"King Jesus" (Reign of Christ)

John 18:33-37

33 Then Pilate entered the headquarters again, summoned Jesus, and asked him, "Are you the King of the Jews?" 34 Jesus answered, "Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about me?" 35 Pilate replied, "I am not a Jew, am I? Your own nation and the chief priests have handed you over to me. What have you done?" 36 Jesus answered, "My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here." 37 Pilate asked him, "So you are a king?" Jesus answered, "You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice."

            It’s a mask made of solid gold, inlaid with carnelian (a reddish semi-precious stone), lapis lazuli (a deep blue precious stone), turquoise-colored glass, and quartz. There are two golden serpents, poised to strike, perched on the forehead of a face that bears the expression of regality and youthful pride. The long, stylized beard that protrudes from his chin tells those who may see such a mask that the one beneath it was indeed one of importance, one whose power was so great it was believed to have extended even into the afterlife. Two scepters are crossed over his chest, further signs of power and royalty. It is the mask of the young king, Tutankhamun, better known as King Tut. His burial mask is so well-known that it is often the first image that comes to mind alongside the pyramids and the sphinx when one thinks of Egypt. The golden burial mask that bears the image of the boy king’s face, an image of power, pride, and a hint of arrogance—that’s the image of a king.

            Then there’s the engraving of the emperor Charlemagne the Great from around the year 800 A.D. The emperor is decked out in his royal armor, complete with golden inlays of fleur-de-lis and what looks like some sort of wild warbird. Across his shoulders is a cape of gold and red, clasped at his breast with a large ruby surrounded by other jewels. Atop his noble head is a grand, bejeweled crown; in his left hand he holds a golden scepter, and in his right hand he holds the Palatine Chapel, one of the architectural marvels that made up Charlemagne’s grand palace in what is now Germany. With his long hair and beard, his steady eyes, and confident expression, the armored, gold-plated, crown-wearing, scepter wielding emperor looks every bit the image of a king.

            Then there’s the lost painting of Hans Holbein the Younger of Henry VIII. While the actual painting itself was lost to a fire in 1698, there are copies that have helped to preserve this image of one of the most famous British monarchs. While there’s no sign of a crown, no throne, scepter, robes, or armor, it is plain to see that this is the image of a king. Henry stands with his feet apart, his ringed hands by his sides, and a dagger hanging from his belt. His clothes are clearly the clothes of the wealthy elite, the velvet hat atop his head a sign that he belongs to such a high class of people that he can cover his head with such luxury. Even the sleeves of his shirt seem to be covered with rubies and gold, the kind of uncomfortable and impractical garb that only a monarch would wear. The expression on his face is one of stern confidence, as if he was posing for the only portrait ever worthy of being hung on a castle wall or the altar of a cathedral. That’s the image of a king!

Then there’s the picture painted by the scene before us in Holy Scripture: the Roman-appointed governor in his authoritarian get-up, the comfortable robe, over which he may have been wearing a chest plate, a pleated kilt, and a scarlet robe. In his hands he held the power of the empire in this backwater province of Judea. Sure, the people could rule themselves, hold their own courts, continue worshipping their gods, just as long as they didn’t cross the Empire, and in that region of the world, the Empire was personified in the governor, the propraetor, the proconsul, in Pilate. To many in that time and place, Pilate was what a king looked like, clothed in the garb of the Romans, wielding the appointed power of the Caesar. Pilate, however, is not the one being asked if he’s a king. No, Pilate poses the question to the ragged Jew chained before him in the chambers of his headquarters.

"Are you the King of the Jews?" Pilate asks Jesus. “Was he a king?” There was no sign that his head and neck had ever been weighed down by the heft of a crown. There were no callouses caused by the ceaseless waving of a scepter. His skin was not fair, unburned by the sun, protected by the soft silk of a royal robe or the gilded plates of an emperor’s armor. His hair and beard were not well-trimmed, scented with palace perfumes; the soles of his feet were not protected from the harsh, Judean roads by the soft leather of a Roman’s sandals, nor did it appear he had ever been carried on a litter by his own servants. He was rough, likely smelled of dirt and sweat, his hair and beard were unkempt, his lip busted or his eye swollen from the blow he had taken from another the night before. He was more than likely exhausted from a sleepless night of prayer, arrest, and trial. He stood before the Roman governor—his political superior—and heard him ask, “Are you the King of the Jews?”

