"And calling to him a child, he put him in the midst of them and said 'Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven." - Matthew 18:2-3
It is often said that as followers of Jesus we must have a "child-like faith". Sometimes this is taken to mean that we should have a child-like trust in God; just as a child must depend on their parents to provide for them, so we should depend upon God to provide for us. Other times "child-like faith" is interpreted as a kind of innocence. Still others might say this means our faith should be simple and not too complicated.
While there might be a number of ways we can compare our faith to the life of a child and some of those comparisons might even be instructive for our spiritual health, there is one aspect of children to which Jesus is drawing attention here; their lack of status.
Even in our own 21st century American culture, children are more or less powerless. They can not vote or hold political office. They usually do not have the means to acquire wealth or wield influence. And yet, they are at least recognized as people with certain rights. As a result, there are numerous laws to protect children from harm or abuse by those more powerful than them. By contrast, children in the first century Greco-Roman world had no such laws to protect them. They were essentially the property of their parents, equivalent to or of barely higher status than slaves, who could treat them however they pleased without any legal repercussions. It was not an uncommon practice for female babies to simply be abandoned to die because they were not seen as bringing any value to the family. In the ancient world, children had no rights, no power, no status.
It is in response to the disciples' question "Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?" that Jesus places a child in front of them and says that they must become like children. Then to make the point even more plain, in v.4 Jesus says "Whoever humbles himself like this child is greatest in the kingdom of heaven." Matthew doesn't tell us this story to show us that Jesus was good with kids or to call us to a simple, trusting, innocent faith. This is a point about Jesus' kingdom and those who participate in it. This is an upside down kingdom where the first are last, the least are greatest, and the crucified is king. When Jesus' calls us to child-like faith it is a call to humility, to emptying ourselves, to being a people of no status.
And Christian humility means much more than simply being modest (and certainly something other than having a low self-esteem). It means actively receiving, caring for, serving these "little ones". Jesus says in v. 5-6 "Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea." Obviously, "these little ones" refers to the children to which Jesus has just been referring. However, many scholars believe this might be a reference to "little ones" within the congregations to whom Matthew's gospel is addressed. In other words, Matthew is calling upon those in his churches to humble themselves to the point of caring not only for children but to humble themselves by caring for anyone who has been marginalized, anyone who is of low status like a child. Jesus says whoever receives these marginalized outcasts is receiving Jesus himself and whoever does not receive them would be better off being dragged to the bottom of the sea by a large stone! I think it is safe to say that Jesus means for us to take this admonition seriously.
Monday, May 30, 2011
Monday, May 16, 2011
The Way, The Truth, and The Life
"Jesus said to him, "I am the way and the truth and the life." - John 14:6
Some of the most well known words in the Bible. But what do they mean? If you had to put these words of Jesus into your own words, what would you say? I think for many people these words are synonymous with...
"Believe in Jesus and you'll go to heaven when you die."
or
"Christianity is the one true religion."
or
"If you don't live like Jesus then you are going to hell."
Before I say anything else, let me make a few things clear. I believe Jesus with all my being when he says that he is the way, the truth, and the life. I have committed my life to that belief. I believe heaven is real. I believe in the resurrection, the new creation, and the coming of the kingdom of God and longingly await them in hopeful expectation. I believe that something awful, whether we call it hell, Sheol, hades, the lake of fire, weeping and gnashing of teeth, or the second death awaits those who oppose Jesus and his kingdom. I believe it is only through Jesus that anyone can receive salvation. I believe Jesus is the image of the invisible God and that it is only through him that we can truly come to know God. I believe that the Church is the body of Christ in the world and that we are called to follow and imitate Jesus and that we are empowered by the Holy Spirit to do so.
But I also believe in nuance. I believe, not in making things unnecessarily complicated, but in appreciating inherent complexity when it is there. I believe in paying attention to what the writers of scripture actually said and paying attention to the context in which they said it. I believe in holding our doctrines, opinions, worldviews, and practices up to the Word of God and seeing where they need to be reformed rather than making Jesus' words fit into our preconceived notions. I believe that sometimes we think we know exactly what Jesus is saying so much so that we actually stop listening to his actual words and as a result we substitute our own thoughts where the Word of God should be.
So when Jesus says "I am the way and the truth and the life" I think it is important for us to hear what Jesus is actually saying as well as what he doesn't say. Jesus doesn't say Christianity is the way, the truth, and the life. He doesn't say that he came to bestow a new set of doctrines on us that will get us into heaven or four spiritual laws that will keep us out of hell. He does't say go to church and pay your tithe and live a good life and you'll be set for eternity. He says "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one come to the Father except through me" This is a statement about knowing Jesus himself, about being in relationship with Jesus, about being personally led by Jesus and thereby coming to know the God he calls "Father".
If somehow we make this into a statement about one particular religion over others then we are actually hearing the very opposite of what Jesus intends to say to us. Jesus isn't calling the disciples to a new religion but to a new relationship. He doesn't say "I'll show you way" but "I am the way". It's not "I'll teach you the truth." It's "I am the truth." He doesn't promise us the good life. He promises that he is the resurrection and the life. He is the good shepherd. He is the bread that came down from heaven. He is the light of the world. He is the true vine. Jesus is the one who reveals the nature and character of God, the heart of the Father to us.
It is this truth around which the rest of the conversation in John 14 revolves. In v.8, Philip says to Jesus "Lord show us the Father and it is enough for us." Jesus responds "Have I been with you so long and you still do not know me, Philip? How can you say 'Show us the Father.' Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me?" Jesus didn't come to establish a new religion or moral standard. He came to show us the Father in his own life, in his own person, his very existence in human flesh revealing God to us. The way is not a path but the guide. The truth is not the teaching but the teacher. The life is not a cure but the great physician himself. The way, the truth, and the life is not a thing, a practice, or a belief that can be possessed or mastered but a person, namely the person of Jesus Christ.
Some of the most well known words in the Bible. But what do they mean? If you had to put these words of Jesus into your own words, what would you say? I think for many people these words are synonymous with...
"Believe in Jesus and you'll go to heaven when you die."
or
"Christianity is the one true religion."
or
"If you don't live like Jesus then you are going to hell."
Before I say anything else, let me make a few things clear. I believe Jesus with all my being when he says that he is the way, the truth, and the life. I have committed my life to that belief. I believe heaven is real. I believe in the resurrection, the new creation, and the coming of the kingdom of God and longingly await them in hopeful expectation. I believe that something awful, whether we call it hell, Sheol, hades, the lake of fire, weeping and gnashing of teeth, or the second death awaits those who oppose Jesus and his kingdom. I believe it is only through Jesus that anyone can receive salvation. I believe Jesus is the image of the invisible God and that it is only through him that we can truly come to know God. I believe that the Church is the body of Christ in the world and that we are called to follow and imitate Jesus and that we are empowered by the Holy Spirit to do so.
But I also believe in nuance. I believe, not in making things unnecessarily complicated, but in appreciating inherent complexity when it is there. I believe in paying attention to what the writers of scripture actually said and paying attention to the context in which they said it. I believe in holding our doctrines, opinions, worldviews, and practices up to the Word of God and seeing where they need to be reformed rather than making Jesus' words fit into our preconceived notions. I believe that sometimes we think we know exactly what Jesus is saying so much so that we actually stop listening to his actual words and as a result we substitute our own thoughts where the Word of God should be.
So when Jesus says "I am the way and the truth and the life" I think it is important for us to hear what Jesus is actually saying as well as what he doesn't say. Jesus doesn't say Christianity is the way, the truth, and the life. He doesn't say that he came to bestow a new set of doctrines on us that will get us into heaven or four spiritual laws that will keep us out of hell. He does't say go to church and pay your tithe and live a good life and you'll be set for eternity. He says "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one come to the Father except through me" This is a statement about knowing Jesus himself, about being in relationship with Jesus, about being personally led by Jesus and thereby coming to know the God he calls "Father".
