About eight days after Peter had acknowledged Jesus as the Christ of God, 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 Elijah, talking to him. They appeared in glory and were speaking of his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem. Now Peter and his companions were weighed down with sleep; but since they had stayed awake, they saw his glory and the two men who stood with him. Just as they were leaving him, Peter said to Jesus, "Master, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah"--not knowing what he said. While he was saying this, a cloud came and overshadowed them; and they were terrified as they entered the cloud. Then from the cloud came a voice that said, "This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!" When the voice had spoken, Jesus was found alone. And they kept silent and in those days told no one any of the things they had seen.
I recently visited a really cool church with ten minutes of “open space” built into the service. The idea of “open space” is that we need a chance to listen to Jesus in our own creative way, and open space, by definition, is open – you can do whatever you want. Draw, paint, write a poem, pray, be silent, drink coffee, journal – you can even dance, which, of course, is the option that I chose. Just kidding, I prayed, and I was even given a question to pray about in my open space with Jesus. “God, what do you want me to accomplish in the coming year?” That was my prayer, and a really cool thing happened. I heard a voice – an unmistakable word spoken directly to my spirit. “God, what do you want me to accomplish?” And you know what God’s answer was? LESS. “I want you to accomplish less.”
At first, I thought God was talking about my lifestyle – about how I need to slow down and learn to “say no” and be a little bit more spontaneous – you know, that I needed to “do” less. But then it dawned on me. That wasn’t my question. I didn’t ask God what He wanted me to do. I asked God what He wanted me to accomplish.
So I thought about it. And I figured out that we only accomplish things that are hard. To accomplish something is to complete something that’s hard to complete. For example, I don’t care how skilled you are at tying your shoes – that is not an accomplishment, unless of course you went to A&M. And that’s when it hit me. Accomplishing something is great when it comes to our hobbies, our work, and to the personal goals we set in life. But when it comes to our spiritual life, or to our character – we can accomplish nothing. When it comes to the sins and the flaws and the inner-defects that enslave us – when it comes to throwing off the shackles of anger or lust or contempt or greed – when it comes to our hearts – we can accomplish nothing.
Think about it. Try not getting angry or anxious or jealous or lustful or bitter for an entire week. That would be quite the spiritual accomplishment. If you can do it then I stand corrected. But unless you’re a robot, you’re going to fail. Now don’t get me wrong –you’re still responsible for how you handle your anger or what you do with your anxiety or how you respond to your jealousy – but ridding yourself of them? Not going to happen. That’s just not something we have the power to accomplish.
In today’s Gospel Jesus takes Peter, James and John mountain climbing and something amazing happens when they reach the top. Jesus, upon praying, catches fire from within, his face and clothes become dazzling white, and Moses and Elijah appear in glory to have a conversation with Jesus. And Luke even tells us what they talked about. “They … were speaking of his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem.” In other words, Moses and Elijah are speaking to Jesus about his impending “departure,” whatever that means. But not only that – they’re talking about Jesus’ departure like it’s going to be a really great accomplishment. But what about leaving Jerusalem would be such a great accomplishment?
The word departure is an embarrassing translation. It’d be like taking the Greek word for killer whale and translating it as goldfish. And so when you get home tonight find your bible, cross out the word departure and write the following word in its place – exodus. Elijah and Moses and Jesus were talking about the exodus he would accomplish at Jerusalem.
Now, I’m not just being nit-picky. This is a distinction we have to make because the Old Testament revolves around the Exodus that God accomplishes through Moses. And remember, the Exodus is about being set free from slavery. The people of Israel were slaves in Egypt for hundreds of years until God parted the Red Sea, which made it possible for God’s people to go to the Promised Land. If you haven’t read the Old Testament, 98% of it, in one way or another, is about the Exodus. It either looks forward to it, or describes it, or looks back to it. And so if I had to summarize the Old Testament in a sentence it really wouldn’t be that hard. In the Old Testament, the Exodus is God’s great accomplishment.
Now, I know this seems like a tangent, but stay with me, because over time, the prophets started speaking about a new exodus – a new exodus that God would accomplish to set us free once and for all. You see they came to realize something that’s pretty profound. Their problem was a lot bigger than they thought. The problem wasn’t slavery between people. It was slavery within people. The real problem was the sins and the flaws and the inner-defects that enslave humanity – in other words, whatever it is inside our hearts that even makes enslaving other people a possibility. The shackles of Egypt were not the problem. But it was the inner-shackles – the chains of anger and lust and contempt and greed and jealousy and hate – this, they said, was humanity’s real problem. And it was a big one – far too hard for humanity to deal with on their own. The sin within was the real enemy and only a new exodus would accomplish its defeat.
Now, with that in mind, let’s go back to that mountain and to Jesus’ conversation with Moses and Elijah. “They … were speaking of his exodus, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem.” See what’s happening in today’s Gospel? Moses and Elijah have come to tell Jesus that His mission, His purpose, is to lead God’s new exodus – that in Jerusalem He will accomplish what the Old Covenant was powerless to do. Like Moses before him Jesus would be the One to set God’s people free. Moses set them free from the shackles of Egypt, but Jesus will set them free from the inner shackles of sin; from the shackles of death. And that, they said as they talked on the mountain, would be God’s greatest accomplishment: “the Red Sea of death would be split with a cross and Jesus would lead his people through.” (Barbara Brown Taylor)
Now with that in mind, let’s go back to where we started – with a God calling us to accomplish less. What God wants us to realize – the heart of our Christian faith – is that through Jesus God has accomplished everything. And that’s what the new exodus is all about – the defeat of sin and the defeat of death through the cross of Jesus Christ. And unlike the first exodus, which is a weak shadow of the new one, God’s new exodus is the final exodus. It’s what 100% of the New Testament is all about. It is God’s greatest accomplishment.
And so here’s your homework for the week, and I’m cheating because I stole it from Luke, but that’s okay because Luke stole it from God. “This is my son, my Chosen; listen to him!” That’s your homework. Listen to Jesus. If you accomplish nothing else in life but this – if you learn to listen to Jesus – your life will be a wild success. I know it’s counter-intuitive, but don’t worry too much about your anger or greed or lust or whatever else it is that enslaves you. Let Jesus worry about that. He is, after all, the One leading the new exodus. It’s not our job to worry. Our job is to listen.
To put it differently, following Jesus isn’t about accomplishing anything at all. Following Jesus is about following Jesus and about letting Jesus accomplish transformation in our hearts. But what that means is that we have to create some open space in our lives. Open space to bathe in scripture. Open space to wait in silence. Open space to listen to Jesus and for him to accomplish what He wills to accomplish in each and every one of us.
Sunday, February 14, 2010
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
passing the torch (elisha -omega talk)
Before I die I fully intend to participate in the Olympic games, and not in table tennis either. Though we all know I could. And not as a sumo wrester or in synchronized swimming. And not as a spectator, but as a runner. I want to carry the torch in the Olympic relay. One of my classmates got to carry the torch back in 1992 and I’ve been jealous ever since. And so mark my words, before I die, I will be a torchbearer.
For those of you unfamiliar with the ritual, the Olympic Torch is ignited several months before the opening celebration and is carried around the world – thousands of runners, each with a torch, all passing one flame. One runner receives the flame, guards the flame, and then carefully passes that flame to the next runner, who must be very careful to make sure that the flame does not go out. It is considered a great honor to carry the Olympic torch and to pass the Olympic flame. Of course, the roots of the torch relay come from the ancient Greek games, where the flame was passed from runner to runner as a symbol for knowledge and life and wisdom, which the Greeks insisted be passed from one generation to the next. In other words, when it came to what was important to them – the spirit of knowledge and life and wisdom – the Greeks prided themselves on being keepers of the flame, and of course passers of the flame. The thought of letting the flame go out was scandalous. Dropping the torch? Unheard of. Because passing the flame wasn’t just considered an honor – it was a duty.
Every single one of us is here tonight because someone passed the flame of faith to us. Now, I know we’re all at different places in our faith. For some of us, the flame of faith is burning brighter than ever, and maybe for some, keeping the flame from going out is a daily struggle. But if we have faith, we have it because someone passed it on to us. Maybe it was our parents, or grandparents, a teacher, a friend, a priest, a pastor, a bible study leader, a camp counselor, a combo of all of these – but someone invested, someone prayed, someone loved – someone’s flame burned so brightly that they just had to pass it on to us. And it’s incredibly important that we understand that when it comes to faith, this passing of the flame has been God’s design from the beginning. Abraham passed the flame to Isaac who then passed it on to Jacob who then passed it on to Joseph. Moses passed the flame to Joshua. Eli passed it to Samuel. Jesus passed it to the apostles. From the very beginning, God intended his people to be torchbearers – to get the flame, to guard the flame, and finally, to pass the flame. In every generation God asks His people, “Who loves my knowledge and my life and my wisdom so much that they’re willing to pass the flame?” You see, God doesn’t give us the flame of faith for our sake alone. That would be like receiving the Olympic torch and then running home to keep the flame burning in our room. No, God gives us the flame of faith to pass it. God wants to make us torchbearers.
Now, last week we heard part of Elijah’s story, and I say part of his story because after the showdown at Carmel Elijah basically has a nervous breakdown – the stress of being a prophet is just too great and Elijah begins to pray. And for a piece of candy, does anyone know what Elijah’s prayer is? That God will kill him. That’s his prayer, and God answers Elijah’s prayer – thankfully not by giving Elijah what he wants, but by giving him what he needs – someone to share the burden, someone to take his place. In other words, God sees that Elijah is burnt out and so He tells him that it’s time to pass the torch on to someone else. And that someone else is named Elisha.
Elijah … found Elisha in a field where there were twelve pairs of yoked oxen at work plowing; Elisha was in charge of the twelfth pair. Elijah went up to him and threw his cloak over him. Elisha deserted the oxen, ran after Elijah, and said, "Please! Let me kiss my father and mother good-bye—then I'll follow you." "Go ahead," said Elijah, "but, mind you, don't forget what I've just done to you." So Elisha left; he took his yoke of oxen and butchered them. He made a fire with the plow and tackle and then boiled the meat—a true farewell meal for the family. Then he left and followed Elijah, becoming his right-hand man. (1 Kings 19: 19-21, The Message)
And so Elijah, who’s looking for a successor, sees Elisha plowing in the field, walks right up to him, takes off his cloak, and then places it around Elisha’s shoulders. And this gesture, which is foreign to us, would have been very clear to Elisha. When Elijah took off his cloak and put it on Elisha, that one act said more than any combination of words ever could, because in a visible and highly symbolic way Elijah is telling Elisha, “I’m inviting you to follow me and to learn from me. I want to spend time with you and teach you. I want to pass the flame on to you. Elisha, I want your flame to burn brighter and brighter so that one day you can lead God’s people as their prophet without me being at your side.” What an amazing invitation!
Now, there’s something we need to realize, because I think it’s the main reason we run away from our duty to be torchbearers – Elijah is asking Elisha to make an enormous sacrifice. To invite another person into a relationship with God, to pass on that flame of faith, is to ask them to sacrifice everything. To quote Jesus, “take up your cross and follow me. If you want to save your life, you have to lose it for me and for the gospel.” And that’s what Elijah is asking Elisha to do – to make an enormous sacrifice – to lose his life in order to do God’s work.
Now, we don’t know a whole lot about Elijah’s background. Maybe he grew up poor and didn’t have a lot of career options and said to himself, “Since I can’t make a profit I’ll become one.” But not Elisha. He’s a rich kid. You see, in Elisha’s day your average family owned a chicken or two. If a family had an ox, they’d be wealthy. But to have twelve teams of oxen, which for you non-math majors is twenty four total, was unheard of. Elisha’s family is freaking loaded. And what Elijah is asking Elisha to do is to walk away from his secure and wealthy lifestyle in order to follow a much riskier path of becoming a prophet, which usually meant a life of poverty, hiding, and unpopular truth-telling. And so Elisha has everything! And in essence, Elijah says, “give it up! Let me tell you about what happened on Mount Carmel, about what I saw God do. Following God might be risky, but I promise you it’s exciting. And it might mean poverty, but I promise your life will be rich. And it might mean losing your life, but I promise you, you’re going to save it.”
Now, as a side note, it would have been really easy for Elijah to look at Elisha, who had everything, and to have walked past him thinking to himself, “I doubt he’s all that interested in what I have to offer.” And I think that’s a powerful lesson for each of us. A lot of us have friends we assume aren’t interested in coming to church or talking about matters of faith, and so we don’t even try. We walk right by them. And in the process, we hide a huge piece of who we are because we just figure they’re not interested, or that they relate to God in “their own way,” whatever that means. But we should never assume that anyone is so well off that they don’t need the flame of faith that is the kingdom of God. Because once we’re captured by a vision of living and serving in the kingdom of God, we find it irresistible. And God knows that so many of the people we interact with on a day-to-day basis are just one conversation away or one invitation away from being a keeper of the flame and a bearer of the torch. God has a strong track record of choosing unlikely people to be his torch bearers.
