Love: A Sermon for the Fourth Sunday of Advent

Matthew 5:43-48

43 "You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' 44 But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. 46 For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? 47 And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? 48 Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

            I love peanut butter. Really, if peanut butter is listed among the ingredients in a recipe there is an increased likelihood I will eat it. I’ve always loved peanut butter. Maybe it’s a genetic thing, perhaps passed down to me from my father’s side of the family. Maybe it’s a simple matter of personal taste, or maybe it has something to do with the nature of my mother’s diet while she carried me for nine months (at least that seems to be her theory). Of course, there’s a very good chance it has to do with my upbringing in South Alabama, a part of the world transformed by the creation of all things peanut (including peanut butter).Whatever the case may be, I love peanut butter.

            But I also love baseball. My happiest memories from my childhood involve the “ping” of metal bats on a chilly, mid-spring night, the taste of lemon-lime Gatorade, and the smell of freshly mowed grass in the early summer. I can remember, when I was in the third grade, my mom picking me up from school, saying we had to go to the rec. center (which, at the time, I thought had something to do with my step-dad being in a car accident). I heard her telling a man my name, my birthday, and when I asked why she was telling him those things, she told me I was going to get to play baseball—real, league-organized, baseball—for the first time. Ever since, I have loved baseball.

            I have also, however, been heard saying I love: sweaters, bacon, shrimp, once upon a time I was even heard saying I love NASCAR (thankfully, the Lord has since forgiven such an iniquity). In fact, I bet over the course of my life I have professed my love for all sorts of things from gummy worms to golf on a sunny day. Of course, I bet if I asked each of you, and you were honest with yourself and me, you’d likely have similar confessions. I can make a pretty fair guess that many of you have professed your love for Alabama or Auburn football, fishing, fried catfish, etc. The truth is, we’ve all said the words, “I love (insert some object or activity that brings us happiness).” Of course, the deeper truth is that we really don’t love the sorts of things we say we love, or if we do, we have a tragically flawed understanding of what love actually is.

            This season of Advent (of Christmas) seems as good a time as any to reorient ourselves with a biblical understanding of what love actually is. We come close to getting it right I suppose, with the desire to gather with family and friends to share one of the most important holidays of the year. I suppose we may even come a little closer to that biblical understanding of love when we place a couple of folded dollar bills through the slot of a Salvation Army red kettle as we leave with our bags of gifts for those more fortunate. We may even convince ourselves that we have love all figured out as we sing Christmas carols and allow our hearts to be overwhelmed with the warm feelings of childhood memories. But in the end, what shapes our understanding of love? What in our lives defines love for us? What in our lives gets to decide who is worthy of our love? Is it culture? Is it context? Is it comfort?

That seems to be what was happening in the early years of the first century. You can hear it in Jesus’ words in verse 43: “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.'” Now, at first glance, there doesn’t seem to be a whole lot wrong with Jesus’ claim here. The notion of loving one’s neighbor runs throughout the entire canon of the Hebrew Bible, our Old Testament. It can be found early on in the words of the Law; it’s in the books chronicling the history of Israel and Judah; it’s a prominent theme throughout the writings of the prophets. To love one’s neighbor was a given; everyone who attended the local synagogue or brought sacrifices to the temple would have heard such a commandment at some time or another. Furthermore, in the minds of many it would only make sense that if God calls His people to love their neighbor, surely he must call them to hate their enemies. After all, it seems natural to arrive at such a conclusion when a Jew in the first century looked around only to see the oppressive power of Rome’s empire on every corner. “Love my neighbor,” one may have thought, “that’s easy. After all, they are the same as me. But these heathen Romans…I hate them!”

Now, this is where culture seems to be defining love more than the teachings of God in Scripture. You see, while love of neighbor runs throughout the Hebrew Scriptures, never is hatred of one’s enemies ever mentioned. You’d be stretching to say that God’s hatred of idols or His commands to wipe out the peoples in Canaan during Joshua’s time is an example of hating one’s enemies. No, this idea of hating one’s enemies comes directly from the surrounding culture; it comes directly from the minds and hearts of a people who look around them and see threats to their very way of life. The sad thing is, however, I don’t believe we are much different.

            What tends to define love for us? Isn’t it the culture we live in? Now, don’t be too quick to jump to some conclusion that I’m talking about who can and who can’t get married. No, what I’m talking about is how we allow our own sense of vulnerability to determine who is or isn’t worthy of our love. We have a hard enough time dealing with loving our neighbors. In fact, we live in a culture that seeks to create more and more space between us and our neighbors. We build fences, plant bushes, buy bigger lots of land, and many of us hardly know our neighbors’ names. We create communities with the purpose of excluding those with whom we do not wish to associate. So the command to “love our neighbors” is hard enough. If we were simply able to accomplish that, wouldn’t that be a statement to those around us that we are different, that the Spirit of Christ in us causes us to stand out from the culture in our love for others? Well…maybe, but there is a lot more to love than that.

            Jesus doesn’t give us a lot of time to process his words in verse 43 before redefining love in verse 44: “But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” This is where I imagine Jesus may have heard a gasp from the crown gathered around the mount. “Ok, Jesus. We get the whole ‘love your neighbor’ thing, but you’ve gone too far! ‘Love our enemies?!’ Don’t you know who they are? They’re Romans, the ones who’ve been oppressing us with taxes, bullying us around in our own homeland. They’re the ones who, even now, are forcing the temple priests to make offering on behalf of the Caesar. How can you tell us that we should love such an enemy when they threaten our very lives?!” Of course, I don’t imagine Jesus scored any points with them by telling them they should pray for their persecutors either!

            Think about how crazy Jesus’ words must have sounded to these people. They lived under the authority of the Roman Empire; Matthew’s original audience would have heard this story with images of a smoldering, sacked Jerusalem taken and burned the hands of the Roman army. The very notion to love the enemy or to pray for the ones who persecuted them would have been considered foolish, if not downright insane! Yet those were Jesus’ words to them; those are Jesus’ words to us.

            Think about it. Are we so different? We have enemies, don’t we? Just this past week we saw the “official” end of the war in Iraq, and how many of us viewed them as enemies? Did you ever stop to pray for them—those who we were fighting? Did you ever stop to consider that Christ loves them and calls us to love them? What about members of Al Quida, the Taliban, or the other “radical Islamists” that the news channels keep warning us about? If we count them as enemies, Christ calls us to love them and to pray for them. Then there are those who we refer to as “illegal immigrants” or “undocumented workers.” We are told they will take our jobs, they will threaten our way of life because they are increasing our tax burden all while speaking less than a word of English. There are many who would consider them enemies because they threaten our culture and our way of life. But there again we hear Christ’s words: “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”

But why, Jesus? Why do we have to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us? Why should we care about those who seek to do us harm, those who threaten our very way of life?  Doesn’t he tell us in verses 45-48? “so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” Why should we love our enemies? Why should we pray for those who persecute us? Because we are called to be children of God, and as children of God we are called to be perfect, to be holy, just as He is perfect, just as He is holy.

After all, didn’t God do the very thing He calls us to do with these words? Haven’t we been enemies of God, striving to do our own thing, what we want to do? Haven’t we, as a collective species of humankind, sought to eliminate God by force or by reason? Throughout history, have we not persecuted those who have come with a word from God (the prophets), have we not persecuted God as he sought to correct us and call us back to Himself? Are we not the very reason Christ was born on that first Christmas morning, to live a life of love and die a cruel death on our behalf? Why should we love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us? Because God has done the very thing Himself in loving us! So who are we to say that our enemies do not deserve our love or our persecutors our prayers?

In this season of hope, peace, joy, and love, let us seek to fulfill our role as children of God. Let us work to end hatred in our own circles of influence. Let us love one another and those we claim to be our enemies so that the good news of Christ’s birth may not be some hollow shell filled with selfish consumerism. Let us, as children of God and followers of Jesus Christ, be indwelled by the Holy Spirit so that we may be perfect, as our heavenly Father is perfect.