The conversation that follows is the most detailed version in the four gospels. Jesus answers Pilate’s question with another question in verse 34: "Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about me?" Pilate’s reply (frustratingly enough) is yet another question followed by yet another question still: "I am not a Jew, am I? Your own nation and the chief priests have handed you over to me. What have you done?" Then Jesus carries on with the conversation, but almost as if he’s having a completely different one: "My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here." “My kingdom”? So Jesus is admitting to being a king here, right? That’s what Pilate asks him in verse 37:"So you are a king?" to which Jesus answered, "You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice."

Why won’t Jesus come right out and say “Yes, Pilate, I am a king. I am THE king. I am the king of kings and the Lord of lords. I am the Alpha and Omega, the First and the Last, the Sho-nuff, the Always has, Always been, and Always will be”? Why doesn’t Jesus come right out with it and demand to be set free, call for a crown, a robe, and a ride to his palace? Why does he say all of this stuff about having a kingdom that’s not of this world, a kingdom that doesn’t elicit violence from his followers, a kingdom that doesn’t demand defense?

On the one hand, I suppose it wouldn’t have done him any good. After all, Pilate may have just laughed in his face: him, a king? Shackled and road-worn? Pilate may have cut the conversation even shorter and had him released with a verdict of “not guilty by reason of insanity!” Then again, it could have sent Pilate into a panic: he was there in Judea at that time to keep the peace, to make sure things didn’t get out of hand during the Passover festival. For there to be some rabble rouser claiming to be the king who (at least at one time) had thousands of followers, that would have certainly meant trouble—the kind of trouble Pilate didn’t want. So if Jesus had just said he was a king, Pilate may have done whatever the Sanhedrin had asked just to keep the peace during the Passover. Then again, there may be another reason Jesus didn’t just come right out and say he was a king…at least not before he was sure Pilate understood one thing.

Pilate asked Jesus if he was a king. That is to say, Pilate asked Jesus if he was a ruler, one with the power over a kingdom of subjects, an army, a treasury, borders, flags, traditions, the power to threaten others with power. Was Jesus a king? Did he sport a crown, armor and a war horse? Was he the type of political power that gave easy answers to hard questions, who was willing to uphold the nobility at the expense of the commoner? Was he a monarch with the power to oppress those who stood in his way, to march legions into other nations and lands he wished to rule? Was he the kind of ruler who demanded loyalty and admiration from those in his kingdom? Was he really a king?

You know, that’s the kind of leader it seems so many like, isn’t it? The one in the tailored suit, with the lapel pin, the one with the tailored answers to propped-up questions, the one who “plays to the base,” the one who is emboldened by the prospect of power and control, the one whose eyes are set on a throne. It no longer matters if they’re called king, emperor, chancellor, or president, when we think of those people who rule, those who govern, they too often fit the description of one in power. So maybe—maybe—when Jesus doesn’t give Pilate an answer right away, when he first explains that his kingdom is not of this world, there’s a reason, and maybe that reason has everything to do with the reality that Jesus doesn’t fit our expectations of a king, of an emperor, of a president. Perhaps Jesus’ kingdom doesn’t fit our expectations of a kingdom—one of this world, one in which the rich always seem to get richer while the poor get poorer, one in which lines are drawn and fought over, one in which parties are picked and differences are declared irreconcilable.