Ok, back to our story. Elisha follows Elijah and proves to be an incredibly loyal apprentice. Elijah even gives Elisha a few chances to walk away and back out of his prophetic call, but each time Elisha responds with these words: “as surely as the Lord lives, I will not leave you.” Their journey reaches it’s climax when they arrive at the Jordan River because they both know that their time together is short and that Elisha will soon be on his own. And then Elijah does something significant. He takes off his cloak – the same one he spread over Elisha when their journey first began – and with his cloak Elijah strikes the Jordan River. And just as the water separated a long time ago for Moses and Joshua, it now separates for Elijah, and Elijah and Elisha cross the Jordan River on dry ground. And then Elijah does a wonderful thing. Knowing that he’s about to leave this world he turns his full attention to Elisha, his loyal disciple. And what does Elijah do? He doesn’t give Elisha any more advice or instructions or commands or secret prophet tricks. But instead he asks Elisha a question – “what can I do for you before I am taken from you?” That’s it, a question– “what can I do for you?”
Now, before we look at Elisha’s response, I want you to think of some people in your life that God may be calling you to pass the torch on to – a sibling, a friend, a classmate. Remember, God doesn’t give us the flame of faith for our sake alone. From the very beginning, God intended his people to be torchbearers. And so if we want to take seriously our duty to pass the torch of faith on to the people in our life, this is a great question to ask them. And it’s so simple and non-threatening. What can I do for you? How can I serve you? What do you need to become the person God’s calling you to be? You never know, maybe they’ll just tell you. “I need prayer. I need you to bring me to church. I need to find a Bible Study. I need to do an outreach project, but I’m just too scared to go alone.” Think of the people that God has placed in your life, the people with whom you have influence. When’s the last time you asked them that question – what can I do for you?
Well, here’s how Elisha answered Elijah’s question – “let me inherit a double portion of your spirit.” I have to admit, the first time I read this story, Elisha’s request sounded greedy, almost as if he was saying “I want to preach twice as well and work twice as many miracles.” But that’s not what’s going on here at all. You see Elisha is using what scholars call inheritance language. For example, back in Deuteronomy 21:17, God said that the heir of an Israelite family – the firstborn – is to receive a double portion of the inheritance. And so in Elisha’s world, to ask for a double portion is the same thing as asking to be someone’s heir. That’s why he uses the word inherit – let me “inherit” a double portion of your spirit. And so Elisha isn’t asking for two helpings of the Spirit. All he’s saying is this – “Elijah, I’ve followed you, I’ve watched you, and I’ve seen your devotion, the difference your life and faithfulness have made. Israel is a better place because of you and your ministry and I want to continue your legacy. I want my life to make a difference even after you’re gone. And so let me inherit your work.”
Well all of the sudden a chariot of fire and horses appear and take Elijah away into the sky. And as a side note, this only happens twice in the Bible – to Elijah and Enoch. And as a second side note, this is biblical proof that unicorns do exist. Anyway, Elijah is swept into the arms of God, and Elisha is left behind with a mission – it’s his turn to carry the torch. And so Elijah is gone and he only leaves one thing behind. Can anyone guess what that is? His cloak. And Elisha looks down and he sees his mentor’s cloak, which to him is a reminder – it’s a reminder of the torch that has been passed on to him. And so Elisha picks up Elijah’s cloak and walks back to the Jordan River. He takes the cloak and rolls it up, just like he had seen Elijah do. He lifts his arm and says a prayer, just like he had seen Elijah do. And then, in what I think is the most pivotal moment of Elisha’s life, he strikes the water of the Jordan River, the waters part, and Elisha crosses on dry ground. He did it. By himself. The torch has been passed. Elijah’s spirit is now alive in Elisha and Elisha is ready for his mission – he’s ready to be a torchbearer for God.
Elisha goes on to have an extraordinary life. Like Elijah before him, he challenges the most powerful people in society with utter fearlessness. And at the end of his life we see Elisha passing that torch on to his own servants. Elisha, the rich kid, goes on to live an extraordinary life. Why? Because someone was bold enough to invest in him. To pray for him. To wrap his cloak around him. To pass the torch to him.
I’ve had countless people tell me that Christianity is one generation away from being extinct – that 100 years from now, following Jesus, putting on Jesus’ cloak, will be a thing of the past. Let me end by saying this – they’re all false prophets. People have been saying that for 2000 years, but followers of Jesus – well, they keep on passing the flame. Now, you and I have received an enormous invitation. As people who have the flame, God invites us to guard the flame and to run with the flame. But God wants us to go deeper. In every generation God asks the question – “Who loves my knowledge and my life and my wisdom so much that they’re willing to pass the flame?”
The ancient Greeks prided themselves on being passers of the flame, which wasn’t just considered an honor – it was a duty. And so my message tonight is this – it’s a duty for us too.
And so I hope that when college ends or grad school ends you’ll leave this place ready to be a torchbearer for God. Because if you’re not then what that means is that I’ve passed on the wrong kind of flame to you. Because the One we serve is the Light of the world, the Flame of the world. And He’s the One inviting us to run this race we call faith. You see, the Church is made up of thousands of runners with thousands of torches – but there’s only one flame. And if we catch the right flame, and we’re seduced by a vision of living and serving in the Kingdom of God, we come to see pretty quickly that the only way to keep our own flame burning is to pass it on to someone else.
For those of you unfamiliar with the ritual, the Olympic Torch is ignited several months before the opening celebration and is carried around the world – thousands of runners, each with a torch, all passing one flame. One runner receives the flame, guards the flame, and then carefully passes that flame to the next runner, who must be very careful to make sure that the flame does not go out. It is considered a great honor to carry the Olympic torch and to pass the Olympic flame. Of course, the roots of the torch relay come from the ancient Greek games, where the flame was passed from runner to runner as a symbol for knowledge and life and wisdom, which the Greeks insisted be passed from one generation to the next. In other words, when it came to what was important to them – the spirit of knowledge and life and wisdom – the Greeks prided themselves on being keepers of the flame, and of course passers of the flame. The thought of letting the flame go out was scandalous. Dropping the torch? Unheard of. Because passing the flame wasn’t just considered an honor – it was a duty.
Every single one of us is here tonight because someone passed the flame of faith to us. Now, I know we’re all at different places in our faith. For some of us, the flame of faith is burning brighter than ever, and maybe for some, keeping the flame from going out is a daily struggle. But if we have faith, we have it because someone passed it on to us. Maybe it was our parents, or grandparents, a teacher, a friend, a priest, a pastor, a bible study leader, a camp counselor, a combo of all of these – but someone invested, someone prayed, someone loved – someone’s flame burned so brightly that they just had to pass it on to us. And it’s incredibly important that we understand that when it comes to faith, this passing of the flame has been God’s design from the beginning. Abraham passed the flame to Isaac who then passed it on to Jacob who then passed it on to Joseph. Moses passed the flame to Joshua. Eli passed it to Samuel. Jesus passed it to the apostles. From the very beginning, God intended his people to be torchbearers – to get the flame, to guard the flame, and finally, to pass the flame. In every generation God asks His people, “Who loves my knowledge and my life and my wisdom so much that they’re willing to pass the flame?” You see, God doesn’t give us the flame of faith for our sake alone. That would be like receiving the Olympic torch and then running home to keep the flame burning in our room. No, God gives us the flame of faith to pass it. God wants to make us torchbearers.
Now, last week we heard part of Elijah’s story, and I say part of his story because after the showdown at Carmel Elijah basically has a nervous breakdown – the stress of being a prophet is just too great and Elijah begins to pray. And for a piece of candy, does anyone know what Elijah’s prayer is? That God will kill him. That’s his prayer, and God answers Elijah’s prayer – thankfully not by giving Elijah what he wants, but by giving him what he needs – someone to share the burden, someone to take his place. In other words, God sees that Elijah is burnt out and so He tells him that it’s time to pass the torch on to someone else. And that someone else is named Elisha.
Elijah … found Elisha in a field where there were twelve pairs of yoked oxen at work plowing; Elisha was in charge of the twelfth pair. Elijah went up to him and threw his cloak over him. Elisha deserted the oxen, ran after Elijah, and said, "Please! Let me kiss my father and mother good-bye—then I'll follow you." "Go ahead," said Elijah, "but, mind you, don't forget what I've just done to you." So Elisha left; he took his yoke of oxen and butchered them. He made a fire with the plow and tackle and then boiled the meat—a true farewell meal for the family. Then he left and followed Elijah, becoming his right-hand man. (1 Kings 19: 19-21, The Message)
And so Elijah, who’s looking for a successor, sees Elisha plowing in the field, walks right up to him, takes off his cloak, and then places it around Elisha’s shoulders. And this gesture, which is foreign to us, would have been very clear to Elisha. When Elijah took off his cloak and put it on Elisha, that one act said more than any combination of words ever could, because in a visible and highly symbolic way Elijah is telling Elisha, “I’m inviting you to follow me and to learn from me. I want to spend time with you and teach you. I want to pass the flame on to you. Elisha, I want your flame to burn brighter and brighter so that one day you can lead God’s people as their prophet without me being at your side.” What an amazing invitation!
Now, there’s something we need to realize, because I think it’s the main reason we run away from our duty to be torchbearers – Elijah is asking Elisha to make an enormous sacrifice. To invite another person into a relationship with God, to pass on that flame of faith, is to ask them to sacrifice everything. To quote Jesus, “take up your cross and follow me. If you want to save your life, you have to lose it for me and for the gospel.” And that’s what Elijah is asking Elisha to do – to make an enormous sacrifice – to lose his life in order to do God’s work.
Now, we don’t know a whole lot about Elijah’s background. Maybe he grew up poor and didn’t have a lot of career options and said to himself, “Since I can’t make a profit I’ll become one.” But not Elisha. He’s a rich kid. You see, in Elisha’s day your average family owned a chicken or two. If a family had an ox, they’d be wealthy. But to have twelve teams of oxen, which for you non-math majors is twenty four total, was unheard of. Elisha’s family is freaking loaded. And what Elijah is asking Elisha to do is to walk away from his secure and wealthy lifestyle in order to follow a much riskier path of becoming a prophet, which usually meant a life of poverty, hiding, and unpopular truth-telling. And so Elisha has everything! And in essence, Elijah says, “give it up! Let me tell you about what happened on Mount Carmel, about what I saw God do. Following God might be risky, but I promise you it’s exciting. And it might mean poverty, but I promise your life will be rich. And it might mean losing your life, but I promise you, you’re going to save it.”
Now, as a side note, it would have been really easy for Elijah to look at Elisha, who had everything, and to have walked past him thinking to himself, “I doubt he’s all that interested in what I have to offer.” And I think that’s a powerful lesson for each of us. A lot of us have friends we assume aren’t interested in coming to church or talking about matters of faith, and so we don’t even try. We walk right by them. And in the process, we hide a huge piece of who we are because we just figure they’re not interested, or that they relate to God in “their own way,” whatever that means. But we should never assume that anyone is so well off that they don’t need the flame of faith that is the kingdom of God. Because once we’re captured by a vision of living and serving in the kingdom of God, we find it irresistible. And God knows that so many of the people we interact with on a day-to-day basis are just one conversation away or one invitation away from being a keeper of the flame and a bearer of the torch. God has a strong track record of choosing unlikely people to be his torch bearers.
Ok, back to our story. Elisha follows Elijah and proves to be an incredibly loyal apprentice. Elijah even gives Elisha a few chances to walk away and back out of his prophetic call, but each time Elisha responds with these words: “as surely as the Lord lives, I will not leave you.” Their journey reaches it’s climax when they arrive at the Jordan River because they both know that their time together is short and that Elisha will soon be on his own. And then Elijah does something significant. He takes off his cloak – the same one he spread over Elisha when their journey first began – and with his cloak Elijah strikes the Jordan River. And just as the water separated a long time ago for Moses and Joshua, it now separates for Elijah, and Elijah and Elisha cross the Jordan River on dry ground. And then Elijah does a wonderful thing. Knowing that he’s about to leave this world he turns his full attention to Elisha, his loyal disciple. And what does Elijah do? He doesn’t give Elisha any more advice or instructions or commands or secret prophet tricks. But instead he asks Elisha a question – “what can I do for you before I am taken from you?” That’s it, a question– “what can I do for you?”
Now, before we look at Elisha’s response, I want you to think of some people in your life that God may be calling you to pass the torch on to – a sibling, a friend, a classmate. Remember, God doesn’t give us the flame of faith for our sake alone. From the very beginning, God intended his people to be torchbearers. And so if we want to take seriously our duty to pass the torch of faith on to the people in our life, this is a great question to ask them. And it’s so simple and non-threatening. What can I do for you? How can I serve you? What do you need to become the person God’s calling you to be? You never know, maybe they’ll just tell you. “I need prayer. I need you to bring me to church. I need to find a Bible Study. I need to do an outreach project, but I’m just too scared to go alone.” Think of the people that God has placed in your life, the people with whom you have influence. When’s the last time you asked them that question – what can I do for you?
Well, here’s how Elisha answered Elijah’s question – “let me inherit a double portion of your spirit.” I have to admit, the first time I read this story, Elisha’s request sounded greedy, almost as if he was saying “I want to preach twice as well and work twice as many miracles.” But that’s not what’s going on here at all. You see Elisha is using what scholars call inheritance language. For example, back in Deuteronomy 21:17, God said that the heir of an Israelite family – the firstborn – is to receive a double portion of the inheritance. And so in Elisha’s world, to ask for a double portion is the same thing as asking to be someone’s heir. That’s why he uses the word inherit – let me “inherit” a double portion of your spirit. And so Elisha isn’t asking for two helpings of the Spirit. All he’s saying is this – “Elijah, I’ve followed you, I’ve watched you, and I’ve seen your devotion, the difference your life and faithfulness have made. Israel is a better place because of you and your ministry and I want to continue your legacy. I want my life to make a difference even after you’re gone. And so let me inherit your work.”
