Category: Sermon

Here is Your God

On By J. Barrett LeeIn SermonLeave a comment

This week’s sermon from First Presbyterian Church of Boonville, NY.  The text is Isaiah 35:1-10.

Click here to listen to the podcast.

We’re going to be talking about poetry today, so I’d like to begin with a short poem:

A young, psychic midget named Marge

went to jail on a most heinous charge.

But, despite lock and key,

the next day, she broke free,

and the headlines read: “Small Medium at Large”.

This poem is an example of a limerick: a short poem with a particular structure of rhyme and rhythm and a zinger or punchline that typically comes at the end.  This is a common feature in English poetry.

Hebrew poetry, on the other hand, is quite different.  Hebrew poems don’t much rely on rhyme or rhythm.  They depend instead on the way certain ideas or images go together.

Also, a Hebrew poem is kind of like an Oreo cookie: all the good stuff is in the middle.  There is often one central idea that gets flanked on either side by repeated secondary ideas.  Biblical scholars call this form a “chiasm” and it looks something like this: idea A, followed by idea B, followed by the central idea C.  Then the pattern reverses itself: idea B gets repeated, then, at the end, idea A gets repeated.  It has a kind of symmetrical structure: A-B-C-B-A.

Why are we talking so much about Hebrew poetry?  Because our Old Testament reading, from the book of the prophet Isaiah, takes the form of a poem.  Hebrew prophets, like Isaiah, often delivered their message through poetry.  I like to imagine them as folksingers like Woodie Guthrie or Bob Dylan, hitchhiking across the country singing “The Times Are A-Changin’”.  Verses 1-7 fit this pattern (this “chiastic” structure) perfectly.  Let’s take a look:

We’ll start with the central idea in the middle.  We’re twisting open the Oreo and licking the cream out, if you will.  The central idea in this poem comes in the second half of the fourth verse: “Here is your God. He will come with vengeance, with terrible recompense. He will come and save you.”  In Hebrew, it literally says, “Behold!  Your God!”  If this were a circus magician’s act, this would be the point when the curtain flies open and the band goes, “TA-DA!!!”  This is the moment when God’s presence is revealed (made known) to the people.  “Here is your God.”

Now that God’s presence has been revealed (“Ta-da!”), the next thing we learn is what God intends to do now that God is here.  Isaiah uses the words “vengeance” and “terrible recompense” to describe God’s intentions.  These words probably make most mainline Christians squirm in their pews just a little.  Language about God’s “vengeance” is usually found on the lips of zealots and fanatics who use the name of God and the text of the Bible to justify their own apocalyptic agendas.  It might help to learn that these words have a much broader and deeper meaning in the Hebrew language.  When Isaiah talks about God’s “vengeance” and “terrible recompense”, he is referring to God’s intention to fix all that is wrong with the world and finally set things right, once and for all.  You and I are not alone when we feel sad or angry that all is not well in the world.  God sees it too.  God feels our pain.  And most of all, God intends to do something about it.

What, exactly, does God intend to do?  Isaiah tells us at the end of verse 4: God intends to “save” us.  “Salvation” is another word that has a much broader and deeper meaning than it is usually given in our culture.  In order to understand what Isaiah means by “salvation”, we’ll have to take a look at the other two sections of his poem.

In the verses immediately surrounding Isaiah’s central idea, the prophet develops the idea of “salvation” as he understands it.  The images he uses are primarily images of healing: “Strengthen the weak hands, and make firm the feeble knees. 4Say to those who are of a fearful heart, ‘Be strong, do not fear!’” (v.3-4a)  Later on he describes how “the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; 6then the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy.” (v.5-6a) Salvation, for Isaiah, is something very practical.  Nothing in this passage indicates that he might be talking about “pie in the sky when you die”.  No, salvation, as it appears in this text, has to do with the transformation of people’s lives in this world.

Isaiah continues to expand the concept of salvation in the next section of his poem.  God’s saving activity is not just limited to the lives of human beings in this world.  It includes the world itself.  All creation is invited to celebrate the blessing of God’s love: “The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad, the desert shall rejoice and blossom; like the crocus 2it shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice with joy and singing. The glory of Lebanon shall be given to it, the majesty of Carmel and Sharon. They shall see the glory of the Lord, the majesty of our God.” (v.1-2)  Later on the prophet describes how “waters shall break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert; 7the burning sand shall become a pool, and the thirsty ground springs of water; the haunt of jackals shall become a swamp, the grass shall become reeds and rushes.” (v.6b-7)  Writing about the salvation of the natural world, Isaiah speaks in threes.  First, he describes the “before” image (i.e. the initial desolation of the land): “wilderness”, “dry land”, and “desert”.  Then he describes the “after” image (i.e. what the land will be like when God is finished): “Lebanon”, “Carmel”, and “Sharon”.  These three places were some of the most fertile lands around in the Ancient Near East.  To put it in terms of North American geography: Isaiah is effectively saying that the arid badlands of North Dakota will be as lush and fertile as the Everglades in southern Florida.

