Calling on His Name

Joel 2: 23-32

 

 

I spent half of last week in a retreat about small churches and new pastors. The retreat was in the mountains. The weather was perfect, the food was great, and the company was challenging and dedicated. It was wonderful and uplifting. If you can't get into the life of Christ on a mountain in the company of other pastors and lay leaders, then you've really got some remediation to do with your faith. The problem is you can't stay on the mountain. Sooner or  later, you have to come back down into reality. Reality is loaded with all those things you didn't have to deal with on the mountain, from money and bills to groceries and traffic. So the last few days, I have been dealing with those realities and it has caused me to reflect on where I am and where I'm going.

As I began to read again from the prophet Joel, I tried to look at his words not only in his time, but in our time. I also found myself

musing on how the messages of the last few weeks fit together. I took a look back for a common thread.

Several weeks ago, we looked at a passage in 2 Timothy, where the apostle Paul encouraged his disciple Timothy to fan into flame the gift of God, the gift of the Holy Spirit who lives in you, to guard the good deposit of your faith by sharing it with others. Paul was talking to Timothy, but the message is for every believer.

The next week, we looked at Peter as he engaged with Jesus on the seashore at the end of John's gospel right before the ascension of  our Lord  into  heaven.  The question for  Peter  is the same  question for every believer. "Do you love me?" asks Jesus. "Feed my sheep."  We must realize that to love Jesus is to spend that love on someone  else. That is our commissioning for service in God's kingdom here on earth.

Last week, Luke's gospel reaffirmed that concept of · selflessness, when Jesus told Pharisees and disciples alike that "Whoever seeks to preserve  his life will lose it, but whoever loses his

life will keep it."  "For what does it profit a man if he gains the

whole world and loses or forfeits himself?" The real meaning of your life as a Christian involves giving yourself to others. This is how you will find the person that God created you to be.

Okay. I can see a common thread. Guard the good  deposit of  the Holy Spirit in me. Accept God's commissioning for service. Give your life away to others and you find the best of yourself. But why? Why do we do these things? Well, maybe the prophet Joel can shed some light on that for  us.

Joel is one of those Minor Prophets about whom we know nothing personal. Depending on which commentary you read, he was just before or after the exile of God's people to Babylon. Joel talks about enemy invasion of both Jerusalem and Judah. He paints  a pretty bleak picture. But then, Joel turns to hope, hope that promises deliverance from those enemies and hope that prophesies a special promise of the new age of the Spirit. In that last section, his words sound like a vision, a vision of the world to come, the age of the eschaton. The eschaton is the descriptive term for the end times,

the last days.

Joel starts the good news by saying to fear not, to be glad and rejoice (v.21). The good news is for not only the people, but also for the land, and for the animals that inhabit it. This is good news for the creation. God talks about Judah's shame here. He's not talking about locusts and grasshoppers, but rather defeat and exile at the hands of the enemies of God's people. And God promises that his people shall never again be put to shame. This is covenant language. God is making a promise.

Let's pause here to remind ourselves why God's people need deliverance, whether from drought or war or exile. The reason they need deliverance is because their condition results from disobedience. If they had been faithful, they would not be in this predicament and Joel would have nothing to write about. But just like me and you, they have not been obedient. Joel prophesies that two things are about to change. The first is that God will be in their midst. The second is that God announces again that he is the Lord their God and there is no one else. Again, this is basic covenant

language that God has said before. Here through Joel, he re-affirms

those covenants of old, but the implication is still there that God's people must obey the first commandment to have no other gods before him and to be truly obedient.

Why? Why should we do these things? Why would we want to guard the good deposit of the Holy Spirit in us? Why accept God's commissioning for service? Why give your life away to others?

Because when we do so, we will find God in our midst, and that's a game changer.

If you are reading along in the book of Joel, now you have come to the good stuff, the stuff that makes us imagine, that makes the hair on the back of our necks stand up. Listen to the words of the prophet:

And it shall come to pass afterward,

That I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh;  your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream  dreams,

and your young men shall see visions. Even on the male and female servants in those days I will pour out my  Spirit.

 

Now Joel has led us into the world of the eschaton, the end times.

 

And it shall come to pass afterward... When is afterward? It's the Day of

 

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the Lord. The second coming. Then, God will pour out his Spirit on all flesh. All flesh! Peter, infused with the power of the Holy Spirit as the presence of the Church begins to make itself known, quotes Joel in Acts 2:17 to the effect that God will save the Jews. Paul ta.kes it a step further in Galatians, where Paul says that if you are baptized, if you believe, in Christ, then there is no bar ... not Jew or Greek or slave or free or male or female. All who believe are one in Christ (3: 27, 28, 29).

Joel ends this section with even more good news. On the Day of the Lord, he says that God will show wonders in the heavens and on the  earth. There is one more promise, one more covenant, and it's a big one. Joel says that it shall come to pass that everyone who calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved.

How are you saved? Joel tells us way back eight centuries before Jesus arrives on the scene. Call upon the name of the Lord. To call on God's name doesn't just mean to holler out for God. It doesn't just mean that you acknowledge his existence or his presence or even to pray to him. Calling upon the name of the Lord means to worship him, to, in the words of Proverbs 3, acknowledge him in all our ways and let him direct

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our paths. Those questions I was asking about where I am and where I'm going? These are the answers.

So God's story is written. It is there for us to read. It is there for us    to see. It is there in our hearts if we do not close those hearts to the Holy Spirit. What does God's story do to you? What is your story? You are writing it right now. Are you calling on the name of the Lord? If you are, then you are feeling the presence of the  Holy Spirit. If you are, then you  are living unselfishly. If you are, then you are finding God in your midst. And if you are, then you are saved.