Maybe Jesus isn’t so quick to confess his kingship to Pilate because he’s afraid we’ll over hear him and want to jump to conclusions, conclusions about thrones, castles, crowns, and power. That those of us who claim to be followers of Jesus, a part of his kingdom, will want to begin drawing lines, setting the boundaries for our own corner of the kingdom, a corner we believe we somehow deserve because we’ve earned it. Perhaps Jesus isn’t so quick to confess his own kingship because he knows what we’ll do with it, how we’ll mess it up, how we’ll misunderstand it. Because when we think of kings, we think of those who wield the power of an army to inflict pain and cause damage, not those who say “turn the other cheek…and when someone takes your cot give them your shirt too.” Because when we think of kings, we think of those who feast sumptuously at long tables in grand halls, not those who dine with prostitutes, lepers, and the poor sinners of this world. Because when we think about kings, we think of those who seek more for themselves, to have more money, more land, more power, not those who seek to give it all away. Because when we think of kings, we think of those who wear crowns of gold and sit upon polished thrones, not those whose heads are crowned with thorns and whose bodies hang upon a rugged cross.

Then again, that really is the thing about Jesus, isn’t it? We think things are one way, and he shows us that it’s really the other way around. When we think life is about getting what’s ours, about making ourselves comfortable, Jesus tells us to deny ourselves. When we think life is about safety, about surviving, Jesus tells us to take up our cross. When we think being an heir to the kingdom means long banquet tables with reserved seating, Jesus puts a table before us all and invites all who would to come and dine. When we think kingdoms are about thrones, crowns, and robes, Jesus shows us a cradle, a cup, bread, and a cross!

As we take from the King’s table set before us this morning, may we be reminded that we worship a king whose power isn’t found in the might of his army, the wealth of his treasury, or the vast borders of his dominion. We serve a king whose power is found in the inside-out, upside-down, unexpected, always-more, eternal, unending, unfailing, love for us all. We serve a king whose kingdom is so beautifully described in the words of James Russel Lowell:

I followed where they led,

and in a hovel rude,

with naught to fence the weather from His head

the King I sought for meekly stood;

a naked hungry child

clung round His gracious knee,

and a poor hunted slave looked up and smiled

to bless the smile that set him free;

new miracles I saw His presence do,

no more I knew the hovel bare and poor,

the gathered chips into a woodpile grew

the broken morsel swelled to goodly store.

I knelt and wept: my Christ no more I seek,

His throne is with the outcast and the weak.

“His throne is with the outcast and the weak.” Praise be to King Jesus! Amen.

"Signs of the Times?" (Twenty-fifth Sunday after Pentecost)

Mark 13:1-8

1 As he came out of the temple, one of his disciples said to him, "Look, Teacher, what large stones and what large buildings!" 2 Then Jesus asked him, "Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down." 3 When he was sitting on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple, Peter, James, John, and Andrew asked him privately, 4 "Tell us, when will this be, and what will be the sign that all these things are about to be accomplished?" 5 Then Jesus began to say to them, "Beware that no one leads you astray. 6 Many will come in my name and say, "I am he!' and they will lead many astray. 7 When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed; this must take place, but the end is still to come. 8 For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be earthquakes in various places; there will be famines. This is but the beginning of the birth pangs.

            Friday night, in a series of coordinated attacks, terrorists (reportedly a part of the group referred to as ISIS) killed 129 people and injured many others across the city of Paris, France. That same evening, back-to-back earthquakes shook the earth off the coast of Japan: the first was a magnitude 7 quake, followed quickly by a 6.5 magnitude quake. There were tsunami warnings issued for the coastal cities of Japan. The night before, in Beirut, Lebanon, 43 people were killed and 239 were wounded by a suicide bomber. In the Middle East, the Syrian Civil War rages on, a conflict that began with the Arab Spring of 2011 and has given birth to terrorist groups like ISIS (or ISIL); this war is also one of the leading causes of the European Migrant Crisis, forcing thousands of people to seek asylum in countries across Europe.

            There have been countless other wars, battles, and conflicts that have ravaged people groups across the globe in recent years, like the civil war that took place in Sudan for twenty-two years (1983-2005) that left two million people dead as a result of battle, famine, or disease, while at least four million people were displaced during the war at least once. In Gaza, the Palestinian/Israeli conflict continues, a struggle that has been ongoing since 1948. Are these signs of the end times?

