His Story

Joshua 23: 14-16, 24: 14-18

 

 

                    In the latter chapters of the book of Joshua, the great leader of the nation of Israel stands before the people. He has lived through forty years of wandering in the desert. He has picked up the mantle of leadership from Moses and carried it remarkably well. He has brought God’s people into the Promised Land. He is old. He is tired. He knows his time is near. He says to them: “And now, I am about to go the way of all the earth.” He is speaking of the end of his life, the end of his ministry, the completion of his baptism.

          In our opening passage today, Joshua talks about covenant. He reminds the people that God has not failed in any way to deliver everything he promised. He has kept his covenant. Everything has come to pass. No one has earned anything. God has provided everything.

          The whole of history can be traced in terms of covenant. God covenanted with Adam, with Noah, with Abraham, with David. Then, the prophet Jeremiah signaled a new covenant that was to come. We understand that new covenant now as Jesus, God incarnated as man; savior, God with us; Immanuel. All of history, if one looks at it from a Christian worldview, can be seen as God’s continuing covenant with his creation. History becomes---His story. Craig Bartholomew puts it this way: “What is the real story of which my life story is part? Is there a ‘real story’ that provides a framework of meaning for all peoples in all times and places, and therefore for my own life in the world?”

          Is there a real story? In this world of individualism, we are told that the world started with a big bang or any number of other theories as to how we find ourselves here. Textbooks concentrate on the scientific explanations, even if they fall well short of the mark. The world in which we live is a world of empiricism, of calculation, of logic. There is no room for the spiritual unless it can be logically explained.

          Is there a real story? Does your life story intersect with someone else’s?  Even if you say yes, aren’t you talking about your husband or children or parents or cousins? How can your story merge with some other story from someone who lived in another time, or in another place? Is there some framework of meaning for all peoples in all times and from all places? If you believe in God, if you believe in the Holy Scriptures as God’s story, then there is only one answer to questions like that, and it is YES. Yes, there is a real story, and it involves us all.

          We have talked about covenant, about how we can trace the story of God through covenant from the beginning of history, from the beginning of His story. When we trace those covenants through the Bible, we see God on a mission. The Bible is a story—a story of the mission of God to reveal Himself to his creation and to redeem it for himself.

          You know the history of this church better than I do. It was carved out of this ground by your ancestors: Campbells and Clarks and Johnsons and Sullivans and many more. The ground under our feet marks the footprint of a church that rose from an idea to a meeting place to several buildings on several sites, but always—always, existing to worship God and to continue to tell his story. About 55 years ago, this sanctuary was built on this location and it continues to serve.

          But what or whom does it serve? Why does Rocky Creek Presbyterian Church still exist? Because it serves God. It is part of God’s mission to reveal and redeem his people. Rocky Creek is just one of hundreds of thousands of connections to that mission of God that goes back to creation itself.

          The other day I walked next door to the fellowship hall to see if I could do something useful with the folks decorating for Homecoming. I didn’t get to do much, but while I was there, I noticed a few pictures and a lot of cards on the piano. On each card was a name. Each name was that of a minister who had labored for God here at Rocky Creek. I didn’t count the names, but they numbered about fifteen or so. Fifteen men and women, each of whom have worked for this congregation over more than a century. Does your life intersect with others? All I have to do is look at that piano and I know the answer. My life intersects with Ray Howe and Ladd Brearly and each man and woman represented by name on that piano. Does your life intersect with others? Look around. You are generations deep here, and the most common denominator among you as you sit in this sanctuary is not bloodlines or geography, but mission. God’s mission has been the call that brought you here to this place, and it brought your ancestors here as well.

          Yes, your life intersects with others. I stand here today on the shoulders of all those who came before me in this place, and they did likewise when they stood here. You do as well. We all come from someone and somewhere and go toward somewhere else. It’s not about family, as least not in the sense that we normally come to think of it. Here, in this place, we are reminded of story, the story that tells us of the identity and presence of God in our lives, in our past, in our present, in our future. That is the family that intersects each of us with one another. We need no name but Christian to see the family resemblance.

          If you read on to the next chapter of Joshua, you will find Joshua’s farewell to his people. It is both a caution and a challenge.  To the end God’s man, Joshua tells his people to fear the Lord, to serve him in sincerity and faithfulness, to put away any other Gods. Then Joshua utters that famous line: “Choose this day whom you will serve…but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” Not long after, Joshua died. It is a fitting tribute to this great leader but humble man that it was said that Israel served the Lord all the days of Joshua and all the days of the elders who outlived him and had known all the work that the Lord did for Israel.

          In Joshua’s time, he served the Lord. He did it the best he could and his elders followed suit. It was a good time for God’s people. When we meet for Homecomings such as this, we are reminded that we too serve the Lord. This place is not just a watering hole for family reunions, though such events can serve the Lord very well. It’s not just a gathering place for the fraternity of Presbyterians, though that too can serve the Lord. It is, I think, a place for us to be refreshed, to be reminded that God is here and that God goes and comes with us to all the places and people of our lives; that it is His story that is the tie that binds us to one another over time and place.

