Keeping the Covenant (Malachi 2)

Posted by Chris on May 8, 2005 under Sermons

I want to continue the legal drama we started last week. It is 450 B.C. and Israel has decided to sue God. They have taken him to court before the priests and the officiating judge. They want to know why God hasn’t fulfilled his obligations in their covenant. Why haven’t they prospered as he promised? Why haven’t their fortunes been restored? Why do their enemies continue to mock them? By bringing God to trial, it is Israel that ends up on trial. God defends his case by stating and proving that he has always loved Israel. But they have lowered their expectations. Their worship is a sham and God deserves to be honored as a mighty king. Instead they go through the motions and offer half-hearted, routine worship. Even still, they have the audacity to hold God to his covenant promises. God addresses the charge that he has not been faithful to covenant, and in doing so God moves from defendant, to prosecutor, to judge … Read Malachi 2:1-9.

God reads the verdict. Because the priests of Israel have made a mockery of the covenant God has put them out of his presence. In doing so he is the one who actually honors covenant. The covenant is that important. It is not a covenant of restrictive, rules. It is a covenant of life and well-being. It is good for everyone! The covenant is the social and spiritual structure that gives meaning and shape to the way God’s people live and order their lives. It determines not only how people worship God, but also how they should treat one another. It establishes how husbands should treat wives and how wives should treat husbands. It gives shape to the way one generation nurtures the next generations. By setting boundaries and lining out behavior it doesn’t seek to isolate Israel from the world, but it strives to order Israel’s life on display before the world.

The priests have a special place in the covenant. They are to teach the people how to order their lives in relationship to God and thus how to order their lives with one another. They are to be God’s messengers in this covenant relationship. But instead of speaking for God the priests have spoken against him. They have despised his name and they have dishonored him. Their disregard for God and his covenant has led to the malaise and discontent in the lives of the people of Israel. Instead of teaching people how to live, their dishonorable teaching has caused people to lose their way.

It seems contradictory that God who claims to love the people is also prepared to punish. How can that be love? It is love because God cares about the way people live. If the people do not live in covenant, then they will return to the egotistical pursuit of pleasure that hurts the innocent and disrupts the bonds of good society. God loves the priests and the people enough to care about what happens to them. God loves them enough to be intolerant of the lack of love and respect they show to one another because of the lack of love and respect they have for God and covenant. There are consequences of such behavior and those consequences bring curses upon the priests.

Now, God’s advocate speaks to the people of Jerusalem gathered to watch the courtroom drama. God has delivered his verdict and the people need to learn the lesson. They too have broken covenant like the priests and if they think it was just the priests who have a stake in covenant, then they need to think again. Malachi (whose name means God’s messenger) speaks to the people … Read Malachi 2:10-16 … To emphasize all of it, God himself speaks, “I hate divorce, and covering one’s garment with violence! So take heed to yourselves and do not be faithless!”

Malachi is telling the people that God is very much aware of what they’ve done – even if they are not. They have broken covenants with God and one another and the consequences have come back to visit them. The two covenants they have broken are related: In Israel, the men and women married young, often before the age of 20. Now after years of companionship with the wives of their youth, after building homes with them, after raising children, after worshipping with these women, they have discarded their wives to marry other women. There’s no mention of why the men were doing this: the women were often foreign women who brought with them knowledge of other cultures and gods. Perhaps it was just that the women were younger and no Israelite father would give his daughter to a man already married. Perhaps it is because the women were exotic and strange and had the allure of the forbidden. Perhaps it is because marriage to these women enabled the men to secure business relations with the men of other nations. We don’t really know and Malachi doesn’t bother to cite the reason because the reason for the divorce doesn’t concern God as much as the consequences of the divorce!

The consequences are 1) that the men are breaking faith with their ancestors who struggled to preserve their faith in God in the midst of a land full of idols. And now they casually bring idolatry into their society. 2) They are disrupting their society and creating hardships by turning out their wives who expected these men to care for them and provide for them. They have broken faith with their wives and God takes that seriously. 3) They are breaking faith with their children and not passing on the covenant to their offspring. When God speaks he speaks his hatred of the way the people of Israel have made a mess of covenant not only with him but with one another. According to God it is violence. He doesn’t care how spiffy a tuxedo they wear to their wedding, it might as well be covered with the spiritual and social blood they have shed. God hates this culture of covenant breaking Israel has created only because he loves his people so much.

I really don’t know if it is easy or hard to see how this text implicates all of us. Their culture of marriage and divorce is so unlike our own in many respects (women couldn’t initiate divorce, marriages were arranged by parents, the problem of foreign gods) and then in other respects it is so like our situation because we have created a culture of covenant breaking that ignores the consequences. In her book, The Divorce Culture, Barbara Defoe Whitehead surveys the titles of recent books providing guidance for divorce. These titles demonstrate that the consequences of divorce are being ignored. For men, the most popular titles appeal to male competitiveness and include titles such as The Fighter’s Guide to Divorce: A No-Holds Barred Strategy for Coming Out Ahead, The Lion’s Share: A Combat Manual for Divorcing Males, and How to Dump Your Wife. For women the titles include such upbeat and nurturing titles as: Divorce and New Beginnings, Growing Through Divorce, Our Turn: Women Who Triumph in the Face of Divorce, and The Best Is Yet to Come. But it is the children’s literature on divorce that is perhaps the most honest. It contains titles that speak of the loss and the anger. Titles such as Daddy Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, Unfinished Portrait of Jessica, It’s Not the End of the World, and I Won’t Go Without a Father. Could it be that like Israel we have broken faith with one another and with our children?

Before I go any further I want to be clear … the divorce that God hates is not simply divorce in marriage, but the divorce that is the breaking of covenant which includes covenant with God and with one another. God’s charge is for his people to be faithful. We are all stakeholders in marriage and the other structures that hold us in godly relationship with one another.

I want to be clear. God loves everyone who has been divorced for whatever reason. There are no exceptions. God loves you. But I know form personal experience that divorced people haven’t always felt like the church loves them. That’s wrong. Divorced people in a church or people on the verge of a divorce sometimes feel like a football coach in a West Texas town: If you lose, we will give you your walking papers. We are not going to do that. We are going to love you. Just as we can forgive lying, gossip, and angry words even as we hold one another to the standard of maturity and speak plainly of the consequences of divisiveness; so also we can forgive the failure of marriage even as we hold one another accountable to covenant. To speak plainly of the consequences of breaking covenant, does not contradict love or forgiveness. And likewise, to love and forgive does not contradict the ability to speak plainly.

I want to be clear. I am not saying that we are going to be na?ve and pretend divorce cannot happen. Not even God does that. He hates divorce. Why? Because it tears up the people he loves. If you have been divorced you know what I mean. I went through a divorce with good friends and all of us felt the pain of it. One day we were discussing Malachi 2:14. My friend spoke, “God says, I hate divorce. Well, so do I.” I don’t think there is any better way to understand this text.

I want to be clear. Divorce is not merely an individual choice. It isn’t limited to the private realm. We all have a stake in every marriage and every family bond. (This is why we demonstrate our commitment to young families!) You don’t hear that very much in our culture anymore and I think this has magnified the problem. God implores us to do more than condemn sin or take a stand against divorce, he warns us not to break faith, which is to say – Keep the covenant! Keep the covenant of marriage and the covenant of faith and the covenant of Christ-like love. Keep faith with one another! This is more than an attitude that says “Hate the sin but love the sinner.” No, it goes beyond that to say that you cannot truly hate sin until you first love the other sinner! And if we do not hate sin and the way it dehumanizes and wounds and de-spiritualizes, then in what sense do we truly love?

This has been a hard sermon to preach. It may have been even harder to hear. I offer no pat answers, quick-fixes, or three-step solutions. Such glib advice only feeds into the individualism that has distracted us from the harder, but more rewarding work of maintaining covenant. What we need to do – all of us, divorced, married, remarried, never married – is strive to keep the covenant and not break faith with our cloud of witnesses and with the generations we witness to. Most of all let us strive to keep the covenant that God made with us. He sent his Son to form a new covenant; if you have been baptized into Jesus then you are a child of that covenant. Live by it! The Son sent the spirit so that we might be able to live in covenant with one another. The spirit gives life and well-being. Let’s love one another according to the ethic of this spiritual covenant rather than the ethics of individual choice.

