Hope

Matthew 24:36-44

During the season of Advent we wait for the coming Christ Child.  Today’s scripture reminds us that we are always waiting for the Son of Man’s return.  Jesus clearly states that no one except the Father knows when.  It is important to realize that people that try to discern contemporary events and even scripture for the Eschaton, are missing Jesus’ message.  We are to be ready and not know. Being ready is not simply looking forward to the event, but living today knowing it will happen.  Jesus makes it clear that there will be a day when the elect will be gathered and God will dwell with us and there will be a new heaven and a new earth.  But until the promise is fulfilled, “…you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.” (v. 44)

So how are we to be ready?  We can remember to see Jesus in the “least of these”, as he told us in Matthew 25, and we should be ready by teaching discipleship around the world, as per Matthew 28.  To be ready we live by faith, hope, and love, as per Paul’s letter the Corinthians 13:13.  These words can be attributed to human time; faith tied to what has happened, hope is about the anticipated future, and love is about the present.  Now each is interwoven with the other, just as the Trinity, totally one and yet totally separate as well.  When Paul says that Love is the greatest of these, I cannot argue with that, since love is how one acts at any present time, taking their faith and hope in mind, to act in the moment.  To follow Jesus and be ready we should always be present with love.  Of course our faith is important as well, for it is the basis of or current moment and.  Today we look at hope as it is how we look to the future, the Christ Child and the Eschaton.

When I was a chaplain in a large hospital, I would do my rounds and thus visit patients I did not know.  In the course of the visit, I was always trying to be present with love as I was to witness for the Divine.  Every conversation would include some aspect of their faith.  They would tell me of their lovely church and how they became close to God.  Or they would tell me about the church that ostracized them and how they became distant with God.  This was their history, their faith, and it affected how they looked to the future, but you would not be able to predict simply from their history.  Some that had a wonderful history with God and church were just so angry they were ill they did not look forward with hope, while some that had a rocky past with God and church found the divine in their situation, and looked forward with hope.  I would listen for the stories of hope, such as Thanksgiving meals despite their chart suggesting they would be in that bed on Thanksgiving, hearing about their plans after they were home, simply talking about future years, or the most powerful, talking about being with the Divine love in heaven.  These are stories of hope, knowing God’s promise, and living it.  It is not about being optimistic, rather it is to know God’s triumph (we are attempting to be ready for) and living as if it already occurred.  Without it one lives in despair, and those stories in the hospital were limited to the reality of that bed, illness, discomfort and pain, or going home to a more the same, or the saddest, death.  Not seeing death as being part of the resurrection and rebirth is despair, of course we are all scared of death, but with hope we see it as the fulfillment of God’s promise. 

Let us live ready, living as if the promise of God has been fulfilled as we know it will.   Let us await the Christ with Hope.  

Christ the King

Colossians 1:11-20; Luke 23:33-43

Do you remember the story of Kai Leigh Harriott?  She was three years old when a bullet shattered her spine leaving her paralyzed.  Her sister and she were playing on their porch in Dorchester, Massachusetts, when Anthony Warren shot into the air to frighten the occupants of the first floor apartment.  The first bullet horrifically found Kai Leigh.  Three years after Anthony Warren had his day in court, and Kai Leigh wanted to be there to confront her attacker.  She did and said, “I forgive you Anthony Warren.  What you did to me was wrong, but I still forgive you.”  That story touches me every time I think of it and I appreciate that Anthony Warren changed his plea of “not guilty” to “guilty.”  Kai Leigh is quoted as saying to the press latter, “It’s kind of hard [to forgive] but as soon as you do it, it’s not that hard anymore.”

Today’s scriptures are both about Jesus as King.  The Colossians is straight forward as it is probably a baptismal hymn, and thus a proclamation of Christ’s supremacy.  It is made clear that Christ’s power has been since the beginning and will continue, and we are reconciled to his power in the blood of the cross.  Luke’s account of the crucifixion includes the ironic statements of the people crucifying him as well as the first criminal, as they deride him by calling him King or Messiah, and there is even a sign that reads “King of the Jews” on the cross.  They did not realize how correct they were.  More importantly the second criminal understood the situation, Jesus did not deserve to be on the cross like himself and the other bandit, and he asked Jesus to be remembered when he arrived in His Kingdom.   As Luke writes in Chapter 19 v. 10, “For the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost,” that is exactly what Jesus does for the second criminal when he promised they would be in paradise. 

