harvest is Here

On By J. Barrett LeeIn Sermon2 Comments

St. Photina, "The Enlightened One". Traditional name for the Samaritan woman at the well. Legend has it that she was martyred after spitting in Emperor Nero's face.

Today’s sermon from First Presbyterian, Boonville.

The text is John 4:5-42.

Over the past few decades a lot has been said and written on the topic of church growth in North America.  Most sources agree that there has been a tremendous decline in membership for older, mainline congregations like ours.  Many popular sources are selling the idea that the key to reversing this trend lies in imitating the worship style and the theological leanings of evangelical mega-churches.  However, I’m not convinced.

Here’s why: I heard about an Episcopal church in Colorado.  This was a small, traditional parish.  Their numbers were dwindling.  Almost all the members left in the pews were grandparents or great grandparents.  There was nothing about this parish that fit the popular model for church growth.  Closure seemed inevitable.

Several of these aging church members felt led to start a youth group.  They were praying for an opportunity to start one.  But even their priest was telling them not to hold their breath over it.  Their big opportunity came one day when that same priest was sitting in a local coffee shop.  He was wearing a clerical collar, which clearly identified him with his profession.

The priest looked up and suddenly, there was a teenager was standing in front of him.  This rough-looking young man was clad in leather and had piercings in every conceivable orifice.  “Hey.”  He said, “Are you one of those ministers who can do funerals without the body there?”  After taking a second to compose himself, the priest asked the teenager to sit down and talk.  As it turns out, he had a friend who had recently died of a drug overdose.  His family lived out of state and had shipped the body back east for burial.  None of his local friends had a chance to grieve their loss.  The priest said yes, their church could certainly have a memorial service for this young man.

The members of the church wanted to get involved too, but they were at a loss as to how to do it.  They had nothing in common with this group of hard-edged, punk rock teenagers.  When they prayed for a youth group, they were thinking of a cadre of nicely-dressed, well-behaved high school students who attended Bible studies and held bake sales.  What were they supposed to do with this motley crew?

After giving it some thought, they could think of only one natural way to relate to these youth: they were all grandparents.  Why not act like it?  On the day of the memorial service, they made their fellowship hall as warm and cozy as possible.  They made tea and hot chocolate.  They set out fresh-baked cookies on hand-crocheted doilies.  And when the youth arrived, everyone agreed to pretend they were their own grandkids.

Most of the youth stuck around for the reception.  Amid a sea of black leather and glinting lip rings, one could see an entire rainbow of artificial hair colors.  The event was such a success, they decided to invite the teenagers back at the same time next week.  To their surprise, most of them came back!  Week after week, the most unlikely relationships formed between these folks in their eighties and this scary-looking group of punk-rock teenagers.  They got the youth group they had been praying for, but it looked nothing like they expected!  Moreover, it bore no resemblance to the trendy programs that are supposed to attract youth to a congregation.

This kind of thing has happened before in Christian history.  In today’s gospel reading, we read about Jesus’ unconventional model for church growth in the most unlikely places.  It happened among a group of Samaritans.

This was the last place where Jesus’ disciples expected to find a warm welcome.  Samaritans and Jews shared common ethnic and religious roots, but the Samaritans were regarded as heretics and half-breeds.  No self-respecting Jew would be caught dead with a Samaritan in public.  Some Jews traveling from Galilee to Judea would go almost a hundred miles out of their way in order to avoid Samaritan territory.  It was bad enough that Jesus had decided to go through Samaria instead.  Did he have to talk to them as well?

As it turns out, these Samaritans gave this Jewish rabbi a warmer welcome than any synagogue.  Even in Jesus’ own hometown, they had tried to throw him off a cliff!  But these half-breed heretics had opened their doors and welcomed Jesus and the disciples with open arms.  When the members of the village heard Jesus speak, they all believed in him.  A church sprang up overnight in this Samaritan village.

What’s even more surprising is that the catalyst for this explosive church growth was not the local mayor or clergyperson, but the village pariah.  It was almost unthinkable that Jesus would even talk to her in the first place.  First of all, she was a Samaritan.  We already talked about the inborn hostility there.  Second, she was a woman.  Nice Jewish boys didn’t talk to women in public (not even their own wives).  Finally, she was even outcast from her own people.  The text tells us that she met Jesus by the well at noon.  In that world without air conditioning, it was ridiculous to go to a well at noon, when the sun was beating down.  Most people would go at sunrise or sunset, when the weather was cooler.  The village well is where people would gather to chat and gossip.  The only reason to go to the well at noon was if you didn’t want to bump into anyone else.

Later in the story, we learn a little more about this person.  We find out that she’d been married five times and was currently living with a man outside of wedlock. Even today, two millennia later, most people who read this story assume that she was a serial divorcee who hopped from relationship to relationship.  But here’s an important detail about ancient Semitic culture: women were not allowed to initiate a divorce.  A husband could divorce his wife for any reason (even if she burned his supper) but a wife had no rights.  She may have been abused and discarded by man after man until she landed in her current situation, where the man she was with didn’t even have the decency to make the relationship legitimate.  We don’t even know that this woman was divorced at all.  In a country with such a low life-expectancy, it’s entirely possible that she was simply widowed five times over.  It seems that she could have landed in her situation through no fault of her own.  Nevertheless, she was still considered “damaged goods” by her neighbors.  Her story would provide ample fuel for the local gossip engine.

Yet, in spite of all these barriers, Jesus chooses this woman to be the agent of transformation in her village.  He engages her in theological conversation.  He effectively ordains her as an evangelist to the village.  Through her, the entire village comes to faith in Christ and opens their arms in welcome to this band of strangers.  Jesus’ model for church growth makes use of the most unlikely people in the most unlikely places.  But, apparently, it works.

What did the disciples think of all this while it was happening?  Well, we read in the text that they were “astonished” at Jesus’ incessant boundary pushing.  It was bad enough that they had to go through Samaria at all, but then Jesus starts talking with this woman, and then they end up spending two days there: eating and sleeping with these untouchable, half-bred heretics!  If their old rabbis ever heard about this, they’d all be kicked out of the synagogue for sure!

Jesus interrupts their astonishment with an invitation.  He tells them it’s time to let go of their expectations and their pre-conceived notions about other people.  Jesus says, “Look around you.  You think the harvest is still a few months off, but I’m telling you that the time for the harvest is now!  So, get out your sickle!”  Jesus tells them it’s time for them to open their eyes and see what God is doing around them (even in this least-expected place).  He wants them to “enter into the labor”, to be part of what they see God doing here and now.  For Jesus, this is the key to effective church growth, not a bunch of fancy programs.  Jesus gets it.  The Samaritans got it.  The disciples were starting to get it.  The Episcopal church in Colorado got it.  What about us?

In spite of what popular sources say, I’m not ready to pronounce our church dead yet.  I think God still has a harvest for us here in Boonville.  It won’t look like the “good old days” all over again.  1955 has come and gone.  Likewise, it won’t look like these evangelical mega-churches.  That’s not who we are as a church or a community (besides, we don’t have the parking space).  It will involve letting go of our old expectations and pre-conceived notions.  The good news is that this is already happening.  You’re already doing it.  When you started your search for a new pastor over a year ago, who would have thought that you would be interested in calling an Episcopal priest with a pony tail?  But here we are!

What other “astonishing” surprises does God have in store for us?  Where is the harvest happening here and now in Boonville?  That’s the question we have to ask ourselves as a church.  I have a few of my own ideas about how we might answer that question.  I see this church as a haven for people who, for whatever reason, have been made to feel unwelcome at other churches in the North Country.