Time

Posted by David on May 5, 2005 under Bulletin Articles

No matter how much we would like to stop time, we cannot! We can change our routines, but we cannot stop time. Some events seem to slow it down, but they do not. Some events seem to speed it up, but they do not. The passing of time steadily moves on — at an unhurried pace. It is only faster or slower in our minds.

A few days ago I enjoyed looking at some Mayan ruins that pre-date Jesus’ birth. To enter the restored area, a person walks through a very wide stone wall. The wall is a marvel in itself. As I walked through an archway in this rock wall about 10-12 feet wide, I was amazed at all the flat stones fitted together to make the wall and archway. The stones were not enormous — maybe between 10 and 12 inches long. Each stone fit precisely with every other stone. No mortar held these flat stones together. Each silently witnessed centuries of time as it touched the stones above it, the stones beneath it, and the stones on the sides of it.

I marveled at the number of stones it took to build this enormous, three-sided wall which started at a cliff by the sea and returned to another point on the same cliff. I marveled at the engineering, the materials, and the time it took to construct this wall enclosing an enormous area that included enormous buildings. I marveled at the eyes that looked at this wall in past centuries, and at the eyes from many continents then looking at the wall.

All the eyes beholding that wall thousands of years ago are dead. All the eyes looking at it now will die. Morbid? No! Fact? Yes! The foolish person is not the one who lives with an awareness of his/her death. The foolish person is one who lives his/her life as if time can be forgotten or ignored.

Time measures life. When life ends, time ends. To use life wisely, a person must use time wisely. Perhaps we each spend a lifetime building a wall. The question: does our wall exist to include or to exclude?

Thoughts:

Following God in a Foreign Land

Posted by Chris on May 1, 2005 under Sermons

Part 1 – Naming the Change

There’s a lot of uncertainty and anxiety in our culture and it makes us feel like we are living in a foreign land. How do you follow God in a land that is changing? For some people the challenge is that they have left the land they knew. But what if the land you knew has left you? Where did it go? Whatever happened to home?

That’s the sort of feeling expressed in this popular song (Mayberry by Rascal Flatts)…

Sometimes it feels like this world is spinning faster
Than it did in the old days
So naturally we have more natural disasters
From the strain of a fast pace

Sunday was the day of rest
Now its one more day for progress
But we can’t slow down
Cause more is best
All in the process

But I miss Mayberry
Sittin’ on the porch drinking ice cold Cherry — Coke
Where everything was black & white
Pickin’ on a Six String
People pass by and you call them by their first name
Watching the clouds roll by
bye bye

Sometimes I can hear this whole world stopping
Through the trees as the wind blows
That’s when I climb up here on this mountain
And look through God’s window

No I can’t fly
I’ve got to be
To get me high up here
Far from the noise and city streets
My world receives the peace

chorus

Sometimes I dream I’m driving down an old dark road
Not even listed on the map
I pass a dad and his son carrying a fishing poll
But I always wake up everytime I try to turn back

What sort of feelings are being expressed in this song? How have you experienced any of this? That may be what it feels like to have the "land" you knew leave you.

Here’s how I want to frame this discussion:

1. Naming the Change
First, let’s name the change. If you know what you are up against that helps. The changes we are feeling all around us are both good and bad – they are a mixed bag. They present challenges and opportunities. The goal will not be to strategize but to simply attach some name to what’s going on.

2. Nomads and Exiles
Second, let’s learn some lessons from nomads and exiles. The Bible tells the story of God’s faithfulness with people who are always being uprooted, scattered and dispersed (Beginning with Abraham and continuing through to the persecution in Acts 8; and the churches in Asia were also unsettled) We even sing songs that say things like "This world is not my home, I am just passing through." Do we mean it?

3. Plans for the Future
Third, we’ll talk about plans for the future. But they aren’t my plans or your plans. They are the plans for the future that are a gift from God.

Naming the Change
(I am indebted to Alan Roxburgh for indicating many of the details of this section. I recommend his book: The Missionary Congregation, Leadership, and Liminality, Christian Mission and Modern Culture Series, Trinity Press International, 1997)

The "Land" We Knew was predictable and stable. Of course by land we do not mean a physical location. We really mean a culture situated in a particular time and place. For most of still alive that would be the America we knew during the 1950’s-1980’s.
We can recall some of the "landmarks" of that land …

• Nation States – The keys players on the political scene could come to the U.N. and many of them were part of the Security Council. I remember that in movies and comic books the "bad guys" were the communists. They were just like us, except they were communist. Now, the political players are less obvious. Terror cells are more fluid and unbounded. Activist groups have influence on world politics.

• Social Institutions – Social Institutions such as church, government, and other civic organizations gave structure to life. However, that has declined and now there is a sense of disconnection or disembodiment. Since Watergate, people have lost faith in government structure. Since the PTL scandal and the reports of abuse in the Catholic church, people have lost faith in organized religion. Instead of supporting local and community schools, the buzzword is now school choice. (For an in-depth treatment on this issue of change I recommend Robert Putnam, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community, Simon & Schuster, 2000.)

• Experts – In the land we knew, we called upon experts to help us figure out difficult situations. Experts were well-educated and had researched their material. Remember when 4 out of 5 dentists recommended Dentyne? We accepted that because the experts are right. Now Dentyne jokes about the fifth dentist. The attitude tward experts is less confident. In churches, the reliance on the expert led to the church growth movement. If we could just do what the expert did it would work in our situation, right? Well it didn’t work out that way is what discovered. More important than an expert is a facilitator who can help us dialogue because we all have something contribute – not just the expert.

• Managers – Leaders were called upon to maintain what was. But now we look to innovators to reconstruct what was. The classic failure of the railroads was that they assumed it was their job to manage the railroads. But the land they knew left them and they were not the innovators of the automobile.

• Central Authority – In the land we knew, leadership and authority were centered in a recognizable person or object. Recall the monopolies such as the phone company or the monopoly that the Post Office had on all deliveries. Now there is individual choice. We are given choices in even the most minimal details. Do we want paper or plastic? Do we want plan A or plan B? Do we want Coke with Vanilla or Cherry or Lime? This is one of the reasons why the Bible is not instantly accepted as "fact." After all, if I can choose perhaps I will choose the Quran or other spiritual teachings. Maybe, as Oprah and others have said, there are many paths to God and one only has to choose.

• Linear – In the land we knew, cause and effect were linear and straightforward. The Surgeon General said that cigarettes caused cancer, so the solution is simple: Don’t Smoke. But now things are more complex. The Surgeon General wasn’t wrong, but maybe the surgeon general didn’t know everything that the Surgeon General should have known. Big Tobacco hid the facts, so Big Tobacco must pay. History and science are not regarded as simple, linear facts. For example, did Columbus discover America? Well, once we sang that Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492 to give the answer. But that’s not as simple as what we know now. Vikings discovered it long before Columbus and the Indians were here long before that. Cause and effect has given way to a complex network of variable.

• Predictable – Which means that this foreign land is lot less predictable than the land we knew. The city of Lake Jackson was built by the Dow Chemical Corporation. They built the town for their employees. They promised their workers and their families that they would be taken care of for their entire life. And many people did work until retirement. But now that has changed. Now the future is not so certain and the outlook for company and one’s job is less predictable. Now volatility in markets and career is assumed. Everything is more chaotic.

