Giving Thanks

Ephesians 1: 15-23

 

 

           Next week, people all over the country will celebrate Thanksgiving. We will cook turkeys and make stuffing and bake pies and gather in homes and churches and restaurants as families and friends. We will break bread together and give thanks for another year of plenty, another year of success.  We will feed veterans and the homeless. We will share our wealth for a meal in a great showing of generosity.

          That will happen on Thursday. We will get done just in time, for the very next day is Black Friday, the biggest shopping day of the year and the kickoff to the Christmas season. It is the day when supposedly, retailers go in the black to stay for the rest of the year, thanks to the seemingly endless consumerism of Americans. If you’re a Walmart customer, you can get Black Friday prices on top deals a whole week before Black Friday even arrives.

          I’m not much of a consumer. I have clothes older than many people’s cars and a car too old to recall.  If retailers need my business to get in the black, our country is in for a long recession. It’s confusing to keep up with all the messages. Religious seasons and national holidays are used as promotional events rather than times of honor and remembrance. It’s a long way from the original intent of Thanksgiving, a day set apart for the praise of God’s blessing through another harvest.

          Ephesians is in many ways a letter of thanksgiving… thanksgiving for unity in Christ and for the Church’s place in God’s plan to bring about that unity.  It is one of the four so-called prison letters written by the apostle Paul. It was probably written to be circulated among the churches in the region surrounding Ephesus. It does not deal with particular problems in any particular church. The theology is high and the phrasing, while very long, is beautiful. It has been called the “Queen of the Epistles” because of its devotional treatment of Christ.

          In the opening verses of Ephesians, Paul invokes a blessing for God and Christ. In one sentence, he praises God’s election, adoption, God’s will, forgiveness, grace, God’s divine purpose, God’s plan, unity of heaven and earth, and Christ. Paul can get a lot of mileage between periods. He then tells his audience that they were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we receive it.

          Then, in todays’ passage, Paul offers a thanksgiving. He offers the kind of thanksgiving that teaches us about our Savior, our faith, our church and ourselves. The man writes from a prison cell with time on his hands, and one can just imagine him laboring over each phrase, milking each sentence to its theological summit.

          Paul writes to the church at large and says he never ceased to give thanks, that he remembers us in his prayers. He prays for God to give the church a spirit, but not just any spirit. Paul prays for the spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him.  To Paul, nothing is more important than the proclamation of the Gospel. The gospel is the good news, and the good news is Jesus Christ. Christ has lived the sinless life, offered himself as the perfect sacrifice, died for our sins, risen from that death and ascended to heaven. That is the Gospel. To believe that is to be in Christ, and to be in Christ is to be in the family of God. He is both the head of the Church and the head of all things. So our wisdom, our revelation, is the knowledge of these things.

          Paul goes on. To have such wisdom and revelation is the key to having the eyes of our hearts enlightened. How do you see? Some things you see with your eyes. You come to a crosswalk and you look both ways. If you see a car coming, you stand still and out of harm’s way. Some things you see with your mind. You balance your checkbook and understand that you are down to fifty dollars, so you budget your expenses to make them last to the next paycheck. Some things you see with your nose. You walk in the house from work and you smell your favorite foods cooking, and you see a wonderful supper in your mind’s eye. And then there are those times when we see with our hearts. Babies are born; children are baptized. The eyes of our hearts are tearing with happiness. Sometimes it is even more special. Sometimes the eyes of our hearts are enlightened.

          Paul is giving thanks for the believers of the early church, whose eyes have been opened, not by the way of the world, but rather by the majesty of God. The eyes of our hearts are enlightened by hope, by inheritance, and by God’s power toward those who believe.  We gain our hope from the work of Christ, whom God has exalted above all others, all things and all time. Then, says Paul, God made Jesus Christ the head of the church. He made the church the body of Christ on earth. It is not an institution. It is an organism, as alive as Christ himself.

          In an explosion of high theology, Paul gives thanks to God for what God has given us, the church. When we use the word church, we are not referring to those who fill up seats in sanctuaries on Sundays, but rather those who fill up themselves with the Holy Spirit…the real believers in Christ. Why can Paul give such thanks? Because his audience is composed of those who show faith and love toward Christ and their own brothers and sisters.  These are the true marks of the church. For them, from Paul’s time until this very day, we give thanks to God as Paul did for the early church.

