One of the first things that happened to me upon my arrival here in Riverside was a change in the colour of my thumb. Up until this point, the only colours my thumb had been were regular flesh, and black and blue, when I accidently hit it with a hammer. That all changed because when Jeff and Kris went on vacation and to Mississippi, as one of my tasks was to water the plants outside and inside the parsonage. Suddenly my thumb had turned green and as I reflect on my time spent here in Riverside, I have come to realize the position of student pastor means that a green thumb is necessary. Even more so, as followers of Christ, we are all called to be gardeners, people who plant seeds.
You see, for me as a student pastor, one of the best parts of my job is that I get to scatter seed as far as I can. Whether it is in a children’s chat, teaching a Sunday School class, preaching a sermon, building a labyrinth, having a shared meal, writing a newsletter article, discussion during a committee meeting, working with the confirmation class, or even during a short conversation while shaking hands at the end of a worship service, all of these moments are times when I hope I have scattered seeds which will eventually yield some amazing fruit. The disappointing part of being a student pastor is that a year is rarely long enough to really nurture such seeds so that they may bear fruit.
But between my joys and disappointments in my own gardening role is the life giving role in which you all play within God’s garden because the truth of the matter is that your pastors are not the true gardeners. Each and every one of you are the people who should be planting the seeds in the lives of your friends, your neighbors, your loved ones, every person you meet in the store, while you walk your dog, while watch a baseball game. Every moment we have to interact with another person is another chance to plant a seed which God will give water and light to in order that it yield fruit to be harvested for God’s kingdom.
Now remember the first scripture which we read today? Jesus tells us to enter through the narrow gate, for wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life and only a few find it.” I think that when we combine both of these scriptures, we can gain a better understanding of how we can plant our seeds in good soil so that we don’t just go about scattering our seed in thorny places where they will not take a good root.
As we try and walk that narrow path, we realize that the soil on the sides is incredibly fertile. The only problem is that this path is difficult to find. Almost everything in our own culture tells us that we should take the easy route in life. Instead of making a meal at home, we have countless fast food restaurants which offer to take the time and energy out of preparing the meal. Instead of taking mass transportation because it is more of a hassle, we all drive places individually so we can get there as quickly as possible. We spend more time in front of the television than sharing stories with our sisters and brothers in Christ. There are times in which we argue with one another in order to avoid doing the right thing because the right thing is hard to do while arguing is the easy way out.
Doing something hard over something easy is what God calls us to each and every day we decide to follow Jesus. Christ raises the bar! He does not allow us to buy our salvation with money or works. He calls us to follow and then continues on ahead of us, wondering if we will try to catch up.
When I was in college, the degree I cared most about was my political science degree. My first two years were taught mainly by the head of the political science department who was considered to be a fairly easy teacher. He would post the notes of every lecture he gave and would create the tests right from his notes. And while he did not require you to attend class, if you attended every class and had a B or higher average, you didn’t have to take the final. For two years, I thought his classes were the best thing going. I always got a B in each of his classes and never had to take a single final. If I wanted to take the easy road for an example in this story, my point could be how important it is just to show up, but the easy way is not the best way.
During my junior year, we got a new professor in the Political Science department. This professor said that every class you missed, your next paper would lose 5 percent of the grade. If he thought most of the class didn’t do the required reading, he would give the class a pop quiz. Not once did he simply lecture from the notes he took from the stuff we already read…the new professor actually was ahead of us in our discussions and learning. He did not require us to regurgitate information we could find in the library, he wanted to see if we could think for ourselves. At the end of the semester, I had a C minus in this class. It was the lowest grade I ever got in college. I probably should have been disappointed with myself, but the truth of the matter is that I thought it was the best class I ever had. In fact, the next semester I took another one of our new professors classes because of how much I learned. I was challenged in ways I had not been before, and it was a great thing.
Sadly, when I look at my senior year of political science classes, I again had the teacher I had my first two years and I fell back into mediocre work. It is the perfect example of how one of my teachers planted a seed of thorns and one teacher planted a seed which would have deep roots if they were not so close together. I have to constantly struggle with the thorny bush my first professor planted. It is the seed planted in my soil which makes me lazy, which makes me only do what I need to do instead of doing the hard thing which will cause me to be a better person. And thankfully, I still have the seed along side of it which calls out to me to push myself to learn even if it is hard, even if my grade will not be as high.
After the service today, when you’re having lunch with a family member or a friend, I challenge you to share a story in your life in which a seed was planted in good soil and it produced an unexpected yield in your own life. It is when you share these stories, it is like eating the fruit which was once a small seed. It has been planted, grown, nurtured and finally shared. When that’s done, you have more seeds which will hopefully find their way to fresh soil and you can continue following Jesus down the narrow road.