Well all of the sudden a chariot of fire and horses appear and take Elijah away into the sky. And as a side note, this only happens twice in the Bible – to Elijah and Enoch. And as a second side note, this is biblical proof that unicorns do exist. Anyway, Elijah is swept into the arms of God, and Elisha is left behind with a mission – it’s his turn to carry the torch. And so Elijah is gone and he only leaves one thing behind. Can anyone guess what that is? His cloak. And Elisha looks down and he sees his mentor’s cloak, which to him is a reminder – it’s a reminder of the torch that has been passed on to him. And so Elisha picks up Elijah’s cloak and walks back to the Jordan River. He takes the cloak and rolls it up, just like he had seen Elijah do. He lifts his arm and says a prayer, just like he had seen Elijah do. And then, in what I think is the most pivotal moment of Elisha’s life, he strikes the water of the Jordan River, the waters part, and Elisha crosses on dry ground. He did it. By himself. The torch has been passed. Elijah’s spirit is now alive in Elisha and Elisha is ready for his mission – he’s ready to be a torchbearer for God.
Elisha goes on to have an extraordinary life. Like Elijah before him, he challenges the most powerful people in society with utter fearlessness. And at the end of his life we see Elisha passing that torch on to his own servants. Elisha, the rich kid, goes on to live an extraordinary life. Why? Because someone was bold enough to invest in him. To pray for him. To wrap his cloak around him. To pass the torch to him.
I’ve had countless people tell me that Christianity is one generation away from being extinct – that 100 years from now, following Jesus, putting on Jesus’ cloak, will be a thing of the past. Let me end by saying this – they’re all false prophets. People have been saying that for 2000 years, but followers of Jesus – well, they keep on passing the flame. Now, you and I have received an enormous invitation. As people who have the flame, God invites us to guard the flame and to run with the flame. But God wants us to go deeper. In every generation God asks the question – “Who loves my knowledge and my life and my wisdom so much that they’re willing to pass the flame?”
The ancient Greeks prided themselves on being passers of the flame, which wasn’t just considered an honor – it was a duty. And so my message tonight is this – it’s a duty for us too.
And so I hope that when college ends or grad school ends you’ll leave this place ready to be a torchbearer for God. Because if you’re not then what that means is that I’ve passed on the wrong kind of flame to you. Because the One we serve is the Light of the world, the Flame of the world. And He’s the One inviting us to run this race we call faith. You see, the Church is made up of thousands of runners with thousands of torches – but there’s only one flame. And if we catch the right flame, and we’re seduced by a vision of living and serving in the Kingdom of God, we come to see pretty quickly that the only way to keep our own flame burning is to pass it on to someone else.
Sunday, February 7, 2010
captivating people (luke 5:1-11)
Once while Jesus was standing beside the lake of Gennesaret, and the crowd was pressing in on him to hear the word of God, he saw two boats there at the shore of the lake; the fishermen had gone out of them and were washing their nets. He got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little way from the shore. Then he sat down and taught the crowds from the boat. When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, "Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch." Simon answered, "Master, we have worked all night long but have caught nothing. Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets." When they had done this, they caught so many fish that their nets were beginning to break. So they signaled their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both boats, so that they began to sink. But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus' knees, saying, "Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!" For he and all who were with him were amazed at the catch of fish that they had taken; and so also were James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. Then Jesus said to Simon, "Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people." When they had brought their boats to shore, they left everything and followed him.
I have a love / hate relationship with catchy church signs. I love them because they’re catchy. But I also hate them because they’re catchy. Here’s a sample of real signs that churches have used to draw new people in. “Free coffee and everlasting life – membership has its privileges.” “Don’t let worries kill you – let the church help.” And perhaps my favorite of all time, a sign put up the week before Palm Sunday: “And Jesus said to his disciples – bring me that ass.” Now obviously, the purpose of these signs is to grab people’s attention, hook them, and get them to come inside. People attend church for a million different reasons – the music, the inner-peace that they feel, the coffee, the community – and the purpose of signs like these is to grab you and say, “hey, we’ve got something you’re looking for!” These signs are marketing tools. They’re designed to catch people.
Catching people – that’s what marketing is all about. In fact, I just read a great article on marketing called “How to catch them if you can.” Here’s an excerpt. “Like a highly contagious virus, good [marketing] affects people so strongly they transmit it to others, who then transmit it to their contacts and so on, continuously passing the ad along until it has reached millions.” I was intrigued by this article’s claim. “If your message is captivating enough, you’ll wind up catching more people than you ever imagined – a catch beyond your wildest dreams.”
Now with that in mind we turn to Jesus’ words to Simon Peter – “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people.” We can all stand to be reminded that evangelism is our mission as a church – that our mission is to bring Christ to the world. And so, here’s my question: how should we, as a church, be “catching” people?
Well, what we can’t do is catch people through a typical marketing scheme. Donald Miller writes, “I was a salesman for a while, … and I felt like people were trying to sell me Jesus [when I went to church], … always pointing out the benefits of the Christian faith. That rubbed me wrong. It’s not that there aren’t benefits, there are, but they didn’t have to talk about spirituality like it’s a vacuum cleaner. I didn’t want Jesus to be a product. I wanted him to be a person.”
In other words, membership may have its privileges– free coffee and everlasting life – but we’re not called to do the work of a salesman. We’re called to “do the work of an evangelist” (2 Tim 4:5). And so we can’t rely on offering great products – whether it’s great preaching or great music or a great community – because a) it’s not our mission and b) it doesn’t work. But if we can’t use good ‘ole fashion church products to catch people, what are we going to use as bait?
Today’s Gospel comes from Luke and is also known as the “call of the first disciples.” But that’s a misnomer. Unlike Matthew and Mark’s version, today’s Gospel is not a call story – it’s a pronouncement story. Look at the reading carefully. Jesus doesn’t call Simon. He announces to Simon what he will now be doing. And it isn’t fishing. It’s catching. Remember what Jesus says in Matthew and Mark? “Follow me and I’ll make you fishers of men.” But in Luke the emphasis is different. “Now Simon don’t freak out, but from now on, you’re not going to be fishing for people. You’re going to be catching them.”
Now, what on earth is Jesus talking about? Well, the Greek word translated catch, which is only found in Luke, is a compound word that is more accurately translated to “catch alive” or to “capture alive.” But for Luke’s audience, this word had an even greater meaning. It meant “to revive” or “to restore life” to something – to capture it in order to make it come alive, to catch something with the purpose of infusing it with life. And so perhaps the best modern translation isn’t catch but captivate, a verb meaning to attract by beauty or by excellence. And so perhaps today’s Gospel is more accurately read like this. “Don’t be afraid Simon, from now on you’ll be captivating people.”
Now maybe you think that’s a weird thing for Jesus to tell Peter – that Peter wouldn’t understand what Jesus meant. But Peter knew exactly what Jesus meant because Peter himself had been captivated by Jesus. You see, unlike in the gospels of Matthew and Mark, this isn’t the first time in Luke that Jesus and Peter have met. In fact, Jesus has just left Simon’s house, where Peter’s mother-in-law was sick with a fever. But then Jesus healed her, revived her, he infused her with life. And of course Simon’s mother-in-law wasn’t the only one that Jesus caught and restored. According to Luke all kinds of people were brought to Jesus – the sick, the unclean, the demon-possessed, people on the fringes – and without fail, Jesus infused life into every single one of them. And Simon Peter has witnessed the whole thing. He’s seen first hand the beauty and the excellence of this Man that brings life to everyone that he meets. Peter is among those who have been brought to life, and because of that, today’s Gospel isn’t a call story. Peter has already been caught. Sure he tries to wiggle away – “Go away from me Lord for I am a sinful man!” – but Jesus won’t let him. “Sorry Peter, you’re caught. And from here on out, like it or not, you’re going to be catching people, too.”
And so the question I leave us with is this. Have we been caught by the love of Christ? Are we among those who have been captivated by Jesus? Do we know, firsthand, the beauty and excellence of this Man that brings life to everyone he touches? Do we understand that even if we tell Jesus to leave like Peter did, his answer will always be no?
There’s a reason I ask. To the extent that Jesus has restored our life, we will work to restore the lives of others, and to the extent that we have been caught, we will be catching other people, because when your life is caught up in the Kingdom of God, catching others for the kingdom is just what happens. Like a highly contagious virus, being caught in the Kingdom affects people so strongly they transmit it to others, who then transmit it to other, continuously passing Christ’s love until it has reached millions.
Like the fishermen in today’s gospel, I know it’s tempting to pull in our nets and to call it a day – to think to ourselves, “what’s the use, we’re not going to catch anything.” But that’s a lie. Luke goes out of his way to tell us that the crowd was pressing in on Jesus. That crowd was hungry. And believe me when I tell you, so is our world. People out there are starving for life.
But if today’s Gospel tells us anything, we’re not going to catch people until we ourselves have been caught – until our lives have been so transformed by Jesus’ love that we as a people become contagious – until we love with the same reckless abandon that Christ did – until our character becomes that of Jesus himself.
And make no mistake, this is our work as a church: to captivate people with the love of Christ; to capture them in a way that’s “life-giving” and not “life-taking;” to be as a community so enamored, so caught up in Christ, so committed to the work of the Kingdom that without saying a word we become living and breathing signs – signs that scream “we have Jesus in our midst, and he’s the most captivating thing this world has ever seen.”
You see whether people realize it or not, they’re not looking for a product. They’re looking for a Person – for the Person that created them, that loves them and that has the power to give them life. Whether they realize it or not, people are looking for Jesus. And so if being captured by Jesus’ love becomes the goal of our lives, if we look to Him daily to be infused with fresh life, our lives will become bait that catch people for the kingdom. We’ll still be sinners. The difference is that we’ll know that we’ve been caught – that Jesus refuses to let us go – and the freedom and confidence that come with that will be captivating enough that we’ll wind catching more people than we ever imagined – a catch beyond our wildest dreams.
I have a love / hate relationship with catchy church signs. I love them because they’re catchy. But I also hate them because they’re catchy. Here’s a sample of real signs that churches have used to draw new people in. “Free coffee and everlasting life – membership has its privileges.” “Don’t let worries kill you – let the church help.” And perhaps my favorite of all time, a sign put up the week before Palm Sunday: “And Jesus said to his disciples – bring me that ass.” Now obviously, the purpose of these signs is to grab people’s attention, hook them, and get them to come inside. People attend church for a million different reasons – the music, the inner-peace that they feel, the coffee, the community – and the purpose of signs like these is to grab you and say, “hey, we’ve got something you’re looking for!” These signs are marketing tools. They’re designed to catch people.
Catching people – that’s what marketing is all about. In fact, I just read a great article on marketing called “How to catch them if you can.” Here’s an excerpt. “Like a highly contagious virus, good [marketing] affects people so strongly they transmit it to others, who then transmit it to their contacts and so on, continuously passing the ad along until it has reached millions.” I was intrigued by this article’s claim. “If your message is captivating enough, you’ll wind up catching more people than you ever imagined – a catch beyond your wildest dreams.”
Now with that in mind we turn to Jesus’ words to Simon Peter – “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people.” We can all stand to be reminded that evangelism is our mission as a church – that our mission is to bring Christ to the world. And so, here’s my question: how should we, as a church, be “catching” people?
Well, what we can’t do is catch people through a typical marketing scheme. Donald Miller writes, “I was a salesman for a while, … and I felt like people were trying to sell me Jesus [when I went to church], … always pointing out the benefits of the Christian faith. That rubbed me wrong. It’s not that there aren’t benefits, there are, but they didn’t have to talk about spirituality like it’s a vacuum cleaner. I didn’t want Jesus to be a product. I wanted him to be a person.”
In other words, membership may have its privileges– free coffee and everlasting life – but we’re not called to do the work of a salesman. We’re called to “do the work of an evangelist” (2 Tim 4:5). And so we can’t rely on offering great products – whether it’s great preaching or great music or a great community – because a) it’s not our mission and b) it doesn’t work. But if we can’t use good ‘ole fashion church products to catch people, what are we going to use as bait?
Today’s Gospel comes from Luke and is also known as the “call of the first disciples.” But that’s a misnomer. Unlike Matthew and Mark’s version, today’s Gospel is not a call story – it’s a pronouncement story. Look at the reading carefully. Jesus doesn’t call Simon. He announces to Simon what he will now be doing. And it isn’t fishing. It’s catching. Remember what Jesus says in Matthew and Mark? “Follow me and I’ll make you fishers of men.” But in Luke the emphasis is different. “Now Simon don’t freak out, but from now on, you’re not going to be fishing for people. You’re going to be catching them.”
Now, what on earth is Jesus talking about? Well, the Greek word translated catch, which is only found in Luke, is a compound word that is more accurately translated to “catch alive” or to “capture alive.” But for Luke’s audience, this word had an even greater meaning. It meant “to revive” or “to restore life” to something – to capture it in order to make it come alive, to catch something with the purpose of infusing it with life. And so perhaps the best modern translation isn’t catch but captivate, a verb meaning to attract by beauty or by excellence. And so perhaps today’s Gospel is more accurately read like this. “Don’t be afraid Simon, from now on you’ll be captivating people.”