Let us pray…

Peace while Waiting (Second Sunday of Advent 2011)

2 Peter 3:8-15a

8 But do not ignore this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like one day. 9 The Lord is not slow about his promise, as some think of slowness, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance. 10 But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a loud noise, and the elements will be dissolved with fire, and the earth and everything that is done on it will be disclosed. 11 Since all these things are to be dissolved in this way, what sort of persons ought you to be in leading lives of holiness and godliness, 12 waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set ablaze and dissolved, and the elements will melt with fire? 13 But, in accordance with his promise, we wait for new heavens and a new earth, where righteousness is at home. 14 Therefore, beloved, while you are waiting for these things, strive to be found by him at peace, without spot or blemish; 15 and regard the patience of our Lord as salvation.

            Waiting. We live in a culture where waiting is simply seen as unacceptable. Think about it. How many of you have ever heard, or been a part of a conversation that went like this: “Well my appointment was at 11:00, so I got there early, around 10:30. I filled out my paper work and sat in the waiting room, and would you believe I didn’t get called back until 11:45? As if that wasn’t enough, I didn’t see the doctor ‘til some time after 12:00! I tell you what, I’m going to have to find another doctor if I ever have to wait that long again.” Or how many times have you heard someone say something like this: “You know I had to stop by Wal-Mart the other day on the way home—I only had pick up two or three things. By the time I was ready to check out, the line was twenty people long, and they only had two registers open! You’d think they’d open a few of those other ones so people wouldn’t have to stand in line waiting so long.” Waiting just isn’t something we’re willing to do voluntarily. It’s an inconvenience to have to wait. We have lives to live, schedules to keep, fun to have. Who has the time to wait? We already spend an average of two weeks of our lifetime waiting at stop lights—two whole weeks![1] Just imagine how much time we might spend waiting in line at the bank, or at the restaurant for our dinner to come! With that sort of knowledge hanging in the air, no wonder we don’t have the patience to wait!

            But what if we have something worth waiting for? Ah, now that’s a different story. Don’t believe me? Ask any Texan who’s ever slow-smoked a brisket over the smoldering embers of a mesquite limb. They’ll wait for hours to be sure the smoke is just right and then wait even longer for the meat to reach that perfect balance of flavor. Or ask the baker who’s filling an order for sourdough bread as he waits for the ingredients to be ready for mixing just to wait then for the dough to rise before baking. Or even ask the expectant couple who wait for the birth of their child; there’s nothing on earth that would keep them from waiting for the right time for their child to be born.

            It’s with that same disposition that we come to this season of waiting, the season of Advent. It is a time when we wait for something worth waiting for—the arrival of Christ. Yes, we wait for that day when we shall celebrate his birth, but we also wait for that coming day when Christ shall return to the earth again. But waiting can be hard, especially if we fail to live as if what we are waiting for is worth our time, even our very lives.

            Peace. We live in a culture where peace is all too often scarce, and when we have it, we live in the constant fear that we just might lose it. How often have you turned on the television to see images of soldiers half a world away with guns slung over their shoulders as they walk beside tanks or humvees? How many times have you opened the paper in the past year to stories of murder, domestic abuse, or gang violence? We all live in a country that spends more on its military than the next fifteen countries combined![2] Not only is peace scarce, but in many cases (as we can surely attest to in our own county) it’s bad for business. To some degree I think we all want peace, but it’s the other costs of peace that we often can’t stomach.

            As followers of the Lord Jesus Christ, however, we are called to be people of peace, and that is why I find it so fitting that we mark this Sunday in Advent as the Sunday of peace. In this season of waiting, our hearts and minds are called to reflect on peace. If I’m honest with you though, I sometimes have a hard time seeing the relationship between peace and waiting. Perhaps that’s because, for me, waiting creates anxiety and worry, not peace. If I have to wait too long for something I begin to doubt it will ever come; I begin to worry about whether I’ve followed all the right steps to bring it about; I grow anxious as the time crawls by without any sign of change. I have to believe our early brothers and sisters had similar feelings of anxiety during the early years of the Church. Time had gone by; they had waited on the arrival of the Lord; yet nothing seemed to have changed.

            I can imagine what they must have been thinking in those early decades of the Church’s history. Jesus had ascended to heaven, promising to return; the apostles preached about Christ’s second coming and how he would bring the fullness of the kingdom of God to the earth. But the longer they waited, the more it seemed he wasn’t coming. In fact, the longer they waited the worse it seemed to get. There were false teachers rising up in the church, those who were misleading believers in regards to the nature of God in Christ. The whole of the Roman Empire seemed to be turning on them as Christians became the new favorite scapegoat for Rome’s troubles. Yes, it seemed as if in waiting for Christ’s return the early Church experienced anything but peace. It was into this tense atmosphere of waiting that the letter we call 2 Peter emerged.

            For those early Christians dealing with such difficulties in the midst of their waiting, the author of this epistle alludes to a line from the ninetieth Psalm in verse 8 when he says, “But do not ignore this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like one day.” In the middle of their waiting perhaps they had grown to believe that the Lord just wasn’t coming back, that he had somehow forgotten or given up. So the author continues in verse 9: “The Lord is not slow about his promise, as some think of slowness, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance.” While waiting for what seemed like too long, those early believers were beginning to have their doubts about the Lord’s return. What better way to help ease such doubts, then, than with great apocalyptic images of what that day will be like? In verses ten the author continues, “But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a loud noise, and the elements will be dissolved with fire, and the earth and everything that is done on it will be disclosed.”

            By this time, I think that those early believers would have heard all kinds of words like these, words describing what that day would be like, words like those that fill the pages of Jesus’ Revelation to John. As a matter of fact, haven’t we heard all kinds of words like these, words about how the “end of days” is upon us? Haven’t we been reminded time and time again that we are living in the terminal years of history, and that all of the so-called “end time prophecies” point to our nation, to this generation?

            While I have my own doubts about such interpretations of Scripture, I still can’t help but wonder that if all these things are going to come to pass soon, then what should we be doing now? If all these things are predetermined to happen in the near (or not so near) future, what should we, as believers and followers of Jesus, be doing now? Well, it seems to me that the author of 2 Peter was already prepared to answer such questions, so in verses 11 through 13 he writes, “Since all these things are to be dissolved in this way, what sort of persons ought you to be in leading lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set ablaze and dissolved, and the elements will melt with fire? But, in accordance with his promise, we wait for new heavens and a new earth, where righteousness is at home.”  In other words, “Since everything here today might well be gone tomorrow, do you see how essential it is to live a holy life? …. The galaxies will burn up and the elements melt down that day - but we'll hardly notice. We'll be looking the other way, ready for the promised new heavens and the promised new earth, all landscaped with righteousness.”[3]

            Ok…so…we wait. And while we’re waiting we should live holy lives. Got it. But there again is the whole trouble of waiting. If all these things are certainly going to happen, then why doesn’t God just let them loose now? After all, why put off for tomorrow what you can do today? Why allow the world to keep spinning and pain and devastation continue on? Why allow another day to pass on a world stricken with AIDS, war, hunger, and greed? Why not just cash it all in now and bring that “promised new heavens and earth, all landscaped with righteousness” now?