There have also been enormous natural disasters in recent years, like the tsunami of 2004 that struck in the Indian Ocean killing hundreds of thousands of people, Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the earthquake that rocked Haiti in 2010, the tornadoes that ripped through this part of the country in 2011, Superstorm Sandy in 2012, and the many other hurricanes, earthquakes, wildfires, mudslides, eruptions, and storms that have caused enormous damage and taken so many lives all over the world. This year has seen a record drought out west, in California, causing local governments to limit water usage, and local citizens (especially farmers) to pray for a solution and an end to such a threatening lack of rain. Are these signs of the end?

            Then there are those other, naturally-occurring phenomena that have taken place in recent years, events with names like “super moons,” or “blood moons,” or “super blood moons,” comets that make an appearance once a generation or so, constellations or planets that happen to line up with other constellations or planets in the night sky. Are these signs that the end is near?

            Then there are all of those things that have happened that cause unrest and discomfort for so many, those socio-political happenings that cause some folks to pray that the end would come, things like the issuing of social security numbers, barcodes on candy bars, rock-and-roll music, rap music, boy-band music, Justin Bieber, the Great Recession, the legalization of same-sex marriage, marijuana, gambling, and liquor sales on Sundays. Are all of these things signs of the end of the age too?

            What is it about us that makes us so fixated on all things eschatological? Why is it that so many of us seem to devote all of our religious energy on those things that have yet to take place, those final things, those things that are supposed to point us towards the end times? It seems to me that so many people are so infatuated with talking about and looking for the end times that they honestly think they’re the first ones to ever try to predict the end of the world! Yes, every generation there have been those so-called preachers who stand in their pulpits and claim, “The Lord will return in my lifetime!” and so far, every single one of them has wound up dead! Really though, why are we so enamored by the end? It isn’t something new, something that’s just come along in the last century or so. In fact, it seems from this passage before us this morning, that right from the beginning, when Jesus himself even hints at things concerning the end, the disciples’ ears perk up and they begin to ask questions.

            As the disciples left the temple, they were caught up in its grandeur, in the polished marble, the glittering gold, the overwhelming size and importance of the place, and so they commented to Jesus, “what large stones and what large buildings!" They sound like children on their first trip to the hospital, having just ridden the elevator to the fifteenth floor. The temple at that time truly was a site to behold, and for the Jews who worshipped there, it was a wonderful testimony to the God they served and the religion to which they belonged. The disciples (good Jews that they were) marveled at the magnificent structure, a building that looked as if it would stand in the center of that holy city forever, but Jesus says to them (as he too is leaving the temple complex), "Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down."

            That’s a pretty big statement to make! This is before the days of easily used explosives, before cranes equipped with wrecking balls, so to say such an enormous structure would be razed to the ground, without a single stone stacked on top of another, is, crazy talk, especially when one considers that this is the house of God! But the disciples aren’t really surprised by Jesus’ predictions, after all, the temple had been destroyed once before, some five or six centuries before by the Babylonians, so the practicality of the temple’s destruction was not beyond their imagination. However, what does interest them, is when all of this is going to take place: "Tell us, when will this be, and what will be the sign that all these things are about to be accomplished?" When is this going to happen, Jesus? We want to know, so we can be prepared, so we can mark it on our calendars on the refrigerator, set reminders on our smartphones, cancel our Netflix subscriptions, and have our bags packed, our guns loaded, and our swords sharpened. When is it going to happen?! What should we look for? How will we know?

That’s what the disciples ask…that’s what we ask. But then Jesus answers: "Beware that no one leads you astray.  Many will come in my name and say, ‘I am he!' and they will lead many astray. When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed; this must take place, but the end is still to come. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be earthquakes in various places; there will be famines.” Right off the bat, Jesus gives them a warning: “Don’t let anyone fool you. Many will come saying “I am (he)” and they will fool a lot of folks.” I think another way of hearing what Jesus said may be: “Don’t be fooled, because there will be a lot of people coming around saying they have it all figured out, and they’ll fool others.” I suppose that’s why I’m more than just a little hesitant when I hear some preachers say they know what the end will look like, or when they say they can predict the day it will happen, or what events will take place leading up to the end. I often wonder how much time and energy they spent trying to pinpoint a day in the future when there are things to be done today in the present?

