Tagged with incarnation …

Apr 27 2010
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Articles and Ponderings

What I Believe… Mostly… For now…

My vicinage council was last Saturday, and it was great! A couple folks from church asked me to post my presentation here since they couldn’t make it. It’s a snapshot of my theology for those interested in how my brain works. Notably absent is any discussion of scripture. It was rightly the first question asked by the council. I’ll type up a summary of my response and add it later.

Classical Christianity recognizes two core mysteries of faith: trinity and incarnation. Since the common foundation of both is love, Christians ought to be above all else loving. Since we experience both through covenant, Christians ought to be a covenant people. Since the hearts of God is triune, Christians ought to be a community. Since God revealed himself through incarnation, Christians ought to be missional. We are a loving covenant community on a mission from God.

We love as Christ loves. Our love is sacrificial; it conquers through suffering. Our love is creative; it refuses to accept things as they are. Our love is subversive; it refuses to “fight fair”. And ultimately, our love is not really our love at all. It is God’s love active in and through us. The more we reflect God’s love, the more truly we are Christians.

If we are true friends, we take care of each other. We seek and offer advice. If need be, we warn each other. We make recommendations. We are involved in each other’s lives, and we drop everything to help in emergencies. It’s what friends do, and it’s what churches do, because that’s the nature of a covenant relationship. This is why the Cambridge Platform defines the marks of a congregational church as: mutual care, consultation, admonition, participation, recommendation, and to minister relief.

A wise man once told me that for love to be real it must be free. Our time together today is a perfect example. We are free to invite you or not. You are free to attend or not. You are free to recommend that I be installed or not. The congregation is free to heed your recommendation or not. But if we consistently choose the not, are we really living in relationship? As we freely accept and live out these covenant bonds, we become tiny images of the trinity.

We are a disciplined community, with boundaries and practices. In the student/teacher relationship, the teacher defines the boundaries and sets the practices that shape the character of the student. The boundary in this case isn’t the kind we’re used to. It’s internal. Christians through out history have spent far too much time trying to define the edges, the limits, of Christianity, when we should be focused on the center. As long as we are gathered around Christ, we are naturally in fellowship with each other.

The local church, in every aspect but especially when gathered in worship, is our greatest opportunity to practice and experience loving community. We need the witness of Scripture to correct and guide us. We need the intelligent and prayerful interpretation of the preacher. We need to experience the power of the sacraments. We need to stand united in prayer and praise, even if it’s only for a few brief moments once a week. Because when we fail to do those things, we lose touch with the root of all life, and we suffer.

But Sunday morning is not enough. How can I say I know someone if I refuse to experience some part of their pain, or their joy? How can I say we live in community, when my involvement in your life ends when you leave the meeting? This is true in our personal relationship with God, in our communal relationships within the church, and our fraternal relationships in our regional and national associations.

We are called from our old lives to new life in Christ, but that is not the end. From that starting point, we are sent into the world. We are each a tiny image of the incarnation, and as a church we are an empathic community that constantly enters into the lives and families and cultures of this present world. This explains mission work, youth work, prison work, hospital work, service projects, and a thousand other things churches do every day without ever really stopping to wonder why.

Free and loving interdependence is the ordering reality of the universe. We are interdependent whether we recognize it or not, and we are free to ignore that reality (at our peril) if we so choose. By acknowledging this reality, our Congregational ancestors shaped a way of doing church that reflects the very heart of God.
Are we really a loving covenant community on a mission from God? Or are we more often a clique on a mission of self-interest, or a club on a mission of self-preservation? Loving communal, missional, and covenantal are all other-centered adjectives. Therefore, opposite of Christianity isn’t paganism, or drunkenness, or homosexuality, or liberals, or rap music, or anything else that televangelists condemn. The opposite of Christianity is self-centeredness. If people find just as much of that at church on Sunday as they do at work on Monday, maybe that’s why so few want to come.