If somehow we make this into a statement about one particular religion over others then we are actually hearing the very opposite of what Jesus intends to say to us. Jesus isn't calling the disciples to a new religion but to a new relationship. He doesn't say "I'll show you way" but "I am the way". It's not "I'll teach you the truth." It's "I am the truth." He doesn't promise us the good life. He promises that he is the resurrection and the life. He is the good shepherd. He is the bread that came down from heaven. He is the light of the world. He is the true vine. Jesus is the one who reveals the nature and character of God, the heart of the Father to us.
It is this truth around which the rest of the conversation in John 14 revolves. In v.8, Philip says to Jesus "Lord show us the Father and it is enough for us." Jesus responds "Have I been with you so long and you still do not know me, Philip? How can you say 'Show us the Father.' Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me?" Jesus didn't come to establish a new religion or moral standard. He came to show us the Father in his own life, in his own person, his very existence in human flesh revealing God to us. The way is not a path but the guide. The truth is not the teaching but the teacher. The life is not a cure but the great physician himself. The way, the truth, and the life is not a thing, a practice, or a belief that can be possessed or mastered but a person, namely the person of Jesus Christ.
Monday, May 9, 2011
The Gate Is the Shepherd
In John 10, Jesus proclaims "I am the good shepherd." Clearly, this image would have had immediate significance to those who lived in the agrarian society of Jesus' day. All kinds of apt comparisons can and have been made throughout Christian history between the shepherd/sheep relationship and that of Jesus and his followers. However, it is important for us to recognize that when Jesus chooses to describe himself in this way, he is not pulling just any old metaphor out of the culture that surrounds him. He is using imagery that has been central to Israel's thinking about itself, its leaders, and its relationship with Yahweh.
Of course, Psalm 23 stands out with the well known "The Lord is my shepherd"; a reminder that God is ultimately the shepherd of his people. However, shepherding imagery was also used to describe the kings and priests of Israel. These leaders were meant to be God's shepherds of his people as well. In Jeremiah 23, God says through the prophet "Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture!". God promises to remove these shepherds and replace them with new ones who will care for his people. Again in Ezekiel 34, God accuses the shepherds of Israel of feeding themselves instead of feeding the sheep and of allowing the sheep to be carried off by wild beasts. Therefore, God promises to rescue his sheep from the very shepherds who are supposed to be rescuing them from these wild beasts.
Jesus' declaration "I am the good shepherd" is not only a metaphor drawn from agrarian society, nor is it only an image drawn from Israel's history. It is also said in response to the action of the Pharisees in John 9. Jesus statement in John 10 follows immediately on the heels of the story about a man who was born blind whom Jesus had healed. Throughout chapter 9, the Pharisees are trying to make sense of how it is that Jesus, whom they regard as a sinner, could possibly have healed this man's blindness. When the man who has been healed of his blindness refuses to change his story about Jesus, they cast him out of the synagogue.
It is easy for us to hear this story and regard the Pharisees and "the Jews" (John's name for those who oppose Jesus even though Jesus and all of his followers are Jewish as well) as legalistic. After all, John doesn't spare any trouble to paint them in an entirely negative light. However, we should recognize that the Pharisees are simply carrying out their role as Israel's shepherds. They didn't set out to be legalistic. (I've yet to hear anyone proclaim that as a personal life goal.) But they have heard those passage from Jeremiah and Ezekiel all their lives. As the religious leaders, the "pastors" of their day, they see themselves as the shepherds of Israel and they take that responsibility very seriously, as they should. After all, it was the shepherds of Israel whom God faulted for Israel's previous collapse when they were taken into exile. They are simply trying to avoid the mistakes of their ancestors by making sure that God's Law is lived out in Israel and that means casting false prophets (like Jesus) and their followers (like this blind man) out of their midst so that Israel may remain pure.
It is in response to these actions by the Pharisees that Jesus says "I am the good shepherd". Actually, Jesus uses two metaphors to describe himself in this chapter. He also says that he is the door or gate by which the sheep enter the fold. On one hand, we can see this as a very confusing mixture of metaphors. In one verse, Jesus is the gate and in another he is the shepherd. On the other hand, this mixture of metaphors is a very accurate theological depiction of Jesus; he is both the way into the flock and the one who leads and cares for the flock, both images are appropriate. In fact, Jesus may even be drawing on a common practice of the day in which the shepherd would lay down in the opening of the sheep pen, thereby actually serving as its gate. Either way, we have an image here of what Jesus says later in the Gospel of John: "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." The purpose of this statement is not to declare one religion better than every other. Its purpose is to say that the way to God is not a religion or a morality or a belief system or a set of practices; the way to God is a person; namely Jesus Christ. The gate is the shepherd. The way is a person. The essence of the Christian faith is nothing other than knowing, following, and being in relationship with the God made flesh in Jesus Christ and having our lives transformed by that relationship. All of our doctrines and practices only serve the greater purpose of guiding us in that relationship; they are not a replacement for the relationship itself.
The Pharisees mistake isn't that they are legalistic while Jesus is lenient. It is isn't that they take sin and holiness and the Law too seriously and that God doesn't really care much about those things any more. The Pharisees mistake is their failure to recognize that the Lord who is their shepherd is standing right in front of them in the person of Jesus. The religious leaders became so accustomed to functioning as shepherds and even gatekeepers that they forgot their own role as sheep. They were so busy "caring" for the sheep that they forgot to listen for the voice of their own shepherd and they eventually became so deaf to that voice that even when he stood among them they no longer recognized him as shepherd. Jesus proclamation of himself as the good shepherd is at least in part a challenge to the Pharisees to recognize that in their attempts to be good shepherds they have failed to be good sheep.
This is the danger for many life-long Christians as well. As we grow and mature in Christ, we are rightfully expected to take on roles of leadership and discipling others. We become shepherds to others in the faith. As we spend more time and energy teaching others the beliefs and practices of the Christian faith, we become accustomed to our role as shepherd, so much so though that we forget we are also sheep. In all the shepherding of others, there is a danger that we will fail to listen for the voice of our own shepherd and so eventually become deaf to the sound of his voice.
This is part of the beauty of Psalm 23. David is the shepherd of God's people. He is the king. He has reached the pinnacle of earthly power and he knows that it is God who has put him there. He knows he has been appointed by God as shepherd and yet he still says "the Lord is my shepherd". There is a recognition that even as the ultimate earthly shepherd he is still a sheep and there is still a higher shepherd for whose voice he must listen. As followers of Jesus, we are first and foremost a people who hear and follow the voice of our shepherd.
Of course, Psalm 23 stands out with the well known "The Lord is my shepherd"; a reminder that God is ultimately the shepherd of his people. However, shepherding imagery was also used to describe the kings and priests of Israel. These leaders were meant to be God's shepherds of his people as well. In Jeremiah 23, God says through the prophet "Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture!". God promises to remove these shepherds and replace them with new ones who will care for his people. Again in Ezekiel 34, God accuses the shepherds of Israel of feeding themselves instead of feeding the sheep and of allowing the sheep to be carried off by wild beasts. Therefore, God promises to rescue his sheep from the very shepherds who are supposed to be rescuing them from these wild beasts.
Jesus' declaration "I am the good shepherd" is not only a metaphor drawn from agrarian society, nor is it only an image drawn from Israel's history. It is also said in response to the action of the Pharisees in John 9. Jesus statement in John 10 follows immediately on the heels of the story about a man who was born blind whom Jesus had healed. Throughout chapter 9, the Pharisees are trying to make sense of how it is that Jesus, whom they regard as a sinner, could possibly have healed this man's blindness. When the man who has been healed of his blindness refuses to change his story about Jesus, they cast him out of the synagogue.
