Look on the Heart                            

                                              1 Samuel 15:34- 16: 13

 

  

          After fifteen or so years out in the hinterlands perfecting his craft, the apostle Paul has come in from the cold and has embarked, along with Barnabas and John Mark, upon his first missionary journey. They set sail from the island of Cypress and land at Perga. From there, they journey to Psidian Antioch, a town not to be confused with Syrian Antioch, where it all started for Paul. Psidian Antioch was a Roman colony with a large Jewish population. It was pluralistic in its worship practices and had several temples in addition to the synagogue. For unknown reasons, John Mark left them there and returned to Jerusalem. As was his wont, Paul went to the synagogue on the Sabbath, where he was asked to speak, and he did. His rousing message was continued the following Sabbath before most of the city. This prompted enough jealousy among the Jewish religious leaders to see to it that Paul and Barnabas were driven out of the city. But not before they had filled the disciples there with joy and the Holy Spirit.

          Among Paul’s comments in that first synagogue message recorded by Luke in Acts 13, is this: that God raised up David to be the king of Israel, and that God said of David that he was “a man after my heart, who will do my will.”

          Flash back a thousand years. Saul’s reign is coming to an end. God has decided to replace him.  He has had a colored kingship. He has done things right, but he has gone on his own too much. God wants a change. Samuel, who didn’t want a monarchy to begin with, now doesn’t want a change. He grieves over the failing of Saul. Then God comes to town. He tells Samuel to quit grieving. God has one more job for Samuel and it is to anoint Saul’s successor.

          How does God pick a king? Well, how do we pick our leaders? Will that be informative of how God acts? We pick our leaders based upon democratic principles. People line up support with big business connections and when they think they can raise a couple hundred million dollars, then they tell us that they want to be President. Then they spend all that money raising more money and lining up more support. Eventually they run off all but two people. They make a lot of promises and we go to the ballot box and decide who makes the most sense or causes us the least worry. One of the first mistakes we make in democracy is letting anyone run who actually wants the job. We should only elect those who don’t want the job. But hey, that’s American politics. God is no politician.

          So how does God pick a king? According to 1^st Samuel, he doesn’t use the yardstick many of us use. He doesn’t even look at the outside of a man or woman at all. God looks on the heart. Tall, fit, handsome, pretty, smart, educated, polished, all wonderful attributes. For instance, Eliab, the oldest son of Jesse, was thought to be a pretty good catch. Even old, experienced Samuel took one look at him and said surely he was looking at God’s anointed. But God said “next.”  In fact, God passed on seven sons of Jesse. Finally, the youngest was called. He was a teenager, probably red-headed and freckled. He was a shepherd of his father’s sheep, nice-looking but young and inexperienced. God said yes. That’s the one. Anoint him. And Samuel obeyed the Lord.

          It was to be eleven more years before young David actually took the throne as king of Israel, but God had brought him from a pasture next to a tiny town barely on the map and picked him out of a lineup of brothers. In the process of calling these men before him, God tells Samuel how it’s done. “Do not look on his outward appearance or on the height of his stature…For the Lord sees not as man sees; man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.”

          So that’s how God picks out his own. He pays little if any attention to the outside of a person. God looks on the heart. What is the heart? Is it different in the original languages? Yes, a little. In the Hebrew, the language used in 1st Samuel, the word is lebab (בב£), which means inner man, mind, will, heart. When Luke uses the word in Acts, it is kardia (καρδία), which means the seat of the inner self. For me, I think heart in these uses means the core, the bottom line feeling where we are who we are. I think that’s what God looks for in us. Who are we when we are found out, when we are raw, when we must show that of which we are made . That is where God goes to see us.

          In the story of the anointing of David, we find God seeking out a man after his own heart. God looked deep inside to find what he was looking for. Can we do the same? I think we should try, but I don’t think we should ever expect to have God’s vision. That’s not in the cards. But that’s the wrong approach anyway. We don’t need to look that deep into the core of our friends and family. Instead, we need to allow them to see us at our core. Who are we, really? Can our friends and family, indeed a total stranger, look at us and realize that we are who we present, that they can look upon our hearts and find us to be who we say we are?

          David is a great example for us all. It’s not that he lived a perfect life. Far from it. He committed adultery, arguably even murder. His reign was marked with examples of extreme violence. But whenever God called him on it, David confessed. He agonized over his shortcomings. He worked hard to change. And he loved God. Oh, how he loved God and hated to disappoint him. Our passage tells us that at the anointing, the Spirit of God rushed upon David from that day forward. Unlike other heroes of the Old Testament, the Scripture never mentions the Spirt of God leaving David.  The chronicler tells that God’s Spirit stayed with David!

          What does it mean to be a person after God’s own heart? Charles Swindoll puts it this way: ‘It means your life is in harmony with the Lord. What is important to him is important to you. What burdens him burdens you. When He says ‘Go to the right,’ you go to the right…When He says, ‘This is wrong and I want you to change,’ you come to terms with it because you have a heart for God. That’s bottom-line, biblical Christianity.”