Now maybe you think that’s a weird thing for Jesus to tell Peter – that Peter wouldn’t understand what Jesus meant. But Peter knew exactly what Jesus meant because Peter himself had been captivated by Jesus. You see, unlike in the gospels of Matthew and Mark, this isn’t the first time in Luke that Jesus and Peter have met. In fact, Jesus has just left Simon’s house, where Peter’s mother-in-law was sick with a fever. But then Jesus healed her, revived her, he infused her with life. And of course Simon’s mother-in-law wasn’t the only one that Jesus caught and restored. According to Luke all kinds of people were brought to Jesus – the sick, the unclean, the demon-possessed, people on the fringes – and without fail, Jesus infused life into every single one of them. And Simon Peter has witnessed the whole thing. He’s seen first hand the beauty and the excellence of this Man that brings life to everyone that he meets. Peter is among those who have been brought to life, and because of that, today’s Gospel isn’t a call story. Peter has already been caught. Sure he tries to wiggle away – “Go away from me Lord for I am a sinful man!” – but Jesus won’t let him. “Sorry Peter, you’re caught. And from here on out, like it or not, you’re going to be catching people, too.”
And so the question I leave us with is this. Have we been caught by the love of Christ? Are we among those who have been captivated by Jesus? Do we know, firsthand, the beauty and excellence of this Man that brings life to everyone he touches? Do we understand that even if we tell Jesus to leave like Peter did, his answer will always be no?
There’s a reason I ask. To the extent that Jesus has restored our life, we will work to restore the lives of others, and to the extent that we have been caught, we will be catching other people, because when your life is caught up in the Kingdom of God, catching others for the kingdom is just what happens. Like a highly contagious virus, being caught in the Kingdom affects people so strongly they transmit it to others, who then transmit it to other, continuously passing Christ’s love until it has reached millions.
Like the fishermen in today’s gospel, I know it’s tempting to pull in our nets and to call it a day – to think to ourselves, “what’s the use, we’re not going to catch anything.” But that’s a lie. Luke goes out of his way to tell us that the crowd was pressing in on Jesus. That crowd was hungry. And believe me when I tell you, so is our world. People out there are starving for life.
But if today’s Gospel tells us anything, we’re not going to catch people until we ourselves have been caught – until our lives have been so transformed by Jesus’ love that we as a people become contagious – until we love with the same reckless abandon that Christ did – until our character becomes that of Jesus himself.
And make no mistake, this is our work as a church: to captivate people with the love of Christ; to capture them in a way that’s “life-giving” and not “life-taking;” to be as a community so enamored, so caught up in Christ, so committed to the work of the Kingdom that without saying a word we become living and breathing signs – signs that scream “we have Jesus in our midst, and he’s the most captivating thing this world has ever seen.”
You see whether people realize it or not, they’re not looking for a product. They’re looking for a Person – for the Person that created them, that loves them and that has the power to give them life. Whether they realize it or not, people are looking for Jesus. And so if being captured by Jesus’ love becomes the goal of our lives, if we look to Him daily to be infused with fresh life, our lives will become bait that catch people for the kingdom. We’ll still be sinners. The difference is that we’ll know that we’ve been caught – that Jesus refuses to let us go – and the freedom and confidence that come with that will be captivating enough that we’ll wind catching more people than we ever imagined – a catch beyond our wildest dreams.
Friday, February 5, 2010
The showdown at Carmel (Elijah)
This semester we’re talking about the prophets, which means that this is a continuation of last semester’s Omega series – “Old Testament’s Greatest Hits.” Welcome to volume II. And you may recall that towards the end of last semester we talked about King David and King Solomon. Well, when Solomon died, things got bad. Real bad.
Israel was a family. Remember, to be an Israelite was to be a child of Abraham. It meant that you were a part of God’s covenant people, a part of God’s plan to bless and redeem the fallen world. The Israelites had a bond of blood and a bond of faith, but when Solomon died, these bonds were broken.
There was a civil war and the people of Israel split, never to be rejoined again. There was the southern Kingdom of Judah, also known as the house of David. And there was the Northern Kingdom of Israel. And so the family of God goes through a divorce – there are two Kingdoms and there are two kings. Today we’re talking about the Northern Kingdom.
The first king of the north is Jeroboam and he is an evil, evil king. And like all evil people, he’s driven by fear – the fear of losing his power. You see, the southern Kingdom is in Jerusalem, which is where God told His people to worship him in the temple that Solomon built. And Jeroboam doesn’t want his people to travel to Jerusalem to worship God because if they do they may stay there. After all, there’s only one temple. And if they stay, they may give their allegiance to the Southern King, which means that Jeroboam is out of a job. And so what does Jeroboam do? Jeroboam has two golden calves made and he sets them up as formal idols for the people to worship. What Jeroboam essentially tells the people is this. “You don’t need to go down to Jerusalem to worship God. That’s way too much trouble and so here – here are two idols. Let these be your gods. Worship them.” And of course, the people do. And so a precedent is set. Idolatry begins in the North.
Well, Jeroboam dies and king after king take his place, each of whom is worse than the one that came before. The Northern Kingdom is spiraling deeper and deeper into sin and just when things seem like they can’t get any worse, King Ahab takes the throne. And here’s what the Bible has to say about Ahab:
Ahab did even more open evil before God than anyone yet—a new champion in evil! It wasn't enough for him to copy the sins of Jeroboam; no, he went all out, first by marrying Jezebel daughter of Ethbaal king of the Sidonians, and then by serving and worshiping the god Baal. He built a temple for Baal in Samaria, and then furnished it with an altar for Baal. Worse, he went on and built a shrine to the whore Asherah. He made the God of Israel angrier than all the previous kings of Israel put together. (1 Kings 16:30-33, The Message)
Here we have King Ahab, who marries a pagan woman named Jezebel. And Jezebel’s one claim to fame is how much she hates the God of Israel and His prophets, which sucks, because Ahab puts her in charge of all religion. And Jezebel has an agenda – to completely destroy the worship of Yahweh so that her God, whose name is Baal, can be worshipped. Out with Yahweh, in with Baal – that’s her platform. And what’s her strategy? Mass genocide. She starts systematically killing all of God’s prophets.
Thankfully, God is quick to act. He sends a prophet – Elijah – to confront Ahab and his horrible wife by telling them that God will judge Israel by sending a drought. In other words, God is going to make it stop raining. And this is an important detail because Baal is the god of the weather, or at least that’s what people believed. If you want rain, you have to go to Baal. And so by sending a drought, God is making a very clear statement, which is that Baal is a phony. That he doesn’t exist. That he’s powerless – that the people of Israel, when worshipping Baal, are worshipping a figment of their imagination.
You see the people of Israel don’t abandon God all together. But what they do do (no one chuckle) is try and worship other gods at the same time. The people of Israel apparently don’t quite grasp the whole “there’s only one god” thing – or monotheism as its known in the west. They really think that they can worship God with one hand and Baal with the other. That if they need rain they can talk to Baal, and that if they need something else they can talk to God. And what God’s trying to tell them – through Elijah – is that they can’t do that. Remember the first commandment. “I am the Lord your God, you shall have no other gods before me.”
Well, a couple years pass and Elijah has been in hiding this whole time. Jezebel’s whole prophet killing hobby apparently makes him nervous. But God comes to Elijah and basically says, “times up. You need to go back to Ahab. I’m a jealous God and my people need to make a decision – it’s either me or Baal.” And so go to them and make them choose.
And so Elijah does. He goes to Ahab and, with all the authority of a prophet, basically says the following. “I want you to get every Israelite – every single one of them – and all of Jezebel’s prophets – and meet me at Mount Carmel. We’re going to have a showdown. My God verse yours. Yahweh verse Baal. What’s True verse what’s phony.”
And so imagine this scene on Mount Carmel. People from all over Israel have gathered. Jezebel’s 850 false prophets have gathered, and Elijah shows up. And so on one side of the mountain stand all of the false prophets, the king, all the government officials, and of course their fake religion. We talked about holiness semester – about God’s moral standard for his chosen people. For the record, Baal has no standard. Baal has no law about caring for orphans or about loving one’s neighbor. The religion of Baal promises one thing – material abundance for all who bow down to Baal. That’s it. And so that’s one side of the mountain.
But on the other side of the mountain stands a solitary prophet who emerges from years of hiding to confront a king and a country. But with that one man is the God of Israel. And so to the naked idea it seems that Elijah is outnumbered 850 to 1. But to the spiritual eye, Elijah is far from alone.
But then in the middle are the people of Israel – and if you and I are going to insert ourselves at any point in this story, this is where we are – in the middle, at a critical deciding point. The Israelites have tried holding on to Yahweh and Baal. They’ve been trying to practice two religions at once but now a line is being drawn. Elijah, the solitary prophet, challenges the people with these words. “How long will you go limping with two different opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him.”
The people of Israel liked to use “walking” as a metaphor for a life well lived, which obviously had God at the center. We still use this phrase. We talk about our walk with Jesus, or perhaps people ask how our walk with God is going. We may or may not use this language but we all know what it means. Walking is a metaphor for faithfulness. And Elijah tells the people of Israel that in following Baal they’re limping – that they’re being torn between two gods and one of them is false. And limping he says is a miserable way to live.
Now, I think this image of limping is as relevant to you and to me as it was for the people of Israel. False gods fight for our attention all of the time. They seduce us. And we devote our time, talent and treasure to these false gods and in the end they slow us down and keep us from the abundant life we were meant to have. Limping through life didn’t end when people stopped bowing down to Baal. Baal is alive and well in twenty-first century America. Anything we let take the place of God in our lives is idolatry.
We’re going to go back to Mount Carmel in a bit, but first, I want us to consider this question – what is our Baal? One of my favorite reformers, John Calvin, once said that the human heart was a factory for producing idols. What Calvin meant was that all of us are trying to love something other than God with all of our heart and soul and mind and strength. And whatever that “something” is the bible calls an idol.
Idols are sneaky. For example, I’m a priest or pastor or minister or what have you. Surely, I don’t worship idols, do I? It hurts me to say this, but yes, I do. Sunday night I celebrate the Eucharist. Monday morning I worship a golden calf.
Let me explain (and this is one of many examples I can give). In college, I never made a B. I graduated with a 4.0 from UT’s business school and finished #1 in my class. I worked my ass off in college. But, does anyone know why I did it?
I’ll give you a hint – it wasn’t for the joy of learning. Or because I love finance. I’m not lying when I tell you this – I wanted to beat everyone. Plain and simple. I wanted to be successful. Now, do think my desire to be successful died when I went to seminary?
I really want our college ministry to grow. I want you to bring your friends and share your faith, I want the pews to be packed, I want our average attendance to double each semester. But why? Well, in part, I genuinely desire for God’s kingdom to expand and for others to find life and a new birth in our midst. But I’ve also got a darker side. In a religious climate where most churches aren’t growing, I want to grow. In other words, I still want to beat everyone. That’s right, when it comes to being a priest, I still want to be successful. And that’s my Baal. And I have to repent of it every single day. God doesn’t call me to be successful. He calls me to be faithful. And those are two very different things. And so there – I told you mind. Success is my idol. What’s yours?
Hold that thought because we need to go back to Mount Carmel where Elijah and the prophets of Baal decide to have a showdown of the gods. And here’s what they decide to do. Each side builds an altar, sacrifices a bull, and then places that bull on the wood of the altar. And so we need to picture 2 altars, 2 bulls, 1 mountain, and 1 wager, and here’s what that wager is. The prophets of Baal will pray to their god and ask him to send down fire from heaven to consume their sacrifice, and Elijah will do the same. If the prophet’s of Baal have their prayer answered, Baal is God. If Elijah has his prayer answered, Yahweh is God. It’s that easy. They flip a coin, Elijah wins and defers to the second half and so the prophets of Baal go first. And here’s the Bible’s account of what happens.
They prayed all morning long, "O Baal, answer us!" But nothing happened—not so much as a whisper of breeze. Desperate, they jumped and stomped on the altar they had made. By noon, Elijah had started making fun of them, taunting, "Call a little louder—he is a god, after all. Maybe he's off meditating somewhere or other, or maybe he's sitting on the toilet, or maybe he's on vacation. You don't suppose he's overslept, do you, and needs to be waked up?" They prayed louder and louder, cutting themselves with swords and knives—a ritual common to them—until they were covered with blood. This went on until well past noon. They used every religious trick and strategy they knew to make something happen on the altar, but nothing happened—not so much as a whisper, not a flicker of response. (I Kings 18: 26-29, The Message)
This is why I love Elijah. He invents talking trash. That’s right people – prophetic trash talk. Elijah invented it. He uses mockery and sarcasm and humor to show how utterly ridiculous it is to pray to a god that isn’t there – how utterly ridiculous it is to orient our lives around Baal, or being successful or around any other idol instead of around the one, true living God.
Well, the prophets of Baal eventually give up and it’s Elijah’s turn. And just to make sure he’s not tricking anyone, Elijah pours 12 jars of water over his sacrifice before praying a very simple prayer. “O Lord,” he said, “Answer me so that this people may know that you’re God and that your desire is to turn their hearts back.”
And God answers. Fire from heaven consumes Elijah’s sacrifice. And the people’s hearts, at least momentarily, are turned back to God. In fact, the people begin to chant. “The Lord, he is God. The Lord, he is God.” That’s what they say, over and over again. “The Lord, he is God.”
I told you about one of my idols – success. The question I leave you with is this – what’s yours?
Maybe it’s a relationship that you know isn’t right. Or a desire to accumulate more things and to pattern your life to that one end. Maybe it’s a habit or an addiction. Or perhaps a grudge. Or a desire to be in control of your own life. Or a desire to be in control of someone else’s.