I’m thinking of people like intelligent skeptics who are interested in faith, but have a lot of honest questions about it.  Too many churches out there tell people to “shut up” and “get in line” with traditional doctrine.  I see this church as a place where people can ask their honest questions without fear of rejection.  Maybe we won’t even know the answers, but we can ask those questions together.

Likewise, I also see our church as the kind of place where people who are gay or lesbian can find a welcoming church home.  Too often, people in our society face exile from their churches, their families, and their homes when they “come out of the closet” (which means being honest and open about their attraction to people of the same gender).  Among youth, it’s one of the top causes of suicide and homelessness.  I believe that our church can be a place in the North Country where that doesn’t need to happen.

I envision this church as a haven where people can come, with all their doubts and their differences, and be welcomed as one of “us” rather than one of “them”.  I see this church as a place where people can come looking for belonging, and through that, find themselves believing.  This is the gospel harvest that Jesus has prepared for us.  Are we ready to “look around us” and “enter into the labor” of this harvest?  I think so.

Funeral Message

On By J. Barrett LeeIn SermonLeave a comment

This is a sermon I recently preached for a funeral in my church.  The text is Ephesians 1:3-14.

As I was preparing this message for today, I asked around for stories about Ruth that people might like to tell.  When we gather together to celebrate the life of someone we love, telling stories often happens naturally.  We look for those moments that were particularly tender or funny.  Something inside of us reaches out for those “big” memories when we remember someone.  However, I should thank you, Emily, for reminding me that it’s not the big memories but the little ones that really stick with us.  I asked if she had a story she would like me to include in the message and Emily told me, “You know, it’s actually those little things that I remember most: things like Christmas Eve and apple pie… her apple pie.”  Likewise, I was looking through photos with Donna and Carleen the other day, and we came across one where Ruth was obviously mid-sentence and had her hand out in a characteristic gesture.  And they said they could just hear her saying, “And let me tell you something…”

It’s the little moments that we remember most.  It’s the little moments that define a person.   As it turns out, Emily agrees with the famous, ancient Roman biographer Plutarch, who said,

“I am not writing histories but lives, and a man’s most conspicuous achievements do not always reveal best his strength or his weakness.  Often a trifling incident, a word or a jest, shows more of his character than the battles were he slays thousands… so I must be allowed to dwell especially on things that express the souls of these men, and through them portray their lives, leaving it to others to describe their mighty deeds and battles.”

So today, I’m going to focus on those little moments in Ruth’s life.  As Emily and Plutarch tell us, these moments tell us the most about who Ruth is.  Also, I think those little moments illustrate best the truth that Ruth herself wanted us to hear today.

Ruth herself picked out this passage from the New Testament book of Ephesians that we read a few minutes ago.  It took a little research, because she told us the page number, but not the exact chapter and verse where she wanted us to start.  Donna, Carleen, and I looked together at Ruth’s Bible, looking specifically at the little notes she made for herself in the margins.  We don’t know why, but something about these words struck Ruth in a particular way.  The three of us got to bear witness to those “little moments” that Ruth had while reading her Bible and something struck her as meaningful.  As I was preparing my message this morning, I had a keen sense that I wasn’t just researching another passage of the Bible, but I was having a kind of second-hand conversation with Ruth herself.  There was something that she wanted to tell us through this passage from St. Paul’s letter to the Ephesians.  Let’s see if we can figure out what it is that she wanted us to hear…

If you asked the average person on the street, they would probably tell you that religion is something we do: there are particular beliefs that we accept, certain rituals that we participate in, and certain ethical rules that we follow.  But you know what’s really interesting about this passage that Ruth chose for us to read today?  It’s a quick summary of important spiritual ideas, but it says almost nothing about beliefs, rituals, or morals.  This passage says almost nothing about what we’re supposed to do!

However, it has a lot to say about what God is doing.  In this passage, it says that God has “blessed us with every blessing”, “chosen us to be his own”, God is “making us holy” (“holy” means “special”), and has “covered us with his love.”  It also says that God “adopts us into his own family” and has “showered down upon us the richness of his grace”.  Finally, it says that God “understands us” and “gathers us together from wherever we are”.  That’s quite a list!  And it’s all about what God is doing.

You and I are surrounded by this incredible mystery of infinite love.  In the Christian churches, we call this mystery “God”.  And when we say that we “believe in God”, we’re expressing our trust in that mystery.  We trust that good is stronger than evil, life is stronger than death, love is stronger than hatred, and life is stronger than death.

Philosophically, we can say that we “believe” any old fact that we observe:

“I believe the sky is blue.”

“I believe the grass is green.”

“I believe that the Packers won the Superbowl this year.”

But when we say, “I believe in you” to someone, we’re saying something about trust.  We’re saying something personal.  In a way, we’re committing a part of ourselves to what we trust in.

When we trust in this mystery of Love (when we trust in God), that commitment makes a difference in the way we live our lives.  Sometimes, it makes a difference in big ways.  But most of the time, we can see the difference in those little things.  Ruth trusts in the God who loves her, and we can see that trust and that Love flowing through her in that smile, that laugh, that look, that apple pie, that Christmas morning, those little notes in her Bible, and the kiss goodbye.

You, and I, and Ruth are surrounded by this Love that will not let us go.  It holds us together in life and in death.  It’s bigger than the universe and older than time.  Today, I want to invite you to trust in that Love.  Let it shine through you in those little things you do, just like it did in Ruth.  That’s what it means to be a spiritual person.  That’s what it means to be a person of faith.  Ruth understands that and I think she wants us to understand that as well.

Born Again… and Again… and…

On By J. Barrett LeeIn Sermon1 Comment
Nicodemus?
Nicodemus?!

This week’s sermon from First Pres, Boonville.  The text is John 3:1-17.

There’s a guy with whom my wife went to high school named John.  In many ways, John was a stereotypical rebellious teenager.  He was really into parties and some drugs.  He questioned authority on everything. He walked around with enough chips on his shoulder to fill a Dorito bag.  But there was one way in which John did not fit the stereotype: he went to church every week.

Let me be clear about a few details: First, his parents didn’t make him go to church.  He decided to go on his own.  Second, John didn’t put on a pious façade for his church family.  He didn’t pretend to be one person on Saturday night and another on Sunday morning.  In fact, John was just as bitter and cynical at church as he was at home or school.  When people asked him why he bothered to go to church at all, he openly told them, “I don’t practice Christianity.  I don’t believe it.  I don’t get it at all, but I keep thinking that someday I might, and I want to be here when that happens.”

In a lot of ways, John reminds me of Nicodemus in today’s gospel reading.  He doesn’t “get it” either.  Jesus talks to him about being “born again” (or “born from above”) and “the wind blowing where it chooses” but it all goes straight over his head.  If anything, Nicodemus walks away from Jesus with more questions than answers.

At the beginning of the passage, it says that Nicodemus “came to Jesus by night”.  Most biblical scholars agree that this isn’t just talking about the time of day.  Rather, the author is trying to tell us something about Nicodemus himself.

A little background information might help that make sense:

The author of John’s gospel has a lot to say about Jesus being “the light of the world”.  Light-imagery comes up again and again in John.  Jesus is the light, while the rest of the world, by contrast, is dark.  So, when John says that Nicodemus “came to Jesus by night”, it means that Nicodemus exists in a state of spiritual darkness.