Consider how these factors have contributed to the change we are trying to name:

• Globalization – The world is a much smaller place and less isolated than in the past.
• Rapid Technological Change – Once computers filled an entire room, and now I wear one on my belt. It is millions of times more powerful than the huge computers that filled a room. In the life time of many of us we went from party line phones to cell phones. Many of these technologies have only mushroomed in the last 10 years. The growth is exponential.
• Staggering Need – We have always been aware of the needy. But now we see neediness in our own nation and among people who were once doing well. Recall the crisis of the homeless that came to our attention in the 1980’s. Presently there is economic uncertainty worldwide.
• Loss of confidence in primary structures & institutions – loyalty and commitment have changed because of a failure of confidence in the structures that once provided stability. This creates a dilemma in our mission: if people are losing confidence in primary structures and institutions then our efforts to build an institutional form of church are not going to be well received. But what if we let form follow faith? What if form made sense because it embodies the gospel?

During the opening theme song of All in the Family, Archie and Edith sang nostalgically of the past: "Those were the days" One line in the song hits home for everyone: "And you knew who you were then." The massive changes lead to an identity crisis.

Consider how the changes described above lead to these effects …

1. Uncertainty – Since everything we knew is changing, there is uncertainty about the future even as near as tomorrow. Who knows if tomorrow will be another 9/11? Can anyone say with any real certainty?
2. Unending Work – Rapid technological change and innovation in transportation have de-compartmentalized our lives. We just cannot leave work at the office. Our work never seems to end. In the 1950’s there was a real concern that Americans would have to figure out how to use leisure time. Now cell phones, Wi-Fi Internet and jet travel make it hard to "get away."
3. Anxiety and Stress – So of course this leads to increased anxiety and stress. It also leads to fear. Turn on the morning talks shows and see if they don’t offer you something to be worried about. The watchword these days is safety and precaution.
4. Loss of Purpose and Meaning – People feel dehumanized by work, they feel insignificant in the scope of the world and the universe and they feel disconnected from others. Who am I? Is a common question. How many people have struck off on strange quests to find themselves?
5. Insecurity and Instability – Without purpose and meaning, and with anxiety there is a real problem of insecurity and instability. Add to that the fact that people have loss confidence in primary structures. No wonder the security business is growing even as other businesses are suffering.
6. Hostility and Fear – Since we live in a "State of Fear" there is a great deal of hostility. Also, the fact that our culture is polarizing to the extremes creates hostility. We do not talk about differences. We live in red states and blue states and no one wants to be purple.
7. Loss of Identity and Community – And now no one knows who they are. The day of the rugged individual was a myth. The rugged individual was as connected to his/her community and surroundings as anyone else. But now we are disconnected and being a lone individual is not as wonderful as we once imagined. A phone company tells us that we are "singular" individuals, but we they are also buying up all the small phone companies to become a telecom giant. I can be singular, but I must choose Cingular.

Conclusion:
We are experiencing a barrage of changes (not just one change)
Personal Choice is god (pick and choose)
No central Authority
New insecurity (state of fear)

Deuteronomy means the second giving of the law. It anticipates the day when the people of God will be refugees and exiles in a foreign land. It speaks to the question raised in Psalm 137 – How do you sing the songs of Zion in a strange land?

There is hope in the message of Deuteronomy. It gets at the heart of what it means to have a covenant relationship with God. Even though they have lost their king, their land, and their connection with the temple of God they can still seek the Lord.

Many things change, but God is the same yesterday, today and forever.

There is a theme to the stories of God and his people. The theme can be drawn as a pattern that shows how people leave the land they knew, go through an intermediate place or time (this is what Roxburgh refers to as liminality), and then arrive in the land/future that God provides. This is the story of nomads and exiles and the same God who carries all of them through their experiences.

Abraham:

This is first seen with Abraham (though an argument could be made for Noah being the first). See Genesis 12-13. When God calls Abraham he calls him out of the land he knew – the land of his ancestors. He promises to take him to a new land, Canaan. But along the way he ends up in Egypt. The bulk of the "adventure" in Genesis 12 is not in Ur or Canaan. It is in the in-between place, Egypt. This is where the important action takes place. It is a time of testing and faithfulness.

Jacob:

See Genesis 28:1-5 and the reason why Jacob is being sent out. Jacob leaves the land of his fathers and goes to his uncle Labans land in Paddan Aram. This is where the bulk of Jacob’s story takes place. Jacob’s time in Paddan Aram gets stretched out longer and longer. Why? What is God able to do with his in-between time in Laban’s land? God uses this time away from the land of promise to build up the population of the people of promise. How many make up Israel before Jacob starts having children in Paddan Aram? Not many. How many make up the people when Jacob returns. Jacob is able to divide his household into two camps!

There is change and renewal through the time of transition. Where was God in the midst of all this? He was working on Jacob. The wrestling match that ties it all up sums up the adventure and the transition. Jacob comes out of it with a limp, but he is also blessed and has a new name and a new future (he was not the firstborn).

Notice the pattern that there is an in-between place and an in-between time that is not the destiny or future for God’s person, but it is still a significant part of the story.

Israel’s exodus from Egypt and the Wandering in the Desert:

What is the identity of Israel in Egypt? Slaves. They were part of the structure of Egyptian society.

When did they learn about God and learn his ways? When did they get the Law and the covenant commands? (Ex. 19-20) (Ex. 24 – covenant) When were they fed with manna? Quail? (Ex. 16) When was water provided from the rock?

When did they fight the Amalekites? (Ex 17) When did real leadership in Israel form (ex. 18) When did they build the tabernacle? When did they develop the priesthood?

These great events that shape Israel’s identity do not happen in Egypt or in Canaan. The happen in the desert – the in-between place. The slaves of Egypt are formed into God’s nation before they enter the land.

Babylonian Exile:

Another important "in-between" event that will shape the identity of Israel is the exile. Consider the awesome loss that the people experience in 587 B.C. when they are invaded and overpowered by the Babylonians (see Lamentations and Psalm 137). This was not supposed to happen to God’s people. They lose the things they gained in the desert and after the arrival in the land – priesthood, temple/tabernacle, the land itself and the king. These became meaningless under Babylonian control. But in the exile they rediscovered the law and the prophets. This is what makes them God’s people. The promise of the prophecies is that God will write his law on their hearts. He will rebuild them spiritually and materially.

This is the setting for the Deuteronomy 4 text …
"But if from there you seek the LORD your God, you will find him if you look for him with all your heart and with all your soul. When you are in distress and all these things have happened to you, then in later days you will return to the LORD your God and obey him."

The word of the prophets go back to the law and through it proclaim a time of punishment but also the hope of renewal The great prophetic sermons come out of this time of tension and crisis

Lamentations 3
Ezekiel 37 – the dry bones
Ezekiel 36:24-28 – A new heart and a right spirit.
Jeremiah 29:11 – The plans I have for you. Seek me and find me!

Daniel 1 – Daniel is versed in the language and culture of the land of exile (v. 4-5); Daniel becomes an expert at this (v. 20) and gains the trust of the Babylonians. 2:46; 4:37 – Nebuchadnezzar honors God. Isn’t this God’s mission to the nations in effect? If not, then what is it?

The Persecution of the Church (Acts 8)
Lest we think this is some bizarre Old Testament phenomenon, there is a New Testament example of this. In Acts 8, Luke tells us that the church is scattered from Jerusalem after Stephen is executed. What must the people been thinking at this point? For most of us this would be the end. How can they remain faithful if their connection to Jerusalem is severed?

What do the scattered people do? They preach Jesus! What was Jesus’ agenda in Acts 1:8? That they would become his witnesses in Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth.

God is doing something with this in-between time and Judea and Samaria become the launching points for mission to the ends of the earth. (see 11:19) The scattered disciples go to Antioch and some of them start converting Gentiles! Antioch becomes the base for Paul and Barnabas’ journey. Who could have predicted that the persecution could lead to such an outcome?

What about Us?

So is this just the way God did things long ago but now he likes them stable and same? Did God pick the 20^th century as the way to keep things? How do we lament change but also open ourselves up to what God may be doing during the in-between NOW?

