Sunday Sermons - First Baptist Church, Chico, CA

HOME	CHICO FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH 850 PALMETTO AVE. CHICO, CA 95926 (530) 343-3446 FAX: (530) 343-3449
SERMONS
CALENDAR
ABW
FOCUS
FACILITIES RESERVATION FORM

2009 Sermons - Click Here

January 2010	01/10/10	01/17/10	01/24/10	01/31/10
February 2010	02/14/10	02/21/10
March 2010	03/7/10	03/14/10	03/21/10
April 2010	04/04/10	04/11/10	04/18/10
May 2010	05/02/10	05/23/10	05/30/10
June 2010	06/06/10	06/13/10	06/20/10	06/27/10
July 2010	07/04/10	07/25/10
August 2010	08/01/10

August 1, 2010 Hosea 11:1-11 Luke 12:13-21 “What’s Enough?”

Dr. Ted H. Sandberg

It’s only a coincidence, I think, that the Sunday the lectionary has us looking at this parable of the rich man who builds bigger and better storage barns for all his crops is the same week we prepare for the ABW’s annual rummage sale. Now don’t take me wrong. I’m not suggesting that the rummage sale is the same as the desire to accumulate more and more. In fact, it’s almost the opposite, or can be the opposite. I know that many who’ve brought things for the sale do so because they’re downsizing – for whatever reason. Sometimes you’re doing Fall cleaning and getting rid of things that have gathered dust through the years. Sometimes individuals are moving from a larger home into a smaller, or from a home into an apartment or into an assisted living situation, and so they’re giving away the things that won’t fit, or things for which there’s no storage available. The problem is too much stuff, but the attitude is entirely different.

The rich man wasn’t downsizing. He was upgrading. He wanted more and more. In telling the parable, Jesus has the rich man want to be able to think, “And I will say to my soul, ‘Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.’” Then comes Jesus’ warning. “But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’” Jesus concludes, “So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God.”

There are lots in our country who are more concerned about upgrading, about getting more and more, than they are about wondering when enough is enough. I frequently watch a TV show called “House Hunters.” The show follows different couples throughout the world as they search for a house. These couples are looking for new houses for lots of reasons. Sometimes they’re moving because the home in which they’re currently living is too small for them. They’ve had more children and they want to have more room for the family. Or they’re moving from one part of the country to another part and so they’re looking at homes. Or they’re looking to move from an apartment to a house, or out of their parent’s home.

What I find interesting, and why I share this with you, is because it’s startling what some of the couples find as too small. Some of the couples walk into a master bedroom the size of one of our classrooms and complain that it’s too small. If the closet isn’t the size of my office, they wonder what they’ll do with all their clothes. If the master bathroom isn’t even larger, they complain – which is one of the things I’ve always been curious about. Why do people need huge bathrooms? Cheri and my master bathroom is actually bigger than we need but it’s no where near as large as some I’ve seen. When we were on vacation, we had 15 people staying in the family cottage, and there was 1, one, small bathroom, yet some how we all managed. My guess is that most homes built today in Chico have at least 2 bathrooms. I generally find myself asking, when I watch the show, “How much is enough?”

That’s really Jesus asks here. What’s enough? And perhaps even more, what do we do with what we have? The rich man’s problem wasn’t that he had wealth. It’s that he focused on his wealth instead of on God. He built bigger and bigger barns to store his crops. Today, we’d say he invested more and more so that he could look at his huge bank account and feel good, so he could say, “Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.” We don’t hear any concern from the rich man about family. We don’t hear any concern about neighbors. We don’t hear any concern about the poor, or about his workers. All we hear is his concern with building bigger and bigger barns.

I’m currently rereading Tony Hillerman’s mystery books about 2 Navajo policemen, Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee. Throughout the books, Hillerman inserts what I’d define as Navajo theology. One of the basic principles of Navajo life is family and the need to care for family – and Navajo family includes the entire clan. If someone in the clan is in need of help, then it’s the responsibility of any in the family that can help to help. What’s more, a traditional Navajo individual wouldn’t want to accumulate more goods than he or she needed, unless everyone else had the same standard of living. The traditional Navajo has no desire to get more than his or her neighbors. Their desire is for all to have equally enough.

That’s much the attitude that Jesus is teaching here. There’s nothing wrong with wanting nice things, unless that means that we’re going to ignore the needs of the poor. There’s nothing wrong with new cars and bigger houses and new clothes, unless others are suffering with not enough.

Which holds for our nation as well. A few years back, Lawrence Woods wrote, “Our country is a very rich man. The United Nations has asked the wealthiest countries to give at least seven-tenths of a percent of their GNP to foreign aid. Among them, America’s giving ranks dead last: it gives one-tenth of 1 percent. (Of course, we do provide enormous military aid.) Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Sweden lead the world in generosity. In 2001, with a population of 5.3 million, less than that of greater Chicago, the Netherlands gave $3.2 billion, almost a third of what we gave. We Americans debate what constitutes a tithe, how much is subject to it, if it is regressive and should be modified for people of modest means – say, for us. Meanwhile those godless Scandinavians seem to be practicing the tithe.”^{^[1]}

“In the revolutionary year of 1776, a new political democracy was born, and Adam Smith published his An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations and became the ‘father of political economy.’ The whole of Europe and the infant nation born that year became the world of Adam Smith.

In that world each learned to expect others to do what was in their economic self-interest, and society learned to rely on a free market to direct such self-interested economic activity toward society’s benefit. When we deal with ‘the butcher, the brewer, or the baker,’ he said, we depend not on their benevolence but on their self-interest. We enter their shops without looking for favors, offering instead to pay for the goods they offer for sale. If they charge too much or offer inferior goods, they know that we won’t be back, that it will be in our self-interest to enter the shop of a competitor instead.

“In Adam Smith’s world the self-interested individual was liberated from the control of tradition and political or religious authorities. . . The pursuit of economic self-interest in a free market would increase the wealth of the whole society. Such was the vision of Adam Smith in 1776, and such is the prescription for the lenses through which many economists still see the world in capitalist economies.

“Things have changed since 1776. The confidence that an ‘invisible hand’ would fashion social well-being through the competition of a free market could hardly endure the sight of children working 14 hours a day in sweatshops or the smell of noxious factory smoke. Some moral qualms and scruples have been impossible to suppress. Consider the social legislation enacted in the last century and a half, much of it under the support of the churches, in areas ranging from child labor laws and the abolition of slavery, that market human flesh, to the rights of workers to organize, Social Security, safety standards for the workplace, and environmental impact studies. Such legislation has expressed some of those suppressed moral qualms and relied on human resolve to intervene in free markets. Some political control of the economic order, despite libertarian qualms, is now not only accepted but respected.”^{^[1]}

We claim to be a Christian nation, but we’re all too willing to accept tax breaks while the poor suffer. We claim to follow Christ, but we allow the richest to build bigger and bigger barns while the poorer get poorer – even when we’ll never be that rich ourselves. We claim to love as Jesus loves, but we do little to ensure justice for all. Instead, we blame the poor for being poor, comforting ourselves when we hear stories of those who work the system instead of working. We applaud bailing out the banks, but complain when we try and bail out the unemployed.

With our wealth as well as with our lives, we are to do unto others as we would have them do unto us. For what does it profit us to gain the wealth of the world and lose our souls? You and I have nowhere near the wealth of the rich man of this parable. But we live in a wonderful nation, a wonderful nation that is the rich man. Maybe it’s time for our nation to practice the words of Jesus our Lord. Amen.

2. Wood, Lawrence, “Living by the Word: ‘A Lot of Junk,’” The Christian Century, July 27, 2004, p. 20.

2. Willimon, William H., “Prosperity Theology,” Pulpit Resource, Vol. 38, No. 3; Year C; July, August, September 2010, pp. 23-4.

July 25, 2010 Colossians 2:6-15 Luke 11:1-13 “Asking for the Moon”

Dr. Ted H. Sandberg

Kids like to make games out of chores, at least I did. I remember once making a great game out of doing the lunch dishes. I must’ve been, 7 or 8. Dad was pastor of Calvary Baptist Church in Cheyenne, WY and we were living in a great, big, 3 story parsonage that had this long and narrow kitchen, about the size of the kitchen here at First Baptist. We had a table in the middle of the room, and it was a narrow squeeze to get around the table, so I decided the best way to clear the table was to toss the silverware from the far end of the table across the room into the side of the double sink that I’d filled with the dish water. It was great fun. And I was pretty good at getting the forks and spoons into the water. But then I flipped a knife across the room, one with a heavy end, and wouldn’t you know it, I tossed it a bit too hard and the knife missed the first side of the sink, and landed in the second, where I’d stacked the plates and bowls. As luck would have it, the knife hit – heavy end first – my mother’s favorite Jell-O bowl, and broke a nice size chunk right off the top of it.

I was devastated. What was I to do? Not wanting to explain to my mother my great game – which on second thought and seeing the results, didn’t seem so great any longer – I quickly dried the bowl, found the piece that had been broken off, climbed up on the counter and put the bowl on the very top shelf. I did this only in part because I wanted to hide the evidence of my knife throwing. I also did it because, I was going to pray that bowl back together. I may’ve remembered one of Dad’s sermons on the power of prayer, or remembered the passage at which we’re looking this morning, “Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you.” I clearly remember thinking about Jesus’ words in Matthew 17, “If you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you.” If faith could move a mountain, surely faith could fix a Jell-O bowl, and so I prayed and prayed.

Each night, I prayed that that bowl would be made whole. Then in the morning, I’d wait until Mom wasn’t in the kitchen and I’d climb up on the cupboard and check that top shelf to see if the bowl was still broken – and it always was – and I’d berate myself for not having enough faith. There was always that bit of doubt in the back of my mind about God fixing that bowl, and I condemned myself for doubting, figuring that my doubt was why I was still going to get in trouble for breaking the bowl.

I don’t remember how long this went on – a couple of weeks maybe. It seemed like forever to me. I couldn’t believe how lucky I was that Mom didn’t need to use the bowl, and therefore I had another chance to improve my faith so that God would fix it. But it was also very difficult to go down each morning and find that once again, my faith hadn’t been strong enough, and the bowl remained broken.

“Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you,” Jesus said, “For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened. Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for a fish, will give a snake instead of a fish? Or if the child asks for an egg, will give a scorpion? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”

All we have to do is ask, right? “Ask, and it will be given you...For everyone who asks receives.” There are many who have this understanding of prayer, aren’t there? Remember Huck Finn’s reflections upon prayer that I’ve shared with you before? “Miss Watson she took me in the closet and prayed, but nothing come of it. She told me to pray every day, and whatever I asked for I would get. But it warn’t so. I tried it. Once I got a fish-line, but no hooks. It warn’t any good to me without hooks. I tried for the hooks three or four times, but somehow I couldn’t make it work. By and by, one day, I asked Miss Watson to try for me, but she said I was a fool. She never told me why, and I couldn’t make it out no way.

I set down one time back in the woods, and had a long think about it. I says to myself, if a body can get anything they pray for, why don’t Deacon Winn get back the money he lost on pork? Why can’t the widow get back her silver snuff-box that was stole? Why can’t Miss Watson fat up? No, says I to myself, there ain’t nothing in it.”

If we don’t get what we want when we pray, if we don’t get it when we want it, or if it doesn’t come as we expect it, too often we believe that our prayers aren’t answered, that prayer doesn’t work. We ask for the moon, and when we remain earth bound, we complain that God doesn’t answer prayer.

“If I want a big new Cadillac, and want it hard enough, ask God for it, and believe that it’s arriving in my driveway even as I’m praying for it, I’ll find when I look out my window that there it is, and the wonderful working power of prayer will have done it again!” While this is pretty blatantly self-serving, it captures some people’s conception of prayer. The kicker here is that this depends upon my faith, my belief. “My wife, husband, child, friend died of cancer because my faith wasn’t strong enough to save them. It can’t be God’s fault. It must be my fault. I’m at fault because I don’t have enough faith. I don’t pray right.”

But the fault isn’t ours, or at least it’s not the fault of our weak faith, nor does the fault for the seemingly unanswered prayers lie with God. Rather, the problem lies in our understanding of prayer, or our misunderstanding. Too many people today, even good Christians, treat God as a cosmic servant. “God is not a cosmic bellboy for whom we can press a button to get things,” the great preacher, Harry Emerson Fosdick once said. God is not our servant. We’re to be God’s servants. Prayer isn’t like magic where, if we say the proper words, or say the words with proper faith, some grand trick will be done.

When we go back to Jesus’ teachings, it’s clear that we can’t expect God to give us everything we want. Jesus uses the example of a father giving good things to his children. If a child asks for a fish or an egg, the father wouldn’t give a snake or a scorpion. At the same time though, every parent knows that our children can’t be given everything they ask for, even if it was in the parent’s power to do so, or the child would be spoiled rotten. Johnny may want to eat nothing but cake and ice cream. Hardly a balanced diet. Susy may not want to go to school. Hardly a way to happiness in the long run. Parents interpret the wishes and demands of their children and try to do what’s best for the children, although, being human, parents frequently fail in this, giving in to their children just to avoid the whining

God also interprets our prayers. God does this because, remember, the impetus to pray doesn’t come from us, but from the Holy Spirit. In some way, when we pray, our thoughts are mingled with the will of the Holy Spirit. The closer our thoughts are to the thoughts or will of the Spirit’s, the more we’ll find that our prayers are answered the way we’d like them answered – not because our faith is stronger, but because our minds are more in touch with God’s Spirit. In Jesus’ long teaching in John’s Gospel, we read, “Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father. I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son.”

To ask in the name of Jesus isn’t to simply close each prayer by saying, “in Jesus’ name.” To ask in Jesus’ name is to pretend that we’re Jesus and to pray for the things that Jesus would pray for. Do you think Jesus would ask for a new Mercedes? I don’t, unless somehow that new Mercedes would better God’s kingdom on earth. Would Jesus ask for healing to come to a loved one, or the hungry to be fed, or the naked clothed? Yes, indeed. Over and over again, we see Jesus reaching out to meet the needs of people, and he teaches us to do the same thing, even for ourselves. Jesus is as concerned with our needs as he is in the needs of those around us, so we should ask for our needs to be met too. It’s just that sometimes what we feel are needs probably aren’t what Jesus feels are needs.

So what do we do with Jesus’ saying, “Ask and it shall be given to you.” My understanding of this is that Jesus is basically teaching us that there are no limits to what God can do or may do with our prayers, and therefore we don’t need to refrain from asking anything of God simply because we can’t believe that even God can give it. It’s another way of saying that with God all things are possible. Belief, trust, faith on our part are also indispensable to availing prayer. We can ask for the moon, if we ask in Jesus’ name, if we think this may bring about the kingdom of God, even though we can’t possibly understand how God could answer our prayer. If we pray unselfishly, in Jesus’ name, we shouldn’t limit what we ask for just because our limited human minds can’t figure out how God can answer our prayers.

What happened with the Jell-O bowl? Eventually, Mom needed the bowl, and when she couldn’t find it in it’s usual place, she asked me where it was. I told her to look on the top shelf, which she did. She stood on a chair, I think, and brought down the still broken bowl, the chunk of glass in the bottom of the bowl, final proof that all my prayers hadn’t been answered.

But Mom didn’t yell at me, or even get angry. She calmly told me I should’ve told her the bowl was broken so that she could’ve bought a new one, because now she didn’t have a bowl to use for the church supper. Then she quietly set about finding some thing else to use. Looking back, I still find it hard to believe she wasn’t upset because I’d broken the bowl by playing my pretty dumb game. Did God fix the bowl? No. Did God answer my prayer? Indeed God did, and in a way that I never imagined possible. Ask for the moon from God. Why should we limit God to what we ourselves can imagine?

July 4, 2010 Galatians 6:7-10 Luke 10:1-11, 16-20 “Who, Me? Harvest?”

Dr. Ted H. Sandberg

“Wanted: Hard worker for back-breaking labor, 12-hour days, in hot, wet fields or large processing plants. Must be willing to relocate repeatedly. Piece work rate or minimum wage, no benefits. Barracks-style housing provided. Women and teens encouraged to apply.”

Sound attractive? Not to most of us. Not to most of the U.S. work force either, but for seasonal or migrant farm workers, this hypothetical “want ad” describes reality. It’s estimated there are 1.3 million migrant workers who provide essential seasonal labor for agricultural employers across the country. The number includes both legal and illegal workers.

Most of us wouldn’t even consider taking such a job. Even fast food places like McDonald’s, Burger King and the others that pay only minimum wage have a hard time finding workers because teenagers think it’s beneath their dignity to flip hamburgers, and besides, the money isn’t that good. Imagine trying to convince someone with that attitude to go pick strawberries, or to go pick beans. It may be different, now, with the economy as it is, but I doubt it. Many teenagers don’t want to work at minimum wage jobs, and adults know that it’s impossible to raise a family on minimum wage, so they don’t want the jobs either. But who could do the work the migrant workers do?

We know why migrant workers are willing to take such difficult jobs when most of us today wouldn’t even think about working under those conditions. A New York Times article explains this all too clearly for us. It said, “Eager to earn as much as 10 times what they can at home, these workers are willing to put up with living conditions and wages that few Americans would accept. The economic imperative driving them – that they can lift their families out of poverty – is so powerful that it has assured a plentiful supply of migrants even as real farm wages have fallen by more than 10 percent in the last 20 years.”^{^[1]} Indeed, not only is there a plentiful supply of migrant workers, there’s an over abundance of this cheap labor supply, at least there was, thereby guaranteeing that wages remain low, working conditions remain difficult, and housing conditions often times remain abominable.

These were the conditions during Jesus’ day as well. The growers didn’t depend upon migrant laborers, but they did depend upon a plentiful supply of day laborers, workers who had slipped to the very bottom of the economic ladder. Laborers who worked for next to nothing in order to put food on the table for that day. Workers who had little chance of ever escaping poverty, who’s life expectancy was dramatically lower than the rest of society. The owners depended upon these workers who were just glad to work that day, because that meant they would eat that night.

It’s an ironic picture, therefore, Jesus paints in today’s text. “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.” I suppose Jesus’ listeners could imagine a glorious time when all the day laborers were already in the fields, and yet the harvest was so great that there was still more crop to be gathered in, a glorious time of full employment. Maybe there would be a time when an owner’s crop would be slow to ripen and so the labor supply would be diminished, and the crop would be threatened because no one was there to harvest it. That’s a possibility.

Or maybe Jesus was simply pricking the consciences of his listeners as he pricks ours today. The harvest is there, but would we go out into the almond groves to pick up almonds? Don’t they have machines to do that now? Would we go into the beet fields or the bean fields, or the strawberry fields to pick the harvest? “Who, me? Harvest? You’ve got to be kidding. I don’t do that kind of work. That’s for someone with no skills. That’s for someone else to do. I haven’t sunk that low, yet!”

Not all, but many of Jesus’ listeners would’ve probably reacted just like us. That’s not for me. My gifts are different. I’ll drive the tractor but I don’t do weeds, and I don’t pick almonds.

But Jesus says, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few.” There are people out there ready to come to the Lord, but there’s no one to share the Good News with them. There are people through out the world, even people here in Chico, who don’t know the love of Jesus Christ, don’t understand that they’re sinners no matter how well educated they are or how well off they may be. Despite the number of churches in our city, there are thousands ready to hear the Good News, but there’s a shortage of harvesters. Jesus says, “Go on your way. See, I am sending you out like lambs into the midst of wolves. Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals; and greet no one on the road.”

And we say, “Who, me? Harvest? You’ve got to be kidding. You want me to give up my nice home, my new car, my well-paying job, my dreams of getting ahead – you want me to give up all these things and harvest souls? That’s not for me. That’s not my thing, (as we used to say.) That’s not what I want to do.”

Two related reflections on what I think is a general reluctance on the part of many, if not most of us, to see ourselves as harvesters in life’s field today. First, on a positive note, God calls all of us – lay and pastor – to this task. Not to leave our homes, but to share the Good News. We’re called to go into the fields to harvest together. It’s not only ministers who are to harvest, not even primarily ministers. Barbara Brown Taylor, in her book The Preaching Life, writes this: “While a lay person’s trips to the pulpit may be few, this good news cannot help but creep into everyday discourse, until conversations with colleagues, midnight talks with children, and telephone calls to ailing friends all resound with the faith, hope, and love of someone engaged in the ministry of the word.”^{^[1]} The harvest is gathered in because you invite friends and neighbors to church. The harvest is gathered in because we’re praying especially hard for 2 or 3 special people to come to know the Lord Jesus Christ, praying that a door will be opened so that we can share with those 2 or 3 people what Jesus Christ has done for us. The harvest is gathered in because we’re constantly seeking opportunities to share the Gospel with those individuals for whom we’re praying – not to cram the Good News down their throats, but to gently ask them about the condition of their spiritual life, as well as life in general.

The harvest is gathered in, or not gathered in as the case may be, because we’re concerned with the salvation of those still in the fields. This is the second, perhaps negative, reflection. Migrant workers are willing to harvest the fields in which most of us would be unwilling to work because they love their families. Much of what little they earn goes to their families where ever they may be living. They love their families so much that they’re willing to live in shacks filled with bugs and rats, work under the hot sun all day long for minimum wage growing old before their time because they have a dream of their families having a better life.

Are we concerned enough about those who don’t know Jesus Christ that we’re willing to go into the fields to harvest those who don’t know the Lord, even though we may not want to? Do we have a compassion for all those who are lost so that we’ll be willing to take the risk of sharing our faith with them? Do we personally care enough about those who don’t know Jesus Christ that we obey Jesus’ command ourselves to go out into the harvest?

Jesus tells us, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.” Are we willing to go into the harvest? Do our hearts burn with compassion for those who don’t know Jesus Christ? As we come before His table this morning, may we open ourselves to allowing the Holy Spirit to let us feel a deep concern for those who don’t yet worship God. As we come before His Table, may we be reminded that God loved us, and loves all those still in the field, loves us all, enough that He sent His only Son to die on a cross that we might have life more abundantly. As we come to His table, may the Holy Spirit stir our hearts and encourage our souls that we might better work to bring in the harvest for our Lord.

1. Unfortunately, I have lost the exact reference from the NY Times for this quote.

2. Taylor, Barbara Brown, The Preaching Life, Cowley Publications, Cambridge, 1993, pp. 34-35.

June 27, 2010 Galatians 5:1, 13-15, 22-26 Luke 9:51-62 “No Command to Burn”

Dr. Ted H. Sandberg

It’s almost time – time for Jesus to face the terrible ordeal in Jerusalem. Luke tells us, “When the days drew near for [Jesus] to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem.” The verse could perhaps more accurately be translated, “When the days were fulfilled for him to be taken up.” For Luke, this is the decisive turning point in his story.^{^[1]} Jesus turns toward Jerusalem, on his way to the betrayal, on his way to the trial, on his way to the cross. He and his disciples turn toward Jerusalem for the time is near.