And to take it a step further – who’s your Jezebel? Who makes it hard for you to be faithful? What person or people or institution is pressuring you to value being a great student or a “respectable member of society” more than they’d have you value God?
You see, there’s a reason I ask. God is the same today as he was yesterday. He’s jealous. He wants all of our heart and soul and mind and strength. And every day, if we listen, he’s going to ask us to choose him over Baal.
And so I want you to imagine yourself at the foot of Mount Carmel. To your left are the prophets of Baal. To your right is the solitary Elijah and he asks you this question. “How long will you go limping with two different opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him.”
What side of the mountain will choose?
Israel was a family. Remember, to be an Israelite was to be a child of Abraham. It meant that you were a part of God’s covenant people, a part of God’s plan to bless and redeem the fallen world. The Israelites had a bond of blood and a bond of faith, but when Solomon died, these bonds were broken.
There was a civil war and the people of Israel split, never to be rejoined again. There was the southern Kingdom of Judah, also known as the house of David. And there was the Northern Kingdom of Israel. And so the family of God goes through a divorce – there are two Kingdoms and there are two kings. Today we’re talking about the Northern Kingdom.
The first king of the north is Jeroboam and he is an evil, evil king. And like all evil people, he’s driven by fear – the fear of losing his power. You see, the southern Kingdom is in Jerusalem, which is where God told His people to worship him in the temple that Solomon built. And Jeroboam doesn’t want his people to travel to Jerusalem to worship God because if they do they may stay there. After all, there’s only one temple. And if they stay, they may give their allegiance to the Southern King, which means that Jeroboam is out of a job. And so what does Jeroboam do? Jeroboam has two golden calves made and he sets them up as formal idols for the people to worship. What Jeroboam essentially tells the people is this. “You don’t need to go down to Jerusalem to worship God. That’s way too much trouble and so here – here are two idols. Let these be your gods. Worship them.” And of course, the people do. And so a precedent is set. Idolatry begins in the North.
Well, Jeroboam dies and king after king take his place, each of whom is worse than the one that came before. The Northern Kingdom is spiraling deeper and deeper into sin and just when things seem like they can’t get any worse, King Ahab takes the throne. And here’s what the Bible has to say about Ahab:
Ahab did even more open evil before God than anyone yet—a new champion in evil! It wasn't enough for him to copy the sins of Jeroboam; no, he went all out, first by marrying Jezebel daughter of Ethbaal king of the Sidonians, and then by serving and worshiping the god Baal. He built a temple for Baal in Samaria, and then furnished it with an altar for Baal. Worse, he went on and built a shrine to the whore Asherah. He made the God of Israel angrier than all the previous kings of Israel put together. (1 Kings 16:30-33, The Message)
Here we have King Ahab, who marries a pagan woman named Jezebel. And Jezebel’s one claim to fame is how much she hates the God of Israel and His prophets, which sucks, because Ahab puts her in charge of all religion. And Jezebel has an agenda – to completely destroy the worship of Yahweh so that her God, whose name is Baal, can be worshipped. Out with Yahweh, in with Baal – that’s her platform. And what’s her strategy? Mass genocide. She starts systematically killing all of God’s prophets.
Thankfully, God is quick to act. He sends a prophet – Elijah – to confront Ahab and his horrible wife by telling them that God will judge Israel by sending a drought. In other words, God is going to make it stop raining. And this is an important detail because Baal is the god of the weather, or at least that’s what people believed. If you want rain, you have to go to Baal. And so by sending a drought, God is making a very clear statement, which is that Baal is a phony. That he doesn’t exist. That he’s powerless – that the people of Israel, when worshipping Baal, are worshipping a figment of their imagination.
You see the people of Israel don’t abandon God all together. But what they do do (no one chuckle) is try and worship other gods at the same time. The people of Israel apparently don’t quite grasp the whole “there’s only one god” thing – or monotheism as its known in the west. They really think that they can worship God with one hand and Baal with the other. That if they need rain they can talk to Baal, and that if they need something else they can talk to God. And what God’s trying to tell them – through Elijah – is that they can’t do that. Remember the first commandment. “I am the Lord your God, you shall have no other gods before me.”
Well, a couple years pass and Elijah has been in hiding this whole time. Jezebel’s whole prophet killing hobby apparently makes him nervous. But God comes to Elijah and basically says, “times up. You need to go back to Ahab. I’m a jealous God and my people need to make a decision – it’s either me or Baal.” And so go to them and make them choose.
And so Elijah does. He goes to Ahab and, with all the authority of a prophet, basically says the following. “I want you to get every Israelite – every single one of them – and all of Jezebel’s prophets – and meet me at Mount Carmel. We’re going to have a showdown. My God verse yours. Yahweh verse Baal. What’s True verse what’s phony.”
And so imagine this scene on Mount Carmel. People from all over Israel have gathered. Jezebel’s 850 false prophets have gathered, and Elijah shows up. And so on one side of the mountain stand all of the false prophets, the king, all the government officials, and of course their fake religion. We talked about holiness semester – about God’s moral standard for his chosen people. For the record, Baal has no standard. Baal has no law about caring for orphans or about loving one’s neighbor. The religion of Baal promises one thing – material abundance for all who bow down to Baal. That’s it. And so that’s one side of the mountain.
But on the other side of the mountain stands a solitary prophet who emerges from years of hiding to confront a king and a country. But with that one man is the God of Israel. And so to the naked idea it seems that Elijah is outnumbered 850 to 1. But to the spiritual eye, Elijah is far from alone.
But then in the middle are the people of Israel – and if you and I are going to insert ourselves at any point in this story, this is where we are – in the middle, at a critical deciding point. The Israelites have tried holding on to Yahweh and Baal. They’ve been trying to practice two religions at once but now a line is being drawn. Elijah, the solitary prophet, challenges the people with these words. “How long will you go limping with two different opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him.”
The people of Israel liked to use “walking” as a metaphor for a life well lived, which obviously had God at the center. We still use this phrase. We talk about our walk with Jesus, or perhaps people ask how our walk with God is going. We may or may not use this language but we all know what it means. Walking is a metaphor for faithfulness. And Elijah tells the people of Israel that in following Baal they’re limping – that they’re being torn between two gods and one of them is false. And limping he says is a miserable way to live.
Now, I think this image of limping is as relevant to you and to me as it was for the people of Israel. False gods fight for our attention all of the time. They seduce us. And we devote our time, talent and treasure to these false gods and in the end they slow us down and keep us from the abundant life we were meant to have. Limping through life didn’t end when people stopped bowing down to Baal. Baal is alive and well in twenty-first century America. Anything we let take the place of God in our lives is idolatry.
We’re going to go back to Mount Carmel in a bit, but first, I want us to consider this question – what is our Baal? One of my favorite reformers, John Calvin, once said that the human heart was a factory for producing idols. What Calvin meant was that all of us are trying to love something other than God with all of our heart and soul and mind and strength. And whatever that “something” is the bible calls an idol.
Idols are sneaky. For example, I’m a priest or pastor or minister or what have you. Surely, I don’t worship idols, do I? It hurts me to say this, but yes, I do. Sunday night I celebrate the Eucharist. Monday morning I worship a golden calf.
Let me explain (and this is one of many examples I can give). In college, I never made a B. I graduated with a 4.0 from UT’s business school and finished #1 in my class. I worked my ass off in college. But, does anyone know why I did it?
I’ll give you a hint – it wasn’t for the joy of learning. Or because I love finance. I’m not lying when I tell you this – I wanted to beat everyone. Plain and simple. I wanted to be successful. Now, do think my desire to be successful died when I went to seminary?
I really want our college ministry to grow. I want you to bring your friends and share your faith, I want the pews to be packed, I want our average attendance to double each semester. But why? Well, in part, I genuinely desire for God’s kingdom to expand and for others to find life and a new birth in our midst. But I’ve also got a darker side. In a religious climate where most churches aren’t growing, I want to grow. In other words, I still want to beat everyone. That’s right, when it comes to being a priest, I still want to be successful. And that’s my Baal. And I have to repent of it every single day. God doesn’t call me to be successful. He calls me to be faithful. And those are two very different things. And so there – I told you mind. Success is my idol. What’s yours?
Hold that thought because we need to go back to Mount Carmel where Elijah and the prophets of Baal decide to have a showdown of the gods. And here’s what they decide to do. Each side builds an altar, sacrifices a bull, and then places that bull on the wood of the altar. And so we need to picture 2 altars, 2 bulls, 1 mountain, and 1 wager, and here’s what that wager is. The prophets of Baal will pray to their god and ask him to send down fire from heaven to consume their sacrifice, and Elijah will do the same. If the prophet’s of Baal have their prayer answered, Baal is God. If Elijah has his prayer answered, Yahweh is God. It’s that easy. They flip a coin, Elijah wins and defers to the second half and so the prophets of Baal go first. And here’s the Bible’s account of what happens.
They prayed all morning long, "O Baal, answer us!" But nothing happened—not so much as a whisper of breeze. Desperate, they jumped and stomped on the altar they had made. By noon, Elijah had started making fun of them, taunting, "Call a little louder—he is a god, after all. Maybe he's off meditating somewhere or other, or maybe he's sitting on the toilet, or maybe he's on vacation. You don't suppose he's overslept, do you, and needs to be waked up?" They prayed louder and louder, cutting themselves with swords and knives—a ritual common to them—until they were covered with blood. This went on until well past noon. They used every religious trick and strategy they knew to make something happen on the altar, but nothing happened—not so much as a whisper, not a flicker of response. (I Kings 18: 26-29, The Message)
This is why I love Elijah. He invents talking trash. That’s right people – prophetic trash talk. Elijah invented it. He uses mockery and sarcasm and humor to show how utterly ridiculous it is to pray to a god that isn’t there – how utterly ridiculous it is to orient our lives around Baal, or being successful or around any other idol instead of around the one, true living God.
Well, the prophets of Baal eventually give up and it’s Elijah’s turn. And just to make sure he’s not tricking anyone, Elijah pours 12 jars of water over his sacrifice before praying a very simple prayer. “O Lord,” he said, “Answer me so that this people may know that you’re God and that your desire is to turn their hearts back.”
And God answers. Fire from heaven consumes Elijah’s sacrifice. And the people’s hearts, at least momentarily, are turned back to God. In fact, the people begin to chant. “The Lord, he is God. The Lord, he is God.” That’s what they say, over and over again. “The Lord, he is God.”
I told you about one of my idols – success. The question I leave you with is this – what’s yours?
Maybe it’s a relationship that you know isn’t right. Or a desire to accumulate more things and to pattern your life to that one end. Maybe it’s a habit or an addiction. Or perhaps a grudge. Or a desire to be in control of your own life. Or a desire to be in control of someone else’s.
And to take it a step further – who’s your Jezebel? Who makes it hard for you to be faithful? What person or people or institution is pressuring you to value being a great student or a “respectable member of society” more than they’d have you value God?
You see, there’s a reason I ask. God is the same today as he was yesterday. He’s jealous. He wants all of our heart and soul and mind and strength. And every day, if we listen, he’s going to ask us to choose him over Baal.
And so I want you to imagine yourself at the foot of Mount Carmel. To your left are the prophets of Baal. To your right is the solitary Elijah and he asks you this question. “How long will you go limping with two different opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him.”
What side of the mountain will choose?
Monday, February 1, 2010
do not be afraid
Jeremiah 1: 4-10
“Do not be afraid, for I am with you to deliver you. Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you, and before you were born, I consecrated you.”
I want to begin tonight’s sermon with a little trivia. I am going to ask a question that I’d like each of you to answer, preferably not out loud. What would you guess is the most common command in Scripture? From Genesis to Revelation, what is the most frequent non-optional statement made by God to God’s chosen people? I’ll give you a few seconds. Did you guess to be more loving? Even though loving is God’s goal for human life and existence, the command to love is not God’s most frequent instruction. Perhaps you guessed to be more humble? After all, theologians insist that pride is at the root of all sin, but oddly enough, the Bible’s most frequent imperative says nothing about gaining humility. Did your guess involve words like money or sex or honesty? If so your guess was wrong. The command in Scripture that occurs more frequently than any other command is summed up in four simple words. Do not be afraid.
Now, why does God command us not to fear? After all, fear doesn’t seem like the most harmful emotion or vice in the world, and last time I checked, fear wasn’t on the list of Seven Deadly sins. So why does God command those with whom He is in relationship to not be afraid so frequently? The answer is actually pretty simple. Fear is the number one reason that we fail to trust God. Behind every act of disobedience is fear. When we don’t trust God, it’s because we’re afraid.
Now, I want to be clear. Fear isn’t always bad. Fear is merely an internal warning cry that danger is nearby, which urges us to act. Fear can be quite good, like when a child fears touching a hot stove or when a person fears the consequences of driving drunk. But the problem is that for most of us, fear arrives as a thief. It breaks into our lives when we least expect it. And the fear we often experience is neither helpful nor wanted and we often fear things that pose no ultimate threat to us. And because of that fear can easily become paralyzing instead of motivating, habitual instead of sporadic. In fact, we have a name for people habitually paralyzed by fear. We call them worriers, and people that constantly worry have a difficult time trusting God. And it’s for this reason that God’s most frequent command is “do not be afraid.”