All of this is relevant because Jews in Isaiah’s time felt like they were living on a planet that was spinning wildly out of control.  They were threatened with invasion from without and corruption from within.  People grew more fearful and cynical with each passing day.  Isaiah was often critical of the society in which he lived.  His poetry could be quite harsh at times.  During his lifetime, his ministry met with only limited success.  Empires continued to rise and fall around him.  The moral fiber of the Jewish people continued its downward spiral into corruption and cynicism until they too were eventually conquered and dragged into exile by the Babylonians in the 6th century BC.  But, in spite of these facts, Isaiah refused to give in to anxiety or despair.  He held on tight to this vision of an all-inclusive salvation.  When God was finished, even the most barren corners of the earth would join in the celebration of life.

Isaiah placed no faith in the powers-that-be for the establishment of God’s paradise on earth.  God is the one who began the work of salvation on the earth and God is the one who can see it through to the end.  And there is nothing that power-hungry nations, corrupt leaders, cynical people, or even the powers of death and chaos themselves can do to thwart God’s presence and purposes in this world.

Isaiah’s message, while directed toward Jews in the 8th century BC, is still relevant for us today.  We too live on a planet that feels like it’s spinning out of control.  The forces of death and chaos threaten to overwhelm us in the midst of our daily lives.  In a deceitful effort to alleviate our fear, the culture around us capitalizes on our cynicism, tempting us to place our trust in political parties, nuclear arsenals, or the almighty dollar.

The crises of this world seem so great that we cannot hope to fix them all.  We cannot even solve the little problems that creep up in our own community, our families, or our individual lives.  What good is our little effort in the face of so much chaos?

By itself, our best effort is useless and meaningless.  Try as we might, we cannot “save” ourselves through political programs, business transactions, or religious institutions.  We are utterly dependent on the sovereign grace of God to do for us what we cannot do for ourselves.  God is working the miracle that we cannot.

We can put our hearts and minds at ease by embracing Isaiah’s vision of humanity and all creation transformed and renewed through the saving presence and power of God.  This vision can give us hope to carry on when it seems that all other hope is gone.  As Isaiah himself said, faith in this vision can “Strengthen the weak hands, and make firm the feeble knees”.  With this hope in mind, we can say to our fearful hearts, “Be strong, do not fear!”

Our little efforts to better our lives, our families, our community, and this world are part of God’s bigger project of salvation.  The entire process does not depend on us; it depends on God.  God has graciously invited us to play a small part in that salvation.  None of our kind words or good deeds are ever lost in the sight of God.  Each one has eternal value as part of God’s project for setting things right in this world.

When you feel tempted to despair in your struggle with sin, death, and chaos in this life, I invite you to do as Isaiah did: Turn your spiritual gaze inward and upward.  Meditate on the presence of God within you and around you.  Say to yourself, “Here is your God!”  Witness the creative and transforming power of the Holy Spirit at work in God’s creation.  Remember that God started this good work in you and will see it through to the end.  Rest in this truth and you shall, in the words of Isaiah, “obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.”

God’s Dream

On By J. Barrett LeeIn Sermon2 Comments

Here is this week’s sermon from First Presbyterian Church of Boonville, NY.

The text is Isaiah 2:1-5.

Click here to listen to the podcast.

This week, we begin our journey toward Christmas.  Decorations are going up at home and shopping has begun in stores.  As the music of Bing Crosby invades our radio waves, nostalgia mixes with anticipation and the smell of freshly-kindled wood stoves.  In church, candles are lit one by one and purple vestments are hung in honor of our coming king.  We call this season “Advent”.

Beyond the commercialized holiday bliss, there is another side to this season.  It is the time of year when the weather really starts to turn bitterly cold.  Here in Boonville, we’ve just had our first real snowfall.  The daylight hours are the shortest they will be all year and darkness seems to hover over everything.  Perhaps the early Christians chose to celebrate the birth of Christ at this time of year because they needed a pick-me-up?

In a spiritual sense, I tend to think of myself as being more of an Advent person than a Christmas person.  I spend most of my time in the cold and dark places of the soul, waiting for God to show up.  And when God finally does arrive, it almost never happens how I expected.

I feel this way, not only during Advent, but year-round.  This is why Advent (not Christmas) is my favorite time of the church year.  It describes my own spiritual journey so well.

I imagine that “dark” and “cold” is how many people must have felt during the lifetime of the prophet Isaiah, in the 8th century BC.  It was a time of extreme unrest and political upheaval.  The great Assyrian Empire lurked on the borders of the Holy Land.  Nations sought security in numbers, making alliances with each other or with the Assyrian superpower itself.  At home, rulers were becoming more and more corrupt, building their kingdoms on the backs of the poor and oppressed.  Rather than trusting in the mysterious and unseen God of Israel to deliver them, many people sought solace in the practices of magic and idol worship.  They felt safer putting their trust in gods that could be seen and controlled through arcane rituals, even if those rituals demanded the sacrifice of their own children.  These were dark and cold times indeed.

It was into this cold and dark environment that God first called Isaiah son of Amoz to speak.  Isaiah had a lot of harsh things to say about the culture in which he lived.  He criticized them for their hypocrisy and cynicism.  They pretended to be faithful and religious Jews while taking advantage of the poorest and most vulnerable members of society.