          We can thank the apostle Paul for this great thanksgiving, for showing us that the unity of the church is dependent upon the body following the direction of the head. Jesus is the head and from generation to generation, we the church must find our fullness in him. So while we can thank Paul for articulating our thanksgiving, we should also try to use the ears of our hearts to hear the mandate that lies implicitly behind that thanksgiving, for it is both compliment and command. If the church is to continue to act as the body of Christ in the world, it has a job to do.

          In his commentary on Ephesians, William Barclay tells of an old legend about how Jesus went back to heaven after his time on earth. Even there in heaven, one could still see clearly the marks of the Cross upon his body. The angels gathered around him and Gabriel commented: “Master, you must have suffered terribly for men down there.” “I did.” said Jesus. Then Gabriel asked “did they know all about how you loved them and what you did for them?” “Oh no,” said Jesus, “not yet. Just now only a few people in Palestine know.” Then Gabriel asked Jesus, “What have you done to let everyone know about it?” Jesus said: “I have asked Peter and James and John and a few others to make it the business of their lives to tell others about me, and the others still others, until the farthest man on the widest circle knows what I have done.” Gabriel hung his head, for he knew full well what poor stuff men were made of. “But what if Peter and James and John grow tired,” he asked. “What if the people who come after them forget? What if away down in the twentieth first century people just don’t tell others about you? Haven’t you made any other plans?”

          And Jesus answered: “I haven’t made any other plans. I’m counting on them.”

          Brothers and sisters in Christ, look around. We are them. He’s counting on us. Praise be to God.

Children of Light

1 Thessalonians 5: 1-11

 

 

            Have you ever needed reassurance about something? Your marriage?  Your job?  Some other important relationship? Do you wonder about what happens after your life here? You believe in God, but you wonder. It’s scary even thinking about the unknown, especially if that unknown contemplates pain and suffering and separation from those whom we love or leaving a life to which we have come to know.

          This community has seen its share of loss this last year. Two of our own number have gone on to the Lord and one clings to life right now. Others we know, both young and old are no longer here. Life can be taken from us in the blink of an eye, the clogging of an artery.  For many families in this community, death or the threat of it has become the uninvited companion at the supper table.

          We are hardly alone. In West Africa, an outbreak of Ebola virus has claimed over five thousand lives in five countries since April, the deadliest outbreak of this virus in forty years. War and pestilence plague our world and the Ebola epidemic is just one more example. But these extreme situations give us pause to celebrate our own good health or circumstances. We know only too well that those conditions may change and sometimes quickly. How do we walk in a world where death is our ultimate destination and not have fear?

          The early church had the same question. Paul had planted a church in Thessalonica and it had experienced success.  As he labored in Corinth, he sent Timothy to check on the state of the church in Thessalonica. Timothy brought back a good, but mixed report. Some church members had died and this was giving some other church members cause for worry, for those who had died had missed the Day of the Lord. Jesus had not yet returned. They wanted to know what would happen to those who had already died. Would they be left out? Others were not pulling their load, thinking that they would just wait it out until Jesus did return. Paul wrote to address these questions and assumptions.

          In the previous passage in chapter 4, Paul reassures his friends in Christ that those who have already died will rise first to meet the Lord in the air. They are not left behind. Then in today’s passage, Paul warns about the Day of the Lord. It will be unannounced, without warning. There will be sudden destruction for all who are not ready. Paul uses the metaphors of light and darkness to help his followers understand the difference between them and the rest of the world. For those who do not believe, Paul calls them children of the night. They find their false security in drinking and darkness. They have much to fear from death.  

          It is a different world for the Christian. Christians are children of light, children of the day. We find our way illuminated by faith and hope and love. We face not God’s wrath, but his salvation.  Here for the first time in Paul’s writings, he tells us the source of our salvation. It is Jesus, our Lord, who died for us. Jesus is our hope, our guarantee. This is how we walk without fear, for we understand and believe that death is no longer a destination, but rather a crossing.  And since we are children of the light, we will not be surprised when we meet Jesus, whether it is with the rest of the world in the Day of the Lord or in our own time. For the Christian, the rising of the body is a reunion with the flesh of a soul already living in the presence of our Lord.