Do we have the faith to discover what God is doing with us in the in-between time? The changes that are taking place are lamentable in many cases, but God may be working in them still. They also may be stripping us and cleansing us of so many sinful attitudes and habits we have picked up. These may be things that are keeping us from renewal and hope

We have to open ourselves to what God is doing among us in the "in-between" time and trust in him to provide the future. On another level, in this world we have no lasting city but we await the city to come and so what do we do? We leave the city of this world and join Jesus outside the camp …

It was 1991 and I had completed my first year of graduate school. The campus minister at the Razorbacks for Christ wanted me to come back to the RFC spring banquet and share my thoughts on what the RFC’s should do next. He wanted me to articulate a plan for the future. Thankfully, I felt very inadequate to the task. I struggled about what to say. Then I recalled something that Dr. John Willis had taught us in Old Testament. It was this text from Jeremiah 29.
"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart."

The future is a gift from God. This is the message from the prophet for the people of God captive in Babylon. They are in despair. They have lost their land, their king, their homes and their fortunes. Will God punish them forever? Has he abandoned them?

The message is gospel – it is good news. (Jeremiah 29:11-13)

• The future is God’s gift. He has good things in mind and has plans for hope.
• But the people are invited to seek God – to eagerly and earnestly seek him in prayer and worship.
• God promises that they will find him if they seek him with all their heart. He will restore their fortunes and return them to the land he had promised to them.

God made a promise to Abraham and he keeps this promise. God has saved these people – but not just for their own sake – it is for the sake of the world.
Is it any different with us? We also are saved – but not for our own sake, but for the sake of the world!

The captives in Babylon could dream of a hopeful future – if they sought after God. What about us? Can we dream again? Sometimes I fear we have lost our dream and our vision. Or we forget the reason for our salvation and our future. We do not secure the future. God does.

Can we expect our future – especially the future of the church – to be hopeful? I think we can, but we have to look beyond the two typical options we often assume are our only options …

Two Typical Options

The first option is Nostalgia –
Let’s return to what we knew! Go back to how it was!
This is impossible

The second option is the Restart
This is Reactionary Change – We will start over anew. But we are still in control. We attempt to jettison the past to get a new future. But this is really just rebellion controlled by the past or the present uncertainty. It is inattentive to history.

Even though these options seem to be different, they have some negative characteristics in common:

1. They ignore the experience of the in-between place. They try to avoid the benefit of the trial. Leaving the land that is known is always an occasion for God to shape his people into a people especially prepared for his mission in the world.

2. They are both attempts to make the future on our own power! They ignore the biblical theme raised in the question: "Is anything too hard for the Lord?"

Is Anything Too Difficult for the Lord?

This question begins with Abraham and Sarah – Genesis 18:14

Abraham and Sarah – God asks the question of Sarah because she laughed. Don’t be too hard on Sarah. If your 99 year old grandfather and his 90 year old wife who never had children told you they were expecting you would laugh too. The only future these folks have is buying a tombstone not buying pampers. Is anything too difficult for God?

Jacob Steals the Promise – Now what? Is that the end of the story? No future? Would you entrust the future to Jacob? Esau wasn’t too great either but at least he didn’t resort to tricks. Is anything too difficult for God?

Slaves in Egypt/The Desert – Who can stand up against Pharaoh? They are pushed against the Sea – trapped! They will probably die in the desert. Why continue with these people? Surely they won’t make it. Why not restart? Why not go back to Egypt? Is anything too difficult with God?

David and Goliath – Who would have bet on David? And he even refuses Saul’s armor. Oh, the good old days before the Philistines! Is anything too difficult for God?

Exile – What if you lost everything that communicated God’s blessings? Would you still believe God was able to deliver? What if foreign agents broke into God’s house and evicted him? Whose God is most powerful? [Exile – Jeremiah 32 – Buying the field with the imagination of a new future. God’s vision.]
Is anything too difficult for God?

Cross – What if your deliverer and Messiah were executed? How do you restart? How do you return to what was? Is there any hope for the future? Is anything too difficult for God?

Emerging future
Between the two typical options there is a third. It is the option of the emerging future that is a gift from God. To find it we must be willing to do the following: Dwell in this place without quick solutions and we will hear God’s solutions and hope for a possible future

Most models (Nostalgia and Restart) for change and response to changing circumstances begin with a conclusion and then suggest a strategy to get there. In reality, there is no quick-fix! This is hard work. Rather than quick-fix, instant-bake plans, we need to empower and release the people to use God’s resources. If we are attentive to God perhaps we can determine what he wants for our future. How can he redeem our experience? (Joseph, Genesis 50 – You intended this for evil, but God intended it for good).

Waiting on God to give us the future that is from him is always best. Do you recall how Abraham and Sarah tried to manage God’s promise of the future? The result was Ishmael. Abraham loved Ishmael and God blessed Ishmael, but Ishmael was not the future God intended and conflict came out of Ishmael’s birth. Don’t forget that Ishmael was Abraham’s first born son – but God has a way of determining the future on his terms, not ours.

Leaving the land that is known is always an occasion for God to shape his people into a people especially prepared for his mission in the world.

Suing God (Malachi 1)

Posted by Chris on under Sermons

      One day in the fall of 1951, Lydia McGuire decided to sue her husband. She and her husband, Charles, had been married for 32 years. When they married she was a young widow in her early thirties with two daughters. He was a frugal bachelor farmer in northeastern Nebraska.
      Lydia was a dutiful and obedient wife. Like many other Nebraska farmwives she treated her husband as the boss and didn’t argue with his rules. As was typical of her time, she raised her own money to pay for household goods with her farm chores. When Charles drove her to the town of Wayne to visit her mother she paid for the trip with money she earned selling eggs. It wasn’t a comfortable or enjoyable trip. Charles owned a 1929 Model A Ford with a broken heater.
      Life for the McGuires was rather ordinary and routine. Though they didn’t talk about finances or their feelings they weren’t worried about them either. In 1951, Charles owned 398 acres of land, had nearly $13,000 in the local bank, and owned government bonds worth $104,000. Perhaps Lydia decided to sue her husband because, despite their wealth, they lived in house without indoor plumbing, her kitchen had no sink and the furnace in the house did not work very well. On Charles’ insistence, they never participated in community organizations and he only allowed Lydia to make local telephone calls.
      Lydia decided to sue her husband, but she didn’t want a divorce. It wasn’t that she was unhappy or didn’t love her husband. That wasn’t the issue. She simply wanted the court to make Charles do his duty as husband as she had faithfully done her duty as a wife. Lydia didn’t want a divorce, she just thought that their situation could be better and she knew Charles had the means – she just wanted Charles to provide decent furniture, a few more visits to relatives, a heated automobile, and flush toilet. She was just asking for her husband to meet his obligations in their relationship.

About 450 B.C., the people of Jerusalem decided to sue God. These weren’t particularly bad times for the people in Jerusalem. They had returned to the land and the holy city nearly 100 years earlier. They had reconstructed the temple and the priests were re-established in the kingdom. But Israel was disappointed thinking that things could be much better. It was a time of malaise, boredom, and stagnation. Life was rather ordinary and routine: they paid tithes to support the priests, they went to temple worship, they offered their sacrifices; they practiced all the ancient acts of worship just as they had been taught – but why? The years of their exile in Babylon still stung them and the Edomites, the descendants of Esau, still seemed to be profiting from Israel’s losses in those days. This didn’t seem to be the sort of conditions that "chosen people of God" should have to endure. They felt that they should be the mighty nation they were before the exile and they knew that God had the means. So, they took God to court and intended to ask the court to make God do his duty as God and meet his obligation in their relationship.