It is easy for us to hear this story and regard the Pharisees and "the Jews" (John's name for those who oppose Jesus even though Jesus and all of his followers are Jewish as well) as legalistic. After all, John doesn't spare any trouble to paint them in an entirely negative light. However, we should recognize that the Pharisees are simply carrying out their role as Israel's shepherds. They didn't set out to be legalistic. (I've yet to hear anyone proclaim that as a personal life goal.) But they have heard those passage from Jeremiah and Ezekiel all their lives. As the religious leaders, the "pastors" of their day, they see themselves as the shepherds of Israel and they take that responsibility very seriously, as they should. After all, it was the shepherds of Israel whom God faulted for Israel's previous collapse when they were taken into exile. They are simply trying to avoid the mistakes of their ancestors by making sure that God's Law is lived out in Israel and that means casting false prophets (like Jesus) and their followers (like this blind man) out of their midst so that Israel may remain pure.
It is in response to these actions by the Pharisees that Jesus says "I am the good shepherd". Actually, Jesus uses two metaphors to describe himself in this chapter. He also says that he is the door or gate by which the sheep enter the fold. On one hand, we can see this as a very confusing mixture of metaphors. In one verse, Jesus is the gate and in another he is the shepherd. On the other hand, this mixture of metaphors is a very accurate theological depiction of Jesus; he is both the way into the flock and the one who leads and cares for the flock, both images are appropriate. In fact, Jesus may even be drawing on a common practice of the day in which the shepherd would lay down in the opening of the sheep pen, thereby actually serving as its gate. Either way, we have an image here of what Jesus says later in the Gospel of John: "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." The purpose of this statement is not to declare one religion better than every other. Its purpose is to say that the way to God is not a religion or a morality or a belief system or a set of practices; the way to God is a person; namely Jesus Christ. The gate is the shepherd. The way is a person. The essence of the Christian faith is nothing other than knowing, following, and being in relationship with the God made flesh in Jesus Christ and having our lives transformed by that relationship. All of our doctrines and practices only serve the greater purpose of guiding us in that relationship; they are not a replacement for the relationship itself.
The Pharisees mistake isn't that they are legalistic while Jesus is lenient. It is isn't that they take sin and holiness and the Law too seriously and that God doesn't really care much about those things any more. The Pharisees mistake is their failure to recognize that the Lord who is their shepherd is standing right in front of them in the person of Jesus. The religious leaders became so accustomed to functioning as shepherds and even gatekeepers that they forgot their own role as sheep. They were so busy "caring" for the sheep that they forgot to listen for the voice of their own shepherd and they eventually became so deaf to that voice that even when he stood among them they no longer recognized him as shepherd. Jesus proclamation of himself as the good shepherd is at least in part a challenge to the Pharisees to recognize that in their attempts to be good shepherds they have failed to be good sheep.
This is the danger for many life-long Christians as well. As we grow and mature in Christ, we are rightfully expected to take on roles of leadership and discipling others. We become shepherds to others in the faith. As we spend more time and energy teaching others the beliefs and practices of the Christian faith, we become accustomed to our role as shepherd, so much so though that we forget we are also sheep. In all the shepherding of others, there is a danger that we will fail to listen for the voice of our own shepherd and so eventually become deaf to the sound of his voice.
This is part of the beauty of Psalm 23. David is the shepherd of God's people. He is the king. He has reached the pinnacle of earthly power and he knows that it is God who has put him there. He knows he has been appointed by God as shepherd and yet he still says "the Lord is my shepherd". There is a recognition that even as the ultimate earthly shepherd he is still a sheep and there is still a higher shepherd for whose voice he must listen. As followers of Jesus, we are first and foremost a people who hear and follow the voice of our shepherd.
Sunday, May 8, 2011
2011 Annual Report
My annual report as delivered to the Clinton Church of the Nazarene on Sunday, May 8, 2011.
My brothers and sisters in Christ,
My brothers and sisters in Christ,
It is truly an honor to stand before you today and give my fourth report as your pastor. I know it is customary for me to begin my report by saying how much I love and appreciate all of you but I hope that you know that it is more than just a custom. My appreciation for all of you, for your faithfulness and dedication to Jesus Christ, continues to grow.
My appreciation for you has grown much in the same way that a young couple’s love might grow for one another after a few years of marriage. After all, the relationship between a pastor and a congregation can be a sort of marriage; my family has been wed to this church family for a time being. And while this relationship is certainly not of the “until death do us part” kind that a real marriage is, we do promise to share life with one another “for richer for poor, in sickness and in health”. We have bound ourselves to one another promising that we will be there for each other in the good times and the bad because we believe it is not just our own preferences but the will of God which has brought us together.
Of course, we all know that honeymoons are not marriages. There comes a point where the sheer bliss and joy of being newlywed begins to fade and the couple must get about the nitty-gritty, everyday challenge of being in relationship with one another. That love which at first was reflected mostly as emotion, must now be manifested in the hard work of compromise, sacrifice, patience, and faithfulness.
After four years of ministry together, I think it is safe to say that the honeymoon is over for us. While there may be a bit of sadness with this reality, it is also a good sign that our relationship is maturing as it should. It means we now trust each other enough to be honest with one another. It means we can be less concerned about whether or not this relationship will work and more focused on how we will continue to work within it for the mission of the Church and the glory of God.
It is in that deeper, fuller, more mature sense of appreciation that I wish to say to you this morning that it is a privilege to minister with all of you, to live along side of you, to see the parts of your life that perhaps few others get to see simply because I am your pastor. The more I minister with you and the more I reflect on our relationships with one another; the more God reveals to me that He knew what he was doing when he brought us together. In short, it is not just a blessing to be a pastor but specifically to be your pastor. I continue to give thanks to God for allowing me to be a part of the ministry of the Church of the Nazarene in Clinton, IL.
It is also a blessing to be a part of this church family because of the ways that God is continuing to work among us. Over the past year, we have successfully given a maintained focus to two areas of ministry: (1) Greater involvement in the lives of our children and teens and (2) outreach.
Our focus on involvement in the lives of our children and teens began with Baby/Children’s day last year which also served as the kickoff to our VBS which was every Sunday throughout the summer instead of just one week. I personally thought that VBS was a huge success this year both in the discipleship of our children and in meeting this goal of greater involvement. Many of us who might not otherwise be involved in VBS or children’s ministry participated in VBS this year and many of us who had participated in the past gave even more time this year. In addition to VBS, several people have also stepped up to help out with Children’s Church as well. Over this past year, several of our kids have memorized Psalm 23, the Lord’s Prayer, and Philippians 2:5-11 in Children’s Church. The scriptural knowledge of our children and teens has also been enhanced through Bible quizzing. In March, several of us stepped out of our comfort zones and into children’s and teen’s Sunday School classes in order to be more involved in their lives. In addition to all of this, there have been children’s events and several teen outings which many of us have hosted or chaperoned. And perhaps the largest contribution of all to the lives of our teens hasn’t even happened yet. In just a few months, Lance and I will be going with three of our teens to Louisville, KY for Nazarene Youth Congress; an event which was important for me when I was a teen as I wrestled with my own call to ministry. This would not be possible if it were not for the generous contributions of time and money by many people in this room.
These acts of discipleship are not small or inconsequential things. I know that visiting a child’s Sunday School class or hosting a teen event may not seem like world-changing stuff but when it is done in the Spirit of Christ, it can be. Making disciples of Jesus Christ is our mission as the Church, it is what God has called us to. We do that when we spend time with our children and teens and show them what it means to live as a disciple of Jesus. I have no doubt that the things our kids and teens have learned over the past year, the examples of Christ-likeness they have been shown will stick with them for many years to come, enabling them to be faithful disciples of Jesus themselves.
The other area on which we focused this past year was outreach. Once again, the outreach committee has done a tremendous job of organizing events to give us opportunities to reach out to others. We repeated some of the events we had in the past such as block parties, refreshments for the 4th of July fireworks viewing, the Kid’s Carnival, handing out water at Apple and Pork, and Trunk or Treat and those events have continued to be successful ways of interacting with our community. We also participated in several events for the first time this past year such as May Days, the 175th anniversary of our town, and the concerts on the square.