They told me on that mountain to preach as if I'm a dying man. I think they were right. So now let me tell you, my dear friends in the faith, listen and apply these truths as if your life hangs in the balance. It does!

Waiting on the Vision

Habakkuk 1: 1-4, 2: 1-4

 

 

          Timing is everything. You hear that all the time. Timing is everything. There’s a lot of truth to that. In baseball, a batter must match the break of his wrists with the variable speed of a baseball thrown in his direction. If he is off a tenth of a second, he has failed. A skier hurls him or herself down a mountain slope at breakneck speed and medals are won and lost over a hundredth of a second. Timing is everything.

          History is full of last second reprieves from danger and destruction. Romance novels are loaded with chance encounters that change the course of lives. Everywhere we look, we see timers, from clocks to ovens to microwaves to appointment books. We seem to be a people who want to know when. We don’t have a lot of patience and what patience we do have is conditioned upon our contracts with time.

          The scriptures are replete with warnings about changing and turning back and repenting while there is still time. The prophets warned of it. Jesus talked about it. He warned us in parables and stories about staying ready, for when the time is up, it’s too late. Paul echoed that in his letters. Yet the Psalmist reminds us that “a thousand years in your sight are but as yesterday when it is past, or as a watch in the night” [Psalm 90].  Then Peter, the guy who was always so impetuous, echoes the words of the Psalmist, saying that “with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day” [2Peter 3: 8].

         So with God, timing isn’t important, right? Wrong. Nothing could be further from the truth. It just that we folks down here don’t tell time the way God does. God orders the world, watches over his creation, adjusts the passage of nations the way we adjust our watches. It can be very frustrating for us to try to get his rhythm. We Westerners, especially Americans, are used to regulations. We always want to know what time it is.

          The book of Habakkuk is a pretty good example of what we’re talking about when we try to understand God’s timing. Habakkuk was a prophet to the southern kingdom of Judah, and probably in the sixth century BC along the time of good King Josiah. But Habakkuk probably also saw the reigns of Manasseh and Amon, who preceded Josiah. Under their reigns, the nation turned to Baal worship, engaged in child sacrifice, and in general became corrupt. Josiah turned it around for a time, but after his death, the nation quickly returned to its moral decay. Habakkuk lived in these times. The book itself is not a narrative or a sermon like so many others, but rather a conversation, much like the book of Job, between Habakkuk and God. Habakkuk asks. God answers. Habakkuk complains. God again answers.

          Habakkuk starts by crying out for God’s justice. Commentators call it a plaintiff cry. I know about plaintiff’s cries from practicing law. Every civil complaint is framed with similar words: “Comes now the plaintiff and prays the court.” The complainant is about to ask for relief, just like Habakkuk, who asks God: “how long shall I cry for help…Why do you make me see iniquity.” There is corruption in the land, and Habakkuk wants to know why God tolerates it. Then, Habakkuk complains. There is destruction and violence and strife and contention. And the law is paralyzed and justice never comes. Why, cries Habakkuk.

          By the end of this short prophetic book, the prophet has resolved to endure…to endure the wait, to endure the judgment. He commits himself, like Job, to rejoice in the Lord. Remember that phrase, for we will come back to it. So what happens in between the first and third chapters that causes so much movement on the part of the prophet?

          Habakkuk cries out to God in question and in protest. Don’t we do the same? We believe that the Lord is on our side, but there are many times we do not understand or we are hurt and we too cry out. This passage speaks to us because here is a prophet who cries out how long and why, looking for answers. He has not been heard, or at least, that is his position. Believers are promised answers and Habakkuk isn’t getting any.

          But God does answer. He speaks to the prophet, but his words do not soothe. God says he is doing a work in that day that would not be believed if told. Then he does tell Habakkuk. God tells him that he is sending the Chaldeans, i.e. the Babylonians, to destroy and capture Judah. This is not the news that Habakkuk wants to hear. And yet, Habakkuk does something remarkable. He complains, of course. He objects. He in effect calls God on the carpet, asking if God will keep on killing nations forever. He compares God and his nation-killing to a fisherman emptying his nets.  But then, the prophet does this incredible thing. He says to God: “I will take my stand at my watchpost…and look to see what he (God) will say to me.”  He is a watchman, looking out to find and discern God’s Word, not just for him but also for God’s people.  Habakkuk is hurt and confused, but at God’s actions and inactions—not at God himself. There is a difference, and that difference is profound. He understands that he does not have the wisdom to digest these divine actions.

          God answers again. He tells the prophet to write the vision, to make it plain on tablets. The tablet reference may be a cue to remind Habakkuk and his people of the days of the Exodus, of Moses and the Ten Commandments written on two stone tablets. And God’s answer is as mystical as his existence. It is not meant so much to be understood as to be obeyed. He tells the prophet that the vision awaits its appointed time. We have heard about appointed times before, like the appointed time for Sarah to bear a child, or the appointed time for Christ to come on earth. God’s vison awaits its appointed time, and so do the people of the covenant. Here we are again looking at things of the end times, the eschaton. When will God’s appointed time be? It will be at the end, says God in the book of Habakkuk. God says that his appointed time hastens to the end.

          Well, it sure doesn’t seem like haste to us. I bet it didn’t feel like haste to Habakkuk either, especially in light of God’s promise of destruction of Judah for its sin. If the end is the Day of the Lord, the end of the age, then we are back to waiting on the end of time as we know it.  And God tells Habakkuk that if it seems slow, wait for it. Not much comfort. God promises that the end will come, and he tells the prophet that between here and there, we, those who would be righteous, that is, right with God, shall live by faith.  John Calvin commented on the grace to which Habakkuk refers in this way: it is “that faith which strips us of all arrogance, and leads us naked and needy to God, that we may seek salvation from him alone, which would otherwise be far removed from us.”