What is important is Jesus forgives and saves everyone from the cross.  This is his Kingdom, unlike earthly kingdoms.  Kings and elected officials get their power from the public.  It does not seem obvious at first since the elected officials of today we know nee the public for the power, but that was also true to Kings, as well, even if the power came from intimidation.  A week King would easily be taken over by another, but the power came from people, while Jesus’ power is beyond people.  “He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” (Col. 1:17).  So our King is this Christ, who lets His Kingdom be known by His blood and the greater power of Resurrection. 

The question becomes for us to follow Christ, “Is this a Kingdom Issue?”  If we want to follow our King, we need to see it not like our earthly Kings and Leaders.  We do not give the power to be led, we ask for forgiveness and live on faith.  We are to Forgive as we are forgiven, as we were taught to pray.  Kai Leigh knew that it was a Kingdom Issue to forgive the man that paralyzed her, and what a wonderful model for all of us.  I have a hard enough time asking the question to myself, “Is this a Kingdom Issue?” when a car cuts me off in traffic, so I try to remember Kai Leigh’s example.  And better yet my King’s example that forgave even from the cross as He was saving all.

Timing is everything

Isaiah 65: 17-25; Luke 21: 5-19

Jesus tells of the destruction of the temple, and Luke lived through that reality.  Luke then records Jesus’ prediction of such a monumental event.  However, Jesus was not simply telling us the temple would be destroyed or that it was a sign.  Jesus is making it clear there will be an end, just as there was a beginning; there is an Eschaton just as there is a Genesis.  As in each of the Gospels, Jesus tells us there will be an end time to the world as we know it; when good finally triumphs over evil, forever.  This passage from Isaiah picks up on this as well, by telling us God is creating new heavens and a new earth.  This is exactly what John the Revelator picks up on in his book of Revelation.  Specifically Chapter 21 “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them; he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away.’”  This is the true accumulation of John’s Apocalypse (that word simply means Revelation).  John shares his Revelation of the end time, but the point is not to demonstrate when, but rather that there is an Eschaton, in which God triumphs over evil.  Jesus’ own words that make this clear that the end cannot nor should not be predicted.  When Jesus was asked about the coming age, He responded, “Beware that you are not led astray; for many will come in my name and say, ‘I am he!” and, “The time is near!”  Do not go after them.” (Luke 21: 8)  Jesus makes it also clear the end will come to the whole world and to the cosmos, by suggesting there will be wars throughout the world and signs from heaven, but he then  says these “signs” do not determine when either, for “…the end will not follow immediately.”  Jesus is making it clear that while there is an end we are not to try to predict the time, rather we are to endure.  We are not to even prepare our argument as Jesus will protect us, every hair, and provide the words that cannot be questioned.

To explain the church year to people I will grab a piece of yarn (which I did during the sermon) and demonstrate that time is linear.  God created and we know that eventually there will be end of the world, where God will ultimately triumph.  We know that people are born and die (born anew), a beginning and an end with hopefully born again along the line.  We know that football games end (despite the last two minutes lasting longer than any other), television shows begin and end, etc.  We know that time as linear, both as a reality and theologically as discussed above.  However, the church takes this linear time and makes it circular.  Jesus is the beginning and the end (the Alpha and Omega).  We make it a circle by the way we celebrate and worship Jesus through the church year.  See every year we start with Advent, preparing for Emmanuel, God with us.  Then Christmastide becomes epiphany where and we celebrate Jesus’ baptism.  We then prepare for the great mystery of the death and resurrection with Lent, which brings us to the seven weeks of Eastertide (approximately 1/7 of the year, the Sunday of the year) and then we have Pentecost the birthday of the church.  Then onto Kingdom Building period, which much of the scripture is Jesus’ teaching, capping off with Christ the King Sunday.  Then we start it again.  This also what we do each Sunday when we come to the communion table remembering the most important part of our faith.  The death and resurrection of Jesus and this is how we live as Christians.  We live in this circle.  We know that there is an Eschaton, an end that reveals God to the whole new heaven and new earth.  However we simply keep inviting people into this circle of love, for as Jesus tells us, “by your endurance you will gain your souls.”