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Feb 22 2010
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Sermons

Shine – A Sermon for Transfiguration Sunday

Wordle: Shine - A Sermon for Transfiguration Sunday

www.wordle.net

Creative Commons LicenseTexts: Luke 9:28-36 and Exodus 34:29-35

Last week we learned how the Old Testament gives us the vocabulary to understand the new. And wouldn’t you now, this week gives us a perfect example. Let’s pretend we’ve never read the Old Testament and look at our text one more time. “About 8 days…” So far so good. We know Jesus, and we know he likest to go off by himself from time to time to pray. We know Peter, James and John too. They are the big three, first among the twelve, Jesus’ closest friends.

The things get strange. He starts glowing, no shining! Even his clothes are like lightning. This hasn’t happened before. Nowhere else in the gospels does Jesus light up like a torch. What does it mean? Is he really a god pretending to be human?

Then two men show up, Moses and Elijah. Since we haven’t read the OT, we have no clue who they might be. Are they his teachers? Is Jesus merely the keeper of ancient secret knowledge? Then a talking cloud shows up and says, “This is my son, who I have chosen.” So Jesus was God’s adopted son?

I’m not pulling these examples out of thin air. These are actual heresies the church has struggled with.  Without the Old Testament to inform our reading of the new, we wind up with more questions than answers.

10 Commandments

Look! They found the originals! Pic by Rob Sheridan via Flickr on a Creative Commons License

So let’s go back to the Old Testament reading, lay them next to each other, and see what we learn. “When Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the two tablets of the Testimony in his hands.” What’s on those tablets? That’s right, the 10 commandments. Actually, we don’t know for sure. Scripture just says the tablets had the law, it doesn’t say if it was the whole law, or just the big ten, but in the Charlton Heston movie it’s the 10, so that’s what it is.

Notice the differences. Moses is coming down the mountain to give the law to the people, but Jesus is going up. Moses went alone to meet with God, but Jesus is bringing his closest friends. He’s going to commune with God and he’s bringing us with him.

Moses comes down, and he doesn’t realize his face is radiant. Then, he puts on a veil because it frightens the people. There is no matching self-consciousness in Jesus because the light in this story isn’t a reflection. We’re talking the difference between the moon and the sun here. Moses puts on a veil, but Jesus is taking his off. It’s as if, here on this mountaintop, close to God, surrounded by his closest friends, he can finally let his guard down.

Now look at the disciples. Are they afraid, like the people were of Moses? No. They don’t understand it, as evidenced by Peter’s stupid, “Let’s build some tents” idea, but they weren’t afraid…

Actually, they probably were. Imagine. Jesus invites you up to pray. And you know when Jesus wants to pray you’re going to be there a while. The scripture says on more than one occasion that Jesus would pray so long that the disciples would fall asleep waiting for him. So, you settle in for a nap and when you wake up, the mountaintop is lit up! But the shadows are all wrong, because the light isn’t coming from the sun, it’s coming from the Son. They had to be scared, but the scripture never mentions it because their trust in Jesus is bigger than their fear.

So, you don’t do the sensible thing and run away screaming. You move toward the light. And as your eyes adjust, you see two men talking with Jesus, Moses and Elijah, the giver of the law and the greatest of all the prophets. We really have no parallel to this moment. You could say it would be like meeting George Washington and Abe Lincoln, but even that doesn’t do it justice, because those are just political figures. This is politics and race and religion all rolled into one. These are the two men who define you as a human being, and just as you wake up, just as you begin to comprehend what’s going on, they start to leave.

Now Peter’s “build a tent” idea doesn’t seem so stupid, does it? “Please, don’t go! Just stay. We have so much to ask, so much to learn. Please don’t go.” But they do, and then comes the cloud, and now at last the disciples are afraid.

They have every right to be. They know that cloud because they know their scriptures. When the Hebrews camped at the base of the mountain, a cloud like smoke from a furnace descended, covering the mountaintop, and there was the sound like a trumpet, thunder and lightning, and the whole mountain shook, and God spoke to Moses out of the darkness, warning the people to come no closer. No one was to touch even the foot of the mountain, not even the priests. Only Moses could speak with God.

Only now the disciples are the ones on the mountaintop and the cloud envelops them. And just as they had feared, a voice speaks to them out of the darkness of the cloud. But it’s not the words of judgment they expect. The voice says, “This is my Son, whom I have chosen; listen to him.”

