Abba

                     Luke 15: 20-23, Galatians 3: 29-4: 7

 

 

          Behind my house, the air handler for the cooling system sits on a concrete slab. If you look closely at that slab, you will see handprints, the handprints of my children. If you were to look behind the door to my personal office, you would find photocopies of little hands and pictures of my children when they were very young. Same thing on our refrigerator. These places are a chronology of love moments and remembrances in my life as a father.

                    These days, my children are grown. They come home occasionally. They call or skype or email. Every time they contact me, I have to concentrate on letting them be who they are. You see, for me, they are not just who they are…they are also who they were. It may be a 33 year old on the phone, but for me, he is also 23 and 13 and even 3. In some mysterious way, I see each child in a continuum over the broadband of time. No matter how deep the voice or how experienced they come across, I see them as toddlers and children and adolescents even as they talk to me as adults. I find myself littered with all that history, even in the middle of a contemporary conversation.

          I think God sees us that way. In the gospel of Luke, the prodigal son returns home, having squandered his inheritance on loose living. He looks a wreck. But when his father sees him, even from afar, he doesn’t wait for the explanations or the apologies. He calls for the best clothing and a ring and shoes and orders not a meal, but a feast! For the loving father looks up that road and sees not a problem or a beggar, but his son. His eyes may identify the change in appearance, but the eyes of his heart see someone different, and he cries out in love and acceptance. That’s the way God sees us. He looks beyond the sin to see that bond between him and us. He sees us as he made us and as we can be, not just as who we are. God sees not only the imperfection of what stands before him, but also the perfection of his creation; he sees his children.

          My favorite word in all this beautiful language is Daddy. When my son grew up, he shortened it to Dad. Curiously, all three daughters still say Daddy. I love to hear it. It’s a term of endearment, of love. It’s who I am to them. Paul talked about this same feeling with the people of the Galatian church. He reminded them that God sent his only son Jesus to redeem us, so that we could be adopted as God’s own children. Adoption then and adoption now carry the same identifying marks. Once you are adopted, you are part of the family. You are the same as blood kin.

Thanks to Jesus, that’s the relationship available to us with God. We who believe now stand beside Jesus himself as the family of God, his adopted sons and daughters. So much does God love us that, in the words of Paul, he “sent us the Spirit of his Son into our hearts.” That’s right! Believe it. The Spirit of God’s Son lives within our hearts.

          When you think about your relationship with your father, or your relationship with your child or children, that’s not so hard to believe, is it? Don’t we fathers send our spirit into our children? Don’t we sons and daughters carry the seeds of our fathers’ love wherever we go?

          It’s the same with Jesus. God sent his Spirit into us. It goes with us, advises us, cares for us. We are adopted. We are family! We are full heirs to our Father’s kingdom. Paul thought it so loving, so endearing, that he compared the relationship to the sweetness one feels when calling out to Daddy, for that is what “Abba” means in Aramaic.

How long does it take for you to love your child? For me, it was love at first sight not once, but four times. I always marveled that my heart could grow to accommodate more children. I first thought that I would have to reclaim a little bit of my heart for each child, but that’s not the way it works. Your heart just grows. There is no limit. It grows to surround each child we are given. But even that is nothing compared to God. He loved us before we were ever even a thought in the minds of our earthly fathers.

          Yes, it is wonderful being a father. We have been given that gift, that privilege, by God as part of the relational revelation that teaches us about the kingdom of God and our relationship with our heavenly Father. We are fathers, mothers, sons, daughters. Each relationship carries with it a very personal stamp, a footprint that teaches us about love and life and family. It also teaches us about God.

Perhaps the greatest feeling of all is the knowledge that we too, at every age, are still defined by God as children. We who believe are invited to come close, to let down our defenses, to call him Abba…daddy.  He is there. He is always there. And he is our Father, today, tomorrow…and forever.

Revived

                                          I Kings 17: 8-24

 

 

          Elijah was one of the great prophets of Israel. He ranks right up there with Moses and Samuel as one of the leaders of true, uncompromising worship of God.  Like Isaiah and later John the Baptist, he stood out in a crowd. Messengers to King Ahaziah described Elijah as a hairy man who wore a leather girdle. He didn’t dress conventionally and he didn’t act conventionally. And if you were Ahab or Jezebel, he was the most foul, “in your face”, bully of a prophet that one could conjure up. His confrontation with King Ahab and the prophets of Baal is the stuff of legend.

          At the time of Elijah, it was almost nine hundred years before the coming of Christ. Ahab took the throne of Israel. He was the seventh in a long line of weak or bad kings and he was the worst yet. It was still about a century and a half before the fall of the Northern Kingdom. Ahab married Jezebel, the daughter of a priest of Baal from the province of Sidon.  Jezebel was an avid Baal worshiper, and it was this stage onto which a rugged individual from the little town of Tishbe was thrust upon the stage of Israel’s history.  His name was Elijah. King Ahab called him the troubler of Israel.

          Tishbe is a town about which we know practically nothing. Elijah is the only character in the Bible who is cited as being from Tishbe. It was in upper Galilee near the area we know as Gilead on the west side of the Jordan River. What all that means to us is that Elijah was a country boy.  He came from a no name town and he had no family tree. If you’ve done much reading in the Old Testament, you know that is unusual.  In fact, even the word Tishbe means sojourner or stranger. So here is a stranger from a strange town. There is nothing to prepare us for this classic confrontation between the country boy from Tishbe and the King sitting on the throne in Jerusalem and married to the daughter of a Baal priest.

