Jesus said Who?

Jesus said who?

Luke 4:21-30

Jesus returns home and reads, the following from Isaiah (found earlier in Luke 5:18-19)

‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,

because he has anointed me

to bring good news to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives

and recovery of sight to the blind,

to let the oppressed go free,

to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.’

Then the scripture says that after he rolled it back up, “Then he began to say to them, ‘Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.’” And at that moment they were amazed and where even proudly asking “Is this not Joseph’s son?” They were so proud to have a prophet from their town. He could have stopped there with this good news. They did see it as good news even though the year of the Lord’s favor, the year of Jubilee, would require the forgiveness of debts, and who would feed the poor and what about the freed captives? But to this crowd they knew it was about them and their kin. This was Good News. Jesus then says, you will ask me to do what I did in Capernaum, which according to the Gospels was teach and preach on the Sabbath. Matthew’s Gospel goes into some more detail which was that Jesus proclaimed, “Repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.” The message his cousin John had been preaching along the banks of the Jordon. It was not repent because the Kingdom will come, or repent because the Kingdom had arrived, but a call to simultaneous action. They are intricately dependent on each other. One of my preaching teachers, Matthew Meyer-Boulton, taught that every sermon most have an aspect of a call of repentance and the Good News (the Kingdom of Heaven is at Hand), and why not model Christian preaching after Jesus’.

Jesus was a great preacher and teacher and knew he could not let the sermon just end with that great news of Isaiah’s prophecy being fulfilled. It would had made the meal afterwards much less awkward, but he called them to repentance by bringing up two people that God had saved according to the Hebrew Scriptures, who where not Jewish. I am sure people who had been saying sweetly, is that not Joseph’s son, started saying, “He said Who?! They were the oppressed and the chosen, how could Jesus bring up these stories. They would know these stories, so it was not lost on them that the story of Elijah and the widow includes a story of resurrection (1 Kings 17:17-24). Now they were angry. Angry enough to try to harm Jesus, not because of the huge task of the year of Jubilee, or the responsibility for the poor, no because he brings up people that had been saved out of the realm of the “chosen” people. Even though it was their own scripture the implications was his fulfillment of the Good News would include people outside Israel.

Of course that is the good news for us Christians, as we are those outside Israel. Jesus saved all of us and we are continually trying to spread this message. Well I remember being reinvigorated in church in my 20’s and I would invite everyone to church. I was inviting them more with the attitude that I had something they needed. They were always welcome but I wanted them to part of the established “grace” I had found at church. It was a subtle difference, but until I invited people to church so that I may know them and learn what they may offer me in my relationship with God, my invitations had not been effective. We need to invite people to church because they will offer to us as much as we can offer them. And I don’t just mean choir members, Sunday School Teachers, or pledges, but their lives are sacred like anyone’s, including our own. We may be at this church first but we will all live the same amount with Jesus, for an eternity. So my repentance was to invite people to church with an idea that people outside our church boundaries will also teach us about Jesus.

Christ’s Body, The Church

Christ’s Body, The Church

1/24/10

1 Corinthians 12:12-31

This scripture first makes me think about the human body, and I recalled a special I saw on soldiers that had come home from overseas with life changing brain injuries. During this special one wife of these brave soldiers was having a hard time dealing with this new reality when she met her husband’s hospital roommate’s wife. This woman asked her husband’s name and proceeded to address him directly. Knowing full well he could not comprehend or at least communicate back and that act changed how she viewed her husband, she saw his humanity. I too had found myself praying with just such a person with his mother, and during a prayer when I thanked God for his presence I could feel (and see) that she looked up and with her body confirmed I got it. Which is not that the soul is trapped in the body it is enmeshed in its earthly glory, as Paul writes in 1 Cor. 15:40 “There are both heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the glory of the heavenly is one thing, and that of the earthly is another.” Paul is carefully straddling this mystery that we will participate in the bodily resurrection, but he is not clear what the heavenly body will be, but both have glory and a place.

I know that ancient Judaism was a religion of a specific landscape that is a specific land, a specific people, which is quite evident with the importance of the Temple. Christ comes fully human and fully divine with his body which hangs on the tree and is resurrected for our salvation. Jesus comes to Thomas with his wounds (not as a ghost or a spirit) opening salvation for every body, yes everybody, but every human body. We are therefore baptized into Christ’s body, so we can participate in the bodily resurrection prior to Jesus’ return and/or our heavenly body.