          Look at David. What was his secret? He loved God. That’s the first and greatest step. There is no reason that every single one of us cannot become persons after God’s own heart. He made you so you could do that. What are you waiting for!

                                         Choosing Sides                            

                                              Mark 3: 13-15, 20-25, 31-35

 

           A hundred years ago when I was in grade school, we used to meet on the playground every day after school. We played softball. If you were in seventh grade, you got the big field. If not, you went to the smaller one. We played pickup games. There were two captains. They were either the best players or the best leaders. They would flip a coin or run hands up the bat for first pick. Then they would choose. The best players went first and on down the line. Then there were the rules. No umpires, so we called ourselves safe or out. If you hit the church wall in right field on the fly, it was a homer.  We had no shirts, no uniforms. Some of us had ball gloves and loaned ours to others. A bat was stowed out of sight for use each day. As you got older and better, you got picked sooner. Choosing players was an exercise in fairness and diplomacy.

          Choosing sides in pickup softball was a lot easier than choosing sides in other contests. As I journeyed down the road of life, choosing sides or friends or faiths became more and more difficult. Choosing sides can be a huge decision, and the ramifications of our choices can have long term impacts on our lives. Choosing sides comes with a cost.

         In the third chapter of Mark’s gospel, Jesus makes some choices. Mark tells us that “he went up on the mountain and called to himself those whom he desired.” Remember that phrase because it may become even more important in understanding what follows. At any rate, then Jesus appointed the twelve disciples, the circle that would become his intimate friends for his entire ministry. They were, in many ways, his new family.  Then, Jesus went home, but the crowd gathered again. Apparently they were in his home and there were so many that Mark tells us that there was no room to eat.

          Now, Jesus had been busy. He had come from his baptism at the hand of his cousin John to forty days of temptation in the desert to a walking ministry throughout the region of Galilee where he had healed a man with an unclean spirit, cleansed a leper, healed a paralytic and, according to Mark, healed many more as he began to capture the attention of the people. The demons were calling him the Son of God. Many people were doing the same. The scribes coming down from Jerusalem to see him were calling him possessed by Satan. It was to this dangerous mix of worship and hate that Jesus’ family responded. At this point, no one in Jesus’ family other than his mother accepted him as the Son of God. They set out to rescue him. Mark says they thought he was out of his mind.

          At first blush, it seems unusually harsh to read that Jesus’ family thought him crazy. We must keep in mind what Mark is driving at. Mark’s gospel is all about the identity of Jesus. He pushes that concept over and over. Mark wants his readers to know that Jesus is nothing less than the Son of God. Mark’s gospel doesn’t even cover the birth of Jesus. He starts it with the baptism of Jesus and the beginning of his ministry, for that is Mark’s prime concern. The question Mark asks us throughout his gospel is: Who is Jesus? Here in this passage, we see people who are trying to answer that question, from the crowd to the disciples to Jesus’ family to the religious leaders of the day.

          Jesus laughs off the accusations of the scribes. He points out their flawed logic. His response in today’s terms might go something like this: Tell me again why, if I were possessed by Satan, I would cast out demons of Satan. Isn’t that just a little bit counter -productive? Why would I divide myself that way?

          So now Jesus’ mother and brothers arrive. There is no room to get in the house, so they send in word to him. The message is passed along until word reaches him that his mother and brothers are outside, seeking him. What happens next is one of those life changing decisions. Jesus is going to choose sides.

          No one is exempt from choosing sides. Sometimes it comes easily. Sometimes it is agonizing.  Should you go to college? If so, what college?  Should you pursue this relationship? Should you take that job? Should you get up and go to church? What church? Why that church? Should you talk about God with this person whom you like? It could change your relationship, maybe even end it. The list is endless. Each time you choose sides, other choices disappear, some to never come again.

          Jesus answers them. “Who are my mother and my brothers?” In typical style for Jesus, he answers with a question. The words hang there in the air unanswered, perhaps for an extra moment before Jesus continues. Who are my mother and my brothers? Jesus has turned a simple comment into a crossroads. His hand is on the end of that proverbial bat handle and he is about to choose sides.

          Jesus says to those sitting around him: “Here are my mother and my brothers! For whoever does the will of God, he is my brother and my sister and my mother.” Stop for a moment and let that sink in. Jesus looked out upon that “Jesus circle” he had established on the mountain and he said to them: You are my family. Jesus was in a rural environment much like the one in which we worship here, one in which family and extended family were the core of their value system, and in this environment he choose to go another way.

          One might properly ask: Doesn’t this fly in the face of the Fifth Commandment? Aren’t we supposed to honor our father and our mother all the days of our lives? Of course we are. Remember, the Bible never contradicts itself. If it appears to, then we must search for the higher meaning that explains the apparent contradiction. In this case, it is the difference between physical family and spiritual family.