That being said, Nicodemus doesn’t seem to be such a bad guy.  First of all, he addresses Jesus with an unusually high degree of respect.  He uses the title “Rabbi”.  This is not what one would expect.  Nicodemus was a socially prominent, educated, and pious Jew.  Jesus, on the other hand, was without formal education and hailed from Nazareth, a place not known for producing prodigies.  In today’s terms, it would be like a Harvard professor walking up to a country bumpkin and calling him “Doctor” or “Reverend”.  Listen to what he says to Jesus: “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God.”

We meet Nicodemus again in John 7, when he defends Jesus against the attacks of the religious leaders.  Finally, he shows up in John 19, where he helps to bury Jesus and honors him with an expensive funeral fit for a king.  Nicodemus never has a distinct “born again” moment of conversion.  In fact, it’s unclear if he ever actually became a Christian.  Ancient legends indicate that he did eventually join the Church, but the scriptures themselves don’t state that explicitly.  Based on what we do know of him in John 3, 7, and 19, it seems like Nicodemus was on a slow and gradual journey of spiritual growth.

He feels genuinely drawn to Jesus, but he still struggles.  He’s curious enough to ask questions, but he’s not yet ready to make a leap of faith.  He wants to believe, but something inside is holding him back.  Does any of this sound familiar to you?  It does to me.

Like Nicodemus, I don’t have a distinct “born again” moment in my life.  I too have been on a slow and gradual journey of spiritual growth.  I’ve often been challenged with new ideas that go straight over my head at first.  I’ve had to go back to the beginning to reread and reinterpret my Bible so drastically that I felt like a kid in Sunday school all over again.  In that sense, you could say I was “born again… and again… and again.”

The NRSV translates “born again” as “born from above”.  When it says “from above”, it’s kind of like when a jazz musician says to the band, “Let’s take it from the top.”  It means, “Let’s start all over again.”

So, what causes this kind of “starting over” to happen?  We know straight away that it’s not the direct result of intellectual argument.  Throughout this passage, Nicodemus is trying to have a philosophical discussion with Jesus, but Jesus isn’t playing along.  Nicodemus keeps asking, “How can this be?”  And Jesus keeps throwing out these images that seem to make no sense.

In this way, Jesus is acting like a Zen master who is trying to expand his student’s consciousness.  Zen masters do this by presenting their students with something called a koan.  A koan is a kind of riddle that can’t be solved with rational thought.  The point is for the student to meditate on the riddle until she learns to break out of old habits of thinking.  For westerners, the most well-known koan is, “What is the sound of one hand clapping?”  Jesus’s words about being “born from above” and “the wind blowing where it will” are kind of like a Christian koan.  He’s trying to help Nicodemus expand his thinking to a spiritual level.

The realm of the spirit is far bigger than the realm of the mind.  On a spiritual level, people are able to grasp certain truths that defy rational explanation.  For example: Christians believe that God is both three and one; Jesus is fully divine and fully human; the bread and wine are also the body and blood of Christ.  These ideas are contradictions when we try to understand them rationally, but they make sense as spiritual truths.

Presbyterian and Reformed Christians have often emphasized this “more than rational” quality of faith and spirituality.  For us, “faith” is more than a list of doctrines to which we give intellectual assent.  We believe that faith is a gift.  Faith doesn’t come about from sophisticated intellectual arguments.   It grows in us by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit is God at work within us and around us.  The Spirit leads us in the direction of faith, goodness, and wholeness.  This is taking place, even before we profess our faith in Christ.  Look at Nicodemus: the text tells us that he was still in “darkness”, but something was attracting him toward Jesus, the light of the world.

There’s a particular image in this text that really stood out to me this week.  Jesus tells Nicodemus that one must be “born of water and the Spirit” in order to enter the kingdom of God.  What does that mean?  Some scholars think that this is a reference to the sacrament of baptism, and they may well be right about that.  Other scholars think that Jesus is comparing two different kinds of birth: natural and spiritual birth.  We know that when a baby is born into this world, a lot of water is involved.  For the first nine months of its existence, a baby lives in the darkness of the womb, surrounded by this amniotic fluid.  The fluid (this “water”) protects the baby and feeds it with vital nutrients until it’s ready to be born “into the light” of this world.

In the same way, Nicodemus is kind of like an embryo in this passage.  He’s not ready to be born.  He still lives in “darkness”.  But the Holy Spirit is kind of like the amniotic fluid of a mother’s womb.  The Spirit surrounds him and feeds him with nutrients until he’s ready to be born (again and again).

This image gives me hope for myself and other people like Nicodemus and John, my wife’s friend from high school.  None of us totally “gets it” when it comes to Christian faith.  We’re struggling, we’re doubting, but we’re also growing.  Nicodemus is repeatedly drawn to Jesus.  John was inexplicably drawn to church.  I am continually drawn back to the scriptures, trusting that God has yet more light to shed on my understanding.  It’s comforting for me to know that none of us is alone in this journey.  You may feel like you’re constantly starting over.  You may feel like you’ve got more questions than answers.  You may feel like you’re just wandering aimlessly.  But let me give you some hope this morning: you are being nurtured by the Holy Spirit and led from darkness into light.

If you sense that attraction at all, I encourage you to follow it.  Keep coming back to church.  Keep searching the scriptures, even if you don’t understand them.  Keep on reaching out to God in prayer.  Keep on coming back to be fed by the sacrament of the body and blood of Christ.  I encourage you to follow this attraction and see where it leads you.  It might not happen all at once, but I have faith that eventually, you will “get it”.  We all will.  Thanks be to God.

Into the Wilderness

On By J. Barrett LeeIn Sermon3 Comments
Cordelia Chase from "Buffy the Vampire Slayer"

This week’s sermon from First Pres, Boonville.  The text is Matthew 4:1-11.

Today marks the first Sunday in the season of Lent.  They say that Lent is a time for admitting and giving up your vices.  I’ve got one that I’m not quite ready to give up yet, but I don’t mind admitting it to you: I watch too much TV.  That may not sound like much at first, but it gets more impressive when you realize that I don’t actually have a TV in the strictest sense of the term.  My wife and I have a unit on which we can watch videos and DVDs, but it receives no signal from the airwaves.  So, whenever we want to watch something new, we have to go through the effort of procuring our own material.  So, when I tell you that I watch too much TV, believe me when I tell you that it’s a lot of work!

Lately, I’ve been indulging my addiction with a show called Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It’s a ridiculous story about an average high school student named Buffy in Sunnydale, California who happens to hunt vampires and other monsters in her spare time.  She does this with the help of her school librarian and a few misfit friends.

One recurring character in the show is a classmate of Buffy’s named Cordelia Chase.  Cordelia is “the popular girl” at Sunnydale High.  She is as shallow as her family is rich.  She looks down on Buffy and her friends.  Most of the time, Cordelia is just a bully who blocks Buffy’s path to acceptance and happiness in high school.

Anybody who went to high school probably knew someone like Cordelia Chase.  Unfortunately, the entire experience of teenage politics is usually defined by people like that.  Individuals gain power by sucking up to the popular and stepping on the unpopular.  What’s even sadder is that the rest of the world seems to operate on the same principle.  The politics of the board room are remarkably similar to the politics of the locker room.  Some people just never outgrow those manipulative games.  It’s just the way the world is.

I think we get a taste of that world in today’s gospel reading.  It’s the famous story of Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness.  In this story, Jesus comes face to face (and toe to toe) with the spirit of this world system and all its power-mongering.  The question on the table in this scene is, “What does it mean to be the Son of God?”  In other words, will Jesus be a king like all the other powerful rulers on earth or will he be different?  Jesus faces three separate temptations, but beneath them all is this one, lingering question.