          God’s message is far from doom and gloom. God goes on to promise that the Babylonians will be destroyed and that there will be restoration, that the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord. In a final statement of his sovereignty, God’s answer is this: “But the Lord is in his holy temple; let all the earth keep silence.”

          And what of our prophet? Has he been answered? Have his questions been resolved, his complaints addressed? The answer is yes. For Habakkuk, his faith will be enough. He says that though there is no harvest, no blooms, no flocks, yet still, he will rejoice in the Lord. He will take joy in the God of our salvation, who is our Lord and our strength. The man has come from complainant to relieved. He has his prayer for relief answered in his faith. Remember Peter’s words? With the Lord a day is like a thousand years. Here is the rest of that passage. “The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.”

          I’m thinking about a few times in my own life when I had to learn to wait upon the Lord. There was a time when I thought I would be childless. Now I have four children and six grandchildren. There was a time when I thought I would practice law all my life. Now my office building is for sale. There was a time when God called me and yet, it is ten years into that journey and only now am I qualified to seek ordination. I too asked why and how long just like Habakkuk. Now I think I can begin to see. I had to learn to live by faith. I had to learn to wait upon the Lord—to wait on the vision.

                              The Lord is in his holy temple

                              Let all the earth---keep silence.

Losers Finders, Keepers Weepers

Luke 17: 20-36

 

 

          There’s a great routine that Abbott and Costello used to do. Abbott and Costello, by the way, are a comedy team who were famous in the 1950’s.  Many of you have seen the baseball skit. It’s a routine about a baseball team called “Who’s on First?” In the skit, all the ballplayers are named pronouns. Who is on first, What is on second, I Don’t Know is on third. Costello keeps asking for the names of the players and Abbott keeps telling him these pronouns. It drives Costello crazy trying to figure it out.

          Sometimes when you read Luke’s gospel, you might feel the same way Lou Costello did. Luke starts a scene with Jesus talking to the Pharisees, and before you know it, he has turned and is addressing the disciples. It’s easy to miss that segway. When you do, the passage doesn’t make as much sense. You need to know Jesus’ audience, and Luke switches around at will. It can be hard to keep up.  He does it in our passage today when, at the end of the 17^th chapter, Jesus talks about the coming of the kingdom.

          The Pharisees want to know when the kingdom of God will come. Don’t we all!  Jesus says that it won’t come with any signs.  People will not look up in the sky and say Oh wow, there’s the kingdom of God coming down! Then, Jesus says, the kingdom of God is in the midst of you. Some translations say “within” or “inside” you. Some say “among” you. The Greek word is entos (εντος), which can mean any and all of those translations. Is the kingdom of God within you? Is the kingdom of God among you? It would seem that context is important here to figure out what Jesus is saying. Without context, it could be either one.

          The coming of Jesus certainly heralded the Messianic Age and, by definition, that was the beginning of the end times. The resurrection and ascension of Christ prompted the arrival of the promised Holy Spirit, beginning with Pentecost. So in that sense, the kingdom of God can certainly be said to be within us to some degree or another, as we experience the presence of the Holy Spirit.

          But Jesus was talking to the Pharisees. If anybody had a lack of Holy Spirit and a poor prognosis for getting a good dose of it, that would be the Pharisees. So when we look at context, and the context here is that Jesus was talking to the Pharisees, then what I think I see is Jesus saying that the kingdom of God is among you. In other words, Jesus looked at those Pharisees and said to them: You wanna see the kingdom of God? Look no further. Here I stand. God incarnate. It’s as plain as the nose on your face, provided you can see.

          But the Pharisees couldn’t see. Nor could they hear. They were looking for God on their terms and he wasn’t interested in their terms. Now of course we don’t do that. We are much wiser than the Pharisees. We don’t want God to be a Sunday at 11 God, do we? We don’t want God to be a Presbyterian God, do we? We don’t want God to be an American God, do we? We wouldn’t want God to be neatly packaged and available on request, now would we? Of course not. We would never do such a thing.

          So Jesus turns to his disciples. Now that’s much more like an affinity group for Jesus. They are his followers.  They get it when he talks, right. And he says to them: The days are coming when you would like to see me again, but you won’t. But when I do come, it will be like lightning. What Jesus meant was a sort of now you don’t see me, now you do thing.  Like Noah, there was the dryness and then there was the flood. No overcast days. Just a flood. Like Lot’s wife, there were all those good times, then get out and don’t look back. But she did look back. We know the end of that story. And Jesus says to his disciples: “Remember Lot’s wife.” When the kingdom of God comes once for all, there will be no warning. Don’t come down from your work. Don’t turn back for anything. It will be too late for that.

          Well, does it help to be a disciple rather than a Pharisee? Do you think the disciples knew what Jesus meant? We know now. I’m not so sure they knew then. What did Jesus mean?

          Jesus says in verse 33 that “Whoever seeks to preserve his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life will keep it.” He also said as much in Matthew and Mark’s gospels. What does Jesus mean? In the ninth chapter of this same gospel, Jesus is talking to the twelve disciples after feeding the five thousand, and he says something very similar about losing and finding oneself. And then he follows it with this thought: “For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself?”