But Isaiah’s message wasn’t entirely negative: God also gave Isaiah a vision of the way his country could be.  This is the passage from which we read this morning.  In this passage Isaiah envisions his community of Jerusalem as an international center for education and spiritual renewal.  People would go there as soldiers and leave as farmers.  Death-dealing swords would be transformed into life-giving plows for the fields.  From there, the whole world would learn a new way of living and relating to one another that would transform the face of creation forever.

The people had a long way to go before this vision could become a reality, but Isaiah held onto it for dear life.  He believed that this dream would come true, not through human ingenuity or goodwill, but because God willed it, and nothing (not the hypocrisy and cynicism of the people, not the corruption of their leaders, not even the military might of the world’s greatest superpower) could prevent God’s dream from coming true.

Believing in God’s dream must have been a tall order in a time as cold and dark as Isaiah’s.  To this day, rather than being a center for peace and education, Jerusalem remains one of the most violence-ridden cities on the planet.  Almost 2,800 years later, our headlines mock Isaiah’s dream for Jerusalem as the fantasy of an idealistic fool.

Our time is no less dark and cold than Isaiah’s was.  News of international conflict continues to make us nervous.  People still grow cynical as they read headlines of corrupt politicians and hypocritical religious leaders.  While outright idol worship is not as common as it once was, we are still tempted to put our trust in objects of our own making, such as our investment portfolios, our insurance policies, our educational system, our nuclear arsenal, our political parties, or our religious institutions.  It’s comforting to trust in these things because we can see them and we think we can control them.  But the cold, dark fact of history is that none of these idols can provide us with the peace and security we seek.

The challenge of Advent is for us to look past these idols, these objects of our own making.  God is calling us to rise above our cynicism and hold onto hope: Hope that the cold and darkness will not have the last word in history; Hope that the way things could be is the way things will be; Hope that God’s dream will come true.

The dream did not come true in Isaiah’s lifetime, nor did it come true in the earthly lifetime of Jesus, nor will it probably come true in our lifetime, but rest assured: God’s dream will come true.  There have already been signs of this happening in history: wherever enemies make peace, wherever oppressed people go free, wherever healing triumphs over sickness, there we find a partial fulfillment of God’s dream and Isaiah’s vision.

God has graciously invited us to be a part of the fulfillment of this dream.  This should radically change the way we live our lives here and now.  Isaiah called the people of his community to live changed lives, saying, “O house of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the Lord!”

God may call some of us to be prophets, shaking the very foundations of idolatry and cynicism in our society.  I think of heroes like Martin Luther King, who dreamed God’s dream out loud.  Others of us will be called to “brighten the corner where we are”.  But let us not be deceived: our little acts of human compassion and forgiveness, no matter how small, have divine and eternal value because they are part of God’s great plan for this earth.  Every “thank you”, every “I’m sorry”, and every “I love you” spoken in word or deed is a ray of light that pierces the darkness of this cynical world.  Not one of these rays will ever be wasted or lost.  Do you believe this?

Advent does not prepare us for a nostalgic commemoration of a one-time event in history.  Advent propels us toward the revolutionary culmination of history in the fulfillment of God’s dream for this world.  O people of Boonville, come, let us walk in the light of the Lord!

 

Prayer Changes You

On By J. Barrett LeeIn SermonLeave a comment

I’ve been preaching in churches all over this Presbytery for about a year.  Ironically, one of the few churches where I haven’t preached is the one I’ve been attending for the last 4 years!  I was very glad to get to preach and lead worship for our friends at Westernville Presbyterian Church.

The text for this week is Luke 18:1-8.

Click here to listen to the podcast.

When Sarah and I were in seminary together in Vancouver, there was a certain professor with whom I had a troubled relationship.  I met this professor on my first day of classes.  Young and eager, I burst into his office after class and told him all my ambitions for getting a PhD and teaching in a university.  I was hoping to gain a personal connection with this professor.  What I wanted most of all was his affirmation and approval.

After listening to me pouring my heart out, he asked what my undergraduate GPA had been.  When I told him, he shook his head and told me that it really should have been a full point higher.  In the future, he said, the college would raise its admission standards so that students like me wouldn’t be allowed in.

To be sure, my professor’s response was a bit rude.  But, to be fair to him, I had just barged into his office with a heart full of unrealistic personal expectations for this academic professional.

I was devastated, but also determined.  I put on my best “I’ll show him” attitude and hunkered down into seminary life.  I told myself I would force this professor to give me an ‘A’.  So I spoke out in class whenever I had something to say.  I submitted papers and articles for his feedback.  I showed up in his office whenever I could think of an excuse.  But the harder I fought for his approval, the more frustrated I became.

The widow in Jesus’ parable knew a thing or two about frustration as well.  Jesus didn’t tell us the specifics of the case she was pleading before the judge.  All we know about her is that she was desperate for justice.  As a widow with no apparent son, she would have been one of the most vulnerable and disenfranchised people in her society.  Some scholars think that the Hebrew word for ‘Widow’ (Almanah) is actually derived from the word for ‘Silence’ (Alam).  A widow, in that society, was (literally) a person without a voice.  She had no legal recourse for pursuing justice.  Her persistence in nagging the judge was her only weapon in this case.