In addition to reaching out in these community events, we also did several new things here at our church. We’ve started having fellowship nights on the second Sunday night of every month, not only as an opportunity for us to fellowship with one another but also as an opportunity to invite others who do not attend church to come and fellowship with us as well. We’ve also hosted three “friend days” throughout the past year as specific opportunities to invite someone who does not attend our church regularly. In December, we hosted “A Taste of Sunday School” after our children’s Christmas musical which gave the opportunity to socialize and connect with a large number of visitors, thereby planting a seed for Christ. And just in these last few weeks we have started a new outreach ministry open to anyone but designed specifically for those who attend our 4th Wednesday meal. These are workshops which will teach a series of life skills such as cooking, gardening, managing finances, and other similar topics. In addition to teaching these skills, it also gives us a chance to get to know some of those who can get lost in the crowd of 4th Wednesday on a more personal level, hopefully beginning a redemptive relationship that may ultimately lead them closer to Christ. I believe we have continued to take some very significant and positive strides as a church in the area of outreach over this past year.
Of course, the most obvious change in our church over the past year in the area of outreach has been our change in service times. A year ago, we decided to place Sunday School after Worship in hopes of making stronger connections with our visitors. The thinking in this change was that a visitor might make a stronger connection with a small group of people in a Sunday School class than they would in a crowd of people during worship and therefore would be more likely to return the next week. Obviously, we have already participated in evaluating this change together to some extent this morning in the poll that we took together earlier. However, I would like to share with you just a few of my own very brief observations. This is not necessarily an attempt to persuade you to share in these opinions. It is simply to share my perspective with you as a part of my report.
First, while the change in service times may not have had precisely the impact for which we were hoping, it has been statistically positive nonetheless. In comparing Sunday School attendance for the 34 Sundays from May – Decemeber 2010 to the same Sundays in 2009, there were nineteen Sundays which had an increase of five or more in attendance from the previous years. There were eight Sundays that had little or no change and only four Sundays which had a decrease in attendance of five or greater from the previous year. In other words, Sunday School attendance saw a significant increase on well over half the Sundays in that time period without a corresponding decrease in worship attendance. Obviously, these numbers are not the whole story or even the most important part of the story. I only share them so that we can be aware of them.
Second, I think the change in service times has been positive simply because it has broken up some of our routine as a church. I remember when the grocery story that I worked at when I was in high school changed the layout of the store. Of course, at first all the customers were confused because they couldn’t find the products they were looking for where they had always found them in their years of shopping at the same store. However, the reason the store did this was because research had found that this caused shoppers to see new products that they normally didn’t notice. In other words, when you know where everything is, you go right to that spot and get it and don’t pay any attention to anything else along the way. But if you actually have to look for what you need then you notice new things along the way and might buy something you otherwise would not have noticed. I believe our change in service times has worked like that for us as well. We had a set routine when we came to church. For many of us, that meant heading straight to our Sunday School classes as soon as we walked in the door and then straight to our seats in the sanctuary. As a result, we were so stuck in our routine that we often failed to notice anyone new. I believe that now, even though we might feel a bit more confused and out of sorts ourselves, our eyes are more open to when someone new walks in our doors.
My third and final observation has very little to do with the change itself and more to do with our attitudes about the change. I trust that we all recognize that the health and future of our church does not rest on something as insignificant as when we meet for worship. So whether we continue as it is now or at some point decide it would be better to go back to the old way doesn’t really matter a whole lot. After all, it is God who is building his Church, not us by deciding when to meet for worship. However, what does matter a whole lot is the kind of attitudes we exhibit as we discuss these matters. Essentially, what I am getting at is what Jesus was getting at when he said “the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve.” Likewise, the Church is not an institution that exists to serve us and our preferences. We are the Church called to serve the Lord in reaching our lost world. We are not here to simply consume a religious product and to have our needs met. We are here to carry out the mission that God has given us. We can have vigorous disagreements about the best way to carry out that mission but we must settle those disagreements not based on our desires and opinions but by seeking first his kingdom and his righteousness and trusting that all of these things will added unto as well.
Finally, however, I cannot give a complete and meaningful review of this past year without sharing with you what God has been doing in me personally. It is difficult to describe exactly what it is that God has done and is doing except to say that it is undeniable that God is teaching me to trust him in new ways. Of course, most of you know how much of a theology nerd I am so it will come as no surprise to you that this transformation began with a book. About a year ago I began reading The Works of John Wesley. While God has often used study as an important spiritual discipline in my life, God was especially present somehow in my reading of Wesley. As I read Wesley’s journal, where he records the significant episodes of his years of ministry, I was struck by Wesley’s remarkable trust in God. Wesley exhibited this amazing confidence that as long as he did his part, he knew God would act. So he preached, no matter how small or how large the crowd, whether it was an attentive crowd or a mob, even when he got hit square in the forehead by a stone, Wesley kept preaching because he believed that if the Word of God was proclaimed then it had the power to change people in any circumstance.
While I was still reading Wesley, we also started to work through the book of Ezekiel here on Sunday mornings. Similar themes arose out of this prophetic book as well. God calls Ezekiel to proclaim the message God has given him while also telling him that the people won’t listen to what he is saying. Ezekiel’s job was simply to proclaim the message regardless of the results. In chapter 37 especially, we get this incredible image of God’s Word at work so powerfully that it can raise up an army of audience to hear Ezekiel’s message where previously there had been only dry bones.
Throughout this same time, God had also been speaking to me about having more accountability and consistency in my prayer life. It wasn’t that I wasn’t praying. I just wasn’t making it a consistent priority; it wasn’t central to my identity and ministry as a pastor. Janet Crawley was the first to help move me in this direction by meeting with me on Monday mornings for prayer. Last fall, I also committed to having a time of prayer and scripture every Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday as well. I know that many of you cannot make these times because you work and several others have attended these prayer gatherings at some time or another and I thank you for your presence there. However, this morning I would like to specifically recognize Shirley DeJaynes, Myra Stroud, and Marie Blue for their continued faithfulness in meeting with me for several months now for this time of prayer. Their faithfulness has helped to bring me closer to Jesus and I believe it will yield fruit for this church as well.
Even in more recent months, God has continued to remind me of this same theme. After reading Wesley, I began to read a theologian named Karl Barth who was one of the few pastors in Germany who opposed Hitler’s regime. Wesley and Barth are not at all similar theologically and yet Barth’s systematic theology began with this same theme I had seen in Wesley; the power of the Word of God. Barth wrote forcefully about how all our words and actions as the Church are basically useless unless God himself is at work among us revealing himself to us. However, if God is revealing himself to us then we cannot be left unchanged. Around the same time, I was preaching from the first chapter of Ephesians and the first five chapters of 1 Corinthians and those chapters seemed to be stark reminders as well that it is God who is building his Church. It was not Paul or Peter or Apollos or the Corinthians and it is not us but God who calls his people by his Word and his Spirit. On Sunday nights, in the book of Revelation we have seen over and over again that it is God who sits on the throne and only asks that we be faithful; indeed, we are conquerors and overcomers not by bigger and better accomplishments and ministries but simply by being faithful. Even in this recent season of Lent, God spoke to me about trust through the stories of Abraham, Moses, David, and again Ezekiel.
When I look over this past year, I am utterly astounded by the singularity of this theme. Whether it has been through Wesley or Barth, Paul, John, or Ezekiel, or even through some of you in this congregation, It is as if God has been saying the same thing to me every week for the past year. God’s single message to me has been this: “Just trust me. My Word and My Spirit are enough. My grace is sufficient for you for my power is made perfect in weakness.” My brothers and sisters, this is my testimony to you this morning; that God has done a gradual but undeniable work in my heart over this past year. I testify to you this morning that God’s Word and God’s Spirit are still enough to transform us as his people.
With all of that in mind, I have known for several months now that God is calling us to something new and radical as a congregation. For the longest time, I wasn’t sure what it was but I knew that God was going to call us to really take a step of faith and place our trust in him in ways that we had not before. God kept saying to me over this past year “Trust me.” And I kept asking “Trust you for what? What is it that you want us to do? What is this huge step of faith you are going to call us to, Lord?” But God just kept saying “Trust me.” I thought maybe God was calling us to some new ministry we had never done before or to do something completely new and unexpected, maybe even something we would think was crazy.