While Matthew’s and Mark’s Gospels have Jesus traveling through Perea on his way to Jerusalem, through Jewish territory, Luke has Jesus take the more direct route which was through Samaria.^{^[2]} Luke tells us, “On their way they entered a village of the Samaritans to make ready for him; but they did not receive him, because his face was set toward Jerusalem.”

The reason for the Samaritans’ rejection of Jesus isn’t exactly clear here. Why would Jesus’ desire to go to Jerusalem cause the Samaritans to reject him? I can understand their rejection of him because he was a Jew. As you know, Jews and Samaritans didn’t get along. But to be rejected because he was going to Jerusalem is something I don’t understand. Nonetheless, that’s what happened.

When Jesus and the disciples were rejected by the Samaritans, the disciples – especially James and John – became angry. They said to Jesus, “Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?” Evidently, the disciples had already forgotten Jesus’ earlier directions in Luke 9:5 when, in sending them out to proclaim the kingdom of God, he said, “Wherever they do not welcome you, as you are leaving that town shake the dust off your feet as a testimony against them.” Jesus didn’t command them to have fire rain down as punishment for their rejection of him, or one of his disciples.

Ah, but we can understand how James and John felt, can’t we? Luke doesn’t give us any details about how the Samaritans rejected Jesus and the disciples, but we can fill in the gaps. I’m sure they didn’t come up politely and say, “Sir, we don’t like strangers in our village. We would much appreciate it if you would go on your way.” Of course, even that simple rejection would have been a cultural insult. Hospitality is a part of Middle Eastern culture, and simply to reject the stranger is a great insult. I would guess, however, that added to the rejection would’ve been a few racial slurs, and maybe a push or two, and probably a crowd gathering to make sure Jesus and the disciples left. “Get out and stay out!!” would’ve be the kindest thing they would’ve said. So James and John were angry and they wanted to command fire to rain down on the village, just as Elijah had caused fire to rain down on his sacrifice in his “duel” with the prophets of Baal (1 Kings 18:38) and on the kings messenger in 2 Kings 1:10. “Punish them, Jesus!” they said. “Or let us punish them. Nobody should get away with rejecting you!”

As Christians, we aren’t surprised that Jesus wouldn’t allow James and John to do this. We’re not surprised that Jesus rebuked them, because we know that Jesus teaches peace and forgiveness. But in our hearts, we sympathize with James and John. We sympathize with them because we, too, have been rejected because of Jesus. Visitors worship with us and don’t come back. We invite friends to church, but they say “No, we don’t want to go with you to that church.” We share the Good News of Jesus Christ, but people say, “I don’t believe Jesus was God. He was just a good man. I don’t need to believe.” We’re rejected and we’re hurt, and out of our hurt comes anger and a desire for God to show that we’re right. “Strike ‘em down, God. Show the world who You are! Show the world You’re God, the all powerful!”

We feel this, and may not even recognize how conditioned we’ve been by our culture to feel this way. Walter Wink, writing in his book Engaging the Powers: Discernment and Resistance in a World of Domination says, “Violence is the ethos of our times. It is the spirituality of the modern world. It has been accorded the status of a religion, demanding from its devotees an absolute obedience to death. Its followers are not aware, however, that the devotion they pay to violence is a form of religious piety. Violence is so successful as a myth precisely because it does not seem to by mythic in the least. Violence simply appears to be the nature of things. It is what works. It is inevitable, the last and, often, the first resort in conflicts. It is embraced with equal [quickness] by people on the left and on the right, by religious liberals as well as religious conservatives.”

Wink goes on, “The roots of this devotion to violence are deep, and we will be well rewarded if we trace them to their source. When we do, we will discover that the religion of Babylon – one of the world’s oldest, continuously surviving religions – is thriving as never before in every sector of contemporary American life, even in our synagogues and churches. It, and not Christianity, is the real religion of America. . . [T]his myth of redemptive violence undergirds American popular culture, civil religion, nationalism, and foreign policy, and it lies coiled like an ancient serpent at the root of the system of domination that has characterized human existence since well before Babylon ruled supreme.”^{^[3]}

“Jesus taught the love of enemies, but Babylonian religion taught their extermination. Violence was for the religion of ancient Mesopotamia what love was for Jesus: the central dynamic of existence. For this early civilization, life was as cruel as the floods and droughts and storms that swept the Fertile Crescent. Recurrent warfare between the various city-states in the region exhausted resources. Chaos threatened every achievement of humanity. The myth that enshrined that culture’s sense of life was the Enuma Elish, dated to around 1250 B.C.E. in the versions that have survived, but based on traditions considerably older.

In the beginning, according to this myth, Apsu and Tiamat (the sweet- and saltwater oceans) bear Mummu (the mist). From them also issue the younger gods, whose frolicking makes so much noise that the elder gods cannot sleep and so resolve to kill them. This plot of the elder gods is discovered, Ea kills Apsu, and his wife Tiamat pledges revenge. Ea and the younger gods in terror turn for salvation to their youngest, Marduk. He exacts a steep price: if he succeeds, he must be given chief and undisputed power in the assembly of the gods. Having extorted this promise, he catches Tiamat in a net, drives an evil wind down her throat, shoots an arrow that bursts her distended belly and pierces her heart; he then splits her skull with a club, and scatters her blood in out-of-the-way places. He stretches out her corpse full length, and from her corpse he creates the cosmos.

Clearly, creation in this Babylonian myth is an act of violence. Tiamat, the “mother of them all,” is murdered and dismembered; from her cadaver the world is formed. Order is established by means of disorder. Creation is a violent victory over an enemy older than creation. The origin of evil precedes the origin of things. Chaos is prior to order. Evil is prior to good. Violence exists in the godhead. Evil is an permanent component of life, and possess a fundamental priority over good. That’s what the Babylonian myth teaches, and that’s pretty much the myth that pervades our society, indeed, the world, today.

The biblical creation story is opposed to all this. In the Genesis account, a good God creates a good creation. Chaos doesn’t resist order. Good is fundamentally prior to evil. Neither evil nor violence is a part of the creation, but both enter as a result of the first couple’s sin and the workings of the serpent. A basically good world is thus corrupted by free decisions reached by creatures. In this far more complex and subtle explanation of the origins of things, evil for the first time emerges as a problem requiring a solution.^{^[3]}

In the Babylonian myth, however, there is no “problem of evil.” Evil is simply a primordial fact. The simplicity of its picture of reality commended it widely, and its basic mythic structure spread as far as Syria, Phoenicia, Egypt, Greece, Rome, Germany, Ireland, and India. Typically, a male war god residing in the sky fights a decisive battle with a female divine being, usually depicted as a monster or dragon, residing in the sea or abyss. Having vanquished the original Enemy by war and murder, the victor fashions a world from the monster’s corpse.^{^[3]}

Now you may feel that these old myths have nothing to do with today. You may feel that they’re only ancient history, and nothing to worry about in this, the 21^st Century. But that would be wrong. This Babylonian myth of violence continues today in the religion of “might makes right.” The enemy is evil and war is the enemy’s punishment. “Unlike the creation story which sees evil as an intrusion into a good creation and war as a consequence of the Fall, the Babylonian myth regards war as present from the beginning. Life, therefore, becomes combat. Any form of order is preferable to chaos. Ours is neither a perfect nor a perfectible world; it is a theater of perpetual conflict in which the prize goes to the strong. Peace through war, security through strength: these are the core convictions that arise from this ancient historical religion.” This is what’s known as Redemptive Violence – we’re saved through violence.

Think this idea that we’re saved by violence doesn’t exist today? Let me suggest you watch again Superman, Superwoman, Captain Marvel, the Lone Ranger, Batman and Robin, the Roadrunner and Wile E. Coyote, Spider Man, The Hulk, and the Harry Potter series. Good triumphs over evil through violence. Rain that fire down from heaven. Punish those who oppose us, who insult us, who reject us. If we can’t do it ourselves, leave it to Dirty Harry or James Bond. To even suggest that we seek peaceful solutions rather than using the military raises doubts about ones patriotism, because we “know” that our enemies are evil, peace doesn’t work, only the military can succeed. Some even want to nuke the oil spill in the Gulf. Only violence can save us. In the old “Get Smart” TV series, Agent 99 says to Maxwell Smart, “You know, Max, sometimes I think we’re no better than they are, the way we murder and kill and destroy people.” To which Smart retorts, “Why, 99, you know we have to murder and kill and destroy in order to preserve everything that’s good in the world.”^{^[3]}

After Jesus rebuked James and John for wanting to command fire to rain down on the Samaritan village, Luke tells us, “They went on to another village. As they were going along the road, someone said to him, ‘I will follow you wherever you go.’ And Jesus said to him, ‘Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.’ To another he said, ‘Follow me.’ But he said, ‘Lord, first let me go and bury my father.’ But Jesus said to him, ‘Let the dead bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.’ Another said, ‘I will follow you, Lord; but let me first say farewell to those at my home.’ Jesus said to him, ‘No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.’”

These are harsh teachings from Jesus, teachings that cause us to ask, “what am I to give up? What am I to do without so that I can follow Jesus?” Perhaps, you and I are asked to give up that Babylonian myth of redemptive violence, put aside the idea that violence can save us. Perhaps we’re to follow Jesus and his command to love one another and love even our enemy. We may not want to even think about the possibility that we as individuals, or we as a nation, are more Babylonian than we are Christian, but the possibility exists, I’m afraid. From the TV programs we watch to our reactions to those who threaten us, we seem to be followers of the Babylonian Marduk than we are followers of Jesus Christ.

But it doesn’t have to be that way. Jesus asks us to turn away from violence and instead accept his peace, peace in our lives and peace in the ways of the world. My belief is that the ways of peace can’t do any worse than 9 years of war. Who are we following? My prayer is that we’re following Jesus Christ.

1. Thompson, James W. “Exegetical Perspective: Luke 9:51-62,” Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary, Year C, Volume 3, David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, Gen Ed., Westminster John Knox Press, Louisville, 2010, p. 191.

2. Thompson, p. 193.

3. Wink, Walter, Engaging the Powers: Discernment and Resistance in a World of Domination, Fortress Press, Minneapolis, MN, 1992, p. 13.

4. Wink, p. 14.

5. Wink, pp. 14-15.

6. Wink, p. 21.

June 20, 2010 Galatians 3:23-29 Luke 8:26-39 “Declare What God Has Done”

Dr. Ted H. Sandberg

One day, as the account in Luke 8:22 begins, Jesus said to his disciples, “‘Let’s go across to the other side of the lake.’ Even though they don’t know why, they put out, and while they were sailing Jesus fell asleep. While he was sleeping, a tremendous storm quickly came up and threatened to swamp the boat. “[The disciples] went to [Jesus] and woke him up, shouting, ‘Master, Master, we’re perishing!’ [Jesus] woke up and rebuked the wind and the raging waves; they ceased, and there was a calm,” calm on the lake, but not in the minds of the disciples. “They were afraid and amazed, and said to one another, ‘Who then is this, that he commands even the winds and the water, and they obey him?’”

As amazed as the disciples were at Jesus’ power over nature, they were in for an even greater shock. Following the storm, Luke tells us that Jesus and the disciple went across the lake to the country of the Gerasenes. When the boat that was carrying Jesus and the disciples landed on the East side of the Sea of Galilee, they were met by essentially, a wild man. This poor guy ran around naked. He didn’t live in the city with ordinary folk, but in amongst the tombs. The people of the town had tried to keep him bound with chains so that he wouldn’t be a danger to them or to himself, but the man kept breaking loose.

That Jesus would go close to this man was remarkable, because he was terribly unclean. Nakedness was strictly forbidden. The Gentile tombs would also be a source of ritual uncleanness for a Jew.^{^[1]} Note too, there’s a physical threat here, though the NRSV doesn’t translate it as such. The phrase, “he fell down before him,” could be translated, “[he] lunged at [Jesus].”^{^[1]} Clearly, Luke wants us to know this man is possessed, and while Luke doesn’t make a great point of it, he also wants us to see Jesus’ courage in confronting the man and the demons that possessed him.

Jesus was dealing with a demon here. We don’t talk in terms of the demonic all that often today. We believe that many of the individuals who were said to be possessed by demons in Jesus’ day were simply ill. Many had symptoms of what we today call epilepsy. Others were possibly suffering from what we say is mental illness. There are movies that deal with demon possession, and there’s an occasional TV program that deals with demons, but most of us probably say that a person was said to be possessed by a demon when people then had no other explanation for a person’s behavior. The man in today’s story would certainly be called mentally ill. I doubt that any psychiatrist would call the man possessed.

I’m not arguing for a return to demon possession as a mental diagnosis. On the other hand, it’s easy to pooh-pooh evil and demons as things of the past when in reality evil continues to be present today. Just because we can medically diagnose something as a disease, doesn’t mean that there isn’t evil attached to it as well. I’m thinking specifically about addictions. Yes, there are physical reasons why a person is addicted to alcohol, for example. But those physical symptoms can be treated relatively easily. It’s the emotional and mental aspects of alcohol addiction that are hard to deal with, and they can often only be dealt with by turning control of one’s life over to a higher power – God. The fact that so many individuals need God, need a higher power, to defeat alcohol and drug abuse at least raises the real possibility for me that the demonic is involved in that abuse.

The demonic is usually portrayed in movies and TV with a capital D. The Demonic is all powerful, all threatening, all evil. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Evil doesn’t have to be “The Great Evil” force. Evil instead can be some accountant at work in some back office ordering cheaper blow-out preventers rather than safer, more expensive ones, and some government inspector accepting gifts and not enforcing the regulations. Evil can be some talk-show host spewing out half-truths to make a case against some worthy cause. The demonic can be that addiction that causes an individual to lie and steal and cheat in order to get another drink, in order to get another hit, in order to find another victim. Evil is in the world today, just as it was in Jesus’ day. I’m not sure that we’re all that well off today by denying the reality of evil.

In this morning’s passage, we read, “Jesus then asked him, ‘What is your name?’ He said, ‘Legion’; for many demons had entered him. They begged him not to order them to go back into the abyss.” In the commentaries that I read for this sermon, none of them commented on the name Legion, other than to say that a Roman legion numbered 6,000 soldiers. Obviously, Luke wants us to know that the Gerasene demoniac was possessed by a great number of demons. But I also think there’s a quiet jab here at Rome itself, or at least the occupying army. William Barclay suggests the possessed man answered Jesus by saying “Legion,” because it felt like he was possessed by 6000 demons.^{^[1]} That may well be true. But I can’t help but feel Luke jabbing the Romans by aligning their Legion with the demonic.

This Legion of demons cried out to Jesus, asking him not to send them to the abyss. The abyss was a place of confinement for demonic forces which, though hostile to God, are ultimately under God’s control. Why they thought that Jesus would have compassion on them, on demons, I don’t know. At first glance, though, it may appear that Jesus did have compassion on them. He didn’t send them directly to the abyss. He sent them into a herd of pigs. Of course, the pigs were “spooked,” and took off in a stampede. Over the cliff they went, into the lake where they drowned, thus, I presume, sending the demons to the abyss. The demons got what they deserved.

Once the demons leave the man, he regains control of himself. When the people of the town come to Jesus to find out what’s happened, they find “man from whom the demons had gone sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind.”

We’d think this would make for a great TV drama with this perfect ending. Not so, because there are a couple of problems. First, the swine herders weren’t happy at all that all their pigs had run over the cliff and drowned in the lake. I can’t say as I blame them either. Of course, for a Jew – which Jesus was – the thought of having those unclean animals suffer such a fate would’ve been more delightful than tragic. I’m sure those Jews who heard Luke tell this story would’ve enjoyed the pig destruction. [I think we see Jesus’ human, Jewish side here.]

But the owners of those pigs, and the herders of the pigs, wouldn’t have been happy. Their livelihood was gone. Their property had been sent over the cliff, and they were angry.

Nor was the crowd who witnessed all this overjoyed with Jesus either. Luke tell us they were afraid of Jesus, which is understandable. This Jesus was a man of great power, a man who had a power that they didn’t understand, and so they wanted him gone.

Why did they all want Jesus gone? Because they placed economics before the value of the man who was healed. The healing was forgotten in the loss of the pigs. The fact that this poor man was no longer possessed was forgotten, and instead the economic worth of the pigs was put first.

Which happens even today. As I was working on this sermon I was thinking to myself, “But Jesus didn’t have to kill that whole herd of pigs. Maybe only one or 2 pigs would’ve been enough.” I caught myself doing what the people of Geresa did – putting money before the man. Jesus was teaching here that the value of one man was greater than a whole herd of pigs. The mental health of one individual was worth more to God than the economic power of those pigs.

And if you catch yourself arguing against this kind of thinking, as I did when I wrote the sermon, and as I’ve caught myself doing again and again, if you catch yourself thinking something like, “But think of all those people who lost their livelihoods. Think of the economic loss. Think of the hungry people,” if you catch yourself thinking this way, then think of this. First of all, the ones who lost out were the very wealthy Gentiles, individuals who more than likely could have afforded the loss. The poor common peasant didn’t own a herd of pigs. That was for the rich.

And even more, understand that the value of 1 person is greater than the value we place on money. We’re not to value money above people – and we do all the time, don’t we? I believe this is “Legion” that we’re to confront today. This is the evil that turns us against one another. We feel money is worth more than people.

We can’t clean-up the environment because it’s going to cost too much money. So our land is polluted and our air is polluted and we get more cancers, and nations continue to hunt whales. The health care debate was basically about economics. Opponents said it was, and is, too expensive. Ultimately, they say, we’ll have to raise taxes on the rich and the middle class. Can’t do that. So people die waiting in the emergency room because the health care system is inadequate. Cars could be safer, but then they’d cost more and profits would be less. Businesses transfer production to where ever the cheapest labor can be found, dumping hundreds of workers in unemployment lines. The companies are making a profit here, just not as great a profit as there.

And before we only blame the managers and board of directors of the companies, remember that too often they’re driven by the shareholders who demand quick profit, we the shareholders.

It’s not wrong to make a profit. Companies need to make money. Taxes can get too high. There needs to be a balance. But making more and more money isn’t the only goal. We are a community, and individuals have responsibilities to one another. Ultimately, people are to come first according to Jesus.

But too often, economics are placed before people. This is Legion. This is evil. This is sin. Now, as then, we need to have Legion driven from the body of society. Now, as then, we need Jesus Christ to free us from Legion as the demoniac was freed that we too may be of right mind. How easy it is to put economics before all else, and to make rational arguments for doing so.

Even more, we are called to proclaim this message to the world. After the Gerasene was healed, he wanted to go with Jesus, but Jesus said, “Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you.” That’s what we are called to do, as well, declare how much God has done for us. We’re called to declare that God has valued us more than the dollar. God has valued humanity more than some CEO making an extra million dollars a year. God has valued humanity more than exorbitant profits, and we’re called to proclaim that message. May we, like the man who was healed declare how much God has done for us. Amen.

1. Fitzmyer, Joseph A., S.J., The Gospel According to Luke (I-IX), Doubleday & Company, Inc., Garden City, NY, p. 737.

2. Fitzmyer, p. 738.

3. Barclay, William, The Gospel of Luke, rev. ed., The Westminster Press, Philadelphia, PA, 1975, p. 108.

June 13, 2010 Galatians 2:15-21 Luke 7:36-50 “Looking Down Our Noses”

Dr. Ted H. Sandberg

Do you remember the couple back in November who crashed the White House state dinner in honor of the Indian Prime Minister? Michaele and Tareq Salahi somehow got passed the White House security and had their picture taken with Vice-President Biden, and she with President Obama. The Salahis, who were described by the Washington Post as “polo-playing socialites,” also reportedly auditioned for roles in the TV program “The Real Housewives of Washington.”^{^[1]} I haven’t heard if they’ve been charged with anything, or if they’ve managed to build on their gatecrashing experience, but for awhile, they were the talk of the airwaves.

My guess is that this woman who gatecrashed Simon the Pharisee’s dinner received the same kind of publicity that the Salahis received – maybe even more, if that’s possible. Luke doesn’t tell us where this incident took place, but it really wouldn’t matter, would it? If it was a small village around Capernaum, or even in Jerusalem itself, news would’ve spread faster than the internet. “Did you hear what happened at Simon’s? Did you know that that sinner woman went to the big dinner he had? Did you hear what she did to Simon’s guest, Jesus?” Those raised in small towns know that it was often the case that Mother knew what mischief son or daughter had been up to before son or daughter got home from executing said mischief. So it would’ve been in this morning’s story. The whole town would’ve known what happened at Simon’s before the dinner’s final course had been served.

We can easily understand this. Simon was a Pharisee, one of the elite religious leaders. He was morally upright and legally above reproach – and I say that in all honesty, not tongue-in-cheek. Pharisees were good men. They wanted to do what was right, what God demanded. Their attention to the smallest detail in the law was because they wanted to get everything right. They didn’t want to break even the littlest Law. They were very, very devout – which also made them more than a little self-righteous.

Which made the fact that this woman gatecrashed the dinner all that more startling. Obviously, from Simon’s reaction to her, Simon knew who the woman was. Simon said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what kind of woman this is who is touching him – that she is a sinner.” [By way of clarification, there’s all kinds of speculation about what kind of sinner this woman actually was. Many claim that she was a prostitute – though Luke doesn’t say that she was when he easily could’ve done that. That so many Christians jump to the conclusion that she was a prostitute probably says more about we Christians than it does about the woman herself. Christians, too often, are hung up on sexual sins, when there are lots and lots of other sins just as deadly, if not more so. All we know about the woman is that she had a reputation for being some kind of sinner, a sinner worst than average.]

We can also surmise from the passage that she’d either met Jesus somewhere earlier, or Jesus’ teaching had reached her and she’d been transformed. Luke, after he tells us that Jesus took his place at the table with the others, says “And a woman in the city, who was a sinner, having learned that he was eating in the Pharisee’s house, brought an alabaster jar of ointment.” Something that Jesus had done, or something that Jesus had said, or something that Jesus had taught had had such a profound affect on this woman, this sinner, that she was willing to risk the humiliation of being caught and thrown out of the dinner. She was willing to face even more ridicule than usual just for the chance to see or touch Jesus.

What’s more, Luke tells us that “She stood behind [Jesus] at his feet, weeping, and began to bathe his feet with her tears and to dry them with her hair. Then she continued kissing his feet and anointing them with the ointment.” Such a public display was totally inappropriate. “Good” women didn’t do such a thing. “Good” women didn’t let down their hair in public. “Good” women didn’t kiss a stranger’s feet. “Good” women certainly didn’t anoint a stranger’s feet with costly perfume.

Simon the Pharisee, representing all the “good” people, thought to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what kind of woman this is who is touching him – that she is a sinner.” Simon’s assumption is that if Jesus knew this woman was a sinner, he wouldn’t let her touch him. That she’s touching him proves, to Simon, that Jesus isn’t a prophet. Simon can’t imagine that Jesus could know that the woman is a sinner and still let her do the things she was doing. That’s beyond anything Simon could imagine a prophet, a person of God, doing.