          Elijah’s ministry as God’s prophet was astounding. For instance, Elijah is one of only two people in the Bible who did not die, Enoch being the other. But before God came and gathered Elijah to heaven in a chariot of fire, before Elijah called upon the 450 prophets of Baal to compete with God at Mt. Carmel, even before Elijah stood in the presence of King Ahab, totally vulnerable, squared off against Ahab, calling him not only the real troubler of Israel, but also the king who abandoned the Lord’s commandments… before all that confrontation and witness… Elijah had some testing to do. And that is the subject of today’s story.

          Have you ever had your faith tested? Of course you have, even if nothing comes immediately to mind. Maybe you have had financial setbacks, personal or family health problems, experienced disloyalty from someone close. Maybe you have gotten far enough from who you thought you were that you have doubted your faith or even God himself. If you have been in some of those valleys and you are sitting here, then you have survived a test of faith. Maybe it was your fallen nature that you had to overcome. Maybe it was Satan picking you out of the crowd and deciding to tempt you in exactly the right way at exactly the right time.  Or maybe, it was God. Maybe it was God loving you enough to harden you for the battles ahead.

Certainly in our story today from I Kings, we find not one, but arguably two, ordinary people called upon to exhibit extraordinary faith.

          After Elijah announces the coming of a drought to King Ahab, he is forced to flee for his own safety. For a while, he lives by a brook and is fed by ravens, but the brook dries up. Then God sends Elijah to a town named Zarephath. It wasn’t that far of a journey, but what an insane destination! The town was in Sidon, the home of Queen Jezebel and the epicenter of Baal worship. It was almost like hiding in plain view. Here was this character so oddly dressed that he stood out like a sore thumb and living in the belly of the whale which wanted to eat him. To make things even more incredible, he was sent to the home of a widow who was so poor, she was literally down to her last meal.

Elijah first asked her for water, then for bread. Her response? I have just enough for one more tiny meal for me and my son. I’m gathering enough sticks to make a fire and cook it, and then we can die of starvation. This is the plight of the woman that God selected to help Elijah. She has nothing! Bear in mind that this woman was not even Jewish. She lived in Sidon, a Baal-worshipping community, although apparently she thought that Elijah just might be a man of God.

Elijah promises the woman that she will be rewarded and she decides to trust him. But hey, what has she got to lose? She’s down to her last meal anyway. So she does as Elijah asks and she is rewarded with food that doesn’t run out. Elijah has passed his first test by going to the lion’s den to hide from the lion, and the woman by offering up all that she has to a stranger. Each has passed a test of faith. Each is strengthened for what lies ahead.

Now comes the real test. The widow’s son is taken ill, deathly ill. The writer of Kings says that there was no breath left in him. The widow interprets this as payback from God for her past sins. And Elijah suddenly becomes everyman, from a dispirited Job to a doubting Thomas to a scared Simon Peter to you and me.  He is crying out to God, What are you doing! And Why!

That sort of thing happens to every Christian. We read the Bible. We come to church. We say our prayers. We try to live right. Things are getting along ok and then out of nowhere, we are slammed. We are in the pit and we are fighting for our spiritual lives. Why me, is the question that invariably forms on our lips.

One commentary I consulted said that Elijah had great confidence that God would perform another miracle. I don’t read it that way. I think Elijah was confused and probably angry. He cried out to God. He asked “have you brought calamity upon this widow with who I sojourn by killing her son?” Elijah is arguing with God, clueless as to why this is happening. But in spite of his anger and doubt, he stretched himself out across the limp body of that child and cried out again. Three times he did this, crying out for God to let life come into the boy again.

And God answered. “And the life of the child came into him again, and he revived.” Not only did the widow witness the one true God in action and have her faith rewarded, but so did Elijah. Elijah, just like us, wanted God to come through, but when he did all that he thought he was supposed to do and bad things happened anyway, Elijah was forced to cry out to God in faith.  There was literally nothing else that Elijah could do but cry out to God. And he passed God’s test, because that’s exactly what he did, not once, but until God acknowledged him. Three times or thirty times, they are the same. We cry out to God in faith. And life comes into us again. We are revived.

There is a true story told by one of the first evangelists to Russia in the days before the Berlin Wall came down. Freedom to worship was still against the law. Christians would meet secretly, usually in one another’s homes. One such group was gathered one evening when suddenly the door was thrown open violently. Three Russian soldiers burst in brandishing their rifles. One of them bellowed out that anyone who wasn’t a Christian could leave, but that anyone there to worship God must stay. After a tense moment, many of those gathered filed out. Only a few remained. One soldier closed the door and locked it. Then the three soldiers put away their rifles and sat down. They too were Christians. They explained that they only wanted to worship with true believers. Those remaining there that evening had passed a test of faith that would not be forgotten.

Like those brave Russian citizens, both the widow of Zarephath and Elijah had a test of faith to pass for God. That was God’s purpose all along. It wasn’t about the widow’s sins. It was about her faith getting legs. It was the same for Elijah. He too had to let go and let God. No matter how high we go, how far we travel, there may still come that time when God will test us, not to hurt us but to make us strong.

The thing is, constantly walking with God day in and day out is much harder than being martyred for the cause. Seldom will our testing be so clean as a matter of life and death. More often, it comes in the form of bending the rules or looking the other way. It may come in the profound silence of overlooking ugliness or sin in the name of not getting involved. It could be in the refusal to dirty our hands with someone obnoxious or loud. In each of those small tests lies the way to God…or the way to hell. Each time we let our Christian principles be compromised, we lose a little more of that precious commodity we call life. We lose our Christian witness and become the walking dead of God’s people.