We’ve already read the story, so you know what the three temptations are: to turn stones into bread, to throw himself from the pinnacle of the Temple, and to worship the devil.  Let’s look at them one at a time:

First, the devil tempts Jesus to turn stones into bread.  Remember that Jesus was fasting and hadn’t eaten for forty days.  The temptation here is for Jesus to make use of his power to meet his own needs first.  Isn’t that how powerful people act in times of scarcity?  They circle the wagons and look out for themselves.  They take of their own needs first.  Is that the kind of king that Jesus is going to be?  As it turns out, Jesus says no.

In the second temptation, the devil takes Jesus to the pinnacle of the Temple in Jerusalem and invites him to make a spectacular leap from the top.  The kings of this world rely on “shock and awe” techniques and dramatic displays of power in order to foster loyalty.  Will Jesus do the same?  Jesus says no.

In the third temptation, the devil shows Jesus the splendor of all the kingdoms of the world and promises to hand them over if only Jesus will bow down to Satan.  The devil knows that Jesus has come to establish a kingdom.  He offers Jesus the chance to pursue God’s ends through Satan’s means.  It’s an apparent shortcut to power.  The rulers of this world often justify their means by their ends.  As long as you’re going somewhere good, what does it matter how you get there?  You and I are asked to sacrifice our integrity for gain on a daily basis.  But Jesus says no.  For Jesus, who you are and how you get there is just as important as where you’re going.

There is one detail in the second temptation that’s particularly interesting to me.  It has to do with place and movement.  The devil moves Jesus to the pinnacle of the Jerusalem Temple.  This was the holiest spot in the holiest city on earth.  Isn’t it ironic that the devil is leading Jesus toward church?  We usually think of him doing the opposite.  What’s even stranger is that, once they’ve arrived, the devil starts reading from the Bible, quoting Psalm 91.  Get this: the devil is reading scripture in church.  We usually think of this place as a sanctuary from the brutality of the world, but those who have been around for a while know that even church can be a pretty dark place sometimes.  Power-hungry people of all ideological stripes co-opt pulpits and twist the Bible to fit their agendas.  In this passage, it looks like Satan comes dressed in a clerical collar and a stole.

So, where is God in all of this?  The fate of Jesus’ ministry is hanging in the balance and a power-hungry devil is reading the Bible in church.  Is God absent or silent while this is going on?

Well, we get lots of little hints scattered throughout the text.  Let’s look again at location and movement in the text.  We read in verse one that the Spirit leads Jesus into the wilderness.  Isn’t that interesting?  The devil leads Jesus closer to the center of religion and power (Jerusalem) while the Holy Spirit is leading him out toward the edges (the wilderness).  There aren’t many literal deserts in this part of New York, so what might this mean for us?  I wonder where the “edges” of life are for people in our community?  Where are the places that are farthest from the centers of power and religious practice?  Who lives there?  What kind of people are they?  Who in our community is least likely to come to church?  Could it be that the Holy Spirit is leading us to walk out to meet them, rather than waiting for them to come in here?

It’s a powerful and disturbing image: the devil is preaching from the Bible at the front of the church while the Holy Spirit is ushering Jesus out the door.  I want to let that image sink in.

I don’t think we all need to get up right now, leave, and never come back to church.  But I should also confess that I have a conflict of interest there, since my salary depends on you staying!  But can we at least look at the movement in this passage and focus our attention toward the direction in which the Spirit is moving?  Let’s follow the Spirit’s leading into the “wilderness” of our community where people are famished in more ways than one.

This is the way that Jesus walked.  Jesus says no to turning the stones into bread for himself, but he says yes to miraculously providing bread for a hungry crowd later on.  Jesus says no to a spectacular display of power in the religious center, but he says yes to teaching and healing large crowds of hurting people on the hills and in the streets.  Jesus says no to sacrificing his integrity for power, but he says yes to sacrificing his life for us.  The devil wanted Jesus to wear a crown of gold and sit on a throne, but Jesus chose to wear a crown of thorns and hang on a cross.

In the TV show I’ve been watching, Cordelia Chase eventually walks the way of the “wilderness” as well.  She keeps crossing paths with Buffy and her nerdy, vampire-hunting friends.  Slowly but surely, she is drawn into their misfit community and away from the popular crowds.  In time, Cordelia is transformed from a bully into a sympathetic character who cares deeply about the needs and pain of others.  In the end, she even becomes one of the heroes.

How might the Spirit be calling us to follow Jesus into the wilderness?  What will our church family start to look like as we reach out beyond the walls of our sanctuary and touch the lives of those who are farthest from it?  How will we be changed as we let go of this world’s power-grabbing tactics and embrace the way of the cross?

I want to leave these questions open for you to ponder as we move through Lent toward Easter.  As you let these questions take root in your imagination, you will be opening yourself to the leading of the Spirit in new ways.  And I believe that you too will be able to sense the same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead bringing new life to you, to your community, and to our church as well.

Honesty Not Guilt

On By J. Barrett LeeIn Sermon1 Comment

Ash Wednesday sermon from First Pres, Boonville.

I remember when I first graduated from college and moved back to the town in North Carolina where I grew up.  I was 22, single, and ready to conquer the world with my brand new Philosophy degree in hand.  On my first Sunday back, I decided to attend services at the large suburban church where I grew up.  I spent a little extra time getting ready that morning.  I had been an awkward, shy kid as I grew up in that church, but in college, I really came into my own.  I was much more sure of myself than I used to be.  “This time,” I thought, “I’ll impress them all with how intelligent and charming I can be.”  So, for my first Sunday back, I dressed to the nines and gave myself the once (even twice) over in the mirror before I left the house.  “Yup,” I thought as I walked up the sidewalk to church, “This is the beginning of a whole new era.”

This church had a large Sunday school class for young professionals, so I decided to show up early, make some new friends, maybe even check out the dating situation.  I shook some hands, learned some names, and then sat down as Sunday school began.  I was super-excited because Tim, the pastor leading the class, had been that church’s youth pastor when I was in junior high and high school.  He was funny and wise and had guided me through some tough times in those years.  I was looking forward to hearing him speak again.

As class was starting, Tim asked if there were any newcomers to the group.  I raised my hand and introduced myself.  Tim exclaimed to the class, “I remember this the guy from junior high youth group!”  And then, abounding in affection but somewhat lacking in tact, Tim began to tell stories to this room of a hundred young singles; stories about what I was like at age 12.  Suddenly, that awkward and shy, 7th grade version of myself was on public display for all to see.  My carefully rehearsed image was shattered and, as the sympathetic laughter grew around me, my face turned the same shade as the maroon shirt I had so carefully picked out that morning.

People in our society invest a lot of time, energy, and money in their image.  They hang their diplomas and awards on the wall.  They keep a careful watch on the clothes they wear, the cars they drive, and the neighborhoods they live in.  People spend millions on face-lifts, tummy-tucks, Botox, Bow-Flex, and (when none of it makes them truly happy) psychiatrists.  We want to appear confident and competent in front of our neighbors.  We want the beauty of youth with the benefit of experience.  We idolize life and success.

So, it seems odd then, when Christians gather together each year and celebrate Ash Wednesday, an entire holiday apparently dedicated to failure and death.  We talk about sin.  We talk about death and returning to dust.  We talk about our total failure to maintain that perfect, practiced image in front of the world.  In fact, we even mar that perfect image with smudges of ash on our foreheads.  Isn’t that morbid?  Why spend an entire day focusing on the very things that society teaches us to hide?  Is the Christian God really interested in humiliating us?