In today’s Old Testament lesson, we encounter a terrified young man named Jeremiah that lived around 600 BC, who according to our text is only a boy. And this boy is terrified. Here's why: First, Jeremiah and his fellow Israelites are going through a tough and painful time. The Babylonians have conquered their capital and the whole nation is in ruin. Cities are destroyed, hopes are dashed, and faith in the goodness of God is gone. The people are in exile and surrounded by enemies, and for these reasons, Jeremiah is terrified. But there’s more. The word that God gives Jeremiah to speak is an unpleasant one. As we heard in tonight’s reading, Jeremiah will “pluck up, pull down, destroy, and overthrow” before he says one thing of God’s intention to build up and plant once again. In other words, Jeremiah’s message to suffering, hurting, exiled Israel is that their present problems are the result of their own unfaithfulness. In other words, what God wants Jeremiah to tell Israel is this: “it’s your fault. You did this to yourselves.” Well, Jeremiah knows that God’s people aren’t going to react too well to his sermon. I mean, imagine coming to church when your life is in the crapper and hearing me tell you that you that it’s your own freaking fault. I’d be a worried to preach that sermon, but to say that Jeremiah is worried would be the understatement of the year. Jeremiah is terrified.
But is Jeremiah the only one? Perhaps we have never had our homes burned and our land conquered, but who among us is unaware that we still live in a world where such things happen? War, famine, pestilence, and genocide are the realities that characterize life for many in our world, not to mention the millions displaced each year by natural disasters. Of course we may be shielded from someone else tearing our homes and families apart, but many of us have experienced homes and families torn apart from the inside. We live in a world where the gentle art of being kind and thoughtful, sensitive and generous are going out of fashion. Homelessness has become a metaphor for many people in our generation. Many of us feel uprooted, uncertain about the future, fearful in the present, and guilty about the past. And so no – I’m not so sure that Jeremiah is the only one to feel this way. We too know what it means to be terrified. I don’t care who we are, we all have those moments – those moments when we’re terrified that God isn’t really big enough to take care of us; when we’re terrified that we are not really safe in God’s hands; when we’re terrified that God has left us, or was never with us, and that we have to fend for ourselves. We too know what it means to be terrified.
Well, in the midst of Jeremiah’s fear comes the command of the Living God. “Do not be afraid, for I am with you to deliver you. Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you, and before you were born, I consecrated you.” In other words, God’s word to Jeremiah is “be strong. Be courageous. I actually know what I’m doing here. You can trust me Jeremiah, for I am with you.” So Jeremiah does. Jeremiah courageously carries out God’s call for his life and you know what, he never sees outward success. In fact, because he makes Israel come to terms with their own sins, Jeremiah is viewed as a traitor, and over the course of his life, Jeremiah experiences a whole lot of pain – he’s beaten, put in stocks, imprisoned, and is thrown into a pit from which he could not escape.
Does this mean that Jeremiah fails, or that God is wrong? Of course not. You see, Christians need look no farther than the cross to know the paradox of God’s power. Not only is God able but God delights in bringing about unimaginable good from unspeakable evil. At one point in the book of Jeremiah God says to Israel, “I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future.” In other words, the purposes of God, though mysterious, are beyond our wildest dreams. The purposes of God are far greater and magnificent than what we see, feel, perceive, and sense. The purposes of God bring good out of evil and life out of death. God is with Jeremiah when he is beaten, put in stocks, imprisoned, and thrown into a pit, and the promise of God’s presence is what enables Jeremiah to trust God until the day that he dies. Jeremiah experiences difficulty and hardship and perhaps more than his fair share of fear. But Jeremiah is not paralyzed by fear. When fear arrives as a thief, Jeremiah remembers God’s promise. Do not be afraid, for I am with you. God is with Jeremiah in the midst of his pain and Jeremiah knows, he trusts it, and he owns it.
But is Jeremiah the only one that God promises to be with? When God becomes human in the person of Jesus, do you remember the words of the angel? “And they shall name him Emmanuel, which means, God is with us.” Or after Jesus rises from the dead, do you remember his final words spoken to his disciples? “I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” The same word God speaks to Jeremiah God speaks to each of us. “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you. And before you were born, I consecrated you.” “I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you, and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”
C.S. Lewis once made the following statement. “People do not need to be instructed. They need to be reminded.” Tonight we can all be reminded that God really is big enough to take care of us. Tonight we can all be reminded that we really are safe in God’s hands. Tonight we can all be reminded that God has acted through the person of Jesus to restore all things to Himself, and that because of God’s initiative we do not need to fend for ourselves. Finally, in light of these truths, we can all be reminded of our God’s most frequent command to His frightened children. Do not be afraid.
“Do not be afraid, for I am with you to deliver you. Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you, and before you were born, I consecrated you.”
I want to begin tonight’s sermon with a little trivia. I am going to ask a question that I’d like each of you to answer, preferably not out loud. What would you guess is the most common command in Scripture? From Genesis to Revelation, what is the most frequent non-optional statement made by God to God’s chosen people? I’ll give you a few seconds. Did you guess to be more loving? Even though loving is God’s goal for human life and existence, the command to love is not God’s most frequent instruction. Perhaps you guessed to be more humble? After all, theologians insist that pride is at the root of all sin, but oddly enough, the Bible’s most frequent imperative says nothing about gaining humility. Did your guess involve words like money or sex or honesty? If so your guess was wrong. The command in Scripture that occurs more frequently than any other command is summed up in four simple words. Do not be afraid.
Now, why does God command us not to fear? After all, fear doesn’t seem like the most harmful emotion or vice in the world, and last time I checked, fear wasn’t on the list of Seven Deadly sins. So why does God command those with whom He is in relationship to not be afraid so frequently? The answer is actually pretty simple. Fear is the number one reason that we fail to trust God. Behind every act of disobedience is fear. When we don’t trust God, it’s because we’re afraid.
Now, I want to be clear. Fear isn’t always bad. Fear is merely an internal warning cry that danger is nearby, which urges us to act. Fear can be quite good, like when a child fears touching a hot stove or when a person fears the consequences of driving drunk. But the problem is that for most of us, fear arrives as a thief. It breaks into our lives when we least expect it. And the fear we often experience is neither helpful nor wanted and we often fear things that pose no ultimate threat to us. And because of that fear can easily become paralyzing instead of motivating, habitual instead of sporadic. In fact, we have a name for people habitually paralyzed by fear. We call them worriers, and people that constantly worry have a difficult time trusting God. And it’s for this reason that God’s most frequent command is “do not be afraid.”
In today’s Old Testament lesson, we encounter a terrified young man named Jeremiah that lived around 600 BC, who according to our text is only a boy. And this boy is terrified. Here's why: First, Jeremiah and his fellow Israelites are going through a tough and painful time. The Babylonians have conquered their capital and the whole nation is in ruin. Cities are destroyed, hopes are dashed, and faith in the goodness of God is gone. The people are in exile and surrounded by enemies, and for these reasons, Jeremiah is terrified. But there’s more. The word that God gives Jeremiah to speak is an unpleasant one. As we heard in tonight’s reading, Jeremiah will “pluck up, pull down, destroy, and overthrow” before he says one thing of God’s intention to build up and plant once again. In other words, Jeremiah’s message to suffering, hurting, exiled Israel is that their present problems are the result of their own unfaithfulness. In other words, what God wants Jeremiah to tell Israel is this: “it’s your fault. You did this to yourselves.” Well, Jeremiah knows that God’s people aren’t going to react too well to his sermon. I mean, imagine coming to church when your life is in the crapper and hearing me tell you that you that it’s your own freaking fault. I’d be a worried to preach that sermon, but to say that Jeremiah is worried would be the understatement of the year. Jeremiah is terrified.
But is Jeremiah the only one? Perhaps we have never had our homes burned and our land conquered, but who among us is unaware that we still live in a world where such things happen? War, famine, pestilence, and genocide are the realities that characterize life for many in our world, not to mention the millions displaced each year by natural disasters. Of course we may be shielded from someone else tearing our homes and families apart, but many of us have experienced homes and families torn apart from the inside. We live in a world where the gentle art of being kind and thoughtful, sensitive and generous are going out of fashion. Homelessness has become a metaphor for many people in our generation. Many of us feel uprooted, uncertain about the future, fearful in the present, and guilty about the past. And so no – I’m not so sure that Jeremiah is the only one to feel this way. We too know what it means to be terrified. I don’t care who we are, we all have those moments – those moments when we’re terrified that God isn’t really big enough to take care of us; when we’re terrified that we are not really safe in God’s hands; when we’re terrified that God has left us, or was never with us, and that we have to fend for ourselves. We too know what it means to be terrified.
Well, in the midst of Jeremiah’s fear comes the command of the Living God. “Do not be afraid, for I am with you to deliver you. Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you, and before you were born, I consecrated you.” In other words, God’s word to Jeremiah is “be strong. Be courageous. I actually know what I’m doing here. You can trust me Jeremiah, for I am with you.” So Jeremiah does. Jeremiah courageously carries out God’s call for his life and you know what, he never sees outward success. In fact, because he makes Israel come to terms with their own sins, Jeremiah is viewed as a traitor, and over the course of his life, Jeremiah experiences a whole lot of pain – he’s beaten, put in stocks, imprisoned, and is thrown into a pit from which he could not escape.
Does this mean that Jeremiah fails, or that God is wrong? Of course not. You see, Christians need look no farther than the cross to know the paradox of God’s power. Not only is God able but God delights in bringing about unimaginable good from unspeakable evil. At one point in the book of Jeremiah God says to Israel, “I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future.” In other words, the purposes of God, though mysterious, are beyond our wildest dreams. The purposes of God are far greater and magnificent than what we see, feel, perceive, and sense. The purposes of God bring good out of evil and life out of death. God is with Jeremiah when he is beaten, put in stocks, imprisoned, and thrown into a pit, and the promise of God’s presence is what enables Jeremiah to trust God until the day that he dies. Jeremiah experiences difficulty and hardship and perhaps more than his fair share of fear. But Jeremiah is not paralyzed by fear. When fear arrives as a thief, Jeremiah remembers God’s promise. Do not be afraid, for I am with you. God is with Jeremiah in the midst of his pain and Jeremiah knows, he trusts it, and he owns it.
But is Jeremiah the only one that God promises to be with? When God becomes human in the person of Jesus, do you remember the words of the angel? “And they shall name him Emmanuel, which means, God is with us.” Or after Jesus rises from the dead, do you remember his final words spoken to his disciples? “I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” The same word God speaks to Jeremiah God speaks to each of us. “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you. And before you were born, I consecrated you.” “I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you, and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”
C.S. Lewis once made the following statement. “People do not need to be instructed. They need to be reminded.” Tonight we can all be reminded that God really is big enough to take care of us. Tonight we can all be reminded that we really are safe in God’s hands. Tonight we can all be reminded that God has acted through the person of Jesus to restore all things to Himself, and that because of God’s initiative we do not need to fend for ourselves. Finally, in light of these truths, we can all be reminded of our God’s most frequent command to His frightened children. Do not be afraid.
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
pigsty people, micah and intro (omega)
pigsty people (micah & intro)
Why the prophets? Why spend an entire semester reading the prophets, learning the prophets, hearing the message of the prophets?
Here’s why …
(play horrible version of amazing grace CD)
This person is obviously singing off key – and not just a little off key either. He sounds like a tortured rhinoceros. I’m not trying to make fun of this man, and to be honest I’m not much better. But to the question of why the prophets, this is my answer.
Now, we all know this guy is an awful singer. On that, we can all agree. But I invite you to imagine a world where everyone sang like him. Where his version of Amazing Grace was the only version that you had ever heard? Let me ask you this – would you still know that he was a bad singer?
I don’t think you would, because the reason you know that his version of Amazing Grace is bad, the reason you know it is off pitch, the reason it was painful to listen, is because you’ve heard Amazing Grace done well, because you know what Amazing Grace is supposed to sound like.
That’s why we need the prophets. In an off-pitch world, they remind us what Amazing Grace is supposed to sound like.
Here’s another example. Imagine being forced to live in a pigsty. What do you think the first ten minutes would be like? Imagine the rotten stench, the putrid sensation invading your nostrils. You gasp. You cover your nose with your shirt, but the horrible smell just won’t go away and you think to yourself, “I can’t do this. I cannot live in a pigsty. I cannot tolerate this smell.”
But let’s say a week does by. Are you still in agony?
No. Did the smell go away? No, the smell is still there. The difference is you – you have adjusted. You don’t notice the smell anymore. In fact, after a while you start enjoying the smell. And before you know it, you’re slopping around happy as a pig.
That’s why we need the prophets. In a stinky world, prophets remind us what a fragrant odor is supposed to smell like.
Sin is like a pigsty. With time the sinful practices that surround us deaden our heart’s sense of smell. The world stinks, but we don’t notice the smell. We don’t see the consequences. We don’t get what the “big deal” is. But then along comes a prophet whose mission is to shake us, to wake us, and to help us realize that something stinks.
Sin is like a bad version of Amazing Grace, where humanity is singing out of tune with God’s plan. But then along comes a prophet, who sees what God sees, who hears what God hears, who feels what God feels. That’s all a prophet is – someone that knows the heart of God and then tells us how to get our lives back in tune.
Now, I’m going to warn you – prophets are strange, at times they seem harsh, and if I imitated their behavior I would lose my job and get thrown into jail. For example, Hosea married a prostitute to let the people of Israel know that their infidelity broke God’s heart. Ezekiel cooked a meal over his own excrement to show the people how unclean they had become. Jeremiah preached while holding a dirty pair of underwear to symbolize how disgusting Israel’s behavior was. Isaiah preached naked for three years. And so be warned. Prophets are strange.