But each time we stand up, lend a hand, say no…cry out to the Lord, it is then that our life comes back into us again. We practice our faith a step at a time, a day at a time. We learn to trust, even if we have to be tested to absorb God’s lesson. It is then that we have not only breath, but voice. It is then…that we too, are…revived!

A Foreigner Teaches the Faithful

                                          Luke 7: 1-10

         

 

          I have a close friend who underwent open heart surgery a few years back. I’m happy to say that the surgery, while major, did save his life. Without that bypass surgery, I don’t think he would be here today. But to get to that operating table took a considerable act of faith. If I recall correctly, my friend had seven blockages. It was too much for one surgery. So the surgeon studied and chose the four most damaging spots to repair. At his age, my friend Bill probably had one shot to do what could be done. He would have to live with the rest.

          In addition, two of the arteries were on the back side of Bill’s body, behind his heart and therefore much more complicated to reach and repair. In other words, to even attempt the surgery was a major risk. It required a substantial leap of faith for Bill and his wife to give the surgeon the green light. My friends did a lot of praying. In the end, they put their hands in the hands of a skilled surgeon and turned over the rest to the providence of God.

          There is a similar faith story in the gospels of Matthew and Luke, both curiously in the seventh chapter of those gospels. These parallel accounts are very similar and today, I will use Luke’s more gentile story to talk about faith, and not just any faith, but the kind of faith that needs no eyewitness, no advance planning. It is the kind of faith that is blind and deaf and just says “I believe.” It is the kind of faith that makes us all take a deep breath in wonder and ask whether, if confronted with that set of facts, we could perform in that way and with that depth of trust.

          Today, we look at the faith of a centurion. An odd choice if you think about it. To pick a soldier and him from another culture, a polytheistic culture at that, for a role model of faith in Jesus. First of all, some scholars differ over who he was.  The New International Commentary says that at the time, there were no Roman forces in Galilee, so this soldier might not have been Roman at all. He might rather have been one of Herod’s personal guard.  He might also have just been on special assignment. That happened to centurions too. The point is not whether he was a centurion or some other soldier, but that this man was a gentile. He lived in that other world where gentiles normally hated Jews and Jews despised gentiles. It was so bad that it was against Jewish law for a Jew to even go into the house of a gentile.

A centurion was a Roman soldier in charge of at least 100 men. Today’s modern equivalent would be a first or second army lieutenant. Centurions were the core of the Roman army. They came up through the ranks and had proved themselves in battle. They usually couldn’t make such rank before about ten years’ service. They made 5,000 denarii a year, which in todays’ currency isn’t much—about a thousand dollars—but in comparison to the common soldier, they made about twenty times more. So centurions were paid pretty well for their day.

This centurion was anything but typical. He was invested in the area. In Capernaum, he had built the Jews a synagogue.  Now, the Roman government encouraged the army to mingle with the people, but this was beyond the call of duty. And this centurion had a servant. Nothing unusual about that. But the way he treated his servant was unusual. Luke tells us that the servant was highly valued by the centurion. The Greek word for servant is doulos, but it does double duty. It also means slave. In fact, the two meanings were so closely aligned that to say one was to imply the other. Slave. Servant. The words were pretty much interchangeable. And in that day, to be a slave was to be a piece of property. Local literature about running a household recommended yearly evaluation of property. If the servant/slave was not producing, best toss him out. The owner had no obligation to take care of a non-productive slave. So for Luke to report that the centurion highly valued his servant was again an unusual situation.

The centurion was unusual in another way. He had the respect of the Jewish elders of the area. They actually went and appealed to Jesus for him. They said he loved their nation, that he was worthy of Jesus’ help. That’s a far cry from what one typically heard about a Roman soldier in Galilee.

Now, you know this story. Jesus heals the servant. More impressively, he dials it in. The centurion tells Jesus he understands authority, that Jesus has it, and that he doesn’t need to be present to make it happen. The centurion is humble. Although the Jewish elders have called him worthy, he calls himself unworthy for Jesus to come under his roof. While Jewish law says as much, this is not at all what the centurion means. He is genuine. He sees Jesus as the Son of God and he knows his place. He is a sinner and Jesus is Lord of all.

 The real take-away from this story is that the Centurion, a stranger, a foreigner, showed Jesus more faith than anyone Jesus had met in all of Israel. Why is that not surprising? The story of Jesus is the story of faith in action. The story of God is the story of faith in action. The Bible illustrates our heavenly father’s faith in action over and over and over in the most vivid of portraits and almost every time, the hero or heroine is drawn from the ranks of the unlikely, from a Bedouin named Abraham to a farmer named Amos to an unnamed Samaritan woman to a Roman soldier.

Always the most unlikely candidate. Why? Because then we know its God and not us. And in the case of the centurion, it is his acting on his belief, showing his faith, that sets him apart from all the others whom Jesus has met.

Soldiers are trained to follow orders. They learn to rely on their comrades. There is safety in the uniformity. They train so that when something does happen, they don’t freeze. They are taught to sacrifice. Today, we give pause to remember those tens, even hundreds, of thousands of men and women who, as Abraham Lincoln said of those fallen at Gettysburg, “gave the last full measure of their devotion.” As we do, we may more fully understand the words of devotion and obedience of the centurion. The Roman soldier’s understanding of authority came partially from his training, but the decision to follow that understanding came directly from his heart. He had the faith to follow his instincts.

These are troubled times. We too have servants, and friends, falling all around us, and our way can look uncertain. But it isn’t. We need only to fix our eyes upon Jesus. Like my good friend Bill, we need to put our hands in the hands of the man from Galilee. Like the centurion, we need to ask for Jesus to just say the word, and let us be healed.