          For a century and a half, Rocky Creek Presbyterian has existed in this area in some form or another. It has lasted that long because it served God. It will last much longer if it continues to do that. for it is not the mission of this church that excites us. It is, rather, the mission of God. We derive our mission as a congregation from that mission of our heavenly father. If we are informed by God’s Word, if we seek to validate that which we read in Scripture, then we will continue to be committed as God’s people. We are invited, indeed commanded, as surely as were God’s people by Joshua, to participate in God’s mission. We will continue to tell His Story. We will work for the redemption of not only our own souls, but for all of God’s creation.

          That’s a story worth telling the rest of our lives.

A Greater Task

James 3: 1, 2    Titus 2: 7, 8

 

 

          There’s an old country ballad written by Ed Bruce and made famous by Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson. It’s entitled “Mamas don’t let your babies grow up to be cowboys.” It’s not a bad comment on cowboys. It just acknowledges their itch to be out on the open range. But it does remind us that cowboys are made of different stuff, that being a cowboy is not for everybody.

          James, the writer of the book by the same name and the half-brother of Jesus, had the same idea about teachers, but for different reasons. Writing to the Jewish Christians outside Jerusalem, James says that being a teacher is not for everybody either. He says that not many of us should become teachers. Shades of Willie Nelson.

          Let’s stop here and look at this You Tube clip. It’s about pastors, but it could just as easily be about teachers. As you watch it, think about the teachers in your life, the public school teachers and the volunteer teachers right here in this church, that never know when to quit or what time it is.

     (youtube.com: mamas don’t let your sons grow up to be pastors)

          It’s funny, but it’s true, too. And pastors are teachers. They’re just a specialized form of teacher. Jesus was a teacher. Remember that when Jesus was directly addressed in the New Testament, two of every three times he was called Teacher.

          So James says that not many of us should become teachers, because it’s tough and---because it carries a different standard of care. James tells us that teachers will be judged with greater strictness than the rest of us. Why is that? Because teachers have special influence. Because teachers have special responsibilities. To whom much is given, much will be expected. What are those responsibilities that are so special? According to Paul in 2 Timothy (2:15), they rightly divide the word of truth. Teachers “should not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting…with gentleness.”  William Barclay puts it this way:

“It was the teacher’s awe-inspiring responsibility that he could put the stamp of his [or her] own faith and knowledge on those who were entering the Church for the first time.” Barclay was talking about teachers in the early church, but I ask you, what has changed? If anything, that responsibility has only grown over the centuries.

         The apostle Paul had plenty to say about teaching. Many of his thoughts are contained in the Pastoral Epistles; the two letters to Timothy and one to Titus, both men his protégés. In the second chapter of Titus [2: 7, 8], Paul urges them to be models of good works, and in their teaching to “show integrity, dignity, and sound speech that cannot be condemned, so that an opponent may be put to shame, having nothing evil to say about us.” Paul gives Titus a tall order. In addition to dignity and integrity and sound speech, he must first be a model of good works. Paul is saying to Titus that which we can all appreciate. In order to be an effective teacher, in order for his or her students to hear the message, it must first arrive in the way the teacher lives life. Teaching occurs first, and maybe foremost, not by what we say, but by who we are.

          What do our Christian teachers really do? Of course, they point out scripture. Of course they teach Bible stories. Of course they pray with their students. They do all these things and more. But what they do most of all is not talking about Christ to their students; it is showing Christ to them.

          It’s my great joy to recognize all the teachers we have here, teaching every age from toddlers to seniors. They are to be commended, congratulated, applauded and supported. But this is a cautionary tale as well as a congratulation. The job is immense, the rewards are usually not visible for some time, and it is a greater task than should not be undertaken without the constant help and guidance of the Holy Spirit. To do it haphazardly is to suffer judgment from God.

          Why would anyone teach, considering the time it takes, the potential liability for failure? Why? Perhaps it is because we love. We love what has been done for us and we want to pass it on. The greatest teacher of all once went up on a mountain and sat down. His disciples followed him and Matthew tells us that he opened his mouth and taught them. That teaching is called the Beatitudes, and one of the things he said was this:

 

               You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill

               cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put

               it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to

               all in the house. In the same way, let your light so shine

               before others, so that they may see your good works

               and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.

 

          May it be God’s will for this gathering that each and every one of us, no matter what our position or station, shines our light, giving the glory of God to all who see that light. In that way, we can also teach. Let that be our greater task.

Lead Them Not Into Temptation

Mark 9: 38-50

 

 

          A young couple came to town because the husband had gotten his first job in the plant. They were new Christians and tender in their faith. They started visiting churches. One Sunday, they visited a church I know. They sat near the front in a pew that was usually occupied by the Petersons. The Petersons liked to sit down front. Same pew every week. They were big givers to the church. Several things around the church had been donated by them and bore inscriptions to that effect. That morning, they had arrived a little late. As they started to enter the sanctuary, they noticed the young couple. Mrs. Peterson looked sharply at her husband. He was up to the task. They marched down the side aisle and Mr. Peterson leaned over and spoke to the couple. The couple got up and moved to another pew. That was the last that church ever saw of them. I did run into him later at a business meeting. I asked how they were doing and whether they had found a church. He said they had looked around when they first came to town, but had a bad experience in one church and decided church just wasn’t for them.