The setting for the court is a sort of Israelite version of the Supreme Court. God is on trial. The Law of Moses allowed for judicial matters to be tried by the leaders of the city at the city gates. But situations that were difficult were taken to the priests:
"If a judicial decision is too difficult for you to make between one kind of bloodshed and another, one kind of legal right and another, or one kind of assault and another-any such matters of dispute in your towns-then you shall immediately go up to the place that the Lord your God will choose, where you shall consult with the levitical priests and the judge who is in office in those days; they shall announce to you the decision in the case." (Deut. 17:8-9)
This is the setting of Malachi 1. We enter into a courtroom drama in which God has just taken the stand. Israel, like Lydia McGuire, doesn’t want a divorce, they just want God to fulfill his covenant obligation and they have sued God in court to get him to pay up and start acting like God. And so God speaks from the stand …
Read Malachi 1

God begins his defense by affirming his love for his people. He addresses their question which asks, "How have you loved us? What have you done for us lately, God?" God says, "You might not be able to see it right now but you will! I have loved you and I always will." And as for the accusation that God doesn’t seem concerned about the Edomites and the way they profited from Israel’s exile: God reminds them that Edom was punished and they will never be the great nation Israel will be. Which is true; they had been ransacked by invaders and relocated to the south of Edom. 300 years after this courtroom drama, Edom was absorbed into the Jewish commonwealth.

The rest of the drama unfolds with God making his case that he has loved the people and along the way they are the ones who find themselves on trial. He turns the tables on them. They are questioning God, but he cross-examines them. This isn’t because God is a crafty old fellow or because he can yell louder and smokes and fumes. It is because out of the dark clouds of Israel’s conflict with God comes a beam of light: Israel gets a glimpse into the heart of God.

Have you ever noticed how a good honest argument might actually lead us to be more genuine with the people we love than going thru the motions and playing nice? God makes a claim of his own, a counter-suit: "You’ve despised me." The people are shocked, "How have we despised you?" Israel had been going through the motions when it came to worship. They were mailing it in. They didn’t expect much to happen in worship, so they didn’t put much effort into it. They didn’t expect to live as chosen people, so they weren’t really devoted to it. They went to worship, but it was so half-hearted and weak that God says, "I wish you would just cancel it and close the doors!" They were offering crippled, diseased lambs and calves as tributes to the lord. They gave the first fruits of the harvest – the ones that had gotten sort of fuzzy with mold and pinpricked with wormholes. "Try paying your taxes and honoring your officials with that sort of effort!" says God. See how it is received! God’s people didn’t expect much to happen – they didn’t really think God was at worship, so they didn’t invest a lot into worship.

This sort of worship despises God and it despises his name because it is weak and there is no change in the lives of the people. No wonder their lives are so uninspired and routine. Furthermore, if Israel is so bland and lifeless (just like their worship) then how can they bee the light to the nations that God wants them to be? One of the glimpses we get into the heart of God on trial is that God has visions for the people: He longs for the day when people in all nations "from the rising to the setting of the sun" will call upon God as a great king. He desires that people everywhere know him and give pure and sincere offerings. That was Israel’s purpose in being chosen. To model for the world what it means to be God’s people. The temple in Jerusalem wasn’t just a worship machine so Jerusalem could crank out a few blessings – it was to be God’s lighthouse to the world and everyone would come to it. But instead, the people of God are going through the motions and giving God leftovers and the food that is stale or has been in the pantry since they bought they house, and though that is bad enough they have the audacity to say to God, "So what have you really done for us lately, God?"

Lydia McGuire’s case went fairly well and lower courts ordered her cheap husband to pay for plumbing and buy a car with a heater. Eventually, Charles appealed the case to the Nebraska Supreme Court. They ruled that there was no basis for the law to get involved in the private marriage of the McGuires. But Justice Frederick Messmore, stated the court’s opinion on the matter. Although they may have seemed to legally side with Charles, they really didn’t have much respect for either party or for their vision of the marriage relationship. They admitted that the court was being asked to define marriage and thought they said that Charles attitude toward his wife said little about his character, they also said that marriage certainly wasn’t the quid pro quo relationship that Lydia and her lawyers made it out to be. To reduce marriage to nothing more than instrumental calculation would deny its true significance.

How often do we reduce our relationship with God to nothing more than instrumental calculation? How often do we reduce it to mechanical obligation? Dear God, we’ve have followed the five steps and we keep the five acts of worship on the first day of the week – and Wednesday – now what have you done for us? Do we gather to take care of church business and make certain we have a little worship for God’s sake, but in our collective heart we really don’t expect anything to happen in worship (or we don’t want anything to happen) and as a result we don’t invest much into worship. Like Lydia McGuire, do we stay in an uninspired relationship just so we can inherit the wealth?

Once I heard a good man tell me that he didn’t intend to miss Sunday’s worship but he felt as if he could worship God in the beauty of nature on the lake or in the woods. I confess to you that at the time I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t feel compelled to say to him, "Well the Bible says you better show up or you are in trouble." How inspiring is that? How is that love? Looking back I now realize why I didn’t have an answer for him (other than obligation and rule-keeping): I confess that I didn’t really expect much from worship myself. So why should I ask anyone else to be a part of it. If I could go back I know what I would say! I would say, "But God has invited us to his house to enjoy a meal with him. Yes, he has given us the beauty of nature and yes we can worship him there. But he has invited us to the family reunion and I believe that something even greater will happen when we get there – something even greater than the awe we feel at the sunset and the serenity in nature. You will see ordinary, imperfect people shaped into the children of God and even more you will be awed by a glimpse into the heart of God."

God has opened his heart to us. Dare we listen to what he has to say? Can we stand to be inspired by his imagination? I warn you that God’s vision for us is not simply to make us happy or to fulfill our fondest dreams. God has something much greater than that in mind for us. Nor is his intent to damn us to hell if we don’t get it right. God has something more hopeful and adventurous in store for us. He has a vision that involves the whole world and his rule over all the earth. God envisions a time when all of his children from far and near, the good ones and bad ones, the rich and poor, the clean and dirty, all give honor to him as the Great King. We can mail this song in and go on our way being routine, but ask yourself if that sort of calculating relationship is really what God intends for his covenant people. I invite you to lift up your voices in to honor your Father, the Almighty King who deserves our praise and let this be your way of presenting "your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship." (Romans 12:1)

Notes:
• The case of Charles and Lydia McGuire is taken from chapter 1 of Man and Wife in America: A History (Harvard Univ. Press, 2000) by Hendrik Hartog.
• I am indebted to Elizabeth Achtemeier’s commentary on Malachi in the Interpretation series for the observation that Malachi takes place in a Jerusalem priestly court setting.

God’s Patience

Posted by David on April 28, 2005 under Bulletin Articles

To me, one of the powerful evidences of God’s character distinctiveness is His patience. God is incredibly patient–determined, tenacious, and patient! Humans are not! Our commitment begins strong and decreases fast. Few humans “follow through.” We much too quickly give up! We much too quickly justify failure and discouragement! We much too quickly blame something or someone else!

Not God! He is determined! What He promises becomes fact! No human discouragement diverts Him from His intent!

Consider! From the moment Adam and Eve surrendered to the deception of temptation, God was determined to reclaim His creation. The fact that Cain killed Abel did not result in God’s surrendering His commitment! For God, it got worse! People became so evil they did not even think a decent thought (Genesis 6:5). Though God was grieved deeply, He did not quit! Even when God began again with Noah, even when Noah proved such a disappointment, God did not quit.

In fact, God’s purposes were enormous. He promised nothing less than being a blessing to all families of the earth (Genesis 12:3). Incredibly, God produced a nation from the childless Abraham. When those delivered people were unimpressed with all God did for them (Exodus 32:10), God did not think of quitting–He thought of starting over!

For centuries, Israel disappointed God repeatedly. Finally, Israel offended God so deeply that He could tolerate their rebellion no longer. Yet, when He announced this through His prophet Hosea, His declaration of accountability turned His stomach. Listen:

Hosea 11:8, 9 How can I give you up, O Ephraim? How can I surrender you, O Israel? How can I make you like Admah? How can I treat you like Zeboiim? My heart is turned over within Me, All My compassions are kindled. I will not execute My fierce anger; I will not destroy Ephraim again. For I am God and not man, the Holy One in your midst, And I will not come in wrath.

Though Israel of old gave God no option, God did not want to give Israel His wrath.