To wrap this up, I just want to thank you all for your warm gifts of hospitality and the love which you have shown me over the last year. I will never forget the time we all walked in God’s garden together. It was a wonderful experience for me and I will always look back on my time here as fruitful. Amen.
Showing posts with label Sermon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sermon. Show all posts
Sunday, June 29, 2008
Sunday, June 22, 2008
Romans 6: 1-13
I want everyone to go ahead and find their pulse. Everyone got it? Good, now wipe your forehead and say “phew”. I want to congratulate you. You are a resurrected being! Repeat after me: “I am a resurrected being! I am alive in Christ!” Believe it or not brothers and sisters, this is a very important distinction between us and the rest of the world. When we are baptized, we are making a public statement that we are a resurrected person. Not everyone can make such a seemingly outrageous claim. In fact, it appears that most Christians fail to embrace living a resurrected life and this is a very sad thing.
There are a lot of excuses we can use for failing to embrace living a resurrected life in Christ. We can say that we were baptized at such a young age that we don’t remember what it means to be baptized. We can say that our western culture allows us to be purchasers of faith instead people who truly seek to be disciples. We can blame TV evangelists, the liberal media, the government, or even other denominations or faiths. Because of this, it seems as if it is easier to continue to live in sin and ask for forgiveness than to be a bearer of grace to the rest of the world.
For the most part, I assume that the sins which we all normally pray forgiveness for are what we might know of as the 7 deadly sins which are Pride, Envy, Gluttony, Lust, Anger, Greed and Sloth. If none of those are particularly meaningful to you, an Archbishop in the Catholic Church has recently added 7 more sins to the list. They are Environmental Pollution, Genetic Manipulation, Accumulating Excessive Wealth, Inflicting Poverty, Drug Trafficking and consumption, Morally Debatable Experiments, and Violations of Fundamental Rights of Human Nature[1]. If you somehow still find yourself thinking those are fairly easy to avoid, Gandhi has his own version of 7 deadly sins. They are Wealth without Work, Pleasure without Conscience, Science without Humanity, Knowledge without Character, Politics without Principal, Commerce without Morality, and Worship without Sacrifice[2]. If you’re anything like me, I know that I’ve fallen prey to more than a few of these sins. In fact, there are only two which I’m pretty sure I haven’t done, which are genetic manipulation and morally debatable experiments, and that’s only because I’m not smart enough to figure out how.
Fortunately for us, if we are baptized and have a pulse, we do not need to continue to keep on committing those sins and asking forgiveness. Please don’t think I’m saying that we need not ask for forgiveness any longer, because when we do slip up, we must still ask for God’s grace and forgiveness, but I’m saying that God calls us to a higher standard. The second half of verse 13 calls us to “offer ourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer the parts of our body to God as instruments of righteousness.” What this does is take the things which could be small stumbling blocks in our faith journey and transforms them into stepping stones.
Peter is my favourite example of a person who turned a potential stumbling block into a stepping stone. When he denied that he knew Christ three times, the moment the rooster crowed, he could have allowed himself to stay dejected, hating himself for being so selfish. Instead, he allowed the grace of God to overpower his sin, and allowed his initial denial to lift him to new heights in his discipleship.
If you find in your life that you are always envious of your neighbor’s flat screen television, one way of making such envy into a stepping stone is to get rid of the TV you have and find another way to spend your time or perhaps you could simply start by getting rid of cable. If you find yourself with more wealth than you really need, give it away so that it cannot hold power over you. Or if Gandhi’s lists of sins, which border on the spiritual more than the physical, are more difficult for you to keep, find a way to turn one of them into a stepping stone. Gandhi’s last sin, which is Worship without sacrifice is by far the most intriguing sin to me. Sacrifice as worship is an amazing thing which we hopefully think about every day when we make it a point to take up our cross and follow Christ. When we sacrifice, that old part inside of us which was prone to sin will die and make us a better disciple. The trick is to actually allowing it to die. I heard a story of a person who realized that when they were sinning and they were not allowing their sin to be a stepping stone, they would say words which are normally part of a funeral service. Upon realization that their sin was getting the best of them and not allowing Christ to shine through them, they would say “Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Rest in peace."[3]
One of my favourite movies is the Shawshank Redemption and I think it does a wonderful job of giving us a visual example of what it means to give a tiny funeral to our sin each and every day. You see, in a funeral, some pastors as they say the words, Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust, will sometimes sprinkle some soil on the top of the coffin. In the Shawshank Redemption, the character played by Tim Robbins, has slowly been planning his escape from prison. Every day he scratched a little bit of a hole in the wall in order to escape his cell. Every day when he was out on the yard, he took the dirt and dust created by digging the hole, put it in his pant’s pocket and let the dirt go as he walked the yard. Every day he allowed a little bit of the thing which held him as an innocent prisoner to return to the earth, and after many many years, he was free. Morgan Freeman’s character then quipped that his friend’s favourite part of every day was releasing that dirt and dust every day into the yard.