          One Christmas, a family came to church. The church had sponsored this down and out couple as a love offering during the Christmas season. They came largely to see what church was like. Their children had never been to church. They were loud and pretty unruly. The couple behind them, established members, leaned forward and asked them to get control of their children. They did. They walked out as quietly as they could and never came back. Efforts to repair the damage were unsuccessful.

          Have you seen things like that happen? It doesn’t just happen in church. It happens everywhere. We are looking at an opportunity and we call it an inconvenience. More importantly, according to the gospel of Mark, we are looking at the loss of our own souls as we cause others to turn away from God by our selfish, petty actions. There is much more at stake here than meets the eye.

          Speaking of eyes, the prophet Zechariah has something to say about the subject. Zechariah prophesied to the nation of Israel in the post-exilic period. Those who had returned were a dispirited group. The foundation of the new temple had been laid but there was still much opposition. It was high taxes, hard times and little progress. The promises of glory from past prophets seemed far away. But Zechariah came to remind God’s people to be obedient; that God would indeed restore his people to glory. Zechariah has a vision and part of that vision is a call for those still in exile to return to Jerusalem. And Zechariah 2: 8 says this: “For thus said the Lord of hosts, after his glory sent me to the nations who plundered you, for he who touches you touches the apple of his eye.” Would you poke a bear or a lion in the eye? Better to do that than to mislead one of God’s people. In Hebrew, the apple of one’s eye is the pupil, the center of the eyeball. To mislead one of God’s people is to poke God in the eye.

          In Genesis 12, God calls Abram. Abram is elected to go on an errand for God. It will involve all his obedience and all his will, for he is to leave his own county on his way to wherever it is that God is ultimately sending him. His journey will be to a land known only by God. God says to Abram, soon to be Abraham, which means father: “And I [God] will make of you a great nation and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you, I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” The people of God are to be blessed, and those who dishonor them are to be cursed.

          Fast forward a few thousand years. It is the first century and Jesus is full blown into his teaching ministry. In the gospel of Matthew, Jesus is delivering the Sermon on the Mount and he teaches his listeners how to pray. The result is what we call the Lord’s Prayer. In the eleventh chapter of Luke’s gospel, a shorthand version of the same prayer appears. This time it is in the context of a request from one of the disciples that he teach them how to pray. Because of Luke’s version, it is sometimes called the Disciples’ Prayer, for Jesus taught the disciples. In both versions, Jesus prays “Lead us not into temptation.” 

          In today’s passage, Mark takes an expanded approach. He doesn’t use the “lead us not” term from the other gospels, but he gets across the same idea with a more pointed emphasis. Not only are we asking God not to lead us into temptation; we are being warned not to lead others there. Jesus is asking for radical discipleship. The language is severe. He is concerned not with us here, but with whom we come in contact, particularly children and new Christians.

          Look how Jesus makes his point and how many times he makes it. Cause someone to sin? Better to have a millstone around your neck and thrown into the sea.  Is it your hand? Cut it off! Is it your foot? Cut it off! Does your eye cause someone to sin? Tear it out! These are really harsh words, and they come directly from Jesus. The author of love and forgiveness and salvation itself is giving us a deadly warning. Don’t mess with God’s people! If you lead them away, you are playing with fire, God’s fire! You might think of it as though you have been informed that you have a malignant cancer growing in your body. If you act now, it can be cut away and you can live. If you wait…well, it will cost you your life. Such is the gravity of causing others to stumble. Do whatever you have to do to keep from intentionally or negligently leading someone away from the truth of the gospel.

          Maybe the point of all this is that we are responsible. We are accountable. Are you a Christian? Then you are a witness to the gospel. Are you a believer? Then you are a disciple. As a witness, as a believer, you are going to come in contact with children and other new believers. They are tender. Age doesn’t matter. They are tender because they are new in the faith. If you are in their sphere of influence and you lead them away from God in what you do or say or what you don’t do or say, there will be hell to pay and not by them but by you.

          We know sin is bad. It is disobedience of God. But there is apparently something worse if we can understand the gravity of Jesus’ words. To teach another to sin is much worse. Scottish theologian William Barclay tells an old O. Henry story.  O. Henry wrote back in the early 1900s. He grew up just up the road a ways in Greensboro and gained some fame as a writer of short stories. The story goes something like this:

          There was a little girl whose mother died. Her father would come home from work and get comfortable and read the paper. The little girl would come in and ask him to play, as she was lonely. Over and over, the father said he was tired and sent her out to the street to play. She got the message and took to the streets for good. Some years, not nearly enough--passed and she died. When her soul arrived in heaven, St. Peter recommended to send her to hell because she was a bad lot. But Jesus said gently: “Let her in.” And then his eyes grew stern, the eyes of our Savior, and he said this to Peter: “But look for a man who refused to play with his little girl and sent her out to the streets—and send him to hell.”

