Category: Sermon

The Better Part

On By J. Barrett LeeIn Sermon2 Comments

Painting by He Qi

Preached this morning at the Twin Churches in Holland Patent, NY.  The text is Luke 10:38-42.

One of the most common misconceptions about Christians is that we’re mainly interested in getting our “pie in the sky in the sweet by and by”.  People tend to think that Christians want to escape from the harsh realities of this world and live in an insulated bubble until they receive their blessed reward after death.  Karl Marx shared this misconception when he wrote in The Communist Manifesto that Christians are interested in salvation when what the world needs is revolution.  That’s why he referred to religion as the “opiate of the masses”.

To be fair, many Christians have earned this reputation for being too heavenly-minded.  Some of us sing hymns like, I’ll Fly Away and This World is Not My Home. Some of us use our faith as an excuse to disengage from important discussions about problems like poverty and injustice.  We say, “I’m just glad that Jesus is coming back soon to take us away from all this mess!”

Certain passages of Scripture, such as the one we read from Luke’s gospel this morning, are often used to justify our disengagement.  Many believe that Jesus is honoring Mary over Martha for investing in spiritual pursuits rather than worldly ones.  Several theologians have even taken the two sisters as metaphors for the life of Action (Martha) and the life of Contemplation (Mary).  The great reformer John Calvin attacked this interpretation head-on when he wrote about this passage in his Commentaries, “no sacrifice is more pleasing to God, than when every [person] applies diligently to his (or her) own calling, and endeavors to live in such a manner as to contribute to the general advantage.”  What Calvin is trying to say is that a life of passive contemplation lived in isolation from the harsh realities of the world is actually less holy than a life lived in service to God and one’s neighbors, not vice versa.  I tend to agree with Calvin in believing that what Jesus has in mind for Mary (and for us) is not a life of cloistered mysticism, but a life of discipleship.  To put it another way, Jesus does not want to take us out of the world; Jesus wants to change the way we interact with the world.

Let’s take a closer look at this passage in order to get a clearer picture of what Jesus is talking about with Mary and Martha.

Our story begins on a rather bizarre and radical note.  Jesus is welcomed into the home of a woman named Martha as he makes his way toward Jerusalem.  We see first that Martha is the one to welcome Jesus into her home.  This is odd because we know from John’s gospel that Mary and Martha had a brother named Lazarus who lived with them as well.  In first century Palestine, it was customary for men to do the welcoming and govern all interactions between the household and the outside world.  Why then is Martha the one to welcome Jesus?  Second, the house itself is referred to as Martha’s house.  Again, property was traditionally owned by a male member of the family.  We can see already that this family tends to push boundaries when it comes to gender roles and stereotypes.  Martha comes across as a strong woman with an independent personality.

Things get even stranger when we learn about Martha’s sister Mary.  We read that she “sat at Jesus’ feet and listened to what he was saying.”  This might sound like a passive and submissive posture at first (maybe even a little demeaning to “sit at someone’s feet”), but it’s important to realize that to sit at the feet of a rabbi in the ancient Jewish world meant that you had been accepted as a disciple of that rabbi.  This should have been impossible for women in that culture, yet Jesus welcomes her into the community of disciples.  While we are most familiar with the famous twelve disciples (who were all Jewish males), the author of Luke’s gospel seems to be telling us on the sly that Jesus accepted women as disciples as well.  In another passage we see Jesus doing the same for a Gentile (a non-Jewish person).  In that culture, theological education under a rabbi was a privilege reserved for Jewish men only (no women or Gentiles allowed).

The next thing we learn is that Martha seems to be having a hectic day.  Our translation says she was “distracted”, but the term in Greek is periespato, which literally means “yanked around”.  So it would be fair to translate the sentence to say, “Martha was being yanked around by her many tasks.”  Have you ever had a day like that?  I sure have!  Sometimes I feel like there just isn’t enough time, money, or energy to get everything done that needs doing.  Sometimes my appointment calendar and to-do list run my life so efficiently that I forget to leave enough time for myself, my family, or God.  It’s not long before I start to feel like a spinning top that starts to wobble as it runs out of energy.  Stop me if this doesn’t sound familiar!  I think we can all relate to what Martha is going through.  Isn’t that just the way life in the real world goes?  So it makes sense that Martha gets upset when she perceives that Mary might be checking out of reality.

Martha snaps, “Rabbi, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me.”  Martha expects Jesus to help her sister snap out of it and get back to work, but Jesus does something surprising and gives Martha the reality check.