That’s the same way we should feel every day when we turn our sins into something which glorifies our risen savior. When we are able to say, even though I sin, I will use this moment to show how great God is. When we are able to do that, we are truly living a life which tells the world we are resurrected with Christ.
[1] http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7287071.stm
[2] http://www.deadlysins.com/features/gandhi.htm
[3] Brad Braxton. Dead and Alive. http://www.csec.org/csec/sermon/braxton_4502.htm
There are a lot of excuses we can use for failing to embrace living a resurrected life in Christ. We can say that we were baptized at such a young age that we don’t remember what it means to be baptized. We can say that our western culture allows us to be purchasers of faith instead people who truly seek to be disciples. We can blame TV evangelists, the liberal media, the government, or even other denominations or faiths. Because of this, it seems as if it is easier to continue to live in sin and ask for forgiveness than to be a bearer of grace to the rest of the world.
For the most part, I assume that the sins which we all normally pray forgiveness for are what we might know of as the 7 deadly sins which are Pride, Envy, Gluttony, Lust, Anger, Greed and Sloth. If none of those are particularly meaningful to you, an Archbishop in the Catholic Church has recently added 7 more sins to the list. They are Environmental Pollution, Genetic Manipulation, Accumulating Excessive Wealth, Inflicting Poverty, Drug Trafficking and consumption, Morally Debatable Experiments, and Violations of Fundamental Rights of Human Nature[1]. If you somehow still find yourself thinking those are fairly easy to avoid, Gandhi has his own version of 7 deadly sins. They are Wealth without Work, Pleasure without Conscience, Science without Humanity, Knowledge without Character, Politics without Principal, Commerce without Morality, and Worship without Sacrifice[2]. If you’re anything like me, I know that I’ve fallen prey to more than a few of these sins. In fact, there are only two which I’m pretty sure I haven’t done, which are genetic manipulation and morally debatable experiments, and that’s only because I’m not smart enough to figure out how.
Fortunately for us, if we are baptized and have a pulse, we do not need to continue to keep on committing those sins and asking forgiveness. Please don’t think I’m saying that we need not ask for forgiveness any longer, because when we do slip up, we must still ask for God’s grace and forgiveness, but I’m saying that God calls us to a higher standard. The second half of verse 13 calls us to “offer ourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer the parts of our body to God as instruments of righteousness.” What this does is take the things which could be small stumbling blocks in our faith journey and transforms them into stepping stones.
Peter is my favourite example of a person who turned a potential stumbling block into a stepping stone. When he denied that he knew Christ three times, the moment the rooster crowed, he could have allowed himself to stay dejected, hating himself for being so selfish. Instead, he allowed the grace of God to overpower his sin, and allowed his initial denial to lift him to new heights in his discipleship.
If you find in your life that you are always envious of your neighbor’s flat screen television, one way of making such envy into a stepping stone is to get rid of the TV you have and find another way to spend your time or perhaps you could simply start by getting rid of cable. If you find yourself with more wealth than you really need, give it away so that it cannot hold power over you. Or if Gandhi’s lists of sins, which border on the spiritual more than the physical, are more difficult for you to keep, find a way to turn one of them into a stepping stone. Gandhi’s last sin, which is Worship without sacrifice is by far the most intriguing sin to me. Sacrifice as worship is an amazing thing which we hopefully think about every day when we make it a point to take up our cross and follow Christ. When we sacrifice, that old part inside of us which was prone to sin will die and make us a better disciple. The trick is to actually allowing it to die. I heard a story of a person who realized that when they were sinning and they were not allowing their sin to be a stepping stone, they would say words which are normally part of a funeral service. Upon realization that their sin was getting the best of them and not allowing Christ to shine through them, they would say “Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Rest in peace."[3]
One of my favourite movies is the Shawshank Redemption and I think it does a wonderful job of giving us a visual example of what it means to give a tiny funeral to our sin each and every day. You see, in a funeral, some pastors as they say the words, Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust, will sometimes sprinkle some soil on the top of the coffin. In the Shawshank Redemption, the character played by Tim Robbins, has slowly been planning his escape from prison. Every day he scratched a little bit of a hole in the wall in order to escape his cell. Every day when he was out on the yard, he took the dirt and dust created by digging the hole, put it in his pant’s pocket and let the dirt go as he walked the yard. Every day he allowed a little bit of the thing which held him as an innocent prisoner to return to the earth, and after many many years, he was free. Morgan Freeman’s character then quipped that his friend’s favourite part of every day was releasing that dirt and dust every day into the yard.
That’s the same way we should feel every day when we turn our sins into something which glorifies our risen savior. When we are able to say, even though I sin, I will use this moment to show how great God is. When we are able to do that, we are truly living a life which tells the world we are resurrected with Christ.