As for the judge himself, we learn quickly that he is not someone to be liked or trusted.  Jesus said that he “neither feared God nor had respect for people”.  This particular phrase was often used in that time to describe individuals who were both corrupt and powerful.  He was above the law because, in the eyes of his society, he was the law.  There was no real reason why that judge should listen to this widow.  But we know that she prevailed on him in the end.  This widow’s obnoxious persistence drove the judge to the point of insanity.  In the end, he relented, saying, “I will grant her justice, so that she may not wear me out”.  In Greek, the phrase here can be literally translated, “so that she may not give me a black eye”.  As calloused and powerful as he was, this judge was beginning to feel beat up and worn down by a poor, defenseless widow!

Jesus teaches his followers that God is like this judge, only better.  He showed that even the corrupt and calloused powers-that-be can be swayed by the persistent badgering.  How much more quickly will God, the author of justice, be persuaded to act on behalf of the poor and oppressed?

This was an open question in the ancient world.  How long would God wait before helping the chosen people?  The book of Psalms is littered with cries for justice and deliverance.  Throwing a fist in the air, the Psalmist bellows, “How long, O Lord?”  The Jewish people were very familiar with the Passover story in the book of Exodus.  Every year they celebrated the liberation of their ancestors from slavery and oppression in Egypt.  Yet, this annual celebration led to a difficult question: “If God did so much for our ancestors in the Bible, why doesn’t God do something for us now?”  It was all too easy to lose faith in this mysterious and unseen God of Israel.  We read that many of the ancient Hebrews turned away from their God in favor of other deities whose idols could be seen with one’s eyes.  These lesser gods could be understood and controlled through an elaborate (and brutal) system of human sacrifices.

We, in our society, are no less interested in forces that can be understood and controlled.  We, in the postmodern world, are obsessed with quantifiable results.  We desire measurable efficiency in everything from the performance of our cars to the performance of our politicians.  We are trained to ask the question, “Does it work?”  We even ask this question of our spiritual practices.  When it comes to prayer, the number one excuse people give for not praying is, “It doesn’t work.”  So Jesus’ question, “Will not God grant justice to the chosen ones who cry out day and night?” is an open question for us as well.

Jesus answers this question in verse 8: “I tell you, God will quickly grant justice to them.”  Jesus affirms the power of prayer to make a difference in this world, but then he turns the question back around and directs it at us, “And yet, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”  The question is no longer about the power of prayer; instead the question is about us.

I think Jesus is correcting a deep misconception about the purpose of prayer.  In our results-oriented society, we are obsessed with the question, “Does it work?”  The value of prayer is to be measured only in terms of the practical results it produces in our lives.  Was the sick person healed?  Did the check arrive in time?  Were the fighting parties reconciled?  Did that person find peace before the end?  Jesus affirms the power of prayer to make a difference in these areas, but he also invites us to take a look at the deeper importance of prayer.  Before prayer changes the world, prayer changes us.  This is the standard by which Jesus measures the effectiveness of prayer.  Any sorcerer can give you a magic spell to change your situation for the better, but only God can change your heart for the better.  Prayer changes you before it changes the world.

In my frustration with my seminary professor, God taught me a lesson about having a changed heart.  As I said before, I tried like crazy to get this professor to notice me, but nothing seemed to work.  In time, my frustration gave way to hatred.  My friends learned to not mention his name in my presence because of the unkind things I would say about him.  You could say that I was in desperate need of a “heart transplant”.  I prayed for him.  I prayed that God would forgive him for the pain he caused me.  I prayed that God would help me forgive him.

The answer to those prayers came late one night as I stood on the balcony of my apartment.  This professor was on my mind and I prayed once again that God would help me forgive him.  Then, a thought occurred to me that made me stop in my tracks.  I didn’t need to forgive this professor for his rude comments to me.  I needed to ask forgiveness for the bitterness that was consuming my soul from the inside out.  Looking back, I think that was the Holy Spirit speaking to me and telling me what I needed to do in order to find peace.

Later that week, I went back to my professor’s office.  This time, I sat before him, not as an ambitious young graduate student, but as a broken brother in Christ.  I told him about the bitterness I harbored in my heart.  I apologized for having such unrealistic expectations about him.  I confessed my sin of hatred to the person I hated.

His response surprised me.  I had come to think of him as a cold-hearted snake who didn’t care about anyone but himself.  In that moment, I found him to be a warm and gracious person who accepted my apology and then prayed for me, right there in his office.  In his prayer for me, he expressed his admiration for my commitment to always do the right thing.  It was in my moment of greatest weakness that I finally found the personal connection and affirmation that I so longed for from this man.

I never did get that PhD (although I did end up teaching college).  Was my prayer answered in the end?  I think so.  Not because my desires were fulfilled, but because God used that situation to transform me into a new kind of person.

As you look at your life this morning, how have your prayers changed you?  Can you think of a time in your life when the power of prayer didn’t just transform your circumstances, but transformed you into a new kind of person?  If so, that’s great!  It means you’re on the right track.  If you can’t think of an example from your life, take some time this week to think about what it is that you’re praying for.  As you ask God to change your situation, take an extra second to ask how God wants you to change in the midst of this situation.  If you don’t pray at all, why not give it a try this week?  You might be surprised at the way it transforms the world around you.  You might be even more surprised at the way it changes you.