            Well there again, Scripture and the author of our epistle has an answer—a worthy answer—for us in verse 14: “Therefore, beloved, while you are waiting for these things, strive to be found by him at peace, without spot or blemish.” Why does God put off his return? Only He knows; it isn’t up to us to know or spend our time trying to figure it out. It’s up to us to wait, and while we wait we ought to seek to live each and every day striving to be found by him at peace, without spot or blemish. Think about it this way, we may not know when the Master will return, but we do know He what he has called us to be about while He is away. While the Lord tarries we are to be about the work of the kingdom, and the work of the kingdom is the work of peace. As we are called to do the will of God on this earth, we are called to be His ambassadors of peace. We are called to make peace in the middle of a violent world, to calm anger, heal wounds, and bring people from all walks of life together in the saving grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Why does God wait so long to bring about the kingdom? He waits so that you and I, those of us called by his name, have the time and opportunity to bring that peace, that salvation, to the ends of the earth, for the final words of our passage today tell us, “regard the patience of our Lord as salvation.”

            In this season of waiting, our memories are hearkened back to Bethlehem while our hearts are called forward to that coming day when the Lord will return and bring new heavens and a new earth, where righteousness is at home. Today we reflect on the peace that came on that first Christmas Day, on the peace that is coming with the fullness of the Kingdom, and on the peace that we are called to carry to the ends of the earth…while we wait.

Let us pray…

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[1] http://www.reference.com/motif/society/how-much-time-do-people-spend-waiting

[2] http://www.businessinsider.com/military-spending-budget-defense-cuts-2011-10#america-spends-more-on-its-military-than-the-next-15-countries-combined-1

[3] From The Message, 2 Peter 3:11-13.

Ask..Search...Knock

Matthew 7:7-11

7 "Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. 8 For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened. 9 Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for bread, will give a stone? 10 Or if the child asks for a fish, will give a snake? 11 If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him!

            To be honest, I don’t remember how old I was, but I know I must have been younger than twelve. And it must have been summertime or one of those few seasons in my childhood when my older half-brother Steve lived with my dad. And I know it was a weekend, because I was there, with my half-brother Steve, at my dad’s house when my stepmom asked us to come downstairs for a minute. So, Steve and I paused the game of Super Mario Brothers we were playing, headed down the hall, and descended the handful of stairs that led down into what was understood to be the living room. There we sat on the couch, across from my dad in his old brown Lay-Z-Boy, flanked by my stepmom on her (somewhat) matching pink recliner. I remember thinking my dad’s eyes sure seemed red, and the parts of his face that weren’t covered by beard seemed sort of swollen, puffy maybe. He looked down at a stained section of the carpet and then lifted his head, looked at Steve and me and said, “Boys, what do y’all want?”

            I have to say I was caught a bit off guard. My dad had never really asked us anything like that before. Steve, however, was ready right away with his request: “I want a basketball goal.” It was as if he had those words already loaded in the chamber of his mind, and there I sat, dumfounded simply by the weight of the question. What did I want? What does any boy at the age want? I was unsure of what my dad was getting at, so I asked him, “What do you mean, ‘What do I want’?” I remember him looking right at me—his eyes were definitely red, a little watery even—and saying in a voice that almost seemed to crack, “I mean, what do you want? Is there something you want me to give to you?” At that age I was unaware of what thoughts, feelings, and emotions must have been swirling inside my dad’s mind. All I knew was that he asked me what I wanted, and so I said the first thing that came to mind: “A go kart. I want a go kart.”

            A go kart? That was my answer? A basketball goal is one thing; they’re everywhere, on the front of garages and old barns, in people’s driveways. A basketball goal isn’t that outrageous, but a go kart!? I couldn’t believe I had had the audacity to request such a gift, but my dad seemed satisfied with a response either way, and Steve and I were allowed to return to our game of Super Mario Brothers.

            A few weekends later, Steve and I were playing in the yard with our cousins, when my dad drove up in his company truck. There in the bed of the truck, still mounted to an old utility pole, was a bona fide basketball goal, complete with a rusted, bullet-hole-riddled backboard. We dug a hole in the backyard, and Steve had his basketball goal. I knew better than to ask for a go kart.

            Then, a few weekends after that, while we were playing what was supposed to be basketball in the backyard (Steve never stopped to consider we didn’t have a decent basketball to play with on a goal), my dad drove up in that same company truck. This time in the bed of that truck was the rusted, black spray-painted frame of a small, one-seater go kart…without an engine.  My dad had come through on his promise the best way he could. We never got a proper engine for the go kart, just an old piece of rope and our gullible little cousin Timmy to pull us around the yard or push us down the hill going to Grandma’s house. It didn’t matter; my dad asked me what I wanted, and in the end, he came through…well, close enough anyway.

             I think if we are all honest with ourselves there are times in our lives when we feel that same sense of confusion, that same sense of being dumbstruck, when we are faced with having to tell God what we really want. Yet it seems so clear in the text we read today, doesn’t it? Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. It is almost as if Jesus is saying to us, in this transition in his Sermon on the Mount, that God is asking us, “What do y’all want?” God—the Maker of Heaven and Earth, the One who owns cattle on a thousand hills, the One whose power is so great that death cannot overcome him—this God asks us, fallen, sinful, often irresponsible people, “What do you want?” How do we even begin to answer? How do we even begin to ask…search…knock?

            Some people find it quite easy to ask God for things; it’s often their sole understanding of prayer. When they bow their heads it is understood as the proper posture to petition possessions from the Almighty. Others believe that the very definition of the Christian faith centers on the idea that God gives us wealth if we simply ask for it (and pay our 10% directly to the church coffers of course!). You know, when it comes to those who look to the God of the universe as little more than some sort of Sacred Santa Claus, I am reminded of words from that Baptist saint of the previous century, Clarence Jordan: “‎[God] isn't a Heavenly Vending Machine that is set in motion by a ten-cent prayer.”[1] Yet there are still (and always will be) those who see God as just that—a Heavenly Vending Machine, and often they will turn to these words as their biblical evidence: For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened. They say to us that God is willing to give us anything we could possibly want if we just ask…in the right way…with the right kind of faith.

            But what about those times when God doesn’t give us what we want? When we ask, but do not receive? When we search, but find nothing? When we knock, and knock, and knock and nobody’s home? What about those times when we are kneeling by the bed of our cancer-stricken loved ones, praying in the fullness of our faith for God to take the disease away, only to watch them get worse and eventually leave us? What about all those months we pray for God’s direction, hoping to find a job, praying for a child, searching for a word from God, yet we hear nothing? What about all those times when it seems God closes a door and doesn’t even bother to crack a window? Do we take those experiences and use them to justify a belief that Scripture is wrong, that Jesus is lying to us here? Or do we take those experiences and somehow deconstruct our own spirituality and say to ourselves that we just weren’t praying hard enough? Before we are ready to rip these verses out of our Bibles or chalk them up to prosperity proof texts, let’s listen again to Jesus’ words in verses 9, 10, and 11: “Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for bread, will give a stone? Or if the child asks for a fish, will give a snake? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him!”

            Now, let’s just for a second, re-imagine Jesus’ words here and apply them perhaps more directly to our context. Suppose Jesus said something like this: “Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for food, will give a bag full of Tootsie Rolls? Or if the child asks for a toy, will give a semi-automatic handgun? If you then who are evil (in relation to God), know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him!” You see, it isn’t always about getting exactly what you ask for; it’s about receiving what God has for you, which in the end is a good gift.

            Think about it this way: let’s suppose all your life you’ve wanted a 1970 Chevrolet Chevelle Super Sport, black with white racing stripes, black leather interior, and a 454 big block with pop-up cowl induction, mated with a 4-speed manual transmission—it’s your dream car. You’ve prayed for this car. You’ve saved for this car, and finally the day comes when you can buy this car. On the way to the classic car dealer, however, you pass several gas stations with signs advertising unleaded for well over three dollars a gallon. You take count of how many trips you make in a day, how many people are in your car pool, how many baseball games, dance rehearsals, and church services you’ll have to drive to every week. Before you’re even halfway to the dealership, you turn around and head back home. Because, after all, the minivan doesn’t have that many miles on it, and it gets pretty good gas mileage.