          You see, it’s not just about being openly sinful, intentionally disobedient to God. Those things are easy to spot. Those are not the things that trip us. It’s the sand in our shoes. We’re too tired or too involved in other matters at the moment. We’re too involved with our own pursuits to see the need of someone else. Even though that need, that person may be standing right in front of us, we sometimes cannot see. But what does that person see? What does that person feel? Whether it is intentional or just thoughtless and plain selfish really does not matter to Jesus. If it creates a stumbling-block for that person, if it causes him or her to doubt who Jesus is or whether Christianity is worth it…we are diluting the salt that makes that person unique and in God’s image. And once the salt has been made sufficiently impure, its saltiness is lost, not just for now but forever.

          And Jesus said to John and his beloved disciples: “It is better for you to enter life crippled than with two hands to go to hell…”  From Genesis to the prophets to the words of Jesus himself, we are warned not to mess with the people of God. Do nothing—nothing--to impede their progress toward God! When it comes to those new and tender in the faith, beware. They are walking on holy ground. Lead them not into temptation.

In Search of Fools

2 Samuel 6: 12-14

 

 

          I used to hate being caught unprepared. I’ve gotten better about it over the years, but it still bothers me. I was taught in trial practice that if I didn’t know the answer to the question before I asked it, then don’t ask the question. Growing up, I was taught  to never be underdressed for an event. Never be overdressed either. Don’t talk with food in your mouth. Don’t talk when your elders are talking. Don’t appear to be too enthusiastic. When I was grown, it was don’t volunteer. Don’t take big chances.

          The rules spilled over into church as well. Be reserved. Be respectful. Don’t sing too loud. Do everything in moderation and control. Don’t get carried away.  Don’t be churchy and don’t go around talking about God all the time. There is a place for everything, and everything has its place.

          The message for me growing up was subtle but plain. Know your place. Always be in charge of your emotions. Never be caught “out” of your comfort zone. Never show that you are vulnerable. Be “nobody’s fool.” Keep your nose down and don’t show all your cards. Take care of yourself because nobody else will.

          In the name of being prepared, what I was really taught was to be selfish and play it safe. Chances are that many of you were raised the same way. Now we find ourselves living in an age which we helped build. It is calculating, un-committing, relative. We play it safe. We live our lives in such a way that we are not likely to be surprised or embarrassed.

         Such a lifestyle has little to do with the teachings of God. God requires much more from us than playing it safe. Look at some examples from scripture. When David has recaptured the Ark of the Covenant, he eventually brings it to Jerusalem. The people are celebrating and so is David. He is dressed in priestly, or religious, garments, and he literally dances in the street. He looked so foolish that his own wife called him a fool [1Sam 6: 12-14], but David didn’t care. 

          When God called the prophet Isaiah, a prominent man with royal connections, God told him to take off his clothes and walk around naked and barefoot, not for an afternoon, but for three years…and Isaiah did what God asked [Isaiah 20:1-3].

          When God wanted to make his point to King Zedekiah, he used the prophet Jeremiah, telling him to wear a wooden yoke around his neck to symbolize God’s desire for the people to serve the king of Babylon for a time.  Jeremiah was a laughingstock for a whole generation, but he did God’s bidding.

          Ezekiel was commanded to eat barley cake cooked over human dung [Ezek. 4: 12], Hosea to marry a prostitute [Hos. 1: 2]. Then there is Noah, the guy who built a monster ship on dry land in the middle of a drought.

          The Bible is full of examples of people called by God to make fools of themselves in order to make God’s point. As scripture tells us, the world sees itself as wise. For it to do so, it must see God’s wisdom as foolishness. So if we are to follow God, sometimes our discipleship will look downright foolish to others. This is just one of the prices of discipleship.

          Isn’t it funny how grown men will yell and scream at a sporting event? They don’t even have to be there. They can watch it on TV and get so into it they leap from their chairs. Women will get down in the floor and play with their children, making complete fools of themselves. Fathers, mothers and grandchildren make the most ridiculous sounds and faces in the world to get a child to smile for them, and think nothing of it. They are not being fools for those children; they are being fools for those children’s sake. There is a big difference.

          Is it not the same with our God? If the world does not teach us how to be loyal to God, but rather to ourselves, will we not, at some point, have to choose? Will we not have to be willing to be fools for God in the eyes of the world? We do not have to literally be fools, but the concept is important, for we do need to be prepared to be seen, and even to be treated, as fools for Christ’s sake. Sometimes that might mean dancing or dressing strange or just standing up when others sit down.

          So often, the world in which we live must be looked at upside down or inside out if we are to see God. Everything around us says to be still, be quiet, to be in control.  But if we do that, we cannot hear him calling. Sometimes holy folly, that commitment to follow even when to do so might bring ridicule upon us, is the way we answer the call to discipleship.