Now, after his warning, Jesus gives them a list of signs, right? “wars and rumors of wars…nation rising against nation, and kingdom against kingdom… earthquakes…famines” All of these things sound awful and terrible: wars and the terrible conflict that they bring, the violence, bloodshed, death, and destruction, even if the result of war is compromise, liberation, or justice, the price that is paid is always a high one; when nations and kingdoms rise up against each other, it is rarely for the sake of justice, but too often for the sake of financial gain or the pursuit of imperial conquest; and anyone who has watched the news in recent years ought to know the kind of devastation that can be caused by earthquakes and the heartbreaking images of famine. But these are all given as signs, signs of what to expect, signs of what will lead up to the end, right? So when we see these things, does that mean the end is at hand? Does it mean we should brace ourselves for what’s coming? When we witness these signs, should we stop what we’re doing and prepare ourselves for some terrible, destructive ending? Or is there more to all of it?

It’s that last sentence of our text this morning that ought to give us some guidance: “This is but the beginning of the birth pangs.” These signs, these things you will witness, these are only the beginning, the beginning of that which will give birth to the kingdom of God in its fullness, the kingdom “on earth as it is in heaven.” But you see, that’s the problem with only looking for the signs—we fail to be about the work we’ve actually been called to do, the work of bringing God’s kingdom to reality.

Sadly, too many Christians are like those first disciples in this text: they only get excited about the end. They’re only interested in how things will go down once the signs they’ve been looking for take place. Too many Christians seem to have a vested interest in watching the world get worse rather than striving to make it better—as Christ has called us to do! It seems that there are a number of believers who are betting all their chips on the end happening in their lifetimes, so they disregard the health of our planet; they cast off the importance of providing long-term solutions to present problems; they ignore those who are most vulnerable in our world, those who are victims of injustice, violence, and hatred and I’ve even heard them say “Well, the end is coming soon, so they won’t have to suffer too long!”

Jesus has not called us to be sign-seekers! Christ has not died so we may only look forward to an end! The Lord calls us to be people who live everyday knowing that it just might be the end for someone else if we don’t act! Christ calls us to be people who look for signs of destruction, signs of oppression, signs of evil, signs of sin now—not so we can predict what’s coming, but so we may act to rid the world of those things today, so that we may be agents of God’s coming kingdom, so that we may act as midwives, helping to ease the birth pangs until the kingdom is born whole and complete into this world. Amen.

"Stretching the Groceries" (Twenty-fourth Sunday after Pentecost)

1 Kings 17:8-16

8 Then the word of the Lord came to him, saying, 9 "Go now to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and live there; for I have commanded a widow there to feed you." 10 So he set out and went to Zarephath. When he came to the gate of the town, a widow was there gathering sticks; he called to her and said, "Bring me a little water in a vessel, so that I may drink." 11 As she was going to bring it, he called to her and said, "Bring me a morsel of bread in your hand." 12 But she said, "As the Lord your God lives, I have nothing baked, only a handful of meal in a jar, and a little oil in a jug; I am now gathering a couple of sticks, so that I may go home and prepare it for myself and my son, that we may eat it, and die." 13 Elijah said to her, "Do not be afraid; go and do as you have said; but first make me a little cake of it and bring it to me, and afterwards make something for yourself and your son. 14 For thus says the Lord the God of Israel: The jar of meal will not be emptied and the jug of oil will not fail until the day that the Lord sends rain on the earth." 15 She went and did as Elijah said, so that she as well as he and her household ate for many days. 16 The jar of meal was not emptied, neither did the jug of oil fail, according to the word of the Lord that he spoke by Elijah.

            When her husband died, she wasn’t sure what she was going to do. She was the mother to a young son, a woman without a job, without any savings, without an education, without training. At the funeral, a friend would come over, put his arm around her shoulder and say, “I’m praying for you,” while another friend would give her a light hug and whisper in her ear, “If you need anything, call me.” Back home there were casseroles, meat trays, rolls, pies, and cakes, but she knew her and the boy couldn’t possibly eat all of it before it spoiled, and even though she faced an uncertain future, she wasn’t afraid. She would make it through this. Then, it didn’t rain.