            Or let’s suppose you and your spouse have had your eye on the perfect house. It’s on a tree-lined street, with two stories, a two-car garage, and a fully finished basement. The kitchen is fit for a world class chef and all the appliances are brand new and your favorite brands and colors. You’ve prayed for this house. You’ve saved for this house, and finally the day comes when you can make an offer and put a down payment on this house. As you leave your existing home, you begin to recall all the memories you’ve had there; you hear your children playing in the yard, and you realize they’ll need money for college and you’ll need money for those thin times in your life. Perhaps you realize the best thing to do is find a more sensible, suitable home to raise your family, because having a big house with nothing to fill it is senseless.

            You see, it isn’t that God doesn’t give us what we want, though, if you read the text one more time, just a bit closer, you’ll see that Jesus actually never says that. He simply says, "Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.” Note that he doesn’t say, “Ask and the thing you want will be given to you; search, and the thing you hope to find, you’ll find; knock, and the door will be opened to everything you wanted.” No, Jesus simply says when we ask, we’ll get an answer, and when we search, we will find something, and when we knock, the door will be opened for us to see inside and walk through. And I think that is where we become most uncomfortable, for we know that God will answer us when we ask, and we know God will lead us should we be searching, and we know God will open doors should we knock. However, the good gifts that God gives us aren’t always exactly what we have in mind, yet somehow, if we are faithful to ask and faithful to follow through, we find that God never gives us the wrong answer—He never gives us bad gifts.

            Frank Staggs in his commentary on this passage says, “The need for consistent prayer is not because God is reluctant to give but because we need to be conditioned to receive.”[2] If God is able to give us all that we will ever need, and if He knows our needs before we ask them, then why should we have to ask in the first place? “[B]ecause we need to be conditioned to receive.” Perhaps all those times you have turned your prayers to God—asking, searching, knocking—you have thought that God was not listening, that He was not going to answer. Yet, if we stop to consider Jesus’ words before us today, perhaps we may come to realize that God is in fact answering our prayers, but the answer may not be the one we want. Perhaps when we ask, search, and knock and it seems God won’t give us those things we ask for, we begin to understand that perhaps those things were not the best gifts God could give to us. Perhaps if we let go of our fear of what God may have for us, if we let go of our hesitation to search for God’s will and direction in our lives, if we are truly willing to ask, search, and knock, perhaps then we will truly discover that God indeed is able to give good things to those who ask him! Perhaps when we are willing to let go of what we think is right, of what we think is best, when we realize that the gifts we ask for pale in comparison to God’s good gifts for us, then we may truly understand what it means to ask, search, and knock. Then may we understand that the God of Creation is about giving good gifts to those who ask. Then may we understand that the best gift has already been given, and all we need to do is ask.

Let us pray…

           

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[1] Clarence Jordan, The Sermon on the Mount.

[2] Staggs, Frank. “Matthew” in The Broadman Bible Commentary, 1969. 

Called to be Exemplary

1 Thessalonians 1:1-10

1 Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy, To the church of the Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ: Grace to you and peace. 2 We always give thanks to God for all of you and mention you in our prayers, constantly 3 remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ. 4 For we know, brothers and sisters beloved by God, that he has chosen you, 5 because our message of the gospel came to you not in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction; just as you know what kind of persons we proved to be among you for your sake. 6 And you became imitators of us and of the Lord, for in spite of persecution you received the word with joy inspired by the Holy Spirit, 7 so that you became an example to all the believers in Macedonia and in Achaia. 8 For the word of the Lord has sounded forth from you not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but in every place your faith in God has become known, so that we have no need to speak about it. 9 For the people of those regions report about us what kind of welcome we had among you, and how you turned to God from idols, to serve a living and true God, 10 and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead—Jesus, who rescues us from the wrath that is coming.

             In this first chapter of Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians (believed by most to be the first book written in the New Testament), we hear the apostle’s words of praise for the believers there. Paul, Silvanus (or Silas), and Timothy have been on a missionary journey after having recently left the Thessalonians, and upon hearing of some uneasiness about the passing of time and the delayed return of the Lord, Paul wrote this epistle to the church at Thessalonica in an attempt to encourage them in the work they were doing there, work that had served as an example all across Macedonia and even into the neighboring region of Achaia. In this opening chapter of this letter, Paul applauds these early Christians for their exemplary work and perseverance for God’s kingdom.

You see the believers at Thessalonica were not exactly like those early followers of Jesus. The Thessalonian church was made up of converted Gentiles, former pagans who had lived in a religious atmosphere of polytheism and idol worship. Their conversion was more than the acceptance of Jesus of Nazareth as their hoped-for Messiah; they took the leap of faith to leave their entire way of life, their entire understanding of the divine, behind, and begin to follow a crucified Jew and worship a single God. For the church at Thessalonica the gospel was more than a fulfilled prophecy from ages past; it was an earth-shattering, life-changing reality. This new religion, this new reality, however, was not so easy for the Thessalonians.

We see in the text before us in verse six that the believers at Thessalonica faced persecution for their new faith; the apostle writes, “And you became imitators of us and of the Lord, for in spite of persecution you received the word with joy inspired by the Holy Spirit.” The believers at Thessalonica faced real threats, real danger, in claiming Christ as Lord. It was around this time that persecution of Christians began to increase; believers would be imprisoned (Paul himself would be thrown in jail several times), fined, burned alive, and even thrown to wild animals as entertainment. In the midst of such threats the believers at Thessalonica not only persevered in their faith, but they excelled in the work of the kingdom, so much so that word of their work had spread across the region and beyond.

The Apostle Paul points out in verses 7 through 10: “you became an example to all the believers in Macedonia and in Achaia. For the word of the Lord has sounded forth from you not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but in every place your faith in God has become known, so that we have no need to speak about it. For the people of those regions report about us what kind of welcome we had among you, and how you turned to God from idols, to serve a living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead—Jesus, who rescues us from the wrath that is coming.” The church at Thessalonica had become an example for the believers who were faced with similar circumstances across the empire.

Imagine that: one church, one congregation of believers so devoted to the calling of Christ that, despite the threat of persecution, their name and reputation was known for miles around, even in other provinces. The believers at Thessalonica truly understood what it meant to be exemplary in their faith, despite even the confusion and anxiety that came with their misunderstanding in the finer points of belief. Do you know a church like that? A congregation whose devotion to Christ and work in the faith is so great that it serves as the example for congregations throughout the land? Do you know believers like that? Believers who are so committed to Christ that they are willing to risk their very lives for the work to which God calls them, believers whose faith serves as an example for others no matter where they may be?

I can recall the first time I met him. I believe it was a Tuesday afternoon, in a classroom in Burns Hall across from the office of the University Minister at Samford University. I was supposed to be meeting him there for a prerequisite interview for the Samford Sunday program. I was sitting in one of those odd classroom desks when he walked into the room. I remember thinking to myself, “Well he just looks like a harmless, little, old man.” He was wearing the kind of cap I had only seen golfers in old movies wear; he removed the cap and sat in another desk immediately in front of me, and we began the interview. Little did I know I had just had my first of many conversations with a man who would not only forever shape my ministry and understanding of faith, but a man who has left his mark on countless individuals throughout his more than eighty years. His name is Dr. Sigurd F. Bryan, or as some of us who know him like to call him, “St. Sigurd.” Dr. Bryan served as a professor of religion for over forty years at Samford and as the coordinator of the Samford Sunday program for years after that. He and his wife Sara served as deacons at the church I interned at in my senior year, and on one occasion they even hosted Sallie and I for lunch in their home.

In 2006, a collection of Dr. Bryan’s reflections were gathered and published into a book titled Because They Lived (a title I believe further reflects his humility). In the afterward of that book Dr. David Potts (current President of Judson College in Marion, AL) writes these words about St. Sigurd:

Memories of January Bible studies at McElwain Baptist Church and precious moments around the dinner table remind me that I have had the privilege of knowing Dr. Sigurd Bryan for most of my life. As a young boy, and later at Samford, I remember well his exemplary living and doing.