[1] http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7287071.stm
[2] http://www.deadlysins.com/features/gandhi.htm
[3] Brad Braxton. Dead and Alive. http://www.csec.org/csec/sermon/braxton_4502.htm
Sunday, March 09, 2008
Romans 8:1-11 Sermon
I’m sure that most of us here today have done what I did when I first listened to the text from Romans. I scratched my head, thought that Paul really wasn’t kidding when he said he was bad with words, and got to thinking that the point of this passage was that because of God sending the Holy Spirit, Christ now lives in us who are his followers. This isn’t exactly new knowledge to those of us who have been going to church most of their lives.
There is that song most of us learned at camp or in VBS called I’ve got the joy joy joy joy, down in my heart. Well, I’m not going to serenade you with the rest of the song, but the third verse talks about us having the love of Jesus in our hearts. Because we are able to quickly understand this so quickly and from such a young age, it seems to me that the older we get, the farther away we go from actually living it out.
I’m going to read to you again the last 3 verses of today’s lesson, but this time from The Message.
But if God himself has taken up residence in your life, you can hardly be thinking more of yourself than of him. Anyone, of course, who has not welcomed this invisible but clearly present God, the Spirit of Christ, won't know what we're talking about.
But for you who welcome him, in whom he dwells - even though you still experience all the limitations of sin - you yourself experience life on God's terms.
It stands to reason, doesn't it, that if the alive-and-present God who raised Jesus from the dead moves into your life, he'll do the same thing in you that he did in Jesus, bringing you alive to himself? When God lives and breathes in you (and he does, as surely as he did in Jesus), you are delivered from that dead life. With his Spirit living in you, your body will be as alive as Christ's!
I especially like the last sentence. With his Spirit living in you, your body will be as alive as Christ’s! That’s a big statement to live with. When Christ’s spirit lives in us, we will be alive in the same way. We must no longer think of ourselves as individuals, but realize that we are only important because of our relations with others. Because if Christ had not had others around him at all times, if it were not for the sins of others, Christ would not have needed to be. If this is the case, I think we must begin to act as Jesus acted.
A few weeks ago, we heard Jeff preach about the difference between living as Christ has already been resurrected or simply waiting for Jesus to return. We must do more than mentally reflect on that idea everyday… Instead, we must act out that idea every day we are alive in Christ.
With that in mind, we must all do our part to think of the things which we truly admire most about Christ and act upon them. When Jesus said that we will do greater things than he did himself, we must really believe in that and make every attempt to act upon that belief.
As you ponder the thing that you might do in your life because Christ lives in you, I’m going to share with you what it is I hope to do. Some of you I’ve told about this already, but now I think I’m finally able to go about doing it.
The thing I admire most about Jesus was the fact that he was able to meet people and invite himself into their home for a meal. The fellowship that happened around the table, the sharing of stories, the whole idea that Jesus forced hospitality has always amazed me. It was reinforced to me a couple of times this week, which is why I’m bringing it forward to you today. The first way was in my studying for this message, when one of the authors I read said that “renewal in Christ is not simply an individual affair. In fact, it is not primarily an individual affair at all. It is a matter of renewal through membership in a new community.”[1]
The second way this was reinforced to me this week was by one of my favourite authors and preachers. Many of you may remember the video we watched during our stewardship campaign by Rob Bell. I was finishing his latest book when he ended with a story about how he always noticed that Jesus was always at someone else’s house, sharing a meal, drinking their wine, laughing and telling stories. Because of this, Rob Bell attempts to invite people over to his home to do this same thing.
Unfortunately for me, I am unable to have people over to the place where I am currently residing, and have yet to really figure out a way to still have a meal and good conversation with most of you. Well, I realized that my hope in doing this would not be fulfilled unless I let the Christ who lives within me do the talking. With that being said, over the next 16 weeks, I really want to come over to your house and have a meal with you. I’ll give you more information in the bulletin about this once Easter is over, but I want you to keep it in the back of your mind. I think it will be an exciting way for us all to practice the things we are going to be focusing on this year, Evangelism, Hospitality, and Healing.
There is another main point in this story that must be brought to our attention. It is the concept of forgiveness and freedom in Christ. It comes from the first two verses of Romans 8, which talks about there being no condemnation for those who are in Christ.
There is a story of a man who has lived in a small town his whole life. He had grown up in a church that preached hell, fire and brimstone. He stopped attending church once his parents no longer forced him to go. He lived out most of his adult life trying to do the best he could, although there were apparently some things that he was not particularly fond of. One day he drove by a local church which hung a banner which simply said, “No Condemnation.” The man continued to drive by that sign everyday going to and from work, he passed by it every time he went to the grocery store, every time he went to pick up his kids from school. He didn’t believe it. The church always condemns someone. They always have someone to blame. He continued to drive by that sign every day, and every time he passed it, he felt angry, because it was not what he experienced as a young man.