          The thing is, we Christians in America have fallen so deeply into the easy life that we have long ago forgotten the cost of discipleship. We are not subject to starvation or jail or exile or genocide, all of which are or have happened around the world to Christians in our generation. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the great German theologian of Hitler’s time, taught that “the cross is laid in every Christian.” He also taught that there are different kinds of dying. Martyrdom can be red, by blood, or green, to denote abstinence, or white, by abandoning everything for the love of God. If we are to really follow God, then we must conduct our own “white funerals.” Real discipleship is the burial of our own independence and surrender to God’s will in our lives.

          It’s not attractive to talk about surrender, much less becoming a fool for Christ’s sake. But while we’re bemoaning the loss of our independence, we might want to remember the biggest fool of all. He was in heaven and yet came to earth. He had immortality and swapped it in for humanity. He could have come as a televangelist, but instead came as a carpenter. He could have established his kingdom on earth, but decided instead on a date with a cross. Jesus was a fool for our sake.

          The church has always maintained a tension between world-affirming and world-denying. The modern world has seemingly, for the moment, swung the pendulum toward affirming. The deserts have become playgrounds and the ghettos have Wi-Fi. In our urge to be relevant, we are “seeker-oriented’ or “user-friendly.” In our desire to remain firmly planted somewhere between the bookends of “traditional” and “contemporary,” we become “blended.” Too many terms about too little tension. Why don’t we just try to become disciples, and if that means becoming fools for God, we are in good company.

          Os Guinness says that the problem with Christians today is not that we are foolish when we choose God over current society, but that we wait too long and choose too little of that which would separate us. We would do well to be thought more foolish than we are.

          Being a fool for Christ sake is claiming the promise of pain. The internal cost is burying self. The external proof is doing God’s will. Being Christian is transformational. We can’t remain the same. At times, it means looking like a fool to those around us. It is a small price to pay. At the end of the day, we are only as obedient to Christ as we are prepared to pay that cost.

          This message may sound angry to you. My wife told me it was like a punch in the stomach. If so, that is not my intent. It is my intent to sound passionate. Discipleship--following Jesus—is not for the faint of heart.  The call to discipleship echoes God’s call to Jesus. We are called to serve, to obey, sometimes even to play the fool. Discipleship sometimes means looking like a fool to your friends in order to act like a follower of your Savior.

          It’s not easy being a disciple, but then Jesus never said it would be easy. He just said it is the way to heaven. The world is a place in which we plant our feet, but not our souls. They are for a higher and better use. We cannot package the gospel neatly and put a bow around it and park it on a pew to open every Sunday for a couple hours. It won’t be contained. God meant for it to grow and he will grow it.

          “Thy will be done” cuts both ways. Just who is “Thy?” Is it you--or is it God? The answer to that question is the difference between heaven and hell.  Be a fool for Jesus!

Fulfilling the Royal Law

James 2: 1-10

 

 

          When you stand back and look at the New Testament as a body of work, it begins to speak to you. There are the Gospels, the semi-eye and ear-witness testimonies to the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. They are followed by Acts, the history of the early Church. Then comes Paul and his letters to the church plants all over the region and to some individuals, all espousing the grace of God through the gift of Jesus and the gospel he brings. Paul’s letters are joined by those of others, including Peter, John and the writer of Hebrews. Revelation ends the New Testament with a form of apocalyptic, (end times) literature.

          Then there is James. James is the misfit. James quotes less Scripture than any other New Testament writer. His book would be more at home in the writings section of the Old Testament with Proverbs. It is an essay on ethics and seldom mentions Christianity at all. Martin Luther called it an “epistle of straw” and thought it lacked the standard of the other New Testament texts.

There has always been a debate among the heavyweights in theology as to whether James’s emphasis on works is at the expense of grace.

          If James were to come to market today, it might be placed in the “how-to” section of Christian living and ethics. In five chapters, he takes up the subjects of testing and trials, hearing and doing the Word, the sin of partiality, faith without works, taming the tongue, being too worldly, boasting of the future, being rich and suffering with patience. He ends his circular letter to the Jews outside Jerusalem with a call to pray in faith. It is a pep talk, a warning and a call to action all rolled into one short letter.

          Now, James is not the Son of God. Only Jesus could claim that. But when reading James, one cannot help but notice the brotherly connection in the way he writes. James writes not with a bucket load of quotes and arguments like Paul, but rather with an authority that reminds us of his half-brother. James writes with a “been there, done that” sort of approach. He wastes no time or words and gets right to the point.

          Curiously, the one Scripture that James does quote is Leviticus 19:18, where the Lord is speaking to Moses to tell the people and says: “you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” James is in good company, Jesus himself quoted the same scripture. In Matthew 22, Jesus responds to the question of a Pharisee, a lawyer, about the Law, saying that “you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like unto it. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. In these two commandments depend all the Law and the prophets.”

          James called this the royal law. What did he mean? Was it the highest? The law of kings? The law of supreme excellence? Leviticus didn’t call it the royal law, so what does James mean? I think this is where James’ practical, down to earth style can get lost in a sea of study throughout the centuries. But what James says is not hidden. It just has to be sifted a little to see his connection to Jesus and the gospel.