The writer of Hebrews calls it the assurance of things hoped for, expected, the substance or conviction of things not seen. The centurion called it obedience to the authority of Jesus. “Say the word and let my servant be healed,” he said in true faith.

And Jesus “marveled at him, and turning to the crowd that followed him, said, I tell you, not even in Israel have I found such faith” Jesus used the faith of a foreigner, an outsider, to show the people of faith what real faith looked like.

And those who had been sent (are you one of them?) returned to the house. You know the end of this story. Healed by the Son of God, made possible by the faith of one man… just one man…they found the servant well.

Imagine what we could do together with our faith acting as one!

A Recipe for Life

                                          Romans 5: 1-10

         

 

          If you look on the church calendar, today is listed as Trinity Sunday, the Sunday following Pentecost Sunday, during which we traditionally remember the Trinitarian God whom we serve. If you look in today’s bulletin, you will note that we honor recent graduates of kindergarten, high school, nursing school, college, even seminary. If you look in today’s newspaper, chances are you will find an account of the South Carolina state high school baseball championship game, in which two of our members played key roles. A second look at today’s church bulletin discloses that the message is taken from Romans 5, a passage having to do with peace with God through faith. Also in the bulletin is an announcement that today our church will hear information on why it should not sever its connection with the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).   

One might legitimately ask why today’s message begins with references to calendars and bulletins and newspapers, when all we are here to do is to hear the biblical message. One might legitimately ask what baseball and kindergarten have to with God’s peace through faith. One might wonder how in the world so many apparently different issues can possibly be incorporated into one message.

Baseball, graduation, denominational change, Trinity. Those are topics which on their face seem divergent at best, inappropriately mixed at worst. On closer examination, we might, in common Jesus-speak, answer these questions with a question: If the day to day affairs and activities of the people of God cannot be wed to the message of God, then why is that message worth hearing? That, too, is a legitimate question, and it begs an answer.

The apostle Paul is writing to a church he did not start in a city he has not yet visited. He would later be in Rome under house arrest and he would have a ministry there, but not at the time he wrote to the Romans. He spends the first four chapters talking about the need for justification and the way to achieve it. You will remember justification as what happens when we believe in God. Our sins are forgiven. We are justified. It is “just as if we had not sinned.” We are righteous; that is, we are positionally righteous. But positions change. We won’t stay righteous unless we are in a continual state of turning from sin and being forgiven. So righteousness is not just a state of being, but a target as well.

In the first part of chapter 5, the subject for today, Paul turns to the consequences, the fruits if you will, of that righteousness. He tells us what righteousness brings, and its signature gift is peace. In addition, Paul points to access to grace and to hope as other gifts of righteousness. All of these gifts come to us by virtue of being justified by faith, and that faith comes from and manifests in Jesus Christ.

Paul says the blood of Christ saved us from God’s wrath and that is wonderful, but there is much more to justification than just being saved from a terrible outcome. There is the promise that by his death, Christ reconciled us to God. Think about that. Christ made it possible for those of us who believe to be reunited with God. Color doesn’t matter. Race, nation, gender don’t matter. Just belief. Just faith.

But there is more. Not only do we have the possibility of reconciliation. We have the promise of salvation, for Paul goes on to say that “now that we are reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.” Through Christ’s death, we can be reconciled to God. Through Christ’s life, we can be saved!

In this letter to the Christians in Rome, Paul makes it clear that the common denominator is belief, not ethnicity or any other identifier. He uses the pronouns we and us all through chapter 5 because he wants us to understand that as Christians, we have become members of a different family, a family which has access to the grace of God, expectant hope in the outcome of not only our lives but in God’s universe, and faith that it all will come to pass.

It takes a little time to see the Trinity in this passage, but it is certainly there. We have peace through Jesus Christ, says Paul in verse 1. God’s love pours into our hearts in verse 5, and it does so through the Holy Spirit.  On this Trinity Sunday, Paul points out for us in Romans 5 the love of God the Father, the peace of God the Son and the outpouring of both through God the Holy Spirit.

Paul goes on to tell us that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. In other words, while we were disobedient to God, enemies of God, uncaring of God, unnoticing of God—that’s when Christ died for us. He loved the “us” we had not yet become. Paul also reminds us that it is not only the blood of Christ that paves the way, but the life of Christ that lies at the end of that road of life, the life that promises us not just forgiveness, but salvation.

This morning, we recognize graduates of all ages. Some have just tasted school. Others are farther along the way. Some have finished their formal schooling and are beginning to apply the tools they have learned as they enter the workplace. They have experienced achievement of some sort.

Today, we also recognize teammates of a high school baseball team. They have played for a state championship. That alone singles them out. At the time of this writing, they had one game to go. One game to determine champion and runner-up. We now know that result. I feel fortunate that as I composed this message, I was not privy to the score of that final game—fortunate because the score has little or nothing to do with what they have accomplished.

Today, we will listen to someone from our parent denomination. The Presbytery wants us to stay in this denomination. Our elders have voted to leave. Soon, that final decision will fall upon this membership. The decision is large, but not enormous. It’s about being aligned with God. Can you feel righteous, right with God, in this denomination? If not, is there another with which you can? Is there room for change, for diversity? Can unity in God’s church still be achieved in division?

Can unity exist in diversity? Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 12 that it takes all the members of the body to make it work properly. Watching the baseball team play the other night, I was reminded of that concept. Imagine a baseball team playing without a shortstop! Absent even one member, it’s hard to compete as a team.

Can diversity exist and still have unity? Look around at all the ages represented in these graduates, from 6 to well over 60, and yet here we all are, worshipping the same God. We will not all come to that table in the same way or at the same time, but come we can and come we will. Our diversity will only make us stronger.