One week, this man had a particularly rough time. His boss had chewed him out over some small misunderstandings, his ex-wife called him complaining about late child support, and his current significant other called to say that his current relationship wasn’t going anywhere, so she was going somewhere else. As he drove past the church at the end of that week, he saw the sign that said “No Condemnation” in a new light, with new hope.
When Sunday morning came around, he snuck into the back of the church a few minutes after the service began. Unfortunately for him, the last pew on both sides was filled, so he had to sit on the end of the fourth row from the back. As he watched, he saw this man all dressed in black lead the service while some people sang, some people read, some people did very little of either, but that everyone spoke the bold text in the liturgy.
Finally in the liturgy, it came to the point where everyone was confessing. “We confess that we have done wrong.” And the man said to himself, A HA! I knew it…here it comes…the condemnation I knew the church has always had. The liturgy continued… “We have done wrong, lived for ourselves, turned from our neighbors, refused to help others, ignored the pain of the world.” The anticipation in the man was killing him. He waited for the words of his old preacher about those people who have done wrong going to hell. He waited for the preacher to say that only the good people who fully follow will go to heaven. He waited for those words, because once he heard them, he was going to get up and leave…
But he never heard those words, because the next words out were the words of Romans chapter 8. “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” The divine intention for Christ's church is NO condemnation. NO condemnation of either the self, or the other. For St. Paul, the church is the place where the world, as God intends it to be, is accessible to humankind. The church reveals the world as it has been transformed by the Cross of Christ. The world where there is no condemnation. Here the prodigal child of God is always welcomed home--no questions asked. Here we celebrate the grace and mercy of God made known to us in Christ Jesus. A grace that knows no boundaries. A mercy that has no restrictions. A love that always includes, never excludes.[2]
I wish I knew the ending to the story of the man I just told you about, but I don’t know it. What I do know is that we must write the ending because Christ lives in us. Christ moves in us. Christ has our being in us. And because of that, we must not have any condemnation in our hearts. We must live as if forgiveness is real and it must be taken seriously. Amen.
[1] Paul Achtemeier. “Interpretation: A Bible-Commentary for Teaching and Preaching: Romans. John Knox Press, Louisville. 1985. Pg 135.
[2] The Rev. Sid Burgess. Sermon entitled “Bama Bubba” preached on October 8, 2000. Available online at: http://www.day1.net/index.php5?view=transcripts&tid=209
There is that song most of us learned at camp or in VBS called I’ve got the joy joy joy joy, down in my heart. Well, I’m not going to serenade you with the rest of the song, but the third verse talks about us having the love of Jesus in our hearts. Because we are able to quickly understand this so quickly and from such a young age, it seems to me that the older we get, the farther away we go from actually living it out.
I’m going to read to you again the last 3 verses of today’s lesson, but this time from The Message.
But if God himself has taken up residence in your life, you can hardly be thinking more of yourself than of him. Anyone, of course, who has not welcomed this invisible but clearly present God, the Spirit of Christ, won't know what we're talking about.
But for you who welcome him, in whom he dwells - even though you still experience all the limitations of sin - you yourself experience life on God's terms.
It stands to reason, doesn't it, that if the alive-and-present God who raised Jesus from the dead moves into your life, he'll do the same thing in you that he did in Jesus, bringing you alive to himself? When God lives and breathes in you (and he does, as surely as he did in Jesus), you are delivered from that dead life. With his Spirit living in you, your body will be as alive as Christ's!
I especially like the last sentence. With his Spirit living in you, your body will be as alive as Christ’s! That’s a big statement to live with. When Christ’s spirit lives in us, we will be alive in the same way. We must no longer think of ourselves as individuals, but realize that we are only important because of our relations with others. Because if Christ had not had others around him at all times, if it were not for the sins of others, Christ would not have needed to be. If this is the case, I think we must begin to act as Jesus acted.
A few weeks ago, we heard Jeff preach about the difference between living as Christ has already been resurrected or simply waiting for Jesus to return. We must do more than mentally reflect on that idea everyday… Instead, we must act out that idea every day we are alive in Christ.
With that in mind, we must all do our part to think of the things which we truly admire most about Christ and act upon them. When Jesus said that we will do greater things than he did himself, we must really believe in that and make every attempt to act upon that belief.
As you ponder the thing that you might do in your life because Christ lives in you, I’m going to share with you what it is I hope to do. Some of you I’ve told about this already, but now I think I’m finally able to go about doing it.
The thing I admire most about Jesus was the fact that he was able to meet people and invite himself into their home for a meal. The fellowship that happened around the table, the sharing of stories, the whole idea that Jesus forced hospitality has always amazed me. It was reinforced to me a couple of times this week, which is why I’m bringing it forward to you today. The first way was in my studying for this message, when one of the authors I read said that “renewal in Christ is not simply an individual affair. In fact, it is not primarily an individual affair at all. It is a matter of renewal through membership in a new community.”[1]
The second way this was reinforced to me this week was by one of my favourite authors and preachers. Many of you may remember the video we watched during our stewardship campaign by Rob Bell. I was finishing his latest book when he ended with a story about how he always noticed that Jesus was always at someone else’s house, sharing a meal, drinking their wine, laughing and telling stories. Because of this, Rob Bell attempts to invite people over to his home to do this same thing.