After acknowledging all the hard work that Martha is doing, Jesus tells her that “there is need of only one thing” and that Mary had “chosen the better part”.  What is this “one thing” and “better part” that Jesus was talking about?  We have already established that Mary had taken the position of a disciple and was listening to her rabbi teach.  We are not told exactly what Jesus was teaching her at the time, but we can assume it was probably consistent with the kinds of things we’ve heard Jesus teach elsewhere.  In these ten chapters of Luke’s gospel (9:51-19:27), Jesus and his disciples are moving slowly toward Jerusalem where he will suffer, die, and rise again on the third day.  His teachings in this section have a few common themes that run through them: the cost of discipleship, the inclusion of outsiders in God’s family, and principles for living as spiritually-centered people in difficult world.  Jesus constantly finds himself getting into conflict with the political, religious, and economic realities of his day.  These days, we call them governments, churches, and corporations.  Jesus taught his disciples to resist the effect these things have on our consciousness by practicing things like simplicity of life, care for neighbors, regular prayer, reconciliation with enemies, and non-anxiety over daily needs.  Jesus then sends his disciples back into this hostile world as agents of healing.  Theirs is an active and engaged spirituality that doesn’t prepare people to “fly away” to heaven, but instead shouts out loud in the streets, “The kingdom of God has come near you.”  Jesus doesn’t send people to heaven; he brings heaven here!  Remember the Lord’s Prayer?  “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven”.

This, I think, is the “one thing” and the “better part” that Jesus had in mind when he was talking to Mary and Martha.  I also think this is what God has in store for you and me.  We don’t have to be constantly yanked around anymore by the demands of this broken world-system.  Nor do we have to cloister ourselves behind walls of piety and heavenly-mindedness.  We can choose instead to sit at the feet of our Rabbi Jesus and face this world again as spiritually-centered agents of healing.

May God’s kingdom come and God’s will be done on earth as it is in heaven.  Amen.

The Truth That Turns The World Upside Down

On By J. Barrett LeeIn Sermon1 Comment

This morning’s sermon for Hilltop United Methodist Church in Ava, NY.  The text is Luke 10:1-11, 16-20.

In 2003, I moved to Vancouver, British Columbia to start my seminary studies at Regent College.  I thought I knew exactly what God wanted me to do.  I was going to get my Master’s degree, then a PhD, and then I would teach religion in a secular university while I used my summers to take college students on short-term mission trips.

It wasn’t a bad plan.  In fact, my deepest aspirations were quite holy.  I thought I was following the will of God as best as I understood it.  However, I quickly discovered that knowing God’s path and walking God’s path were two different things.

The academic world is quite cutthroat.  Not only do you have to be the best, you also have to impress the right professors, who will write letters of recommendation, which will get you into the best PhD program, which will land you a good job with tenure, which will make or break your academic career.  I tried with all my might to play this game: I made sure my professors knew who I was, I wrote impressive and insightful articles, and I was brutal in classroom debates.  I would do just about anything to make myself appear smarter than the person next to me, even if it meant putting that person down in front of other people.

When I looked in the mirror in those days, I had to admit that I didn’t like the person I was becoming.  My name, “Barrett”, means “bear” and that’s exactly what I felt like: a big, hungry animal that would tear you to shreds if you got in his way.  I never wanted to be that kind of guy, but I kept telling myself, “This is what I have to do in order to follow God’s plan for my life.”

In my pursuit of academic success, I forgot the first (and most important) truth about following God’s plan: In God’s eyes, “who you are” is way more important than “what you do”. I think this truth is what Jesus was getting at in today’s passage from Luke’s gospel.

We enter into Luke’s story at moment when things are really starting to heat up.  Jesus has recently begun his journey from Galilee to Jerusalem, where he will face suffering, death, and eventually resurrection.  As he travels, he commissions seventy disciples to go ahead of him into the villages.  The number seventy would have been important to Jesus’ Jewish listeners because, according to chapter ten of Genesis, Jewish people believed that the people of the world were divided into seventy nations.  So, by Jesus sending out a group of seventy disciples, Jesus was symbolically commissioning the whole world to participate in the work of the kingdom of God.

As the seventy disciples are sent out, Jesus gives them three tasks:

  1. To Proclaim peace
  2. To Promote hospitality
  3. To Pray for healing

First, the disciples are told proclaim peace.  To be clear, the word peace, as it appears in the Scriptures, does not refer to feelings of happiness that you get from standing around a campfire and singing Kum Ba Yah.  The disciples were not a bunch of flower-children dancing around drum circles in tie-dyed t-shirts.  The Jewish word for peace is shalom. Translated literally, it means “wholeness”.  It was used as a greeting and a farewell.  It was also used to describe the kind of relationship that God wants to have with people (and the kind of relationship that God wants people to have with one another).