I believe this is important because if we simply think faith is to get us into heaven we would not fulfill the great commandment or commission. Our earthly bodies are not just purgatory for the soul but our opportunity to help God bring love to more people and bring loving order to the earth. (On earth as it is in heaven). This is why it is important to understand our free will to be with God is played out on this physical realm and to be in a correct relationship with God for an eternal life with the Divine, it must be fulfilled by the person you are on earth. Our thoughts, our feelings, are as much a part of our physical body as our personality or soul, so when we are baptized into the one spirit we have these bodies to work with and as the church we are Jesus’’ earthly body. This is bordering on metaphysics, but I believe strongly with this idea makes it more clear why we respond to God’s salvation with feeding the poor, healing the sick, comforting those that mourn, etc.

Thus we come to Paul’s point we are interdependent on each other, but also require diversity to make the church. This may even relate to the different churches and styles or Christianity, but it certainly is important for an individual congregation like FCC. We cannot all be preachers, or choir directors. We need everyone to find their calling that utilizes their gifts and talents.

It reminded me of a Sunday School I taught I while back. We split the class into two teams, boys and girls. We asked for them to blindfold one team member and told them that they would have to direct the blindfolded member to the object somewhere in the room. Well in this 4 & 5^th grade class I had the brothers Sam and Johnny. Sam was the younger and his hand shot up to be blindfolded. As he was being fitted, his brother Johnny said, “Listen to only my voice.” Well they figured out part of the lesson already. When I said go the girls were all directed the blindfolded girl who was confused and went slowly, while Sam took off like a sprinter, when his brother simply said, “Forward.” Before Johnny could say stop or careful, Sam had already bounced off the table across the room. I was terrified and laughing at the same time, and when I realized that this 4^th grader bounced well and was fine, I simply laughed, as he was directed to the object winning the game.

If we do church right we will all have that enthusiasm that Sam had when he heard forward. Just as our body when working correctly communicates smoothly and effectively, we will do the same when we get people in the right positions. We will live the resurrection with our bodies as the church, as the Body of Christ.

God's Weather Forecast

January 17, 2010

God’s Weather Forecast.

Matthew 5.43-6.5

‘You have heard that it was said, “You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.” But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax-collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

This text I choose for my first sermon because I had an overwhelming fear that I must be perfect. I looked up this text and first saw the line, be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect. At first this did not help. How could I be perfect like God? Was not Jesus the only human that could be called perfect? What does Jesus mean here? Well if someone sticks simply on one piece of scripture without looking at the full context one can come up with strange ideas. First of all we know that Jesus was the only perfect human in the sense we generally think of as perfect. Jesus, fully human and fully divine, without sin fulfills our definition of perfect.

We so often think we have to be perfect, be it our family baggage, and/or society, and that gets in our way. It affects everything we do and if we worry about being perfect we try too hard or avoid doing it all together so we cannot fail. I know for myself I worry less about a sermon being “perfect” I am more likely to preach a Spirit filled good sermon (I can rip all them apart myself but that is my own issue to work on).

But as I wrote above God cannot be telling us to be “perfect” as we understand it in the vernacular, so back to the Bible. Jesus says “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” And earlier in the passage where is our heavenly Father mentioned? Most of the passage are commands to us, but God is present in this part, “he [God] makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.” So it has something to do with God’s weather. God sends rain on everyone, good and bad. For me it is Grace. Prevenient grace is the grace that precedes our decision to accept God’s call and salvation. Or better yet our ability to understand and hear that Jesus has saved us, as we are not active participants in salvation but active participants because of our salvation. This grace that is offered to us does require our free-will to accept, and thus I described it as opening up to collect such rain that follows this knowledge of salvation. It is as if you had a rain barrel to collect and thus share this Grace. Of course once it is accepted it is not Prevenient Grace but rather sanctifying Grace, or simply Grace. Anyways I heard that some in the congregation were ordering rain barrels on their mobile devices, I heard as a joke later (I hope a joke).

So we know it has to do with God giving grace upon the good and the bad. This grace before grace, but how can we be perfect like God, well if God is consistently offering this to all perhaps we most also be consistent like God. To be perfect in context of this scripture is to treat everyone as you would treat another, (like ourselves I would say but many of us our harder on ourselves then others). If we are consistent with those in the pews and with everyone we meet we will be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect. This is not easy but it is important for someone may choose to start collecting in their barrel today or better yet may share some of the Grace they had collected. We tell our story by living it.