But Jesus turns the tables on Simon. He says to Simon, “Simon, I have something to say to you.” “Teacher,” he replied, “Speak.” “A certain creditor had two debtors; one owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. When they could not pay, he canceled the debts for both of them. Now which of them will love him more?” Luke doesn’t make a big deal of the fact that Jesus knew what Simon was thinking, but then he doesn’t have to. We understand what’s happened. Simon says that a prophet should know what kind of woman this is. Jesus proves that he’s a prophet by “knowing” Simon’s thoughts.

Nor does Jesus leave it there with Simon, leave it with proving to Simon he’s a prophet. There’s a lesson to be taught as well. Who’s going to be more loving, as Luke puts it [I might say grateful]? Who’s going to be more grateful, the person who’s forgiven $500,000, or the person forgiven $5,000? Both would be grateful, but who’d likely be more grateful? Simon, reluctantly, admits that the one who is forgiven the most will be most grateful, most thankful. This is something we, too, may forget today.

With whom do you identify in this morning’s passage? Do you feel like Jesus? No. We know we’re not Jesus. Do you think you’re something like the Pharisee? Because we’ve heard so much that the Pharisees were the opponents of Jesus, we probably don’t want to think we’re like the Pharisees. Which leaves the “sinner” woman. Do you feel you’re so much an outcast in Chico, such a great sinner, that everyone knows you by that name? Again. Probably not. We understand in our hearts that we’re sinners, but we probably think we’re only average sinners. We see ourselves as common sinners, not better than others, but probably no worse than others either.

It’s that kind of attitude, however, that gets us in trouble when we see someone whom we feel is a sinner worse than us. “I may speed, but I wouldn’t rob a bank. I may jaywalk, but I wouldn’t steal. I may gossip a little, but I wouldn’t molest anyone. I know there are better people than me, but there are a lot of worse people than me, too.”

It was that kind of attitude that got Simon the Pharisee into trouble, and it’s that kind of attitude that gets us into trouble. I think it’s just a human tendency to look down our noses at some of the people around us. It’s just a human tendency to think we’re just a little better than those living down the block from us, or across town. We’re just a little better than “those” people over there. It’s easy to sit in judgment of others, just like Simon, and the town, judged the “sinner” woman.

The writer, minister, civil rights leader, Howard Thurman warns about this kind of attitude in a meditation from his book Meditations of the Heart, entitled “Every Judgment is Self-judgment.”^{^[2]} Here’s his meditation.

It is very easy to sit in judgment upon the behavior of others but often difficult to realize that every judgment is a self-judgment. A corollary to this fact is the finding again and again that the thing which seems to me objectionable in others is something of which I myself am guilty. [Strange], isn’t it? For a few weeks, during a summer series on a university campus, I shared a suite with two other men. The suite consisted of two bedrooms, a bath and a living room. The two men occupied one of the bedrooms and I, the other. One night when I came in, as I opened the door, I heard a voice say, “Pipe down, for Pete’s sake, pipe down.” This was followed by the soft thud of a pillow being thrown against the wall. In a few minutes one of the fellows stood at the door with disheveled hair and distraught features. “I can’t go to sleep. Have you ever heard such snoring? Usually I get off first and then his snoring does not disturb me but tonight he went to bed early. There ought to be a law against it. Why doesn’t his wife tell him, or maybe she is a snorer herself. What a partner to a snoring duet he would make!” I replied that there was an extra bed in my room which he could share if my reading lamp would not keep him awake. He accepted gladly, assuring me that the light would not disturb him. After he had retired and I had settled down for an hour’s reading, I became aware of his heavy breathing. Then it began – the most pronounced and heavy snoring that I had ever heard in my life. Finally, I could not continue my reading and I knew that sleep would be impossible. I went into the living room, where I spent the night on the couch. I had meant to awaken early, before he did, so as not to embarrass him. But I overslept. When he saw me he said, “Oh no! Don’t tell me. I’ll never blow my top again about snorers.” The only creative attitude toward the weaknesses or the disabilities of others is a quiet humility. What I condemn in others may be but a reflection of myself in a mirror. [end]

If we look down our noses carefully enough, we’ll see our own reflections. That which I find most irritating in others is what I find most irritating in myself. We’re all closer to the “sinner” woman than we’d like to think, but thanks be to God, God loves us anyway, and God forgives. May we, like the woman in today’s passage, go in peace

1. “Couple 'gatecrash' Barack Obama's White House dinner,” guardian.co.uk

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/nov/26/couple-gatecrashes-barack-obama-white-house-dinner

2. Thurman, Howard, “18. Every Judgment is Self-judgment,” Meditations of the Heart, Friends United Press, Richmond, In, 1953, reprint, 1996, pp. 40-1.

June 6, 2010 Communion Sunday 1 Kings 17:8-16 Luke 7:11-17 “Why Not for Us?”

Dr. Ted H. Sandberg

When I served as pastor in Kansas City before coming here to Chico, one of the men who served as a deacon of the congregation there, one of my friends, suffered what appeared to be a stroke. John was in his early 50's at the time. The symptoms didn’t last all that long, but in a month or two, John suffered a debilitating head ache and had to go back into the hospital. The doctors discovered that John had what’s called an Arteriovenous Malformation, an AVM. This “is an abnormal tangle of blood vessels in the brain which can cause bleeding in the brain, seizures, or stroke-like symptoms (weakness, numbness, tingling). The cause of AVMs is unknown.”^{^[1]}

John and his wife flew to NYC to see a specialist in AVM. There they decided that because one of the vessels could rupture at any moment, the best thing to do was remove the tangle of blood vessels. Because the mass was so large, and because it was such a complex procedure, the surgeon determine that it needed to be done in 3 operations, each a couple of months apart.

Before the first operation, John and his wife came over to our home for dinner and before they left we had prayer, asking God that the operation in a couple of days would go well, and that John would be healed. The first operation went fine, as did the second. Unfortunately, during the third operation, something went wrong, there as a major bleed and essentially, John suffered a massive stroke on the operating table, leaving John in a coma, unresponsive and on life support. The surgeon did say that there was a chance that John’s brain would heal itself. John was flown back to Kansas City and placed in a hospital while they waited to see if he would come out of the coma.

I visited John often. Each time, I prayed that God would heal this good man, that his brain would be restored, and he would return to his family healthy.

But it was not to be. Early one Sunday morning, I received a phone call from John’s wife saying that during the night, John had suffered another stroke, and the family had decided to remove John from life support and wanted me to be there when they did that. I went to the hospital immediately, and was there when the machines were turned off and John died.

I remember driving home asking God why John hadn’t been healed – questions I assume many if not all of you have asked at some similar point. We’ve read this morning of 2 different healings, one in the Old Testament, one in the New. We’ve heard many stories of miraculous healings happening in the world, both to good people and to bad. We very well may ask, “Why not for us, God? Why are others healed, but not the one I loved?”

Or maybe, the one you’ve loved has been not just healed, but miraculously healed. Maybe you yourself have been healed by a miracle. Maybe then you ask, “Why me? Why mine and not all the thousands of others who pray for healing? Why was I healed but not people like John?”

Now, before I get your hopes up, know that I can’t answer those questions. I wish I could. In fact, I don’t know anyone who can answer why some are healed and some are not, why one receives a miraculous cure and another doesn’t. As someone said recently in a different context, “That knowledge is beyond my pay scale.” So I can’t answer the whys: Why Elijah insured that the widow and her son in Zar'ephath had food when others around them probably didn’t, why Elijah would eventually save the son, why Jesus raised the widow’s son from death but didn’t do that for all widows. I have no answers.

I do have a couple of reflections, however, to share. These aren’t answers to why, but reflections on what we may learn from the account in 1 Kings and the account in Luke.

Notice first, that in the account in 1 Kings and in Luke’s account, the miracles help outsiders. The widow and her son lived in Zar'ephath in Sidon which was in the god Baal’s home territory. They were most likely Phoenician, probably wealthy (the widow owned her house, a house large enough to have an upper chamber), and undoubtedly they worshiped Baal. They were foreigners, and thus unclean, according to the Jewish religion, and therefore, not worthy of God’s help. Yet God – through Elijah – provided food for the widow and her household, and then in the next passage, again through Elijah, God healed the widow’s son who became deathly ill.

It’s the same in our story from Luke. Widows were at the bottom of the social ladder. “Having no inheritance rights and often in want of life’s necessities, [a widow] was exposed to harsh treatment and exploitation. Widowhood was perceived by some to be a disgrace; death before old age was probably viewed as a judgment upon sin, and the reproach extended to the surviving spouse.”^{^[2]} This woman had first lost her husband, but her son could take care of here. Now, with the death of her son, she’d lost that support too. She would have little choice but to become a beggar. That this was a great tragedy is shown by the fact that a large crowd from the town was a part of the burial procession.

In both of our stories then, it’s those who are outside “good” Jewish society that God helps. It’s one of the “least of these,” a worshiper of Baal, that Elijah feeds and then heals. It’s one of the ‘least of these” that Jesus shows his great compassion by raising the son of the widow. The message isn’t that these are the only ones whom God heals. The message isn’t that it’s only the “least of these” that receive miracles. Rather it’s that the “least of these” are not excluded from God’s miracles. Miracles are as apt to happen to widows and orphans as they are to the rich and powerful. Miracles are as apt to happen to the Taliban as much as they are to happen to devout Christians – as hard as that is for us to hear.

This is the first hard lesson to be learned from our texts today. We like to think that God is on our side, and God is on our side. But just because God is on our side doesn’t mean that God isn’t on all the other sides as well. God is God of all people, because God created all people. God created Christians and Jews and Muslims and Sikhs and Buddhists and New Agers. God even created atheists. Because God has created all people, all people are special. We tend to think that those who oppose us are evil, are the enemy and can’t be redeemed, but God loves our enemies just as much as God loves us. God has compassion on those who we see as outside our circle just as God had compassion on the widow in Zar'ephath, the worshiper of Baal, just as Jesus had compassion on the widow as she processed to the cemetery to bury her son.

A second, but this time much nicer lesson. Because God has compassion on all people, we can and should pray to God for healing, healing in even the most hopeless situations. This is a welcome lesson from the story in Luke. Jesus had compassion, and the son who was dead was raised. “Jesus said, ‘Young man, I say to you, rise!’ The dead man sat up and began to speak, and Jesus gave him to his mother.” God wants us to ask. “Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you,” Jesus says in Matthew.^{^[2]} We’re to ask even for the miracle, though there is no guarantee that our requests will be answered as we want them to be answered.

Because, even if our prayers for healing are answered, at some point we all will die. At some point, the widow’s son died once again. It may have been years later after his widowed mother died – which is the natural order of life. It could’ve been before his mother died. We don’t know. We do know that all of us will die. But, we know God’s compassion, God’s will, God’s love is for all to live eternally. Life on earth ends, but life everlasting, life with God is eternal, is never ending. This then is a miracle greater than the raising of the two sons of whom we’ve read this morning. You and I will be raised from death into life with God when we accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. We’ll be raised into life everlasting.

I prayed that John would be healed, and he was healed – not as I wanted, not even as God wanted, because I believe that God wants all people to lead long, full, rewarding lives. But that wasn’t to be for John, and so John was healed as only God can heal – through the power of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. We can and should pray for miracles. But ultimately, we know that because God loves us, we can all be healed eternally. This is what we celebrate as we gather at Christ’s table. We celebrate God’s love for us, shown to us in the death and resurrection of God’s only Son. Thanks be to God.

1. “AVM,” Department of Neurosurgery, University of Florida web site, http://www.neurosurgery.ufl.edu/patients/avm.shtml

2. Price, James L., “widow,” Harper’s Bible Dictionary, Paul J. Achtemeier, General Editor, Harper & Row, Publishers, San Francisco, 1985, p. 1132.

3. Matthew 7:7

May 30, 2010 John 16:12-15 Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31 “Wisdom Calling”

Dr. Ted H. Sandberg

This is Trinity Sunday, the Sunday set aside by the more liturgical churches to look at the doctrine or dogma of the Trinity, God Three-in-One, God as Father, God as Son, God as Holy Spirit. Rather than try and explain the doctrine of the Trinity itself, something I confess I don’t understand all that well, I want to think with you about the Holy Spirit, because I suspect that it’s the Holy Spirit that’s most foreign to us here this morning. We know about God the Father, God the Creator, the God of the Old Testament, the God whom Jesus Christ calls, “Abba,” “Daddy.” We know too about God the Son, Jesus Christ. It was Jesus who was born of Mary, suffered under Pilate, was crucified, dead and buried. The third day he rose again from the dead, ascended into heaven, and now sits on the right hand of God where he will come to judge the living and the dead.

The Holy Spirit, however, is a bit more difficult to pin down. Unfortunately, the concept of the Holy Spirit has been misused both by church scholars and pious individuals in the pews. A friend of mine says, “The Holy Spirit gets blamed for more claptrap than any other being. If someone wants to justify his claim to infallibility, he points to the Holy Spirit. If someone wants to justify a particular doctrine, dogma, or biblical term without much backing, she claims the Holy Spirit. If some fanatic wants to justify his whims, he invokes the Holy Spirit. If some preacher wants to sanctify a poorly-prepared message, he lays it onto the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit has been made a substitute for intelligence, credibility, authorization, and plausibility for so long that just the mention of the term is enough to send us into retreat or hiding.”^{^[1]}

Yet as misused and abused as the doctrine of the Holy Spirit may be, one of the great comforts we as Christians have is the knowledge, but even more the experience, of the Holy Spirit in our lives. When the Holy Spirit was given to the disciples on Pentecost, the church was born. Before that event, the disciples were at a loss as to what to do without Jesus. Following the gift of the Holy Spirit, the disciples went throughout the world proclaiming the Good News that Jesus was the Son of God. Just as the disciples were filled with God’s Spirit, so too we are filled by God’s Spirit even today.

As used in the New Testament, the Holy Spirit means a manifestation of God’s presence and power in those who have accepted Jesus Christ as their Lord. Although it carried a certain mystical aura, the presence of the Holy Spirit was always demonstrated by certain fruits in life, which Paul outlines with some care in his letter to the Galatians: “love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance.”

Many years ago, someone^{^[1]} pointed out that four great qualities have always been associated with persons who’ve felt the presence of the Holy Spirit in their lives: POWER The power of God manifested through the Holy Spirit sent Peter to declare, “We must obey God rather than men;” empowered Martin Luther to face the entrenched powers of his day and declare, “Here I stand! God helping me I can do no other!” Empowered by this same Spirit John Wesley was able to face the taunt that he was a priest without a parish by declaring, “The world is my parish!” Wherever the Holy Spirit has invaded the life of a man or woman, it has come wrapped with the kind of power that the world can neither give nor take away.

TRUTH Christians have been able to move forward with a strong sense of God’s will for human lives and of God’s presence in human history. Where they have truly listened and waited for God’s truth, men and women have discovered that remarkable promise that Jesus made to his disciples. “Do not be anxious about how you are to speak or what you are to say; for what you are to say will be given you... it is not you who speaks but the spirit of God speaking through you.” (Mt. 10:15-20).

RIGHTEOUSNESS The experience of the Holy Spirit didn’t pull the disciples away from ethical and moral relationships with others; rather it deepened and enlarged their notions of what constituted God’s will of righteousness for their lives. It is the experience of the Holy Spirit that prevents righteousness from deteriorating into self-righteousness. In the passage from John that Doris read earlier, Jesus tells us that the Holy Spirit will “not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears.” In other words, the Spirit speaks what has been revealed to us through God and through Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit doesn’t reveal to us things that aren’t in the Bible, doesn’t give us new doctrines or teachings, but only illuminates what’s already before us. If what we believe is from the Holy Spirit differs from what the Bible teaches or the church teaches, we need to return to the Spirit, because the Spirit only gives what has been given.

LOVE The love of God is the crowning gift of the Spirit. God’s Spirit literally enables us to grapple with anger, hatred, and injustice and to come out on the other side of these in love, a love literally born of God beyond the realms of human love.

To these 4 qualities, I would add Wisdom, though there’s debate as to whether the wisdom of which we read this morning in Proverbs is the Holy Spirit, or is another characteristic of the Spirit. As we read, Wisdom says “The LORD created me at the beginning of his work.” Wisdom was from the beginning, and thus is “identified with the Holy Spirit. It has 6 important elements: knowledge, imagination, discipline, piety, order, and moral instruction.”^{^[1]} It’s the distinctive texts we call “wisdom literature,” but also the means to obtain and understand those texts, and therefore is a gift from God, even a part of God, at the least, another aspect of the Holy Spirit.

So it needs to be clearly seen here that when we talk about the Holy Spirit we’re not merely talking about the human spirit. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of God, who as holy spirit is sharply distinguished from the unholy spirit often found in humans. The Spirit is no other than God: God close to persons, God close to the world, God as comprehending but not comprehensible; God as self-giving but not controllable. The Holy Spirit is God’s personal closeness to God’s children, but always on God’s terms. The Holy Spirit is not independent or apart from God.

I confess that I can’t explain how this doctrine of the Trinity works. We can see God at work as Creator. We know Jesus Christ. Jesus himself tells us of the Holy Spirit, God’s Spirit. How God the Creator, Jesus the Son, and the Holy Spirit are one but three, I don’t claim to know.

I believe that a full understanding of the concept of the Trinity is beyond my understanding, and perhaps beyond yours as well. What I can understand is what the doctrine of the Holy Spirit means for me, and here I borrow again from my friend, Dr. Rod Romney, former pastor of First Baptist Church in Seattle, WA, because he expresses my belief better that I can.^{^[1]}

“When I say I believe in the Holy Spirit the first thing I mean is this: God is always at work in my life. I always have the need to be lifted up to higher levels of light, out of my sin and shoddiness. The miracle of the transforming touch of God, given to me each time I seek it, bringing wholeness out of all my sense of division, is still the greatest miracle of the Holy Spirit for me.

“The second thing I mean when I say I believe in the Holy Spirit is this: God is always at work in the world. God is no absentee Deity, who once came to earth in Jesus Christ and then left it. God is here, active and concerned in all that is or is to be. God works through reality from atom to galaxy, from ameba to cosmos. God is not limited to any one period or people or faith or segment of history. Evidence of God’s work as creator, sustainer, and redeemer is found everywhere.

It’s immensely comforting for me to know that God is at work today in the complex and troubled situation in the Middle East, in [Iraq and Afghanistan], in Somalia, and in the United States. There’s no room when talking about God’s Holy Spirit to talk about “privileged nations,” or even “a chosen people” any longer. Either God loves all of his creation and thereby gives the Holy Spirit to all who ask and believe, or else God has made some awful mistakes in what has been created, and I don’t believe that at all.

It is very comforting for me to know that if this world is blown up by nuclear madness or destroyed by human greed that essentially God will not desert us. But it’s even more comforting for me to know that God is at work in the world today, seeking to awaken his people to a new urgency of cooperation in redeeming this planet from total annihilation. When we say that we believe in the Holy Spirit we’re saying that we believe God is with us, releasing power, truth, righteousness, love [and wisdom] into the hearts and minds of those who are willing to surrender themselves consciously to receive these gifts.

“The third meaning of the Holy Spirit is that God is at work in the life of the Christian community, the church. From the beginning of its historic career, the church has been founded on the reality of the Holy Spirit in its life. Without the Holy Spirit as a vital fact, the New Testament would never have been written, the church would have never been established. All those who proclaim that the church is dead, the church is irrelevant, the church is inconsequential are looking at the church only as human institution and fail to understand that the church only succeeds, has only ever succeeded to be the church, when it has been lead and filled by the Holy Spirit.

“What is the Holy Spirit? It’s another way of talking about God. But more than that. It’s a way of knowing that God is with us, that God has pitched his tent beside us and has promised to be with us, always and forever.” The Holy Spirit is the power of God that gives you and me the strength and the courage, the power and the will, to face a world of sin. It is the Holy Spirit that allows the word of God to be proclaimed to a world of darkness and sin. It is the Holy Spirit that carries us when we’re too burdened by grief and despair to go forward. It is the Holy Spirit that rejoices with us when we celebrate victory in Jesus. May we give thanks for God’s Holy Spirit ever with us.

1. Romney, Rodney R., “The Holy Spirit, God-With-Us,” preached at First Baptist Church, Seattle, Washington, October 17, 1982.

2. Bosley, Harold, A Firm Faith for Today, Harper, 1950.

3. Perdue, Leo G., Proverbs: Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching, John Knox Press, Louisville, KY, 2000, p. 4.

4. Romney.

May 23, 2010 Pentecost Acts 2:1-8, 12-16 Genesis 11:1-9 “Too Many Tongues”

Dr. Ted H. Sandberg

When Cheri and I were in NYC a couple of weeks ago for Paul’s graduation, we traveled around the city by way of the subway system. Most of the time, Paul was with us so we didn’t need to worry about what subway train we were on, or when to get off, or what connections we needed to make. Paul has been in NYC long enough now that he knows those things, and when he doesn’t know them, he has a big map of the subway system that he checks.

It was different when Cheri and I left Paul’s and headed to JFK. Then we were on our own. I, too, had checked the map and asked Paul about the connections so that I was confident we’d be OK. We headed out Friday afternoon about 2 pm so the subway wasn’t terribly crowded yet. We took the 6 train to 51^st and walked to the E train connection. But there, I ran into a problem. The E train was at the left platform as Cheri and I came down the stairs and so we hustled to the train. Just before getting on, I saw that it was headed downtown, to the World Trade Center. Wrong train. I asked a gentleman standing at the platform if this train went to JFK, and he said we’d have to transfer at 42^nd St. I knew that wasn’t right, so we didn’t get on that train, fortunately.

I was ready to head up the stairs to check connections again when Cheri pointed to the sign on right side of the platform that, among other things, indicated this was the E train that was going to JFK. We hustled on to the train. As we began the trip to the airport, I pulled out my map, just to make sure we were on the proper train. About the time we got to the first stop, I began to think that we were not on the right train though we were, at least, going in the right direction. At the stop, a few people got on, and because the train wasn’t crowded, sat down across the aisle from us.

I don’t know what vibs I was giving off. I didn’t think they could see what I was reading, but after only a few seconds, a man who’d gotten on with (I presume) his wife, asked where we were going, and if we needed help getting there. He was, from his accent, Puerto Rican. Cheri told him we were going to JFK, and he immediately told us we were on the wrong train. The train we were on only went as far as 71^st Ave. About then, another gentleman, also sitting across the aisle from us, said that we were on the V train, but wanted to be on the E train. He sounded like a typical New Yorker. Both of the gentlemen told us we wanted to get off at the Jackson Hts exit and then transfer to the E train. They almost competed with each other to be the most helpful. They told us how many stops we had before we needed to transfer. They told us which direction to go when we got off the train. They told us that we’d have to make another transfer to the Air Train to get to the airport, and that would cost us $5 a piece. Most of this I knew, but I was very thankful for their help, and actually, I enjoyed them helping us, lost tourists, find our way home.