I think it’s significant that Jesus told the seventy disciples to begin with this message of peace.  He makes his intentions clear from the get-go.  Jesus has come to restore wholeness and harmony between creation and Creator.  It’s also significant that Jesus gives the seventy strict instructions about what to do when their proclamation is rejected.  Rather than resorting to violence, Jesus tells his followers to “let your peace return to you” and then wipe the dust of that town off their feet and leave.  This nonviolent response would have been bizarre behavior in a culture that demanded revenge for every insult rendered against another’s honor.

Second, Jesus commissions the seventy to promote hospitality.  As itinerant preachers and healers, they were at the mercy of anyone who was kind enough to take them in.  It was not uncommon in those days for popular healers to shop around for the best meal and bed in town.  They would take advantage of the hospitality of the locals.  Jesus told his disciples not to do that.  He told them to “eat what is set before you” and “Do not move about from house to house.”  Jesus wanted his followers to encourage the practice of hospitality among all people by honoring the welcome of poorer and simpler folk.  Jesus wanted these people to know that there was a place for the kingdom of God in their houses too.

Finally, Jesus commissioned the seventy to pray for healing.  Healing was central to the ministry of Jesus.  He didn’t just have a lot of good ideas; he put those ideas into action.  The kingdom of God, for Jesus, is not just a nice place to go when you die; it is a present reality that is coming “on earth as it is in heaven”.  That shalom-wholeness that we talked about earlier was made real by the healing ministry of Jesus and the disciples.  Jesus wanted people to know that his message has the power to change their lives here and now.

So, these are the marching orders that Jesus gave the seventy disciples as they went ahead of him through the towns on their way to Jerusalem: they were to proclaim peace, promote hospitality, and pray for healing.  When they returned from these mission trips, they were shocked and delighted to see what an effect their efforts were having.  By all accounts, they had a highly successful ministry.  They said, “Lord, in your name, even the demons submit to us!”  In other words, they perceived that some kind of massive shift was happening in the cosmic scheme of things.  You might say that they were turning the world upside down.  Who wouldn’t be excited to be part of that?

At this point, Jesus steps in and throws a curve-ball.  He reframes their discussion, so that they might understand their experiences from another perspective.  Jesus says, “Nevertheless, do not rejoice at this, that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”  In other words, the fact that you have a successful ministry and are turning the world upside down is not what’s really important.  What’s most important is the truth that your name is known in the throne-room of the Master of the universe; you are known and loved beyond your wildest imaginations.  You are a child of God; that’s who you are!  All the rest (proclaiming peace, promoting hospitality, praying for healing) is stuff that you do because you are already known and loved by God.  The world is not turning upside down because you are so successful and important; the world is turning upside down because God is busy, drawing us closer to the place where we belong.  God is allowing you to play a part in that process, and that’s why you can do the things you do.

This world is a harsh place.  Our society measures us by all kinds of standards: money, property, power, etc.  Most Christians agree that these are not the be-all, end-all of life.  But many of us still fall into the trap of identifying ourselves with our activities.  What’s the first question people usually ask one another at parties?  “What do you do?”  As if that could ever define who we are as human beings!  I once heard of a person who came up with a good response to that question.  He said, “I am a child of God, cleverly disguised as a AAA insurance salesman.”

In seminary (of all places), I fell into that trap of mistaking “what I do” for “who I am”.  I thought I was following the will of God, but it turns out that God was more interested in me than in my job.  Sure, I had big plans for my life, but as they say, “If you want to give God a good laugh, talk about your plans.”

I almost lost sight of God’s will for my life because I was so focused on what I was doing that I forgot all about who I was becoming.  You and I are God’s precious and beloved children.  More than all our successes in life, that is the truth that will turn our world upside down.  Amen.

The Deranged Stranger

On By J. Barrett LeeIn SermonLeave a comment

Preached this morning at Boonville Presbyterian Church.  The text for this sermon is Luke 8:26-39.  Readers will notice some overlap with this week’s Bible study discussion.

I’d like to start this morning with a brief exercise in imagination that will help us set the tone for our gospel reading:

Imagine, if you will, a graveyard on a dark night.  Thick fog winds its way through the tombstones and obscures anything more than twenty feet away.  Off in the distance, you can hear a wolf howling at the moon.  Bats are flying over your head.  Thinking at first that you are alone, your stomach jumps when, suddenly, a human figure appears out of the fog, walking toward you.  There’s something strange about this person: something about the way he moves or the look in his eyes: something sinister, something inhuman, something evil… and he is getting closer!

Now, you might be curious why I’m describing a scene that belongs in a film by Alfred Hitchcock or M. Night Shyamalan.  I begin with this little vignette because I want to try and establish the mood for this passage.  When we hear the same Bible stories year after year, it can be easy to overlook the emotions that run so deeply beneath the surface of the text.  In case you couldn’t tell from the spooky scene I just described, the primary emotion being communicated in the beginning of this particular text is fear.