But we desperately need their witness because you and I see the world through a very narrow lens. If our needs are met, we tend to think that the world is a pretty good place. And when everything seems great in our own lives it’s really easy to walk right past the things that break God’s heart and to not even notice. A prophet’s job is to make us notice.
For example, we hear about war but because it’s been going on for years we get numb. We tell a white lie and then find comfort in knowing that everyone else does it too. We gossip about a friend and don’t feel guilty, our rationale being “what he doesn’t know won’t hurt him.” We see the homeless and convince ourselves that they’re lazy. We get so wrapped up in our own comfort that we forget the needs of the poor and the outcast.
Our problem isn’t that we don’t understand – that we don’t know war is bad or homelessness is bad. Our problem is that we don’t feel. We’re in the pigsty and we don’t think it smells. We even have sayings that help us deal with the reality of the pigsty. “Such is life.” “That’s just the way the cookie crumbles.” But then along comes a prophet screaming, “that is not life DAMMIT! The cookie is not supposed to crumble that way!”
There’s a verse in the book of Micah that sums up why we need the prophets so badly. It’s Micah 2:11, which says “If a lying prophet says to you ‘I’ll preach about the joys of wine’ that’s the kind of prophet you would like!” Does wine make you more relaxed or less relaxed? More relaxed. Micah is saying that our preference is to live in a state of spiritual inebriation. We don’t want to notice. We don’t want to feel. We don’t want to hear about all of the pain in the world and so we love lying prophets that makes us more comfortable and more relaxed. The only problem is that real prophets speak the words of God. And the funny thing about the truth – it convicts us, makes us uncomfortable, and challenges us to act.
The greatest feedback I’ve ever gotten from a sermon was this, and it’s an exact quote. “After listening to your sermon I’ve decided that I’m no longer a Christian and that I will not be coming back to church.” Don’t get me wrong. It broke my heart that she walked away from the faith. As a Christian I was brokenhearted, but as a preacher I knew that I had said something true. And there’s something about the truth that makes us uncomfortable and forces us to decide. That’s why we need the prophets. They snatch away our wine glass and force us to decide.
With the time we have left, to prepare us for a semester with the prophets, I want to look briefly at Micah. Listen to a reading from Micah 6. This is one of those passages that answers the question of human existence. And that question is this – what does God require? What does God want from us?
With what shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before God on high? Shall I come before him with burnt-offerings, with calves a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with tens of thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?’ He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you, but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?
What does God really want from me? What can I bring to God? Micah begins by forming a list of possible answers.
Shall I come with a burnt offering? Notice, Micah starts small. A burnt offering could be a pigeon or a dove, which anyone could afford. But God doesn’t want something so small. God wants more.
Shall I come with calves a year old? Calves were expensive and would be very generous. But most families couldn’t afford this kind of offering. And so Micah goes bigger.
Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams? Only a king would have access to thousands of rams. Such an offering would be beyond imagination, but notice – Micah keeps going which means that God would not be pleased with thousands of Rams.
Will the Lord be pleased with tens of thousands of rivers of oil? Rivers of oil would be great. The only problem is, they don’t exist. That’s like asking if God would be pleased with a thousand golden unicorns. Tens of thousands of rivers of oil is like offering infinity plus infinity. And yet even if that could be offered, God would not be pleased.
Shall I offer my firstborn for my transgression? Micah knows that God abhors human sacrifice. But this is Micah’s way of pushing the question to the limits – the question of course being, what does God really want from me?
“He wants you to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God.” In other words, God wants us. He wants our hearts and our lives fully submitted to Him. Do justice. Love kindness. Walk humbly with God.
DO JUSTICE
Justice is funny. We hate it when we’re treated unfairly. When wronged we demand justice. Our problem is that we live with a double standard. We’re passionate about justice when it comes to us, but we forget to extend justice to others. Micah tells us to “do justice.” In other words, we should be just as energized over the injustices that other people suffer as we are over the injustices that we suffer.
LOVE KINDNESS
The Hebrew word for kindness is hesed. Hesed is a word that can’t be translated. It has to do with the way that God feels and acts towards the people with whom He’s in relationship. Hesed is a combination of mercy and kindness and love and faithfulness, but it’s tied to this idea of a covenant relationship with God. To love kindness is to love the kindness that God lavishes on us so much that we extend that same kindness to others.
WALK HUMBLY
It’s hard to be a prophet and not get a little self-righteous. There’s a huge theological difference between demanding justice and being a jerk. To walk humbly with God is to live a life of love. You see, what burns most deeply in the heart of a true prophet isn’t anger but love, because the heart of a prophet is in sync with the heart of God and God’s heart beats with love. A prophet’s anger is always an expression of a much deeper love. Prophets never forget that they too are sinful, that they too need grace, and that they too need to walk in humility before God.
I’d like to end with a story that I heard read about a boy named John. At the age of five, John was diagnosed with a cruel form of Muscular Dystrophy, which would eventually destroy every muscle in his body, and after about ten years, take his life. Each year John lost something – his ability to run, to walk without support, and eventually to stand. The most difficult time of John’s life was junior high because his classmates were cruel. John was bullied so much and humiliated so much that he hated going to school. But no one ever stood up for him. No one ever said a word. John didn’t have any friends. His life was very painful and lonely.
Well, one year John got a break. He was named the ambassador for Muscular Dystrophy in the state of California and was invited to a high profile charity dinner and auction. Athletes were there. Celebrities were there. John was there.
When the auction began, there was one item that really grabbed John’s attention – a basketball signed by the Sacramento Kings. John got carried away and started bidding on it, but because his family was poor, John’s mom restrained him because she knew they just couldn’t afford it. But on went the bidding – higher and higher – that is until one man stood up and offered an amount that was so high it shocked the room. The bidding stopped. The man walked to the front to claim his prize, but instead of returning to his seat he walked across the room and placed that ball in John’s thin, frail hands.
That was a prophetic act. Why? Because it made people feel – it made people feel what God feels for John. When I read that story for the first time, it made my heart hurt in a way that it hadn’t in a long time.
And that’s why we need the prophets – because it’s a good thing for our hearts to hurt. Metaphorically speaking, it’s a good thing when someone takes our wine glass away and makes us feel the pain we’re trying so hard to numb. I mean, think about it. What a tragic thing it would be to live our entire lives in a pigsty and to never know that we stank.
Why the prophets? Why spend an entire semester reading the prophets, learning the prophets, hearing the message of the prophets?
Here’s why …
(play horrible version of amazing grace CD)
This person is obviously singing off key – and not just a little off key either. He sounds like a tortured rhinoceros. I’m not trying to make fun of this man, and to be honest I’m not much better. But to the question of why the prophets, this is my answer.
Now, we all know this guy is an awful singer. On that, we can all agree. But I invite you to imagine a world where everyone sang like him. Where his version of Amazing Grace was the only version that you had ever heard? Let me ask you this – would you still know that he was a bad singer?
I don’t think you would, because the reason you know that his version of Amazing Grace is bad, the reason you know it is off pitch, the reason it was painful to listen, is because you’ve heard Amazing Grace done well, because you know what Amazing Grace is supposed to sound like.
That’s why we need the prophets. In an off-pitch world, they remind us what Amazing Grace is supposed to sound like.
Here’s another example. Imagine being forced to live in a pigsty. What do you think the first ten minutes would be like? Imagine the rotten stench, the putrid sensation invading your nostrils. You gasp. You cover your nose with your shirt, but the horrible smell just won’t go away and you think to yourself, “I can’t do this. I cannot live in a pigsty. I cannot tolerate this smell.”
But let’s say a week does by. Are you still in agony?
No. Did the smell go away? No, the smell is still there. The difference is you – you have adjusted. You don’t notice the smell anymore. In fact, after a while you start enjoying the smell. And before you know it, you’re slopping around happy as a pig.
That’s why we need the prophets. In a stinky world, prophets remind us what a fragrant odor is supposed to smell like.
Sin is like a pigsty. With time the sinful practices that surround us deaden our heart’s sense of smell. The world stinks, but we don’t notice the smell. We don’t see the consequences. We don’t get what the “big deal” is. But then along comes a prophet whose mission is to shake us, to wake us, and to help us realize that something stinks.
Sin is like a bad version of Amazing Grace, where humanity is singing out of tune with God’s plan. But then along comes a prophet, who sees what God sees, who hears what God hears, who feels what God feels. That’s all a prophet is – someone that knows the heart of God and then tells us how to get our lives back in tune.
Now, I’m going to warn you – prophets are strange, at times they seem harsh, and if I imitated their behavior I would lose my job and get thrown into jail. For example, Hosea married a prostitute to let the people of Israel know that their infidelity broke God’s heart. Ezekiel cooked a meal over his own excrement to show the people how unclean they had become. Jeremiah preached while holding a dirty pair of underwear to symbolize how disgusting Israel’s behavior was. Isaiah preached naked for three years. And so be warned. Prophets are strange.
But we desperately need their witness because you and I see the world through a very narrow lens. If our needs are met, we tend to think that the world is a pretty good place. And when everything seems great in our own lives it’s really easy to walk right past the things that break God’s heart and to not even notice. A prophet’s job is to make us notice.
For example, we hear about war but because it’s been going on for years we get numb. We tell a white lie and then find comfort in knowing that everyone else does it too. We gossip about a friend and don’t feel guilty, our rationale being “what he doesn’t know won’t hurt him.” We see the homeless and convince ourselves that they’re lazy. We get so wrapped up in our own comfort that we forget the needs of the poor and the outcast.
Our problem isn’t that we don’t understand – that we don’t know war is bad or homelessness is bad. Our problem is that we don’t feel. We’re in the pigsty and we don’t think it smells. We even have sayings that help us deal with the reality of the pigsty. “Such is life.” “That’s just the way the cookie crumbles.” But then along comes a prophet screaming, “that is not life DAMMIT! The cookie is not supposed to crumble that way!”
There’s a verse in the book of Micah that sums up why we need the prophets so badly. It’s Micah 2:11, which says “If a lying prophet says to you ‘I’ll preach about the joys of wine’ that’s the kind of prophet you would like!” Does wine make you more relaxed or less relaxed? More relaxed. Micah is saying that our preference is to live in a state of spiritual inebriation. We don’t want to notice. We don’t want to feel. We don’t want to hear about all of the pain in the world and so we love lying prophets that makes us more comfortable and more relaxed. The only problem is that real prophets speak the words of God. And the funny thing about the truth – it convicts us, makes us uncomfortable, and challenges us to act.
The greatest feedback I’ve ever gotten from a sermon was this, and it’s an exact quote. “After listening to your sermon I’ve decided that I’m no longer a Christian and that I will not be coming back to church.” Don’t get me wrong. It broke my heart that she walked away from the faith. As a Christian I was brokenhearted, but as a preacher I knew that I had said something true. And there’s something about the truth that makes us uncomfortable and forces us to decide. That’s why we need the prophets. They snatch away our wine glass and force us to decide.
With the time we have left, to prepare us for a semester with the prophets, I want to look briefly at Micah. Listen to a reading from Micah 6. This is one of those passages that answers the question of human existence. And that question is this – what does God require? What does God want from us?
With what shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before God on high? Shall I come before him with burnt-offerings, with calves a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with tens of thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?’ He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you, but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?
What does God really want from me? What can I bring to God? Micah begins by forming a list of possible answers.
Shall I come with a burnt offering? Notice, Micah starts small. A burnt offering could be a pigeon or a dove, which anyone could afford. But God doesn’t want something so small. God wants more.
Shall I come with calves a year old? Calves were expensive and would be very generous. But most families couldn’t afford this kind of offering. And so Micah goes bigger.
Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams? Only a king would have access to thousands of rams. Such an offering would be beyond imagination, but notice – Micah keeps going which means that God would not be pleased with thousands of Rams.
Will the Lord be pleased with tens of thousands of rivers of oil? Rivers of oil would be great. The only problem is, they don’t exist. That’s like asking if God would be pleased with a thousand golden unicorns. Tens of thousands of rivers of oil is like offering infinity plus infinity. And yet even if that could be offered, God would not be pleased.
Shall I offer my firstborn for my transgression? Micah knows that God abhors human sacrifice. But this is Micah’s way of pushing the question to the limits – the question of course being, what does God really want from me?
“He wants you to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God.” In other words, God wants us. He wants our hearts and our lives fully submitted to Him. Do justice. Love kindness. Walk humbly with God.
DO JUSTICE
Justice is funny. We hate it when we’re treated unfairly. When wronged we demand justice. Our problem is that we live with a double standard. We’re passionate about justice when it comes to us, but we forget to extend justice to others. Micah tells us to “do justice.” In other words, we should be just as energized over the injustices that other people suffer as we are over the injustices that we suffer.
LOVE KINDNESS
The Hebrew word for kindness is hesed. Hesed is a word that can’t be translated. It has to do with the way that God feels and acts towards the people with whom He’s in relationship. Hesed is a combination of mercy and kindness and love and faithfulness, but it’s tied to this idea of a covenant relationship with God. To love kindness is to love the kindness that God lavishes on us so much that we extend that same kindness to others.
WALK HUMBLY
It’s hard to be a prophet and not get a little self-righteous. There’s a huge theological difference between demanding justice and being a jerk. To walk humbly with God is to live a life of love. You see, what burns most deeply in the heart of a true prophet isn’t anger but love, because the heart of a prophet is in sync with the heart of God and God’s heart beats with love. A prophet’s anger is always an expression of a much deeper love. Prophets never forget that they too are sinful, that they too need grace, and that they too need to walk in humility before God.