Although I was not a religion major, I am forever grateful for the influence and impact of Dr. Sigurd Bryan upon my life. Dr. Bryan was my very first college teacher in view of the 8 a.m. schedule for his Old Testament class. He was most patient and encouraging with the long-haired freshmen of the ‘60s.

Dr. Bryan’s teaching extended beyond the classroom for me. His willingness to listen carefully to often inane statements from students, his consistent gentleness and kindness to all who crossed his path in a day, and his willingness to help anyone made an imprint on my life and a host of others…[1]

I imagine each one of us has that person in our lives, that exemplary person who has shaped us, influenced our thoughts and opinions by their actions and the example they have set with their lives. We could go down the list, I am sure, of not only those in our personal lives, but those whose faces we’ve seen on the television screen and on the front page of newspapers and whose voices we’ve heard over the radio, but I wonder how many of us have those people in our lives that look to us as that example.

You see, the church at Thessalonica is not meant to be unique; the believers there are not meant to be some ancient prototype to which we point all others when attempting to show what faith looks like. Paul applauds the conflicted and persecuted believers of Thessalonica because they are being exemplary despite all that they may be facing. Being an example for others is a basic call of the Christian faith. The people of God, those of us who have called on his name and claim the title “Christian,” are called to be exemplary in the words we speak, in the lives we lead, and in the faith we practice. Are you living as an example to others? Are there people in your community who know the God you serve simply by the way you live your life? Or…would your coworkers be surprised to know you were even in this place today? Do people who know you know you are a believer in Christ? Are you living the life of one who is called to be exemplary?

Perhaps you are one who has witnessed others living exemplary lives, and like so many who had witnessed the example of that early church in Thessalonica you want to know more about this Christ we serve. Perhaps you are here today and you want to begin living that exemplary life by taking that first step of faith. If that’s you, then I invite you to come and share in the fullness of the life only Christ can offer. As for the rest of us, those of us who already claim to be counted among the saved, will you begin living an exemplary life today? Will you begin to serve Christ with such devotion that no circumstance may hinder your example? I invite us all to begin living the life to which we have been called…a life of exemplary faith.

Let us pray…

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[1] Bryan. Sigurd F. Because They Lived. Samford University Press, 2006. p. 84.

Quit your murmuring.

Exodus 16:2-15
2 The whole congregation of the Israelites complained against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness. 3 The Israelites said to them, "If only we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the fleshpots and ate our fill of bread; for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger." 4 Then the Lord said to Moses, "I am going to rain bread from heaven for you, and each day the people shall go out and gather enough for that day. In that way I will test them, whether they will follow my instruction or not. 5 On the sixth day, when they prepare what they bring in, it will be twice as much as they gather on other days." 6 So Moses and Aaron said to all the Israelites, "In the evening you shall know that it was the Lord who brought you out of the land of Egypt, 7 and in the morning you shall see the glory of the Lord, because he has heard your complaining against the Lord. For what are we, that you complain against us?" 8 And Moses said, "When the Lord gives you meat to eat in the evening and your fill of bread in the morning, because the Lord has heard the complaining that you utter against him—what are we? Your complaining is not against us but against the Lord." 9 Then Moses said to Aaron, "Say to the whole congregation of the Israelites, "Draw near to the Lord, for he has heard your complaining.' " 10 And as Aaron spoke to the whole congregation of the Israelites, they looked toward the wilderness, and the glory of the Lord appeared in the cloud. 11 The Lord spoke to Moses and said, 12 "I have heard the complaining of the Israelites; say to them, "At twilight you shall eat meat, and in the morning you shall have your fill of bread; then you shall know that I am the Lord your God.' " 13 In the evening quails came up and covered the camp; and in the morning there was a layer of dew around the camp. 14 When the layer of dew lifted, there on the surface of the wilderness was a fine flaky substance, as fine as frost on the ground. 15 When the Israelites saw it, they said to one another, "What is it?" For they did not know what it was. Moses said to them, "It is the bread that the Lord has given you to eat.”