          Theologian Manford Gutzke explains it simply. He says that in one sentence, Jesus set social relationships lower than spiritual relationships.  Are family relationships important? Absolutely! They are so important that they are included in the Ten Commandments. Are they of the highest importance? No. The first two commandments make it clear that God shall be served above all other relationships. In most cases, our loyalty to family will only serve as a heightening of God’s call in our lives. But there are those times when we must choose sides.

          We know how much Jesus loved his family. His dying words were uttered to John to take care of his mother. After his resurrection, Jesus’ half-brothers came to believe in the gospel and to play significant roles in the development of the early church. Jesus’ love of his family is not the issue. Mark’s interest is not in the social network, but rather in spiritual priorities. In this story, Jesus family was an innocent pawn in a bigger story. Mark uses it to illustrate for us that our highest allegiance must be reserved for our adopted family, those who are the true people of God. 

          In the twenty fourth chapter of Joshua, he has gathered all the tribes at Shechem to renew the covenant. Joshua has come to the end of his service and will soon be called home to God. He challenges the people to put away their false gods and serve the Lord. He witnesses to them, saying “choose this day whom you will serve…But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”    Some thirteen hundred years later, the Son of God sits in a little room and tells those he has chosen as disciples that he has chosen them to become part of his spiritual family. It is a remarkable statement, even moreso considering that the whole thrust of Mark’s gospel is about the identity of Jesus as the Son of God, and yet here Jesus has identified true believers as family, and in that family he includes both women and men as he refers to sister and brother.

          Choosing sides. It can change your life. Take a moment and try to imagine what might happen if you don’t choose Jesus.  What if, just imagine what if, Jesus had gotten up and gone outside and gone home with his family that day? Where would we be now? What if he asks you to choose? He will, you know, and not just once, but many times. Will you choose the right side? It will change your life. There will be a price to pay, but it is a price worth paying! Each time you choose Jesus will make the next time that much easier.

          “For whoever does the will of God, he is my brother and my sister and my mother.”

                                              Trinity                                     

                                                  2^nd Corinthians 13: 14

 

 

          Several years ago on a beautiful, sunny Saturday morning, the kind of morning when you want to get the yard work done in time to get to a pool or a river or your favorite fishing hole before the day gets away, I was at my desk trying to put the finishing touches on the Sunday message when the doorbell rang. Since everyone who knows us comes to the kitchen door, I knew it was a stranger because it was the front doorbell that rang. So I stopped what I was doing, trying to retain that last thought, and went to the door.  There stood an eager Jehovah’s Witness with a tract in his hand, just thirsty to share his thoughts. I was impatient. He persisted. Then I told him I was a minister. That really got his juices flowing. He asked me what I believed and I said that I believed in the message of the Holy Scriptures and the gospel of Jesus Christ.  When I said I believed in the Trinity, he stopped. What’s the Trinity? He asked. I didn’t know at the time that Jehovah’s Witnesses reject the doctrine of the Trinity. So I sat down on the front steps and told the young man about the Trinity. He was amazed. Not convinced, but amazed. As he left, I encouraged him to drop in on the New Testament for a little light reading on a man called Jesus.

          Trinity. If you do a word search for trinity in the Bible, you will come up with blanks. There is no such word, no such combination of words. That’s okay. For instance, here’s another word not found in the Bible: Bible! The fact that they are not found in the Bible doesn’t make either word any less useful or invalid. Trinity is a concept or doctrine that became part of church dogma in the fourth century, though the use of its three parts is present in Scripture and was being used as early as 110 A.D. by Ignatius of Antioch. A lot of theories bounced around those first several hundred years, as the Church Fathers struggled to deal with competing concepts over the bible’s meanings. Sounds sort of familiar, doesn’t it? We are still doing that today.

          Trinity is one of the Bible’s great mysteries. Put simply, it means God in three persons. Many images have been used to explain it. Here is one:

                             

I’m sure that clears it up nicely for you. The Father is not the Son is not the Holy Spirit is not the Father, and the Father is God and the Son is God and the Holy Spirit is God. Makes perfect sense, right? Well, yes it does…providing you are God.

          Cut open an apple. What do you see? Skin, fruit and seeds. Three parts that go together to make the whole. Well, that’s true of virtually any fruit or vegetable, for that matter. Even a human is composed in his or her outer shell of skin, hair and nails.  But the Trinity is different. When we talk about apples and people, we are talking about the parts that go to make the whole. When we talk about the Trinity, we are talking about three completely independent persons that function alone, think alone, act alone and yet are not alone. Only God can do that.

          In the book of John, we are told that the Word was with God in the beginning, that the Word was God, that the Word (Jesus) became flesh and dwelt among us. In the opening chapter of the Bible, God says “let us make man in our image,” referring not to a one dimensional being, but rather a Trinitarian being. In Genesis 1: 2, the Spirit of God hovers over the face of the waters.