          First, In James 1: 22, he says to be doers of the word, to not just be hearers of the word. Then, back up to James 1: 18. James refers to the word of truth. What word is James talking about? Is it the written Word of God or the living Word of God? Later, in chapter 2 at verse 12, James talks about being judged under the law of liberty. So James talks about the word and the law, but what word and what law? What does James mean and to what or whom is he referring?

          As Christians, we speak of God’s Word in two ways. Either it is scripture, the written Word of God, or it is Jesus, the living Word of God. They don’t contradict each other, but they are two different ways to see God. When we think of the written word, we normally are talking about the Old Testament and, in many cases, the Law given as the Ten Commandments and that scripture which accompanies them. I have long thought that James, who was speaking to the Jews of the diaspora, that is, those outside Jerusalem, was referring to the Scripture when he talked about the word in his letter. I don’t think so anymore.

          James talks about the “word” three times in Chapter 1. Verse 18 sets the tone of his meaning when he says that God brought us forth by the word of truth. He goes on to say that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures. That just doesn’t make much sense when read in light of Old Testament scripture. But when we read it in light of the gospel, it makes perfect sense. We are the firstfruits of the word of truth as revealed by Jesus, the living word of God.

          Later, when we read that we are called to be doers of the word, we can interpret this to be called to do the will of God as revealed by his living word, Jesus Christ. Again, in James 2: 12 and 13, James tells us that mercy triumphs over judgment; that we should speak and act as those who are judged under the law of liberty. James is speaking of the liberty obtained through the mercy and grace of Jesus Christ, the living word, not the liberty gotten through the meticulous observation of Old Testament law. Indeed, James reminds us in verse 10 that whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it. This is not only James’ point. It is made over and over by the apostle Paul. If we live by the law, we must be judged by the law and will die by the law. To live in the gospel is to find the law of liberty and the love of God through the grace of the gospel of Jesus.

          This brings us back to our original question. What did James mean when he talked about the second great commandment as the royal law? If we read his comment in the context of his other references to the gospel of Jesus, we must and should conclude that James saw loving our neighbor as ourselves as a law handed down from Jesus, the king of kings. No matter that it was first written in the Old Testament. The words are from God and Jesus is his son, now laying down the law of love in his gospel. It is Jesus to whom James refers. It is Jesus to whom every knee should bow, that every tongue will confess, that Jesus Christ is Lord [Phil 2: 9-11]. It is Jesus who came to save and who gave us the law of liberty and the word of truth.

          So what do we glean from this “royal law?” Simply this. We are to show no partiality. Money doesn’t matter. Power and influence don’t matter. The only family pedigree that matters is the line leading to belief in the gospel. It’s not faith trumping deeds, but deeds proving faith. Douglas Ward puts it this way: “James reminds his community that the behavior that demonstrates faith is the behavior that is obedient to God and lifts up others. Likewise, the behavior that is obedient to God (love the Lord your God…) and lifts up others (love your neighbor…) is behavior that demonstrates the content of a person’s faith.”

           Partiality is prejudice by another name. Jesus knew no prejudice. He knew only a bias toward love and a heart for forgiveness. Prejudice strikes at the very heart of the Christian faith. We should oppose it and oppose it vigorously wherever it rears its ugly head. Fulfilling the royal law is opening the doors of our church and our hearts to the poor, the stranger, the lost. Fulfilling the royal law is seeing everyone as your neighbor and seeing your neighbor as good as you.

          And that’s the gospel truth!

Stretching Backward, Straining Forward

1 Peter 2:11, Philippians 3:14, Amos 5:24, Matthew 6: 10

 

          “Breaking news! Tune in at six.” How often do we hear that? It’s just one of the catchphrases of our times. First there were stars. Then they became superstars. Now it’s not good enough or timely enough to get just the “news.” Now we must have “breaking news.” So how come if it’s breaking we have to wait ‘til six? Will it still be breaking then? Once it’s broken, is it downgraded to just news? Or history?  I mean, the minute it breaks, it’s history, isn’t it?

          That’s one of the troubles with living in the present. In one sense, we have absolutely no choice. The present is all we have to live in, and yet the minute we do, it’s gone. So now we need more breaking news. There really is no time for the present. We are hungry for what’s next, and yet we fail pretty miserably to be expectant about the future. In this CNN world, we move from one present to another without time for absorption of what it might actually mean. There are even commentators to tell us what we have seen or heard so that we don’t have to think; we can just get the gist of what happened and get ready for the next installment. This is the world in which we live as Americans.

          And yet, we Christians live in another world at the same time. We live in a world where we call on the past to help us define time. Our very numbering of years sets off our history as either before or after Christ’s arrival. Our God, who stands and lives outside time, broke in on us and inhabited time, and history clearly records that. Since Christ was resurrected on a Sunday, we changed our habits to make Sunday our day of rest, taking the first day of the calendar week and making it our last day of the week in practice. As Christians, our time revolves around a person, a man, who lived and breathed and carved out a block of time in the history of the world when he walked among us and ate and drank with us and taught us in real time, just as surely as D-Day or Independence Day or Bastille Day are real time. Even the Apostles Creed locates Jesus in time. It was the time of Pontius Pilate and Herod and the Roman Empire.  