Now I confess my failure to take the proper train, to pay attention to the letter of the train that was clearly in the window of the V train, because of the sermon text this morning from Genesis 11. There we read the strange story of humanity starting to build a tower to the heavens, a tower to God. But God, in consult with his heavenly council, says, “‘Look, they are one people, and they have all one language; and this is only the beginning of what they will do; nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. Come, let us go down, and confuse their language there, so that they will not understand one another's speech.’ So the LORD scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city.”

Most of the time, I’ve heard this passage explained as humanity trying to reach God, become equal with God by building the tower. Then, as punishment for humanity’s pride, God punished humanity by confusing their language, by creating all the different languages, and then spreading humanity throughout the world.

As I said, this is how this passage is often interpreted. However, there’s really nothing in the text to suggest that humanity’s sin is trying to reach God, or become equal with God. That’s Adam and Eve’s great sin, but doesn’t seem to be the sin here. Rather, the sin here is that humanity wants to stay together in a great city rather than going out into the world as God has commanded. In Genesis 1, after God creates humanity, we read, “God blessed them, and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it.’” (Genesis 1:28) By saying, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves; otherwise we shall be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth,” humanity was disobeying God’s direction. They were to subdue the earth by scattering throughout the world. Humanity wanted, instead, to stay together, to build a city and a tower.

God, however, isn’t to be disobeyed. God saw the attempt of humanity to be one big, homogeneous group which went against what God wanted, and so God mixed up humanity’s language and then scattered humanity. Where there was one language, God created multiple languages. Where there was one people, God created multiple peoples, dispersed throughout the world.

To some extent, we’re no different from those first groups that were scattered, because when they were scattered they turned against one another. There was nothing that said they couldn’t learn one another’s languages, but that’s not what happened. They hunkered down with those who were like themselves and turned again those who couldn’t speak their language – much like we do today.

In commenting on this passage, Rev. Doug Donley writes: “Ever since, Babel has come to represent individualism. Our Babel component is everything that built up the Berlin wall, the Israel/Palestine wall, the U.S./Mexico wall, the disputes between Pakistan and India, the former rifts in Ireland and Northern Ireland, the plethora of denominations that seek unity only by throwing others out. Our Babel component is the fact that most Americans can only speak one language and we expect others to learn ours.”^{^[1]}

God scattered humanity so that we could have dominion over the world, and we were scattered. But in scattering, we kept the desire for homogeneity. We kept that desire to be with those who are like us, and keep those who are not like us away from us. We dislike diversity. We only have to look at the Civil Rights history of our country to see how strong people’s desire for homogeneity is. How many people sold their homes at significant losses because an African-American family moved into the neighborhood? How much damage has been done by the Ku Klux Klan because they hate blacks, Catholics and Jews? Or think about Nazi Germany’s campaign to eliminate the Jews. What did the Jews do to warrant such hatred except be different?

God’s plan was for humanity to be diverse, to speak different languages and to live throughout the world. Humanity, rather than accepting that diversity, drew walls around their own group in an attempt to keep those who were different out. China has a long history of doing its best to isolate itself from all the rest of the world. It has sought to isolate itself from those who are different, going so far as to go to war rather than simply trade with other countries.

All this is in disobedience to God’s teaching. Yes, we’re to scatter, but we’re not to hate one another. Yes, we’re to be diverse, but we’re not to fight one another. The teaching against exclusiveness is a small part of what we see in the giving of the Holy Spirit on the first Pentecost. It was no accident that the Spirit’s manifestation was in the ability to speak different languages, to be able to speak so that all the diverse groups in Jerusalem that first Pentecost could understand the Good News of Jesus Christ. Even as we are scattered, God desires us to be God’s family, to work and be together.

“Right after Pentecost, the early church changed the way they did things. They got rid of their class distinctions. They held all of their money together and gave it out as people needed it. The [time] of God came and they saw the world in a different way. The Spirit moved among them and they no longer saw each other as people to be suspicious of, but as fellow children of God. They had new freedom, and chance to be a different kind of community. They didn’t have to go back to Babel.”^{^[1]}

But it didn’t last. “Babel was too familiar. A few short chapters later in the book of Acts, members of the early church fought against each other as some said that it was better for the new foreign converts to be circumcised and stick to the tired old dietary laws of the Jewish culture.”^{^[1]}

But it doesn’t have to be this way. I was struck over and over again by the diversity in NYC. I think next time I’m there I’m going to count the number of different languages I hear. I’ve read there are an estimated 170 different languages spoken in NYC, the city for which the term “melting pot” was coined.^{^[1]} Just walking through the grocery store where Paul shops, I heard Puerto Rican, Russian, Romanian or some other Eastern European language, and one language I can’t even guess at. I heard people speaking English with all kinds of accents. And everyone went about their business seemingly accepting of those who differed from them, even helping Californians get on the right train to the airport. They are living out Pentecost on a social level.

I found it very ironic that a Puerto Rican couple and a New Yorker helped Cheri and me get on the right subway train. There on that train, they acted out what God intended, I believe. Yes, we’re different, but we can get along. Yes, we speak different languages, but that doesn’t mean that if we listen to one another, we can’t understand each other.

And what happens on the social level in NYC is an example of what God wants to happen on a religious level as well. We speak different Christian dialects, but that doesn’t mean we can’t listen to each other and get alone with each other. Some of us speak Baptist and some Catholic and some Lutheran or Presbyterian. But we’re still believers in Jesus Christ, a part of God’s family. Through the gift of the Holy Spirit we can speak to one another and understand one another. We can do that, if we listen to one another with the power of God’s Spirit.

I believe this is what Pentecost is all about – giving us the ability, through the power of God’s Spirit, to speak and listen to those who are different. It’s always been important that people do this. Throughout human history things have been better when people have worked at understanding one another. In this world that’s rapidly shrinking because of technology, it’s even more important to understand one another. It’s my prayer, that through the gift of the Holy Spirit, we will learn to speak and listen to those who are different from us, around the world, and next door. Amen.

1. Donley, Douglas M., “Day of Pentecost: Genesis 11:1-9, Pastoral Perspective,” Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary, Year C, Volume 3, David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, General Editors, Westminster John Knox Press, Louisville, KY, 2010, pp. 2,4.

2. Donley, 4.

3. Donley, 4.

4. Demographics of New York City http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_New_York_City

May 2, 2010 Acts 11:1-12a “Drawing Inclusive Circles”

Dr. Ted H. Sandberg

“In the movie, District 9, an alien spaceship stalls in the skies above Johannesburg [South Africa]. After three months with no communication, South Africans decide to board the ship, only to find a million aliens who need rescuing. They move them to District 9, an area that’s a cross between a township and a refugee camp. But eventually the welcome for the aliens grows thin; the government forcibly relocates them to a remote area and brutally enforces their separation from the rest of the population.

District 9, evokes the worst of South Africa’s apartheid era, when people were treated as aliens in their own land. This painful mockumentary also depicts an international relief industry in which the inefficiency of the United Nations is replaced by the ruthless capability of a transnational corporation, which is also seeking the secret of the aliens’ ultra powerful weapons technology. The film is an embarrassing indictment of how we treat the stranger.”^{^[1]}

There’s been all kinds of things in the news this past week about how we treat strangers in our midst, how we treat aliens. Not aliens from outer space, but aliens from south of our border. (I haven’t heard anything about a problem with Canadian.) Arizona passed an immigration law a week ago Friday, claiming the Federal government has failed to resolve the immigration issue. “The law, which proponents and critics alike said was the broadest and strictest immigration measure in generations, would make the failure to carry immigration documents a crime and give the police broad power to detain anyone suspected of being in the country illegally. Opponents have called it an open invitation for harassment and discrimination against Hispanics regardless of their citizenship status.”^{^[2]}

England is having its own problem with the immigration issue. This past week, Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who is in a very tough election campaign, was confronted by a woman on the street who asked him about reducing the budget and about the immigration of a million eastern Europeans. Brown, as he got into his car following the encounter, and with a TV microphone still on, said to an aid, “That was a disaster – they should never have put me with that woman. Whose idea was that? Ridiculous.” When asked the problem, he said, “Everything, she was just a bigoted woman.” Brown has profusely apologized to the woman, but the analysts are suggesting that this could well cost him the election.

Back in our own country, “Amid [the] national debate over Arizona’s tough new immigration law, Republican Alabama gubernatorial candidate Tim James (and son of previous Gov. Fob James) vows in a new campaign ad that if he’s elected, he’ll give the state driver’s license exam only in English, as a cost-saving measure. ‘This is Alabama; we speak English,’ he says in the ad. ‘If you want to live here, learn it.’”^{^[2]}

I confess I don’t have answers to what the immigration policy of our country should be. Do we make it possible for those who’ve come into this country illegally to become legal? Do we seal our borders and make it impossible for anyone to cross into this county illegally? Do we send those without documents back to their countries of origin? Do we make them go through a long legal process to stay in this country, or make them pay X number of thousands of dollars to stay? There are a lot more questions than there are answers, and both Republican and Democratic candidates are having problems answering the questions in a way that will appease all the groups who have made this their #1 issue, ahead of balancing our nations’ budget, ahead of reforming Wall Street, ahead even of health care.

But while I have no solutions, I do have a concern as I’ve listened to the debate over immigration. My concern comes from this morning’s sermon text of all places. The story that Luke presents to us today from chapter 11 actually starts in chapter 10 of Acts. There we read, “In Caesarea there was a man named Cornelius, a centurion of the Italian Cohort, as it was called. He was a devout man who feared God with all his household; he gave alms generously to the people and prayed constantly to God. One afternoon at about three o'clock he had a vision in which he clearly saw an angel of God coming in and saying to him, ‘Cornelius.’ He stared at him in terror and said, ‘What is it, Lord?’ He answered, ‘Your prayers and your alms have ascended as a memorial before God. Now send men to Joppa for a certain Simon who is called Peter; he is lodging with Simon, a tanner, whose house is by the seaside.’ When the angel who spoke to him had left, he called two of his slaves and a devout soldier from the ranks of those who served him, and after telling them everything, he sent them to Joppa.”

The story then switches scenes. “About noon the next day, as [the 3 men] were on their journey and approaching the city, Peter went up on the roof to pray. He became hungry and wanted something to eat; and while it was being prepared, he fell into a trance. He saw the heaven opened and something like a large sheet coming down, being lowered to the ground by its four corners. In it were all kinds of four-footed creatures and reptiles and birds of the air. Then he heard a voice saying, ‘Get up, Peter; kill and eat.’ But Peter said, ‘By no means, Lord; for I have never eaten anything that is profane or unclean.’ The voice said to him again, a second time, ‘What God has made clean, you must not call profane.’ This happened three times, and the thing was suddenly taken up to heaven. Now while Peter was greatly puzzled about what to make of the vision that he had seen, suddenly the men sent by Cornelius appeared. They were asking for Simon’s house and were standing by the gate. They called out to ask whether Simon, who was called Peter, was staying there. While Peter was still thinking about the vision, the Spirit said to him, ‘Look, three men are searching for you. Now get up, go down, and go with them without hesitation; for I have sent them.’”

Understand here, that Cornelius was a Gentile, and Jews were to avoid Gentiles. We get a feel for this when in the 11^th chapter, the early Christian church leaders confront Peter – not with trying to convert a Gentile, but with eating with them. “Why did you go to uncircumcised men and eat with them?” they ask Peter. That was forbidden. In the beginning of the Christian church, Christianity, was for Jews, not for Gentiles. It was for Jews, not for people like you and me. That’s the first thing to remember.

Second, remember that Jews were not to eat those things that Peter saw in his dream. They weren’t to eat “four-footed animals, beasts of prey, reptiles, and birds of the air.” When the angel says to Peter, “Get up, Peter; kill and eat,” Peter says, “Not me Lord. I’m not going to eat any of that for it’s unclean and I’ve never eaten anything that is profane or unclean.” 3 times Peter refuses to eat what is put before him in his dream. But God is not to be denied in reaching out to the Gentiles. God has ordered pigs-in-a-blanket for Peter, and Peter eventually understands. Peter comes to understand that God wants the message of Jesus Christ to be spread to not only the Jews, but to the Gentiles as well. He finally says to Cornelius, “I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.”

This is the message that Peter presented to the leaders of the church in Jerusalem in today’s sermon text. God shows no partiality. God’s idea of who to include is bigger than our own idea of who we want to have in the church. We want people like us, people who think like us and dress like us and look like us. God doesn’t care about those things. God only cares about whether a person loves Jesus Christ. As the poet Edwin Markham put it so well, “He drew a circle that shut me out Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout But love and I had the wit to win; We drew a circle that took him in.” That’s what God does – draws circles that take people in, yes even those people we may not want in.

This goes for God’s church. We’re to welcome all to God’s fellowship. This is one of the reasons we Baptists have what’s called “open communion.” We welcome all who believe in Jesus Christ to the communion table. A person doesn’t have to be Baptist, doesn’t have to be white, doesn’t have to be rich to be welcome at Christ’s Table. Anyone who believes, anyone who wants to partake of the symbols of Christ’s body and blood is welcome to the Table. Because God has welcomed us to the Table, welcomed us into the Family of God, we’re to welcome others into the body of Christ as well. It’s not for us to judge who should be here and who shouldn’t. I’m more than happy to leave those kinds of decisions to God.

Which brings me back to the immigration question. As I said, I don’t have any solutions to the problem of who to let into our nation, and how to respond to those who are already here illegally. I do, however, feel that it’s important for Christians to speak out in support of all people. If God shows no partiality, it’s important that we at least consider what that means when we seek to resolve the immigration issue. Rev. Gregory M. Williams, an Atlanta pastor and advocate of comprehensive immigration reform puts it well. He said, “God has been good to American, and we need to love all God’s children. [Immigration] is a complicated issue, but we have to start somewhere to rectify this broken system.”^{^[2]}

The leaders of the early church, when they heard Peter’s argument, when they heard Peter describe what he’d seen in the vision sent from God, when they heard him say, “The Spirit told me to go with [Cornelius’s men] and not to make a distinction between them and us,” when they heard again of the work of the Holy Spirit, Luke tells us “they were silenced. And they praised God, saying, ‘Then God has given even to the Gentiles the repentance that leads to life.’”

May we welcome all to Christ’s Table. May we welcome all to fellowship as God’s people. And may we consider, seriously consider, what it means to love as God loves those who want only a chance to care for their families as we care for our own families. What does it mean to love the stranger, the immigrant?

1. Jeffrey, Paul, “Room for refugees?”, Christian Century, April 20, 2010, p. 22.

2. Archibold, Randal C., http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/24/us/politics/24immig.html

Published: April 23, 2010

3. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ynews/20100428/ts_ynews/ynews_ts1831

4. Tucker, Cynthia, “Arizona law an immigration wake-up call,” Enterprise-Record, May 1, 2010.

April 18, 2010 John 21:1-8 John 21:9-19 “Back to the Nets”

Dr. Ted H. Sandberg

It had been an astonishing two weeks or so. All the disciples had thought Jesus crazy when he headed into Jerusalem. After all, that’s where his opponents were the strongest. As long as Jesus had stayed up north, up in Galilee, he was relatively safe. Galilee had a “Tea party” reputation for independence. Galilee was known for its reluctance to obey the governing authorities. It wasn’t so much that the people of Galilee were different from the people of Jerusalem, say. It’s just that there was no ruling family to keep the peasants in line, so there was always an underlying defiance in the region of Galilee. If Jesus had been willing to stay in Galilee, there’s no telling how much longer he could’ve preached his message of religious and social change. But Jesus hadn’t been willing to do that. Instead, he’d headed off toward Jerusalem to confront the rulers, both political and religious rulers.

At first, the disciples were dazzled by the reception the people of Jerusalem gave Jesus when he went riding into the city on the donkey. Rather than ratting him out to the authorities to be rapidly arrested, they turned into a cheering crowd, a crowd that cried out, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest heaven!” What a response! What a triumphant entry! What a thing to remember!

Unfortunately, Jesus hadn’t been willing to accept that glorious moment and then leave the city. Instead of taking a few bows to thank the crowd for the parade and then getting out of Jerusalem, Jesus had headed toward the Temple of all places. As the disciples had followed Jesus to the Temple, perhaps they thought, “Well, it’s only natural that Jesus should want to worship in the Temple. He’s very devout, and every devout Jew wants to pray at the Temple. Maybe his enemies will all be too busy to bother with him today. Besides, what trouble can he get into at the Temple of all places.”

It turns out, Jesus could get in a lot of trouble at the Temple. The chief priest and members of the Sanhedrin were barely holding onto power so they couldn’t afford to allow even the slightest questioning of their authority and power. When Jesus entered the Temple and saw the money changers at work, saw the exorbitant rates being charged the poor to exchange their secular money for temple money, he nearly caused a riot by overturning the tables of the money changers. He said to those around him, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer’; but you are making it a den of robbers.’” Those in authority had to react, had to throw all their power against him. Which is what they did.

Following the Passover meal, the authorities arrested Jesus, tried him before the Sanhedrin where they found him guilty, and then turned him over to Pilate. Pilate, unable to determine any reason to put Jesus to death, was nonetheless unwilling to go against the ruling Jews upon whom his job was very dependent, and so he ordered Jesus crucified. Jesus was soon again in the streets of Jerusalem, but this time rather than triumphantly riding on a donkey, he was staggering under the weight of his cross. All too quickly he arrived at Golgotha, and there he was crucified between two thieves. The disciples, fearing for their own safety, fled following Jesus’ arrest, and for the most part, they stayed away from Jesus during this whole period.

Then, on that Sunday morning, they’d heard unbelievable news. Mary Magdalene, one of the women who’d followed Jesus, came running into the house where the disciples had gathered, and said, “He’s risen. The tomb is empty, and I’ve seen Jesus.” Not willing to take the word of some hysterical woman, John and Peter had quickly headed out to the tomb, and as Mary had said, the tomb was empty. They saw the “linen wrappings lying there, and the cloth that had been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself.” But the disciples, despite what Jesus had told them, didn’t understand what this meant.

So it was that they gathered together that night behind locked doors in the house where they’d met because they were afraid they’d be arrested next by those in power. Then Jesus had come to them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” Jesus had next breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”

Now Thomas, who was called the Twin, wasn’t with them when Jesus appeared to them, and he refused to believe that his friends had seen the risen Jesus. “He said to them, ‘Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.’”

So it was that a week later, Jesus had again come to the disciples behind the locked doors where they were still hiding, and this time Thomas was with them. Jesus said to Thomas, “‘Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.’ Thomas answered him, ‘My Lord and my God!’ Jesus said to him, ‘Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.’”

It was a roller coaster of a two weeks. They’d seen their beloved Jesus triumphant, and crucified, and now they’d seen him risen from the dead. But now what? Now what were they supposed to do? Jesus had called them to follow him, and that’s what they’d done. But now they had no leader. Now they had no one to follow. Peter often took charge, but who’d want to follow Peter, the one who’d denied Jesus – not that they all wouldn’t have done the same? They’d seen the risen Jesus, and that Jesus had given them the Holy Spirit, but what did that mean? What were they supposed to do now?

The disciples reacted very much like you and I react after some remarkable high. What did we do after that great vacation? What did we do after that great presentation at work? What did we do after we accepted Jesus as Lord and Savior? What did we do after that mountain top experience where we felt so very close to the Lord?

What did we do? We got up the next day and went back to our normal routine. Life goes on, after all, and even though we may have been changed by accepting Jesus, even though we may have been changed by whatever triumph may have taken place, we’ve still got to eat. We’ve still got to earn a living. We’ve still got to do what we’ve been doing.

So it was that Peter, even after having seen the risen Lord, said to Thomas called the Twin, Nathanael of Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two others of his disciples, “I am going fishing. I’m going back to work.” They said to Peter, “Are you crazy? We’ve seen the risen Lord. We’ve got to become monks, or at least Sunday School teachers!” No. They said, “We’ll go with you.” They may have been totally different men from the men that Jesus called away from their boats three years earlier, but now they didn’t know what to do. Now they were on their own once again, and so they returned to what they knew. They followed Peter back to their nets because they didn’t know what else to do.

We’re told that certain kinds of fishing are always done at night, and so it was that the disciples fished all night, but caught nothing. “Just after daybreak, Jesus stood on the beach; but the disciples did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to them, ‘Children, you have no fish, have you?’ They answered him, ‘No.’ He said to them, ‘Cast the net to the right side of the boat, and you will find some.’ So they cast it, and now they were not able to haul it in because there were so many fish. That disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, ‘It is the Lord!’ When Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put on some clothes, for he was naked, and jumped into the sea. But the other disciples came in the boat, dragging the net full of fish, for they were not far from the land, only about a hundred yards off.

“When they had gone ashore, they saw a charcoal fire there, with fish on it, and bread. Jesus said to them, ‘Bring some of the fish that you have just caught.’ So Simon Peter went aboard and hauled the net ashore, full of large fish, a hundred fifty-three of them; and though there were so many, the net was not torn. Jesus said to them, ‘Come and have breakfast.’ Now none of the disciples dared to ask him, ‘Who are you?’ because they knew it was the Lord. Jesus came and took the bread and gave it to them, and did the same with the fish.”

Do you hear the resemblance to Jesus’ words at the Last supper. “Jesus came and took the bread and gave it to them, and did the same with the fish.” Matthew puts it this way: “Jesus took a loaf of bread, and after blessing it he broke it, gave it to the disciples, and said, ‘Take, eat; this is my body.’ Then he took a cup, and after giving thanks he gave it to them, saying, ‘Drink from it, all of you; for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.’” The words aren’t exactly the same, but they’re close, close enough to bring the image of the Last Supper to the minds of all who heard these words in John’s Gospel.

When the disciples were at a loss to know what to do, Jesus came to them, and they broke bread together. Then they remembered why Jesus had come to them. They remembered what Jesus had called them to do. John doesn’t tell us what happens next with all the disciples. In the following verses, Peter is told three times to care for Jesus’ sheep, and then John concludes his Gospel by saying, “But there are also many other things that Jesus did; if every one of them were written down, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.” John leaves us on the shore with the 153 fish. He leaves us on the shore with Jesus breaking bread with the disciples. He leaves us with Jesus telling Peter once again, “Follow me.” At first appearance, John ends his Gospel with the disciples going back to their nets.

We know, however, that the story didn’t end there. We know that the disciples, filled by the Holy Spirit, began to preach and teach the wondrous news that Jesus Christ was God’s son, and that He was raised from the dead that all who believe in Christ might be forgiven from their sin, and have eternal life. We know that the disciples left their nets a final time and traveled throughout the known world to proclaim the Good News. We know that, through the power of the Holy Spirit, Christ’s church was begun and the Good News that Jesus Christ is Lord has been spread down through the ages. John doesn’t tell us this, but we know this to be true because of Luke’s account in Acts and because we ourselves are the recipients of this tradition.