There was a man whose life was less than what he wanted. Barely making it paycheck to paycheck, he lived in a rundown house on the rundown side of town: the paint was flaking off the warping walls; the roof was leaking into an overflowing bucket; the carpet was worn and smelled of some indistinguishable odor; only one burner worked on the stove, but that didn’t matter because he mostly lived on micro-waved T.V. dinners. He loathed what had come to be his existence, so one day he prayed to the Lord (in his finest King James English): “Lord, if it be in thy will, deliverest me from my lowly existence. Bringeth me into the kind of life worth living. I want warm food on a real table in mine own house, with freshly painted walls, hardwood floors, and a new roof. Lord, showeth me the way to such a life, and lo, I will follow it. Amen.”
The man didn’t have to wait very long before God answered his prayer. Through a series of friendly connections the man had an interview with the big company in town, and before long found himself in a new employee training program. He would have to work long hours at a fraction of his hoped for salary for six months before he would be hired on as a full-fledged employee. It would be six more months of the same rundown house on the same rundown side of town, but then…the life he had hoped for would be within his reach. But, the days grew long, the work was hard, and it seemed as if he had less than he had before: less time, less money, less sleep… He had hoped that he would be out of this mess by now, that things would be better by now, that he would have his best life now. It seemed, however, that things had only gotten worse since the Lord answered his prayer.
So, three months into his new employee training, he prayed to the Lord again (this time without such pious language): “Lord, I’m tired. I’m tired of the long hours of work and short hours of sleep. I’m tired of waiting on my ship to come in. I think I’d rather quit and go back to the ‘good ole’ days’ when I at least knew what to expect. So Lord, just give me back my old life. Amen.”
There was a nation of people whose life was less than what they felt had been promised. For generations, the people of that nation had labored under the oppression of imperial bondage: mixing mud in great pits, forming and baking bricks in the blistering North African sun, moving the massive monuments of dead deities and pharaohs across the searing sands of Egypt. They were God’s chosen people, the descendants of Abraham, heirs to the Promised Land, yet they were forced into the ghettos of Goshen, slaves, property of the great world power that was ancient Egypt. They loathed what had become of their existence, so one day they prayed to the Lord (with all the sincerity of an oppressed people): “Lord, deliver us from our existence of bondage. Break the yoke of Egypt and its Pharaoh, and bring us into the land you promised our ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. We are your people, so Lord show us your way and we will follow it. Amen.” 
The people had waited for the Lord to answer their prayer, and then one day God sent his prophet and his deliverer. Moses returned to Egypt to challenge the pharaoh with the power of the Almighty God, and after a series of plagues, culminating in the death of Egypt’s firstborn, the Lord answered the nation’s prayer—they were free! The people of Israel left the yoke of Egypt behind and followed Moses and their God into the wilderness. The Lord delivered them from the Egyptians at the Red Sea (the Yam Suf), and after a short stay at the oasis at Elim, the people returned to following the way of God, behind Moses, across the wilderness.
However, it wasn’t long before the bread they had prepared in haste ran out and the carts they carried became heavy. It wasn’t long before the alien terrain of the wilderness seemed steep and rugged, and the way of the Lord was difficult, far more difficult than they had hoped. The grumbling of their bellies was soon overtaken by the murmuring of their mouths as they turned their indignation towards Moses and his brother Aaron. So they said to them, "If only we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the fleshpots and ate our fill of bread; for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger." There, in the midst of momentary difficulty, despite the Lord’s granting of freedom and the promise of his inheritance, the people of Israel pray for things to go back to the way they used to be, the way things were in Egypt (even if discomfort has clouded the record of their memory). They wanted to go back to the “good ole’ days.”
There was a church, a congregation of believers, whose attendance was down and their budget overdrawn. Over the past few years they watched as members slowly trickled out of the doors never to be seen or heard from again. They watched as their sanctuary held more funerals than baptisms, more dust and less worship. They watched as the steeple on the roof of the church building remained unchanged while the community around it underwent the grand metamorphosis of a city in transition. They watched as their church was dying. They came to loathe their situation, so they turned to the Lord and prayed (with the best of intentions), “Lord, deliver us, your church, from this era of decline. Help us to grow as we seek to do your ministry here. Give us the vision to see the future and the desire to see more people come to know you as their lord and savior. We want to see people baptized, budgets balanced, and buildings built. Show us your way, Lord, and we will follow it. Amen.” 
It wasn’t long before the Lord began to answer the prayers of the church. There were members in the congregation who began to see needs in the community, and they were looking for ways the church could meet those needs. There were members in the congregation who had not been part of the existent ministries of the church in whom others saw potential. There were clear ways to reach out to those around them and welcome the members of the community into the life of the congregation…but it was going to take time. It was going to require work. It was going to necessitate change and transition. In other words, it wasn’t going to be easy.
As a faithful few in the congregation began to pursue the path that God was showing them, the church was beginning to experience slow, but steady, growth. New people were coming in the doors for worship; new children and youth were coming for mid-week activities, and more people were turning to the church for help. However, for many in the congregation it wasn’t enough: it was too little, too slow, not to mention the new people didn’t have new money, and they didn’t really look like everybody else. So, like the people of God did some centuries before, they prayed again to the Lord: “Lord, this is too much work. We wanted to see Sunday School attendance doubled and offering plates overflowing. We wanted to hear the splash of the baptistery and the sound of babies in the nursery. Instead, we’ve been asked to do more, give more, expect less and above all, change. We have sacrificed our religious comfort just to see a few stragglers from the neighborhood on occasional Sunday mornings. Well if it’s alright with you, Lord, we’d like to go back to the way things were, back to the ‘good ole’ days’ when we knew what to expect, back when things were comfortable. Just give us our old religion back. Amen.”
You see, the people of God have not changed a great deal, even after all of these centuries. The people of Israel had been given their freedom—the answer to their prayers. They had seen God’s hand moving in the plagues on Egypt and in the dividing of the waters at the Red Sea. Without raising so much as one fist in rebellion or sharpening one sword in revolt, the children of Israel were released from their bondage in Egypt and began their journey back towards the Promised Land. But the faith that came with seeing soon wore off, and the people began to murmur (the Hebrew word wayilonu, which plays a prominent role in the Exodus narrative). It no longer mattered that God had done so many great things for them in the recent past, and it didn’t matter that Land of Promise lay still further ahead; the people were engulfed in the immediacy of their own selfishness. They listened to the creaks in their backs and the growling of their own stomachs over the voice of God, so the life of bondage suddenly seemed preferable to the life of freedom and the wilderness. Their faith had been tested, and they had failed.
Yet God still provided, and in his provision set before them another test. For they were only to collect enough of the manna for one day, trusting that God would bring it again and that the portion they collected would be enough. There’s no doubt that many of them failed that test as well. Despite their faithlessness, despite their murmuring, God still provided for them in the midst of the wilderness. They still limped along, through the wilderness, living on manna and quail, all the while murmuring about how hard the way of God was.
Friends, this is not the Promised Land. We are still in the wilderness, being led by the Spirit of God. The way is not always easy. In fact, more often than not it is downright hard. There will be change; there will be work; there will be sacrifice. However, if we seek first the kingdom of God and our Lord Jesus Christ, we will find little to murmur about; we will find little to complain about, and if we turn our face towards Christ as he leads us to the Promised Land, we will find that our prayers are answered in time and in ways we could have never imagined. So as we are here together in the wilderness, will you be one with something to murmur about all the time? Will you be one who is always quick with an excuse or complaint? Or will you join in the work of the kingdom no matter the cost, no matter the sacrifice? Will you quit your murmuring today and follow Jesus to the fulfillment of his promise? For the time is now, and the way is laid before you. 
Let us pray…

The Resurrection of the Body

1 Corinthians 15:50-58
50 What I am saying, brothers and sisters, is this: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. 51 Listen, I will tell you a mystery! We will not all die, but we will all be changed, 52 in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. 53 For this perishable body must put on imperishability, and this mortal body must put on immortality. 54 When this perishable body puts on imperishability, and this mortal body puts on immortality, then the saying that is written will be fulfilled: "Death has been swallowed up in victory." 55 "Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?" 56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. 57 But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. 58 Therefore, my beloved, be steadfast, immovable, always excelling in the work of the Lord, because you know that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.