          The church is a Savior oriented people gathered for the worship of that Savior who not only came and came in real time, but also promised to come again. So we look back often. We make it a point to remember. We do so in particular with our celebration of the Lord’s Supper as a sacramental reminder of not only what happened, but what is promised. We also look back through our observation of the liturgical year, from the epiphany to Pentecost, from transfiguration to Christmas, from advent to Lent. James K.A. Smith says that “the rhythms of Christian worship and the liturgical year stretch us backwards. They are the practices of remembering.” The Church is the chosen people of God who look back in order to look ahead.

          But we are far from done when we complete our exercises in remembering, for Christians are a people who use the past to remind them of the future to which we strain. Our Savior promised us that future; at least he promised it to those to whom he calls his people. 1 Peter 2: 9 reminds us that we Christians are “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession…” Peter is referring not to the Jews, but to us, Christians, those elected by God to populate his church here on earth and his kingdom when he returns.

          Christians are “tweeners.” We live with the knowledge created in remembering and in our traditions, but we do as Paul in Philippians 3: We “press on toward the mark of the prize of the upward call of God in Jesus Christ.” It is not enough to remember. Indeed, we remember only as a tool to instruct and to guide us to where Paul presses.  We look toward a future where the prophet Amos tells us that justice will roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream [Am. 5: 24]. We learn the Lord’s Prayer and we claim “thy kingdom come” as our marching orders and our hope, our expectation, for the future.

          Marking time. I used to mark time in marching band. Marking time is marching in place. In ROTC, I marked time on the drill field. Marking time is in one sense the practice of staying ready to move. It’s funny. I did all my marching before the military. I don’t think I marched ten steps while in military service. But the point is this: marking time is something that Christians are familiar with. Sometimes we have to mark time. We mark time by waiting for the Day of the Lord. We mark time while we pray for guidance, for illumination, for understanding. We mark time while our prayers are answered in God’s way instead of our own. Marking time for a Christian is like the Geico commercials. It’s what we do, because we are called to be ready. Three times in the New Testament we are warned that “the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night” [1Thes. 5:2-4, 2 Pet 3: 10, 11, Matt 24: 42-44].

          But marking time is only one piece of the Christian walk. There is so much more to the Christian life than marking time and waiting for the future. We are called to be followers of Jesus, to be his disciples, to be his hands and feet in a world that is so desperate to find its way. As Christians we look forward not only to the end of the world, but to the end of the world as we now know it. When we worship, we begin to experience what the writer of Hebrews tries to describe. We share in the Holy Spirit. We taste “the goodness of the Word of God and the powers of the age to come” [Heb. 6: 4, 5].

          So we look around at our broken world and we long for the future. We turn on the “breaking news” and hear of the sickness of our times as people are robbed and murdered in their homes, moviegoers are shot in theaters, even worshippers are gunned down in church. We wonder sometimes if we do not live in a world gone mad where violence and selfishness is the order of the day.

          As Christians, we know that the answers do not lie on the six o’clock news. Nor do they lie on the lips of those politicians who promise us deliverance from such dysfunction if only we will trust them with our vote. As Christians, we know that the answers will continue to include violence and hardship and suffering and trials. Such is the way of the world and such it will remain until Jesus returns. So we echo the plea of John in Revelation crying “Come, Lord Jesus.”

          But there is other breaking news. There are stories such as the intervention with a terrorist on a French train last week by Americans Anthony Sadler, Spencer Stone and Alek Skarlatos, Brit Chris Norman, and French-American Mark Moogalian. We have all heard how they charged a terrorist and probably saved many lives. The world is full of these good and heroic stories, but seldom do they make “breaking news.” Most of us will not have to risk our lives. Most of us will just be called upon to be kind, to take time, to lend a hand. In doing whatever it is we are called upon to do, we help not only to preserve, but also to usher in, God’s kingdom here on earth. This is how we as Christians want to come to each and every day. We want to celebrate our opportunity to help, to be in concert with God’s will for us, to “taste the heavenly gift and share in the Holy Spirit.”

          So we stretch and we strain. We as Christians are a stretched people, reaching back into our history to discern that which Jesus teaches us by his life, death and resurrection. And we strain, as Paul did, pressing on toward the mark…the upward call of Jesus Christ. We are citizens not only of our country, but of a kingdom as old as creation, as perpetual as forever, and as new as the Holy Spirit in our hearts.

The Teacher

John 13:12-17

 

 

          School is back in session. Last week we blessed backpacks and school buses and teachers and students. We wished them well as they all set off for a new year of learning. Now that the learning process is officially underway again, it seems like a good time to ask why. Why do we send our children to school? What do we expect will happen? Well, of course, we send them to school to learn. But what is it we want them to learn and when they learn it, exactly what is it that we expect them to do with it? If learning is the object of teaching, then what exactly is teaching and what is its intended outcome?