Unfortunately for me, I am unable to have people over to the place where I am currently residing, and have yet to really figure out a way to still have a meal and good conversation with most of you. Well, I realized that my hope in doing this would not be fulfilled unless I let the Christ who lives within me do the talking. With that being said, over the next 16 weeks, I really want to come over to your house and have a meal with you. I’ll give you more information in the bulletin about this once Easter is over, but I want you to keep it in the back of your mind. I think it will be an exciting way for us all to practice the things we are going to be focusing on this year, Evangelism, Hospitality, and Healing.
There is another main point in this story that must be brought to our attention. It is the concept of forgiveness and freedom in Christ. It comes from the first two verses of Romans 8, which talks about there being no condemnation for those who are in Christ.
There is a story of a man who has lived in a small town his whole life. He had grown up in a church that preached hell, fire and brimstone. He stopped attending church once his parents no longer forced him to go. He lived out most of his adult life trying to do the best he could, although there were apparently some things that he was not particularly fond of. One day he drove by a local church which hung a banner which simply said, “No Condemnation.” The man continued to drive by that sign everyday going to and from work, he passed by it every time he went to the grocery store, every time he went to pick up his kids from school. He didn’t believe it. The church always condemns someone. They always have someone to blame. He continued to drive by that sign every day, and every time he passed it, he felt angry, because it was not what he experienced as a young man.
One week, this man had a particularly rough time. His boss had chewed him out over some small misunderstandings, his ex-wife called him complaining about late child support, and his current significant other called to say that his current relationship wasn’t going anywhere, so she was going somewhere else. As he drove past the church at the end of that week, he saw the sign that said “No Condemnation” in a new light, with new hope.
When Sunday morning came around, he snuck into the back of the church a few minutes after the service began. Unfortunately for him, the last pew on both sides was filled, so he had to sit on the end of the fourth row from the back. As he watched, he saw this man all dressed in black lead the service while some people sang, some people read, some people did very little of either, but that everyone spoke the bold text in the liturgy.
Finally in the liturgy, it came to the point where everyone was confessing. “We confess that we have done wrong.” And the man said to himself, A HA! I knew it…here it comes…the condemnation I knew the church has always had. The liturgy continued… “We have done wrong, lived for ourselves, turned from our neighbors, refused to help others, ignored the pain of the world.” The anticipation in the man was killing him. He waited for the words of his old preacher about those people who have done wrong going to hell. He waited for the preacher to say that only the good people who fully follow will go to heaven. He waited for those words, because once he heard them, he was going to get up and leave…
But he never heard those words, because the next words out were the words of Romans chapter 8. “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” The divine intention for Christ's church is NO condemnation. NO condemnation of either the self, or the other. For St. Paul, the church is the place where the world, as God intends it to be, is accessible to humankind. The church reveals the world as it has been transformed by the Cross of Christ. The world where there is no condemnation. Here the prodigal child of God is always welcomed home--no questions asked. Here we celebrate the grace and mercy of God made known to us in Christ Jesus. A grace that knows no boundaries. A mercy that has no restrictions. A love that always includes, never excludes.[2]
I wish I knew the ending to the story of the man I just told you about, but I don’t know it. What I do know is that we must write the ending because Christ lives in us. Christ moves in us. Christ has our being in us. And because of that, we must not have any condemnation in our hearts. We must live as if forgiveness is real and it must be taken seriously. Amen.
[1] Paul Achtemeier. “Interpretation: A Bible-Commentary for Teaching and Preaching: Romans. John Knox Press, Louisville. 1985. Pg 135.
[2] The Rev. Sid Burgess. Sermon entitled “Bama Bubba” preached on October 8, 2000. Available online at: http://www.day1.net/index.php5?view=transcripts&tid=209
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
John the Baptist Sermon ~ first person
Repent! For the Kingdom of God is near! Why are you here? What is your purpose for having gathered together here today? I will tell you my purpose. My purpose is to prepare a straight path for the Lord. Many of you know me as the baptizer, but those close to me call me John. I was invited here this morning to explain what it means to be baptized and to enter into a covenant with God.
Let me begin by telling you a bit of information about myself. Your pastor tells me that you heard the story of my birth on December 24th. How my aunt Mary came to visit my mother Elizabeth while they were both pregnant. Until her death, my mother loved to tell me the story about how I leapt in her womb when Mary, who was pregnant with my cousin Jesus, arrived at our house. During my childhood, I spent many summers with Jesus and his family, but as my parents were very old, they passed away just before my 10th birthday. Because my father was a priest, he had special connections with a religious group known as the Essenes, a well known but separatist Jewish community. I was sent to live with them until I was able to care for myself.