            When the rain lagged behind in its arrival, it didn’t seem like that big of a deal…at first. For her, it meant she could still play outside with her son, enjoy the long hours of sunshine, and get out of the house where the memories of her late husband could consume her and drag her down into that shadow of depression. At first, the grass was still green, the flowers still bloomed, and everything seemed pretty normal. There were periods like this before, when the rain was more patient than the people, but when the rain didn’t come for weeks, then months, when the grass turned brown and the shriveled blossoms fell from their stalks, when the sun became more oppressive and less pleasant, when the weatherman said “drought,” she wasn’t afraid. She could make it through this. After all, the rain has to come sometime…right?

            When the drought stuck around and the farmers only dulled their plows in the dust, and when the grocery store shelves carried fewer goods for higher prices, she sat down at the kitchen table with a pen, scratching numbers on the back of an old envelope, trying to figure out how she’d get by this week. She was already buying the store brands, so she had to cut corners other ways: she could buy whole milk and stretch it with water (but the price of water had gone up in the drought too); she could buy more things in cans and boxes instead of fresh fruits and vegetables; she could leave the meat and opt for the more processed options; she could put a little less on her own plate so that her son would have more in the days ahead. It was going to be hard, but they were going to get through this. Then the bills started piling up.

            When the bills came, she paid the ones she could afford, the ones that would let her pay some, a little at a time. She paid the bills that were important: electricity, water, rent, but those were (of course) the most expensive bills, especially in the midst of the drought. Eventually, she couldn’t pay them all, so she staggered them, paying one this month, another next month, and another the month after. Before too long, though, the red and pink envelopes came in the mailbox, and before the phone was cut off, every call was screened (because for a widowed woman her age, in these tough economic times, she wasn’t getting any social calls, just bill collectors). She sat at the table, the stack of envelopes mocking her and the math that didn’t add up, but she was determined. They were going to get through this. The drought had to end, the rain had to come, the food had to grow, and the prices had to come down. But they didn’t.

            The one grocery bag she brought home from the store got lighter. Soon, she’d have to walk to the store because she didn’t have money for gas or insurance, and the bank was likely going to take the car any day now. The phone was shut off, the cable gone, the gas line locked at the meter, and the power company sent a letter saying they’d be there next week to disconnect her from the grid. As she put the few groceries away, she nearly cried at how lonely they looked in the cabinet, but this wouldn’t last forever. It couldn’t last forever. Could it? She wasn’t afraid—not just yet. There was still something in the cabinet, still some food to put on the table, still some hope left. But the drought marched on in its relentless theo-political lesson, and before too long, she was down to her last sac of flour and her last jug of oil, just enough to eat simple cakes of bread once or twice a day.

            She tried not to eat, to stretch what was left for her son, to quiet the rumbling of his stomach and ignore the growing, growling violence in hers. The drought wiped out the farmers, the grocery stores, even the food banks. Not even her neighbors—the ones who covered her kitchen counters in casseroles—could help, for they too were suffering. She had seen it and helped those she saw as worse off as best she could. She stretched those last groceries as far as they could go, often going a day or two without eating anything herself, until that one day…that one day when she went to the flour jar and found only a small, handful of flour and just enough oil in the jug to say there was some in it. That day, reality set in and it all came crashing down.

            She had buried her husband, and now the thought occurred to her that she was probably going to have to bury her son too. She knew if the drought continued, her son would go first. She already noticed the way his clothes just sort of hanged on his boney shoulders, how his joints were sharp and pronounced, no longer lost in the soft, healthy tissue of a growing boy. She had rocked him to sleep every night for weeks as he cried from the pain in his empty stomach. With the drought not letting up, with so many around her cursing the gods they once worshipped, the gods that once were thought to bring the rain when the people needed it, with so many she knew already losing the fight against the seemingly endless dearth…she gave up. She knew she wouldn’t make it even though she had fought so hard to survive. So she went out to gather a few sticks to burn (because you don’t gather limbs or logs if you’re not planning on staying around). Her plan was forced upon her: she’d make what food she had left; she and her son would eat it; then they’d wait for death’s slow, hungry hand to take hold. She was afraid. She was out of hope. Then Elijah walks into town.