And just like that, the veil is pulled back into place, the cloud is gone, and Jesus is just Jesus, not a walking star, and they’re pleased to discover they are all alive and in one piece. And they don’t. Say. A word. Can you blame them? What could you possibly say. Who would believe it if you tried?

It wasn’t until much later, after the crucifixion, after the resurrection, after the gift of the Holy Spirit, after time to think and ponder and pray that they came to understand something new. God didn’t call a prophet to the mountaintop, he called regular people who loved Jesus. God didn’t hand over a new set of laws, 10 new commandments. God said, “This is my son, listen to him.” Jesus is the new law, written on our hearts.

Moses used to come down the mountain and show people his face to prove that his message really came from God, and then he would cover his face so no oune would see the glory fade. Jesus doesn’t need to prove anything to anybody, because he’s not the reflection. He’s the source. His light doesn’t fade with time, in fact it grows as it is reflected in the hearts and faces of his followers. As their numbers and purity grows, so does his revealing light.

I met a delightful person this week, who confided in me, even though we had just met. This person said, “I miss church. I used to go, but I made some choices and now I feel uncomfortable. I want to go, but part of me is afraid.” Maybe you’ve felt that way too, like you want to get your life together before you go meet with God. I’ve certainly felt that way. But brothers and sisters, hear the good news from our text today.

You have been invited to the mountaintop, not because you’re perfect, but because Jesus saw something in you, and called your name. And even though you don’t always understand, and sometimes you fall asleep when you ought to be praying, and sometimes the smartest thing you can think to say only serves to highlight your own ignorance, none of that matters, because he saw something in you. He called you. He knows you, and he loves you anyway.

Capitalizing on the one skill every good disciple has, you put your footsteps in the footsteps of Jesus, and without really understanding how or why or when, you wake up and suddenly you’re standing face to face with the shining Son, and you feel no fear.

Make no mistake, there is no hiding.  In his light , every speck and imperfection is obvious, and yet none of it matters because he loves you anyway. And just as suddenly, you’re face to face with the cloud and darkness, that aspect of god that is beyond our knowing, that can only be revealed by hidden-ness. And for a moment, we are justly afraid, but only for a moment, because the voice from the darkness points us back to the light, and when we turn our eyes to see, it’s just Jesus. This is God as we can understand God. This is what we need to know.

When you look in his eyes, what do you see? Rage? Arrogance? Fear? Shame? Guilt? What do you see? Love. Joy. Peace. Patience. Kindness. Goodness. Faithfulness. Gentleness. Self-control. This is God. This the still small voice calling in your heart. You do not have to be afraid, you do not have to understand it all, and you do not have to get it right before you begin. All you need to do is answer the call, and take the next step. If you turn your face to the Son, all the shadows fall behind you.

Creative Commons LicenseShine is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
Based on a work at revsmilez.com.

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Feb 08 2010
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Sermons

Many Christians, One Story

This is the final sermon on our series on unity without uniformity. Week 1 was many gifts, one spirit, where we studied the stained glass window. Up close you can do nothing but compare one shard to another. We compare our lives to those near us, and completely miss the bigger picture. We need to step back and see that together, we are God’s work of art, each part beautiful in it’s own way, none more valuable than another, each part placed perfectly in the whole.

Week 2 was many members one body, where we learned that we are the body of Christ. We honor those parts that are hidden, who serve without fanfare, like our Women’s Fellowship. We protect those parts that are vulnerable, like our children. We keep in touch with those who are far from home, but not far from our hearts, like our shut-ins and those in military service. In the body, we find purpose and meaning as we can finally be ourselves.

Week 3 many opinions, one love. Where we learned that love is not a thing, it’s a person. We can know love specifically because we can know Jesus. The love of God our Father is the one thing that holds us together. At the same time, it’s the one thing that keeps us from uniformity, because God’s love is bigger than our heads. We can truly know that aspect of truth we were designed to know, but we cannot know it all, so we keep a firm faith and an open mind.