          What, indeed! What if I win the race, or pass the test, or obtain the degree, or get the promotion, but I cheated to get there? What if I spend my life getting and spending, only to have to decide in an eye blink whether to hold on to my stuff, my way of life, or to give it all up for a chance at the kingdom of God? What if, what if? I have to go bury my father, said the young man. I have to check on my friends, my livestock, my real estate, my bank account. What if in an attempt to sustain my way of life, my sense of self, my traditions, I ally myself with something or someone who violates all that is sacred to me for the hope that somehow, some way, my lifestyle will be preserved. That’s what Jesus is challenging us to look at.

          There’s an old saying all of us are familiar with. Finders keepers, losers weepers. Think about that. I found it, so it’s mine. No matter what the equities are. There’s a similar saying that even permeates legal thinking. Possession is nine tenths of the law. These old saws say a lot about us and the way we come at life. There’s nothing unselfish about these sayings. They are our attempts to justify what we have, what we want. They cut to the heart of self-preservation. It’s mine. I found it. I’ve got it. Losers weepers!

          Jesus suggests that to employ such a lifestyle is to guarantee the loss of all that really counts. What does it profit you to gain the whole world if in the process the person you were made to be disappears? Do you really want what remains? Jesus suggests a different set of priorities. How about Losers Finders, Keepers Weepers? If you want to find the real meaning of your life, then give yourself to others. Lose yourself, your selfishness—and you will find the person that God created. If you instead choose to keep what you have created for yourself, you can only lose in the end. And that will make you weep when you realize what you have lost.

          Both the Pharisees and the disciples want to know about the end. What happens at the end? We want to know too! And Jesus himself tells us here in this passage. It will come in the blink of an eye. It will be swift and decisive.  There will be no time to modify our behavior or change our priorities. Life as we know it will end. The kingdom of God will arrive forever. Our lives will end here on earth, but our lives will not end. Life never ends. It just changes addresses.

          Jesus said, remember Lot’s wife. He was referring to a person who was warned, given a chance to get out. She was warned not to look back. But she was so selfish, so concerned with what she had accumulated, that she had to see for herself. It cost her everything.

You can’t take it with you; all that stuff you fought so hard to preserve. If you try, you too will be lost. Ask a survivor of Hurricane Matthew. Over and over and over, survivors who have lost everything they own are interviewed, and what do they say? Thank God. Here I stand. I can start over because I was spared.

          Don’t wait until a hurricane or some other disaster comes calling. The time for change is not when you are out of time. It’s now. Right now. Losers finders. Be a finder. Give your life, all of it, to Jesus. He’ll give it right back to you, in a new, improved model that will never wear out.

Commissioned to Service

John 21: 1-17

 

 

          In the gospel of John, Jesus shows up on the shoreline for breakfast. It is after his resurrection. Seven of the disciples are there. It is daybreak. They have been out in the boat all night, though that in itself is not unusual. That was the norm for fisherman on the Sea of Galilee. They have had a miserable night with nothing to show for their efforts—until this unidentified stranger shows up. He tells them to cast their nets on the other side of the boat. Why they bothered to listen to him is anybody’s guess, but they did.  Then, the catch is so great, 153 fish in all, that it’s a wonder the net holds without breaking. Get this. Legend has it that the number of fish caught equals exactly the number of varieties of fish in the Sea of Galilee!

          John recognizes Jesus. That’s all Peter needs. Our impetuous Peter puts on his outer garment, plunges in the water and swims the hundred yards or so to the shore. When the boat arrives, they discover that Jesus has a fire going with fish and bread cooking. They have breakfast and are sitting around, probably telling fish stories. Then Jesus speaks to Peter. “Peter,” he said, “Do you love me?” “Yes Lord, you know that I love you,” says Peter. Jesus answers: “Feed my lambs.”

          Jesus asks a second time: “Peter, do you love me,” and Peter answers “Yes, Lord. you know that I love you.” And Jesus says, “Feed my sheep.”

          Yet a third time, Jesus addresses Peter saying: “Peter, do you love me?” For a third time, Peter answers Jesus: “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” And for the third time, Jesus answers: “Feed my sheep.”   I’m guessing that it was occurring to Peter that Jesus had asked him about his love and loyalty three times, the same number that Peter denied Jesus on the night of his arrest. Don’t you know how that must have broken Peter! And yet, right there for him and the disciples to see, was restoration. The Master was restoring Peter to ministry and service.          

          John gives us two wonderful word pictures here. The first is the catch. First of all, the net is full. It can’t hold any more. Secondly, the catch is of all the varieties of fish in the sea. If the catch were men and women, they would be from all walks of life. They would be from all nations and continents. They would be men, women and children. And like the full, almost bursting net, there will be many…enough to fill heaven!

          Then there is this wonderful exchange between Jesus and Peter.  Regardless of what Peter had failed to do in the past, here he is again with an opportunity. The friend and companion and teacher, now the risen Savior, asks Peter if he gets the message. You see, Jesus has a job for Peter, an assignment. But first, Peter has to get the message.  And the message of our Savior is love. Just love, plain and simple. Jesus asks us not once but three times: Do you love me?

          In the gospel of John, this is the last time the disciples saw Jesus. And Jesus acted not like a god, but a friend. He had breakfast with them. Then, knowing he was not to see them again on this side of heaven, he chose Peter as the receiver of that last message. Peter is you and me, the guy who acts before he thinks. He tries to walk on water. On the mountain top at the Transfiguration, he makes small talk and offers to build shelters for Elijah and Moses and Jesus, as if they were going to have a camporee.  He slices off the ear of a temple guard as though he is going to physically take on the religious leaders. He denies his friend Jesus three times. And here, he jumps into the sea fully clothed to swim to shore instead of bringing in the boat. He is recklessly impulsive. But he is full of love, and that’s what Jesus is looking for.