            Now, at this point in the story, we may be tempted to think of Elijah the prophet as some sort of hero, riding into town, into this woman’s life to save the day. After all, if we skip to the end, Elijah has promised her enough meal and oil to last through the drought and she and her entire household have enough to eat. If we just get to the end, we see this woman no longer struggling, no longer having to stretch to make ends meet. She and her son have plenty; God has provided and that’s the lesson we’re supposed to take with us. But why do we so quickly assume Elijah is the protagonist in this short story? Is it because he’s a man? Is it because he’s an Israelite? Is it because he’s a prophet? I mean, from the very beginning of this text Elijah doesn’t sound like a hero: “the word of the Lord came to him, saying, ‘Go now to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and live there; for I have commanded a widow there to feed you.’" Elijah doesn’t stroll into Zarephath to help this woman. No, he goes there because she is supposed to help him!

            So right away, something not’s quite right. I mean, think about this for a minute: before arriving in Zarephath, Elijah was being taken care of by birds that brought him food where he waited by a wadi of fresh drinking water. God had provided for the prophet in supernatural ways, but the wadi dries up and God tell Elijah to go to this widow in Zeraphath. Now, why couldn’t God just tell him to go to another wadi and have the birds meet him there? Why couldn’t God have provided manna from heaven or water from a rock for Elijah—God had done it for an entire nation of people, so what’s one, single man? Why place more a burden on a woman whose spirit is already crushed, whose resources have already been exhausted? Why tell the prophet to go to her? I mean, I get that od is trying to teach Elijah something by forcing him into the heart of a region known for the worship of Baal; I get that God is setting Elijah up to confront the idolatrous queen Jezebel in the heart of her own homeland (for Jezebel was from Sidon), but why—why send him to this widow who already has nothing, especially when God says nothing to Elijah about helping this poor widow? Maybe there’s something Elijah is meant to learn from this widow, something we’re all meant to learn, and perhaps it’s more than what we assume.

            Look again at the way these two are introduced in verses 10 and 11: “When [Elijah] came to the gate of the town, a widow was there gathering sticks; he called to her and said, ‘Bring me a little water in a vessel, so that I may drink.’ As she was going to bring it…” Elijah walks through the gate of the town and when he sees this widow picking up a few dried sticks, he asks for a cup of water. Has he forgotten about the drought he prophesied a few verses earlier? Can’t he tell by the cracked ground, the withered trees, and the dusty air that water is a rare commodity in this part of the world? And this woman, can’t he see in her tired, hungry eyes that she is carrying a burden far greater than his own thirst? “Can you bring me a glass of water, shug?” “Don’t you know we’re in the middle of a drought? Can’t you see I’m in the middle of something? Look around you. Do you think water is so readily available I can fetch a perfect stranger a glass just because he smiled at me? Who do you think you are?!”

            That’s what I’d have told him. After all, if I was faced to face with the man who called this drought on the land because of some theological and political hissy fit with the king over his wife, I believe I’d have given him more than one of two of those sticks upside his head! Because you know when your child is at home crying, when his stomach is empty, when you know you’re going to have to face his death soon, the issues argued about by politicians and clergy become meaningless if they don’t help your son to live. They can argue over the right way to do worship, the wrong way to pray, who can and can’t be allowed to do this or that, but if your children are hungry…none of those things matter. Yeah, if Elijah had strolled up on me asking for a cup of water in the midst of drought he called for, I’d tell him to turn right back around and go back to wherever it was he came from. But this nameless Sidonian widow is a better person that I am.