Finally, all of this came into clearer focus for me just about a month ago at a district event in Sherman, IL. At first, I wasn’t even sure I really had time to go to this event but I eventually decided I needed to be there and so I made the time to go. The speaker at the event turned out to be a man some of you know from a summer internship he did here at this church several years ago. His name is Corey Jones and he now pastors a church in Texas. He spoke that day about the struggles that he had been through with his church. It was a very small church with just a few families and Corey had been the pastor there for three years and things were just going nowhere. To make a long story short, Corey went away on a trip one week thinking that when he came back he would resign as the pastor of this church but when he got back he felt like God was calling them to commit themselves to prayer in a new way. Corey shared this with his church and when he did the last tithing family in the church walked out saying that they prayed enough already. Nevertheless, those who stayed committed themselves to simply seeking God together and today Crossroads Tabernacle is a thriving community of faith. Don’t get the wrong idea. They still aren’t the largest church in the neighborhood. This wasn’t about just finding another church growth strategy. They sought God simply for the purpose of drawing closer to God and Corey shared with us story after story of lives that were transformed as a result.
I left that event feeling like God was saying to me “This is an example of what I’ve been talking to you about. This is how I have been calling you to trust me; to trust me enough to just seek me as your God and know that everything else will be taken care of.” So, my brothers and sisters, we have only one goal, one focus area for this coming year. We will seek God through corporate prayer and the reading of God’s Word.
Now maybe your first thought is similar to what mine was: we already do that. Maybe you are thinking this isn’t that radical at all, this isn’t anything new or crazy. How is just praying and reading our Bibles some amazing act of trust in God? Or maybe you are wondering “How this is going to help our church at all? What difference is praying and reading our bibles going to make? How is this going to get any more people in our church’s doors? We need to be out doing more outreach and getting people to come to church!”
But I think that is part of the irony of what God is calling us to. God is calling upon us to stop worrying about all that other stuff, to stop worrying about whether or not we have “enough” people in our pews and to just seek him because he is God and he is worth seeking regardless of how many other people are seeking him with us. And that is how things as simple as prayer and reading scripture can become radical acts of trust; because in prayer and scripture we are simply seeking God for the sake of seeking God and we are trusting that God will provide everything else. We are trusting that God’s Word and God’s Spirit are enough. We are trusting that it is God who is building his Church and not us.
This morning I am calling us as a congregation not simply to more prayer and Bible reading in some general sense but specifically for us to commit to times of corporate prayer and individual study of Scripture. (If the ushers would come forward, I have two sheets of paper I would like them to pass out to you.) One of the two sheets you are receiving says “Seeking God through Corporate Prayer”. I know that we all pray individually and that we pray corporately for a few minutes when we gather for worship. However, I believe the time has come for us to set aside an entire service in which we pray together as a body of believers. By that, I don’t mean that we will sing some songs and then pray for a few minutes at the end or have a devotional and then pray. I mean that we will come and do nothing other than seek God in prayer together during that time. You can see there are several options from which to choose. I encourage to mark as many of these time as you will commit to attending but please do not circle a time unless you plan to be here at that time on a regular basis. You can give these sheets back to me after we have concluded service this morning and I will present them to the church board and we will discuss together where God is leading us from there.
The second piece of paper you are receiving says “Seeking God through the Reading of His Word”. This sheet has several different Bible Reading plans listed on it to help you stay in the Word over the next year. I would encourage you to prayerfully consider which of these plans will work best for you. You don’t have to turn this into me today if you need more time to think about it. If you would like to follow one of the plans on this sheet, you can circle it and print your name on the back of the paper and give this paper back to me and I will get the details of that reading plan to you in the next week or two. You’ll see there that you can also go online and find reading plans over the internet or for your smart phone if that is easier for you.
This is only the beginning. In addition to these two initial steps, I will be working with our newly elected leadership to make sure that prayer plays an even more central role in our workings as a church board than it has up to this point. I will also work with all of our leaders in the coming year to see how we can make seeking God through prayer and scripture more central to everything we do as a church. However, please recognize that this is not just up to those who are elected to church office this morning. It is a call to every single one of us to commit ourselves to gathering here with our brothers and sisters in Christ to seek our Lord and savior.
Of course, I hope it goes without saying that this doesn’t mean we are going to just drop everything else we do as a church. Obviously, the discipleship of our children and teens, reaching out to our community in Christ’s name, serving others; these things are a part of who we are and do not change. However, it is my hope that in this coming year we will simply seek God for the sake of seeking God like we never have before as a church. I believe, due to my personal experience over this past year, that if we will simply seek God and trust that His Word and His Spirit are enough, then everything else will be taken care of. I believe that if we will commit ourselves to prayer and to the Word then years from now we will be able to look back over this time and say with those disciples on the road to Emmaus “Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the Scriptures?” and we will know that our Lord is not dead but alive and that he wants to give us life in his name.
Respectfully submitted,
Your pastor and brother in Christ
David Young
Monday, April 25, 2011
Impossible Faith
I can't read the words of John 20:19-23 without thinking of this blog post by my friend and fellow pastor, Jeremy Scott. While I'll repeat some of the same ideas in this post, his post is worth reading in its entirety.
In this passage, we are given a picture of the disciples on the evening of the same day in which Mary Magdalene discovered Jesus' tomb to be empty. Peter and the beloved disciple have seen the empty tomb as well. Mary Magdalene has even seen and spoken with the risen Christ himself and reported this conversation to the other disciples. In spite of that, John tells us that the doors were locked where the disciples were "for fear of the Jews".
This is a confused and scared group of people. They don't yet know what to make of their friend and teacher's death, much less of these reports about the empty tomb and of Mary speaking with him. An empty tomb could mean a lot of things, least likely of all Jesus being alive. And could Mary's report really be trusted? After all, women weren't considered to be reliable witnesses for legal purposes in the ancient world. And besides, Jesus had delivered Mary from demon possession. Maybe now that Jesus was dead that demon had come back to her and caused this hallucination. Either way, there simply wasn't enough evidence to suggest that it was safe to be openly milling about in the streets or the markets. The same people who had crucified Jesus might decide it was a good idea to get rid of his closest followers too, especially if rumors started to spread about Jesus being a live again. So the disciples lock themselves in a room "for fear of the Jews".
Then Jesus appears in the midst of that fear-filled, locked up prison of a room and says to the disciples "Peace be with you." On one level, this is exactly what any good Jew would expect. Peace, shalom was and often still is a customary Jewish greeting. It was so customary that Paul uses it along with "grace" in everyone of his letters. Perhaps, we are also to imagine that it was so customary that the disciples may not have even noticed it, simply dismissed it as a "hello" or "hey guys".
"When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet." I imagine at this point in their encounter with Jesus, the disciples would be like a parent reunited with a kidnapped child. The first reaction is "Oh, thank God you are OK." or in this case "I can't believe it, Jesus. You are really alive." But that thought of thankfulness for safety would quickly to turn to the anger and revenge of "Now lets punish the monsters who did this to you." As the disciples, observed the wounds of their Lord and savior, their thoughts would have naturally turned to the pain and rejection he had experienced. As Jeremy so aptly says in his post:
In v. 24-31, we find that Thomas, one of the twelve disciples, was not present when Jesus appeared this first time. The other disciples reported to Thomas "We have seen the Lord". But Thomas responds to them "Unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into his side, I will never believe." As a result, most have come to know this disciple as "doubting Thomas".
But what if that's an unfair moniker for Thomas? We often hear Thomas's words as a willful refusal, a rejection of the other disciples' report without evidence. We see Thomas as the rigid empiricist who won't accept anything without proof. But what if we are hearing him incorrectly? Maybe these words from Thomas aren't so much refusal as they are confession; more admission of weakness than demand of evidence. Perhaps they are like the man in Mark 9 who says "I believe. Lord, help my unbelief!" Perhaps Thomas isn't saying "I won't believe" but "I want to believe but this is simply too much for me to handle. Not only am I supposed to believe that a crucified man was raised from the dead but also that he now wants us to forgive the people who did that to him?!. That is humanely impossible! I can't possibly believe that, much less be faithful to that belief unless I encounter the living Jesus myself!"