Border Crossings

On By J. Barrett LeeIn SermonLeave a comment

Here is this morning’s sermon from First Presbyterian Church of Boonville, NY.

The text is Luke 17:11-19.

Click here to listen to the podcast

When I was a college student, some friends and I got to spend one spring break assisting with a church mission project in Romania.  We deplaned in the city Bucharest with no small amount of trepidation.  Border crossing in eastern Europe can be a tricky process.  Americans are often detained for little or no reason.  Customs agents assume that any American traveling abroad must be filthy rich, so they will sometimes hold people until they are offered a bribe in American dollars.

We held our breath and said a prayer as we approached the gate.  To our surprise, the gate was completely empty.  Not wanting to create an incident, we set our packs down and waited.  After an hour or more, no officers had come to the kiosk.  The front door to the airport was only a few meters away and our transportation was waiting on the other side.  We looked around, looked back at each other, shrugged our shoulders, and went for it.  Even though friends of ours had been detained and arrested in years past, we went through without any hassle.  Nobody even stopped or questioned us.  To be honest, I was a little disappointed because it was my first time out of the U.S. and I was looking forward to getting my passport stamped!

Crossing borders of any kind is a risky business.  When you leave familiar territory behind, you become vulnerable.  You force yourself to open up to new people and new experiences.  You depend on the kindness of strangers in order to survive.

Jesus and his disciples are crossing a border in today’s gospel reading.  The text tells us that they are “going through the region between Samaria and Galilee.”  They are walking through an “in-between space” that is neither here nor there.  Like me when I was entering Romania, they probably don’t know what to expect.  They are in an uncomfortable situation where anything can happen.

As they travel through this “in-between space”, they encounter the kinds of people one would expect to be living on the outskirts of civilization.  The particular outcasts they meet on this day are people who have been quarantined due to infectious skin diseases.  The word “leprosy” is somewhat misleading because it can refer to any of a number of medical conditions.  Modern leprosy is a particular condition (also known as Hansen’s disease) that attacks the skin and peripheral nervous system, causing lesions and numbness.

People living in quarantine (sometimes called “leper colonies”) were excluded from mainstream society.  They were cut off from friends and family.  They could no longer pursue their livelihood in a meaningful way.  Jewish law required them to wear torn clothing, let their hair grow long, and cry out, “Unclean!  Unclean!” any time another person came near.

Leprosy was, of course, a public health issue in the ancient Middle East.  However, it was also understood to be a moral and spiritual issue as well.  The Hebrew word, tzaarath, literally means “smiting”.  The ancient Israelites believed that God would smite people with leprosy as punishment for their sins.  So, people in that society believed that victims of leprosy had somehow brought it upon themselves.  This made the attack personal as lepers were exiled from social, economic, and religious life.

This is why the text tells us that the ten lepers were “keeping their distance” from Jesus as they called out for mercy.  They were not only physically distant for medical reasons.  They were spiritually distant for what they believed to be moral reasons.  The members of this group no doubt consider themselves to be among the “damned” in their society.

Later in the passage, we learn that one of the lepers is a Samaritan.  Samaritans and Jews shared a common heritage, but there was a great deal of animosity between them.  Part of this tension was ethnic in origin.  The Jews claimed that the people of Samaria had inter-married with neighboring ethnic groups, thus polluting the pure Jewish bloodline.  However, like leprosy, the presence of a Samaritan also had moral significance.  Jews accused Samaritans of mixing the worship of the one true God with polytheistic beliefs and practices.  Thus, the Jewish people believed they had solid biblical and theological basis for their outright rejection of Samaritans.

Knowing this background about leprosy and Samaritans makes Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan leper all the more shocking.  This person would have been seen as the “lowest of the low” from a Jewish perspective.  Yet, after the miraculous healing, Jesus (the Jewish Messiah!) praises this Samaritan for his faith.  How shocking is that?!

In order to drive this point home, let me retell this story with a contemporary twist.  I warn you: this may sound controversial to some, but I think it highlights the dramatic significance of Jesus’ words and actions in this story from Luke’s gospel.

Like Jesus and the disciples, our churches and our society have been “crossing borders” for many decades.  We are asking hard questions that may bring us to re-examine old beliefs.  Many of us feel vulnerable and uncomfortable in these uncertain times.  Like the characters in this gospel story, our society has been facing an extended public health crisis that is believed to have not only medical, but also moral significance.  Those who live with HIV/AIDS are still stigmatized by society-at-large and sometimes blamed for their condition.  Like the conflict between Jews and Samaritans, many Christians today are struggling to come to terms with people who are different from ourselves, especially when we believe that difference to have moral and spiritual significance.  I can think of no one more like Samaritans in our contemporary society than gay men and lesbian women.

I am not here to offend you.  Nor am I here to espouse any kind of political agenda from the pulpit.  I’m here today to talk about Jesus and the kind of person he is.  Many faithful and learned Christians currently disagree with one another on the proper interpretation of the Scriptures when it comes to homosexuality.  I’m asking you this morning to put aside that argument for just a moment, so that we can look past the issues themselves and maybe learn something about who Jesus is.