So this morning, let me invite you to focus on the life of Christ, the life that promises you everything you ever could hope for. It is that life to which we should aspire. What does your life look like? Is it reconciled? If it is, is it being lived out for Christ? It doesn’t matter how many educational credits you receive, unless they are a path to serve your Lord. It doesn’t matter whether you actually won that state championship, as long as you played in the game. In the long view of Christianity, it doesn’t even matter what brand of Presbyterian you are. It does matter whether you are a Christian. Are you following where he leads? Are you true to the Word of God which speaks to you through the Holy Spirit? Have you found the ingredients necessary to live a life worth living? You can’t ever be worthy of the sacrifice that has been made, but you can be aware. You can have faith, accept the free gift of God’s grace and live expectantly with the hope that comes from such belief.

Today, these graduates and teammates represent some degree of success. Each in his or her own way has tasted victory, moved up another rung of the ladder. But success is a tricky measuring stick for life. We must take care that what we seek is worth the effort. Competition alone is not enough. Championships alone are not enough. Degrees and diplomas alone are not enough.  

Here’s a little practical advice I received last week in a card. This is the way it defines success. It is:

          SETTING GOALS

                   but not in concrete.

          STAYING FOCUSED

                   but turning aside to help someone

          FOLLOWING A PLAN

                   but remaining flexible

          MOVING AHEAD

                   but not too fast to smell the flowers

          TAKING A BOW

                   but applauding those

                   who had a part

                   in your success.

 

I think Paul would approve of that message. That sounds like success to me. It is a combination of perseverance, and growth, and unselfishness. Now just sprinkle in the faith that God sends us and you just might have a recipe for life.     

 

                                     I Will Come to You

                                          John 14: 8-20

 

 

          Today is Pentecost Sunday, the day we remember the coming of the Holy Spirit in that upper room in Jerusalem. The story appears in Acts 2. It is this amazing description of tongues of fire and a wind of Spirit that rushed into a closed room and literally invaded the bodies and minds of those gathered there. It was the day Jesus had promised his disciples, the day when everything for them became clear…the day when they became the gatekeepers of the gospel and the day when the world began to hear it in a way never heard before.

          So this day, I want us to look at the prequel. Let’s look at the words of Jesus to his disciples to get them ready for what was going to begin at Pentecost. We find that story in the 14^th chapter of John’s gospel.

          It is Holy Week, the week of the Passion. Jesus is filling up the disciples with everything he can tell them. Three years of ministry have come to a close and he is out of time. Reading John 13-17 is like reading this explosion of instruction, of caring, of information, as Jesus tries to prepare his little band for entrance into this new messianic community from which the church will be born and the world will be evangelized for Christ. The job could not be bigger. It simply defies description. But, says Jesus, “I will come to you.” He was leaving. What did he mean, “I will come to you?”

          Even before that, Phillip is asking for himself, for his fellow disciples, for everyone: Lord, show us the Father. Just please give us proof of the connection. Phillip meant well, as we all do, but he didn’t get it yet. He wasn’t the first to ask. Moses didn’t get it and asked for proof. He got the burning bush as a hint. Isaiah didn’t get it and asked for proof. He got a vision of God seated on his throne as a hint. Phillip didn’t need a hint. He got the whole enchilada.  He was looking at the face of God and couldn’t see him. In the profound mystery that is our Creator God, Jesus is both unified with the Father and completely unique to himself. So Jesus said to him, “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.” Poor Phillip, I think I know exactly how he felt. He was looking right at God and couldn’t see him. How often has that happened to me and you?

          Then, Jesus makes the claim of claims. Maybe, just maybe, you can wrap your mind around the fact that Jesus is God, that God is Jesus, that each of them is their own unique being. Maybe you can begin to grasp that Jesus, the God-Man, lived and walked on this earth sinlessly, died for mankind, was resurrected and conquered death and sin. But now try this. Jesus said to Philip and the others: If you believe in me, you will do greater than I do. “Whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do, and greater works than those will he do.”

        How? How can that be? It almost sounds like blasphemy to say it, but it’s not at all. Jesus’ answer was pretty economical. He just said “because I am going to the Father.” What he meant was that he wasn’t giving up doing mighty acts or spreading his gospel. He was shifting his base and method of operation. Jesus was going to the Father where through the Holy Spirit, he would become the enabler. Jesus is still involved. But now, he tells his story through us, his children.

          Jesus foreshadowed the infusion of the Holy Spirit with his explanation of himself in God. Listen to what he said. I am in the Father and the Father is in me. To see me is to see the Father. In the same way, Jesus, having been glorified, was going to send the Holy Spirit to be in us. And it all started at Pentecost.

          Why didn’t Phillip and the others get it? They were not yet enabled. It wasn’t meant to be until Jesus went to heaven. In the seventh chapter of John’s gospel, John reminds us of that. He writes that “for as yet the Spirit had not been given because Jesus was not yet glorified.” So even here in the Passion Week at the very end of Jesus’ ministry, the time is not yet mature for the disciples to see the big picture.

This is what Jesus meant when he said “I will come to you.” He meant exactly what he said, but it was to happen in a different form than what the disciples expected. He was talking about the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in the hearts of believers. He was talking about empowerment of not just one, or twelve, or a hundred and twelve, but of each and every man, woman and child who become part of the body of Christ. He was talking about a movement, not an event, a way of life, not a season. Of course, the people of God can do greater than Jesus did. We are empowered by the Holy Spirit living inside us to do God’s will in every time and place.