As a collected group, we human beings have a wide range of fears and phobias. Chances are if you can name it, there is a phobia for it. For example, there is: peladophobia, the fear of baldness and bald people; thalassophobia, the fear of being seated; porphyrophobia, the fear of the color purple; chaetophobia, the fear of hairy people, levophobia, the fear of objects on the left side of the body along with dextrophobia, the fear of objects on the right side of the body; odontophobia, the fear of teeth; graphophobia, the fear of writing in public; and phobophobia, which is simply the fear of being afraid. Yes there are all sorts of strange phobias out there, and there’s a very good chance you or someone you know genuinely suffers from just such a phobia.
Now, the common consensus is that the number one fear of most people is speaking in public (or glossophobia). In fact, there have been studies that show that many people would rather die than speak in public. I, however, tend to think that people (especially church people) have an even greater fear than speaking in public. There isn’t necessarily a scientific term for it, but the closest one I could find is cainophobia. Cainophobia (or cainotophobia) is defined as “a fear of new things,” or as I like to define it in terms of congregational life, “a fear of change.” For some reason or another, people in the Christian Church have had a history of fearing change. Whether it’s something as simple and ridiculous as a change in the color of the carpet, or something as seemingly drastic as the addition of stringed instruments and drums in worship, we as the gathered people of God have a history of trembling in the presence of change.
Now, maybe it is the ignorance of my youth (and if it is, then at the very least bear with me), but it seems to me that change should be the last thing that brings the Bride of Christ to a stumbling standstill. You see, I am convinced that at the very core of our identity as believers in the resurrected Christ there lies a unique call to change and to create change in the world around us. Furthermore, no other point of our theology signals such an identity as our belief in the resurrection of the dead. It is for that very reason we find these words in the final phrases of the Apostles’ Creed—“We believe in…the resurrection of the body.” The belief in the resurrection of the dead was central to the Christian faith then (nearly 2,000 years ago), and it is central to our faith now. We believe in the resurrection of the body—and that means we believe in the power of God to change us.
In our text this morning, we catch the conclusion of Paul’s discussion concerning the resurrection. According to verse 12 of chapter 15 there were some in the church at Corinth who denied the resurrection of the dead. They were convinced that a person’s body was unfit for heaven, so therefore, a resurrection was simply impossible. This was not a mere minor point of doctrinal disagreement for Paul, so the entire fifteenth chapter of 1 Corinthians is dedicated to Paul’s understanding of the resurrection, beginning with the resurrection of Christ and coming to its full explanation in the verses before us this morning.
To a point, Paul agreed with those at Corinth who believed that our earthly bodies could not enter into heaven. In fact, he even says so in verse 50: “What I am saying, brothers and sisters, is this: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.” “You’re absolutely right,” Paul says, “the flesh that clings to your bones and the blood that pumps through your veins is unfit for the kingdom of God.” Now, before we go too far with Paul here it is important to clarify a few things about how Christians have understood the relationship between the body and soul.
Thanks on part (I think) to old cartoons and our imaginations, we have had an image of the soul as some ghost-like part of us that floats on up to heaven after we die. My friends, this is not a Christian understanding. In fact, it is likely the very point of view the Apostle Paul is refuting at Corinth. You see, there was a group of people who were closely related to the early Christians who we call Gnostics, and one of the key beliefs of Gnosticism was a sort of dualism, especially when it came to understanding the human body and soul. These Gnostics believed that the body was a sort of trap in which the soul was contained, and only upon death would the soul be released and able to enter into the divine light. Gnosticism was tempting to many of the early believers, and if one reads the New Testament closely the influences of Gnosticism are difficult to miss. For Paul, it was important that the Corinthian Christians understand that the body and the soul were eternally connected, inseparable, and therefore, when the soul was raised, the body would also be raised and vice versa.
But there again we have this dilemma put before us: “flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.” If the body is going to be resurrected along with the soul, and this body cannot inherit the kingdom of God, well then what is going to happen? Are we doomed to loiter outside the pearly gates with our sinful, perishable bodies mingled with our saved souls? I’m sure many of you have noticed that these earthly bodies we have do not improve with age! Thankfully, the words of Scripture do not leave us here to ponder our biological disposition in the hereafter.
In verse 51 Paul continues, “Listen, I will tell you a mystery!” Great! Isn’t that just what you wanted to hear—a mystery? We pick up with his words about flesh and blood not being able to inherit the kingdom, and now Paul wants to tell us all a mystery! Now according to David Garland (the Dean of Truett seminary, my alma mater), most of the time when Paul refers to a “mystery” he “refers to something that was formerly hidden and undiscoverable by human methods but now has been divinely revealed,” so we ought to lean in a little closer and listen to this mystery he is going to tell us.
“We will not all die, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet.” “We will not all die…” of course, experience and two millennia of a delayed second coming tell us otherwise. However, Paul was wise and understood that the Lord may tarry or he may return at any moment; he wrote to the church at Thessalonica: “the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night.” Therefore, when Paul says, “we will not all die,” he is simply making sure to leave room for the unexpected hour of our Lord’s return. What is important to understand in Paul’s words here, however, is that, while we may not all die, “we will all be changed.”
Now there’s that word again, “change.” We don’t like change; it frightens us, makes us uncomfortable. We don’t like change, and we certainly don’t like to be told we are going to have to change! If you don’t believe me, just take a stroll around downtown Anniston sometime. Just a few months ago two new murals were painted to commemorate the tragic display of resistance to change that took place on Mother’s Day of 1961 with the burning of the Freedom Riders bus. It’s that same resistance to change that keeps us glued to our same weekly routines, fixed to our same spot on the same pew. It’s that determined distaste for change that creates a destructive sense of ignorance. Yet change is an inevitable part of a believer’s experience.
When Paul says in verse 52 “we will all be changed” he is including those believers who have died and those who will still be alive at the second coming. This is in fact the “mystery” to which Paul was referring. Yes it’s true that flesh and blood—at least this present flesh and blood—cannot inherit the kingdom of God, but what if it is changed? What if this perishable, mortal, sinful body is changed? Well that is exactly what the Apostle is alluding to here. God, in his wondrous love and amazing grace, will change those believers from perishable to imperishable, from mortal to immortal, and he’ll do it all in the smallest amount of time one can fathom: “in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For this perishable body must put on imperishability, and this mortal body must put on immortality.” Change will come whether we like it or not.
Thankfully, such a change is worth welcoming. After all, Paul goes on to write in verses 54-57: “When this perishable body puts on imperishability, and this mortal body puts on immortality, then the saying that is written will be fulfilled: ‘Death has been swallowed up in victory. Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?’ The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” In this coming change from perishable to imperishable, mortal to immortal, Christ’s victory over sin and death is made complete, and we will be resurrected to join in the eternity of God’s kingdom.
Yet I can’t help but wonder: is that it? Don’t get me wrong; the promise of the coming resurrection and mysteriously powerful change God will bring in all of us who believe is amazing beyond words, but are we just supposed to hang around, unchanging, until that day comes (whenever it may be)? I think we’ll find the answer to such a question is a resounding “NO!” The final verse of our text this morning says, “Therefore, my beloved, be steadfast, immovable, always excelling in the work of the Lord, because you know that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.” Steadfast? Immovable? Those sound like antonyms of change don’t they? However, if we keep in mind all that the church at Corinth was being shaken by the teachings of groups like the Gnostics, then Paul’s words speak more of a determination for the gospel than they do of an unwavering ignorance. If we truly believe that there is a change coming with the resurrection of the body, then we ought to live as if that change is already beginning to take place in us now! In the Lord our labor is not in vain! We believe in the resurrection of the body—and that means we believe in the power of God to change us, to change us right here, right now, just as he will change us there and then at the resurrection.
I know we fear change. We fear the uncertainty that comes with moving in a new and different direction, but just as flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, our sinful, fleshly ways cannot allow us into the fullness of a relationship with the One who will and wants to change us. So I ask you this day, will you continue to hold tightly to where you are? Will you continue to cling to certainty and a life of blissful ignorance? Or will you trust God and allow him to change you? Will you begin this day to allow Christ to change you so that you may live for the present instead of waiting for the promise of the future? Know today that in the Lord your labor is not in vain, and he is calling you to be changed today.
Let us pray…

Day1.org

I haven't posted a manuscript in a while, primarily because I've been preaching from notes lately. However, I have been asked to blog for Day1.org as a Key Voice blogger. You can find my first post here.

Suffered under Pontius Pilate; was crucified, dead, and buried. He descended into hell...

1 Peter 3:18-22

18 For Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, in order to bring you to God. He was put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit, 19 in which also he went and made a proclamation to the spirits in prison, 20 who in former times did not obey, when God waited patiently in the days of Noah, during the building of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were saved through water. 21 And baptism, which this prefigured, now saves you—not as a removal of dirt from the body, but as an appeal to God for  a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, 22 who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers made subject to him.

The great Southern author William Faulkner once said, “The salvation of the world is in man’s suffering,” and Faulkner himself knew a thing or two about suffering. He and his wife Estelle had lost their first child, a daughter named Alabama, just nine days after she was born, an event that would leave an indelible mark on Faulkner’s life as well as his fiction. Some three years later Faulkner’s childhood friend “Sonny” Bell and his wife Frances also lost their first child, a daughter. So Faulkner sat down in and wrote these words of condolence to his dear friend on a Friday in September of 1934 from his home in Oxford, Mississippi: “Human beings are so constituted (and thank God for it) that even grief cannot stay green very long. You will hate to hear this and hate more to believe it, and your very refusal to believe it will give you this comfort: it will help to tide you over into the time when grief will be quiet, and instead of a date on a calendar and a mark on the earth, the child will not be dead at all. It will be a living part of living experience which will last as long as mind and body last, and because of it after a while you can say to yourself, 'Because I have suffered, I know that I have been alive. It is suffering which has raised me above the articulated lumps of colored mud which teem the earth. And so long as I have grief, death cannot hurt me'."[1]

“So long as I have grief, death cannot hurt me.” What an odd thing to say. Grief, the result of the very suffering we experience from the lowest and darkest valleys along life’s journey, saves us from the real pain of death. Does this mean that we ought to welcome suffering with open arms? Should we look forward to the day when tragedy and grief will strike and our worlds will be turned upside down? Should we pursue calamity with a reckless fervor, hoping to stave off our final days? “The salvation of the world is in man’s suffering”—perhaps Faulkner’s words strike closer to the truth than he realized.

            Just as suffering was a common theme for Faulkner it is a common theme throughout the letter of 1 Peter. The author of this epistle is writing to a church that is dealing with all manner of trials and suffering because of their faith; they were being scorned and maligned; their very way of life was in danger as their families, social status, and their occupations were threatened. With such suffering, it would have been all too easy for one to lose faith and give up hope in Christ.[2] No wonder then that this epistle ends with these words in chapter 5, verse 12: I have written this short letter to encourage you and to testify that this is the true grace of God. Stand fast in it. Suffering for the cause of Christ was an ever-present reality for those early believers, and they stood in need of encouragement in the face of such real suffering.