If that is indeed what Thomas is saying, then he could not have uttered a more correct understanding of himself and the whole human predicament. We can not possibly believe, we can not possibly forgive the unforgivable, we can not possibly be faithful to the mission of radical peace that God has called us to in this world, if we have not had an encounter with the risen and living Jesus. It is simply too difficult. It is simply too much to ask of mere human beings to live out this kind of peace and forgiveness...unless....unless the resurrected Jesus shows up among us in the midst of our fear-filled and locked-door prisons where we have barricaded ourselves in to shield us from all the pain and dissapointment of life and he breathes new life into us and gives us his Spirit and allows us to see that the crucified Lord who still bears the mark of his torture and death is alive, is victorious, and will reign in us if we will only let him. Eight days later, Jesus appears to Thomas and gives him the faith that he knew he couldn't possibly muster up for himself and Thomas answers with what is probably the greatest and most accurate confession of faith in the entire Gospel of John, "My Lord and My God!"
But it doesn't end there. Jesus says to Thomas "Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed." So often we hear this as a reprimand of Thomas as if Jesus were saying that Thomas should have had enough faith to just believe without seeing Jesus. But I don't think that is what Jesus is saying here. I think Jesus is saying that encounters with him didn't stop with those who could see him in his physical body. Jesus is saying that it is still possible for us to come to know him in all of his life and fullness, to receive that same Spirit which was breathed on the first disciples, even though we can not see Jesus as Thomas did. We can still encounter the living Christ. And just to make sure we don't miss the point, John, the writer of this gospel, inserts himself into the story in v.30-31 and says the same thing. John interrupts the narrative flow of his literary masterpiece to make sure we can't miss this point. He says all of this was written "so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name." Through the presence of the Spirit and the scripture that witnesses to Jesus, we can still have an encounter with the risen Lord and have this impossible faith and have life in his name.
In this passage, we are given a picture of the disciples on the evening of the same day in which Mary Magdalene discovered Jesus' tomb to be empty. Peter and the beloved disciple have seen the empty tomb as well. Mary Magdalene has even seen and spoken with the risen Christ himself and reported this conversation to the other disciples. In spite of that, John tells us that the doors were locked where the disciples were "for fear of the Jews".
This is a confused and scared group of people. They don't yet know what to make of their friend and teacher's death, much less of these reports about the empty tomb and of Mary speaking with him. An empty tomb could mean a lot of things, least likely of all Jesus being alive. And could Mary's report really be trusted? After all, women weren't considered to be reliable witnesses for legal purposes in the ancient world. And besides, Jesus had delivered Mary from demon possession. Maybe now that Jesus was dead that demon had come back to her and caused this hallucination. Either way, there simply wasn't enough evidence to suggest that it was safe to be openly milling about in the streets or the markets. The same people who had crucified Jesus might decide it was a good idea to get rid of his closest followers too, especially if rumors started to spread about Jesus being a live again. So the disciples lock themselves in a room "for fear of the Jews".
Then Jesus appears in the midst of that fear-filled, locked up prison of a room and says to the disciples "Peace be with you." On one level, this is exactly what any good Jew would expect. Peace, shalom was and often still is a customary Jewish greeting. It was so customary that Paul uses it along with "grace" in everyone of his letters. Perhaps, we are also to imagine that it was so customary that the disciples may not have even noticed it, simply dismissed it as a "hello" or "hey guys".
"When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet." I imagine at this point in their encounter with Jesus, the disciples would be like a parent reunited with a kidnapped child. The first reaction is "Oh, thank God you are OK." or in this case "I can't believe it, Jesus. You are really alive." But that thought of thankfulness for safety would quickly to turn to the anger and revenge of "Now lets punish the monsters who did this to you." As the disciples, observed the wounds of their Lord and savior, their thoughts would have naturally turned to the pain and rejection he had experienced. As Jeremy so aptly says in his post:
But before that thought can go any further Jesus says again "Peace be with you." as if to say "Hang on, my greeting was more than a greeting. It's your mission. I'm not just wishing you peace and well-being. I am bestowing the very shalom of God upon you and you are to live it out in everything you do." As if to hammer this point of mission home, Jesus continues "As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you." Then Jesus breathes on them and says "Receive the Holy Spirit." The God whose breath gave life to the first man and woman, the God whose breath raised up an army of an audience from a valley of dry bones, now fills these disciples with new life, with a new Spirit so that they might carry out the radical mission that Jesus has given them. And just so we don't miss the point, Jesus says "If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld." In other words, this new Spirit that resides among the disciples empowers them to forgive the Pilates, the chief priests, those who seem to be unforgivable. Jesus has not been resurrected to revenge. He has been resurrected to bestow on these disciples a Spirit of peace and forgiveness so that they might carry out the mission of Jesus in the world.Again, let’s pretend we’re the disciples. We’re fearful and angry that our savior has been killed. And he shows up, alive, breathing, right in front of us. He has risen from the dead, conquered death. This guy’s alive and now I definitely know that nothing can take him down! What’s my response?!?…Let’s go find Pilate.
…Let’s go find the chief priests.
…Let’s go find the guys that held the hammer and spear.
We’ve got something to settle. Let’s go get ‘em.
In v. 24-31, we find that Thomas, one of the twelve disciples, was not present when Jesus appeared this first time. The other disciples reported to Thomas "We have seen the Lord". But Thomas responds to them "Unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into his side, I will never believe." As a result, most have come to know this disciple as "doubting Thomas".
But what if that's an unfair moniker for Thomas? We often hear Thomas's words as a willful refusal, a rejection of the other disciples' report without evidence. We see Thomas as the rigid empiricist who won't accept anything without proof. But what if we are hearing him incorrectly? Maybe these words from Thomas aren't so much refusal as they are confession; more admission of weakness than demand of evidence. Perhaps they are like the man in Mark 9 who says "I believe. Lord, help my unbelief!" Perhaps Thomas isn't saying "I won't believe" but "I want to believe but this is simply too much for me to handle. Not only am I supposed to believe that a crucified man was raised from the dead but also that he now wants us to forgive the people who did that to him?!. That is humanely impossible! I can't possibly believe that, much less be faithful to that belief unless I encounter the living Jesus myself!"
If that is indeed what Thomas is saying, then he could not have uttered a more correct understanding of himself and the whole human predicament. We can not possibly believe, we can not possibly forgive the unforgivable, we can not possibly be faithful to the mission of radical peace that God has called us to in this world, if we have not had an encounter with the risen and living Jesus. It is simply too difficult. It is simply too much to ask of mere human beings to live out this kind of peace and forgiveness...unless....unless the resurrected Jesus shows up among us in the midst of our fear-filled and locked-door prisons where we have barricaded ourselves in to shield us from all the pain and dissapointment of life and he breathes new life into us and gives us his Spirit and allows us to see that the crucified Lord who still bears the mark of his torture and death is alive, is victorious, and will reign in us if we will only let him. Eight days later, Jesus appears to Thomas and gives him the faith that he knew he couldn't possibly muster up for himself and Thomas answers with what is probably the greatest and most accurate confession of faith in the entire Gospel of John, "My Lord and My God!"
But it doesn't end there. Jesus says to Thomas "Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed." So often we hear this as a reprimand of Thomas as if Jesus were saying that Thomas should have had enough faith to just believe without seeing Jesus. But I don't think that is what Jesus is saying here. I think Jesus is saying that encounters with him didn't stop with those who could see him in his physical body. Jesus is saying that it is still possible for us to come to know him in all of his life and fullness, to receive that same Spirit which was breathed on the first disciples, even though we can not see Jesus as Thomas did. We can still encounter the living Christ. And just to make sure we don't miss the point, John, the writer of this gospel, inserts himself into the story in v.30-31 and says the same thing. John interrupts the narrative flow of his literary masterpiece to make sure we can't miss this point. He says all of this was written "so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name." Through the presence of the Spirit and the scripture that witnesses to Jesus, we can still have an encounter with the risen Lord and have this impossible faith and have life in his name.