          In their book, Teaching the Faith, Gary Parrett and Steve Kang say this about the trinity: “All of the divine work—from creation to redemption to culmination-is accomplished by the triune God revealed to us in the Bible. Our worship, therefore, must be explicitly Trinitarian.”

          How do we come to God? Who is our intercessor? Who sits at God’s right hand? Who died for you and me? Jesus is our intercessor as we are told by Paul and Peter and the writer of Hebrews. And how do we find Jesus? How do we come to Jesus to begin with? We come, we find, we pray, because we have been drawn and we have been coached and because we have been inhabited by the Holy Spirt! It is through the power of the Holy Spirit that we can abide in Jesus and him in us and it is down these blessed avenues that we can come to God. It takes three!

          These days, church leaders spend a lot of time talking about community. The church is community. The church comes together to worship our Lord, God in three persons. When we look at God in his three persons, we again see community. There is the sovereignty and power and unadulterated love of the Father. There is the grace of Son, fully human, fully divine, he who intercedes to the Father for us whom he loves, and there is the abiding comfort and fellowship of the Holy Spirit, guiding us to a more rich existence through life in the Trinity, the community of God himself. He…they is/are unified and diverse simultaneously. Such is the job of the church.          

          The understanding of the Trinity, the quantifying of it, may be out of our grasp, for we are only humans and this concept is Godly. But such is the nature of God. There are indeed high mysteries which in the end may not be grasped, but should be accepted.

          The apostle Paul understood God as triune. Listen to his benediction in the book of 2nd Corinthians, written to a church in trouble looking to be re-united, to whom Paul’s final greeting rings true for all ages: The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.”

             Here am I! Send Me                                                             

                                                            Isaiah 6:1-8

 

          Today is Pentecost, the day we remember from Acts 2 as that time when, according to Luke, “there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting, and divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them, And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit.”

          Tomorrow is a national holiday, as we take time to remember those of our country who served us in the military and were called upon to give what Abraham Lincoln described in his Gettysburg Address as their “last full measure of devotion.”

          Do these two remembrances have anything in common? One is the day that Jesus’ disciples were empowered with the promised Holy Spirit. The other is a day Americans remember those fallen in battle in defense of this country.  Is there a common thread? I believe there are many. Today, I would like to explore one such common thread with you.

          Today, it is fashionable to call people heroes. We pay tribute to our first responders: firefighters, law enforcement, National Guard. We salute our men and women in the military. We are much more likely to recognize the service they render and the risks they take to do so than we used to be. This is a good thing. As a Vietnam era veteran, I can remember when being in a military uniform was just as likely to draw contempt as it was to draw praise. Our country has finally learned to separate its political views from those who wear the uniform and serve. So now, we hear the word “hero” more often, usually in conjunction with those who die or are seriously wounded in action.  

          The disciples wore the uniform of the cross, and under the definition just offered, they also became heroes. James, Matthias and Paul were beheaded, Philip, Peter, Nathaniel, Simon and Andrew crucified, Matthew and Thomas slain by a sword, and the list of martyrs, as they were then called, goes on.

          Is there a difference between a martyr and a hero? I don’t see much, except that you can be a hero without dying. To be a martyr, you must die. But the criteria for each description is pretty much the same: Give yourself to the cause; go and serve for what you believe in.

          Today, we look back at another hero, a hero of the faith. His name was Isaiah, and we all know him as one of the most important prophets of the Bible, the man from Judea, a man with aristocratic roots. He was a man who gave counsel to kings. His ministry lasted about forty four years He lived seven hundred years before Christ and yet many of his prophetic writings in the Old Testament seem to point to the coming of Jesus. 

          In the sixth chapter of Isaiah, we read that it was the last year of the reign of King Uzziah. This would have been about 740 BC. Isaiah has a vision. He sees the Lord sitting upon a throne. The train of his robe fills the temple and the temple is filled with smoke. God is surrounded by seraphim, the fiery angelic beings with six wings. It is a powerful and awesome sight. Isaiah realizes he is in the presence of God and he throws in the towel. He says “woe is me,” for a mortal man cannot see God and live through the experience. It is just too powerful.  Ask Moses. His hair turned white and his face shone just from being in the presence of the burning bush.

          The scene gets even more awesome, as the seraphim take a burning coal from the altar of God and touch it to the lips of Isaiah, saying that his guilt is taken away and that his sin is atoned for.  Then Isaiah hears the voice of the Lord. He is saying “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?”

          Over the course of history, many have heard some variation of those words. Abraham is called upon to leave his home and follow where God leads. Rebekah is called to leave her home at the beckoning of a servant of Isaac to go to marry this man yet unknown to her. Ruth is called to leave her home to follow her penniless mother in law. Moses is called back from the hills at the age of eighty to lead God’s people out of Egypt. A young man named Samuel hears the voice of God in the night and answers “Here I am…Speak, for your servant hears.”