A quick point we can learn from this account. When we’re tempted to go back to our nets, whatever those nets may be, when we’re at a loss to understand what we’re to do as followers of Jesus Christ, when we’re tempted to go back to the old routine, it’s important that we follow the example Jesus set with the disciples, and break bread together. In other words, when we don’t know the direction we should be going as Christians, it’s time to worship together. It’s time to gather as the people of God and listen for God’s direction, because God has a purpose and a direction not only for us as individuals, but also a purpose and a direction for us as Christ’s body, the church. When we’re tempted to return to the routine, when we’re tempted to go it alone, then it’s most important that we gather together in worship as followers of Jesus Christ.

What will we do as followers? We’ll do what the disciples eventually did – we’ll remember that we’ve been called to share the wonderful news that Jesus Christ is Lord. We’ll remember that we’ve been called to share that Jesus Christ was put to death on a cross, but was raised by God and now sits at the right hand of God the Father in heaven. We too will remember that we’re called to share the Good News that because of this miracle, and through the power of the Holy Spirit, our sins are forgiven. We’ll remember again that our sins our forgiven, that God’s Spirit remains with us always, and as God’s Spirit is with us, God’s Spirit is with all who believe. So it is that we may go back to our nets, but we’ll go back to our nets looking to share the wondrous story of God’s love for us with all the world, even while we hold the love of Jesus Christ in our hearts. It’s that love of Jesus Christ that sustains us as we go about the routine of life. It’s the love of Jesus Christ that makes the routine special. Thanks be to God.

April 11, 2010 Revelation 1:4-8 John 20:19-31 “Peace Amidst Our Fear”

Dr. Ted H. Sandberg

I grew up in Wyoming in the 50's and 60's during the Cold War with the Soviet Union. It was a time when the threat of nuclear war, and thus annihilation, was taken very seriously. It was a fearful time. To calm our fears, various measures were put in place to supposedly protect us. Public buildings with strong basements were designated as Fall Out shelters, places for the public to go in case of nuclear war. There were cases and cases of food and containers of water stored in the shelters – supposedly enough to provide food and water for X numbers of people for 2 weeks, the time it would take before it was safe to come out of the shelter for limit periods of time.

Further protection from a nuclear attack came from “Duck and Cover” drills. Though I don’t remember ever participating in the drills, thousands of children were taught to protect themselves “in the event of an unexpected nuclear attack which, they were told, could come at any time without warning. Immediately after they saw a flash they had to stop what they were doing and get on the ground under some cover – such as a table, or at least next to a wall – and assume the fetal position, lying face-down and covering their heads with their hands.”^{^[1]} The idea was to keep people from running to a window to look at an atomic blast.

While, as I say, I don’t remember participating in such drills, I do remember taking part in a drill to see how long it would take us to get home from school following an announcement that the Soviet Union had launched a nuclear attack against us. At a certain time one afternoon, an alarm sounded and all we students went home, checked to see what time we arrived at home, and then brought a note to class the next day to let “somebody” know how long it took to get home. Because I lived across the street from the school, and because our clocks weren’t synchronized, according to our home clock, I actually got home before the alarm sounded and I left the school. I’m guessing this was an attempt to learn whether students should be dismissed from class in case of a nuclear attack, or kept at school for their own safety. I can’t actually remember the reason for the drill.

I do remember thinking that all the drills were essentially a waste of time. Wyoming, because of its large size and small population, had hundreds of nuclear missiles deployed throughout the state. It was common knowledge that if a nuclear war began, Soviet Union missiles would rain down upon us, and going into a fall out shelter, or “Duck and Covering” would be a waste of time. Even more, I figured it would be better to die in that first blast than to die a long, lingering death caused either by the radiation, or by the lack of edible food or drinkable water. I didn’t have much faith that those containers of food and water would last all that long should thousands upon thousands of people survive with me.

So I grew up with this fear of a nuclear attack always lurking in the background. That threat was much more real to me than the threat of a terrorist attack is today, because 1) the Soviet Union was much more powerful than any terrorist group, and 2) there was nowhere to go to get away from a nuclear bomb. As terrible as the Trade Tower destruction was, it didn’t wipe out NYC, and much of the east coast, as a nuclear attack would have.

A sense of national fear isn’t a new thing, of course. Each generation seems to have its own “great” fear. In his first inaugural address, Franklin Delano Roosevelt said as our country struggled in the midst of the Great Depression, “This is pre-eminently the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly. Nor need we shrink from honestly facing conditions in our country today. This great nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So first of all let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear. . .is fear itself. . . nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.”^{^[1]}

Too often however, we’re paralyzed by fear; fear of terrorists, fear of nuclear attack, fear of a depression, fear of illness, fear of death. We’re very much like those first disciples, I think. We’d like to lock ourselves in a room, hidden from the threats of the world. That’s what those disciples were doing. Hiding, hiding because of their fear of the Jews. “When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews.” They’d gathered together because they were afraid.

They may have been safer if they’d scattered. They’d have been safer if they’d gone home, I suppose. That’s ultimately what they decided to do. Go back to what they’d been doing before they’d met Jesus. But now, they needed to be together, because they were afraid.

So there the disciples were, gathered in the house where they’d met for that last meal with Jesus, hiding behind locked doors. “Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you.’”

In a world filled with fear, as we frantically search for security, these are words we need to hear, and even more, accept. I feel that the greatest problem we confront as a nation, and we confront as individual, and we confront as Christ’s church, is fear. We’re afraid of lots of things.

This past Good Friday, Pastor David from Trinity United Methodist preached at the Community Good Friday service. In his sermon, he focused on Pilate and the fear that caused Pilate to have Jesus crucified. Pilate, like so many politicians, knew what was right, but did what the crowd wanted him to do because he was afraid of the crowd. Not physically afraid, but afraid they’d make waves with the Emperor and the Emperor would take away Pilate’s position. Perhaps Pilate figured that Jesus wasn’t worth the risk of doing what he knew was right. Had Jesus been more powerful, had the cause been bigger, involved more people, or people of greater influence, then Pilate may have been willing to take the risk and set Jesus free. But Jesus wasn’t rich, wasn’t powerful, wasn’t worth risking his political future on, so Pilate handed him over to be crucified, because of his fear.

So it may well be with our politicians today. Maybe if the cause is great enough, they’d be willing to stand up to the people, stand up to the President, stand up to the party leaders, stand up to those who fund their campaigns, may be if the cause was big enough they’d do what they believed was right, but the cause is rarely big enough to over come their fear of not being re-elected. Too often, fear drives our leaders at all levels of government.

But it’s not fair to let ourselves off the hook when it comes to fear and the demand for security. It’s not fair to blame it all on our leaders, because you and I demand security where no security is possible. We demand that our airliners be 100% safe, when that can never be. We demand that the world’s terrorists be kept away from our shores, when that can never be fully accomplished. Our large financial institutions demand that the mistakes they make not have consequences for them, and because they’re so large, they seem to get their way, and we, the tax payers, seem to be afraid to change the system because we’re afraid of what that change may mean. Our leaders react in fear, but you and I demand security in an insecure world.

Nor is it only as citizens that we show our fear. This is true in our personal lives as well, isn’t it? We want to be safe. We don’t want to be hurt. We believe that being happy means not suffering, and we can avoid suffering by avoiding attachments. If we avoid close relationships with others, we won’t suffer nearly as much as if we become friends with others. Isn’t there a song that goes, “you always hurt the one’s you love”? Of course we hurt the ones we love, because those who don’t know us or don’t have a relationship with us don’t care what we say or do, or don’t care enough to be hurt by us. As Simon & Garfunkel sang in their song, “I Am a Rock,” “I have my books And my poetry to protect me; I am shielded in my armor, Hiding in my room, safe within my womb. I touch no one and no one touches me. I am a rock, I am an island. And a rock feels no pain; And an island never cries.”^{^[1]} Lock the door to the heart, and keep away the suffering, because we’re afraid of being hurt.

It’s also possible for fear to keep we as a church from ministering as God calls us to do. The fear that we’re not going to grow can keep us from reaching out to those around us with the Good News of Jesus Christ. “Why would I want to invite someone to this church if it’s not going to be here in 5 years?” we may say to ourselves. Our fears get in the way of sharing all that God is doing through this congregation. We support ABC missions and help support a number of groups in Chico. Through Ron Reed, we directly touch those in Tanzania who don’t have clean water. By allowing groups in Chico to use our building, we impact children with ADHD, people being trained for the US Census, those who are learning music. Through me, you minister through the Police Chaplains, protect Enloe patients who take part in various medical studies at the hospital, and work to meet the needs of the homeless in Butte County. Through Cindy you continually help those at the Torres Shelter get SSI benefits. We also provide milk there and have started serving a meal once a month. And these are only a small fraction of the things we do.

But perhaps because we’re afraid of what may happen in the future, we’re reluctant to share what God does through us and with us, and yes sometimes in spite of us, today.

But we, like those disciples in the upper room, are blessed by the peace that is Jesus Christ. Just as Jesus said to the disciples, “Peace be with you,” so too he says the same to us today. “Peace be with you.” And so the peace of Jesus Christ can calm our fears, whatever those fears may be.

So, my sermon ends with a promise. Here is the good news. Just as the risen Christ was not stumped by the locked doors behind which the disciples cowered, so I promise you that the risen Christ will not be deterred by any locks that you have put on your doors, any fears that crowd hope away from you. Our God is wonderfully resourceful, imaginative, persistent, and determined to have us. Even in our lostness, even in our betrayal, even in our fears, the first thing he does at Easter is to come out to get us.

It’s not that our fears aren’t valid. Nuclear annihilation is still a real possibility. Terrorists may very well strike again. Nature continually causes devastation. And no matter what else does or doesn’t happen, we know that we all will die. There is much to fear.

But as real as our fears may be, the peace of Jesus Christ is more real, the peace of Jesus Christ is far greater. The peace of Jesus Christ can and will calm our fears. The peace of Jesus Christ will give us strength for today. The peace of Jesus Christ will give us hope for tomorrow. May each of us be filled with this wonderful peace from God that will enable us to defeat the fears that too often fill us.

Amen and amen.

1. “Duck and Cover,” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duck_and_cover

2. Roosevelt, Franklin Delano, Inaugural Speech, Given in Washington, D.C.

March 4th, 1933

3. Simon, Paul, “I Am a Rock,” 1965.

April 4, 2010 Easter John 20:1-18 “A Time for Singing”

Dr. Ted H. Sandberg

I read this past week of an agency within the headquarters of one of the mainline denominations – not our American Baptist Churches but another denomination – this agency sends out an e-mail each Monday morning informing its members of all the terrible things that have happened in the past week. Evidently, the agency doesn’t figure that its members throughout the country have access to newspapers or radios or TVs or computers with Yahoo news. They may feel that if they don’t share all the bad news, someone may miss some bad event or happening. As if the ministers and members of each congregation don’t hear enough of all the bad things – about the earthquakes, plagues, hunger, murders, and general mayhem.

I suppose a person could make the argument that it’s important for the church to be informed about this bad stuff so that we can pray for those who are hurt, and help those who are in need. After all, one could argue that the church is in the helping business. “We are those who, because of our faith, have a heightened sensitivity to evil’s work in the world and a moral obligation to point to the pain that the rest of the world can’t see. Less morally attuned people may stroll past the suffering, but we’re Christians; we stop and stare, take up an offering, make an appeal, collect blankets and construct health kits, sighing as we do our bit to alleviate some of the misery. That life may not actually be rotten in my part of the world today only increases my guilt for my occasional lapses into joy. How dare I sing when others suffer?”^{^[1]}

And make no mistake, there are lots of problems in the world. As I was writing this yesterday, Shirley Stanley’s son phoned to let me know that Shirley had fallen and had a slight break in her pelvis. She was being admitted to Enloe and was in a lot of pain. When I saw her yesterday afternoon, she said her pain was worse than being in labor. Even when we refuse to watch the news, when we only read the sports section of the newspaper or try and ignore all the bad stuff in the world, we’re reminded that bad things can instantly happen to those for whom we care, for those whom we love.

We Christians focus on the bad stuff because we don’t want to ignore the Jesus who is in the hurting of the world. We’re all too familiar with Jesus’ words in Matthew: “The king will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?’ And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.’”^{^[1]} Because of this and similar passages, many Christians focus on all the bad stuff, even when there’s little they can do to help. This is especially true when the bad stuff is in the church. We especially beat our breasts and cry out “Mea culpa” when the problem is something like the sexual abuse of minors by priests, because we know it’s not only priests that have abuse issues, but clergy as well. I’ve not heard of many Baptist ministers who’ve been pedophiles, but I have heard of many who’ve run off with the organist, secretary, or had affairs with members. It’s these bad things upon which we in the church tend to focus.

But while it is important to know of the bad stuff, I don’t believe the bad stuff should be our focus. William Willimon, writing in the Christian Century, tells that when he attends large church meetings there’s always someone who seems to derive perverse delight from pointing to the tragedies that the rest of those attending the meeting have callously missed. He writes, “At one such meeting, we’d been working for three days – struggling with depleted resources and disappointed by the less-than-adequate outpouring of aid for various world problems. We were preparing to end the meeting and head home when a dreadfully earnest participant grabbed the microphone.

“‘I think it sad,’ she said, ‘that in three days there hasn’t been mention of the horrible tragedy of land mines in Iraq.’ A sigh arose in the room. ‘Children are being maimed. Many of these land mines were purchased from the United States, put there through our tax dollars.’

Willimon concludes, “An already deflated meeting rolled over and died. Look at us. We were so busy eradicating killer diseases, curing malaria, raising $3 million to solve AIDS, funding the pensions of suffering African pastors and sending water purification systems to Haiti that we missed the one good work that could have certified us as a church that really, really cares.”^{^[1]}

This is, of course, one of the problems of thinking that we can save ourselves by the good works that we do. There’s always more to be done. We can never end all the world’s suffering, all the world’s sin. We couldn’t end the world’s sin, even if we were better ourselves. No matter what we do, it isn’t sufficient to save us, nor to help all those in need. “If children aren’t starving here, they’re hungry elsewhere. You mailed a million in aid to Haiti? So what? That’s only a fraction of what the country really needs. Besides, your compassion for Haiti doesn’t make up for your apparent lack of concern for Bangladesh. Any show of joy or expression of praise amid such pain is incredibly thick-skinned of you.”^{^[1]}

It would seem that we Christians only live in a Good Friday world, a world in which we focus only on the cross, and our sin that put Jesus there. We focus on what’s left to be done. We focus on the empty pews on this Easter, and fail to give thanks for those who’ve gathered here to worship.

Willimon tells of going on two mission trips to Haiti with undergrads. He says that the most disarming thing about the country was the laughter of the children, along with their raucous singing. How dare they sing when their life expectancy is so horribly short? Was their laughter an escapist respite from the unmitigated tragedy of their lives, or a smart rebuke to our assumption that their lives were trapped in tragedy?

As darkness fell upon Port-au-Prince after the earth heaved that January night, people danced in the streets and sang hymns. On CNN, Anderson Cooper was incredulous.”^{^[1]}

It’s good that we try to help those in need. It’s important that we attempt to call the world’s attention to the needs of the less fortunate because too often, the world is too content to focus on its own pleasure. It’s important that we want to fill the pews because that means that more people are hearing what? the Good News, the Resurrection News.

As important as it is to call the world’s attention to the needs of so many, however, it’s even more important that we proclaim that Good Friday isn’t the end. Good Friday leads to Easter and the resurrection. We aren’t called as Christians to mourn what we aren’t doing. We’re called to proclaim the wonderful news of what God has done and is doing in God’s son, our savior Jesus Christ.

What I’m really talking about is two differing world views. The first is a view that says the world is filled with pain and suffering so either 1) we eat, drink and be merry because we’ll die tomorrow, or 2) we mourn even as we try and help because we know we can’t do enough and so people are going to suffer. Those two are worldly, human-centered views. Those are Good Friday views of the world.

The second view is the Easter view, the view that sings even in the midst of despair because we know that God is with us. This is the view that celebrates even when we know that things are bad. This is the view that understands that when Mary Mag'dalene went to the tomb and found the stone rolled away it wasn’t because soldiers had stolen Jesus’ body, but because God had raised Jesus from the dead.

“In his poem “A Brief for the Defense,” Jack Gilbert writes that ‘to make injustice the only measure of our attention is to pray as the devil.’”^{^[1]} “To make injustice the only measure” is to focus only on Good Friday.

But we, as Christians, are to proclaim a different focus. We proclaim that the world is ultimately in God’s hands, and that even in the midst of all the world’s problems, we can sing because we know that God is good. We live in a Good Friday world, but we have an Easter God. And because we know that God is good and loving and forgiving, because we know that God doesn’t create the bad stuff but is with us in through all the pain and suffering, because we understand that the resurrection shows us that even in a world of suffering and sorrow, God cares for us, we can sing. We can sing songs of joy. We can sing songs of praise. We can sing in the darkness and terror. We can sing in the midst of our sorrow and grief. We can sing alone and together. We can sing of the wondrous things God has done through God’s people, and the wonderful things God continues to do – even through and with us. We can sing, because the cross is not the end. We may live in a Good Friday world, but now is the time to sing because we worship the God who created Easter. Amen.

1. Willimon, William H., “Now can we sing?” The Christian Century, March 23, 2010, p. 11.

2. Matthew 25:34-40

3. Willimon, pp. 11-12.

4. Willimon, p. 12.

5. Willimon, p. 12.

6. Willimon, p. 12.

March 21, 2010 Isaiah 43:16-21 Philippians 3:4b-14 “God Saves”

Dr. Ted H. Sandberg

Thesis #28 of Martin Luther’s Ninety-Five Theses stated, “As soon as a coin in the coffer rings, a soul from purgatory springs”. What Luther was condemning was the practice of the Catholic Church of his day selling indulgences. An indulgence was, technically in Catholic theology, “the full or partial remission of temporal punishment due for sins which have already been forgiven. The indulgence is granted by the church after the sinner has confessed and received absolution. The belief is that indulgences draw on the Treasure House of Merit accumulated by Jesus’ sacrifice and the virtues and penances of the saints. They are granted for specific good works and prayers.”^{^[1]} When a person has committed a “venial” sin, a sin that doesn’t cause a complete separation from God, that sin must be punished even when the sin has been forgiven. “The sinner must ‘strive by works of mercy and charity, as well as by prayer and the various practices of penance, to put off completely the 'old man' and to put on the 'new man'.”^{^[2]}

“The Catholic doctrine of the Communion of Saints teaches that this work of cleansing or sanctification does not have to be done entirely by the person directly concerned, since all Christians, living and dead, are united as a single body that has Christ as head. The holiness of one profits others, well beyond the harm that the sin of one could cause others. Thus through the communion of saints, recourse not only to the merits of the saints in heaven but above all to those of Christ himself lets the contrite sinner be more promptly and efficaciously purified of the punishments for sin.”^{^[3]} The good things that the saints did could be used to temper the punishment individuals deserved, punishment meted out in Purgatory, and on earth as well.

While there may be some validity to pats of the theological thinking on indulgences, what happened was that some in the Catholic Church of the 1400's used the sale of indulgences to make money. They thought they could sell God’s grace. Rich men who didn’t want to think about being punished for their earthly sins supposedly bought the good works of the saints who had gone before them. It also came to be the practice, that if a person paid for a new church, or gave sufficient money to help build St. Peter’s in Rome, one could avoid that punishment. This practice of selling indulgences was one of the main reasons Martin Luther attacked the Catholic Church.

Now we Protestants, most likely self-righteously, point a condemning finger at the practice of selling indulgences, selling God’s grace. We believe that when God forgives, we’re forgiven and we won’t suffer any punishment at the hand of God. Maybe we’ll suffer an earthly punishment as a result of what we’ve done, but not a punishment from God. If we rob a bank, eventually repent and ask God’s forgiveness for that act, we believe God will forgive us, but that doesn’t mean we won’t need to spend time in jail. God’s forgiveness saves us from God’s punishment, but not from society’s punishment.

To be fair, the Catholic Church has greatly modified the whole belief in indulgences as well, so I’ve never heard of their using indulgences since Vatican II. They no longer believe that someone else’s good works will save another from punishment.

Because we Protestants believe that once God forgives us, we’re forgiven, we haven’t continued the idea that we can purchase the good works of another to get us out of being punished for what we’ve done. What is often less clear is whether we believe that our own good works will save us. We don’t believe God’s grace can be sold, but some believe God’s grace can be earned.

Oh, now, I know that should I ask any one of you, you would say that we’re not saved by what we do. We’re saved by our faith in Jesus Christ. We’re saved because Jesus died for us on the cross. There’s nothing we need do but believe. We can’t earn God’s grace.

The trouble with this is that it’s easier to say it than it is to live it. We’re a society that doesn’t believe in getting “something for nothing.” (I know that confidence men and women are successful because people continually try and get something for nothing, but by and large, most of us know that we get what we pay for.) If we’re going to lose weight, we have to exercise more and eat less. We’re not going to shed pounds by wearing one of those so-called “fat-burners” around our waist. We’re not going to get in shape by sitting on the couch and watching the Olympics. If we want to get in shape, we have to get off the sofa and walk. If we want to learn a second language, we can buy the Rosetta Stone^® program, but that still takes work: sitting in front of the computer, going through the lessons, finding someone to practice with, learning the vocabulary. We’re taught over and over and over again: we’ve got to earn our way in society, good things come to those who work for them, we don’t get something for nothing.

So when we preachers say, “you are saved by God’s grace alone,” that flies in the face of what we’re taught by society, and while we may accept that belief with our heads, we may not accept it with our hearts. We may hear in our heads that we’re saved by God, but in our hearts we may say, “But it doesn’t hurt for us to do good. It doesn’t hurt for us to give to the church. It doesn’t hurt for us to help the poor. It doesn’t hurt for us to love our neighbor.”

What makes this all the more confusing is that when we accept Christ, when we commit to being a follower of Jesus, we want to do the things I’ve just mentioned. When we follow Jesus we want to give to the church, and help the poor and love our neighbor. It’s just that these things don’t earn us a spot in heaven. The spot in heaven is already saved for us by Jesus himself. Jesus said in John 14, “Believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?” The rooms are ready for us. We don’t earn them. We’re given them by God.

Which means that the Good News is that our salvation doesn’t depend upon us. It depends upon God. We don’t save ourselves. God saves. We say “Yes,” but God saves. We in turn do our best, with the help of the Holy Spirit to live according to God’s teachings, but God saves.