Consider God’s incredible patience. For a long period, much over 2000 years, God was determined to send the Christ. In spite of centuries of rebellion, He did! For almost 2000 years after Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection, God patiently has waited for people to claim their promised blessings. Human wickedness has not destroyed God’s forgiveness. Human imperfection has not destroyed God’s sanctification. Human failure has not destroyed God’s redemption. God will do everything for us He promised. God will bless us in every way He intended. If what? If we let Him. We, not God, are the problem. Do you use your life to bless God’s patience or to try God’s patience?

Earning, Income, and Credit

Posted by Chris on April 24, 2005 under Sermons

Review: Jesus is Lord and we believe he is Lord over every area of our lives. This is challenging and it is the reason why we need be changed through worship and prayer to surrender all things to the Lord. This is why we have spent some time learning from our Lord; hearing his teaching and his word about money, wealth, and trust.
      We live in a market-driven culture. It is a consumer culture. Because of that, our lives are often centered on finances. This is true for the poor, the rich and everyone in between. Our economy and culture create a "Cash Values" lifestyle and regardless of our financial health we need to conform to the Lord’s teaching on money.
      I want to say a special word to those of you who may be struggling financially or may have questions about your money and how to manage it. Financial struggles are a source of stress and a distraction from life in the kingdom. The solution to financial troubles is not more money, nor should we assume that God is a genie in the sky who blesses us if we learn the secrets of how to get rich God’s way. Yet, I am not saying that we as the people of Christ cannot work with one another to overcome problems created by debt and wealth. In fact, it is very biblical for us to do so and it is critical we do so because of the age we live in.
      There are many people in this congregation that we can all learn from when it comes to managing our finances. Don’t be afraid to ask around. You may have noticed in the announcements that there is a financial workshop planned Saturday, May 7. There are many people in this congregation that we can all learn from when it comes to developing a spiritual view of wealth and money.
      What I want to say to all of us is this: We need to be dealing with this matter in many ways and in many settings and we cannot limit it to three sermons. How we use money and the way we shape our lifestyles are not issues outside the scope of what it means to be a disciple of Christ. This is a vital teaching in the Scriptures and it was a matter Jesus addressed often. And for good reason, because as we have said already …

1. Money is not a neutral, secular commodity. It is a power that operates like a god; if we surrender and submit to this power and give it our heart and let it cloud our vision. Rather than use God in the service of money, let us use money in the service of God.
2. Rather than quibble about tithes and funds and how we spend the Lord’s money, let us give beautifully and understand how our discipleship and giving are matters of the heart and not just line items in our check registers or church budgets.
3. As Americans living in the materialistic, consumerist culture of our age, we need to hear the word that Moses preached to the Israelites as they entered the promise Land. It is a message that Jesus exemplified in his life and teaching …

Read Deuteronomy 8.

Explanation:
      Moses’ words are for a future generation that knows only prosperity. They didn’t live through the depression years of the wilderness trek. When you live through the wilderness you realize how much you depend on God. Manna falls from the sky. Water comes from a rock of all places. Quail show up to provide proper nutrition for a wandering people. The wilderness days are tough going lean years but somehow folk just happen to make it. They keep on living and keep on moving. They overcame the danger of snakes and scorpions. Even their shoes and clothes hold up during the journey. They just seem to survive the hard times, but those who saw the waters open up so they could cross over on dry land tell it to the rest. God provided and he still provides. He rescued us with a mighty hand and he sustains us with a mighty hand.
      Now Moses is making this testimony a part of his last words because the generations to follow won’t have first hand experience of the wilderness. They won’t recall what it was like to be slaves and be rescued. They won’t recall what it was like to walk through the sea. They won’t remember what it was like to collect the morning manna. They won’t remember how the quail gathered or how the rock, of all things, started spewing water. All they will know is what it is like to earn a living on the good land and enjoy a decent income from their work. And when they forget about God, who will get the credit for their blessings?

In the classic western movie Shenandoah, Jimmy Stewart stars as Charlie Anderson, a Virginian farmer trying to keep his family out of the Civil War. With one empty place set for his dead wife and his children gathered around the supper table, Charlie begins a litany they obviously have heard before: “Now your mother wanted all of you raised as good Christians, and I might not be able to do that thorny job as well as she could, but I can do a little something about your manners.”

He gestures that they all should bow their heads and continues: “Lord, we cleared this land, we plowed it, sowed it, and harvested it. We cooked the harvest. We wouldn’t be here, we wouldn’t be eatin’, if we hadn’t done it all ourselves. We worked dog-boned hard for every crumb and morsel, but we thank you just the same anyway, Lord, for the food we’re about to eat. Amen.”

At least Charlie Anderson paused to speak the name of the Lord. At least he thanks the Lord "just the same." He makes some sort of connection between God and his earnings – even if it is the wrong one. Because of the materialistic, consumer-driven age we live in, we have effectively removed God from any discussion or thought about our ability to earn and our income. Because we live in a land where food is plentiful and nothing is lacking we too easily forget to bless the Lord our God for all he has given …

Citation: 2000 Phoenix Wealth Management Survey; USA Today “Snapshots” (11-13-00), B1
Percentage of senior corporate executives with a high net worth (defined as having a net worth of $1 million or more, not including primary residence) who credit their current financial status to …
Hard Work – 99%
Intelligence and good sense – 97%
Higher-than-average I.Q. – 83%
Being the best in every situation – 62%
Luck – 32%

If we are pressed on the issue we would surely all agree that it is God that makes it possible for us to earn a living. We would surely all agree that God not only created the opportunity for us to earn a living and enjoy an income, but that he also sustains us. If we were pressed on the issue we would absolutely give God the credit.
But why must we be pressed on the issue? Why? Because it is so easy to forget what it was like in the wilderness. Some of us don’t even know what it means to live in the wilderness. And so we forget and though we don’t intend to say it, we begin to say "My power and the might of my own hand have gotten me this wealth." Perhaps we don’t say it so boldly, but there are other, more subtle ways to say it and live it.
Who remembers the old TV ad of actor John Houseman speaking on behalf of the financial firm Smith-Barney? At the end of the ad Houseman confidently spoke to the camera saying that at Smith-Barney they earn money the old fashion way – "We earned it!"

A Beautiful Thing

Posted by Chris on April 17, 2005 under Sermons

You really have to respect the high priests and the scribes. They know what’s right and they know what’s wrong, but most of all they have that special gift that makes them exceptional religious leaders – the gift of timing. When anyone else would just arrest Jesus and kill him whenever they wanted, the high priests and scribes have the decency not to do it during the Passover feast. They don’t have a problem arresting him or killing him, they just want to avoid a riot. Now that’s class. That’s brilliance and genius. It’s all about timing and execution. Arrest Jesus during Passover and there will be a riot – and after all no one wants to ruin the holidays. Arrest Jesus later and the crowd will be on their side.

You really have to admire and respect their calculation. They’ve thought through everything and have engaged Jesus in clever debate. First there was the question about his authority. That was simple and straightforward, "Just show us your credentials Jesus." Then they made it a bit tricky – "Is it right to pay taxes?" That question would test Jesus to see how quick he is: if he says yes, then he supports the blasphemous worship of the emperor, but if he says no then he supports rebellion. Next, they test him with some controversial and complicated theology. Most questions along these lines involve the future and the afterlife and this one is no exception. They test Jesus with a scenario involving a woman who is married to seven different brothers. She marries and then they die and on it goes. Now in the resurrection who is she married to? You have to respect the scribes, Pharisees, and Sadducees: they pay attention to the details and they aren’t afraid to tackle the tough topics.

Jesus must have appreciated the chance to get out of Jerusalem and enjoy a good meal at Simon’s house. Simon didn’t get many visitors. He’s a leper and lepers just do not have much of a social agenda. There’s a certain, poetic timing to the gathering in Bethany that’s different from the calculating and reasoned timing of the religious leaders: it was the holiday season – Passover. Everyone was remembering what God had done for the people of Israel. The story of Moses and the plagues and crossing the Red Sea were told. Typical of the holiday season, the poor and the unfortunate were given special attention. Perhaps Simon was celebrating with Jesus and his disciples out of appreciation for what God had done for him through Jesus.