          In Isaiah 6:8, Isaiah answers God. “Here am I! Send me,” says Isaiah. He doesn’t have to wait long for his commission. God answers: “Go. and say to the people…” What God asked Isaiah to say to his people is not the subject of this message, though it is notable that the message he carried was a dire warning that would make him very unpopular and would fall mostly on deaf ears. What is important here is that Isaiah answered the call. When God asked “Whom shall I send? Who will go for us?” Isaiah answered. He didn’t stop to question whether he was qualified. He left that up to God. He just stood up and answered the call. And why not? God does not call the qualified. He qualifies the called.

        The Bible is the story of God’s mission to redeem and restore his beloved creation to unity with him. Throughout our history, God continually comes to us through messengers who volunteer to go, from Abraham to Paul, from unnamed but not forgotten soldiers to martyrs of the faith. They are that cloud of witnesses to which the writer of Hebrews refers, the ones who stand up, who don’t measure the odds but rather extend their hands. They are our heroes. Sometimes, they are our martyrs as well.

        

          The Navy wants to be a “global force for good.” The Army wants you to be “Army Strong.” The Air Force wants us to “Aim High,” the Coast Guard to be “Always Ready.” The Marines want a few good men.  These are great slogans, great rallying cries for those who serve our country. But even they have to take a back seat to the most important pledge of allegiance in all creation. When God calls, what will be our answer?

          On that Pentecost day so long ago, the book of Acts tells us that Peter, standing with the eleven, lifted up his voice and addressed the crowd there gathered. This is the same Peter who cowered and lied to save his skin just weeks before.  His message ended with these words: “For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.”  The promise was for salvation, for forgiveness, for the gift of the Holy Spirit.

        “Here am I! Send me,” said Isaiah. When he calls, what will you say?

                           Opening the Eyes of Our Hearts

                                                     Ephesians 1: 15-23

 

 

          The last few weeks, we have been taking a look at the early church, the church that Jesus ordained as his instrument of evangelism until he returns. We have been looking at Peter and John and Philip…at some very courageous and creative and, most of all, spirit filled persons. After Pentecost, armed with the Holy Spirit, these men along with many others began a work that continues to this day, the work of making disciples for Christ.

          The second half of the book of Acts is largely devoted to the work of the apostle Paul, as he moved from persecutor of Christians to a champion of the faith. Near the end of his second missionary journey, Paul paid a brief visit to Ephesus. Priscilla and Aquila accompanied him and actually stayed behind when he went on to Jerusalem.  He later returned and stayed for about three years. Ephesus has been said to be Paul’s home base for the evangelization of Macedonia and thus Asia Minor.

          The book of Ephesians was written late in Paul’s ministry.  It is probably one of Paul’s prison letters, most likely written from Rome where he was confined. It appears to be a letter written for general circulation among the churches of the region, and it is a sublime and beautiful statement of the unity of the church and all creation in Jesus Christ.  In today’s passage, we can see from Paul’s view some of the implications of the Christian faith. It is a magnificent view.

          The first three chapters of Ephesians are doctrinal, but even so, they are written as a thanksgiving. The first half of chapter one forms a blessing and praise, while today’s passage acts as an intercession.  Paul’s intercessory prayer has a familiar ring to it, for he is praying that God might endow the Ephesians and all who hear with a “Spirit.” It is the spirit who can bring wisdom, the one who can bring revelation. This wisdom and revelation reveal to the Ephesian Christians to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. So it is not just any spirit that Paul prays for, but the Holy Spirit. Paul prays for the Holy Spirit we read about in Acts, who infused Peter with such courage as he stood before the Sanhedrin and said in Acts 4 that “We cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard.” Paul prays for the Holy Spirit who transported Philip to the desert of Gaza and the chariot of an Ethiopian government official to evangelize. He prays for the Holy Spirit who gives saving knowledge to the Ephesian Christians and to all who hear and believe. He prays that the eyes of their hearts will be opened.

          What are the eyes of the heart? What does Paul mean? Can the heart have eyes? Can the heart see? Paul thinks so. So does Matthew. In Chapter six of his gospel, he quotes Jesus: “The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness?”[22. 23].  The writer of Proverbs four had something to say as well about the heart: “Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.” John J. Parsons offers these comments: “How you choose to see defines the world you inhabit. The eyes follow the heart, and therefore seeing is a matter of inner attitude.”

          People are staying away from church in America today in record numbers. When interviewed, many say that the church people they know are hypocrites, that they lead double lives. The generation we call millennials doesn’t have a lot of patience with such people, and they are mistrustful of the church because of it. And yet others from that same generation do come to church and participate in church activities. What is the difference? Are those who come just a new generation of hypocrites? Paul would say that unlike their stay-at-home counterparts, those who come to church have had the eyes of their hearts opened. And when our eyes are so opened, we are enlightened, says Paul… “that we may know the hope to which he has called us.”

          But Paul knows that while the heart is the ultimate master of both logic and reasoning, the heart can be blinded to the truth. It is Paul’s prayer for the people of God that their eyes be opened by the Holy Spirit. It is only in this way that they can experience the hope of our calling, the richness of our inheritance as God’s children, and the power of Christ to fill us all as his body, the church, for we do not come to church—we are the church!