It’s no accident that these three sermons reflect the trinity: the gifts of the Spirit, the body of the Son, the love of the Father. The very nature of the trinity is unity without uniformity, community without coercion. The ancients called it perichoresis, which means, “to dance around the center,” each person giving up their place to the next, in a dance that never ends. This is the first great mystery of the Christian faith. Today we will examine the second.

This brings us to week 4. Many Christians, one story. This whole time, we’ve been reading from Paul’s letter to the Christians of Corinth, Sin City of Bible times. Now that they are Christians, he’s teaching them how to build new patterns in their lives. Converting takes an instant. Conforming our lives to God’s? That takes a lifetime.

Paul says, “I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received from those who witnessed it, according to the scriptures.” He received it, from people who saw it, and prophets foretold it. The question you ought to be asking yourself right now is, “So what? What difference does it make?”

It’s not a dumb question. Those are exactly the questions we need to ask every time we engage scripture. Part of the reason the church in America is on its heels because we don’t ask these questions often enough. We’d rather be told than read it ourselves.

Why does Paul write this: received, saw, foretold? Our American mindset says innovation is better than preservation.  We don’t care where the idea came from. We care that it works. We only trust things we can see for ourselves. To our ears it sounds like a pointless paragraph. But Paul was no fool, and considering the expense of writing a letter in those days, I can assure you that he chose his words with care. Which means what? It means we’re missing something.

Why does it matter if Paul received it? It means it’s not about Paul. Tradition says he wasn’t much to look at, bald and short, and scripture says he spent a good chunk of his life as a religious zealot who persecuted the church in the name of God. “God!” (smack) “Loves!” (smack) “You!” Talk about a mixed message. It’s not about Paul. It’s about the one who turned his life around.

It means truth is not the property of the pulpit. You have access to the same truth I do. I don’t rule you. You can get greater wisdom from one old saint who  lived this book, than from a hundred preachers who just talked about it.

It’s not about us, people. Stop stressing over this. Your life is a sermon in three parts. You were who you were. God’s story took hold of you. Now you are what you are. I guarantee you, the people who know you well already know this sermon by heart because they know you. The question is, “Is it a good sermon? Is it compelling? Do people notice the change?” If not, then maybe the sermon needs to be a little less about you and a little more about the one who is making the change.

Which brings us to our next question. Why does it matter if people saw it? It means it’s not a fable with only one moral, one layer of meaning. It’s richer and deeper than that. It means you can go there and see it. You can walk where he walked and see things he saw. You can study the history of the times and the language and understand the moment, because context is meaning. You can spend your life, understand it a little better every day, and never get it all.

It means Jesus wasn’t just male. He was a man, a specific man, a Jewish carpenter from the house of David, who lived in a specific place in time. So when I talk about God as a “he” I’m not saying God is male. God is beyond gender, but Jesus is not. And he called God, “Father.” The one aspect of the trinity that we can touch called God, “Father.” It is not an adjective. It’s a name. We’re not being sexist. We’re being respectful. We can use other names. The Bible is full of them, some masculine, some feminine. But, at least for me, this will always be the gold standard, because this is the metaphor Jesus used to reveal a God too big to comprehend.

Which brings us to our last question. Why does it matter that it was foretold? Some preachers will tell you that it’s to prove the truth of the story, and that’s true. Jesus said himself that miracles and prophecy were signs or proofs. But to me, that’s only part of the reason.

Suppose you wanted to teach a kid physics. How would you do it? Would you crack open a textbook or take her outside to play ball? Exactly, you start with what they know and you build on that foundation until someday, years from now, they will finally have the vocabulary to explain how we catch a pop fly.

Suppose Jesus had just popped on the scene with no Old Testament, no Hebrew Scriptures, no prophecies, no years of experience and history and vocabulary. He pops on the scene and says, “Take. Eat. This is my body. Take. Drink. This is my blood.” And we think, “What? Was Jesus a cannibal? Maybe he was a vampire!” Thankfully, we have the history, so we can look back through scripture and see the symbolism of Passover lamb whose blood protected the people of God. We know the story of the manna bread from heaven that fed the people as they wandered toward the Promised Land. The Old Testament gives us the vocabulary we need to understand the New.