Let me clarify here, what it means for God to save us. Lots of people may well think that “salvation,” God saving” refers exclusively to the afterlife. “Salvation is when we die and ‘get to go to heaven.’ To be sure, scripture is concerned with our eternal fate. What has been obscured is scripture’s stress on salvation as God’s invitation to share in God’s life here, now, so that we might do so forever. Salvation isn’t just a destination; it’s our vocation. Salvation isn’t just a question of who is saved and who is damned, who will get to heaven and how, but also how we are swept up into participation in the mystery of God as Jesus Christ. Get a biblical concordance,” William Willimon suggests, “and check the references to ‘heaven’ and you will find that almost none of them are related to ‘death.’ Heaven is a name for when or where one is fully with God – salvation.”^{^[3]}

And while I’m making clarifications, let me also say that there are no limits to who God can save. No one is too bad, or too lost to be saved by God. To suggest that a Hitler or Jack the Ripper or name your own “greatest sinner,” to suggest that such a person can’t be saved is to put limits on God. It’s like saying, “God can save people who sin a little bit, but can’t save someone who sins a lot.” Which is like saying, “God can save someone like me, because I’m not all that bad, but God can’t save someone like them, because they’re terrible.” But Paul teaches, “For there is no distinction, since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”^{^[3]} No distinctions here. We’re all sinners. God wants all to be saved, because God is a God of love. And God, being all powerful, can save anyone because in the eyes of God, we’re all guilty.

Willimon tells of a friend of some years who approached him with a question that had become his obsession. He told of growing up in a small town church. As a youth, he said, “I accepted Jesus as my personal savior and I knew that I was saved.” “He was active in church until his late teenage years when other interests drew him away. As a young man, when he married he returned to the church, partly because of his wife’s piety.

“Now in midlife, he had become obsessed with the question, ‘Am I really saved?’ He’d begun to doubt that he’d ever had a true conversion experience. He’d engaged in a study of the Bible, but that had filled him with more questions. He’d tried to discuss his plight with a number of pastors and friends, but they all seemed to have different points of view which confused him all the more. He used to pray, but had stopped because it felt like he was just ‘talking to myself.’

“‘What if I died tomorrow?’ he asked. ‘I’m not sure that I would be saved and go to heaven.’”

Willimon writes, “My heart went out to this brother who was in real torment and consternation. I could make a number of observations about his struggle with salvation, but for now I’ll just note the absence of one key player: God.

“My friend characterized his struggle as his lonely battle to understand, his solitary attempt to decide, his need to feel, and his efforts to b certain. I asked my friend to consider the possibility that his turmoil might be God-induced, that God might be using this turbulence to move him to some new plane in their relationship. Perhaps his struggle was validation that God was indeed real and that God was working to draw him closer. Perhaps.”^{^[3]}

It’s not about us. It’s about God. We don’t save our self. God saves us. If we’re wondering if we’re saved, I agree with Willimon. It just may be that God is working to draw us closer. Our place in heaven may be assured, but God may very well want us to do more for God in our church, in our neighborhoods, at work, with our families. God continually reaches out to us. We can’t buy God’s grace. We can’t earn God’s grace. God’s grace, God’s love, God’s joy, God’s peace, God’s Spirit is freely given, and all we’re asked to do is say, “Yes, God. I believe.” Thanks be to God.

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indulgence

2. Ibid.,

3. Ibid.,

4. Willimon, William H., Who Will be Saved? Abingdon Press, Nashville, 2008, pp. 3-4.

5. Romans 3:22b-23

6. Willimon, William H., “The God Who Saves,” Pulpit Resource, Vol. 38, No. 1' Year C; January, February, March 2010, p. 50.

March 14, 2010 Luke 15:1-7 2 Corinthians 5:16-21 “What’s New? Everything!”

Dr. Ted H. Sandberg

“Whether apocryphal or not, there’s a splendid story that illustrates the centrality of [today’s sermon text to Lent]. It’s reported that Karl Barth, [the German theologian who urged the German church to stand up to Adolf Hitler], Barth was once asked what he would say to Adolf Hitler if he ever had the chance to meet the monster who was destroying Europe and who would ruin the whole world if he were not stopped. Barth’s [questioner] assumed that Barth would offer a scorching prophetic judgment against the [dictator’s] awful politics of destruction. Barth replied, instead, that he would do nothing other than quote Romans 5:8: ‘God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us.’ Only the unparalleled mercy and forgiveness of God, the unstinted gladness and grace of the gospel, could have prompted the Führer’s genuine repentance. To have accused him, though justly, of his manifold abominations would have prompted Hitler’s self-righteous defense, his angry justification of his allegedly ‘necessary’ deeds, [Barth suggested].”^{^[1]}

This is a wondrous message that we as Christians are to proclaim. No matter what a person has done or hasn’t done, Christ died for that person. No matter how great the sin, God is willing to forgive. And vice versa. Even if we feel our sins are small in comparison to the sin of someone else, we still are in the need of God’s mercy, because we don’t forgive ourselves. God forgives. When we’re forgiven, as Paul tells us, we’re made new, or as Jesus told Nicodemus, we’re reborn.

But what happens when we’re made new? There are a myriad of answers to that type of question, but the answer we’ll focus on this morning is that when we’re reborn, God asks us to see the world in new ways, with reborn eyes. Our new birth in Christ calls upon us to see the world differently, to see the world as if it had been turned upside down. Paul wrote to the Corinthians, “From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know him no longer in that way. So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!”

So what does this mean, our world is turned upside down? To a large degree, it means that we’re to see the world differently from those who don’t know Jesus as their Lord. In the movie, Dead Poet’s Society, John Keating, played by Robin Williams, is an English professor at a boys prep school in 1959. He wants his students to “Seize the day.” To do this, it’s important that they look at the world from a different perspective. Williams jumps up on his desk to illustrate this. The students are very reluctant to do the same. It’s hard to change how we do things, and how we see things for lots of reasons.

Yet this is exactly what Jesus asks of us. We’re to see things not through human eyes, but through God’s eyes. We’re to act, not out of our own desires, but out of God’s desires. We’re to live, not for ourselves, but for God. But like the students in the movie, we’re just as reluctant to jump on to our desks to see the world differently, because the world doesn’t like people jumping on its desks.

However, over and over again, Jesus tells us to do things God’s ways, not the world’s ways. For example, as Christians, we give thanks to God from whom all blessings flow. What does the world do? The world takes credit for itself rather than giving thanks to God, or even giving thanks to others sometimes. As Christians, when we wake in the morning, we raise our hearts to God and say, “Thank you God for being with me as I slept. Thank you for refreshing my body, and for refreshing my mind. Thank you for letting me sleep, and thank you now for allowing me to wake. As I go through this day, please go with me so that I may do not my will, but Your will. Help me that I may see You at work in this Your world and not be blinded by my own desires and my own needs.”

Do those who don’t know God give thanks? Do they recognize that they wake because God’s Spirit is with them and has been with them through the night? Do they give thanks for their talents, for their abilities, for their accomplishments, or do they take credit only for themselves? How many in the world believe that they’ve raised themselves up by their own bootstraps? How many in the world are unwilling to give much, if any, credit to those who have gone before them for their place in society, let alone to God? We live in a selfish world, don’t we? We live in a world where it’s necessary to take credit for all one can in order to move up the ladder. We live in a world of individual accomplishments, rather than in a world of group success. That’s the way of our society. That’s the way of the world we’re called by Jesus himself to see differently.

“So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation.” People laugh at those who get up at the Academy Awards and make great long speeches, thanking everyone from their 2^nd grade teacher to their hair dresser to the director of their movie. People laugh, perhaps, because the thanks may not ring true. Perhaps the actor or actress doesn’t thank those people except when he or she wins the Oscar. Other times, perhaps all those other people are taken for granted.

If that’s the case, it might be well to laugh. But if the thanks is genuine, then it’s good for someone to recognize that they didn’t win the Oscar by themself. That 2^nd grade teacher was important in their life, just as the hair dresser and the other actors and the director were important. But the world is on a time schedule – got to move on to the next award, the next commercial, the next program. We don’t have time for all that mushy thanks. We as Christians are called upon to see differently, to give thanks – to God and to all who are a part of our lives because we know we in need of God and neighbor.

A second example of the world’s priorities is the stress placed on “stuff,” as Tony Campolo labels it. The world continually tells us we need more stuff. Our houses aren’t large enough to store all our stuff, as big as our houses are. We stack our stuff to the tops of our garages. We rent storage units so that we’ll have more room for the new stuff we want to buy. We’re bombarded with commercials for new cars, new furniture, new clothes – in the latest styles, of course. “More, more, more” is the mantra of the world.

Jesus teaches us to see differently. Jesus says, “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you – you of little faith?”^{^[2]}

Look at the world differently, Jesus says. Look not for ways to get more stuff, but look for ways to share what you have, share it with those who have such great needs, share it with those who are hurting. Share it with those who are different. Share it with neighbor, those who are close and those who are far removed from us.

“So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!” Perhaps our biggest challenge as Christians is to love one another instead of loving only our own. William Sloane Coffin, Jr., former pastor of Riverside Church in NYC, wrote, “Love measures our stature: the more we love, the bigger we are. There is no smaller package in all the world than that of a man all wrapped up in himself!”^{^[2]}

Jesus said, “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.”^{^[2]}

This is seeing the world differently. This is the world turned upside down, isn’t it, even if we don’t like to hear this message. We don’t need to be told how the world reacts to threats, and attacks. The world isn’t interested in turning the other cheek. The world isn’t interested in love. The world is interested in power. The world strikes back when attacked.

I’ve shared this with you before, but it bears repeating. Jesus taught the Golden Rule: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” The world teaches distinct variations. It teaches a Silver Rule, “Do unto others after they do unto you.” The Iron Rule, “Do unto others as you expect they’ll do unto you.” The Copper Rule, “Do unto others before they do unto you.” The Tin Rule, “Do unto others, and cut out.”^{^[2]}

The world isn’t into talk. The world is into action. The world doesn’t turn the other cheek. The world strikes back – if it doesn’t strike first. “We can’t have any sign of weakness,” we’re told. “Better to fight and be wrong than to talk and wait to see if we’re right.”

Jesus, however, teaches a different point of view, a view expressed in the poem “Hug O’ War” by Shel Silverstein. Silverstein wrote, “I will not play at tug o’ war. I’d rather play at hug o’ war/ Where everyone hugs Instead of tugs, Where everyone giggles And rolls on the rug, where everyone kisses and Everyone grins, And everyone cuddles, and Everyone wins.”^{^[2]}

That’s seeing the world differently. That’s turning the world upside down, hugging instead of tugging, doing to others as we would have them do unto us, rather than doing to others and then running. That’s love instead of hate, love instead of war, love instead of violence, love instead of revenge. That’s what Paul means when he said, “From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know him no longer in that way. So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!”

What’s new? Everything! Everything is new in Christ, and we’re called to see the world with new eyes and act in new ways. And most importantly, we’re called to share this message with a world that is stuck in its old ways. What’s new? Everything! Thanks be to God.

1. Wood, Ralph C., “Theological Perspective on 2 Corinthians 5:16-21,” Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary, Year C, Volume 2, David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, Gen. Ed., Westminster John Knox Press, Louisville, KY, 2009, p. 110.

3. Matthew 6:25-30

4. Coffin, William Sloane, Credo, Westminster John Knox Press, Louisville, KY, 2004, p. 24.

5. Matthew 5:43-45

6. I first heard this many years ago in a speech by Martin Marty.

7. Silverstein, Shel, “Hug O’War,” Where the Sidewalk Ends, HarperCollins, 1974.

March 7, 2010 Luke 13:1-9 “Judged by Jesus”

Dr. Ted H. Sandberg

I’ve mentioned to many of you that most Wednesday afternoons, a group of colleagues and I have coffee for an hour at Bidwell Perk. I started attending this group the second week I was in Chico. The pastors of Faith Lutheran and St. John’s Episcopal stopped by my office while I was unpacking my library, and invited me to join the group. I was happy to do so for a couple of reasons. First, it’s nice to be with other ministers, because they know what it’s like to be a minister. We can talk, for example, about the stress of Advent and Lent together and understand each other. Just the collegiality is important.

Then too, we talk business. This coffee group was instrumental in putting together the plan to house the homeless in the churches before the Torres Shelter was built and in supporting the Esplanade House’s move to its current location. And we talk theology and help each other through difficulties.

This past Wednesday, our discussion turned to the Celebration of Abraham dinner and program that took place a week ago today. The Celebration of Abraham is made up of the religions that have roots in Abraham of the Old Testament: Jews, Muslims, and Christians. The Celebration of Abraham idea in Chico was started by a lawyer from Modesto and has now gained momentum here through the Chico Area Interfaith Council. This year’s dinner was hosted by the Mormons, because they had the room and because they’re members of the Interfaith Council. The program consisted of a panel made up of a Jew, a Christians, a Muslims and a Mormon because we were at their place of worship. At our coffee, we talked about the answers that the panelists gave to questions from those who attended the dinner. In particular, we talked about how they responded to a question about what each of the religions believes about other religions. The representative from the Muslim community was most “preachy” in terms of indicating that all people should become Muslim. The Mormon representative pretty much evaded answering the question – though the coffee group believes that historically, Mormons believe that unless a person is Mormon they will not reach heaven.

Of course, historically, that’s what Baptists have believed as well. Even today, there are Baptists who believe not only must a person be Christian to be saved, not only must they be Protestant, not only must they be Baptist, they must be baptized in that particular Baptist church. I suspect that those extremely narrow Baptists wouldn’t say that all other Baptists would be condemned to hell, but they would say that only Baptists would reach heaven.

And it’s not only Baptists who believe this way. The historical position of the Roman Catholic church was that: “(Outside the church, there is no salvation). That is, for a person to be saved – and avoid Hell – it is absolutely necessary that they be subject to the Pope. All Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, and followers of other non-Christian religions were destined for Hell. All members of Protestant, Anabaptist, Mormon, and other Christian denominations were headed there as well.”^{^[1]}

That official policy has been modified in the last 20 years. Recent documents “state that Jesus created only a single church, now comprising the Roman Catholic Church and Eastern Orthodox Churches. Other Christian denominations are not considered ‘proper’ churches; they suffer from ‘defects.’ Religions other than Christianity are considered to be ‘gravely deficient.’ Their rituals can constitute ‘an obstacle to salvation’ for their followers. Still, the Catholic Church now recognizes that it is possible for some individuals who are neither Catholic nor Orthodox to attain Heaven.”^{^[1]}

This idea of “believe my way or be condemned to hell” is probably a natural outgrowth of passages like we’ve just read from Luke. Luke tells us that “There were some present who told [Jesus] about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices.” Understand that for these Galileans to have had there blood mingle with their sacrifices would probably mean that they’d been killed on Pilate’s orders as they made their sacrifice in the Temple. “The only legitimate place for sacrificial worship was the temple in Jerusalem.”^{^[1]} Jesus was also told of 18 who were killed when the tower of Silo'am fell on them. The implication is that, unlike those killed on Pilate’s orders, this was a random accident, and the 18 who were killed were no more guilty or innocent than those who had just past by the accident site moments earlier. To both situations, Jesus says, “Unless you repent, you will all perish as they did.” In other words, “don’t worry about them. Worry about yourself and your own salvation.”

We don’t follow this teaching though, do we? We don’t really pay much attention to the teaching to worry about our own salvation because the risen Jesus tells us, in Matthew 28, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”^{^[1]} We’re to go and spread the Word that Jesus is the Son of God and no one “comes to the Father except through [Jesus].^{^[1]} We don’t worry about ourselves. We worry about others.

We Baptists have, historically, taken these words from Jesus very seriously. Beginning with William Carey in England and the Judsons, Luther Rice and John Mason Peck from America, and continuing today with Glen Chapman and John and Tomoko Armagost, Baptists have sent missionaries throughout the world to proclaim that Jesus Christ is Lord. And it’s right that we do this. It’s important for the world, including the people in America and in Chico, to hear the Good News of Jesus Christ.

However, sometimes I think that Christians today would just as soon skip this evangelistic, salvation aspect of the Christian faith. Sometimes I think we’d like to forget the command from Jesus to proclaim the Gospel. We’d like to forget Jesus’ words from Luke that we, and others, are to repent or perish, because that’s a harsh message, isn’t it? It doesn’t much fit with our idea that Jesus is all about love. It doesn’t fit with our idea that we’re to love one another, or that we’re to “all get along.” But it’s not only about “loving everyone.” Yes, we’re to proclaim the love of Jesus Christ both with our words and with our deeds. But we’re to proclaim the message of Jesus because there is an “or else” contained in the Gospel. Out of love, Jesus teaches us here to preach “Repent or else.”

Having said this, however, it doesn’t mean that we’re to do the judging. We’re not to proclaim “become Baptist or go to hell.” We’re not to proclaim even “become Christian or go to hell.” Our task as witnesses to the risen Christ is to proclaim Christ’s offer of salvation to all people and then worry about ourselves. That seems to be Jesus’ teaching here in Luke. And even this is modified by the story with which we concluded this morning’s text. “Then [Jesus] told this parable: ‘A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came looking for fruit on it and found none. So he said to the gardener, "See here! For three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and still I find none. Cut it down! Why should it be wasting the soil?’ He replied, "Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig around it and put manure on it. If it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.’”

There will come a day when the ax will be laid to the tree. There will come a time of judgment – for us and for all people. But Jesus is merciful, and we’re given another chance to bear fruit. We’re given another year – however long that means. We’re called to proclaim this message to others and to ourselves, for certainly repentance isn’t a “once and done” thing. “Are we not repeatedly called to give up our hubris, our illusion that we’re in control? Are we not constantly beckoned into confession, to turn, to repent so that we become utterly dependent on the promises of God? When Christ offers us these hard words about repentance and death, he also becomes those very things on the cross. God takes our limits and the things that dog us – all the sin, death, rivalries, violence, prejudice, not to mention our bloated or enervated sense of self. God invites us to the other side of ‘repent or perish,’ which is ‘forgiveness and life.’”^{^[1]}

So we as Christians proclaim the love of God, not arrogantly convinced that we have all of God’s truth. We proclaim that without God’s love, we are nothing. We proclaim to the world the truth of Jesus Christ as we know it, understanding that God’s truth is larger than any one person or group can comprehend. We proclaim that, yes – there will come a time of God’s judgment. That is clear. But it’s also clear that as the Gardener, Jesus loves us enough to give us another chance to bear fruit.

As we gather at the Table, may we gather to ask for God’s forgiveness for those times when we arrogantly believe that ours is the only way to salvation. May we also ask God’s forgiveness for those times when we fail to share the “or else” part of God’s message. May we gather to commit ourselves to proclaiming both God’s judgment, and God’s love to all the world.

1. “Catholic views of other faith groups: Their authority & ability to extend salvation”, http://www.religioustolerance.org

2. “Catholic views”

3. Hoppe, Leslie J., “Exegetical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary, Year C, Volume 2, David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, Gen. Eds, Westminster John Knox Press, Louisville, KY, 2009, p. 93.

4. Matthew 28:19-20

5. John 14:6

6. Evensen, Kae, “Reflections on the lectionary,” Sunday, March 7, The Christian Century, February 23, 2010, p. 25.

February 21, 2010 Romans 10:8b-13 Luke 4:1-13 “Tempted to Want It ‘Our Way’”

Dr. Ted H. Sandberg

In 1969 Paul Anka wrote the words to “My Way.” It begins: “And now the end is near/ And so I face the final curtain,/ My friend, I’ll say it clear,/ I’ll state my case of which I’m certain./ I’ve lived a life that’s full,/ I’ve traveled each and ev’ry highway/ And more, much more than this./ I did it my way.”^{^[1]}

Frank Sinatra, as you probably know, made the song famous. In fact, Sinatra almost made it his theme song, not only of his music, but his life. The song talks about regrets and mistakes that have been made, but these errors and missteps haven’t diminished the pride with which Sinatra took in doing things “My Way.”

It’s not only Sinatra who made that song his theme, however. Much of America society has adopted, if not the song, then the attitude for its own. We pride ourselves on doing things by ourselves and in our own way. We like to think of ourselves as independent. The picture of the rugged pioneer crossing the prairies seems to have been etched in our collective unconscious as our role model. The so-called self-made man is our hero. As a nation, we tend to do things “My Way,” either seeking to isolate ourselves from the world, or else act as the world’s police force. When we do seek to act with other nations, there is strong opposition within our country. We seem to prefer “going it alone,” doing it “Our way.”

Of course, you know, and I know, that no one is totally able to do things their own way, especially in today’s world. Perhaps much of the longing we feel for the life of the early settlers comes from the knowledge that it can never be that way again – if it was ever that way in anything but the movies. We’re all dependent upon one another – for the food we eat, for the homes in which we live, for protection against crime and fire, for health care, and the list goes on. Essentially, we’re dependent upon someone for nearly everything in life, or else we’re building upon the foundations others have provided for us throughout history. Even Sinatra, proudly claiming to do things his way through the song, was dependent upon Anka for the words he sang. None of us totally do things “My Way.” Indeed, we actually do very few things, “our way.”

Yet even if in reality we do little by ourselves, still we seem to think we’re independent, accomplishing great things on our own. In so doing, we’ve succumbed to the same temptation Jesus faced while he was in the wilderness. We’ve taken to making our own bread, ruling over one another, even claiming to heal ourselves or one another, and some actually believing that we’re doing this by ourselves with no help from God. Whereas Jesus refused the devil’s offer of power by continually pointing to God as the source of life and power, too often, we’ve even failed to credit the devil for what we claim to have done by ourselves.

Now you may claim, and rightly so, that the main temptation Jesus faced didn’t pertain to being an individual, but instead was to accept the devil’s offer of the world, and in the process, recognize the devil’s contention that the world belong to Satan and Satan could do with it what Satan chose. If Jesus had said, “Yes, I’m awfully hungry. I’ll turn the stones into bread as you suggest,” he would’ve accepted the devil’s suggestion that he should bribe people into following him. If he’d said, “I’ll worship you so that I’ll be able to rule the world fairly and justly,” he would’ve compromised with the devil, and even more, agreed that the world was rightly the devil’s. Or if Jesus had said, “Yes, I can leap from the temple and not be hurt,” he would’ve yielded to the temptation of giving the people sensations which in the long run, don’t prove anything. As Barclay says, “Jesus saw quite clearly that if he produced sensations he could be a nine day wonder; but he also saw that sensationalism would never last.”^{^[2]} Jesus did not yield to the temptation to do things the devil’s way. Jesus continually pointed back to God and said, “I will not live according to the devil. I will live as God commanded.”

Do we do this? Sometimes. We do try and live as God commands. But often times, we think that if we do things “our way,” then we must be doing it “God’s way.” This is true, especially when we believe we’re doing things with the purest motives, and for the best reasons. Don’t we sometimes get our best wants and wishes mixed up with God’s wants and wishes? The world is filled with hungry, starving men, women and children, almost as much now as it was in Jesus’ day. Why didn’t Jesus turn the rocks into bread and feed all those starving people as we’d want to do? That would’ve been a dream come true, wouldn’t it? Isn’t that what we’d do? But our way is not God’s way.

The governments of the world were as corrupt and evil then as they are now, maybe even more so. Rulers had absolute power over all their subjects. Justice was basically an unknown term. Greed was the order of the day. How many of us wouldn’t want Jesus to rule the world? Wouldn’t Jesus rule with fairness and compassion? Wouldn’t Jesus set things right? Wouldn’t we want Jesus to be our President, even our King? Yet our way, our will, was not and is not God’s will.