The author of Luke’s gospel sets the spooky tone by laying cultural clues that readers in our place and time might not be able to detect.  We heard first about tombs and evil spirits.  Most of us can probably understand how those things could be spooky.  But what about the pigs?  There’s nothing inherently frightening about pigs!  Well, in Jewish culture, pigs were considered to be ‘unclean’ animals.  In the Torah, observant Jews are forbidden to eat pork products.  With that commandment came a cultural stigma around swine.  Good Jews never raised pigs on their farms and they avoided contact with pigs whenever possible.  While our contemporary society (as a whole) does not have an official system of ritual uncleanness, we do tend to associate certain animals with certain rituals.  For example, Reindeer are associated with Christmas, Turtledoves with Valentine’s Day, and creepy-crawlies like bats and spiders with Halloween.  The presence of these animals triggers certain associations with specific emotions.  If you put bats and spider webs into a night scene of a movie, people know they’re supposed to be scared.  It’s the same scenario with today’s gospel reading.

So the scene is set.  I can almost hear the theme music from the movie Psycho playing.  The narration could be read by Vincent Price.

The action begins as Jesus takes his disciples to the far side of the Sea of Galilee, into a region called the Decapolis, which was populated by non-Jews.  This was a frightening prospect for any Palestinian Jew at that time.  They were traveling beyond the pale of their known territory and venturing into a land populated by people that Jews associated with invasion, oppression, and evil.  They were leaving a society defined by their own culture and religion and entering foreign territory.  They were crossing some very clearly defined boundaries between “us” and “them” in ancient Jewish society.  Jesus’ disciples had no idea what to expect from this experience.  They were consumed by an intense fear of the unknown.

These strangers in a strange land have their fears confirmed initially as they encounter exactly what they expected to find in foreign territory: evil and insanity!  But Jesus remains unphased by this dramatic display.  In an equally dramatic display of miraculous power, Jesus casts the demons out of this tortured soul and into the nearby pigs.

There is much that could be said about exorcism itself at this point, but I would rather us focus on what is taking place relationally between Jesus and this person.  What Jesus does is separate the problem from the person in this situation.  The evil that the disciples so feared has been condemned and destroyed, but the person has been healed.  This person, who was “demonized” at the beginning of the story becomes “humanized” by the end.

After the Legion of demons has left the man, we are told in verse 35 that he is “sitting at the feet of Jesus”.  While this might not seem like a big deal, let me assure you that it is a very big deal.  In ancient Jewish culture, to “sit at the feet of a rabbi” was to become a disciple or student of that rabbi.  By placing the man in this position, the author of Luke’s gospel is trying to tell us that, not only was this man delivered from the power of evil spirits, but he (a non-Jew!) was welcomed as a disciple of Jesus, a Jewish rabbi.  This would have been unheard of at that time.  More than this, we read at the end of the story that Jesus “sends” this man back to his own people with instructions to tell others what has happened to him.  In a way you could say that Jesus ordained this man as the first apostle to the non-Jews!  Isn’t that amazing?  The very person, who was once a deranged foreigner, has now been accepted into the community of disciples and then sent out to carry the good news of Jesus to the ends of the earth.  From the disciples’ perspective, he went from being one of “them” to being one of “us”.

When I look at the world around us, I cannot help but notice that there are still a lot of “us and them” divisions taking place.  We still like to draw lines in the sand and divide ourselves into categories based on race, gender, politics, religion, etc.  We tend to think that this world would be better off without “those people” (whoever “they” are for “us”) messing things up for the rest of “us”.  What we fail to realize in those moments is that we diminish ourselves when we let our fear of the unknown lead us to “demonize” those who are different from us.  If we keep drawing line after line in the sand, we will eventually find ourselves very much alone in this world.  What we so desperately need is for the Spirit of Jesus to work another miracle and separate the people from the problems in our hearts and minds.  Only then can we embrace the truth that our differences enrich us.

The apostle Paul put it like this in his letter to the Ephesians:

“Now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. 14For he is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us. 15He has abolished the law with its commandments and ordinances, so that he might create in himself one new humanity in place of the two, thus making peace, 16and might reconcile both groups to God in one body through the cross, thus putting to death that hostility through it. 17So he came and proclaimed peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near; 18for through him both of us have access in one Spirit to the Father. 19So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God.”  (Ephesians 2:13-19)

The struggle for inclusion and equality is ongoing in society and the Church.  A few years ago, a friend told me about a woman he knew who desperately wanted to gather with us for worship at St. James Mission.  However, she was unable to do so because of a paralyzing fear.  You see, this woman is Roman Catholic.  Years ago, she attended a wedding at a Protestant church and was summarily excommunicated by her priest.  She is now afraid to attend any Protestant services for fear of being excommunicated again.  Likewise, I am sad to say that I still encounter Protestants (even pastors) who refuse to recognize their Catholic sisters and brothers as “real Christians”.  When will we stop allowing our fear of the unknown to lead us into drawing lines in the sand between “us” and “them”?  Didn’t Paul say that Christ had “broken down the dividing wall” and made us “one new humanity” and “members of the household of God”?