I’d like to end with a story that I heard read about a boy named John. At the age of five, John was diagnosed with a cruel form of Muscular Dystrophy, which would eventually destroy every muscle in his body, and after about ten years, take his life. Each year John lost something – his ability to run, to walk without support, and eventually to stand. The most difficult time of John’s life was junior high because his classmates were cruel. John was bullied so much and humiliated so much that he hated going to school. But no one ever stood up for him. No one ever said a word. John didn’t have any friends. His life was very painful and lonely.
Well, one year John got a break. He was named the ambassador for Muscular Dystrophy in the state of California and was invited to a high profile charity dinner and auction. Athletes were there. Celebrities were there. John was there.
When the auction began, there was one item that really grabbed John’s attention – a basketball signed by the Sacramento Kings. John got carried away and started bidding on it, but because his family was poor, John’s mom restrained him because she knew they just couldn’t afford it. But on went the bidding – higher and higher – that is until one man stood up and offered an amount that was so high it shocked the room. The bidding stopped. The man walked to the front to claim his prize, but instead of returning to his seat he walked across the room and placed that ball in John’s thin, frail hands.
That was a prophetic act. Why? Because it made people feel – it made people feel what God feels for John. When I read that story for the first time, it made my heart hurt in a way that it hadn’t in a long time.
And that’s why we need the prophets – because it’s a good thing for our hearts to hurt. Metaphorically speaking, it’s a good thing when someone takes our wine glass away and makes us feel the pain we’re trying so hard to numb. I mean, think about it. What a tragic thing it would be to live our entire lives in a pigsty and to never know that we stank.
Sunday, January 24, 2010
to let the oppressed go free
Luke 4: 14-21
"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor, … to proclaim release to the captives and, … to let the oppressed go free.”
About a week ago I got a text message from a friend that said, “You’re sick, dude. I hope the people at your church can’t see your facebook page.” As I began to ponder what he could possibly mean, my phone rang. Another friend had questions about my facebook activity as well. “Why,” he wondered, “Would I ever think that it was okay to become a fan of the dead babies club?” Well, I started freaking out and couldn’t log onto facebook because my password had been changed, and so I knew immediately that my account had been hacked. And for the next three hours or so, my phone would not stop ringing – friend after friend with question after question about things I apparently posted on people’s walls. “Why’d you tell Ben that dogs ate his brother? Why’d you tell Christy that Darth Vader was going to kill you? Why are you dating an 87 yr. old man? I have to say, this experience made me feel like a prisoner – like I was powerless and out of control. An evil villain was holding me captive– reeking havoc on my life – and there was nothing I could do. I felt like a prisoner.
Now obviously, I’m only being half-serious. In the grand scheme of things, having your facebook hacked isn’t that big of a deal. But the panic we feel when confronted with injustice – the feeling of captivity that comes with being powerless and out of control – that is real. And the reason it’s real is because that feeling of captivity tells us something about how the world should be. All I have to do is mention Hitler or 9/11 or that devastating earthquake in Haiti, and pretty soon we start shaking our heads and thinking, “that’s not right. Things are supposed to be different. We need to fix that.” But then, we realize we can’t – that we’re powerless and out of control – that we’re held captive by the forces of evil or chance or circumstance – and that, that makes us feel like prisoners.
In order to understand today’s Gospel, and the hope that Jesus offers, there’s something we have to understand first. The people in that synagogue that Jesus preached to also felt like prisoners – they felt like captives on this earth – and I can think of at least three reasons for that. First, they were a conquered people. The Romans ruled over them and the Israelites felt imprisoned by their presence and their politics. Second, as devout Jews, they yearned for personal holiness and found that they couldn’t attain it. To quote psalm 51, “I was born guilty, a sinner from my mother’s womb.” I’m pretty sure that sums up how they felt. They wanted to love God. They wanted to follow God’s law perfectly, but just couldn’t do it, and this inability to be holy made them feel like prisoners. Finally, and I don’t know how else to say this, but they had a problem with the whole “natural disaster thing.” You see their belief was that the entire creation was imprisoned – that all of creation needed to be set free. And so earthquakes and storms, the scorching heat and the bitter cold, even animals hunting and killing each other, these were all thought of as part of a world that needed to be set free. And so that’s the first thing we need to understand – the people in today’s Gospel felt like prisoners.
But there’s something else we need to understand. Not only did Jesus’ audience feel like prisoners, but their hope – their faith – was that God would act in a mighty way in order to set them free. In other words, they weren’t okay with the status quo. There was no Hebrew equivalent of “c’est la vie” or “that’s just how the cookie crumbles” because they hungered for a better world. And so they prayed for it, expected it, wrote about it, and were actively waiting for this new world to arrive. And perhaps more so than anyone else, the prophet Isaiah championed this belief that a new world was on its way – that a time was coming when God would anoint someone to set them free. And prophets like Isaiah called this person the Messiah, which is a Hebrew word meaning “one who is anointed.” And so to recap, lesson #1 they felt like prisoners. Lesson #2 they longed for a Messiah – or an anointed one – to finally set them free.
Ok, now we can look at today’s Gospel, which is actually the beginning of Jesus’ ministry in the Gospel of Luke. You might even say that today we hear Jesus’ mission statement. His manifesto. His public declaration of who he is and what he came to do. And to recap, this is what Jesus declares. “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed ME to bring good news to the poor, to proclaim release to the captives, and to let the oppressed go free.” For a people that felt imprisoned, for a people that yearned for freedom, for a people that expected a Messiah, Jesus is speaking words of hope – the “Lord has anointed ME.” I’m here to set you free. I’m here to set the entire creation free. I’m in control. I’m here to fix things. The Lord has anointed ME.
Now, I doubt that you need me to stand here tonight and tell you that all isn’t well with the world – that you know, deep down, that things are supposed to be different. Because in our heart of hearts, like the people Jesus was preaching to, each one of us hungers for a unified world – for a world where societies are fair, where everyone prospers, where tectonic plates don’t shift and cause earthquakes, and where people not only know the right thing to do, but where they actually do it. In our heart of hearts, we all hunger for a unified world. For unified lives. For a world that is free.
The good news of the Christian Gospel is that Jesus came to bring freedom. To quote the apostle Paul “for freedom Christ has set us free” (Gal 5:1). To quote Peter, “live as free people” (1 Pet 2:16). To quote Jesus, “I’ve come to let the oppressed go free.” You see, the miracle of the Gospel is that Jesus himself was imprisoned – not in a cell but on a cross – and that he was intentionally taken captive so that you and I could be free.
You and I are free. We may still struggle with sin and fear and sickness. But make no mistake we are free now because we know that a day is coming when Jesus will set the entire creation free, when as Revelation puts it, “death will be no more,” or as the prophet Isaiah puts it, when the “lion will lie down with the lamb.” We are free because Jesus lives to make all things new.
And so as you go into the world this week, you may have a moment or two or twelve when you feel powerless and out of control. But I’ve got great news for you. You are. You are powerless. You’re not in control. But you know what, that’s okay because Jesus is in control. And Jesus’ power is so great that He’s made death his prisoner. And because of that you and I are free.
And so here’s the question I leave us with this week. Jesus lives to make all things new. What are we living for? You see in baptism we too were anointed. The priest took some oil, made the sign of the cross on our head, and marked us as Christ’s own forever. In baptism we were anointed. Now, I’m not saying that we’re the Anointed One. That’s still Jesus. But I am saying that we are anointed ones- that we are mini-messiahs, that the Spirit of the Lord is also upon us and that our great purpose in life is to join Jesus in His mission is to bring good news to the poor. To proclaim release to the captives. To let the oppressed go free.
"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor, … to proclaim release to the captives and, … to let the oppressed go free.”
About a week ago I got a text message from a friend that said, “You’re sick, dude. I hope the people at your church can’t see your facebook page.” As I began to ponder what he could possibly mean, my phone rang. Another friend had questions about my facebook activity as well. “Why,” he wondered, “Would I ever think that it was okay to become a fan of the dead babies club?” Well, I started freaking out and couldn’t log onto facebook because my password had been changed, and so I knew immediately that my account had been hacked. And for the next three hours or so, my phone would not stop ringing – friend after friend with question after question about things I apparently posted on people’s walls. “Why’d you tell Ben that dogs ate his brother? Why’d you tell Christy that Darth Vader was going to kill you? Why are you dating an 87 yr. old man? I have to say, this experience made me feel like a prisoner – like I was powerless and out of control. An evil villain was holding me captive– reeking havoc on my life – and there was nothing I could do. I felt like a prisoner.
Now obviously, I’m only being half-serious. In the grand scheme of things, having your facebook hacked isn’t that big of a deal. But the panic we feel when confronted with injustice – the feeling of captivity that comes with being powerless and out of control – that is real. And the reason it’s real is because that feeling of captivity tells us something about how the world should be. All I have to do is mention Hitler or 9/11 or that devastating earthquake in Haiti, and pretty soon we start shaking our heads and thinking, “that’s not right. Things are supposed to be different. We need to fix that.” But then, we realize we can’t – that we’re powerless and out of control – that we’re held captive by the forces of evil or chance or circumstance – and that, that makes us feel like prisoners.
In order to understand today’s Gospel, and the hope that Jesus offers, there’s something we have to understand first. The people in that synagogue that Jesus preached to also felt like prisoners – they felt like captives on this earth – and I can think of at least three reasons for that. First, they were a conquered people. The Romans ruled over them and the Israelites felt imprisoned by their presence and their politics. Second, as devout Jews, they yearned for personal holiness and found that they couldn’t attain it. To quote psalm 51, “I was born guilty, a sinner from my mother’s womb.” I’m pretty sure that sums up how they felt. They wanted to love God. They wanted to follow God’s law perfectly, but just couldn’t do it, and this inability to be holy made them feel like prisoners. Finally, and I don’t know how else to say this, but they had a problem with the whole “natural disaster thing.” You see their belief was that the entire creation was imprisoned – that all of creation needed to be set free. And so earthquakes and storms, the scorching heat and the bitter cold, even animals hunting and killing each other, these were all thought of as part of a world that needed to be set free. And so that’s the first thing we need to understand – the people in today’s Gospel felt like prisoners.
But there’s something else we need to understand. Not only did Jesus’ audience feel like prisoners, but their hope – their faith – was that God would act in a mighty way in order to set them free. In other words, they weren’t okay with the status quo. There was no Hebrew equivalent of “c’est la vie” or “that’s just how the cookie crumbles” because they hungered for a better world. And so they prayed for it, expected it, wrote about it, and were actively waiting for this new world to arrive. And perhaps more so than anyone else, the prophet Isaiah championed this belief that a new world was on its way – that a time was coming when God would anoint someone to set them free. And prophets like Isaiah called this person the Messiah, which is a Hebrew word meaning “one who is anointed.” And so to recap, lesson #1 they felt like prisoners. Lesson #2 they longed for a Messiah – or an anointed one – to finally set them free.
Ok, now we can look at today’s Gospel, which is actually the beginning of Jesus’ ministry in the Gospel of Luke. You might even say that today we hear Jesus’ mission statement. His manifesto. His public declaration of who he is and what he came to do. And to recap, this is what Jesus declares. “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed ME to bring good news to the poor, to proclaim release to the captives, and to let the oppressed go free.” For a people that felt imprisoned, for a people that yearned for freedom, for a people that expected a Messiah, Jesus is speaking words of hope – the “Lord has anointed ME.” I’m here to set you free. I’m here to set the entire creation free. I’m in control. I’m here to fix things. The Lord has anointed ME.
Now, I doubt that you need me to stand here tonight and tell you that all isn’t well with the world – that you know, deep down, that things are supposed to be different. Because in our heart of hearts, like the people Jesus was preaching to, each one of us hungers for a unified world – for a world where societies are fair, where everyone prospers, where tectonic plates don’t shift and cause earthquakes, and where people not only know the right thing to do, but where they actually do it. In our heart of hearts, we all hunger for a unified world. For unified lives. For a world that is free.
The good news of the Christian Gospel is that Jesus came to bring freedom. To quote the apostle Paul “for freedom Christ has set us free” (Gal 5:1). To quote Peter, “live as free people” (1 Pet 2:16). To quote Jesus, “I’ve come to let the oppressed go free.” You see, the miracle of the Gospel is that Jesus himself was imprisoned – not in a cell but on a cross – and that he was intentionally taken captive so that you and I could be free.
You and I are free. We may still struggle with sin and fear and sickness. But make no mistake we are free now because we know that a day is coming when Jesus will set the entire creation free, when as Revelation puts it, “death will be no more,” or as the prophet Isaiah puts it, when the “lion will lie down with the lamb.” We are free because Jesus lives to make all things new.
And so as you go into the world this week, you may have a moment or two or twelve when you feel powerless and out of control. But I’ve got great news for you. You are. You are powerless. You’re not in control. But you know what, that’s okay because Jesus is in control. And Jesus’ power is so great that He’s made death his prisoner. And because of that you and I are free.
And so here’s the question I leave us with this week. Jesus lives to make all things new. What are we living for? You see in baptism we too were anointed. The priest took some oil, made the sign of the cross on our head, and marked us as Christ’s own forever. In baptism we were anointed. Now, I’m not saying that we’re the Anointed One. That’s still Jesus. But I am saying that we are anointed ones- that we are mini-messiahs, that the Spirit of the Lord is also upon us and that our great purpose in life is to join Jesus in His mission is to bring good news to the poor. To proclaim release to the captives. To let the oppressed go free.
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