          George Carlin was a famous American comedian. He died in 2008, and in his passing, America lost a brilliant social critic. Carlin was brilliant but he wasn’t always right. When he took on God, he missed the mark. Carlin didn’t like all the things wrong in the world, so he surmised that there was no God. He said he would worship the sun, because he could see it and that gave the sun credibility. He might have taken some counsel from Paul, who had this to say about seeing God: “For what can be known about God is plain…God has shown it…For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made”  [Rom. 1: 18-22].

          Carlin ended his monologue about religion and God by saying that if there is a God, may He strike him dead. Of course, it didn’t happen. He took that as proof of no God, never taking into account not only how much God loved him, but also how little influence a mean spirited prayer will have on God.

          After all, isn’t it a matter of choice? We choose to see what we want to see [Jn. 12: 40]. If we do not see God, it is because we have turned away from his presence just as Paul pointed out. Seeing is, in the end, more an act of will than an act of perception. We cannot see God; we cannot feel the Holy Spirit, when the eyes of our hearts are closed.

          When I read about the great apostle Paul praying for the church of Ephesus, thanking them and praising them for their love and their faith, I take heart. Even though I am inspired by the likes of Peter and John and Philip and Paul, I need to know that all of us count. According to Paul, we count big time. The church of Ephesus had no big names, yet Paul used it for inspiration and prayed for its continued good health. We need to keep in mind that all those incredible acts of courage and strength we read about in Acts were made possible by one reason: every single time, every single person, was filled with the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is what George Carlin was missing and what the Ephesian church had. The Carlins of the world look out into the darkness and the church looks out into the light.

          As Paul closes his intercession for these believers, he reminds them, and us, that while the Holy Spirit opens the eyes of our hearts as believers to see Jesus Christ, while God makes Jesus head over all things to the church, it is the church which is the body of Christ. It is the church which is the fullness of Christ. While it is Christ who fills each and every one who believes, it is we who believe who are to act as the body of Christ. No one, not the millennials, or the generation which follows them; no one will come to a saving knowledge of Christ if we who are called to be the church do not act.

          So if your eyes are not open, you might want to ask why. The eyes of your heart are always looking, always seeing. The question is what they see. It you are having trouble seeing God, perhaps you need a dose of the Holy Spirit to clear your vision. Vance Havner, preacher and author, puts it this way: “Some are not filled because they must first be emptied. Even God cannot fill what is already full.” Empty yourself and receive the Holy Spirit, and you will receive a fullness that you have never known.

Open the eyes of my heart, Lord.

Open the eyes of my heart.

I want to see you.

I want to see you.

                                                Michael W. Smith

         

Here Is Your Mother

John 19: 25-27

 

 

          Today is Mothers’ Day. Merchants love it. Next to Christmas and Valentine’s Day, more cards, letters and flowers are sold than any other day of the year in America. Restaurant owners like it too. Sons and daughters take out Mom for lunch on Mother’s Day. Many countries observe some form of Mother’s Day, though most do so toward the end of Lent rather than in May. Growing up, I remember carnations being associated with the day. As men and boys entered the church on Sunday, someone was there to pin on a carnation, red if your mother was living, white if she had passed on to God. I suppose the relaxing of Sunday clothing had something to do with that custom fading.

          God thinks so much of motherhood and parenting that he gave us the Fifth Commandment. “Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you”[Ex. 20: 12]. There aren’t but ten commandments, so obviously God thought a lot of his creation of parenthood,

 particularly motherhood.

          I looked up Mother in the dictionary. Do you know there are ten definitions! Ten! And that’s just for the noun. It can be used as an adjective or a verb and then it has eighteen definitions. Mother is one of those words that have such deep meaning; the definitions don’t seem to really do it justice. Is it enough to say that a mother is a female parent? Of course not. How about a mother-in-law, stepmother or adoptive mother? No. They can be accurate, but facts don’t always qualify as truth. Here’s one: a term of address for a female parent or a woman having or regarded as having the status, function, or authority of a female parent. Well, that is certainly accurate, but that is not the person after whom President Woodrow Wilson named a national holiday in 1914. 

          What is a Mother? There are lots of mothers in the Bible. All kinds of mothers. There is Sarah, willing to undergo pregnancy at the age of ninety in order to have a child. There is Hannah, who so desperately wanted a son that she took a vow to God that if he would open her womb and bless her with a son, she would give him back to the Lord all the days of his life. Her prayer was answered and she kept her promise. She gave up her only child as soon as he was weaned.We know her son as Samuel, one of the great judges of Israel. Other mothers are prominent in the Bible, from Naomi, the mother-in-law of Ruth, to Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist. Then there is Mary, Elizabeth’s cousin, barely of age and hardly ready for life. And yet, God chose her to bear his own Son in earthly form. For thirty three years, she was mother to humanity and divinity. She lived to see that child hanging on a cross like a common thief.