Still, in spite of the long journey ahead of us, I can see signs of hope even now.  During the last century, prophets like Martin Luther King opened our eyes to the point that the vast majority of Christians now embrace the truth of racial integration.  In most mainline denominations, women have begun to join their brothers in the ordained leadership of the church.  The Ecumenical movement has paved the way for Christians of various denominations to come together in celebration of the truth that we are all sisters and brothers in the household of God.

I can see one such sign of hope in this room right now:  An Episcopal priest leading worship for a congregation of Presbyterians!  Not long ago, this would have been impossible.  Our ancestors in seventeenth century England (called Anglicans and Puritans) fought a bloody Civil War over the differences between our respective traditions.  Yet, just over 300 years later (which is not that long in the grand scheme of things), here we are this morning!

Friends, this is a cause for hope and celebration.  What this says to me is that Jesus is still working in our lives to separate people from problems in the Church and society.  Little by little, our lines in the sand are being washed away by the incoming tide of God’s all-inclusive love.  To be certain, there will be difficult days ahead for all of us as we wrestle with questions of biblical and constitutional interpretation.  Our fear of the unknown will almost certainly tempt us to draw lines in the sand between “us” and “them”.  There will be times when each of us will be tempted to demonize one another and say, “We would be so much better off without them!”

Friends, let us resist that temptation (and the fear that goes with it).  Let Jesus lead us into this spooky and unknown territory.  Our eyes have only to behold as the people we once thought of as deranged strangers turn out to be fellow disciples of Jesus.  Once we learn how to work out our differences in that Spirit, we will truly be ready to do as Jesus said: return to our homes and declare how much God has done for us.  Amen.

You Are Witnesses

On By J. Barrett LeeIn SermonLeave a comment

Preached this morning at Boonville Presbyterian Church.  The texts are Luke 24:44-53 and Acts 1:1-11.

Growing up as an evangelical Christian in the southern United States, I got to experience a unique style of performance art that originated in churches.  It’s called the Testimony.

Here’s how it works:

Every so often, the pastor would invite certain members of the community to come before the church and share their stories of how they became Christians (or “got saved” as they used to say).  These were always exciting services.  We heard stories of sex, drugs, and rock n’ roll that ended in disaster but rebounded with glorious tales of redemption at the last possible moment.

While there was never any official competition going on, you could always tell when two or more “Witnesses” were trying to outdo one another in their ability to testify.  Testimonies were typically evaluated according to three criteria: 1) the popularity/fame of the person who spoke, 2) the intense passion with which the story was told, and 3) the depths of depravity to which one stooped before embracing the light of salvation.

The most memorable testimony I ever heard came from a veteran named Clebe McClary.  He had been an officer in the Marine Corps during the Vietnam War.  During combat, he lost an eye and his left arm.  After returning to the States and enduring years of recovery, he became a motivational speaker, encouraging people to press on in life, despite their difficulties and setbacks.

Even though these testimonies can quickly become outlandish in their content and presentation, I still think they serve a useful purpose: they get ordinary people involved in telling their own stories of God’s presence in their lives.

Human beings love stories.  We tell stories around campfires, we sing songs about them, we write them down in books, we make movies about them, etc.  Story is how we communicate truth to one another.  Aesop told fables.  Jesus told parables.  Ask any religious person to tell you about his or her faith, and that person will probably tell you a story.

Our Scripture readings this morning from the book of Acts and the gospel of Luke come at a very critical turning point in the Christian story.  Now, the first thing you should know is that Luke and Acts, while they are separate books in our Bibles, actually form one complete story.  Most scholars agree that Luke and Acts were written by the same person, although the author’s name is never signed on the paper.  Likewise, we know that they were written to the same person, Theophilus.  Acts follows Luke in much the same way that Return of the Jedi follows The Empire Strikes Back in the original Star Wars trilogy.  We read this morning from the very end of Luke’s gospel and the very beginning of Acts.  At this moment in our story, traditionally referred to as The Ascension, two major shifts are happening.

The first shift is geographical:

Most of the action in Luke’s gospel follows Jesus from the beginning of his public ministry in far-away Galilee to the center of Jewish life in Jerusalem.  In the book of Acts, the action begins in Jerusalem and continues “to the ends of the earth”.  Acts ends with the Apostle Paul awaiting trial before Caesar in Rome.