Paul wasn’t stupid. He did choose his words carefully. It matters very much that he passed along what he received, that he received it from eyewitnesses, and that all this happened in accordance with scripture. He received it because it wasn’t about him. It’s not about me. It’s not about us. They saw it because Jesus chewed the same dust we chew today. Jesus knows us, and we can know him. Prophets foretold it because we need new words if we’re ever going to understand the story God is trying to tell.

The name the ancients gave this mystery is incarnation. Trinity means the heart of God is loving community. Incarnation means we are now part of that love. This is the root and goal of our faith, unity without uniformity. We have many gifts but one spirit. We are many members but one body.  We hold many opinions but one love. We are many people, but we share one story. We were who we were. We are who we are. We will be who we will be. It’s our story, but it’s not about us.

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Feb 27 2009
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Sermons

Sermon: Become Them

Date: Feb. 8, 2009.
Title: Become them, until ‘they’ becomes ‘us’.
Themes: Incarnation, love
Text: 1 Corinthians 9:16-23

Note: You may have to turn the volume up in order to hear. Our sound system doesn’t seem to like me.  :)

Video Here
Sermon
You and I both know Christians who are so heavenly minded that they’re no earthly good.  On the other hand, we all know Christians who are so earthly minded that if God picked them up and dropped them in heaven they wouldn’t believe they were there.  The problem is Jesus was a radical, and we’re not.  When Jesus first spoke words like “born again” and “kingdom of God”, they were shocking, even dangerous words.  Why do you think they killed him?  All he did was talk.  And yet today, when someone starts throwing around phrases like “born again” and “kingdom of God” we don’t even listen.  Those words, once so powerful, have become catchphrases for a subculture.

Jesus wasn’t interested in creating a subculture.  He was interested in changing lives.  He saved his harshest words for the Pharisees, and yet they had a lot going for them.  They studied the scriptures.  The prayed a LOT.  They always showed up for services.  They gave generously.  Their families were solid. Their language was clean.  You could tell just by looking at their clothes that they were religious.  You could shut your eyes, talk with them for two minutes and you’d know.  And that was the problem.  You see, no one is that good.  The only way you look that good is if you’re hiding something.  And by hiding something not only do you prevent any healing from happening your own life, but also in the life of your family.  And everyone around you who’s buying into the lie now feels guilty for not keeping up.  That’s the problem of religion as subculture, and Jesus railed against it.

Jesus wanted to radically change lives.  Your old self has to die so that your new self can live.  It’s like you’re being born a completely new person.  But that’s difficult, dangerous, terrifying. We’d rather pretend everything is ok.  Or if we have to change, we’d rather change by degrees.  A little nip here, a little tuck there.  So we make a promise to ourselves.  “I will never do that again.  I will never do that again.”

But it doesn’t work.  You know why?  Because if you’re arguing with yourself, you’ve already lost.  Your brain knows that your resolution is at least partly a lie.  If it weren’t you wouldn’t have to make the resolution.  No one has to psych themselves up to go get ice cream.  If you’re arguing with yourself, then your will is fighting against your appetite.  Unfortunately, will power is finite, but your brain’s ability to rationalize is not.  So the outcome is a forgone conclusion.  You will eventually give in and do the thing you hate.

You have to become a new person.  The old person has to die so that the new one can live.  And what does this new person look like?  Simplest terms?  “Love God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength.  And the second is like it, Love your neighbor as yourself.”   Let’s break that down.