Born Anew

Luke 20:27-38

Sadducees were part of the aristocratic class and truly did not believe in the resurrection.  We often hear of how the Pharisees were in conflict with Jesus in the scriptures, and that is because they were generally the group more similar to Jesus and His followers.   The Sadducees did not uphold the prophets but only the books of Moses, the law.  This is in part because they were most interested in keeping the status quo in which they flourished as many of their people suffered under Roman oppression, waiting for their Messiah.   Here the Sadducees are determined to stump, Jesus with this rhetorical question about seven brothers and one wife.  The problem is their idea of the resurrection was more like an escalator into heaven, continuing this life on another plane (if they could imagine of an escalator that is).  Jesus answers not with a parable, but rather with a straightforward reasoning.  There are two parts to Jesus’’ response the first being that this age is not like the age to come and the second is that God is a God of the living not of the dead (as per their own scripture).  While Jesus clearly tells us that in the resurrection we are not simply continuing the life we know, but are rather like angels and are with God, this was an issue for some of the early followers.  In Corinth it was a worry as they knew of believers who passed away and were now decomposing in their tombs.  If they were to be resurrected how will the body go on to glory?  Paul makes it clear as Jesus did in 1 Cor 15: “There are both heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the glory of the heavenly is one thing, and that of the earthly is another.” And Paul admits it is a mystery later in the chapter: “What I am saying, brothers and sisters, is this: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Listen, I will tell you a mystery! We will not all die, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.”  This is important that we will be changed upon the resurrection; it is not simply a new realm, but something gloriously different, where we dwell with God, where we are with God.

The early Christians often recorded one’s death as their Birthday, this is in part because they did not have records of everyone’s birthday, but it was also a theological statement that upon death you are born anew into the resurrection.  This reminds me of my friend Mary Anne who can claim three birthdates, see she was born in Ireland 80 or so years ago, and her mother recorded the date in the family Bible.  Her father was to record the date in town about a month or so later when he brought sheep to market.  As she tells it, she believes, he may have visited the Public House prior to the Towne Clerk, and he remembered it was a Tuesday, but recorded the date later.  Then in sixties she emigrated from Ireland to the United States, and somehow through the bureaucracy gave her a third birth date.  While that may be a funny story, I believe it is true that we have three birthdays.  The first being the one our mother’s told us, when we are born again, and then the one to come when we are born anew.  Now some people are not as exacting about their born again date and others are, but that does not make it less true.  Some people grew up in the church and did not realize a change as some did, but the fact is that if you believe in Jesus you have been born again. 

Well this brings to mind the metaphor of the butterfly.  It is a wonderful metaphor the caterpillar eats and eats, and worries about the physical body, until it is time to get in the cocoon, and it is dormant (dead), and comes out changed as a wonderful butterfly.  This is a great metaphor especially that we are changed, but we are not caterpillars, we are not animals.  We know or better yet believe in the God of Love through His Son Jesus whose “birthday” on the cross brought us reconciled to the Divine.  Therefore we don’t just go eating and worrying about the perishable for we know that only the imperishable will inherit the Kingdom.  We are Born Again and celebrate our Born Anew by participating in the resurrection today.  Our belief does not allow us to simply wait to be Born Anew into the glory that is God, but we are to share this knowledge and belief with others, bringing aspects of Heaven upon earth.  We participate in the Bodily Resurrection by being the Body of Christ on Earth, for our belief puts one foot on earth and one in heaven, it is the already but not yet.  This is the mystery that we are changed by our belief and we are anticipating another change in a twinkling of an eye, but we know God as the God of the living and as we continue to live we live for God.

Made Well

Luke 19: 1-10 (Zacchaeus)

He entered Jericho and was passing through it. A man was there named Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax-collector and was rich. He was trying to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd he could not, because he was short in stature. So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore tree to see him, because he was going to pass that way. When Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, ‘Zacchaeus, hurry and come down; for I must stay at your house today.’ So he hurried down and was happy to welcome him. All who saw it began to grumble and said, ‘He has gone to be the guest of one who is a sinner.’ Zacchaeus stood there and said to the Lord, ‘Look, half of my possessions, Lord, I will give to the poor; and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will pay back four times as much.’ Then Jesus said to him, ‘Today salvation has come to this house, because he too is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost.’

While reading, researching, and praying for preparation for this sermon, I had Leadership Durant which is once a month.  This is a group of leaders from our community that the Durant Area Chamber of Commerce sponsors and we explore leadership on many levels.  This month was economic development so we went to some very large places in the area.  Such as Big Lots! Distribution Center, the new Choctaw Resort, and Cardinal Glass with a furnace that consumes the greatest amount of natural gas in the state of Oklahoma.  There was also the large heart of REI that helps create businesses or help small businesses in rural Oklahoma, through education, loans, and various other resources.  While all of these places I fell will help us to understand this week’s scripture, it was at Eagle Suspension that I heard something that brought the message to life.  At Eagle Suspension they manufacture suspensions for large and small trucks, as well as orders for classic cars.  They moved to this facility just over four years ago, from Canada, with three people who knew how to work the machines, now there are over 300 jobs at this plant and obviously still growing.  I have as a Christian Minister served many people and I hope have also changed some lives (I have been told), but to be able to provide an actual livelihood is exactly what all these people we visited provide.  This is important as the Gospel cannot be heard on an empty stomach and to simply fill it with charity is only part of the solution, people creating jobs are an important ministry for humanity. 