I don’t think so.  And I don’t actually think it’s all that morbid to spend time meditating on these things.  In the end, Ash Wednesday is not really about guilt and death.  It’s about honesty.  Our faith in a loving God gives us the courage to face honestly those things that the rest of the world would have us hide.  In a culture that glorifies youth and beauty, we make a point of remembering our death.  Youth and beauty are wonderful things to celebrate, but they cannot tell us who we are as human beings.  Youth and beauty pass away with time, but who we are as God’s children lasts for eternity.  We do not need to fear death because we know that the God who loves us and has held us throughout our lives will continue to love us and hold us in eternity.  God’s love empowers us to face death with courage.

Likewise, in a culture that worships success, we make a point of confessing our failures.  In any other setting, that would be a career-ending move.  But here in church, we celebrate the God who loved us, even while we were yet sinners.  Our constant failing and flailing about in life neither impresses nor threatens God.  God is not moved by our resumes or achievements.  Likewise, God is not frightened at our failures.  God’s unconditional and undeserved love is a given.  God knows your every fault and every flaw, but does not stop loving you for them.  Theologians have called this aspect of God’s character “grace”, which means “unmerited favor”.  This grace is what we celebrate on Ash Wednesday.

We celebrate the fact that the grace and love of God empowers us to get honest with ourselves and the world.  We now have the ability to live as free and forgiven people.  We are free of the rat-race and the beauty myth.  We wear our ashes as a token of our faith that love is stronger than death and grace is stronger than sin.  Empowered by this love and grace, we can go out into the world with the gift of honesty.  We can live as real people in a world that would rather cover up its flaws.

My attempt at constructing a new confident and competent image didn’t last long.  My pastor’s affectionate faux pas taught me something about honesty and love.  He taught me that true love is not blind.  Real love sees the truth and loves anyway.

In my moment of red-faced embarrassment, I didn’t know what to say except, “I love you too, Tim.”

From Fear to Faith

On By J. Barrett LeeIn Sermon2 Comments

Photo by Denis Barthel

This week’s sermon from First Pres, Boonville.  The text is Matthew 6:24-34.

When I first went to seminary in 2003, I had no intention of pursuing ordained ministry as a career.  I thought I was going to teach college.  But I very quickly discovered that the academic world is quite cutthroat.  Success didn’t just come from studying hard and doing your best; you had to make connections.  You had to stand out in class so that the right professors took notice of you.  You needed those professors to write you a good recommendation for the right PhD program, so you could get a good job with tenure at a university.  It was really competitive!  In order to be the best, you had to beat the best.

So, I went in with both guns blazing.  I was determined to out-smart all my classmates.  I thought I would make my professors notice me, no matter what it took.  If I had to make other people look stupid in order to prove what a genius I was, I would do it.

This plan of mine didn’t work out as well as I thought it would.  In fact, it failed on multiple levels.  First of all, it turns out that I wasn’t exactly the sharpest tool in the shed.  In every class, there was always somebody smarter or quicker on the draw than I was.  For crying out loud, some of my fellow students had already started writing their own books!  I found out pretty quickly that if you try to portray yourself as better than everyone else when you’re not, you just end up looking ridiculous.

That leads me to the second way in which my so-called “genius” plan failed: After a while, I realized that I didn’t particularly like the kind of person I was becoming.  I spent a lot of time being bitter and angry.  As I look back, I can see that a lot of my troubles came from a particular fear that I held onto without even realizing it:  I was afraid that I was on my own, treading water in a sea of chaos.  I was afraid that the success of my future depended solely on my ability to make it happen.

When I look around at people in our society, I can see that this fear is a pretty common one.  People everywhere are afraid.  We’re afraid that there’s no master plan in life.  We’re afraid that there’s nothing holding this universe together.  We’re afraid that we’re all alone out here.

We will often do desperate things in order to keep this fear at bay.  We invest in products and programs that are supposed to make us prettier, happier, and healthier.  We pledge allegiance to organizations and ideologies that promise peace and prosperity.  The peddlers of commercial advertising and political propaganda stand ready to prey on our fears.

For our part, we the people stand ready to make sacrifices to these idols (although we would call them “compromises”).  In moments of desperation, many of us will do despicable things that we later regret (but dismiss as “unavoidable”).  In Spanish, we would be called “Desperados”.  We are not all that different from the ancient Israelites, who sacrificed animals and humans to idols of stone in exchange for good weather and plentiful crops.  The real tragedy is that, despite our sacrifices, these objects of worship are totally unable to deliver on their promises.  Our quantity and quality of life remain unimproved.  It’s just like Jesus said in verse 27, “can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life?”  In the throes of my own fear, I bowed down before the false gods of ambition and competition.  I believed their promises of a secure future.  But in the end, those cut-throat tactics left me no closer to my dream job.

This slavery to fear is nothing new.  People have struggled with it in every culture around the world for centuries.  Jesus even noticed it in his own followers.  He could tell they were stuck somewhere between faith and fear.  The Greek word he used to describe that feeling is merimna, which literally means, “to be pulled in two directions”.  Don’t we all feel that way sometimes?  The voice of faith leads us in one direction while voices of fear jerk us back the other way.

We live in a world that is inherently opposed to real faith.  Real faith looks ridiculous to a fear-driven world.  Just look at the Beatitudes in Matthew 5.  Jesus said, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, those who mourn, the meek, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, the persecuted”.  The world writes these people off as naïve idealists, but Jesus calls them blessed.  You and I live somewhere between the world and Jesus.  We try to follow his leading, but we inevitably get “pulled in two directions”.  This is what Jesus meant in verse 24 when he talked about those who try to “serve two masters”.  That kind of tension is unsustainable in the long-term.  Eventually, our souls will snap and we’ll end up on one side or the other.

As I said before, the cause of this tension is our fear.  Jesus understands this.  That’s why he’s not shouting at us like a drill sergeant, telling us to buck up and try harder.  Instead, Jesus takes a very gentle approach and addresses the problem at its root.

We’re all sitting here, scared to death that we’re on our own in life and surrounded by chaos.  But Jesus interrupts our panic and invites us into a different way of looking at things.  He prescribes a kind of meditation exercise for his followers.  Specifically, Jesus invites them to meditate on creation.  We already know that Jesus was preaching this sermon outdoors on a hillside, so he may have even had specific examples close at hand.  In this exercise, Jesus directs our attention to the flora and fauna of the world around us.  It says “Consider” in verse 28, but the Greek word is an intensified form of the word “to learn” or “receive instruction”.  Jesus says, in effect, “Let the birds and the flowers become your teachers.”  Have you ever tried to do this?  If you have, then you know that in order to get a good, long look at something like a bird, you have to be very still and very quiet for long periods of time.  Doing this when you’re outside can have a wonderful calming effect on the mind.  Even if it doesn’t make your problems go away, it really helps to clear the head!  The scene reminds me of Psalm 23: “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.  He makes me lie down in green pastures; he leads me beside still waters.  He restores my soul.”

Just what is it that the birds and the flowers are supposed to teach us?

Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?  …Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, 29yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. 30But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you?

The birds and the flowers teach us that we live in a world of order, not chaos.  They teach us that we are surrounded, not by scarcity, but by abundance of life.  The good news that Jesus wants to teach us through creation is that we are not alone in this world.  We’re not our here on our own!  No, the universe is permeated by a Love that will not let us go.

You are not on your own.  It’s not up to you to fight back the darkness and the chaos.  Wherever you are this morning, whatever you’re going through, there is a God who loves you.  And, as it says in Jeremiah 29:11, “I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope.”  It’s not up to you to do it.  It’s up to God.