Love God with all your heart. Jesus looked at this world and he wept.  He saw the abuse of power, the twisting of religion, and he was enraged. Do you think God expects us to be happy happy, joy joy, 24/7?  God is not surprised by our feelings.  There is no need to hide.  How can God heal your heart if you won’t give it to him?  We come her on Sunday and put on our best clothes and our best faces.  And part of that is OK.  It’s respectful, it’s even helpful.  When I was a teenager, I really made my mom angry one Sunday because I had been obnoxious to her all week, and then we came to church and I was all sunshine and roses.  She thought I was putting on a show, but the truth is it was easier to be nice to her at church.  I felt like my best self at church.  With the clothes, and the songs, and everyone watching, it was easier to be good.  So some of that dress-up is ok, but honestly folks, who are we trying to fool?  If you’re carrying a load of anger on the inside and smiling on the outside how does it heal?  If you’re in pain, or afraid, or depressed and you smile all though church and go home to whatever habit you’ve adopted that helps you numb out, how does it ever get better?  You know where that road ends?  God wants to heal us, but that only works if we love God with our whole hearts, even the broken parts.

What about your soul?  Love God with your whole spirit?  Well, let’s put it this way.  Suppose you’re in a relationship and the only time you ever talk to your significant other is for 30 seconds at meal times?  What kind of relationship is that?  Or suppose you talk to each other, but all you ever do is complain about your life and ask for stuff? How long is that relationship going to last?  Now imagine if you only showed affection for your partner once a week.  One day a week you’re all lovey dovey and the rest of the week you haven’t got the time.  You see where I’m going with this?  Paul says to pray without ceasing. Devote yourself to prayers so that it becomes a part of you, like breathing.  You don’t even have to think about it because it’s the habit of your life to seek God.

Love God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind.  Ever since the enlightenment, we’ve carried an argument in our heads that says there is an inescapable conflict between faith and reason.  Reason is what’s real, it’s the stuff we can prove with argument and evidence.  Faith is for all the rest of that silly religious stuff that we still cling to because it helps us feel better. That’s a misrepresentation of both faith and science.  If God made the world, then it has some sort of order or rationality at its root, which means it is understandable.  If God made the world from scratch, then it’s contingent, it didn’t have to be this way.  Which means reality is not self evident, you have to go out there and look at it.  You have to admit that you don’t know, and immerse yourself in the thing you don’t understand until its patterns become clear.  You have to live with it, live right in it, until your imagination finds a way to grasp it, your intelligence finds a way to name it, and your wisdom finds a way to apply it.  That’s real science, the art of finding things out, and faith conflicts with none of it.

But finding things out is only one of the magnificent things your mind can do.  It can also make stuff up.  We are miniature creators, made in the image of our creator, and the process of creation mirrors the process of discovery.  We begin in the imagination, but instead of discovering the connections that are already there, we make new ones up.  Then we use our intelligence to make that new thing real.  And once it’s real, we use our wisdom to make the best of it.  Loving God with all your mind means discovering and creating as an act of faith, as an act of worship.

Love God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.  Feeling close to God is wonderful.  Praying with God is wonderful.  Thinking Godly thoughts is wonderful, but it’s not enough.  You have to physically do something.

Up until the steam engine, the average person had two options.  You could do agriculture, or you could learn a trade.  If you work is physical like that, then this whole thing plays out pretty clearly.  You bring your whole heart to your work and it becomes and expression of your emotions.  You bring your whole spirit to your work and the work itself becomes a prayer.  You bring your whole mind to your work and the work becomes art.  You bring all your strength to the task before you and when your strength is gone, you rest.  That all make sense when your work is digging a ditch, or planting a garden, or making a violin.  But what if your job is implementing diversity, increasing sales, or finding a way to keep 125 people working in spite of an economic downturn.  What does loving God with all your strength look like then?  I don’t know for sure, but I have two ideas.

First, it helps me to remember that every project we have, no matter how abstract ultimately breaks down into physical next actions: pick up the phone, dial the number, send the email, draft the memo.  I can’t get my head around the whole project, but I can do this next one thing well.  The second trick that helps me is to remember that strength, time, and energy are all part of the same equation.  In a digital world, we can only rarely bring strength to bear on a given responsibility.  But time and energy?  Those we can control.  For many of us, loving God with all your strength means we’re spending our time and energy on things that honor God and draw us closer to him.