          What about that son? The last day of his life, he was pretty busy. He was dying a horrible physical death, saving the thief next to him, taking on the sin of humanity and doing it all sinlessly and with God turned away from all that sin. Yes, Jesus was busy. But he was not too busy not to try in his last hour to make provision for his mother. In the 19^th chapter of John’s gospel, we have this incredible scene. Jesus is on the cross. He is close to death. Four women are huddled close to him. The other gospels tell us that they stood at a distance. This is not inconsistent with John’s account. This was at a different time, a critical time. Jesus was close to death and the women huddled close to the cross. Mary was there. With her were most probably Mary Magdalene, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Salome, Mary’s sister and the wife of Zebedee, parents of James and John. John was there too. Jesus saw them and he said to his mother: “Woman, behold, your son!” He was not talking about himself, but his cousin John. His next statement was to John, to whom he said: “Behold, your mother.” It was both a request and a dying declaration to his cousin to take care of his mother. It was the eldest son trying to do his duty, upholding the fifth commandment. His mother was almost certainly widowed and probably in her early fifties with little or no personal income.  Why John? Jesus’ half-brothers were most probably in Capernaum and did not yet believe in him as the Son of God.  So John is commissioned to look after Mary.  According to John’s gospel, John took Mary that very hour into his home. Even at the very end of his life, Jesus was trying to honor his mother.

        So what is a mother? Certainly she is a caregiver. Certainly she sacrifices for the child in her care. Certainly she has the patience of Job, the brass of a trumpet, a love for that child or children so deep as to be the example we use to try to explain how God himself loves us.

          As I try to define what or who a mother is, it occurs to me that I have a few examples in my own family.  I have three grown daughters. Each of them is a mother in her own right, yet each of them is different in how they fill out their own definition of motherhood. One is a mother to her son, but now as she enters a new chapter in her life, she may find herself eventually being a stepmother as well. If she does, she will love just as hard and deep, but she will find that task different from the role she has played so far. Another daughter is a mother to her son in a traditional home, but she is the youngest and her role will continue to change as she and her family mature. A third daughter is neither married nor does she have children from her womb as yet, but she has spent the last decade devoting herself to hundreds of children from all over Africa and the United States. Is she less a mother than my other daughters? Hardly! Her title is different, but her role meets more than one of those eighteen definitions in the dictionary. My own family just goes to show that the term Mother is a whole lot easier to recognize than it is to define.

          What is a mother? A mother is someone who cares more about a child than she does herself. It may be hard to get the definition out of a dictionary, but it’s not hard at all to recognize a mother.

          Today, we can combine a very important Scriptural lesson that Jesus remembered to his last hour on earth—that of honoring our mother-- with a national holiday which celebrates motherhood and the women in our lives who bear that title. Many of you are here today, sitting with your mothers. Many more of you will be leaving in a hurry so that you can quickly get to your mother’s house to take her out to lunch or celebrate some of her home cooking. Either way, we do right to honor our mothers not just this day…but every day!

                                 And the Spirit Said…

Acts 8: 26-40

 

 

          Ever had a conversation with the Holy Spirit? I bet you have. Ever battled with your conscience? That’s an encounter with the Holy Spirit. Ever felt sorry for someone? Gone out of your way to help someone? Cried or hurt at the sight of someone else’s pain? That’s an encounter with the Holy Spirit. We have conversations with the Holy Spirit all the time. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that the Holy Spirit is talking to us. Sometimes we answer in the right way. Sometimes we don’t. But if we are Christian, if we have accepted Jesus as our Savior, then the Holy Spirit is within us and is working on us. Remember how the kids’ song goes? “He’s still working on me. To make me what I ought to be….”

          The Holy Spirit is that part of God that Jesus sent to us. The Holy Spirit is Jesus, but in another form, a form that we can absorb, who can live within us. The Holy Spirit is that part of us that is God within us. You don’t have to be a Bible scholar to find all the things the Holy Spirit does. Just Google it. Things the Holy Spirit does. Here a just a few examples straight from scripture: The Holy Spirit regenerates us, leads us, sanctifies us, anoints us, empowers us, fills us, renews us, sets us free, supplies us, enables us, transforms us, strengthens us. Get the picture? All of these characteristics of the Holy Spirit and many more are found in the New Testament. The Holy Spirit is that part of God that can become part of each of us and release us to be free to do God’s will. That’s what Jesus meant when he said “Abide in me, and I in you” (Jo 15: 4).

          In the eighth chapter of Acts, we see the early church beginning to move across the landscape. It started in Jerusalem and spread throughout Judea and Samaria. Today’s passage witnesses the next puzzle piece to Luke’s story of the church. The church is going out to the world and this time it is Philip who is the witness.