The end result of this meditation exercise is that we should let go of our fear, even if it’s just a little bit at a time.  Three times in this passage, at verses 25, 31, and 34, Jesus tells us, “do not worry.”  We should strive to just be in the moment, “Today” as Jesus calls it in verse 34, and be grateful for God’s abundant blessings in our lives.  Jesus says in verse 33 that we should “strive first for the kingdom of God” and, if you remember from several weeks ago, where is the kingdom?  It’s “at hand”!  It’s right in front of us and all around us.  God’s kingdom is the place where God is present and in-charge.  That can be anywhere at anytime.

You might be thinking, “All of this is great for reducing stress and increasing relaxation, but what about my very real problems?  Can I really depend on some invisible God to have a plan for my life?”  Well yes, you can bet that God does have a plan.  I can’t tell you the exact details of God’s plan for your life, but I can tell you a little about what’s happened in mine so far:

As I said before, I really didn’t like kind of person I was becoming during my first year of grad school.  Eventually, I came to the conclusion that an academic career was not for me.  I didn’t yet know what I would do instead, but I continued to press on toward the completion of my degree.  Over the next several years, I began to realize that God was calling me to ordained ministry, first as a volunteer chaplain for homeless people.  Later, much to my surprise, the academic world came looking for me, hat in hand!  I was offered a job as a professor without a PhD or letters of recommendation.  I didn’t make it happen with my cunning and wits, God made it happen in God’s time.  Later still, a small congregation in an unfamiliar village called Boonville would invite me to become their pastor.

I never imagined that the puzzle pieces of my life would come together in such a complex and subtle way.  I can’t take credit for it.  This reality is far beyond anything that I could have planned for myself.  That’s my story.  The details of yours will be different.

This morning, I want to extend Jesus’ invitation to you.  Let creation be your teacher as you listen for the voice of faith in your life.  In the hard times, the voice of faith gives you strength.  That’s the voice inside of you that says, “You’re not alone.  You’re going to make it through this.”  In the good times, the voice of faith gives you wisdom.  That’s the voice inside of you that says, “Nothing in this world lasts forever.  Use these gifts while you can to help those around you who are in need and to make this world a better place.”

Listening to the voice of faith rather than the voice of fear gives you the peace to live as a spiritually-centered person in the midst of this hostile world.  The voice of faith gives you the power to be truly present in this moment and give thanks for the abundance of blessing that has been poured out over your life.

Turn the Other Cheek

On By J. Barrett LeeIn Sermon2 Comments

Today’s sermon from First Presbyterian, Boonville.

The text is Matthew 5:38-48.

Click here to listen to the podcast at fpcboonville.org!

We read this morning from some of Jesus’ most quoted and most ignored teachings.  “Turn the other cheek” and “love your enemies” represent some of the highest moral ideals for Christians (and other admirers of Jesus), but when it comes to actually obeying these commandments, almost all of us will buckle under the pressure.  We reluctantly admit that we don’t believe they will “work” in real life.

Ironically, most of the examples we cite to prove our point are too hypothetical to bear any resemblance to “real life”.  It usually goes something like this: “Suppose an insane maniac breaks into your house in the middle of the night.  Any reasonable person would shoot to kill in self-defense.”  There are several different variations on this theme, but the core principle remains the same.  The problem with this and other hypothetical scenarios is that reality usually involves more variables than can be accounted for in a simulation.

However, we know that violent home invasions do happen in reality.  Let’s leave the realm of the hypothetical and present this problem in terms of an event that actually happened:

Late one night, Angie O’Gorman was rudely awakened by the sound of someone kicking in her bedroom door.  She was alone at the time.  Before she knew it, the attacker was in the room and shouting at her.  She could see his outline as he moved toward her.  It just so happened that Angie slept with a handgun under her pillow, just in case something like this ever happened…

Let me pause the story right there.  In that moment, the end-result of millions of years of human evolution was doing its work inside Angie’s mind and body.  Our biological instincts present us with two options in panic situations: fight or flight.  A person can either try to defend/retaliate or run/hide.  Which is the morally proper response?

Christians have tried to answer this question using Jesus’ teaching as a guide.  Some have said that Christ’s command is absolute and you shouldn’t return violence for violence, no matter what the cost.  Others argue that there must be exceptions to this rule because Jesus never intended for his followers to be doormats while violent people walked all over the innocent.  Which one do you think is right?

Personally, I think they’re both right.  I think Jesus does hate violence, but he also has no desire to see you become a doormat.  I think that Jesus presents Christians with a third option that goes beyond fight-flight.  There’s a theologian named Walter Wink who has written quite a bit on this subject.  This morning, I am heavily indebted to his research.

When Jesus says, “Turn the other cheek,” most people assume that he’s taking the so-called “doormat” position.  They think he’s saying, “You want to hit me?  That’s ok.  You can hit me.  God bless you.  Maybe later we can all hold hands and sing ‘Kum Ba Yah’?”  I think nothing could be farther from the truth of what Jesus is actually saying.  In order to gain a better understanding of what he did mean, we should look closer at some of the details of the text:

Jesus said, “If anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other”.  Look carefully, because it says “the right cheek”.  In the ancient Middle Eastern world, people were more conscious about what hand they used for which tasks.  The left hand was only used for certain “unclean” things.  Even gesturing with the left hand was taboo for Jews at that time.  So, if someone were to strike another person, they would almost certainly use their right hand.

Now, think about this: if I come at you with my right hand (open or closed), which side of your face would it naturally land on?  The left!  The only way to land a blow on the right cheek with the right hand is with a backhand.  A backhanded slap in that time was a very specific gesture.  It was meant as an insult, not an injury.  The higher-ups on the social ladder would use the backhand against their inferiors in order to “put them in their place”.  The only expected response was for the other person to cower in shame.  This backhand slap was a way of demoralizing and dehumanizing another person.

So, what effect would “turning the other cheek” have in that situation?  Well, it would make it impossible for someone to reach your right cheek with a backhand.  Your attacker can still hit you, but only with a fist.  And in that society, only social equals hit each other with fists.  So, Jesus is saying, “If you’re going to hit me, hit me as your equal.”  Jesus is robbing the insult of its power.  Once a victim has stood up and refused to accept humiliation, the rules of the game have changed.  They don’t hit back.  They don’t cower in shame.  Neither fight nor flight is happening here.  Instead, the victim is taking charge of the situation and forcing the attacker to acknowledge their common humanity.  This is Jesus’ third option in action.  “Turning the other cheek” was Jesus’ way of inviting his followers to engage in active and creative nonviolence.  I could make similar explanations of “give your coat” and “go the extra mile”, but time this morning does not permit.

Let’s return to our initial story in Angie O’Gorman’s bedroom.  What went through her mind in that moment, when the attacker was moving toward her?  Well, her gun was under the pillow, but she didn’t think she had enough time to retrieve, aim, and fire it before the attacker reached her.  So she shouted out the first thing that came to her mind.

She asked, “What time is it?”

“Uhh,” the attacker stopped in his tracks and checked his watch, “it’s about 2:30.”

“Oh,” she said, “mine says 2:45.  I hope your watch isn’t broken.  When did you set it last?”

They went back and forth like that for several minutes.  Eventually, when some of the tension had eased, she asked how he had got into the house.

“I broke the glass on the back door,” he said.

“That’s a shame, because I don’t have money for new glass.”