How does this relate to Zacchaeus, preacher, you ask? Well I hope to make that clear and I will start by exploring what is happening at this sycamore tree.  Zacchaeus was a chief tax collector thus a sinner in the eyes of the Jewish people, as the tax collector was an essentially the extension of the Roman oppression.  This is the only time that the term “chief” is used, indicting him as being even more involved in the unjust system. We know Jesus came for everyone, including sinners and thus often ate with sinners, which, just in this instance, was not received well by most.  We realize that Zacchaeus had a personal conversion, either on his way up or down the sycamore tree (or before) that led him to this relationship with Jesus, who knew He was to stay at his house.  Zacchaeus responds to this grace by a wonderful commitment to help the poor and to pay back those he had wronged greater than the Jewish law would require.  Jesus then says, “Today salvation has come to this house…” This is a theme throughout Luke’s writings (Luke & Acts), that salvation would come to a house or household, (Acts 10:2; 11:14; 16:15-31; 18:8).  One of these is the story of Lydia, who we also know as a rich person, like Zacchaeus.  She has a personal conversion along the river hearing Paul witness Jesus.  Thus her whole household is baptized.  In the account of Lydia, we are not privy to her being a sinner, such as a tax collector, (of course all humans fall short), so when we hear of her entire household we read it as an extension of her witness to those that live and work in her house.  I want to emphasize that in the first century a household is not like we think of it today, rather it is more accurately an economic unit.  It is not even limited to one roof and certainly not one family, but rather a unit of workers under a patriarch and on rare occasions, such as Lydia’s, matriarch.  This is essential to understand Jesus’ blessing of Zacchaeus’ house.

Salvation in the Greek (swñ or σωτηρία) is often translated as saved or salvation, but can alternatively be translated as, “healed,” “made well” and/or “made whole.” Recently in a sermon I explored how ten lepers were sent by Jesus to a priest, and on the way all were physically healed.  One, a Samaritan (interesting in itself), turned back to thank and praise Jesus.  Jesus then says according to the English translation, “your faith has made you well.”  (Luke 17:19).  We know that he was physically healed and thus is why he came back to thank Jesus, and thus receives salvation (the same word).  Zacchaeus had certainly repented and understood Jesus as Lord and Savior, and then spreads his salvation to others.  Not in the sense that he gave them a personal relationship with the Lord, but he helped out their physical needs.  He helped his household and the poor with half his wealth.  This is the Good News that our personal conversions are to spread wholeness to others. 

Our right relationship with God depends on our confession that Jesus is our Lord and Savior and we then must actually not simply hold that knowledge, we share and witness it to others.  Yet someone may not be ready for such witness if they are hungry or oppressed.  Thus I remember how Jesus explains the judgment in Matthew 25: 31-46:

‘When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left. Then the king will say to those at his right hand, “Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.” Then the righteous will answer him, “Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?” And the king will answer them, “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.” Then he will say to those at his left hand, “You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.” Then they also will answer, “Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?” Then he will answer them, “Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.” And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.’ 

Jesus tells us that it is not simply our personal belief or our personal conversion, but this important work.  To help those in need, sharing the love Jesus showed us.  A witness that is very powerful.  To see salvation as both a personal and communal event is exactly what this scripture is demonstrating.  Through Zacchaeus’ conversion, his household received salvation along with the community, or better healed and made whole. 

The corporations and the people that got them to our small community, provide this wholeness to the community even if it is not directly in the name of Christ.  This is as important work as ours to witness our personal salvation, as people need to have a living and purpose in order to be able to hear our witness.  If three people can come with the knowledge of making suspensions and now over 300 people have a living from that knowledge in four years, how much more can us Christians share our knowledge and grow.  This is important knowledge, that Jesus’ is our personal Lord and savior; knowledge that we must go out and help the “least of these,” in our community.  This is a knowledge we must share as salvation for the individual and the community, the healing of the individual and the community, the wholeness of the individual and the community, depends on us sharing this knowledge.