          Peter probably didn’t realize at the time that he was filling out a job application. Jesus wants to know. Do you love me? Because if you do, I have a job for you. All you need is love.    

          It is as though Jesus is talking to us as his friends, and that is not a mirage. Jesus is our friend. Earlier in this same gospel, Jesus tells us that “greater love hath no man, than he lay down his life for his friend.” Do you love me? he asks. The answer is not just yes. We must realize that to love Jesus is to spend that love on someone else. Love is the currency of heaven and not unlike a bank that pays interest on your investments, when you spend the love of Jesus on your fellow man, the Holy Spirit that dwells within you grows you a bigger heart and more ability to serve.

          D.A. Carson in his commentary on John notes that the ministry described by Jesus is in verbs, not nouns. Jesus commands us to tend and feed, not to be something or to hold something. Jesus wants us to act, not hold office. And it is Jesus’ sheep, not ours or Peter’s, that are to be tended and fed.  So use love as a verb. Don’t just talk about love. Do love!

          Feed my sheep, said Jesus. Peter heard him. It was a commission. The others heard him. They spent the rest of their lives finding lost sheep and feeding them. Jesus didn’t care about what Peter had done wrong. He doesn’t care about what you’ve done wrong, either. Jesus cares about what you have learned and what you do with that information. He doesn’t want you to do a thing for him. He wants you to do for others. Feed his sheep! That’s the way you show that you love him. Peter got another chance and he used it. He loved Jesus by loving others, by spreading the gospel.

                    Jesus came to teach us love, and to teach us that love is enough. Listen to that and try to take it in. Jesus came to teach us to love, and to teach us that love is enough. We really need nothing else save the commitment that follows such love. Jesus told Peter that the day would come when he too would stretch out his hands and be carried where he did not want to go, gesturing in a way that would be reminiscent of death on the cross. Then he said to Peter: “Follow me.” Sometimes real love comes with great sacrifice… and always with steadfast diligence.  That’s the story of Christian discipleship. Peter had spent three years following Jesus as his disciple. When he was restored and recommissioned that day at the seashore, it was Jesus who gave the same command: “Follow me.” This time, the call to follow has taken on a deeper meaning.

          John was such a great writer, so sublime, so illuminating to us. Paul was the great evangelist. He traveled to the ends of the known world to bring the gospel to the gentiles. What was Peter? What was his place? He was just a humble, impetuous fisherman. But in the hands of Jesus, he became the shepherd, the shepherd of the sheep of Christ.

         What are you? Who are you?  Do you love him? If you really love him, then you have a job to do. Yes, Peter is you …and me. Commissioned to service. You don’t need to be an orator or a writer or an evangelist to be a disciple. But you do need to love him. Then you will want to follow. “Feed my sheep,” he said to Peter… and to us.

 

Let us pray.     

Fanning the Flame

                                      2 Timothy 1: 1-14

 

 

          In the Boy Scouts, I learned how to build a fire. I learned that every fire needs three things: fuel, air and heat. Take away the fuel and there’s nothing to burn. Take away the oxygen and the fire can’t breathe. Take away the heat and the fire dies from lack of temperature. The same applies to keeping a fire going. You can always throw on another log and that adds fuel, but to keep the fire going all through the night and waking to some smoldering embers the next day, well, that takes practice.

The Spirit of God is a lot like a fire. You have to keep stoking it if you want it to keep burning. In the opening verses of the book of 2^nd Timothy, Paul talks to Timothy, his protégé, his pupil, his spiritual son, his brother in the faith. He is writing from prison. Paul knows his time is short. He is turning over the reins of his ministry to Timothy. He tells Timothy to fan the gift of God into flame. Paul is not talking about spiritual gifts that each of us is given. He does that elsewhere. Here, he is talking about the gift of God’s Spirit. He’s talking about the Holy Spirit, the part of God that lives within us and makes us good and whole and real—and human. And Paul says that God’s Spirit gives us power, love and self-control. Paul says that God’s Spirit first gives us power, power like the fuel it takes to feed a fire. Second, Paul says that God’s Spirit gives us love, love like the oxygen it takes to keep a fire going. Third, the gift of God’s Spirit gives us self-control, self-control like the temperature needed to maintain a fire.

In the same way that you can’t make a fire without the right environment, neither can you let the Holy Spirit dwell within you until you have faith. Paul talks about that in this letter to Timothy. He says that he is reminded of Timothy’s sincere faith, a faith that is now three generations deep, thanks to Timothy’s mother and grandmother. That resonates with Paul. He understands how important it is to be brought up in the Christian faith, how great a foundation that builds. It is an environment of Christian thought and practice that is crucial to spiritual development, and Timothy has enjoyed that from his youth. Paul says that he is sure that such a faith also resides in Timothy. This is a wonderful thing, and something to emulate in Christian homes today. If we are exposed to matters of Christian faith by our families, we can only benefit from such exposure.

And yet, as we read Paul’s words, we realize that while growing up in a Christian family is of great benefit to our development, it is neither a guarantee nor is it enough. There must be more. There must be something inside us that claims God’s promises and cultivates them in our own walk with God. Paul reminds us that the Holy Spirit dwells in us. This theme of Christ indwelling us through the Holy Spirit is repeated throughout Paul’s letters. It is elemental to his theology. The Holy Spirit dwells within us. What good comes from us comes as a result of that indwelling. It is not us, but God in us, that makes us capable of reaching salvation, even of acting out our Christianity.