He talked about his own money problems.  They talked for a while after that until Angie felt comfortable enough to ask him to leave.  He calmly said he didn’t want to.  Angie said firmly, “Okay, I’ll get you some sheets, but you have to make your own bed on the couch downstairs.”  He said that was fine.  After that, he went and lay down for the night.  In the morning, Angie made them breakfast and the would-be attacker went on his way.

I’m not presenting Angie’s case as an example of what everyone should do in a home invasion.  Every situation is different in its own complicated way. The truth is that no one really knows how they will react in that situation until they are in the thick of it.  Hopefully, no one here ever has been (or will be) in a violent home invasion, but if you are, know that God understands how people do the best they can with what they have in those situations.  I offer Angie’s story as an actual example of creative nonviolence.  That’s what “turning the other cheek” really looks like.

So, we’ve talked about what Jesus meant and how that might look in our modern world.  Now, I’d like to talk about why “turning the other cheek” is so important.  In short, it’s important that we, as Christians, turn the other cheek (in the way that Jesus meant it) because it is a reflection of how God has dealt with us.

As Jesus said, God causes the sun to shine and the rain to fall on good and evil alike.  God gives these gifts abundantly and generously to all, regardless of what they deserve.  Such is the generous and all-inclusive love of God.

No matter how hard you fight, you can never out-sin God’s love for you.  People have tried for millennia and failed.  God is always ready to turn another cheek.  When God came near to us in the person of Jesus Christ, we struck his face, but he turned the other cheek.  We denied the divinity in him, but he affirmed the humanity in us.  We nailed him to a cross, but he said, “Father, forgive them, they know not what they do.”  We killed him, but he rose from the dead.  We rejected Jesus, but Jesus has rejected our rejection.  Jesus stood his ground and never fought back.  This is the ultimate turning of the cheek.

So, when you do the same for others in the conflicts and crises of your life, you reflect the love that redeemed the world from sin, just like the moon reflects the light of the sun in the midst of the cold, dark night.

So, go out into the world today in the power of that redemptive love.  Turn the other cheek: stand your ground, resist violence without resorting to violence, defend your humanity as you affirm it in your aggressors, love your enemies, and show yourselves to be children of the God who is love and who loved us, even while we were yet sinners.

The Spirit of the Law is Love

On By J. Barrett LeeIn Sermon3 Comments

Here is this week’s sermon from First Pres, Boonville.

The text is Matthew 5:21-37.

Starting at a very young age, people in our society are taught that certain answers are expected of them in certain situations.  There is a Sunday school urban legend that illustrates this point beautifully:

There was a Sunday school teacher leading a class of very young kids.  As part of her lesson one morning, she held up a picture of a squirrel and asked the kids if they knew what it was.  There was a dead silence in the room.  The teacher was puzzled.  She thought, “Surely, these kids know a squirrel when they see one!”  So she asked again.  And again, there was silence.  “Now kids,” she said, “do you mean to tell me that no one in this room knows what this is a picture of?”  Slowly and tentatively, one little boy in the back raised his hand.  “It looks like a squirrel,” he said, “but I know the answer is ‘Jesus’.”

We are programmed to give a “right” answer whenever we are asked a question.  This is especially true in church, where we are often told that our “right answer” will seal our eternal fate after death (for better or worse).

In Jesus’ day, people called Pharisees were thought of as experts at giving the “right answers”.  The Pharisees were upstanding citizens and pillars in the community.  They were the “neighborhood watch”, so to speak.  People thought of them as pious and respectable individuals.  If anyone had the “right answers”, it was them.

But the Pharisees had a dark side.  They knew the Bible better than anybody and they used it as a weapon.  Anyone who didn’t agree with their “right answers” or conform to their idea of “right behavior” was labeled as a “sinner” and was kicked out of life in the community.  They used their religion as a way to make themselves look good at the expense of other people.

Jesus didn’t buy their act.  He wasn’t fooled by these religious hypocrites.  Sure, they knew the “right answers” and obeyed the commandments better than anyone else, but they were totally missing the point.  From Jesus’ point of view, religion isn’t about knowing the “right answers” or obeying the rules, it’s about who you are on the inside.  So Jesus took it upon himself to challenge their pretended piety.

He started with the commandments and Bible verses they loved to quote: “You have heard it said…”

“You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, ‘You shall not murder’”.  That was a natural one for people to start with.  “We’ve never killed anyone,” they said.

“You’re right,” Jesus said, “you haven’t.  But look at the way you talk about each other.  Think about the violence that comes out of your mouths.  Those words can be just as damaging as any murder weapon.”

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’”  “That’s another easy one,” they said, “we’ve never slept with someone we weren’t married to.”

“Right again,” said Jesus, “But you size up the opposite sex and treat them like objects.  You use them for your own pleasure and then just send them away.  Don’t you know that the pain and the shame of that experience will always be with that person?  You force them to live with the consequences of your actions while you get off scot-free because ‘your paperwork was in order’.  And yet you still show up to worship each week, talking all religious and acting like you’re better than everyone else.  Well, that’s not how God sees it!”

This is what Jesus has to say to the religious folks (the “insiders”).  What about the “outsiders”?  The Pharisees called them “sinners”.  We call them lots of different names in our society (freaks, weirdoes, queers, losers, screw-ups).  To “those people”, Jesus says things like this: “Peace be with you.  Your sins are forgiven.  Your faith has made you well.”  Jesus gravitated to “those people”.  They made up the majority of his early followers.

It’s ironic that so many Christians who follow Jesus today have turned his message around 180 degrees.  They speak Christ’s comforting words to themselves and reserve his harsh words for the “outsiders”.  Just like the Pharisees, too many Christians use their Bible as a weapon to beat other people down.  For example, I can even think of times when ministers have used Jesus’ words in this very passage to belittle people whose marriages don’t work out.  That’s not how Jesus meant for his words to be used!  These Christians may have memorized all the “right answers” but they’ve missed the point.  Like the Pharisees, they follow the letter of the law, but not the spirit of the law.

So, what is the point?  If it’s not about having the right answers and obeying the rules, what is it all about?  Jesus answered this question on another occasion when a Pharisee came up and asked him about what he thought was the most important part of the Bible.  Jesus said, “’You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ 38This is the greatest and first commandment. 39And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”  In the end, it’s all about love.  Love God.  Love your neighbor.  Love yourself.  Love is the spirit of the law.  If you are a person whose heart is full of love, the rest of the commandments will come to you naturally.

But the good news doesn’t stop there.  It’s not up to you and me to stir up enough love in ourselves to pass around to the whole world.  Love doesn’t come from inside us.  Love comes from God.  In I John 4, we read that “God is love.”  In the same place, St. John says, “In this is love, not that we loved God, but that God loved us”.  And later he says, “We love because God first loved us.”  God is the source of all love.  And, as St. Paul says in Romans 5, “God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.”

Our calling in life, as Christians, is to love.  And we fulfill that calling with the strength of the infinite love that comes from God.  One of my heroes, Dr. Martin Luther King, discovered the power of that love late one night in the early days of the Civil Rights Movement.  It was after midnight when his phone rang.  At the other end was a voice muttering death threats.  If he wasn’t out of town in three days, they would blow up his house.  He had received these kinds of threats before.  Sometimes he got up to 40 a day!  But for some reason, this one got to him.  He couldn’t sleep after that.  He was only 26 years old and too worried about what might happen to his wife and child.  I’ll tell the story in his words from here:

“I was weak.   Something said to me, you can’t call on Daddy now… You’ve got to call on that something in that person that your Daddy used to tell you about.  That power that can make a way out of no way.   And I discovered then that religion had to become real to me and I had to know God for myself.  And I bowed down over that cup of coffee—I never will forget it.  And oh yes, I prayed a prayer and I prayed out loud that night.  I said, “Lord, I’m down here trying to do what’s right.  I think I’m right; I think the cause that we represent is right.  But Lord, I must confess that I’m weak now; I’m faltering; I’m losing my courage… And it seemed at that moment that I could hear an inner voice saying to me, “Martin Luther, stand up for righteousness, stand up for justice, stand up for truth.   And lo I will be with you, even until the end of the world.”   And I’ll tell you, I’ve seen the lightning flash. I’ve heard the thunder roll. I felt sin- breakers dashing, trying to conquer my soul. But I heard the voice of Jesus saying still to fight on. He promised never to leave me, never to leave me alone. No, never alone.”