          So Paul exhorted the Christians at Thessalonica to “encourage each other and to build one another up.” What timely advice for us today as we celebrate a double blessing. After this service, we will gather to break bread together in that great American tradition we call Thanksgiving, a harvest festival with roots all the way back to the book of Leviticus. It is a time for reminding ourselves of the bounty with which we as Americans have been so richly blessed and of the source for all that blessing.

          And during this service, we have taken up and dedicated an offering on behalf of Operation Christmas Child. Shoeboxes full of small gifts and the Word of God have been lovingly assembled for delivery to children all over the world. There are prayers printed in today’s church bulletin. They ask for joy to boys and girls in places we have never seen, where poverty and disease and famine and war are part of their lives. More prayers ask for these children to have the opportunity to hear the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We ask here and now that these children, wherever they are, may experience what we have, that they may know that death is not an ending to be feared, but rather a bridge to be crossed. We know this because we, like the Thessalonican Church, are children of light. May it be so as well for the children who receive these shoeboxes.

          Help us now to hear the words of Paul in a new and vibrant way. We are asked to put on the breastplate of faith and love, the helmet of salvation. I know that sounds outdated. Who wears breastplates and helmets today? Well, actually, law enforcement does, as well as soldiers. But Paul wasn’t talking about actual armor even in his day. He used such symbols to make his point. Christians do have weapons. We Christians are soldiers in a very real way. We serve in God’s army and we fight real enemies. We fight the presence of evil, the erosion of values, the degradation of basic human rights. There is still darkness all around us. We need Paul’s exhortation just as much today as his followers did in their lives.

          So, Father, we ask again today, that in the words of your servant Paul, you will help us to “encourage one another, to build one another up.” For those who have been given much, much is expected. Help us to walk in the light as your children.

Stay Ready

Matthew 25: 1-13

 

 

          He was 41 years old. His batting average was 100 points below his 250 pound overweight body. He wasn’t a Yankee anymore. He wasn’t much of anything anymore. He was a wanna-be manager playing for the Boston Braves of the National League, a league he wasn’t used to playing until the World Series. It was May 25, 1935. The Braves were in Pittsburgh to play the Pirates at Forbes Field.

          Paul Warhola and Sam Sciullo didn’t much care about all that. They were 12 and 13 years old, they loved baseball and their hero was in town. No matter that he was washed up. He was there and they went to see him. They were awfully glad they did. It was an afternoon game. There were no night games in 1935.         

          In the Parable of the Ten Virgins, Jesus tells of a group invited to a wedding. It was common in first century Palestine for the groom to proceed to the home of his bride, where they would be married. Usually it was a night ceremony. It was also common for the wedding party to return to the groom’s house for a banquet and celebration.

          His first time at bat, he hit a home run into the lower deck. Some folks got up and left. They figured they had gotten what they came for. Paul and Sam stuck around. It wasn’t long before their patience was rewarded. His second time up, he hit another homer into the upper deck. That was pretty high cotton for any hitter to hit two home runs in one game. More folks left. It couldn’t get any better than that.

         It was nighttime and the ten virgins brought their oil lamps to see. Half of them came prepared with enough extra oil to trim the lamps as the night wore on. The other half came with only the oil in their lamps, sort of like the fans who left Forbes Field early that day in 1935.

          His third time at bat, he hit safely for a single. 3 for 3. Pretty slick for a washed up old ballplayer. It was the middle of the game and no one was paying much attention.  Paul and Sam had seats down near home plate. Normally they would have been in the right field bleachers…the cheap seats. But that day, right field seats had gone fast. The old man was a lefty and a dead pull hitter.

          The ten virgins had settled down in the street near the groom’s house. The wedding had run long and they became drowsy waiting. They finally fell asleep as they waited. Their lamps began to go out from lack of oil. Jesus tells us that at midnight there was a cry, “Here is the bridegroom! Come out to meet him.” The virgins rose and trimmed their lamps, but some had no oil with which to trim them.