Love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself.  The obvious question then is how do you love yourself?  You take care of your needs.  Food and shelter.  Security.  Belonging.  Respect.  If Maslow is right, then our highest need is to experience meaning and purpose, to realize our inner potential.  To love your neighbor as yourself, meet their needs.  Imagine a world where we spent more money fighting poverty than we spent on cosmetics.  Imagine a world where no one had to wonder when the next bomb was going to explode.  Imagine a world where great teachers received more respect than mediocre basketball players.  Imagine all the human potential that will be forever wasted in the next minute being applied to a cure for cancer.

An amazing vision.  How do we make it real?  How do we meet people’s needs?  Well, one thing is certain.  We can’t force it on them.  God doesn’t force his love on us.  If God chose to, he could reveal himself in a way we could not ignore. But then we wouldn’t be us anymore, would we?  And whatever we felt at that point could never be called love.  Maybe awe, maybe fear, but never love.  So God chose another path.  He came to us, identified with us.  What is the primal scream of the Old Testament?  What do the prophets cry over and over again?  “How long, O Lord?  How long must we wait?”  And then we hear the words of Jesus as he cries from the cross, “My God, My God.  Why have you forsaken me?”  He became one of us.

So we follow his example.  We become like those we serve, we identify with them, until there is no “them” anymore.  There’s only “us”.  Paul says, “Though I am free and belong to no man, I make myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible. To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law), so as to win those not having the law. To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some.”

So what, should we all just go convert to someone else’s religion?  No way.  Jesus did not come here to blend in.  He was one with us, and he hid from nothing.  But everywhere he went, his presence was living critique.  He didn’t fear the Romans.  He did admire the Pharisees.  He didn’t curry favor with the Sadducees.  He was light and life, and everywhere he went brokenness became whole, hidden things became visible, and death and sickness lost their power.  If you’re talking to someone and they can tell in the first minute that you’re a Christian, there’s something wrong.  On the other hand, if they can work closely with you for a year and not know you’re a Christian, something is wrong.

Perhaps our problem isn’t that we need to learn to speak the culture’s language.  Perhaps we speak the culture’s language all too well.  Perhaps our problem is we never learned to speak our own language, the language of faith, hope, and love.  True Christianity is infectious.  It is caught, not taught.  I have never met a person who was argued into heaven, and I’ve met very few non-Christians who give a slightest care what the Bible says.  You are the only Bible they will read, the only sermon they will hear.  But how can they read it in you, if you haven’t read it yourself?   How will they see something different in you if you’re just as stressed and scared as they are?  We need to be transformed.  Love God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.  Then love your neighbor as yourself.

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Apr 29 2008
1 Comment
Sermons, The Third Way

You Just Don’t Get It

Video (with sound) here.
Audio alone here. Please forgive the random tone quality changes in the recording. We were experiencing microphone difficulties.

Title: You Just Don’t Get It
Texts: 1 Cor. 9:19-22, Acts 17:22-31
Date: April 27, 2008

I love being a dad. Right now, being a dad means being the second coolest person on the planet. Mom comes first, of course, but that doesn’t bother me a bit because she deserves it. When they come running toward me, arms outstretched, it’s the greatest thing the world. Fortunately, I’ve worked with young people long enough to know I better enjoy it now. Because sooner than I can blink they’ll turn thirteen, when I will change from second coolest person on the planet, to stupidest human being on the face of the earth.

It’s not their fault. Parents just don’t understand. My Grandpa didn’t get the Beatles, and my Dad didn’t get Metallica, and I surely don’t get Justin Timberlake. It’s just how the world works. The silver lining is that somewhere around or after the college years, parents’ stock starts to rise. Slowly they begin to look less and less like lumbering idiots, until one day, if you’re lucky, a little light goes on and you say, “Wow, they’re human beings. And they’re kind of smart in their own way. Who knew?”

Unfortunately, the same process doesn’t apply in the realms of politics and religion. Why bother to have a discussion when you can play gotcha? The political end of this as shown by the presidential race is so obvious that I won’t bore you with it, but religion is no better. Religious radio makes a pile of cash year in and year out with a very simple formula. Take something someone else said, run it out to its absurdest possible conclusion, and then shame them for it.