            Of course, you and I are no strangers to suffering ourselves. While none of you may have a clue as to what it means to suffer for our faith, each one of you in your own life has experienced some calamity, some tragedy that has caused your world to stand on its head and spin backwards. Each of us has felt either the disorientation of losing a job, the pain of losing a loved one, the life-altering shock of hearing a dreaded diagnosis—we have all to one degree or another, as human beings in a shared existence, come to understand what it means to suffer, to suffer with the very ways of this world and the darkness that is in it. Thanks be to God you and I are not alone in our suffering.

            You see, whenever you may feel as if you are abandoned in your suffering, as if no one else could possibly feel what you have felt…hear these first words of the text before us today in verse 18: For Christ also suffered. It’s such a simple phrase, just four little words, yet it is overflowing with power. Christ, the eternal, only begotten Son of God, suffered. For that very reason the Church, down through the centuries, has recited those words in the Apostles’ Creed that Christ “suffered under Pontius Pilate.” Jesus is not simply an aloof savior who magically waves his cross-shaped wand and makes atonement for sin. No, Christ is a savior who has lived in our skin, walked on the hard, cracked ground, breathed the dusty air, and above all, has suffered in his flesh. Christ also suffered.

            But why? Really, why would the Son of the Almighty, all-knowing, ever-present God go through the trouble, the pain, and the heartbreak of suffering? Not one of you here today would rush to the front of the line to voluntarily suffer if it were within your power to avoid it. And who would blame you? If we finish reading the words in verse 18, however, we find the reason the eternal Son of God chose such suffering: For Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, in order to bring you to God. Christ’s suffering has purpose! He suffered for sins once for all. Christ’s suffering was for your sins, my sins, once for all. Never would another have to suffer on behalf of the sins of another; never would sacrifice and offering have to be made on behalf of our sins. Hallelujah! Crank up the organ; pass the plate and shout the benediction, we can all go home knowing that Christ’s suffering was for our sins once for all.

            But now hang on just a minute. If that’s all there is to understanding Christ’s suffering then the gates of heaven could not hold the number of those who would long to get in. Church’s would find the proclamation of the gospel much easier. If that’s all there is to understanding the suffering of Christ, then seminaries and universities would be filled with scholars trying to understand the theology of gnats and houseflies. So what is it about the suffering of the Son of God that is so difficult to stomach for so many people? What is it that complicates comprehension of Calvary’s climactic crucifixion? Is it the difficulty in believing that the Almighty God would be made flesh? That God could actually feel pain and simply allow his son to suffer a slow and agonizing death on a splintered cross? While these things may be difficult for the logical, reason-driven, post-enlightenment mind to grasp, I have a feeling there is another reason that so many simply refuse to acknowledge the truth of Christ’s suffering, a reason that maybe even many of you find hard to swallow, and I believe that reason is found in these ever-deepening words of our Scripture today.

            Not only does the author say in verse 18 that Christ…suffered for sins once for all, he goes on to say Christ (the righteous) suffered for the unrighteous, in order to bring you to God. He was put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit, and then in verses 19 and 20 the author goes on to write that Christ (in the spirit) went and made a proclamation to the spirits in prison, who in former times did not obey, when God waited patiently in the days of Noah, during the building of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were saved through water.  It is in these puzzling words that the Apostles’ Creed claims that Jesus “descended into hell,” though the text says nothing of descending nor does it directly make any mention of hell. In fact, the writer of 1 Peter doesn’t necessarily have hell in mind here at all. If we are to understand what the author is getting at, we have to look outside of our canon of Scripture to an apocryphal book that was very popular in the days of Jesus and the early Church—the book of 1 Enoch.

            In 1 Enoch we find story of Enoch (the man in Genesis 5:24 who walked with God; then he was no more, because God took him) as he is shown the history of heaven, leading up to the time of the flood in Genesis 6. During his heavenly tour, we are introduced to a group called “the watchers,” who were the fallen angels who had been with human women, and their offspring were giants “from whose bodies ‘evil spirits’ [had] come.”[3] These giants, referred to in Genesis 6 as Nephilim, came to represent the most vial generation to have ever lived. Such a tradition was no doubt well-known and popular during the time of Jesus, his disciples, and the writing of 1 Peter. So, when the author of our text today says that Jesus made a proclamation to the spirits in prison, who in former times did not obey, when God waited patiently in the days of Noah, during the building of the ark, it is very likely he’s referring to these “spirits,” traditionally understood as the most dreadful of sinners.

            You see, what the author of 1 Peter is trying to communicate to us isn’t necessarily the answers to where Jesus went and what Jesus did between Good Friday and Easter Sunday. No, the writer of 1 Peter is communicating a much deeper truth. When he writes that Jesus made a proclamation to the spirits in prison, what he is saying is that even that generation that was considered irredeemable gets to hear the same gospel that even the most holy generation has the privilege of hearing. Think about it…even the most sinful, evil, disgusting generation of sinners have the grace-filled opportunity to hear the proclamation of the good news. The ones who many would have deemed undeserving, Jesus made a proclamation to them.

            That’s where I think people trip over the truth of Christ’s suffering. After all, it’s just fine for Christ to have suffered and died for me—it’s not like I’ve lived an altogether terrible life. It’s wonderful that Christ has suffered for the sins of those whose sins weren’t all that bad to begin with (it’s not like you’ve ever murdered anybody anyhow). But when grace begins to find its way into the hearts and lives of those you deem unworthy…well, that’s when we find the cost of discipleship too steep and the life of faith too burdensome. To think that Christ would die for me or for you is a blissful, glorious thought, but to think that the love of God extends to the one we find unfit to live…? That’s another thing altogether isn’t it? Kind of makes the Church feel less like a social club and more like a social service doesn’t it? Maybe that’s the point.

            He was found dead in a prison bathroom. He had been beaten to death by a fellow inmate. No one was really all that upset about it to tell the truth. He had only served two of his 957 years in prison, but no one was really all that up set to hear he hadn’t made it longer. See, no one really cared whether Jeffrey Dahmer lived or died after raping, dismembering, and murdering some 17 men and boys between 1978 and 1991. No one really cared, except for a man named Curt Booth. Booth was a member of the Crescent Church of Christ in Crescent, Oklahoma; he saw Dahmer on television and mailed him a Bible correspondence course teaching the way to salvation. Dahmer mailed a letter back to Booth expressing that he had accepted Christ, but there was no baptistery in the prison and no one who would baptize him. However, as it came to pass, a Church of Christ minister named Roy Ratcliff began weekly Bible lessons with Dahmer and eventually baptized him on May 10, 1994.[4]

            As you can imagine, many are quick to pronounce Dahmer’s story as just another case of “jailhouse religion.” But what if it’s not? What if one of the most notorious serial killers in modern history is listed among the saints in the kingdom of heaven? What does that then say about the depth of God’s grace? What does that say about the love in Christ’s suffering?

            I heard an old preacher say once, “When you get to heaven, you’ll look around and be surprised by all the people who you thought would be there, but aren’t. You’ll look around and be surprised by all the people who you never thought would be there, but are. You’ll look around and see all the lovely faces of all the wonderful people. Then, you’ll look around and be surprised most of all by the fact that you’re there.” Isn’t that the truth?

Let us pray…

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[1] Doreen Fowler; Campbell McCool. “On Suffering: A Letter from William Faulkner,” American Literature, Vol. 57, No. 4. (Dec., 1985), pp. 650-652.

[2] Jobes, Karen H. Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament: 1 Peter. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2005. p.42.

[3] Jobes, Karen H. Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament: 1 Peter. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2005. p.244.

[4] http://www.christianchronicle.org/article2159116~Did_'jailhouse_religion'_save_Jeffrey_Dahmer%3F