          It was the 7^th inning. He came to the plate for one more at bat. The people that were left cheered his performance of the day. Sam remembers that he pointed to a group of old guys in the right field bleachers and said he’d hit the ball over the roof. He was always sort of a grandstander. It was cute. Many didn’t see that gesture, for it was late, the game was not in doubt, and they were headed for the gate.

          So the five unprepared virgins had to leave. They went to the dealers of oil to get more. While they were gone, the bridegroom and his company arrived. Those who were ready went in with him to the marriage feast. They shut the door for the night.

          They talked about it for years. Baseball fans still talk about it. Sam and Paul remember it like it was yesterday. He did what he said he would do. He lifted that pitch over the 86 foot roof of Forbes Field and cleared the stadium, the first time it had ever been done. The washed up, 41 year old overweight man hit his third home run of the game.  His name was Babe Ruth. As the roar went up, all the fans whom had left prematurely were confused. They knew they had missed something truly important, but they were not given a second chance. It was the last game he ever played. Five days later he retired.

        The unprepared virgins came back to find a locked door. They called the groom “Lord.” They called out to him and he did answer. His answer was this: “Truly I say to you, I do not know you.”

          As they were being interviewed about attending that now famous game, Sam and Paul expressed gratitude that they had been able to partake in a piece of baseball history in the making. It was a huge moment in their lives. They had been able to attend, and they were not about to pass up the chance to see their hero, washed up or not. They were ready, and they saw Babe Ruth in one of his greatest performances.

          I’m guessing that if Sam and Paul had been invitees to that wedding, they would have come with their lamps trimmed and with extra oil for the evening. They would have been ready. Well, it’s only a wedding, one might say. But what if the groom is our Lord and what if the invitation is to the kingdom of heaven?

          Second chances don’t always come along. Are you ready? Last week, we heard Joshua warn the people of Israel to prepare, for they were about to see the Lord do wonders among them. This week, it is our Savior warning us to be ready. He tells us to watch, to be ready, to remain prepared, for we will know neither the day nor the hour when he chooses to return.

         On that May afternoon back in 1935, Babe Ruth hit three homers in one game and as he crossed home plate after the last one, he kept right on going into the dugout to the showers. He was done. It’s an exit not unlike the entry our Lord will make one day. We won’t know he’s coming until he arrives, any more than those fans know that they were seeing their hero for the last time. And Jesus tells us that the kingdom of heaven is like this.  Are you ready?

Crossing the Jordan

Joshua 3: 5-17

 

 

          If it seems like I’ve been talking a lot about leadership lately, it’s probably because I’ve been talking a lot about leadership lately. I can’t seem to get away from it. Today’s Scripture is no exception. One of the first lines starts with God talking to Joshua and he says “Today I will begin to exalt you in the sight of all Israel, that they (the people of Israel) may know that as I was with Moses, so I will be with you.” It’s curious that although the word leadership is never used in the Bible, it is nevertheless a subject which receives quite a bit of treatment. 

          The occasion is the crossing of the Jordan River into the Promised Land. It is about 1406…B.C. After forty years of wandering, forty years of purging the old and preparing a new generation for God, the time has finally come. The land flowing with milk and honey awaits, but it is not without its hardships. Ahead lies the land of Canaan and it is already populated with many tribes. This land may be promised, but the promise must be claimed.

          It had been a long time in the making. Moses had died. The greatest leader of the nation of Israel was gone. A whole generation of disobedient grumblers had gone the way of all flesh. Joshua and Caleb, always faithful, were almost eighty years old. A new generation had sprung up. Children born into the Exodus were forty.  Imagine their anticipation to stand at the gates to the Promised Land, the land promised so many years ago. The book of Numbers tells us in Chapter 26 that a census was taken of those men twenty years of age and older in order to know who was able to go to war. They numbered 601, 730. Add to that younger males, women and children and it is estimated that between 2.5 and 3.5 million people stood at the banks of the Jordan River. A mighty event was about to happen.

            The first time I stood in front of a congregation to deliver the message, I remember saying out loud, “What am I doing here?” It was too awesome, too incredible, to think that I could be God’s messenger, to think that he had a message for me to deliver.  How must Joshua have felt! He had the word of God himself that he would be exalted, that the people would be able to see that he was God’s messenger. But in spite of even the reassurance of God, Joshua had to lead. He had to stand in front of God’s people, deliver the message and then live it. Thank God for us, that’s exactly what Joshua did.