And don’t we all cry out for proof that God is God, and that Jesus is the Son of God? Wouldn’t we all like to say, “Well, all you have to do is read the history books of that day to know that Jesus was truly divine. All you have to do now is to give your tithes to the church and you’ll never worry about money again. All you have to do is attend church regularly and you’ll never be sick again. Wouldn’t we like to know for certain, without a shadow of a doubt even in the furthest recesses of our minds, that Jesus is with us today? But again, God’s way is not our way. The things you and I want, the things we believe would be good for us and good for the world, don’t always fit into the way God has chosen to act.

What then are we to do? We’re to tell the old, old story again and again and again. We can never hear the Word of God enough. We’re to read and study and meditate upon the Scripture in order that God’s way might become clearer to us, and in the process hopefully we’ll be better able to recognize our ways as our ways, and not get mixed up and think we’re obeying God. And we’ll find that in doing things God’s way, we’ll accomplish more for more than when we do things “our” way.

Have you ever wondered why the Exodus from Egypt is repeated so many times throughout the Old Testament? Over and over and over again the people are told how God called Moses to go into Egypt and face the Pharaoh. Had we read the lectionary’s OT reading from Deuteronomy 26, we’d have been given the whole history of the people: “A wandering Aramean was my ancestor; he went down into Egypt and lived there as an alien, few in number, and there he became a great nation, mighty and populous. When the Egyptians treated us harshly and afflicted us, by imposing hard labor on us, we cried to the LORD, the God of our ancestors; the LORD heard our voice and saw our affliction, our toil, and our oppression. The LORD brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with a terrifying display of power, and with signs and wonders; and he brought us into this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey.”^{^[2]}

The people are reminded of their history so they won’t forget what God has done for them. They’re reminded of their history because if they weren’t, it wouldn’t be long before they were taking credit for having rescued themselves from the hands of the Egyptians and for having conquered the Promised Land all by themselves. They’re reminded of their history, because otherwise they’d soon begin to believe that they’d accomplished all that had been done on their own, with no help from God. Their history is repeated again and again because they forget very quickly that it was God who made them a great people, God who rescued them from their captivity, God who gave them the land, God who kept them free, and God to whom they owed everything they possessed. The primary reason for repeating the history of Israel so often not only in the OT, but in the New Testament as well, is to remind the Israelites, and to remind us, that God has done these things for us – not the devil, and certainly not us, but God.

Lori Brandt Hale tells of how her 3 year old son heard the story of Jesus’ temptations in the wilderness during a lenten children’s liturgy.^{^[2]} After hearing the story, he and the other children went to Children’s church. That afternoon, her son asked her, “Hey, mom, what do you know about the devil?” While tempted to answer from a theological perspective, mom eventually asked, “What do you know about the devil?” Her son responded, “Well, the devil talked to Jesus.” (Good answer from a 3 year old.) He went on. “The devil was mean.” (Interesting perspective on the devil. Can the devil be evil without being mean? Something to think about.) Anyway, Hale says that her son, “leaning closer to me and dropping his voice to a loud whisper, said, ‘if we were at a store, and you and Dad were in one aisle, and I was in another aisle, and ‘ – his hushed tones became downright conspiratorial at this point – ‘there was candy...” He paused for effect. “The devil would say, ‘you should take some!” (A good definition of temptation.)

Mom then asked her son, “Honey, if the devil said, ‘You should take some!’ What would you say back to the devil?” A genuinely sweet grin lit up his entire face and without hesitation he replied, “Oh! I would say thank you!”

Unless we hear the story of Jesus Christ again and again and again, we too may find ourselves saying “Thank you” to the devil. Unless we’re reminded again and again and again that Jesus calls us not to do things “My Way,” but God’s way, we too may say “Thank you,” for the candy that the devil all too willingly offers to us.

This season of Lent that we have entered offers us the opportunity to focus on the way of Jesus Christ, to open our hearts to hear God’s message, to read the story again and again and again. Some religious traditions ask their members to give up something for Lent, to remind themselves of what Jesus gave up for us. I propose that we, instead, do something extra, something we may not usually do. Read the Bible a little longer each day. Pray a little longer each day. Meditate on God’s ways a little more each day. Because it’s important for all of us to hear the story again and again and again so that we can remember that our ways are not God’s ways, and so that we can learn what God’s ways are so that we can better follow God. Amen.

1. “My Way,” Songwriters: Revaux, Jacques; Anka, Paul (Eng Lyr); Thibaut, Gilles; Francois, Claude © CHRYSALIS STANDARDS, INC

2. Barclay, William, The Gospel of LUKE, The Daily Study Bible Series, Revised Edition, The Westminster Press, Philadelphia, 1975, p. 44.

3. Deuteronomy 26: 5b-9

4. Hale, Lori Brandt, “Luke 4:1-13: Theological Perspective,” Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary, Year C, Volume 2, David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, General Editors, Westminster John Knox Press, Louisville, KY, 2009, pp. 44, 46. Story and parenthesized comments based on Hale.

February 14, 2010 Exodus 34:29-35 Luke 9:28-36 “Out of This World”

Dr. Ted H. Sandberg

“Now about eight days after these sayings Jesus took with him Peter and John and James, and went up on the mountain to pray. And while he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became dazzling white. Suddenly they saw two men, Moses and Eli'jah, talking to him.” So Luke begins his brief account of one of those magnificent, but mysterious events that we come across rarely if ever in our own lives, and only once in a while in the Bible. This event, which we call the transfiguration, is so extraordinary, so unique, so mystifying that more often than not, when you and I read the story we’re unable to fathom what took place because we have nothing with which to compare it. Even now, as I read of the event, I feel much like Peter may have felt – in awe of what he saw and heard, but unable to figure out just what was happening, and certainly unaware of all the event may mean.

But it’s good that we feel this way. We should be in awe of what took place. It’s only right that you and I are overwhelmed by what took place because what happened there on that mountaintop was literally “out of this world.” God appeared there to Jesus and the three disciples he took with him, and that’s something I only dream about occurring in my life.

As I’ve reflected on this whole passage, I’ve begun to feel that too often we read the story and then immediately begin looking for answers to our questions, or we try to discover some deep symbolic meaning to what Luke wrote. In this age of 30 second sound bites and 15 second commercials, we feel we’ve got to have an immediate answer, gain an immediate understanding of what took place at the Transfiguration. Those who’ve been raised on TV’s instant solutions, those who’ve come to expect instant gratification may not appreciate Luke’s story or my attempt to deal with it because there are no readily apparent answers to all the questions that arise here.

I believe this passage isn’t something, however, to be read to discover its meaning. It’s not a story to be read so that we can improve the way we live today. In other words, it’s not an ethical teaching as Jesus’ Sermon on the Plain is, for example. Nor is it a passage for us to understand with our minds nearly as much as it is an experience we’re to feel with our hearts. Luke unfolds the story quickly, but its impact is to be felt and experienced slowly: not with our intellectual reasoning; not with our scientific, rational powers of observation, but with our heart’s imagination that will perhaps allow us to experience a glimmer of the mystery that is at the center of the Transfiguration, the mystery of God.

Can we get a sense of what happened there on that mountaintop? It all began very ordinarily. Jesus asked a couple of his friends to go up on the mountain to pray. Since mountains were identified with God and being close to God, it made sense to pray on a mountain, so up the mountain they went. But while Jesus was praying, the ordinary disappeared. While he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, we’re told. It’s not that he glowed as someone may glow after their first kiss, or after they’ve discovered love for the first time. It was more than that. Jesus underwent a metamorphosis – a complete change of form, a complete change of appearance. Jesus no longer looked like himself. He somehow was different. But our words fail us here just as Peter’s and James’ and John’s must’ve failed them when they later tried to describe what had happened. Jesus was changed. Even his clothes became dazzling white. He shone as Moses had shone when he’d encountered God on the mountaintop.

As if the dazzling light wasn’t enough, Jesus was joined by Moses and Elijah who began talking with him. Think for a moment what that must’ve been like for the 3 disciples who were watching all this. Put yourself in their place. Don’t worry about how you know that these are Moses and Elijah. Don’t worry about what Jesus was talking about. Instead, ask yourself what you’d be feeling.

I suspect I’d have been terrified at what was happening, terrified by the presence of these holy men, two of the most holy men in all history. Have I fallen asleep and am now dreaming? Am I sick and hallucinating? Maybe I’ve died and this is what it’s like to begin the journey to heaven! What would you feel if you’d have been there with Jesus?

And still the event wasn’t over, because just as Peter was making his suggestion that they make three dwellings to remember what was happening, a suggestion that Luke thought wasn’t very bright, they all were engulfed by a cloud. If you’ve ever been in the midst of a cloud you know that it can be a frightening experience. Fighting a fire once, I was briefly in such a cloud. I couldn’t see my hands in front of my face the smoke was so think. It was very scary.

But as scary as that was for me, I knew that the smoke was from the fire. I knew the cloud didn’t mean that I was in the presence of God. Peter and James and John knew when they were engulfed by the cloud that God was there, and they were rightly terrified. So often we talk about God as friend, as someone we love. We talk about God as if God was our neighbor down the street, or the doctor to whom we go with a cold. We forget that this God with whom we walk and talk in the Garden is the God who created the universe, who evolved humanity into being, who brought the Israelites out of Egypt. This is the God who created quantum physics and its Uncertainty Principle and for whom the Theory of Relativity is as simple as adding 2 + 2. This is the God whose love for us is deeper than the greatest love a mother has had for her son or daughter, greater than the sum of all the love all husbands have ever had for their wife.

Or maybe we don’t forget. Maybe we just don’t know, because we’ve never experienced the power and majesty of God. But the disciples knew and they were terrified as we would’ve been terrified had it been we who were up there on the mountain.

Then, in the midst of their terror, from within the cloud, the voice of God spoke: “This is my son, my Chosen; listen to him!”

And suddenly, it was all over, with only an echo of the Voice throbbing in their hearts. Suddenly the cloud was gone and Jesus was all alone with them. What had happened? Was it real? Was it a vision? What were they to do with this wonderful, but mysterious experience they’d just had?

Luke tells us that they kept silent in those days and told no one any of the things they’d seen. We can understand this. Who’d have believed them even if they’d told anyone? Who’d have believed that Jesus had been transformed until after an even greater miracle had taken place – his resurrection? Who could understand such an event until the Holy Spirit had come and given them the knowledge to understand what had happened, and the courage to share it with others? It was only following Jesus’ return to his heavenly father, only following the gift of the Holy Spirit that the disciples shared this experience of the Transfiguration. It was only then that they knew what it meant to “listen to Jesus” because this Jesus was truly God’s son, just as had been proclaimed at his baptism.

And what of us today? Maybe we don’t do much of anything with this passage because we haven’t experienced, truly experienced God yet. Maybe we haven’t felt the power of God in our lives. Maybe God is just a bunch of rules to obey, or is irrelevant to how we choose to live. Maybe we need to feel the mystery, the power, the majesty that those 3 disciples felt in the cloud. Maybe we’ve fallen asleep while the cloud of God is surrounding us. If so, it’s time to wake up and ask God to let us too experience the power of God in our lives today.

Or maybe it’s simply time to listen to God who has continually been speaking to our hearts. Maybe we’ve been so caught up in the world that we’ve closed ourselves off to God. Perhaps we’ve gotten wrapped up in money and earning a living, and so haven’t tried to feel the presence of God with us. Maybe we’ve grown so accustomed to our retirement that we feel we’re too old to respond to God. Maybe we’ve grown fearful of what God may ask of us, because God may very well ask us to invite new and different people into our church, maybe to invite those who are different from us, and those who may make us uncomfortable.

Maybe it’s time that we listen to Jesus who is God’s son and feel Jesus’ presence more closely in our lives. When we face the despair that comes with illness and death, when the sun is covered by the clouds of tragedy, when the joy and goodness of the world are overcome by sorrow and failure, then listen to Jesus who was a man of sorrows, and whose revelation of God brings the sustaining word of comfort and the enabling word of hope. When we gather about ourselves the riches that the material world offers, when we’re consumed by the power of self-indulgence, then experience the power of the God who can save life from going to pieces. As we come to the major turning points in our lives, when we’re faced with the difficult choices, when we’re confronted by the inequities of the world, when we’re besieged by the injustices of any political system, when we’re caught up in the routine of our everyday existence, then listen to him who offers hope and peace and love through the vision of his teaching, through the gift of his life and death and resurrection.

“This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him.” What better words can we obey?

January 31, 2010 Jeremiah 1:4-10 Luke 4:21-30 “Offended by the Message”

Dr. Ted H. Sandberg

As part of my education to become a minister, I worked for 2 years as a Minister-in-training at the First Baptist Church of Branford, CT. The first year at Branford, I worked under Dr. Reuben Jeschke who’d become pastor there after he’d retired as president of our American Baptist, Sioux Falls College.

Dr. Jeschke was a very kind, very quiet, very gentle man. He was so modest and unassuming that I don’t know how he was ever able to serve as a college president. I found out long after I’d left Branford, that Dr. Jeschke did a wonderful job as president of Sioux Falls. He reversed its downward slide and helped it become a very successful college. Dr. Jeschke was so loved and respected by the College that they named their wonderful performing arts complex after him.

As I said, Dr. Jeschke was a very kind, gentle man, very soft spoken. I remember once following some kind of church gathering, Dr. Jeschke came up to me and asked if we could talk for a few minutes. I can’t remember all the details of our talk, but basically what he told me in his soft way was that he felt it would be a good idea if, when I did the Pastoral Prayer during worship, I wrote the prayer out before I prayed it, or at least outlined what I wanted to pray about. He said that some people had mentioned to him that they thought my prayers didn’t flow smoothly enough. Dr. Jeschke thought that perhaps if I wrote them out for a while I’d be able to correct this.

As I’ve already said, he told me this in a very kind manner. He said that it wasn’t that I was praying poorly, or for the wrong things. It was that my delivery wasn’t as smooth as it could be.

No one could’ve given me more constructive criticism in a kinder, gentler form than Dr. Jeschke did that Sunday evening. Yet, I can still remember becoming angry with him as he talked with me. “How dare he tell me how to pray! How dare he suggest that a Baptist write out a prayer!” I didn’t say that to him. In fact, I didn’t argue or talk back to him. I received what he had to say without saying much of anything to him, but I was hurt that I wasn’t praying “properly,” and out of that hurt came anger.

In my own defense, I will say that later that evening or maybe the next day, when I’d cooled down and thought about what he had said to me, I realized he was right. I began to write out the pastoral prayer. I did that for a number of years, and found it to be a very good prayer discipline.

I share this because often when I hear or read about people becoming angry when they’re criticized, I think of this incident with Dr. Jeschke. I’m sure that in our little talk, Dr. Jeschke shared positive things as well, but it’s the negative that I still remember. Even while one part of me was saying, “Keep cool, Ted. He’s doing this to help you,” another part of me was getting mad and saying, “What right does he have to say this to me?” – even though as my senior and teaching pastor he had every right, even the responsibility, to say that to me. It’s just that it’s probably embedded deep within our human nature to become angry when we feel attacked or hurt, even when the attack is justified. If the truth ever hurts, then we can count on the truth also making us angry.

Essentially, that’s what happened in the verses from Luke’s gospel that we’ve read this morning. When Jesus got a little too close to the truth, the people of his home town became angry.

Understand, things didn’t start out badly. Just the opposite. Nazareth didn’t have the best of reputations for some reason. People looked down on the town. So when Jesus started making a name for himself in the surrounding communities, the people of Nazareth were probably very pleased. “He looked like a new prophet, or at least his preaching had bowled over congregation after congregation in the synagogues of Galilee. ‘A report about him spread through all the surrounding country,’ Luke reports, and he ‘was praised by everyone.’ It was no doubt particularly pleasing for the folks in Nazareth to learn that Jesus had caused a stir in the nearby rival village of Capernaum. We can almost hear the conversations in the market at Nazareth: ‘High and mighty Capernaum may have looked down on us in the past, but no preacher from Capernaum ever turned their heads like our boy Jesus!’

“So when Jesus came home to Nazareth, the local synagogue was surely packed. They handed him the Isaiah scroll, and the congregation beamed. He read the words ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me . . . ,’ and the congregation glowed with pride. He sat down and began to preach, [which by the way didn’t mean that he was done, but rather that he was ready to start commenting on the text. The custom was to stand to read the Scripture and then sit to comment on it], he sat down and said, ‘Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing,’ and the flock was abuzz. As Luke puts it, ‘All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came out of his mouth.’ Already they were imagining a new city limits sign, ‘Welcome to Nazareth. Hometown of Jesus.’”^{^[1]} But then Jesus went too far.

For Jewish people living in such a gentile world, the situation was much like that facing modern-day Palestinians living in the Gaza strip. Daily they had to remind themselves of their identity. They needed to be Jewish to the core and so they always struggled with any compromising tendencies to make accommodations with the Gentiles in their midst. Their dream – reinforced in songs, dreams, prayers, ritual, and Scripture – was for the day when they would see their land returned to the people of God and the Gentiles driven out. They abhorred anything Gentile.

People in Nazareth knew the dream of restoration by heart as it was presented in Isaiah: “The spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me; he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners; to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor – ”^{^[1]} It was their dream, recounted in Isaiah, that God would send a Messiah, a Christ to save them. It was their dream that this Messiah would bring good news and bind up the brokenhearted. It was their dream that the Messiah would proclaim liberty to the captives and release to the prisoners. It was their dream that they would finally enter the year of the Lord’s favor. It was their dream that – but Jesus didn’t finish their dream. Jesus didn’t finish reading from Isaiah’s scroll. Jesus put down the scroll and didn’t read the next line from Isaiah’s prophecy, the line that finishes “to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor” by saying, “and the day of vengeance of our God.”

That line that Jesus didn’t read was gospel to the people of Nazareth living in that oppressed land. Jesus didn’t read the line from the prophet Isaiah that declared there would be a day of vengeance of our God. “He stopped too early,” they must’ve thought. “He missed the best part, the part about the vengeance of God.”

But no, it wasn’t a mistake that he stopped before reading the about God’s vengeance. While Luke doesn’t specifically state what Jesus was doing, it’s clear that Jesus began to explain why he wasn’t proclaiming the day of the Lord’s vengeance. He proclaimed this in the 2 illustrations he used. So these are inflammatory illustrations. Jesus had the whole Old Testament available to him to make his point. He could’ve chosen from any of the great heroes of the faith: the patriarchs and matriarchs. Maybe Abraham and Sarah? What about Moses and Miriam? Or David? But Jesus chose two figures on the edge of the tradition. In doing this, Jesus declared the foundation of his ministry and began his public ministry under the threat of death from his own people.

Jesus began his explanation of what the Day of the Lord is all about, began his explanation of why he excluded the Day of the Lord’s vengeance, by speaking of the widow who lived outside of Israel. Someone outside Israel, a foreigner, a Gentile is held up in a good light! He tells about the widow who fed Elijah in a time of famine. “There were many widows in Israel in the time of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, and there was a severe famine over all the land; yet Elijah was sent to none of them except to a widow at Zarephath in Sidon.” God, through the prophet Elijah, seemed to ignore the people of Israel and reached out instead to this Gentile widow. Why would God do that?

But Jesus wasn’t done. The second example Jesus used is drawn from the story of the prophet Elisha who helped facilitate the healing of a leper. “There were also many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha,” Jesus says, “and none of them was cleansed except Na'aman the Syrian,” the Gentile. There are all kinds of implications from this story. Not only are there all kinds of rules and restrictions about dealing with lepers in the ritual purity laws, but this leper is a foreigner who comes into Israel. If ever any one person from the tradition might stand as a symbol for the current oppressors, a Syrian army general would fit the bill quite nicely. On top of that, he’s a leper! Yet Jesus suggests that this is the kind of person his God loves. Is it any wonder his friends and neighbors became angry? Who wants to hear that their enemies are loved by God?

“What Jesus was saying, in essence, was that in order to be ‘for Nazareth’ he was going to have to appear to be against Nazareth, against its desire to confine and contain the work of God. It’s a hard lesson for all of us to hear about Jesus. Jesus is for us, yes, but not just for us but for all others, too. In fact, in order to be savior of all, Jesus will need to turn for the moment against some of us, to leave our little hometown images of him and our desire to shape him in our local molds behind. In order to be ‘good news for the poor,’ he’ll need to speak against those of us who are rich. In order to be a savior to the sick and the blind, he’ll need to leave the safe streets of the healthy. In order to be a friend of sinners, he’ll need to speak harshly to the righteous. Only by going to Jerusalem can he save Nazareth. Only this way can he save the poor and the rich, the sick and the well, the righteous and the sinner.”^{^[1]}

Tough words to hear, aren’t they, now as then. Yet because I know that I’m no better or worse than Christians down through the ages, I know that if I’m not excluding others right now, I certainly have the potential to do that. I have the potential to want God to be for me and against my enemies, just like the people of Nazareth. Yet Jesus taught, and teaches, that we’re to love those we’ve been taught to hate, love those who do the opposite of what we believe God calls us to do.

This is tough to live, isn’t it? Only through the grace of Jesus Christ can we accomplish this. Only through the power of the Holy Spirit can we love those with whom we argue and fight and even hate. Only through the love of God can we accept those who so radically differ from us. We want to be right. We want to win. And yet Jesus comes before us, just as he courageously stood before his own people, declaring the way is love, the way is acceptance, the way is forgiveness, the way is reconciliation, the way is community, the way is found by understanding that in Christ we are all one.

It’s so easy to point a finger at “those” people, and fail to realize that we are “those” people too. We’re not better. We’re just different. It’s only because of God’s love that any of us find salvation. It’s only through God’s grace that we are saved. May each of us follow Jesus’ example and through God’s Spirit, work at loving all people, even those who may not love us.

1. Long, Thomas G., “God’s Saving Power,” February 1, 2004 Pulpit Resource – Online: 32.1

2. Isaiah 61:1-2a

3. Long,

January 24, 2010 Nehemiah 8:1-3, 4, 8-10 1 Corinthians 12:12-31a “All in This Together”

Dr. Ted H. Sandberg

They sat facing each other. Surrounding them in an elongated circle were the members of the group; other patients and members of the various families who’d come to the Chemical Dependency Unit for what’s called “Family Week.” This was their second day, the second day they faced each other like this, the second day he’d had to listen to her list of what he’d done to her while he’d been drinking. It was a long list: lying, other women, physical and verbal beatings, money spent which they didn’t have, lost jobs, neglected children, a neglected wife, but mostly a neglected life – all for the sake of the bottle. The list was long and the feelings were extremely powerful. The pain and the shame, the hurt and the anger were more than many in the outside circle could bear. There were tears and sobs as she poured out in spasmodic, sputtering torrents the verbal vomit of her pent up rage.