The second shift is personal:

Luke’s gospel focuses primarily on the life of Jesus himself.  The story begins with Jesus’ birth and ends with his death, resurrection, and ascension into heaven.  The book of Acts focuses on the lives of Jesus’ followers in the years following his earthly ministry.  To be sure, Jesus is still central to the story (in a divine sense), but has taken a step back from the immediate action (in a human sense).  To put it another way, Jesus has become the director of the play, while the Apostles are the actors on the stage.  The story of Acts begins with Jesus’ ascension into heaven but doesn’t have a climactic end in the way you and I are used to thinking.  I like to think this is because the story hasn’t ended yet.  It goes on and on through the generations, right up until today.  As followers of Christ, you and I have become the actors on the stage at this point in history!

Twice in today’s readings, Jesus calls his followers “witnesses”.  What does that mean?  Who qualifies as a witness?  First, a witness is someone who experiences something important.  Second, a witness is someone who tells others what she or he has seen and heard.  In a courtroom, this is called a “testimony”.  Sound familiar?  It should.

As followers of Christ, you and I are witnesses to the things he has done.  In the Scriptures, we already have the testimony of Jesus’ earliest followers, who knew him in the flesh.  Two thousand years later, you and I haven’t had that opportunity.  We know Jesus by faith, not by sight.  Does that disqualify us from being witnesses?  I don’t think so.

I believe that you and I can find our testimony as witnesses by paying attention to what Jesus has done (and is doing) in our lives.  We can tell others what Jesus means to us.  For some of us, our testimony might look like a dramatic conversion story.  Maybe you have been “saved” from a life of self-destruction in a sudden way.  If so, I encourage you to tell that story sometime.  You never know when someone else might need to hear exactly what you have to say in order to make it through a crisis in their own life!

Those of us who haven’t had a dramatic conversion experience (including myself) still have a testimony to give.  Many of us have experienced spiritual growth slowly over a long period of time.  We may have had moments of sensing God’s presence with us in subtle ways.  Gradually, we have learned (and are still learning) to trust that loving presence in our lives.  If that’s you, I encourage you to tell your story as well.  It might not be as dull as you think.  Keep track of those little moments with God.  Write them down.  Like spare change in your couch cushions, they add up quickly!

Finally, some of you might be sitting there this morning and thinking, “I haven’t had any conscious experience of God in my life!  What’s my testimony?  How can I be a witness?”  Well, there’s no time like the present to start looking for an answer to that question.  If you want to have a deeper sense of God’s presence and activity in your life, you should ask for it in prayer.  God has a tendency to answer that kind of honest prayer, provided that we keep an open mind for the unexpected ways in which God’s answer might come.  If you would like to try an exercise in awareness, I suggest writing your life story in as much detail as you like.  Then read back over it at a later date, asking God to show you where and how God was present in the events of your life.  You might be surprised at what pops into your head as you begin to see old events in new ways!

You might not feel that your story is all that important, but I assure you: it is.  As witnesses, our testimonies are the means through which God intends to spread Good News and transform the face of this earth.  Jesus left this planet because he wanted to involve each one of us in the work of redeeming it.  By telling your story about what Jesus means to you, you are allowing God to keep the Gospel alive in you.

So, go forth from this place today in the power of the Holy Spirit, as witnesses of our Savior Jesus Christ.  Go to the very ends of the earth and testify to what you have seen and heard.  Tell the world what Jesus means to you and watch the story continue for another generation.  Amen.

Love Covers a Multitude of Sins

On By J. Barrett LeeIn Sermon2 Comments

This is the sermon I preached this morning at First Presbyterian Church, Boonville, NY.  The text is John 21:1-19.

Parents, in my experience, have a way of knowing us better than we know ourselves.  I know this because I am a parent and, even though she’s only sixteen months old, I can already pick up on distinct aspects of my daughter’s personality emerging.  I also know this because I have parents and, much to my chagrin, they have often been able to finish my sentences, predict my next move, and see a part of my personality that I thought I had hidden well.

I felt particularly cornered one day when my mother aptly pointed out that I suffer from an “over-active conscience”.  Little things, small errors in judgment that most people would be able to let go, bothered me to the point of needing to confess to someone.  On one such occasion, my father interrupted my tirade of self-loathing to give me one bit of advice.  “Son,” he said, “go easy on yourself.”  To this day, that’s some of the best advice I’ve ever received.

I am hardly the first person in history to wrestle with such a compulsion.  Psychologists have identified a form of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder called “Scrupulosity”, which manifests itself as an unhealthy fixation on one’s own sinfulness.  Historical scholars suspect that both Martin Luther, the pioneer of the Protestant Reformation, and John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist churches, might have suffered from this ailment.