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
He Still Calls Our Name
I'll be preaching from John 20:1-18 this week. As I've read over this passage this week, I've been surprised by the number of possible connections with other stories in the Gospel of John. Allusions to other parts of John's Gospel seem to run throughout this resurrection narrative. But perhaps the most compelling of these comes from the very first chapter of John.
In John 1:35-42, we hear of Jesus' first disciples beginning to follow him. These two disciples heard John the baptist's testimony that Jesus was the Lamb of God and they began to follow Jesus as a result. However, upon beginning to follow him, Jesus asks them a question: "What are you seeking?". To which they reply "Rabbi, where are you staying?".
Often in the Gospel of John, conversations take place on two different levels simultaneously. Usually, there is one very literal level for the characters within the story itself. The other is often a more metaphorical/theological level in which the character's words carry a sort of double meaning which is instructive for John's audience concerning Jesus' identity and what it means to be his disciple. The classic example of this is John 3 where Jesus tells Nicodemus he must be born from above but Nicodemus hears Jesus saying that he must be born again. (The Greek word anothen can mean either "again" or "from above".) On one level within the story Nicodemus is confused because he can not understand how a person can literally be born again from his mother's womb a second time. On another level, Jesus word's are instructive for John's audience. Those hearing John's gospel understand what Nicodemus does not; that Jesus is speaking about a completely new source of life within this life.
The conversation in John 1:35-42 works similarly. On one level, the disciples are simply asking Jesus where he is staying. Jesus tells them to come and see and they stay with him for the night. On another level, the disciples are making a much more serious request. They are asking to abide with Jesus. Later in John 15, Jesus will use this same term, abide (meno in Greek), to describe the character of his true disciples. In John 15:5, Jesus says "I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing." To abide with Jesus is to be his disciple. Therefore, when the disciples answer Jesus' question "What are you seeking?" with "Rabbi, where are you staying?" they are doing more than just answering a question with what seems to be an odd and unrelated question. In fact, they have given precisely the right answer to Jesus' question. John is giving us a model of what it means to truly be a disciple of Jesus. It doesn't mean seeking something from Jesus. It means we seek to abide with him, to follow him wherever he leads. These two disciples follow Jesus to where he abides and then they go and invite others to abide with him as well.
In John 20, Mary Magdalene, a woman about whom the gospels tell us very little, is making her way to the tomb of Jesus. Presumably she goes to anoint the body of Jesus with spices. We should recognize the act of love that this is on Mary's part. John tells us that she went early while it was still dark. She is eager to care for the body of this one that she called teacher and Lord. She had loved Jesus, she had followed Jesus, she had abided with Jesus. But now Jesus' body abides in a tomb and she will go there to abide with him, to care for him one last time.
However, when she arrives she finds that the stone covering the entrance of the tomb has been moved away. She doesn't even look into the tomb to see what has happened. She doesn't need to. After all, there is only one logical explanation here. Someone has stolen Jesus' body. It wasn't enough that he died the most shameful death of crucifixion, those who hated him did not even want him to have the dignity of a proper burial. Mary enlists the help of Peter and the beloved disciple. They find the tomb empty as well. However, they notice the linen cloths in which Jesus was buried have been left behind; an odd thing for grave robbers to leave behind.
The disciples head back to their homes but Mary is still at the tomb weeping. As she is weeping, she looks into the tomb and sees two angels sitting where Jesus' body had been. Even then, Mary still has no thoughts that something extraordinary has happened here. When the angels ask her why she is weeping she repeats "They have taken away my Lord, and I do no know where they have laid him. Then Jesus himself appears and asks Mary the same questions he asked those first disciples in John 1; "Whom are you seeking?" But even face to face with Jesus, Mary can not see what has happened here. Her vision is too clouded by the harsh reality of crucifixion she witnessed just days earlier. Her world is one filled with death and disappointment. In one sense Mary would love nothing more than to answer Jesus' question as those first disciples did. Mary desperately wants to abide with Jesus. "Where is Jesus?" is the very question she has been asking through this entire passage. Even now, supposing he is the gardener, she asks Jesus himself "Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him and I will take him away." Mary is desperately seeking to abide with Jesus in the only way she knows how but she is exasperated and grief-stricken by her search because she seeks to abide with Jesus as though he were dead when, in fact, he is alive. It is only when the Word of God made flesh speaks her name, "Mary", that she recognizes the voice of her shepherd and responds with the same response as those first disciples "Rabboni!". And just as those first disciples recruited more disciples, Mary goes and announces Jesus' resurrection to his disciples.
Mary is a picture of so many of us, of so much of the Church. I think if most of us were asked in church "Whom do you seek?" we would answer "Jesus." And I don't think it would be a disingenuous or pretentious answer. Like Mary, most of us really do love Jesus. We know that Jesus changed us somehow and that we owe everything to him. In fact, we long to abide with Jesus, so much so that we get up early on the first day of the week and come looking for him.
But I also think that, like Mary, despite all of our love for Jesus, we sometimes go about seeking him as if he were dead. We come to church, we pay our tithe, we study our Bibles and say our prayers and we do all of these things because we genuinely love Jesus. But we also do them not expecting anything to change, not expecting anyone, including ourselves to be transformed. In fact, we'd probably rather things not change because at least things are comfortable the way they are now. At least, this way we know what to expect. And its not that we are bad or unloving people. Its just that, like Mary, we've been hurt. We've experience more intense pain than we could ever have imagined. We've seen our hopes and dreams crucified, our beliefs about what God could do in this world nailed to a cross. But we remain faithful. Even in the midst of all that, we still love Jesus, we still want to abide with him. We've just come to doubt that he can actually change anything. And so all of our genuine acts of love for Jesus become nothing more than spices prepared for his buried and decaying body and our church begins to feel more like an empty tomb than a place of resurrection.
But, like Mary, even as we seek Jesus among the dead, the risen Lord continues to call to us. Even when the empty tomb and grave cloths are not enough to cause us to look elsewhere, even when angels can not change our perception of what is possible with God, even when our pain and confusion so cloud our vision that we can not even see Jesus right in front of us, the risen Lord still speaks. He still calls our name. And that is enough to allow us to abide with him in all his resurrected glory.
In John 1:35-42, we hear of Jesus' first disciples beginning to follow him. These two disciples heard John the baptist's testimony that Jesus was the Lamb of God and they began to follow Jesus as a result. However, upon beginning to follow him, Jesus asks them a question: "What are you seeking?". To which they reply "Rabbi, where are you staying?".
Often in the Gospel of John, conversations take place on two different levels simultaneously. Usually, there is one very literal level for the characters within the story itself. The other is often a more metaphorical/theological level in which the character's words carry a sort of double meaning which is instructive for John's audience concerning Jesus' identity and what it means to be his disciple. The classic example of this is John 3 where Jesus tells Nicodemus he must be born from above but Nicodemus hears Jesus saying that he must be born again. (The Greek word anothen can mean either "again" or "from above".) On one level within the story Nicodemus is confused because he can not understand how a person can literally be born again from his mother's womb a second time. On another level, Jesus word's are instructive for John's audience. Those hearing John's gospel understand what Nicodemus does not; that Jesus is speaking about a completely new source of life within this life.
The conversation in John 1:35-42 works similarly. On one level, the disciples are simply asking Jesus where he is staying. Jesus tells them to come and see and they stay with him for the night. On another level, the disciples are making a much more serious request. They are asking to abide with Jesus. Later in John 15, Jesus will use this same term, abide (meno in Greek), to describe the character of his true disciples. In John 15:5, Jesus says "I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing." To abide with Jesus is to be his disciple. Therefore, when the disciples answer Jesus' question "What are you seeking?" with "Rabbi, where are you staying?" they are doing more than just answering a question with what seems to be an odd and unrelated question. In fact, they have given precisely the right answer to Jesus' question. John is giving us a model of what it means to truly be a disciple of Jesus. It doesn't mean seeking something from Jesus. It means we seek to abide with him, to follow him wherever he leads. These two disciples follow Jesus to where he abides and then they go and invite others to abide with him as well.