           Joshua gathered the people and the first thing he said was “Consecrate yourselves.”  Consecrate: to set apart, to prepare. The first thing Joshua said to the people of Israel as this great and miraculous event was about to unfold was “Get ready. You each have a personal responsibility here. You have your own cleansing to do in order to be ready for what God has in store for you.” Then, Joshua said to the people: “for tomorrow the Lord will do wonders among you.” Listen to that. “For tomorrow the Lord will do wonders among you.” Joshua was telling his people to expect a miracle…not just to hope for it.

          The Ark of the Covenant was to go before the people. This was the equivalent of the person, the promise, even the presence of God. The crossing of the Jordan was nothing less than a religious procession. The priests carried the Ark on a mission led by God. The people were not asked to go first. God would do that for them. The people were asked to follow.  

          God, through Joshua, asked the people of Israel to do a great thing. Not only were they about to cross a river which was overflowing its banks, but they were to be prepared to follow God against nation after nation as they entered the Promised Land. The people of Israel were not warriors. They were barely removed from four hundred years of slavery.  And yet, God did not ask Joshua to lead alone, nor did God ask the people to go alone. He only asked that they follow him. He asked them to go where he would lead them. So Joshua says to the people: “Here is how you shall know that the living God is among you…” Don’t miss it. God wants us to know who he is. He is the living God.

          You know the rest of the story. The priests touched the water and it stopped flowing. They walked out to the middle of the riverbed and stood on dry land. About a half mile upstream, the people of Israel, millions in number, stepped into the river and began their participation on yet another of those mighty acts that tell us something about our Creator. In order to participate in that miracle, they had to believe. They had to have faith. They had to trust God that not only would the waters of the Jordan cease to flow, but that those waters would continue to be held until all had safely forded the river.

          It must have taken a long time for so many to cross, but cross they did. They crossed not only to get away from the desert where they had wandered for so long, but also to go forward in faith to an unknown future. They were in the hands of God. It was God’s presence that sustained God’s people. Whatever life brings our way, we can focus on God’s presence and rest in him. He will sustain us just as he did the people of Israel at the Jordan River.

          Joshua, chosen by God to lead his people, would have his moments. He was far from perfect, as events in the near future would prove, but he followed God. Such was the essence of his leadership. He followed God. When it comes to Christianity, our leadership emanates from our example. We evangelize as much with our hands and feet as we do with our words. Joshua followed God and his people followed him. It is God who does the exalting, not us.

          The great apostle Paul writing to his beloved church in Corinth, had this to say about ministry. “You yourselves are our letter of recommendation, written on our hearts, to be known and read by all…Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God, who has made us competent to be ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter, but the Spirit.”

          What can we take from this crossing? There is more to this story than a miracle from God, as wonderful and awesome as that is. We should first notice that leadership comes not from inner power nor from outer strength. Leadership comes from washing feet and following the living God. Leaders serve. Servants lead. That’s the way of God. As minister and religious writer Hampton Keathley once said, the authority of leaders among God’s people needs to be Scripture rather than their personality, charisma, or whatever happens to be appealing to people at the time. Secondly, we should keep in mind that each of us must come prepared. We must consecrate ourselves to the Lord or our witness will not work. Next, we must step out on faith, but we will never be in front, for God always goes before us and prepares the way. It is only when we are willing to take that step of faith that we will be able to see that God has opened that door for us.

          It took a lot of courage to cross the Jordan into the Promised Land. It was also the Unknown Land. It also took a lot of faith. Perhaps it was that faith which endowed God’s people with the courage they needed. But God was there then and he is here now. Christians today have their own Jordans to cross. For us to do God’s will, sometimes we will have to enter into spiritual warfare much as the nation of Israel had to take on the Canaanites. It will not be our human effort that sustains us, but rather our faith in and our obedience to the living God. We must step out in faith. We must follow the living God. We must be ministers of that new covenant to which Paul referred…the new covenant of grace…the grace of Jesus Christ and the life given us in the Spirit.

          The only leadership that really matters is that which directs us to God. If that is our beacon, then the Lord will do wonders among us, too!