Yes, it was a startling and incredible claim that Jesus made to his disciples, but it was a claim that has come true and continues to grow to this very day. We who allow the Holy Spirit to come and dwell within us, who are obedient to Jesus, can and do greater works over time than even he was able to do by himself. That is why he enlisted us. He lives and works within us through the power of the Holy Spirit.

Think for a moment about what we mean when we say righteous. We who would follow Jesus seek righteousness. But what do we mean? How do we translate that? Put most simply—and accurately, righteous means right with God. Righteous mean being aligned with God. When you drive on a bumpy road or a road full of potholes or railroad crossings, you subject your vehicle to a lot of punishment. Sooner or later, no matter how good a vehicle is, it’s going to need alignment. You’re going to have to stop driving and get re-aligned or your just won’t be able to steer. And your tires will wear out much quicker.

I know you think I’m talking about cars and I am. But I could just as easily be talking about my walk with God. Life doles out a lot of punishment. Sooner or later, we just get out of line. We can’t steer very well and sometimes we feel like our wheels are about to come off. But Christians can get re-aligned just like cars and trucks. We have the Word, both living and written. We have the Scriptures. And we have the Holy Spirit. That’s what Jesus meant when he said “I will come to you.” John used the Greek word Paraclete here. One of its meanings is to walk alongside. That’s what the Holy Spirit does for us when we let him. He walks alongside us and gets us aligned…righteous.

          My son came in this week for a visit. He wanted to attend my seminary graduation. My oldest daughter also came in with her husband. That’s a big deal. Having two children home at the same time is about as good as it gets in our house these days, with the two others on other continents and islands. It must be a big deal, because my wife ran herself ragged for days cleaning and dusting and mopping and all the other things that go with getting a place ready for a big visit. You would think we were entertaining royalty with all the fuss that has been made.

          I know what my wife would say. We are entertaining royalty. Better than royalty. These are our children, the people we love most in this world. They deserve a cared for, loving home in which to make their rest.

          Thinking about that makes me anxious about the time and effort I have spent getting my heart, my physical house, in order. Am I ready for a guest, much less a permanent boarder? Is there a place in my heart, my being, for the Holy Spirit to spread out and make his rest? How often am I so restless, so disobedient, that I cannot see the God who lives within my own heart, who loves me more than I love myself?

          Jesus said to the disciples, and he says to us: “I will come to you… Because I live, you also will live. In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.”

In that day you will know. Do you know? Is your house in order?

Why Do You Stand Looking?

                                          Acts 11: 1-11

 

Today is Ascension Sunday. This is the day we commemorate the literal and physical rising of our Savior from earth into the clouds. Some say it is symbolic. Others claim the scientific impossibility of such a thing, as if science could ever explain such an event. 

What is our authority for such claims? In the gospel of Mark, the evangelist says that “the Lord Jesus, after he had spoken to [the eleven disciples], was taken up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God” [Mk. 16:19]. In John’s gospel, Jesus speaks to his disciples, telling them: “I came from the Father and have come into the world, and now I am leaving the world and going to the Father” [Jn. 16: 28]. The disciples ask whether he is speaking plainly or figuratively. They would soon know the answer. Luke’s gospel has the disciples and the risen Jesus in Bethany, where Jesus lifts up his hands, blesses the disciples one last time and then, says Luke, “he parted from them and was carried up into heaven” [Lk. 24:50]. Finally, in today’s passage, Luke says that “As they [the disciples] were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight” [Acts 1: 9].

These biblical references all seem to describe Jesus as physically rising up into the clouds and out of sight. In today’s passage, Luke gives an introduction, and then he describes the Ascension.  The disciples ask if it is time for the kingdom of Israel to be restored. Jesus says it’s not for you to know God’s timing. But then he makes the disciples some promises. He promises them that the Holy Spirit will come upon them. He promises them that power will come with it. Jesus doesn’t say what kind of power, but he does promise power. And…Jesus says to these disciples that they will be his witnesses, not just at home, but “in Jerusalem and all Judea and in Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” That’s like saying here in Jefferson, and in the Sandhills and in the South and all over the world. That’s a big promise.

And then he left. Jesus said his peace and then he left. He went to heaven. That was his last earthly communication. He promised them two tools, the Holy Spirit and power of some kind. And he gave them a commission: Go witness to the world. 

The thing I like so much about Luke is that while he is always the reporter, he seems to be there. I think of Luke as the reporter embedded in the action, following the goings on in the foxholes and not just in the reporters’ tent.  Although Luke wasn’t an eyewitness, he interviewed eyewitnesses. He wasn’t there with Jesus, but he was there through much of Paul’s ministry. And with Luke, we get the story through the eyes of a gentile. Luke was like you and me. He started on the outside, but found himself one of God’s adopted children. I suspect that since Luke was a physician and not just a reporter, he probably spent some time patching up Paul and friends from their run-ins with the law. Along the way, he took notes, conducted interviews, and gave us a history of the beginnings of the church.

Imagine for a moment that you are attending a play. The first act is loaded with action and intrigue. There are wars. There are takeovers. There is slavery and liberation and people re-location. There are migrant groups and whole civilizations paraded before the audience and the world is revealed in all its glory and ugliness. But before Act I is finished, a hero appears. His words are true, his deeds heroic. Finally, people take heart. Maybe things will change. Maybe he is the leader they have waited for. But our hero has his own agenda. He tells his small personal cabinet about his plans. He tells them he will have to leave, but that he will come back. Not to worry. Then our hero is killed. The cabinet is left with nothing to carry forward. But wait. Our hero reappears. Even death cannot stop him. Here he is in the flesh. The cabinet awaits what will surely be the rise of a great administration. Our hero keeps making appearances, but he doesn’t make any great announcements.