Calculation and timing are the last things on the heart of the weeping woman who barges into Simon’s house without an invitation. Jesus and his disciples are lounging around the meal spread out on the floor. She ignores custom and decorum and barges into the gathering for the menfolk. She brings with her a jar of imported perfume. Both the jar and the oil inside are the works of artists. Rather than treat such fine artwork delicately, she breaks the seal on this exquisitely crafted alabaster bottle and ruins it – (they didn’t have caps – you break the bottleneck to open it!) And she pours out all the pleasant scented liquid on Jesus’ head. Not a little, not a dab – all of it. And they can tell that this was high priced, luxury product because the aroma fills the room.

The woman is anointing Jesus. It is her way of showing her gratitude. It is her way of honoring Jesus. She doesn’t over think the giving of this gift. She doesn’t deliberate this act of worship. She doesn’t ask permission to enter the house and make this offering. She simply does what Jesus calls "a beautiful thing."

Pay close attention to what isn’t described in this text. We don’t know her name. We don’t why she did this. Yes, it is common to assume that this is Mary Magdalene and that she is showing gratitude to Jesus because she was a prostitute and Jesus forgave her. That might fit, but none of that is in this text. Nevertheless, Jesus says that this woman will never be forgotten. Mark and Matthew have done us a favor by not giving us too many details, because they know that we, like Jesus, should simply appreciate the beauty of her gift which comes from love and devotion, not reason and obligation. When we dissect the giving of the gift we make the same mistake of the disciples …

"Why such a waste!?" they cry out. "I mean anointing Jesus is good, but why not get some perfume that’s a little more reasonably priced. These are hard times and we need be good stewards of the funds. Let’s ask Judas how much we have in the budget then take bids on perfume and go with the best value. After all it’s the Lord’s money. And besides that does he really need to be anointed?"

"Lady, what were you thinking?" "Do you have any more of that ointment – I am sure that Jesus would like to see it put to better use than just grooming his hair."

You have to respect the disciples. They know what’s right and they know what’s wrong, but most of all they have that special gift that makes them exceptional religious leaders – the gift of timing. If the woman had just come to them first, they could have managed her anointing a little better. They could have given her time to calm down and stop crying. They could have helped her see that a gift given to the poor honors Jesus just as much. Then the expensive perfume, truly a work of art, wouldn’t have been wasted. You have to respect their sense of decorum and timing. You have to respect their sense of propriety and their ability to calculate what is the most worthwhile and effective course of action.

And then there’s Jesus who has had about all he can stand of calculating, reasoning, thinking it through, propriety, and doctrine. Jesus sees his disciples acting like the Pharisees, Sadducees, and scribes and so he speaks …

"Leave her alone! Why are you bothering her? She has done something beautiful and you missed it. I’m glad you’re concerned for the poor and you ought to help them as often as you can – and what she has done is not preventing you from doing so. It’s not as though you won’t have the opportunity to help the poor again. But as for me, I’ve been trying to tell you all that’s going to happen and you just don’t get it. At least what this woman has done has prepared me for my burial. She understands the good news. And whenever the good news is told – what she did will be told so that she will be remembered too."

Why do we need to remember her? I think we need to remember her because the living Jesus still sees his disciples acting like the Pharisees, Sadducees, and scribes, especially when it comes to service and giving gifts. We "lay by in store" and we "give as we have been prospered," but are we able to do a beautiful thing? Let’s cherish and obey the teaching on giving and devotion but let’s not forget this woman who gives extravagantly and excessively. There’s an old saying, "Duty makes one do things, love makes one do things beautifully." Jesus appreciates the gift. We can too. Let’s cry, smile, cheer or shout "Amen!" when we remember this unnamed woman and let’s appreciate those who come after her who strive to do a beautiful thing for Christ. Jesus doesn’t just give an embarrassed nod and say "Thank you kindly." He praises this woman. She is not just asking about the greatest commandment or thinking about it- she is acting it out – "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind!" And though some would call her behavior inappropriate and excessive, Jesus knows/sees her heart and declares that she does a beautiful thing!

How can we as disciples eager to do good works do our work beautifully? Remember this woman …

1. What she does is beautiful not because it is calculated and discussed: Don’t misunderstand, there is a place for thinking and counting the cost, but at some point we have to go beyond logic and policy. The disciples saw giving as something to quibble about. They were focused on the "business" of helping the poor. They saw giving as an obligation and seasonal activity. But they miss the beauty of this woman’s gift. If they had been paying attention and not just following routine or their own expectations they would have known what was ahead for Jesus. As we remember this woman, we are reminded that giving and doing good are not important simply because we can prove how it is reasonable and expedient. It can be beautiful – and that can be enough.
2. What she does is beautiful because it is an expression of love: What the woman does and gives is an extension of her love for Christ. When our works and service are simply an extension of who we are in Christ they become a lot like the gospel. Have you ever experienced a well-timed gift of grace? It may have been something as simple as a cheerful word on a rotten day or a sign of hope in the depths of tragedy. My guess is that those who were the agents of those beautiful things were just being themselves. I doubt this woman had any thought what was about to take place. She just wanted to honor the one who had blessed her. Notice that I am not saying you have to be a naturally cheerful or hopeful person. We don’t know if this woman was naturally optimistic or had been bitter for years. All we know is that she loved Christ and she wasn’t afraid to act on that love.

This unnamed woman becomes part of the story because she loves Jesus. She gives her fortune away because she loves Jesus. She experienced the gospel and she was responding with thanksgiving. She knows how the story ends and she isn’t afraid to be part of it.
The disciples and religious leaders cannot see the beautiful thing because they have written their own ending to the story and they hold on to that. They have their own agenda. But this woman came without the desire to control or convince. She was not thinking about what the Lord could do for her, but how much he had already done. She wasn’t focused on how to get him to forgive, but how he had already forgiven her of so much. She gave Jesus all she had to give without regard to herself.

In Spite of Everything, It Is Happening!

Posted by David on April 14, 2005 under Bulletin Articles

“If the prospect of having decent health insurance is so wonderful, what do you not like?” I do not like what age is doing to me. At least at this point for me, aging is the incredible journey that constantly discovers “what you cannot do any more.” One question I never had to ask myself as an adult was, “Can you do that?” In the past, if “it” needed doing and opportunity existed, I did it. No more! Now everything is prefaced with that awful question, “Can I do that?”

Now my key word at this point in life is “transition.” In the past I told myself, “If I need to, next year I can ?” Surely I was aware of life’s uncertainties, and hopefully I took little for granted. However, even with uncertainties I had options and opportunities. Today there are question marks, and they keep getting bigger! Even with life’s uncertainties, I liked options and opportunities much better than question marks!

In this time of transition, I constantly find a challenge that was totally unexpected. “What challenge?” The challenge to faith. As I look over things in my past, I always leave moments of reflection with the same question: “Did I do that because of faith in me or because of faith in God?”

I constantly find myself tested with this question: “Can God use this to accomplish His purposes?” That is not a new question or an age question. Many Christians encounter the same question with a health crisis, a disease crisis, a relationship crisis, a family crisis, a career crisis, or [in fact] a genuine crisis of any kind.

The faith issue for a Christian is quite simple: “Can God use adversity as well as blessing to achieve His purposes in human existence? Or, is adversity blessing us?” Somehow that sounds very un-American. However, it sounds very God-centered. The God who used a cross to provide me a perfect Savior can use my challenges and transitions to strengthen my salvation in Jesus Christ. The focus is not “do I like it.” The focus is God can use any human experience to achieve His purposes.

Ephesians 3:20, 21 “Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen.”

The Path To God

Posted by David on April 10, 2005 under Sermons

This evening I want to challenge all of us to think in depth about a huge temptation each of us confronts. The temptation focuses on our personal concepts and personal definitions concerning “the path to God.”