These “scrupulous” tendencies in myself, combined with a church environment that condoned such an inclination, brought me to the point where I disqualified myself from serving as a minister in the church.  Even as I graduated college and started seminary, people would ask me, “Are you planning to pursue a career in ordained ministry?”  I would respond, “People like me aren’t allowed to become pastors.”

Because of this experience, I think I have a pretty good idea of how the apostle Peter felt at the beginning of today’s Gospel reading.  This story comes to us from the end of John’s gospel, after Jesus has been raised from the dead.  We read that Peter was certainly present for the events which took place around Easter Sunday, but the last time he played a major role in the plot of this story was on the night when Jesus was arrested.  Earlier that evening, Peter had expressed his unwavering loyalty to Jesus in no uncertain terms.  By the next morning, Peter had publicly denied that even knew Jesus.  He did this, not once, but three times.

This was no minor misstep for Peter.  In doing this, we know that he turned his back on his faith; he rejected everything he had come to believe about God through Jesus.  But more than that, Peter had also turned his back on his closest friend at a critical moment.  According to ancient near-eastern custom, Peter’s infidelity had violated Jesus’ honor.  Jesus would be expected to demand vindication for such an offense.  Perhaps Peter thought of those words which Jesus had spoken earlier, “Those who are ashamed of me and my words, of them the Son of Man will be ashamed when he comes in his glory and the glory of his Father and of the holy angels.”

So Peter was probably not all that surprised when at Jesus’ first appearance after the resurrection, his friend did not address him directly.  I can imagine Peter, in his crushing guilt, believing that his denial had purchased his exclusion from the ranks of apostles.  He had been reduced from the role of leader to that of spectator.  When Jesus commissioned his apostles, saying, “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”  I can see Peter, sitting in a far corner of the room, relieved to see Jesus, excited for his friends, but also sad for himself.  I can even imagine Peter saying the same thing I did, “People like me aren’t allowed to become pastors.”

After the events of Easter, Peter has to decide how to get on with the rest of his life.  It made perfect sense for him to return to fishing, the only life he knew before Jesus.  I find it interesting that six other disciples accompanied Peter in his return to the maritime business.  I like to imagine that they went along as Peter’s social support system.  Maybe they were hoping to shake Peter out of his paralyzing guilt so that he would come and join them as they sought to preach the Good News about Jesus to the ends of the earth.

Peter, hoping he could forget the past (or at least put it behind him), was finding his old job to be a hollow pursuit on multiple levels.  We read that his nets kept coming up empty.  I think this is a comment about something more than the fishing conditions at the Sea of Tiberias.  I think we, as the readers of this story, are getting a glimpse inside Peter’s soul at that moment.  The fisherman’s life to which he was returning seemed empty and meaningless after his experience of traveling with Jesus.  I also imagine that it must have been hard for Peter to work those same shores, remembering the day he met Jesus on that very spot, when Jesus used his boat as an impromptu pulpit.

In this sad moment, the risen Christ makes a sudden reappearance.  Jesus encounters Peter in the midst of his daily routine and brings two gifts.  First, he brings Abundance.  Like the symbol of emptiness, this miraculous catch is a sign to Peter that he is about to find that which he was really seeking (and here’s a hint: it isn’t fish).

As they are gathering the nets, one of the disciples, the one “whom Jesus loved” (identified as John by most biblical scholars), turns to Peter in realization that this catch was no ordinary coincidence.  “It is the Lord!” he says.  In this moment, John is acting like a true pastor by pointing out God’s presence and activity in Peter’s life.  This, by the way, is how I spend most of my time on the street as a Community Chaplain.  I’m not a street preacher, I’m a street pastor.  It’s my job to walk with people through the triumphs and struggles of daily life and help them see how God is at work there.

Peter responds to this observation immediately.  But we read that he does something quite unusual: he puts his coat on just before hopping into the water.  I don’t know about you, but I find it’s much easier to swim without being fully clothed.  But, like the nets, I take this to be a statement about Peter’s internal state-of-being.  He doesn’t want to feel so exposed in front of the one he has let down.  Like Adam in the Garden of Eden, Peter wants to cover himself because he feels ashamed.  Too often these days (even in the church), God’s children fall victim to this mentality.  They assume there is something about themselves that is unacceptable, so they duck and cover.  Hiding in the closet, they wear the mask constructed for them by society’s expectations.  But, as we will see in a moment with Peter, Jesus has this uncanny ability to pierce the veil of our shame with his love.