         The Greek word for teacher is didaskalos (δίδασκαλσς). Jesus was called Teacher by his disciples and many others.  In the Gospels, Jesus was addressed directly about 90 times. Of all those occasions, he was called Teacher over 60 times. He didn’t have a college degree. In fact, he didn’t have a high school diploma or a GED. And yet he has been acclaimed as the greatest teacher in history and with good reason.

          In the gospels, Jesus uses a number of different methods to reach his audience. He realizes, as does any trained teacher, that people learn in different ways. Modern education recognizes many different learning styles or variations of them. Most educators agree that there are at least three or four main categories. There is visual. If you learn this way, you respond to pictures and charts and graphs, but you don’t much like listening to a long explanation. There is auditory. Auditory learners prefer listening to explanations over reading. There is kinesthetic. Lots of us are kinesthetic learners. We like to learn by doing and touching. We are hands on. Things make sense to us that way. Lots of times, we don’t much like school because everything is visual and auditory and we want to touch it. Last, but not least, there is a reading and writing style. As you might expect, this style does best in school.

          Jesus didn’t get any formal training on learning styles, but he sure seemed to be aware of their existence in his audiences. His teaching reflects that he used all the standard learning styles plus some variations on them.

          For instance, look at Matthew 6: 25.  Jesus is on a mountain, delivering the Sermon on the Mount. He tells the crowd there gathered to consider the birds of the air, the lilies of the field. He talks about how splendid they are adorned and uses that example to remind the crowd that God loves people much more than birds and flowers. Jesus used the visual learning style to make his point about trusting God in a way that people could relate to. In Luke 21, a widow deposits two small coppers in the offering plate. It is probably the last money she has. Jesus sees her action and remarks on her giving from the depths instead of from abundance. It is a visual lesson which needs no words to teach.  

          In that same Sermon on the Mount and other sayings covering Matthew 5-7, in Jesus’ Upper Room discourse in John 13-17, in all the parables, Jesus is teaching in an auditory learning style. The scripture from Matthew tells that he “opened his mouth and taught them.” His disciples and followers listen to him. His words will not be written down for many years, yet when they are recorded by the evangelists writing the gospels, the power of those auditory moments is recorded into written form for others to read and respond to.

          Jesus wasn’t big on just talking the talk. He walked the walk too. The gospels are laden with events where Jesus was hands on. His mighty acts and deeds and his miracles speak beyond words to the proofs of what he said. He turned water to wine, healed the sick, the blind, the crippled, the paralyzed, even the dead. He disappeared from crowds and walked on water. He even died on a Roman cross and was resurrected. Some would call that kinesthetic teaching; others relational or experiential. Whatever label you assign it, Jesus did it and did it like no one else in history. Some educators now call this “social learning,” learning by watching someone else do the job.

          But Jesus wasn’t just a kinesthetic teacher, he wanted kinesthetic learners. So he sent the disciples out. In Mark 6: 7, Jesus sends the disciples out in pairs. He gives them authority to heal and heal they do. In the fourth chapter of John’s gospel, Jesus and the disciples are in forbidden Samaria and Jesus has the encounter with the woman at the well. Then, for the next two days, John tells us that Jesus and the disciples stayed and labored among the people; that the Samaritans believed, not because of the woman’s testimony, but because of what they heard for themselves. In the tenth chapter of Luke, Jesus sends out not the twelve, but another seventy-two, also in pairs, throughout the region. He gives them authority to heal and heal they do. On their return, they report to him that “even the demons are subject to us in your name.” This is kinesthetic learning on turbo. In the past, we would have called it on the job training, or interning. In their book Teaching the Faith, Gary Parrett and Steve Kang call it “engaging our hands and feet.”

          Now, what’s all this about? In the beginning, we said that we wanted to find out what teaching was and what its intended outcome would be. Well, maybe we found out what teaching was, at least some of the ways that it occurs. When it comes from what we hear, we label it auditory. When it comes from what we see, we call it visual. When it comes from what we touch, we call it kinesthetic. All of it is learning. God just builds us differently. If our wiring is different, then sometimes a good teacher has to use a different switch to turn us on. Jesus was all that and more. Jesus wasn’t just a master teacher; he is the Master himself.

        Why did Jesus teach? He didn’t do it just to hear himself talk. He did it for a reason. He wanted us, his children, to learn, and what he wanted us to learn was who he was. Back in Luke 10, when the seventy two returned home with the news of casting out demons, Jesus told them this: “…do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”

          The intended outcome that Jesus sought in all his teaching to the disciples, to the people, to the crowds, to the religious leaders and to us, is that we will come not only to know him, but to take his message to all with whom we come in contact. In the thirteenth chapter of John, Jesus takes teaching perhaps to its highest level when he allows his disciples to experience him and his selfless love. He does so by washing their feet, an act of total humility. It is visual, kinesthetic, even auditory as the disciples most assuredly gasp at this unselfish act. And then Jesus tells them why. “You call me Teacher and Lord, and you are right, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet…If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them.”

        That’s teaching, Jesus style! And that’s why he did.