Your initial reaction may be, “David, the path to God cannot possibly be a temptation to all of us! We decided long, long ago what the correct path to God is! All my life we have challenged people to trust the path, or to take the path, or to walk the path–we have never asked people to define the path! We need to emphasize the importance of the path, not dwell on the definition of the path!”

If you are tempted to think that we have correctly defined the path for a long, long time, allow me to focus you on the temptation that confronts everyone of us. Let me focus you by asking some questions.

1. How many people did Jesus die for?
2. Was Jesus an American?
3. Is the best way to express Christianity in its nature and objectives to do it in terms of the American society and American culture?
4. If believers in Jesus Christ who have been baptized by immersion in other cultures and societies do things in ways that are not American, are they genuinely Christian?
5. If believers in Jesus Christ who have been baptized by immersion in this culture and society do things in ways that differ from the way you do them, are they genuinely Christian?
6. In this society, what “kind” of people make you uncomfortable?
7. Can baptized believers who make you uncomfortable genuinely be Christian?
8. Can they worship with you?
9. Can you be brother and sister to them?
10. Can you be in a mutual relationship of encouragement with such Christians?

Let me approach this temptation in another way.

• How big (in attendance) would you like this congregation to become? 1,000 worshippers? 1500 worshippers? 2,000 worshippers?
  1. Do you mean you would like for this congregation to grow in number if everyone new was just like you at about the same point of spiritual development you are?
  2. Or, do you mean you would like for this congregation to grow in number even if the new people were not just like you?

Do you see the problem? Do you acknowledge the temptation? Do you realize that God’s love for a person is not dependent on your personal likes and dislikes?

This very difficult, hard problem is not new. In fact, it existed from very near the beginning of Christianity in the first century. Many Jewish Christians had a very hard time trying to understand that God loved people who were not Jews just as much as He loved Jews. Many Jewish Christians had a hard time understanding that God sent Jesus to the world, not just to the nation of Israel. Now if people who were not Jews accepted Jewish traditions and way of doing things, Jewish Christians were okay with that. But they were very uncomfortable if people who were not Jews did not accept Jewish traditions and ways. In fact, sometimes some Jewish Christians said the baptized believers in Jesus Christ were not genuine Christians, were not saved, and did not belong to God. That attitude created a huge problem in the first century church.

Tonight I want to illustrate the problem confronting all Christians. Hopefully, you will have a better understanding of the problem, the temptation facing all of us.

1. I want to begin by having you picture a spectrum that goes from total black to total white.
   1. In this spectrum, black fades into dark gray, dark gray fades into medium gray, medium gray fades into light gray, and light gray fades into tones of white.
   2. I think this is an appropriate analogy for what I want to illustrate.
      1. Scripture often uses black or darkness to describe evil.
      2. It often describes righteousness as light.
      3. Conversion involves the process of repenting–leaving the darkness and coming to the light.

2. Honestly look at this spectrum and decide for yourself what your starting point was when you first began seriously thinking about coming to Christ and becoming a Christian.
   1. I am quite serious–I will not ask you to share with anyone your decision–but I want you to locate your starting point on this spectrum.
      1. I want you to say to yourself, “That is where I was when I started to seriously think about turning to Christ.”
      2. Have you done that? Good! Remember what you picked as your starting point and hang on to it.
   2. Now allow me to ask you some more questions.
      1. Can God in Jesus Christ forgive a prostitute? If your answer is “Yes,” where on that spectrum would you place his or her starting point?
      2. Can God in Jesus Christ forgive homosexuals? If your answer is “Yes,” where on that spectrum would you place his or her starting point?
      3. Can God in Jesus Christ forgive a drug addict who has lost everything for the sake of his or her addiction? If your answer is “Yes,” where on that spectrum is his or her starting point?
      4. Can God in Jesus Christ forgive an alcoholic who has lost everything for the sake of his or her addiction? If your answer is “Yes,” where on that spectrum is his or her staring point?
      5. Can God in Jesus Christ forgive a violent criminal who has physically hurt another person? If your answer is “Yes,” where on that spectrum is his or her starting point?
      6. Compare all those starting points. What is the likelihood all of us will be at the very same point of spiritual development at the very same time?
   3. Allow me to advance this illustration by using two extremes.
      1. The first extreme is a person, man or woman, who grew up with no spiritual or religious influence in his or her life.
         1. His or her family never owned a Bible–he or she never saw one, never touched one.
         2. Sundays were “free days” to be used pursuing pleasure in any way you could indulge yourself. No one in his or her family ever thought about worshipping God.
         3. He or she never saw the inside of a church building, never personally knew a preacher, and felt a deep sense of disgust with all Christians.
         4. He or she never knew any of the Bible characters or Bible stories.
         5. He or she was 10 years old the first time he or she was drunk.
         6. He or she was a drug addict by the age of 11.
         7. He or she was sexually active before he or she reached the age of 12.
         8. He or she had been married and divorced by the age of 18.
         9. As a pre-teen, his or her cursing vocabulary was incredible!
         10. For the sake of illustration, let’s place this person’s starting point in the black.
         

      2. The second extreme, man or woman, is a person who grew in a genuine Christian home–no pretense, no hypocrisy.
         1. The first place the parents took this person after birth was to church.
         2. The congregation presented him or her a Bible before he or she was a year old.
         3. He or she was a part of all the children’s classes and programs, an active part of the youth group, participated every year in LTC, a part of the college group when at home, and went to a Christian college.
         4. He or she grew up with devotionals almost every day in the home and had two wonderful role models full of love.
         5. By age five he or she knew the main Bible characters, before the age of 10 he or she could quote lots of Bible verses, and by the time that he or she was a teenager, he or she had a growing understanding.
         6. He or she was never drunk, never experimented with recreational drugs, was never sexually active, and knew very few curse words.
         7. This person grew up truly loving God with an absolute commitment to Jesus Christ.
         8. For the sake of illustration, let’s place this person’s starting point in the light gray.
         

      3. These two people lived in totally different worlds with totally different experiences.
         1. The discussion about believing will not be the same discussion–one always has believed (there was never a time when he or she did not believe in God and love Jesus) and one knew nothing about God.
         2. The discussion about repentance will not be the same discussion–one has some devastating experiences to repent of, and one has little to turn from.
         3. The discussion about baptism should not be the same discussion–one genuinely needs a new beginning, and the other never has consciously rebelled against God.
         

      4. Therefore, the path to God is not the same for these two people.
         1. If the objective is to get these two people into the baptistery for an immersion regardless of what they understand, we make a poor decision.
         2. While both need to be baptized into Christ, both need to realize they are committing to a lifestyle for a lifetime.
   4. Which one needs:
      1. Forgiveness? They both equally need forgiveness.
      2. Grace and mercy? They both equally need grace and mercy.
      3. Dependency on God? They both equally need total dependence on God.
      4. A life of commitment? They both equally need a life of commitment.
      5. What do they have in common? Excluding Jesus Christ, probably very little.
      6. Are they both God’s children? Absolutely.

3. I want us to read together two scriptures and each of us reflect on the teaching of each scripture.
   1. First, read with me Luke 15:1-10.
      Now all the tax collectors and the sinners were coming near Him to listen to Him. Both the Pharisees and the scribes began to grumble, saying, “This man receives sinners and eats with them.” So He told them this parable, saying, “What man among you, if he has a hundred sheep and has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the open pasture and go after the one which is lost until he finds it? When he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost!’ I tell you that in the same way, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance. Or what woman, if she has ten silver coins and loses one coin, does not light a lamp and sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it? When she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin which I had lost!’ In the same way, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”
   2. Second, read with me Luke 18:9-14.
      And He also told this parable to some people who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and viewed others with contempt: “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood and was praying this to himself: ‘God, I thank You that I am not like other people: swindlers, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I pay tithes of all that I get.’ But the tax collector, standing some distance away, was even unwilling to lift up his eyes to heaven, but was beating his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, the sinner!’ I tell you, this man went to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

May God lead us to be as patient with others as God is with each of us!