Finally, he calls a meeting of the cabinet at a place where they know they will see it all. He issues a few last minute instructions, tells them to go home, collect their thoughts and wait. He tells them that they will receive power, that they will be infused, that they will witness to the whole world on his behalf. And then, he leaves. He really leaves. End of Act 1.

Act II begins with our cabinet standing on the side of a hill looking up to heaven. Our hero has just floated away into the clouds. No new government. No honors for the cabinet members. He is gone. They are there. What has changed? Everything! It’s time for the second act.

Let’s leave our imaginary play now and return to the scene in Acts. As Luke was not only a reporter, but also a participant, you would expect him to have a point of view. After all, he too was out there on the front lines of evangelism. One of Luke’s characteristics is that not only does he see things happening and describe them; he also sees things that should happen and encourages them to begin. One striking example occurs twice with almost the same language.

In Luke’s gospel, he describes the scene at the tomb. Mary Magdalene and the other women approach to dress the body of Jesus. But the stone is rolled away and there is no body. The perplexed women are met by two men who stand by them. They are dazzlingly dressed. The men utter this signature line: “Why do you seek the living among the dead?”

In the book of Acts, Luke describes the Ascension in strikingly similar terms. As the disciples are gazing into heaven while Jesus is ascending, two men are standing by in white robes. They say to them, “Men of Galilee. Why do you stand looking into heaven?” 

For Luke the physician/reporter/evangelist, it doesn’t matter whether Jesus is resurrected or ascending. The real story is the same. Jesus is risen. The curtain has fallen on the first part of history. We call it BC (before Christ). Act I was the revelation and the building of the bridge to salvation. It took us all the way to the Ascension. But then, Christ’s work on earth was done. Now we are in Act II. We call that AD (after the death of Christ). We call it that for a reason. Act II is on us. We have a story to tell. His story. And for Luke, that means it’s time to get busy. If we believe in the resurrection and the Ascension, then we have work to do.

The Ascension is a critical part of what we believe as Christians. Only Luke wrote about it, but it has become essential in understanding the story of our God and the story of Jesus’ gospel. Now, in addition to the biblical record, there are references in the Apostles and Nicene Creeds and in many of our Reformed Confessions. Jesus ascended into heaven.  Why is that important?  Suppose that Jesus stopped at the resurrection. The story would be incomplete, wouldn’t it? But Jesus didn’t stop at the resurrection. The Ascension signifies the completion of Jesus’ earthly mission. The Ascension signifies Jesus’ reign as a heavenly king, actively engaged in our world. That should have implications on what we do with our lives. 

Think about it this way. Luke gives us two books of the New Testament. The gospel of Luke records an evangelistic witness to the life of Jesus. It ends with his Ascension into heaven. In book two, Acts, a history of the early church, Luke begins where he ended, with the Ascension. His first work tells us who and why. His second book is a call to action. Each of us who believes, who surrenders our faith to the leading of the Holy Spirit, is called to use those tools with which we are already equipped, to do the bidding of our Savior. Some will be called to places and people they never heard of. Some will be called to stay at home and witness. But all who believe will be called.

“Why do you stand looking?”  said the men in white. “Why do you seek the living among the dead?” He is risen! We are in Act Ii of the history of mankind, and the curtain will not fall until he comes again. He’s coming again! I don’t really think we can say it enough. He’s coming again! Why are we

standing here! We have a job to do. 

Laboring Outside the Gate

                                          Acts 16: 9-15

           I was watching a TV program the other night and one fellow said to the other: “I’m thinking inside the box.” The other fellow says: “What do you mean? I thought you were supposed to think outside the box these days.” The first guy says: “In a way, I am. Everyone is so busy thinking outside the box, there’s plenty of room inside the box.”  I was sitting there processing the exchange and it occurred to me that both were saying the same thing: to not be limited in the way we come to problem-solving. Sometimes, you just need to find another way to get your message out.

          The apostle Paul was this amazing force of energy. Everywhere he went, he ran the risk of overpowering those he came to serve, because he was like the Tasmanian devil, the cartoon character who spins through a place like a buzz saw, taking down everything and everyone in his path. Paul’s uncompromising enthusiasm got him bounced out of town a lot. From Athens to Iconium to Antioch and others, Paul got used to being jailed, jeered and escorted to the edge of the city limits. Maybe he was just too demanding, too strong, for the people who heard him. But along the way, he learned. He honed his delivery of the gospel. And Paul never worried about what to do. He was guided by the Holy Spirit and he responded to that call, no matter where it took him.

At the beginning of what we now call Paul’s second missionary journey, he is in the region of Phrygia and Galatia, an area in modern day Turkey east of the Mediterranean Sea. He is preparing to take the gospel east to Asia. But Paul hears from the Holy Spirit and the word is no, don’t go to Asia. So Paul tries to go north to the region of Bithnia around the Black Sea. Again, the Holy Spirit stops him. Not exactly knowing what to do, and being denied access both east and north, Paul turns west. He goes back toward the Mediterranean and comes to the port town of Troas. There in the night, Paul has a vision. He sees a man from Macedonia, the region west of Paul that we now know as the Greek peninsula. The man in Paul’s vision says to come over and help them.

That was what Paul needed. He acted on the sign. The Scripture says that immediately they sought to go. They concluded that they had been called to preach the gospel there. In the book of Acts, you might notice that right here, the pronouns shift from third to second person, form he/they to we. In other words, we may assume that now Luke, the writer of the book, has joined Paul’s company for this journey.