That’s the power of God’s love.  That power gave Dr. King the strength to march out and meet death-threats, fire-hoses, billy-clubs, jail cells, and ultimately, an assassin’s bullet.  The power of that same love gave Jesus the strength to carry his cross all the way to Calvary.  The power of that love is the same power that lives inside of you and me.

Christianity isn’t about having the right answers or obeying the rules.  It’s about learning to have faith in the power of God’s love.  And it starts with you.  Here’s your homework: no matter where you’re at today (even if you’re not a Christian), I want you to do like Dr. King did.  Ask God to make this love real to you.  As Paul said, “God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit”.  Take a few minutes at some point during your day (beginning, middle, or end) and imagine what that might look like.  Imagine your heart being filled to overflowing with God’s love for you.  Sit with it for a while.  Imagine that it’s a blanket or a warm bath you can soak in.  Do this as often as you can.  Take that image of God’s love with you into the rest of your day.  The love and acceptance that you’ve always longed for from family, friends, and significant others is yours, free of charge.  And the Giver of that love has promised never to leave you alone.  No, never alone.

Walking With God

On By J. Barrett LeeIn Sermon1 Comment

This is the sermon I preached at last Tuesday’s Presbytery meeting.  The text is Micah 6:1-8.

Just yesterday, I was walking out of the cafeteria at Utica College when I bumped into Cristina, who is one of my students.  Cristina heads up an on-campus activist organization called UC Pride.  This week, Cristina and the others at UC Pride are organizing an event called “No Name-Calling Week”.  The purpose of this event is to raise awareness about bullying and the effect that abusive language can have on people.

Last autumn, a student at Rutgers named Tyler Clementi committed suicide after enduring brutal treatment from his fellow students because of his sexual orientation.  For a brief period of time, the media took notice of the fact that several other students around the country were committing suicide after receiving the same kind of torture from their classmates.

These events inspired Cristina to initiate “No Name-Calling Week”.  She made up a series of fliers with derogatory names like “Geek”, “Dork”, and “Stupid” written on them.  She hoped that these fliers would inspire others to think more carefully about the kind of language they use in everyday conversation.  I said to her, “It’s like you’re trying to teach the fish to notice the water.”

To her shock and dismay, Cristina discovered that people were ripping down her fliers, crumpling them up, and throwing them in trash cans.  When she replaced the original fliers with new ones containing the names of those who committed suicide last fall, these were torn down as well.  Cristina was disheartened, to say the least.  “How could people be so ignorant and immature?” she said.  I tried my best to comfort her.  “Your program is obviously having an effect,” I said, “otherwise, people wouldn’t feel so threatened that they would need to rip the fliers down just to get them out of sight.”

Cristina lives with a potent vision of the way this world could (and should) be.  She dreams of a society where people like Tyler Clementi would never be tormented to the point of suicide.  She longs for a world where all God’s people are treated with equal respect and decency.  At the same time, Cristina lives with an abiding pain, because this world is not as it should be.  People would rather shut her up than heed her message.  In this way, Cristina reminds me of the Hebrew prophet Micah.

Micah was a person who lived with a tremendous amount of tension in his soul.  He was a proud Israelite who celebrated the dignity of his heritage.  You might even call him a patriot.  In today’s reading from chapter 6, he recalls how God led Israel’s ancestors out of slavery in Egypt and protected them during their long journey across the desert.  He highlights particular moments when their survival was threatened by the evil King Balak and the corrupt prophet Balaam.  Whenever their enemies sought to curse the Hebrews, God would turn it into a blessing.

Like my student Cristina, Micah also held onto a powerful vision for the future of his people.  His description of this vision in chapter 4 is taken almost word for word from Isaiah chapter 2.  (If one of my students were to do what he did, I’d report them for plagiarism!)  Micah envisioned Jerusalem as an international center for education and spiritual renewal.  Fear and violence would be done away with as soldiers “beat their swords into plowshares”.

But this utopia felt like a long way off from the Jerusalem that Micah lived in during the 8th century BC.  In Micah’s world, we read that “the powerful dictate what they desire”.  Politicians and judges were sold to the highest bidder.  Powerful landowners foreclosed on houses and fields.  They declared war on the poor and defrauded working-class people of their inheritance.  So brutal was their treatment of their fellow human beings that Micah went so far as to call them “cannibals”.  All the while, people hid behind a façade of religious observance and false piety.

From Micah’s point of view, his society was on a collision course with itself.  Sooner or later, their hypocrisy would be exposed and their fragile house of cards would come crashing down around them.  The nation of Israel would undergo swift and drastic downsizing, and this time, there would be no divine bailout to protect them.

“Alright God,” the people said with checkbooks in hand, “What’s it gonna take?  Name your price!  You want calves?  Rams?  Oil?  Heck, I’ll even give you my firstborn child if it’ll get you off my back!”

And Micah said, “Wait a minute.  God isn’t interested in your pious posturing.  You know what God wants from you: Do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with your God.”

We walk.  Walking is a dynamic thing.  There’s movement in it.  And the really funny thing about walking is that (if you’re doing it right) you inevitably end up in a different place than where you started from.  That kind of change is enough to make anyone uncomfortable.  But God doesn’t call us to stand still.  God doesn’t ask the people to adopt and orthodox doctrinal stance.  When Jesus called his first disciples, he didn’t say, “Go and stand over there”.  He said, “Come and follow me.”  No offense to the old Sunday school hymn, but we as Christians don’t “stand alone on the Word of God”.  We don’t stand at all… we walk.

We don’t walk alone, either.  According to Micah, we walk “with [our] God” and God walks with us.  This has been the case from the beginning.

Micah looks back at the events of Israel’s history and sees the hand of God leading them all the way.  I think the same is true of you and I.  If we could somehow find the courage to look at our life stories through the eyes of faith, we would see glimpses of that same hand leading us.  We come from God.  God is our Ground.

When Micah dreams ahead to this amazing vision of Jerusalem’s future, he’s not just regurgitating some nice words he plagiarized from Isaiah.  That vision does not ultimately belong to Micah or Isaiah.  The vision is God’s.  And God will see it through to the end.  As it was with them, so it is with us.  That’s why I have hope for my student Cristina.  Her struggle for equality is not in vain and I have faith that she will see justice established because the One who made her, sent her on this journey, and planted the dream in her heart is the One who will make the dream come true.  We come to God.  God is our Goal.

In the meantime, we walk through a world that has drifted so far from its divine Ground that the divine Goal seems unattainable.  Yet all is not lost.  We are still not alone, for the One who walks with us has promised to never leave us nor forsake us.  The Alpha and Omega who is both the Beginning and the End of our journey is also the One in whom we live, move, and have our being.  We come through God.  God is our Guide.

God is our Ground.  God is our Guide.  God is our Goal.

“From God and through God and to God are all things.  To God be the glory forever.  Amen.”  ~Romans 11