Which leads me to Jesus’ second gift:

Jesus appears bearing the gift of Acceptance.  When Peter and the disciples finally make it to shore, they find breakfast waiting for them.  This is evocative of Jesus’ meal-sharing ministry, which got him in even more trouble than his teaching and healing.  You’ve heard me describe before what a powerful statement it was to share a meal with someone in the ancient near-east.  Eating with someone signified one’s total acceptance of the other person into the family unit.  By feeding the multitudes and dining with outcasts, Jesus makes a statement about the scope of his radically inclusive love.  In this passage, that love is extended to the disciples, even Peter.  By eating first, Jesus is effectively saying that he has rejected Peter’s rejection of him.

Once breakfast is over, Peter is finally ready to come face-to-face with Jesus and talk about the painful events of that night.  Jesus uses his words like a surgeon’s scalpel: cutting ever deeper, exposing the source of the pain in order to heal it.  It is not an easy soul-surgery for Peter to endure.  Jesus asks Peter three times whether Peter loves him.  One time for each denial.  Each time, Peter affirms that he does love him and Jesus replies, “Feed my sheep.”

Instead of enacting vengeance upon Peter, Jesus asks him to take care of that which is most precious to him: this new community of believers.  In verse 16, Jesus uses the term “Shepherd”, which is “Poimaine” in Greek, and will later be translated into a Latin term that is very familiar to us: “Pastor”.  Jesus doesn’t punish Peter, he ordains him!

Jesus says to Peter, in effect, “Do you really love me, Peter?  If so, then I want you to take that love and give it to these people who need it the most right now.”  Peter now stands before Jesus as a healed and restored person.  The shameful hurt of denial has been replaced by the warm embrace of love.

History tells us that Peter did, in fact, take up this call.  Peter stands out as one of the great pastors in the early days of the Christian Church.  We have stories and letters in the New Testament that bear witness to this fact.  I think Peter walked away from that meeting with a newfound faith in the power of love to set things right.  In fact, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Peter had this encounter in mind when he wrote to a group of churches years later, saying to them, “Above all, maintain constant love for one another, for love covers a multitude of sins.”

I went to seminary declaring, “People like me aren’t allowed to become pastors.”  I said it as a joke, but my sarcasm was a thin veil covering my deep sense of shame and unworthiness.  But it happened that as I heard Jesus’ words to Peter, “Feed my sheep”, I began to notice a new desire rising up within me.  I realized that I wanted to feed Christ’s people with his Word and Sacraments.  Following this desire has led me out into the streets, where many of Christ’s lost sheep stand desperately in need of love.  I am being transformed by that love, even as I try to give it out.  My ministry in the neighborhoods of inner-city Utica has only increased my faith in the radically inclusive love of God.  I believe Jesus is teaching me to read my Bible with a new set of eyes as I read it with drug addicts, prostitutes, and homeless people.  I no longer see it as a book of rules and doctrines, but as a library of stories, poems, and letters, documenting a millennia-long romance between God and God’s people.  Like Peter, I find myself being transformed by the warm embrace of a love (God’s love) that covers a multitude of sins (my sins).

I don’t know where you are this morning, in relation to this powerful, transforming love of Christ.  Maybe you feel like there is something inside of you that you have to hide from the world?  Maybe you feel like you’ve committed some unforgivable sin and Jesus has finally turned his back on you?  Maybe you feel the crushing burden of doubt or guilt?  If that’s you this morning, I want to encourage you with this Gospel passage.  Jesus is coming into your life now with his gifts of abundance and acceptance.  He is not coming to punish you, but to heal you and, finally, to commission you into his service.

Maybe you’re here today and you’ve already experienced that healing love of Christ firsthand?  If that’s you, then I want to encourage you to take it with you into the world.  There are many of our sisters and brothers who are still bound by chains of guilt, fear, and despair.  Jesus is calling you this morning to follow him into those dark corners of the world, bringing with you the light and the warmth of his love.  One need not be a pastor in order to feed Christ’s hungry sheep.  Each of us, regardless of age or occupation, has a call to ministry.  Likewise, one need not go to Palestine or the inner-city.  There are hurting people who stand in desperate need of love in your own family, neighborhood, and community.  Your co-workers, clients, and supervisors need it.  If you are still in school, look for that fellow student in the cafeteria or playground who always eats or plays alone.  If you are retired, look among your friends and neighbors.  None of us has outlived God’s call on our lives.  For as long as there is still air in your lungs, God still has plans for your life.

Jesus has a lot of love to give and the hurting people of this world desperately need it.  Let’s learn to accept that love for ourselves and then pass it on.  Come on people, let’s feed some sheep.

Let us pray.

Eternal and Holy One, your love, poured out in the life, death, and resurrection of your Son Jesus Christ our Lord, has covered the multitude of our sins: Grant us vision to see your love more clearly in our own lives, that we might pass it on to those hungry sheep who you have entrusted to our care; through the same Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.  Amen.