Let’s hear this story again:

It happened that as Jesus made his way toward Jerusalem, he crossed over the border between Samaria and Galilee. As he entered a village, ten men, all HIV-positive, met him. They kept their distance but raised their voices, calling out, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!”

Taking a good look at them, he said, “Go, show yourselves to the priests.”

They went, and while still on their way, became clean. One of them, when he realized that he was healed, turned around and came back, shouting his gratitude, glorifying God. He kneeled at Jesus’ feet, so grateful. He couldn’t thank him enough—and he was gay.

Jesus said, “Were not ten healed? Where are the nine? Can none be found to come back and give glory to God except this gay man?” Then he said to him, “Get up. On your way. Your faith has healed and saved you.”

What kind of person is this Jesus?  Jesus is the kind of person who crosses dangerous borders with boldness!  Jesus is the kind of person who welcomes hurting strangers with words of healing and reconciliation!  Jesus is the kind of person who celebrates the faith of people who feel excluded from traditional houses of worship!

This truth has dramatic implications for us as recipients of this amazing love.  First of all, it means that whenever we feel the need to “keep our distance” from God or others, Jesus comes to meet us with his good news of healing and wholeness.  Some of us might feel like we are closest to God when we are outside church.  We might sense God’s presence most when we are walking in the woods, listening to music, or playing with a child.  If that’s you, then I have good news for you.  Jesus comes to you with these words: “Your faith has made you well.”

This truth also has dramatic implications for us as followers of Jesus.  People’s lives are hanging in the balance as they experience isolation and exclusion.  For example, many of us have heard about the suicide of college student Tyler Clementi, who jumped off a bridge a few weeks ago after being humiliated by his peers because he was gay.  However we interpret our Scriptures, I think we can all agree that no one should be driven to the point of suicide by a tasteless prank.  Jesus loves Tyler Clementi.  Whatever else we may think, our first calling, as Christians, is to love others as Jesus loves them.  When we feel uncomfortable or vulnerable while crossing borders (as a church and a society), we are called to go out with words of healing, not judgment or exclusion.  Furthermore, we are called to celebrate the faith we find in the people we meet in those “in-between spaces”.  It may not look like ours, it may come from the person we least expect, but it is real.  And Jesus celebrates it, just as Jesus celebrates each one of us.

From Gate to Chasm

On By J. Barrett LeeIn SermonLeave a comment

Here’s my sermon from September 26 at First Pres, Boonville.

It’s the third in a series of three on grace.

The text is Luke 16:19-31.

Click here to listen to the podcast.

We’ve spent the last few weeks talking about a series of parables that appear in Luke’s gospel.  Two weeks ago, we talked about the parable of the lost sheep and the parable of the lost coin, where the sheep and coin do not find their way home but are instead found by the one who was looking for them.  In the same way, we lost souls cannot find or earn our way back into God’s favor through moral living or right theology.  Instead, we are found by a loving God who comes looking for us and brings us home rejoicing.

Last week, we talked about the parable of the dishonest manager, where our desperate main character works “outside the law” to forgive debts and establish lasting relationships with others.  In the same way, our God works “outside the law” to forgive our debt of sin and establish relationship with us.

Each of these parables is told by Jesus during a particular “scene” we find in Luke’s gospel.  This scene is set at the beginning of chapter 15: “Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him. 2And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, ‘This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.’”  The religious leaders are shocked and offended by the way that Jesus extends such a radical welcome to the most wretched and despised members of society.  Their strict moral and theological rules simply cannot cope with the idea of a rabbi who associates with such lowlifes.

The key concept that continues through all of these stories is grace.  Again and again, we get the message that the God who Jesus reveals does not hesitate to give out love and mercy to those who deserve it least.

Then we come to the parable in today’s gospel reading and we get this dark picture of hellfire and damnation.  What is that about?  We just spent all this time talking about grace and unconditional love.  Were we wrong?  Was all of it just a bunch of nice words?  I don’t think so.

This parable about the rich man and Lazarus takes place in the same section of Luke’s gospel as the other parables we looked at.  We can imagine Jesus telling this story to the religious elites as they grumble about him associating with outcasts and so-called “sinners”.  Just as the theme of grace was present in the stories we heard last week and the week before, we can expect to find the message of grace in this week’s story as well.

The religious leaders in this story, as we have already mentioned, were famous for drawing up long lists of moral rules and spiritual requirements.  They tried their best to know the Bible well and follow its commandments ‘to a T’.  Rather than the ten commandments that we are most familiar with from the Old Testament, the members of this group identified 613 commandments that should be obeyed.  Those who failed to live up to this standard were branded as “sinners” and excluded from the social and religious life of the community.  They had very clear ideas about us & them, in & out, black & white.  In telling this story of the rich man and Lazarus, I think Jesus was trying to challenge the hard and fast categories into which his opponents tried so hard to put people.

The parable opens with two characters: a panhandler named Lazarus and rich man, whose name we don’t know.  The rich man lives in a nice estate home with its own wall and front-gate.  Lazarus regularly perched himself by that gate, hoping to pick something edible out of the trash.