          And so, Paul exhorts Timothy, and us, those called to ministry to our brother and our neighbor, to fan into flame the gift of God, that is, to stoke the fires of faith in order to keep the gift of the Holy Spirit alive and well in us. And let’s be clear about ministry. If you’re a believer, then you are called to ministry. Ministry is what believers do, not who they hire.  

According to Paul in this passage, that Spirit, the Holy Spirit, has three characteristics. They are power, love and self-control. By power, I don’t think Paul is referring to power like the President or like some ruler, but rather the kind of power that shows itself in strength and perseverance. It is boldness. If fear enters the equation, it is overshadowed by this power to keep moving, to keep witnessing, to keep the faith. Theologian Philip Towner says that such power is “linked to witness and willingness to undergo suffering” for the sake of the gospel. In our analogy to fire, power is the fuel that generates heat, and that heat can keep a fire going forever if there is air to let it breathe.

The second mark of the Spirit is love. In verse 13, Paul tells Timothy to follow his words and to do so because they are grounded in the faith and love of Jesus Christ. So love as used here is an abiding, faithful action of self-sacrifice and generosity. In our fire analogy, love might be likened to the oxygen needed to keep a fire burning. If the fire can’t breathe, it goes out. No matter how great the heat or how plentiful the fuel, no fire can last without air. It has to breathe. Love is that breath of air that keeps the Holy Spirit able to burn within us. God breathed it in us from the beginning.

The third mark of the Spirit is self-control. I wish it were something else. Self-control is hard for me. Some call it self-discipline or prudence or even moderation. No matter what it’s called, it’s the hardest one for me. I just want to go full speed ahead, sort of like the Dale Earnhardt approach to racing. Those of you who follow racing know what I mean. Earnhardt never used his brakes. He won a lot of races, but he also blew a lot of engines. Maybe that’s what Paul means when he talks about self-control being part of the three aspects of the presence of the Holy Spirit within us. It’s that aspect of the Spirit that keeps us from blowing engines. In our fire analogy, self-control is the heat, enough to keep us warm, even glowing, but not enough to consume us. Small enough to be contained in the fire pit, but hot enough to keep us cooking.

Paul closes this section by calling on us to “guard the good deposit that was entrusted to you—guard it with the help of the Holy Spirit who lives in us.” What is the good deposit? It is the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is that God made us, loves us, came for us, died for us, saves us, will come for us again. And Paul warns us to guard it with our lives.

Maybe the point of this challenge from Paul is simply this. The gospel is the end line. It is the story and the answer. Nothing is more important, and when you see that, it is because God has drawn you into an awakening that changes your life. That is the good deposit. Once you have it, you must treasure it and guard it. But in the language of God, to guard your faith is to share your faith.

So fan that flame of the Holy Spirit who lives in you. Not so hard that it consumes you, but tirelessly and consistently, so that it will never go out—and so all who see will want what God has given you.                             

Statements of Faith; Acts of Trust

                                      Jeremiah 32:1-3, 6-15

 

 

          Ever notice that the Bible is a whole lot about choices? Noah has to ignore his neighbors and build the world’s biggest boat on dry land. Abraham has to choose to follow God, not only into a foreign land, but even to an altar where his son Isaac lies bound for sacrifice.  Moses has to choose God over common sense to go back to Egypt. Joshua gathers the people of God in the Promised Land and says “Choose this day whom you will serve.” Satan himself comes for Jesus in the desert and promises him the world. Jesus has a choice to make at the very beginning of his ministry. His choice will define what else will happen with that ministry. The Bible is a whole collection of choices made.

          The teachings of Jesus make it clear that all we have to do is choose God—choose Jesus—choose the gospel and salvation is our reward. There can not really be any doubt among Christians that we can’t earn our way. We have a choice to make. We can choose Jesus…or we can choose anything, anyone, else. Choices. They can save us…and they can destroy us. Every choice has consequences.

          Today, Jeremiah tells us a story about hope…and about choices. His story is about a land deal. We’ll come back to that. Right now, let’s talk about another story of hope. Reading Jeremiah brought a story to mind. There’s a film, about twenty years old now, called Hope Floats. It’s about a woman whose husband is unfaithful. She moves home with her daughter from the big city. Going back to the small town is tough on her. She has gone from the envy of all to the girl whose husband left her. She sees herself as a failure. The very fact that she does makes for a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy. She wallows in self-pity in her mother’s house until one day, her mother sweeps in like a fresh breeze, throws open the windows, lets the sun shine in and says “Get out there! Get the stink blown off you!” Rousted resentfully from her self-pity, she begins the job of putting herself back together. On the way, she finds people still want to love her, still want to believe in her. She does indeed blow the stink off her and finds her way back from failure. She chooses to show faith, in herself and in others, and she makes her statement of faith, one step at a time.

          It is the eighteenth year of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, the king of mighty Babylon. It is the tenth year of the reign of Zedekiah, king of the southern kingdom of Judah. Though Zedekiah was king, he had been pretty much placed there ten years before by Nebuchadnezzar. He was the last King of Judah. Jerusalem is under siege. Within a year, it will fall and the people of Judah will be carried off into exile. Jeremiah is imprisoned. Zedekiah has called him seditious for his views. He is prophesying defeat. He is even advocating that the people should get used to Babylonian life, as they will be gone a long time.  He says that the king himself will be captured and taken to Babylon. In the midst of such doom and gloom prophecy which, by the way, was completely accurate, the imprisoned prophet of a people under siege from a vastly superior force takes some very interesting personal steps. He makes a choice of his own.