          Philip is a fairly well known member of the Apostles. While not in the inner circle of Peter, James and John, nevertheless he figures prominently in several passages in the gospels. Philip was another Galilean, hailing from Bethsaida with Peter and Andrew. At the Last Supper, it is Philip who asks Jesus to show them the Father, to which he is answered that to see Jesus is to see the Father, and Jesus is in the Father and the Father in him. And now, in the eighth chapter of Acts, it is Philip who is chosen as the first story showing the spread of the gospel beyond Palestine. In this passage, we can see firsthand yet another way that the Holy Spirit works in our lives to accomplish his purpose.

          First, let’s just set the stage for the work of the Spirit. In Matthew 28, Jesus has his last visit with the disciples on a mountaintop in Galilee where it all started for them. Jesus gives them what we now call the Great Commission: to go, to make disciples, to baptize them and to teach all nations his commandments, all in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Skip over to Acts 1, where Jesus’ last visit with the disciples is described this way: He says to them that they will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon them; that they will be his witnesses in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.  Two different accounts have Jesus sending his followers out into the world to tell his story, but not before they are invested with the Holy Spirit.

          Now, in Acts 8, we see the Holy Spirit at work in Philip. First an angel speaks to Philip. Rise and go, says the angel. And Luke tells us that Philip rose and went. He asked no questions. He just got up and went. This is even more significant than it first sounds, for Philip was told to go to Gaza. Jerusalem was in the south. Samaria was to the north. Gaza was on the southeastern tip of Israel on the Mediterranean Sea. It was the last watering place before the desert on the road from Jerusalem to Egypt.  When Jesus told his disciples to carry the gospel to the ends of the earth, Philip was asked to go to the doorstep.

          So Philip rose and went. Upon his arrival he met an Ethiopian eunuch, a court official, somewhat like running into a Cabinet member of the U.S. government.  Then the Spirit stepped in. The Spirit told Philip to go over and join the chariot. So Philip obeyed. What follows is this interesting sequence of Philip reading Isaiah aloud while walking or jogging to keep up with a moving chariot. Eventually, he gets invited long for the ride but not at first. However silly it may have looked, it worked.  The passage quoted in Acts 8 is part of the Suffering Servant passage of Isaiah 53, long connected to Old Testament prophecy of the coming Messiah. But such cannot be the case here, for the resurrection of Jesus was fresh. Messiah was not yet thought of with any connotation of suffering. It may well be that Philip was explaining the passage from Isaiah for the first time with an eye toward the suffering that awaited the Son of God.

          We cannot know for sure what Philip read to the Ethiopian, but we can be sure of the effect it had. Luke tells us that Philip opened his mouth and told him the good news about Jesus. This high ranking foreigner wanted to be baptized. He was already familiar enough with scripture and whatever Philip told him to know that baptism was connected to his declaration of faith. And here is a mini-lesson for all of us Christians. The Ethiopian said: here’s some water. They went down to the water and he was baptized. We don’t know if it was a river or a stream. We don’t know if he was sprinkled or immersed. We just know he was baptized. That’s all we need to know. He made an outward sign of his inward feeling. There was water, which symbolically represented a casting off of the old in favor of the new; a cleansing. That’s baptism.

          Then the Spirit of the Lord carried Philip away. The eunuch went on his way rejoicing, presumably carrying the gospel of Jesus to Ethiopia. Philip found himself at Azotus, a town south of Caesarea, some fifty miles north of Gaza. He kept right on preaching the gospel until he got to Caesarea. There is no report of the passage of time. All we know is that Philip was there and then he was not.

          There is one more thing we should pay close attention to. The Spirit of the Lord carried Philip away. Three times in this passage, God intervenes in the life of his disciple. There are many other, important things one may glean from this reading, but right now, I ask you to focus on the interaction of God with his disciple, his follower. Three times there is divine intervention, divine guidance. An angel of the Lord speaks, the Spirit of the Lord speaks, and the Spirit of the Lord carries him away. Don’t miss the meaning of what Luke paints for us here. When you read this passage, it has three actors. There is Philip and there is the Ethiopian eunuch. But the star of the show is the Holy Spirit. It is the Holy Spirit who directs the action. Luke is telling us in no uncertain terms that God moves in the lives of his disciples and he moves through the Holy Spirit.  

          How silly we are to give ourselves star billing in the play of life. If we are the stars, the play will grow old and have a short run. But…if we understand our parts…we too, like the eunuch, can go on our way rejoicing. Philip obeyed. He got up and went. When the Spirit told him to jog along the road beside a moving chariot and read aloud to a total stranger, he did it. When God asked Noah to build a giant boat in the middle of dry land during a drought, he did it. When God told Abraham to sacrifice his only son, Abraham raised his sword to do it until God intervened. Once again the kids’ song reminds us:

                                  In the mirror of his word

                                     Reflections that I see

                 Makes me wonder why he never gave up on me

              But he loves me as I am and helps me when I pray

                       Remember He’s the potter, I’m the clay.

 

And the Spirit said…   When the Spirit speaks to you, what will be your answer?