In the culture of first century Palestine, the difference in circumstances between these two people was understood to have spiritual significance.  Material success was taken to be a sign of God’s blessing while suffering was interpreted as a sign that God was punishing someone.  If a person was poor or sick, people generally thought, “Everything happens for a reason.  If this person is suffering, then he or she probably did something to deserve it.  Who are we to question God’s ways?”  This belief made it very easy for people to excuse themselves from helping those in need.  After all, why should I help someone who brought this trouble on himself or herself?

American society holds similar beliefs.  Conventional thought divides poor people into two categories: “worthy” and “unworthy”.  Children, senior citizens, veterans, and laid-off workers are generally regarded as “worthy” of help.  But people whose bad decisions or destructive habits have landed them in desperate situations are branded as “unworthy”.  People say things like, “Why should I give my hard-earned money to someone who’s just going to blow it on drugs?”

In the same way, the rich man in Jesus’ story probably felt morally justified in walking by Lazarus each day without lifting a finger to help.  This rich man, like the religious Pharisees, had his world neatly organized into categories of “us” and “them”.  Lazarus definitely counted as one of “them”.  The gate that stood between the rich man and Lazarus might as well have been an impenetrable wall.

Fast forward to the end of their respective lives.  The gate between these two has become an impassable chasm.  What’s odd is that their positions have been reversed.  Lazarus rests comfortably while the rich man is the one suffering.  The hard and fast social categories remain intact, except that the rich man finds himself on the wrong end of eternity.

When we set ourselves up as judge and jury over our fellow human beings, it will inevitably come back to haunt us, because none of us is ultimately perfect.  Jesus spoke about this phenomenon on another occasion when he said:

“Do not judge, so that you may not be judged. 2For with the judgment you make you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get. 3Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye? 4Or how can you say to your neighbor, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ while the log is in your own eye? 5You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor’s eye.  (Matthew 7:1-5)

I think Jesus tells this story as a warning to the religious insiders about the dangers of holding on too tightly to hard and fast categories of “us” and “them”.  This dark and disturbing tale of hellfire and damnation reminds us of the consequences of living in a world without grace.

The good news for us all is that we do not live in a world without grace.  In contrast to the story of the rich man and Lazarus, we Christians believe that the impassable chasm between God and ourselves has become a gate.  Furthermore, we believe that God, in the person of Jesus Christ, has passed through that gate to meet us where we are in the messiness of our own poverty and suffering.  This is an act of pure grace and unconditional love.  We cannot earn it and we cannot pay it back.

What Christ asks of you and I is that we pay it forward.  Again and again in the gospels, Jesus instructs his followers to forgive as they have been forgiven.  According to Jesus, the only thing that can stop the unconditional flow of grace into our lives is if we refuse to pass it on to others.

Jesus says in the Beatitudes, 7“Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.”  Later in the Sermon on the Mount he says, “If you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you; 15but if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.”  In Mark 11:25, he says, “Whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone; so that your Father in heaven may also forgive you your trespasses.”  Finally, in Luke 6:37, he says, “Do not judge, and you will not be judged; do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven”.

God’s will is that you and I should become agents of grace in this world that knows so little of it.  Jesus invites us to step outside our own gates, to go beyond the walls we have erected in our own lives, so that we might meet the “Lazarus” who lives in our own community.  What does this look like for you?  Who are those “despised outsiders” that you see?  It could be an individual in your family or community.  It could be an entire group of people in your society.  Wherever you find those “sinners”, that is where God is calling you to venture outside your gate as an agent of grace, to transform the world around you, and to be transformed in the process.  Amen.

Illegal Grace

On By J. Barrett LeeIn SermonLeave a comment

Hi everybody!

Here is my sermon from September 19 at First Presbyterian Church of Boonville.  It is the second of three parts in a series on grace.

The text is Luke 16:1-13.

Click here to listen to the podcast.

For you insatiable readers out there, here’s the written version:

I’d like to start this morning by asking you a few simple questions about the United States:

In what year was the Constitution written?

1787

How many changes, or amendments, to the Constitution are there?

27

Name the amendments (by number) that address voting rights.

15, 19, 24, 26

What U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services form is used to apply for naturalized citizenship?

N-400

How did you do?  I didn’t know the answer to any of them without cheating.  All of these are questions that appear on the test one takes when applying to become a naturalized U.S. citizen.  Could you pass that test?

Before applicants can even sit for the test, here is the process they must go through to legally apply for citizenship:

Unless they are refugees seeking political asylum or have immediate family members who are U.S. citizens, they must have a college degree and a job offer from an employer who is willing to pay up to $10,000 in legal fees.  After that, they must wait up to six years to receive a green card.  After receiving a green card, they must wait another five years to apply for citizenship.  Only then are they allowed to take this test (the one that most of us just failed).

I hope this gives you an idea of the difficulty faced by farm workers and manual laborers who have little formal education but desire the opportunity to escape the poverty of their home country.  For many of these people, theirs is a legally impossible situation.  That’s why so many of them resort to paying smugglers called “coyotes” thousands of dollars to sneak them across the border illegally.