While I was with the Essenes, I lived a meager, humble life, filled with religious training. We slept under the stars and lived far from major cities. When we were not studying, we scrounged for food, where we mostly ate locust and wild honey. It is not a very satisfying diet, but it helps us remember that everything we receive comes from the Lord our God.
When I was in my late twenties, I left the community who had raised me and began to fulfill the role which God had planned for me. I was to clear a straight path for the Lord, baptizing those who repented of their sins and desired to live a pure and Holy life before God. Crowds would come and find me on the banks of the Jordan River, preaching on the books of Moses and from the words of the prophets. Many who heard my voice were struck with the fear of the Lord and came into the river to repent of their sins.
After a year or so of doing this, some of the Pharisees came down to the river to hear what I was saying. They came to me and argued that because they were descendants from Abraham, that God had a covenant with them, and repenting their sins and being baptized was pointless. I told them that being a descendant from Abraham was nothing, they are a dime a dozen. God could raise stones to be his descendants, but instead wants us to repent from our evil ways, that we produce fruit that is ripe from our repentance. Of course, they scoffed at me, but I kept on preaching, knowing in my heart that I was fulfilling the work of God.
Then, one day, as I was preaching alongside the river, baptizing all who desired to repent, I saw a man still standing on the side of the river, waiting for all others to leave. Once everyone had left, he walked into the water towards me, his eyes never leaving mine. Once he got closer, I knew at once that it was my cousin Jesus. We had not seen each other in many years, but I could remember his eyes as if we had seen each other only yesterday. As he approached me, I had a feeling that it was Jesus who the Lord God had sent me ahead of. That it was my cousin Jesus who was sent by God to save the world. I felt completely unworthy, that Jesus was asking me to baptize him, clearly, it was him who should be baptizing me. Jesus simply smiled and told me that I must be the one to baptize him. Suddenly the feeling of unworthiness was gone, and I agreed.
I took Jesus next to me and put one hand behind his back and the other on his chest. I brought him down into the water, keeping him down until he was nearly out of breath. I lifted Jesus out of the water and as he gasped for breath, time seemed to get slower, seeming to almost stop. At that very moment the heavens seemed to open up and the Spirit of God came down in a dove and said “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.” Just thinking about it gives me the shivers.
I went on baptizing others who repented of their sins, but nothing ever came close to that same moment, when new life was given to Jesus. When your pastor asked me to speak to you this morning, I immediately asked myself why me? Why would you want a baptizer to speak on a day that most people understand as preparation for communion. That’s when I opened you’re book of worship to the ceremony for confirmation, it is very interesting document. If you look closely, the title is Confirmation AND Affirmation of baptism. It seems to me that we all tend to overlook the second half of the title.
Since my death, baptism seems to be taken for granted by some. When I first learned of people being baptized as infants, I almost lost my head. Then I realized that this act of confirmation is really a day in which you stand in front of the church, remember your baptism and recommit to that covenant. But what exactly does covenant mean?
Through the action of baptism, you are saying that you choose to belong to God. I must ask the question, how do you go about into the world letting people know that you have been baptized? Perhaps we could pour water on our heads every hour, walking around with wet hair. Or, it is my understanding that you receive certificates when you are baptized, I guess you could go around showing others that paper, but that doesn’t seem very practical. When I was baptizing, we had no such way of identifying others as being baptized, which is why it is so important to be in a church, in relationship with others who have been baptized, so that we are able to be in the presence of others who are united with Christ, are cleansed by his saving work, and enter into the fellowship of the church with those are called into a life of faith and willing obedience.
Alex, Brianna, and Zach, you have all taken an important step in your journey of faith. The ritual of the affirmation of your baptism is not one to take lightly. You have presented yourself before God and before the members of this church to affirm your belief in God as your Creator, in Jesus as your Savior, and in the Holy Spirit as your sustainer. You have pledged to turn away from sin, evil and selfishness in your thoughts, words and actions, serving God all the days of your life. This is by no means an easy task, but those who are here today have also covenanted with you to help you do those things. Use them, as God has put them in your life for a reason.
Before I leave you today, I was hoping that we all might take a walk down to the Delaware River and take a moment to remember our own baptism, but since I’m really the only one with clothing that can get wet, I think we will pass on that idea. Instead, it is my hope that everyone in the congregation will come forward as the final hymn is sung, taking a moment to place their hand in the water and bringing a drop to their head, remembering your own baptism, and what it means to be a Christian, baptized into the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.