But he was hurting too. Beneath the hardened wall that he’d learned to build around himself he had feelings of guilt and shame, hurt and pain, loneliness and fear that he’d always numbed with the bottle. Primarily there was fear. It was the fear as much as anything he couldn’t handle. He was afraid because he couldn’t control his drinking. He was afraid because he felt something less than a man. Most of all, he was afraid she’d leave and take the kids. Because of his fears, he struck out in anger to protect himself from his feelings of vulnerability.

So there they sat; two hurting, angry human beings who, despite their anger and their pain, were both terrified of losing each other. Neither, however, could find the courage to share their fears. Their love and apprehension about losing one another were buried beneath too many hurts, rejections and broken promises. Their hearts cried out for the wall between them to be pulled down, but their hands hung at their sides, made still by their inability to talk and listen to each other. What could’ve been – should’ve been – two made one, able to withstand the outside forces that seek to prevail against us all, this one had again become two because of their unspoken, unshared dread. The unity of their relationship was no longer. The body had been torn apart by alcoholism and the fear the disease causes within all parts of the body.

Unfortunately, this isn’t a single story. It’s the story of hundreds and thousands who suffer the hell of family week while the alcoholic or drug addict goes through a chemical dependency treatment center. This is a composite story of no one and everyone who’s faced the terror of this all-too-often-hidden disease of chemical abuse. Thousands more could share the story because they too need to face their own abuse problem, or the abuse problem of a friend or family member.

This also is a story of what can happen in any family, be it the nuclear family, extended family, or even the church family when walls are built. Because of a particular abuse, the feelings which glue the family together remain unshared, remain withheld, so the family falls apart. They call alcoholism a “feelings” disease, because the alcoholic uses the bottle to block her or his feelings. We all know, however, there are other reasons why our feelings can be blocked. There are many reasons why the glue of shared feelings isn’t spread so that the body will be held together. Many bodies come apart – church bodies included.

God doesn’t intend the Church-body to come unglued. We’re all to be one body. Paul wrote to the Romans, “For as in one body we have many members, and all the members do not have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another.”^{^[1]}

Yet even the great church at Corinth had a problem that was destroying the desired unity. Just as alcohol and drug abuse can destroy a family creating anger, guilt, shame, and fear, the unity of the body in Corinth was also being destroyed. Again, Paul writes, “God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be? God has so arranged the body, giving the greater honor to the inferior member, that there may be no dissension within the body, but the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it.”

It’s not hard to read between the lines of Paul’s letter to see the abuse of pride. Some Corinthians evidently had begun to think of themselves as better than others and this had lead to divisions within the church family. Some had begun to think that they didn’t need everyone to be the body. Perhaps those with more money began to think, “We’re the one’s supporting the church. We’re the one’s keeping this place going. We give the money to pay the bills. We don’t need the nickels and dimes of ‘those poor people.’ We can be the church without them.”

Maybe the choir began to think, “We add so much to worship. People love to hear us sing. Without us the worship service wouldn’t truly be worship. All we really need those other members for is to listen to us. But even if they weren’t here, others would be, or we could just sing to God all by ourselves. We don’t really need anyone else.”

Pastors, too, can fall into this abuse of pride. “I’m the shepherd. They’re just sheep. Everyone listens to what I preach and teach. They’d be lost without me to lead them. They wouldn’t even be a church.”

It’s easy to see how the abuse of pride can destroy the unity of the body. With each group believing it’s better than every other group, with each person believing that only their way is the way, little listening will take place. We don’t need to listen to others when we’re always right!

This sin of pride also takes another form. Actually, in my experience, it’s not often that a church has trouble with a group thinking it’s better than any other group. Only occasionally will a group or individual fail to listen to anyone else because they feel they’re right and everyone else is wrong, and when this happens the destruction becomes apparent almost immediately. However, much more common, and equally destructive to the vitality of the church body is the belief that many of us hold that we can do whatever all by ourselves. “I can handle that problem. I can meet my own needs.” As Paul put it though, “The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I have no need of you,’ nor again the head to the feet, ‘I have no need of you.’”

It’s not that we don’t want to be a part of the body. We aren’t angry with anyone. We don’t feel we’re better than anyone else. Rather, we simply believe that we can do it alone. “I can solve my own problems using my own resources. I want to remain independent!”

We, like so many couples in family week, are so afraid of becoming dependent on another person or group that we’re unable to share our needs with those who can help, even if that help is only listening. I want to appear so strong I can’t let you see my fear of being weak. I don’t share my needs with you, and you don’t share your needs with me. We hold all our pain inside, and so we suffer in isolation. Our pride in ourselves, a pride that is vital to our well-being, slowly becomes an oppressive wall that blocks our ability to reach out and share ourselves and our feelings with others when we believe we can make it alone.

Equally true is the reverse of this pride. “It’s only a small matter. I’ll take care of it by myself.” “You’re so busy! I didn’t want to take your time.” I hear that a lot. “Oh, there was nothing you could’ve done so I didn’t want to bother you.” How often have we all heard this kind of thing?! “I’m so insignificant that I don’t warrant your time. I don’t want to face my fear that you’ll be too busy to help me, so I’ll just keep to myself.”

Once when I was in high school, a teacher offered a group of us Life Savers. I turned the candy down, not because I didn’t want the Life Saver, but because I felt that if I didn’t take the candy, the teacher might make the offer to me again sometime. Because I was afraid of being excluded, I didn’t want the teacher’s offer to cost him anything so that I’d be included next time around too. Better to be asked if everything is all right and say, “Yes, everything’s great,” than to say, “No, could you help me,” and then face the fear that we’ll be seen as a bother and next time be ignored.

In both cases, both when we have too much pride and thus become too independent, and when we don’t have enough pride and thus become paralyzed by our lack of self-worth, our fears destroy the unity of the body of Christ. Our fears keep us from sharing our feelings with other members of the body, and thus the glue that holds the body together is lost. “If one member suffers,” Paul writes, “all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together.” This can’t take place though when we’re afraid to share our fears and our joys, when we remain within the walls we’ve built around ourselves.

But how do we set about breaking down the walls we’ve built around us: the walls of pain and fear that too often keep us from sharing our needs with one another? How do we destroy these walls, or at least build doors through them? How can we begin to share the fears that all of us have in common, and thus be drawn closer together as God’s family?

One answer to these questions comes from the story with which we began this morning. The husband and wife sat facing each other, each muted by the anger caused by their fear, unable and unwilling to talk with one another. It wasn’t until the counselor entered the situation that the couple made any progress. “What was behind your anger when you yelled at him to quit his drinking?” he asked. She wept as she replied, “I was afraid he’d kill himself, and I’d be left alone.” “And what were you doing when you ignored the kids, and hit your wife,” he asked the husband. In a whisper he said, “I was afraid she was going to leave me because of my drinking.” “And you wanted to protect yourself from the hurt so you tried to keep yourself from getting close to them, right?” “Right.” Husband and wife looked at each other through their tears as the counselor said, “You’ve both been afraid of the same thing all this time, but you’ve been too afraid to talk about your fears, and so you’ve been beating each other instead. Isn’t it about time you shared your fears so that you can become a family again?” The counselor made the difference for them.

The Counselor makes the difference for us too. Jesus said, “The Counselor, the Holy Spirit, he will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.”^{^[1]}

We keep our hearts from being troubled, we keep our hearts from being afraid by sharing our troubles and our fears with our Counselor, the Holy Spirit, and by sharing our troubles and fears with the members of the Body of Christ, the Church. It’s as we share our hurts and fears, as well as our joys and victories, that peace comes into our lives.

May it be our prayer that we’ll work to bring our fears to the Counselor. May we pray, too, that the Holy Spirit will then give us the courage and the strength to share our feelings of pain and fear with at least one other person that in so doing, we’ll find peace within our hearts, and freedom within our lives.

1. Romans 12:4-5

2. John 14:26-27 (RSV)

January 10, 2010 Isaiah 42:1-9 Acts 10:34-43 “We Are Witnesses”

Dr. Ted H. Sandberg Revised from January 13, 2008

Once again, as we’ve been doing on the second Sunday of the year for the past few years, we’ve remembered those members and friends of this congregation who have died. We remember the “cloud of witnesses” who have gone before us, to use the term from Hebrews. We give thanks for their witness, for their presence in our lives, and in the life of this congregation. We give thanks that they have heard, as the writer of Acts puts it, “how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power; how he went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him.”

As I reflected on Grace and Jerry and the others who’ve died this past year, and in the years since I’ve been here, I wondered how they first heard the Good News of Jesus Christ. Sometimes I hear about how they came to know Jesus and were baptized as I talk with them in the midst of the life of the church. Sometimes I find out how they came to accept Jesus as Lord and Savior when I talk with family in preparation for the funeral. Often times, I don’t know how they’ve come to be followers of Christ.

Not that the how is all that important, of course. It doesn’t really matter if they came to church as a child because their parents made them attend, or came to know Christ as Lord later in life because a friend told them who Jesus was and is. It doesn’t matter if they were raised in the church, as I was, or if they came to know Jesus Christ as the Apostle Paul did, following some dramatic “Damascus Road” experience. What’s important is that they came to be followers of Jesus Christ.

Yet having said that, it would be nice to know the hows, because you and I are called to witness to the truth of Jesus Christ and I sometimes wonder if we’re being as obedient to this teaching as we should be. Matthew tells us that Jesus said, “Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” In this morning’s text from Acts, we’re told that Jesus “commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one ordained by God as judge of the living and the dead.” I wonder. Are we being the witnesses we’re called to be?

Robert Webber, former professor of worship at Northern Baptist Theological Seminary, wrote in his book, Journey to Jesus: Evangelism and Education, “The purpose of the church in God’s world is to embody the Christian message, to proclaim it, to enact it, and to anticipate God’s eschatological rule when all will be under the reign of Christ. In brief,” Webber wrote, “the church is a ‘witness’ to God’s mission,” and he went on to list 8 things the church is to do from “embodying in community what a redeemed people can look like” to “enlisting the world in expectation of Christ’s coming to set up his kingdom to rule forever” to “modeling living exemplary lives.”^{^[1]}

Webber wrote that we as the church, the body of Christ on earth, do this kind of missional evangelism indirectly. This evangelism, he suggests, “arises out of relationship in the family, the neighborhood, the workplace and social situations. It doesn’t depend totally up the person giving witness. It connects with the support system provided by the community that lives under the reign of God. The Christian brings the unchurched to a healthy vibrant community of faith and, through association with an embodied community, faith is discussed and caught as the gospel is overheard.”^{^[1]}

“This form of personal contact,” Webber states, “is the primary means of bringing people to Christ and the church. For example, according to the research of the American Growth Institute, people who come to church come because they have been influenced to do so by: Evangelism Crusade: 0.5%, Visitation programs: 1%, Special Need: 2%, a specific program of the church: 3%, they simply walked in: 3%, by the Sunday School program: 3%. They were influenced to come to church by the Pastor: 6%. They were influence to come to church by friend or relative: 79%. 79% of people who come to church come because they’ve been influenced to do so by friend or relative.^{^[1]}

This doesn’t mean that a friend or relative has to brow-beat the person until they finally agreed to go to church. This doesn’t mean that the individual will come immediately after being invited to church. Sometimes these things take years and years. But clearly the percentages suggest that people come to church because they’re invited by friends or relatives or those in their social circles.

My guess is that this is how those whom we remember this morning came to know Jesus Christ as Lord. They were invited by a family member to hear the Good News of Jesus Christ. They were invited by a friend to discover what the friend knew: that Jesus was and is the Son of God. They then went to church and they experienced the love of God made real in the people at church. This is what happens when people come to this church and are open to the love of God that all of you share with them. They, too, come to know Jesus Christ.

As we remember these who have gone to be with our God, may we commit ourselves to being witnesses to God’s love so that others may know God’s peace, God’s hope, God’s mercy. May we commit ourselves to inviting family and friend and neighbor to come to this place to hear the love of God proclaimed and to be encircled in the loving arms of this congregation. May we be an inviting people, witnessing to the forgiveness of God.

1. Webber, Robert, Journey to Jesus: Evangelism and Education, Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2001, found in Pulpit Resource, Vol. 33, No. 1, Year A; January, February, March 2005, p. 11.

2. Webber, p. 11.

3. Webber, p. 11.

January 17, 2010 Isaiah 62:1-5 John 2:1-11 “Let’s Have a Party”

Dr. Ted H. Sandberg

The scene is a wedding in the village of Cana, a village not that far from Nazareth. Perhaps the bride and groom were friends of Jesus, or his family. William Barclay suggests that Mary was such a close friend of the family that she was in charge of the arrangements. We don’t know that, but we can assume there was some connection or else Jesus and his mother wouldn’t have been there. We do know that in Palestine a wedding was a really big event. The festivities lasted far more than an afternoon and evening like weddings in our own day. Their weddings carried on about a week starting on Wednesday. The ceremony itself took place late in the evening, after a feast. Following the ceremony the young couple was conducted to their new home. By that time it was dark and they were escorted through the village streets by the light of flaming torches with a canopy over their heads. The newly weds were taken to their new home by as long a route as possible so that as many people as possible would have the opportunity to wish them well. The newly married couple didn’t go away for their honeymoon; they stayed at home; and for a week they kept open house. They wore crowns and dressed in their bridal robes. They were treated like a king and queen, were actually addressed as king and queen, and their word was law. In a life that held much poverty and constant hard work, this week of festivity and joy was one of their supreme occasions.^{^[1]}

Weddings, then as now, were a very happy time, a time in which Jesus evidently wanted to share. But at this wedding party something went wrong. Biblical scholar J.D.M. “Derrett, who is an expert in Oriental law, made a careful study of Jewish wedding customs, and found that the wine supply at weddings was dependent to some extent on the gifts of the guests. He thinks that Jesus and his disciples, because of their poverty, had failed in this duty and had thus caused the shortage.”^{^[1]} Other scholars feel that perhaps because Jesus brought along 5 of his newly called disciples there wasn’t enough wine. We don’t know any of that for certain. We can never know why this crisis came about. We do know that John tells us that the wine “gave out.”

For a Jewish feast, wine was essential. “Without wine,” said the Rabbis, “there is no joy.”^{^[1]} It wasn’t that people got drunk. Drunkenness was in fact a great disgrace. So the problem wasn’t running out of wine per se. The problem was how one treated ones guests. At any time, the failure of provisions would’ve been a problem, for hospitality in the East was, and is still today, a sacred duty. For the provisions to run out at a wedding would’ve been a terrible humiliation for the bride and the bridegroom. If the wine runs out at an event today, that’s the breaks. For the couple who’s wedding Jesus was attending, the result would’ve been a major loss of face, an embarrassment from which the couple may never have recovered.

To avoid this humiliation for the bride and groom, Mary went up to Jesus and said, “They have no wine.” Jesus replied to her, “Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come.”

Before we continue, remember a couple of things here. First, Jesus calling his mother “Woman” was not disrespectful.^{^[1]} If one of my children had ever seriously said that to Cheri, or to another woman, they’d be in big trouble. For Jesus, however, this wasn’t a rebuke, nor an impolite term, nor an indication of a lack of affection. It was his normal, polite way of addressing women – though it’s also possible that there’s some symbolism at work here that we 20^th century Christians don’t understand.

Second, in John’s gospel, there are almost always at least two layers of understanding at work in each event we read. There’s a surface layer or surface meaning, and there’s a deeper layer, a deeper meaning that would’ve been understood by Christians in the Early church. It’s in this deeper layer that we understand why Jesus mentions “the hour,” the hour that has not yet come. “The hour” is John’s technical term to refer to the period of the passion, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus, and it’s God who’s in control of the hour. God was to let Jesus know when the hour had come – not Mary, not the disciples, not even Jesus himself, only God was in control of when that hour, that time of passion was to begin. Only God’s demands on Jesus were to be heeded, and God had not yet shown Jesus that the hour was to begin. So Jesus responded to Mary, “My hour has not yet come.”

Continuing on then. In some ways, this passage from John feels like a synopsis of a much more elaborate story. It’s as if we only have an outline here. We’re not told why Mary expected Jesus to be able to do anything about running out of wine in the first place. It’s not like she was angry, nor does it sound like she expected him to do some miracle to produce more wine. But even after Jesus had told her that his hour hadn’t yet arrived, she turned to the servants anyway and said, “Do whatever he tells you.” It’s like we’ve missed a couple of paragraphs of dialogue and an explanation here.

Nonetheless, we know what happens. Jesus tells the stewards to fill the 6 stone purification jars to the top with water, “fill them to the brim,” he says. These were the big jars that held the water used in the purifying washing of ones hands during the meal, and the purifying washing of ones feet after walking outside. Each of the jars held between 20 and 30 gallons. 6 times that means that Jesus presented the chief steward with between 120 and 180 gallons of wine, more than that party was ever going to consume.

And not only was there an abundance of wine, it was superb wine. The steward said, “Everyone serves the good wine first, and then the inferior wine after the guests have become drunk. But you have kept the good wine until now.” Instead of being humiliated by running out of wine, the wedding must’ve been a triumph, something that was talked about in Cana for generations. “Remember the Abrahm’s wedding. Now that was a wedding. After 3 days, they brought out the best wine I’ve ever tasted. What a wedding!”

What a wedding indeed! But as you read this story, do you ever think to yourself, in the deep recesses of your heart, think to yourself but never, ever say aloud, “Where’s my wedding wine? I have problems too. And in comparison, my problems are much worse than running out of wine at a wedding. When is Jesus going to solve my problems like he solved the problem for that couple? Don’t get me wrong. I’m glad he created that wine in abundance. But what about me? Couldn’t he do the same thing for me?”

Do you ever feel just a little bit like that? Do you ever wish that Jesus would miraculously solve your money problems, or your health problems, or your family problems, or your school problems? Do you ever wish that your worries would be over just as quickly as Jesus turned the water into wine? Probably so. It’s probably a feeling we’ve all had at least once in our life. “If only Jesus would help me like he helped that couple!”

Of course, looking at it eternally, Jesus has helped us far more than that Jewish couple was helped, at least as much. In going to Jerusalem and from there to Golgotha, Jesus gave each of us the opportunity to spend eternity with God in heaven. There is no greater reward than that. That’s the greatest party there is. Through his death and resurrection, the sins we commit are forgiven and the penalty of death we deserve was paid by Jesus himself. That’s far greater than having an overabundance of wine at a wedding.

But we’ve got to confess that sometimes, in the dark of the night, when we’re staring sleeplessly at the ceiling because of the ache in our hearts, the anxiety in our guts, the torments in our heads – we’ve got to confess that heaven seems too distant. Our problems are here and now, and God is way out there in what we hope is the distant future. The forces of darkness seem to be greater than our earthly ability to overcome them, and we don’t think we can wait for our heavenly reward. “What do we do,” we wonder, “when it doesn’t feel like God is answering our prayers?”

First, know that you’re not alone when you feel this way. The Psalmist cried out, “My eyes fail with watching for your promise; I ask, ‘When will you comfort me?”^{^[1]} And again: “O God, why do you cast us off forever? Why does your anger smoke against the sheep of your pasture?”^{^[1]} When we despair, when our pain and suffering is more than we feel we can bear, know that others have walked these steps before us. And know too, that God was faithful to those who called upon Him. God has acted in the past, and God acts for us today. God may not act as fast as we’d like. God may not act the way we want God to act. But God does act. As the Psalmist goes on to say, “Yet God my King is from of old, working salvation in the earth. You divided the sea by your might; you broke the heads of the dragons in the waters. You crushed the heads of Leviathan; you gave him as food for the creatures of the wilderness.”^{^[1]} God has been, God is, and God will be faithful to all who love the Lord.

Second, understand that not everything is going to work out like we hope it will, or even as God wants it to work out. As the title of Rabbi Kushner’s book puts it so well, bad things do happen to good people. Innocent children are victims of drive by shootings. The poor seem to get poorer while those who’ve gotten rich dishonestly seem to thrive. The poorest of nations, Haiti, suffered the terrible earthquake. Sometimes there seems to be no justice in the world. That doesn’t mean that God wants it that way. God knows what injustice is, because God’s son suffered the greatest injustice of all time. For whatever reason, though, God has chosen not to magically right all wrongs, punish all evil, reward everyone who is good. But God is with us when we suffer, and somehow, through the midst of the darkness, God helps us through until we’re able to see a faint glimmer of sunshine.

Finally, understand that much of the stuff we worry about is totally out of our control. We suffer for our children, our friends, our neighbors. We ask God to bring about change in their lives, but we don’t control our children, our friends, our neighbors, and neither does God. We end up worrying about things we can’t control. In essence, we try to take responsibility for things that are not our responsibility. As pastor, I can only do so much. I’m not responsible for everything that this church does or doesn’t do. As husband, I can only do so much. I share responsibility for my marriage, but I can’t make a marriage all by myself. As parent, I can only do so much. My wife and I do our best to teach our children, but finally, Jerry, Paul and Laura will live their own lives, make their own decisions, and perhaps break our hearts in the process. But I can’t control others. I can only live my own life which is hard enough.

It’s not a mistake that Jesus taught, “Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. . . Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?”^{^[1]}

Easy for Jesus to say, we may think, he didn’t have kids, he didn’t have a spouse, he didn’t have bills to pay, retirement to worry about, elderly parents to care for. What concerns did he have?

But of course, Jesus was concerned with the whole world, wasn’t he? He was concerned about my life and yours, my sin and yours. If anyone was going to worry, it would’ve been Jesus. But Jesus didn’t worry, at least not that we know. He didn’t worry because he trusted God, trusted God more than any of us trust God, and in that sense too, Jesus is our model.

What do we do then when we find ourselves staring sleeplessly at the ceiling, night after night, wondering why, to use this morning’s question, why Jesus doesn’t provide wedding wine for us? We can try and separate what we can control from what we can’t control, and turn that which we can’t control over to God. We can understand that bad things are going to happen, even when God wants only good for us. Bad things happen because we sin, because the world is sinful, because that’s simply the way it is.

But through it all, we are to know that God is faithful. God knows how we suffer, how we worry about so many things. God knows that for many of us, the party has run out of wine. God will, however, make wine out of water if we have patience. It may not happen as quickly as we’d like, but it will happen.

Our God does not fail. Even in the darkest night, even in the depths of our despair, even when we’re faced with problems much greater than running out of wine, our God is with us. Open your heart and feel His presence. Open your heart and know God is with you. Open your heart, and let the Lord comfort you in your pain and in your grief. For great is the faithfulness of the Lord.

1. Barclay, William, The Gospel of John, volume 1, The Daily Study Bible Series, The Westminster Press, Philadelphia, PA, 1975, pp. 96-97.

2. Brown, Raymond E., The Gospel according to John (i-xii), The Anchor Bible, Doubleday & Company, Inc., Garden City, NY, 1966, p. 102.

3. Barclay, p. 97.

4. Brown, p. 99.

5. Psalm 119:82

6. Psalm 74:1

7/ Psalm 74:12-14

8. Matthew 6:25-26

Back to the Top

Please email suggestions to Deborah.