          Jeremiah’s uncle comes to see him about a piece of land. We need to set the scene here to get the real picture. First, Jeremiah is “shut up in the court of the palace guard”; that is, he is not accessible. Second, his uncle apparently doesn’t live in Jerusalem. Third, Jerusalem is under siege. Fourth, real estate prices have plummeted. This is the recession to end all recessions. So when uncle Hanamel shows up on Jeremiah’s doorstep and says he want Jeremiah to exercise his right of redemption and buy a field in Anathoth, which is several miles outside Jerusalem, Jeremiah says this: “Then I knew that this was the word of the Lord.” Say what? There’s no way this can happen. Jeremiah is under guard. Jerusalem is under siege. Judah is under attack. And uncle Hanamel shows up against all odds and wants Jeremiah to do the dumb thing of the day. Invest in a piece of property that almost certainly will be claimed by the invading army, to which Jeremiah says, this must be a sign from God. Isn’t it funny how so often, divine guidance comes riding in on the train of everyday life? The very presence of Jeremiah’s uncle at the court of the guard was the guidance Jeremiah needed.

          So what does Jeremiah do? He buys a piece of land. The man is under arrest and the wolf is at the door and he buys a piece of real estate. He tells his scribe Baruch to “take the deeds and put them in an earthenware vessel, that they may last for a long time.” We know that works, because of our discovery of centuries old manuscripts in 1948 in earthen pots. We call them the Dead Sea scrolls. Why in the world would Jeremiah do such a thing? He answers that question for us. “For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Houses and fields and vineyards shall again be bought in this land” [v. 15].

          Jeremiah made a choice. He made his own personal statement of faith in God. He trusted God’s words and he acted in faith. In that act, he made a huge statement to those around him. The Babylonian armies were literally poised for the final assault on Jerusalem. Everyone knew that their method of conquest included dispersion of the population into exile. And Jeremiah bought a piece of land. What a powerful affirmation of his trust in God! What a statement of faith about the future of God’s people and God’s promise!

          When I was talking about this subject with my wife Cindy, she reminded me that in the early years of our marriage, and when our finances were stretched, when my business was thin and the cash flow was meager, those were the times that I was wont to show up with an unannounced semi-extravagant purchase.  It was my way of stepping out on faith, of saying to myself and to her that God would provide and that I just needed to have faith and keep showing up. I think Cindy got worn a little thin by those acts of faith, but she never really challenged me on it. As I look back, I realize that maybe that was Cindy’s act of faith in her husband…that she was also making a choice, a choice to support me even when my behavior might have looked a bit irrational.

          God is always coming through for us. Isn’t it nice when occasionally, we step way out of our comfort zone, like Noah, and Joshua, and Jeremiah…and come through for God. Jeremiah bought that field as a symbol, a symbol of his belief in God’s promise. Don’t you just love the Jeremiah’s of this world! They stand up. They refuse not to be counted. They act on their faith!

This church has done something a little like that. We have banded together as God’s people and said that we worship not as the culture tells us, but rather as the Scriptures inform us through the Holy Spirit. We too have made a choice. Now that the choice has been made, it is for us to live out that choice. But we have the words of the Lord to guide us, even from days of old. As God told Jeremiah that houses and vineyards would once again be bought in the land, we might feel his presence here today, saying to us in 21^st century context:

Trust me. I haven’t left. I never will. And no matter how bleak it may sometimes look, your future is bright and my promise is real. You are my children! Keep the faith!

When we hear such a message, from whatever source it may come, may we join with Jeremiah and say “Then I knew that this was the voice of the Lord.” May we trust in him and step out on that limb, build that boat, buy that piece of land…invest in that faith!            Amen.

 

 

     Written On Your Heart

                                      Jeremiah 31:31-34

 

 

          It can’t be fifteen years, can it? As I wrote the date into this week’s bulletin, there it was. 9/11. Though a full fifteen years have passed, that day is scorched into my memory as I am sure it is yours. The news. The planes. The incredible reality that our own passenger jetliners had been hijacked to use as bombs. Those massive buildings collapsing in lower Manhattan in a heap of steel, concrete and humanity. Thousands of lives lost. For me, that may have been the day when I would have been just as happy with delayed news coverage. There was no time to process the images coming on the screen. It was a front row seat to death happening in real time. I will never forget. Where have fifteen years gone? What have we learned from that day as a country, as friends and neighbors, as Christians?

The lessons we have taken from that day are both good and not so good. I remember the president saying the next day that 9/11 had forever changed the course of his administration. I remember hurting personally, hurting for basically total strangers to me except that they, like me, were citizens of this country. I cried that day. I cried for strangers, for loss, for the futility of it all, to see people choosing to jump to their deaths rather than to burn to death.

You may be sitting there thinking that you wish I wouldn’t be so graphic, that it was fifteen years ago and you would rather forget. But how do we forget images so powerful, so charged with hate and spite and fear and so many more deep emotions? Maybe we should not forget. Maybe we should remember. Maybe in that remembering, we can search for ways to make such things go away forever. It seems to me that we have to try as Christians to understand why. Where did that hate come from? What can we do to neutralize it? Where is God in such times?

The prophet Jeremiah lived in some crazy times himself.  He started his career as a prophet while still a teenager. Josiah was king and a good king he was. Jeremiah would see little of that. Over his forty year career, his ministry survived at least four more, evil kings, being taken as a prisoner to Egypt, watching as Jerusalem fell to the Assyrians, and later the Babylonians, during which his beloved people were thrown into captivity. Jeremiah experienced his own 9/11 and so did his people, in a much worse way that Osama Bid Laden and company caused the United States to suffer.   The people of God would labor through a seventy year exile.