Let me begin by telling you a bit of information about myself. Your pastor tells me that you heard the story of my birth on December 24th. How my aunt Mary came to visit my mother Elizabeth while they were both pregnant. Until her death, my mother loved to tell me the story about how I leapt in her womb when Mary, who was pregnant with my cousin Jesus, arrived at our house. During my childhood, I spent many summers with Jesus and his family, but as my parents were very old, they passed away just before my 10th birthday. Because my father was a priest, he had special connections with a religious group known as the Essenes, a well known but separatist Jewish community. I was sent to live with them until I was able to care for myself.
While I was with the Essenes, I lived a meager, humble life, filled with religious training. We slept under the stars and lived far from major cities. When we were not studying, we scrounged for food, where we mostly ate locust and wild honey. It is not a very satisfying diet, but it helps us remember that everything we receive comes from the Lord our God.
When I was in my late twenties, I left the community who had raised me and began to fulfill the role which God had planned for me. I was to clear a straight path for the Lord, baptizing those who repented of their sins and desired to live a pure and Holy life before God. Crowds would come and find me on the banks of the Jordan River, preaching on the books of Moses and from the words of the prophets. Many who heard my voice were struck with the fear of the Lord and came into the river to repent of their sins.
After a year or so of doing this, some of the Pharisees came down to the river to hear what I was saying. They came to me and argued that because they were descendants from Abraham, that God had a covenant with them, and repenting their sins and being baptized was pointless. I told them that being a descendant from Abraham was nothing, they are a dime a dozen. God could raise stones to be his descendants, but instead wants us to repent from our evil ways, that we produce fruit that is ripe from our repentance. Of course, they scoffed at me, but I kept on preaching, knowing in my heart that I was fulfilling the work of God.
Then, one day, as I was preaching alongside the river, baptizing all who desired to repent, I saw a man still standing on the side of the river, waiting for all others to leave. Once everyone had left, he walked into the water towards me, his eyes never leaving mine. Once he got closer, I knew at once that it was my cousin Jesus. We had not seen each other in many years, but I could remember his eyes as if we had seen each other only yesterday. As he approached me, I had a feeling that it was Jesus who the Lord God had sent me ahead of. That it was my cousin Jesus who was sent by God to save the world. I felt completely unworthy, that Jesus was asking me to baptize him, clearly, it was him who should be baptizing me. Jesus simply smiled and told me that I must be the one to baptize him. Suddenly the feeling of unworthiness was gone, and I agreed.
I took Jesus next to me and put one hand behind his back and the other on his chest. I brought him down into the water, keeping him down until he was nearly out of breath. I lifted Jesus out of the water and as he gasped for breath, time seemed to get slower, seeming to almost stop. At that very moment the heavens seemed to open up and the Spirit of God came down in a dove and said “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.” Just thinking about it gives me the shivers.
I went on baptizing others who repented of their sins, but nothing ever came close to that same moment, when new life was given to Jesus. When your pastor asked me to speak to you this morning, I immediately asked myself why me? Why would you want a baptizer to speak on a day that most people understand as preparation for communion. That’s when I opened you’re book of worship to the ceremony for confirmation, it is very interesting document. If you look closely, the title is Confirmation AND Affirmation of baptism. It seems to me that we all tend to overlook the second half of the title.
Since my death, baptism seems to be taken for granted by some. When I first learned of people being baptized as infants, I almost lost my head. Then I realized that this act of confirmation is really a day in which you stand in front of the church, remember your baptism and recommit to that covenant. But what exactly does covenant mean?
Through the action of baptism, you are saying that you choose to belong to God. I must ask the question, how do you go about into the world letting people know that you have been baptized? Perhaps we could pour water on our heads every hour, walking around with wet hair. Or, it is my understanding that you receive certificates when you are baptized, I guess you could go around showing others that paper, but that doesn’t seem very practical. When I was baptizing, we had no such way of identifying others as being baptized, which is why it is so important to be in a church, in relationship with others who have been baptized, so that we are able to be in the presence of others who are united with Christ, are cleansed by his saving work, and enter into the fellowship of the church with those are called into a life of faith and willing obedience.
Alex, Brianna, and Zach, you have all taken an important step in your journey of faith. The ritual of the affirmation of your baptism is not one to take lightly. You have presented yourself before God and before the members of this church to affirm your belief in God as your Creator, in Jesus as your Savior, and in the Holy Spirit as your sustainer. You have pledged to turn away from sin, evil and selfishness in your thoughts, words and actions, serving God all the days of your life. This is by no means an easy task, but those who are here today have also covenanted with you to help you do those things. Use them, as God has put them in your life for a reason.
Before I leave you today, I was hoping that we all might take a walk down to the Delaware River and take a moment to remember our own baptism, but since I’m really the only one with clothing that can get wet, I think we will pass on that idea. Instead, it is my hope that everyone in the congregation will come forward as the final hymn is sung, taking a moment to place their hand in the water and bringing a drop to their head, remembering your own baptism, and what it means to be a Christian, baptized into the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.
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