Even in seminary, it’s not much better. At least there, they make you cite your sources. But that didn’t stop me from setting up a straw man argument or two. Much easier to oversimplify someone else’s work and then knock it down than to reach inside and understand, especially when time is short and your grade is on the line. A straw man paper, well constructed, and submitted on time earns you a moderate grade, but to step inside the mind of another and see the world through their eyes? That could take a lifetime.

“Don’t you understand,” they say, “A woman has a right to choose.” “No you don’t understand,” they respond, “It’s a baby, not a choice.” “Don’t you understand,” they say, “Your evolutionary theory undercuts the foundation of our faith.” “No you don’t understand,” they respond, “Your blind faith undercuts all science.” “Don’t you understand I’m trying to save you from hell?” “No, you don’t understand that your aggressive questions and arguments make me feel like I’m there already.” And round and round it goes.

You even find it in scripture, especially the Old Testament, when the poets weep and the prophets shake their fists at the sky. “Where are you, God? How long must we endure? Why do you not answer your people? Do you not see what they do to us? Do you not hear our cries? Do you not understand?” And God replies, “No, you are the one who does not understand. Did you create the world? Can you order its ways?”

The world sits in this uneasy tension, until the coming of Jesus, when God puts on flesh and becomes one of us. The theological word is incarnation, fully God and fully man, without confusion, change, division, or separation. In practical terms it means two things. 1. God fully understands what it is to be human. 2. When we look at Jesus we see God as God really is. But those are just ideas. How does play out in real life?

If we follow Jesus, then we become incarnational too. As God entered into our life, so we enter into the lives of others. This is what Paul was talking about when he said, “To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews… To the gentiles I became like gentile to win the gentiles… I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some.” Paul entered into the lives of the people he served, connected with them, and spoke their language.

His speech from the book of Acts shows this clearly. He’s a Jewish scholar, and those writings that have come down to us are full of references to the Hebrew scriptures. But in this speech before the Greek intelligentsia, he abandons all of that and chooses instead to open with a comment on their polytheism. If this were religious radio, he’d be blasting away with both barrels, telling them in no uncertain terms that those who worship false gods are destined for a fiery end, but he doesn’t do any of that.

He says, “I can see by your many statues that you are very religious. So religious that you even put up a statue to the unknown God, just to make sure all your bases are covered. Let me tell you what I know of that unknown God.” And then he proceeds to quote their own songs and poets to them, showing them how their own culture and beliefs point toward a God bigger than a mere idol. Thousands of years of Hebrew scripture, culture, and history, the story of the chosen people of God and he doesn’t mention a second of it. He puts himself aside and becomes for a moment, one of them, to reach them on their own terms. If he were speaking today he’d be quoting Justin Timberlake and Rhianna!

But just because he puts himself aside for their sake doesn’t mean he puts Christ aside too. We live in a world of political correctness. And you graduates are heading off to college are going to be in the very heart of it. Political correctness that says you can believe whatever you want as long as you keep it to yourself. That’s not what Paul did, and that’s not what Jesus did either.

Jesus did not become incarnate and then “go native”. He didn’t try to fit in, didn’t abandon his calling. What makes him so compelling is how completely centered he is in within himself and his purpose. He exists to do his Father’s will, and the rest of the world can either help him or kill him, but that’s what he’s going to do.

For generations, philosophers talked about the unbridgeable chasm between God and humanity. God is so holy, perfect, and pure that he could never come down into the dirt and the mire. It would be beneath his dignity to dirty himself by entering our world.

But Jesus showed us exactly the opposite. There is nothing that God will not stoop to. There is nothing below his dignity, if doing it might heal us. And in becoming one of us, God does not become broken. We become whole. It’s as if he jumped into a cesspool and instead of getting dirty, his presence transformed the cesspool into a spring. No amount of evil could overcome his goodness. No amount of darkness could put out his light. Everywhere Jesus went, things around him began to become what they were always mean to be… whole.

Want to heal the world? Start listening. Build relationships. Learn to speak their language. See the world through their eyes. Then, when the time finally comes to speak, you will have words they can hear, ideas that resonate. Not only that, I guarantee you will learn something new from them about the God you claim to follow. If you listen, they will teach you about God.

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