In John 20, Mary Magdalene, a woman about whom the gospels tell us very little, is making her way to the tomb of Jesus. Presumably she goes to anoint the body of Jesus with spices. We should recognize the act of love that this is on Mary's part. John tells us that she went early while it was still dark. She is eager to care for the body of this one that she called teacher and Lord. She had loved Jesus, she had followed Jesus, she had abided with Jesus. But now Jesus' body abides in a tomb and she will go there to abide with him, to care for him one last time.
However, when she arrives she finds that the stone covering the entrance of the tomb has been moved away. She doesn't even look into the tomb to see what has happened. She doesn't need to. After all, there is only one logical explanation here. Someone has stolen Jesus' body. It wasn't enough that he died the most shameful death of crucifixion, those who hated him did not even want him to have the dignity of a proper burial. Mary enlists the help of Peter and the beloved disciple. They find the tomb empty as well. However, they notice the linen cloths in which Jesus was buried have been left behind; an odd thing for grave robbers to leave behind.
The disciples head back to their homes but Mary is still at the tomb weeping. As she is weeping, she looks into the tomb and sees two angels sitting where Jesus' body had been. Even then, Mary still has no thoughts that something extraordinary has happened here. When the angels ask her why she is weeping she repeats "They have taken away my Lord, and I do no know where they have laid him. Then Jesus himself appears and asks Mary the same questions he asked those first disciples in John 1; "Whom are you seeking?" But even face to face with Jesus, Mary can not see what has happened here. Her vision is too clouded by the harsh reality of crucifixion she witnessed just days earlier. Her world is one filled with death and disappointment. In one sense Mary would love nothing more than to answer Jesus' question as those first disciples did. Mary desperately wants to abide with Jesus. "Where is Jesus?" is the very question she has been asking through this entire passage. Even now, supposing he is the gardener, she asks Jesus himself "Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him and I will take him away." Mary is desperately seeking to abide with Jesus in the only way she knows how but she is exasperated and grief-stricken by her search because she seeks to abide with Jesus as though he were dead when, in fact, he is alive. It is only when the Word of God made flesh speaks her name, "Mary", that she recognizes the voice of her shepherd and responds with the same response as those first disciples "Rabboni!". And just as those first disciples recruited more disciples, Mary goes and announces Jesus' resurrection to his disciples.
Mary is a picture of so many of us, of so much of the Church. I think if most of us were asked in church "Whom do you seek?" we would answer "Jesus." And I don't think it would be a disingenuous or pretentious answer. Like Mary, most of us really do love Jesus. We know that Jesus changed us somehow and that we owe everything to him. In fact, we long to abide with Jesus, so much so that we get up early on the first day of the week and come looking for him.
But I also think that, like Mary, despite all of our love for Jesus, we sometimes go about seeking him as if he were dead. We come to church, we pay our tithe, we study our Bibles and say our prayers and we do all of these things because we genuinely love Jesus. But we also do them not expecting anything to change, not expecting anyone, including ourselves to be transformed. In fact, we'd probably rather things not change because at least things are comfortable the way they are now. At least, this way we know what to expect. And its not that we are bad or unloving people. Its just that, like Mary, we've been hurt. We've experience more intense pain than we could ever have imagined. We've seen our hopes and dreams crucified, our beliefs about what God could do in this world nailed to a cross. But we remain faithful. Even in the midst of all that, we still love Jesus, we still want to abide with him. We've just come to doubt that he can actually change anything. And so all of our genuine acts of love for Jesus become nothing more than spices prepared for his buried and decaying body and our church begins to feel more like an empty tomb than a place of resurrection.
But, like Mary, even as we seek Jesus among the dead, the risen Lord continues to call to us. Even when the empty tomb and grave cloths are not enough to cause us to look elsewhere, even when angels can not change our perception of what is possible with God, even when our pain and confusion so cloud our vision that we can not even see Jesus right in front of us, the risen Lord still speaks. He still calls our name. And that is enough to allow us to abide with him in all his resurrected glory.
Thursday, April 14, 2011
Discipleship: More Than Palm Waving
Scholars debate who it is that is speaking in Isaiah 50:4-9 and the rest of the so called "suffering servant" passages. Is this Isaiah speaking? Is it a prophetic successor of Isaiah? Should we understand this as the collective voice of Israel as a nation that suffers as God's servant? Is this a prophecy about the coming Messiah, about Jesus?
Obviously, for those of us who believe that Jesus is the Messiah, it is easy to jump to that last option. So many of the images found in Isaiah 49-53 seem to fit Jesus so well. While I am not convinced that Isaiah (or the disciple of his who wrote these words) had Jesus in mind, I am convinced that Jesus must have often had these words in mind throughout his life and ministry, especially as he drew nearer to the cross. In other words, I don't think it is so much that Jesus perfectly fulfilled some pre-existing expectation of what it meant to be Messiah (in fact, I am quite certain he was constantly exploding the pre-existing notions of Messiah) as much as he found his understanding of who he was as the Messiah in places where no one else was looking. While others were looking for Moses, Elijah, and David all rolled into one, Jesus found his Father calling him to stand in the line of rejected prophets like Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel.
It is fitting then that Isaiah 50 is one of the texts for Palm Sunday. Those waving their palm branches welcome Jesus into Jerusalem as that Moses/Elijah/David figure. But this celebration only lasts as long as the crowd fails to see Jesus as he sees himself, as long as they see him as one who has come to save by power when, in fact, he has come to save by suffering and weakness. It takes less than a week for the chants of "Hosanna" to become chants of "Crucify him".
The role of prophet and disciple as described in Isaiah 50 and as modeled by Jesus in his journey to the cross serves as a sharp contrast to the fickle crowds of Palm Sunday. The crowds celebrate only as long as things are going their way. In contrast, the prophet/disciple has a face set like flint, a determination that can be compared only to the solid, steadfastness, and unwavering nature of rock. The prophet/disciple is certain that the Lord is his present helper even when he is struck and spit on. The prophet/disciple is confident that he will be vindicated even as everyone goes against him because he hears and is sustained by word of the Lord every morning.
Obviously, for those of us who believe that Jesus is the Messiah, it is easy to jump to that last option. So many of the images found in Isaiah 49-53 seem to fit Jesus so well. While I am not convinced that Isaiah (or the disciple of his who wrote these words) had Jesus in mind, I am convinced that Jesus must have often had these words in mind throughout his life and ministry, especially as he drew nearer to the cross. In other words, I don't think it is so much that Jesus perfectly fulfilled some pre-existing expectation of what it meant to be Messiah (in fact, I am quite certain he was constantly exploding the pre-existing notions of Messiah) as much as he found his understanding of who he was as the Messiah in places where no one else was looking. While others were looking for Moses, Elijah, and David all rolled into one, Jesus found his Father calling him to stand in the line of rejected prophets like Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel.
It is fitting then that Isaiah 50 is one of the texts for Palm Sunday. Those waving their palm branches welcome Jesus into Jerusalem as that Moses/Elijah/David figure. But this celebration only lasts as long as the crowd fails to see Jesus as he sees himself, as long as they see him as one who has come to save by power when, in fact, he has come to save by suffering and weakness. It takes less than a week for the chants of "Hosanna" to become chants of "Crucify him".
The role of prophet and disciple as described in Isaiah 50 and as modeled by Jesus in his journey to the cross serves as a sharp contrast to the fickle crowds of Palm Sunday. The crowds celebrate only as long as things are going their way. In contrast, the prophet/disciple has a face set like flint, a determination that can be compared only to the solid, steadfastness, and unwavering nature of rock. The prophet/disciple is certain that the Lord is his present helper even when he is struck and spit on. The prophet/disciple is confident that he will be vindicated even as everyone goes against him because he hears and is sustained by word of the Lord every morning.
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