          It’s worrisome trying to discern God’s call in our lives. God has a lot of competition, don’t you think? We hear many voices, get much advice. I read the other day that a modern grocery store in the United States carries an average of 25,000 items. For instance, there are 186 varieties of cereal. I’m sorry, but for me, that is choice overload. How are we supposed to make sense of all the choices with which we are faced? Even if we have chosen to follow God, what church do we join?  How do we become disciples? What exactly does Jesus want us to do and how is that revealed to us? The passage we are looking at provides us with some answers, though they may not be exactly in our comfort zone. Let’s take a closer look.

          Luke tells us that Paul and Silas were traveling and working together. In Derbe and Lystra, a young man named Timothy joins them. They are right at the doorstep of Asia. Paul thinks that’s where he’s supposed to go next, but a funny thing happens. Luke’s gospel says that they were forbidden by the Holy Spirit to go east into Asia. So Paul’s idea is shot down. He thinks of going north, but in preparing for that, he is shot down again. Instead, Paul receives a vision. He is to go west, back into Greece.

          So the Holy Spirit has found a way to speak to Paul, and Paul has let himself be led by the Spirit. So far, so good.  If God has called Paul to go west, then west it is. Surely there will be a warm reception for this group so dedicated to spreading the gospel. Well, according to what Luke tells us, not exactly. They get passage on a boat and go from Troas to Samothrace to Neapolis to Philippi. Luke tells us that Philippi was a leading city in Macedonia and that is was a Roman colony. What he doesn’t say here is that the Jewish population is so small in Philippi that there is not even a synagogue. There is no base of operations. Paul always started in the synagogue and worked his way out, but in Philippi that option was not available.

          Luke tells us that the group stayed in the city for some days. Then, on the Sabbath, with no synagogue in which to worship, this little band of evangelists “went outside the gate to the riverside.” They went there because they “supposed there was a place of prayer” there. And there they found a “group of women who had come together” and they spoke to them.

          Let’s stop here for a moment and revisit this sequence from the point of view of discipleship. Paul picks two wrong destinations, then embarks on a third based upon a vision in the night. His logic has led him two other directions, but instead he follows a dream.  Next, as he embarks upon this journey of unknown destination, Paul takes on not just Luke, but also young Timothy to look after. Third, they set sail and bypass three cities to arrive in a fourth city where there is no synagogue, no base from which to begin. Then, on the Sabbath, they go looking for a place of worship. The pickings are so slim that they leave the city, hoping they might find some kindred spirits out by the river. And last but far from least, they take their message to a few women gathered there. Women in that day and time had little to no influence. It was a male dominated society. Paul’s missionary journey so far looked amateurish, disorganized, unplanned and doomed for failure. Wrong direction, too many amateurs along for the ride, no advance planning, no base, no church, no contacts and now, an audience of women by the river. Paul had nothing in his toolbag with which to go soul-saving, much less church planting.

          Actually, Paul did have a couple things in that bag of his. He had faith. He was obedient to the Holy Spirit. And he adapted. Paul understood that the success of his mission did not depend on his talent or even his work ethic. It depended on his faith and obedience, and how he could bring those traits to bear in a given situation.

          The rest of the story is about what God can do with faith and obedience and a little adaptability. One of the women in the prayer group was named Lydia. She was up from Thyatira, a bustling city down the coast a ways. She was a merchant. She sold purple goods and in that day, that probably meant that she was well to do. It turns out that Lydia already believed in God.  Paul took her to the next level and told her about Jesus. She believed. She was baptized. So was her household. And guess what? Paul had a new base of operations.

The next chapter in Paul’s journey included a stint in jail for intruding on the local economy of several merchants who were cashing in on the misfortunes of a slave-girl possessed by a demon. Dealing with the demon cost Paul and Silas their freedom. Then there is the earthquake and a jailor who becomes a convert and quite a few other adventures. Once again, Paul and Silas get the boot, but isn’t it interesting where they head? The chapter ends with them on the way to Lydia’s house.

What did Paul accomplish and how did he accomplish it? Later, Philippi was to have its own Christian following. And on that Sabbath, Paul faithfully and obediently brought the message of the gospel to an unlikely audience of women praying at the river. No church. No synagogue. No men. Just a prayer group of women. One of them turned out to be the first convert for Jesus in Macedonia.

But what about Paul? He made all those tactical mistakes. How could he experience any success? The answer lies in verse 14 in our passage today. “The Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what was said.” The Greek nouns here are informative. When we read that Lydia was a worshipper of God, the Greek word is theos, which means God. When we read that Lydia’s heart was opened by the Lord, the Greek word changes to kurios, which means Lord.  This is a different name. It is used almost always in the New Testament to mean Jesus. Jesus, not Paul, opened Lydia’s heart. That’s why she heard Paul and that’s how she became the first Asian convert on record.

You see, it doesn’t matter that Paul got it wrong. It doesn’t matter that his missionary journey was ill conceived and poorly planned. What matters is that Paul faithfully showed up, as Luke tells it, because “God had called us to preach the gospel to them” What matters is that Paul and company were obedient to that call. What matters is that Paul learned to adapt not his values, but his style and delivery, to suit the needs of the audience he had. It didn’t matter that it was a woman’s prayer group on the riverbank instead of a congregation of hundreds or thousands. Paul was obedient to the call.

When the voices of the world crowd in on us, we have to listen for that still, small voice. Sometimes it may even come in a dream. When the choices of our existence scream for our attention, we have to believe and be obedient to that voice. When we are given the opportunity, we have to labor outside the gate, just like Paul did. He found a way to get the message out. We have to go where God sends us, say what God tells us, do what God bids us. When we do, the Lord will “open hearts to pay attention to what we say.”