Like these migrant workers, the dishonest manager in today’s gospel reading finds himself in a legally impossible situation.  His employer catches him misusing the resources that had been entrusted to him.  Faced with unemployment, he considers his options and ultimately decides to take matters into his own hands.  The manager goes to his employer’s debtors and has them adjust the amount they owe.

This is one of Jesus’ most troubling parables.  It seems like Jesus is advising his followers to engage in practices of fraud and embezzlement!  Biblical scholars are at odds with one another about how to interpret it.  Some see it as a warning against materialism while others see the dishonest manager as a kind of “Robin Hood” character who steals from the rich and gives to the poor.  Personally, I think this is a parable about grace.  Here’s why I think so:

This parable appears in the same section of Luke’s gospel as the passage we read last week about the lost sheep and the lost coin.  It’s the same scene in the movie, if you will.  Jesus is seated at dinner with a group of notorious misfits and outlaws.  They are the most undesirable people imaginable in that society.  The religious leaders who witness this activity are unanimously appalled by what they see.  In response to their disgust, Jesus tells a series of stories.  Last week, we looked at the first two of those stories.  The third story is the famous parable of the prodigal son, which is usually read during Lent.  All of these stories center around the idea that God seeks after lost sinners and showers them with undeserved love.  Today’s gospel reading picks up right where the story of the prodigal son leaves off.  The author gives no indication of place or time being changed, so it makes sense to conclude that this parable of the dishonest manager is part of that same conversation.  And if these parables are part of the same conversation, it makes sense to look for common themes and ideas that run through all of them.  I believe that common theme is grace.

We’ve already noted that this dishonest manager, stuck in a legally impossible situation, has taken matters into his own hands and committed fraud.  How does he do this, specifically?  He forgives debts.  Through this illegal forgiveness, the manager hopes to initiate relationships where he can find a home.

Isn’t this exactly how Jesus is acting in the scene where this parable is told?  The sinners and outcasts, with whom Jesus is associating, are literally “outlaws”, that is, they live their lives outside the boundaries established by the law.  Like the dishonest manager and the migrant workers I mentioned, they are stuck in a legally impossible situation.  They have no hope of redeeming or improving themselves through legal means.  For all intents and purposes, they are damned.

Since there is no hope for these people in the law, Jesus goes outside the bounds of the law (that is, acts illegally) to initiate a relationship with them.  Jesus makes a radically gracious gesture of acceptance and forgiveness.  Their debt of sin has been cancelled through an act of unconditional (and illegal) grace.  The religious leaders, self-proclaimed custodians of God’s law, are shocked and offended by this grace.

You and I are also sinners.  We, like outlaws in this gospel story, are unable to save ourselves through legal means.  We are stuck in a legally impossible situation.  The relational breach between God and ourselves is only crossed as Christ steps outside the law and meets us where we are with the good news that our debt of sin has been forgiven.  This truly is amazing grace.  It is radical grace, it is shocking grace, it is offensive grace, and it is illegal grace.

You and I have failed the citizenship test for God’s kingdom.  Like so many aspiring migrant workers, the way of legal entry has been shut to us.  But Jesus has become our coyote.  He ushers us across the border and brings us into God’s kingdom where we receive the benefit of abundant life today and the hope of eternal life tomorrow.  All of this comes to us through grace, that is, “outside the law”.  Through Christ, we are all “illegal immigrants” in the kingdom of God.

The word “wetback” is a derogatory term directed toward immigrants who come into the U.S. illegally.  They are called “wetbacks” because many of them have to wade through the waters of the Rio Grande in order to cross the border.  They are soaked from head to toe as they take their first steps onto American soil.  As Christians, we are initiated into Christ’s Church through the sacrament of baptism.  We too are made to “pass through the waters” on our way into the kingdom of God.  In a sense, we too are “wetbacks”.

As wetbacks and illegal immigrants in God’s kingdom, who are we to pass judgment on others whose theology, politics, worship, or lifestyle might differ from ours?  We have no more right to be here than they do.  Who are we to set ourselves up as the “Border Patrol” for the kingdom of God?  This is exactly what the Pharisees and other religious leaders were doing with their long and detailed lists of how people ought to eat, dress, think, and talk.  Jesus had a name for them: “Hypocrites”.  When they ridiculed him for his illegal graciousness, he said to them, “You are those who justify yourselves in the sight of others; but God knows your hearts”.  The apostle Paul writes in his letter to the Romans:

“Now we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. 20For “no human being will be justified in his sight” by deeds prescribed by the law… [S]ince all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; 24they are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus… Then what becomes of boasting? It is excluded. By what law? By that of works? No, but by the law of faith. 28For we hold that a person is justified by faith apart from works prescribed by the law.”  (Romans 3:19-20, 23-24, 27-28)

Rather than setting ourselves up as the Border Patrol in the kingdom of God, let us extend to others a portion of the radical grace that has been bestowed upon us.  With the dishonest manager, with tax collectors & sinners, and with Jesus our coyote, let us celebrate together this general amnesty that has been pronounced over all of us wetbacks and illegal immigrants in the kingdom of God:

From Ephesians 2:19:

“You are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God.”  Amen.