Jeremiah is so famous now that it’s hard to believe that he had only two conversions of which we know. In forty years of ministry, only two people, his scribe Baruch and an Ethiopian eunuch who served the king, responded favorably to his preaching. And yet Jeremiah persevered, prophesying a return to favor with God and redemption of his people.

If we mark such days or events as 9/11 as catastrophic, as game-changing, as horror and meanness in world-class proportion, even then we must realize that our 9/11 must take its place in a long line, from the flood of Noah’s time to the exile of God’s people, to the Holocaust in Nazi Germany, to the genocide of millions in Rwanda in 1998.  In the history of the world, there are many 9/11s. They all cause unimaginable hurt. They all germinate from hatred and misunderstanding and intolerance.

It was 7:59 a.m. when American Airlines Flight 11 took off from Boston’s Logan Airport, 8:14 when United Flight 175 took off, also from Boston, 8:20 a.m. when American Flight 77 took off from Dulles Airport in Washington, and 8:41 when United Flight 93 took off from Newark. By 10:07 a.m., barely two hours later, all four planes had been turned into missiles of destruction by the enemy. And who was the enemy? Men without a country, a flag, men without uniforms or an organized army or navy. But they were not men without a cause. And their cause was every bit as religious and just to them as the pledge of allegiance is to us.  

Fifteen years later, we have taken recrimination against those responsible for 9/11. Bin Laden is dead. So are many of his followers. A war was launched on Iraq. These things are the natural outgrowth of attacks on our country. They are understandable and expected. Our country is safer than it was on this day fifteen years ago, but what do we know?? What have we learned?

Today, in Europe and in the United States, many call for the closing of our borders. Many see that as making us safe and insulated from the terrors of the world. And yet, we do commerce with that world, from China to the Middle East to Mexico. We want what they make, but not who they are. Their presence threatens us. 9/11 is still fresh in our minds.

Last week, Cindy and I gathered with her sisters and their husbands for our annual pilgrimage to the mountains to celebrate the end of summer and the beginning of a new season. Like many American families, we live in three different states and have different ways of looking at the same thing. Because I am now in ministry, conversation invariably turns to religion at some point. In the den of that mountain home, our views shared Protestant, Roman Catholic and agnostic leanings. We range from convinced to questioning to skeptical.  One struggles with the pummeling of his youth by those who believed without question and stifled inquiry. The questions now come in a torrent. Why believe the Bible? It’s a book. We have millions of books. Why do three great world religions all come from the lap of Abraham and yet differ on the importance of Jesus Christ? How do you reconcile hard science with the story of creation found in the Bible? Why do the Catholics have a different Bible than the Protestants? Why do the Jews, the people of God, reject Jesus? The questions came hard and fast and angry because when a kid once wanted answers, someone told that kid over and over to quit asking questions. And yet they are all good questions that the best of Christians struggle with at some level.

Where is the failure? It’s not with that little kid so many years ago, or today for that matter. It’s not with God; that’s for sure. The failure, if that’s what it is, might be called intolerance. It might be called fear. It might be called a lot of things, but what we can’t call it is understanding, or empathy, or tolerance, or dialogue…or even just patience.

In the thirtieth chapter of Jeremiah, the prophet hears the word of God from God himself, and God commands Jeremiah to write it down. So what follows in chapters 30 and 31 is what is commonly called an oracle, a repetition of the words of God by the prophet. And God says for the people to settle down in their captivity, to build houses and assimilate into the population, for it will be seventy years before they are allowed to return to their homeland. No wonder Jeremiah never won any popularity contests!

But Jeremiah had much more to say on God’s behalf, for God made a promise in chapter 31. We call it the New Covenant. It is a huge insight into the heart of God.  Gods says through Jeremiah:

I will set my law within them

I will write it on their hearts

I will be their God

They shall be my people

They shall all know me

For I shall forgive their iniquities

I will remember their sin no more.

 

Think about it. God had made a covenant with his people at Mt. Sinai. Moses brought down the law in two stone tablets. That covenant required two sides. You do this and I’ll do that. You obey and I’ve got your back. This new covenant isn’t two way. It’s one way. God is going to do it for us. It isn’t carved into stone. It’s written on our hearts.

          So God reaches out to the exiled people of Israel and says I love you so much that I will not let you get away. I will forgive and forgive and forgive. I will forget what you have done to me and I will come into your hearts and you will know me. Hundreds of years later, God literally came down the back steps of Bethlehem and grew up as one of us in order to fulfill that New Covenant. Jesus became the agent of redemption in a covenant that was articulated through Jeremiah in the midst of the exile of God’s people. Doesn’t God speak in mysterious ways!

          When we talk about 9/11, we have nothing on God. He sent himself, God the Son, to a hill of death. Yes he was a man…but His divinity in all its perfection climbed up on that cross as well. If all the sin of mankind was to be hanging in the balance, then it had to be God alone who was big enough to pay that ransom. It has been said that God’s plan of salvation rested between two rough-hewn beams of wood.

          That plan worked. God was there then. God was there at 9/11, crying for us as he cried for his Son. God is here now. He will always be here. The question for us is when we will notice. When will we notice that God doesn’t make wounds—he heals them? When will we understand that the answer is not to retaliate, but instead to invite someone to dinner?

          Men are about nation building. God is about surrender. Men are about pride and independence. God is about peace and love. It may sound like a hippie slogan from the 1960’s, but it still is true. We cannot get our world neighbors to understand us while we are killing them, or undermining their centuries old religious practices. We cannot get safe by isolation. How will they know God if they can’t see God in what we do, in who we are?

          I think that in this world in which we now live, there are no more Christian nations, if there ever were. But there are Christians within every nation. We need to stand up and show what is written on our hearts.