            Did you notice what it said in verse 11? “As she was going to bring it…” No words of protest are spoken. No excuses given. She doesn’t even ask who he is. Elijah—this foreign stranger who just walks into town—asks for a cup of water, and she’s off to get it for him. It doesn’t take much to figure out she probably doesn’t have much (if any) to spare, but she’s willing to share it with him anyhow. I think it sort of catches Elijah off guard; maybe he thinks she’s better off than he realized, because before she can even get started in fetching his water he asks for more: "Bring me a morsel of bread in your hand." How is she still talking to him?! Now he wants bread?! She swears to him (a sign of sincerity) that she just has enough for a last meal for her and her son. You can almost hear the pleading in her voice, can’t you? As if she wishes she could help this man, but she can’t even help her own son.

            Elijah could have said to her, “It doesn’t matter. God called me here, and God told me you’d give me something to eat, so come off the bread lady.” But that’s not befitting a prophet of the Most High. He could have lambasted her about the necessity to prepare for difficult times, the need to be frugal, the importance of hard work and the way she needed to “pull herself up by her bootstraps.” Elijah could have pointed his finger at her and criticized her lowly position, claiming she was just a drag on the system, that she shouldn’t have had a child if she couldn’t afford one, that she should have remarried, or that she should have done something to take care of her son and herself (“after all,” he could have though, “if I was in her place, you better believe I’d be doing everything I could to put food on the table for my family!”). Elijah could have said those things, but he didn’t. Instead, he promises this woman that if she would make him a small roll along with her and her son, God would be sure to provide for her until the rains came again—and God does.

            It’s easy to walk away from this story with the fable-like lesson of a woman who trusted the words of a prophet, the promise of God to provide, but I think there’s a deeper lesson here, one closer to the bone for us. You see, I know the Sidonian widow, and I bet you do too. I bet you’ve seen her countless times, probably even know her name, and I bet (like me) you’ve missed what God is trying to tell us.

            I’ve seen the Sidonian widow as she pushed her buggy down the aisle at Wal-Mart, kids hanging out of the buggy, running wild trying to grab every bag of candy, box of cookies, or can of whatever they can get their hands on. There’s four bottles of sodas in her cart, along with frozen fish sticks, ramen noodles, and different cans with one form or another of “something-oni” in them. There’s not a single fresh fruit or vegetable in that buggy, nothing even remotely healthy, no wonder her kids are running all over like they’re jacked up on adrenaline!  Then again, soda’s cheaper than milk, fish sticks are easier and cheaper than fresh fish, chicken, or beef, and she’s got a lot of mouths to feed and bills to pay. I’ve seen the Sidonian widow.

            I’ve seen her when the rest of us celebrate holidays like Veterans’ Day, when we have parades and services that celebrate those who’ve gone to war, those who’ve served their country, only to forget about them the other 364 days of the year, when so many of them struggle with mental illness, with physical disabilities, with the haunting physical and mental pains that come with witnessing the hell that is war. I’ve seen her in the faces of those vets, like the ones outside the VA hospital in Waco, Texas, who are turned out on the streets to scour for food, to stand in the midst of traffic, waving their arms wildly because they’ve lost their minds. I’ve seen that widow in those people as others who would want to say they honor such soldiers shoo them away, call the police on them, or make fun of them in the midst of their struggles. I’ve seen the Sidonian widow.

            I’ve seen her as she comes back to school after being gone for several weeks, when she gets sideways glances from her classmates, when parents and teachers talk about her as “that girl that got pregnant.” I’ve seen her as she’s tried to put right the mistakes she made only to be held back by the judgement of those who find themselves more righteous.

            I’ve seen her in the unwashed faces of little children in trailer parks, in the shirtless youth who hang out on the steps of an apartment in the projects, in the downcast eyes of the mother buying groceries with her EBT card, in the forgotten, dark, cold room where an elderly man longs for a phone call, a visit, any attention to let him know someone cares. I’ve seen her in far too many faces of those who’ve been told they’ve got to fix what’s wrong with them before they can be a part of the church, a part of God’s kingdom, a part of a community of equally messed up people. I’ve seen the Sidonian widow, and there have been times I’ve been tempted to tell her to fix her own problems, to get her life figured out, to get a job, to make better choices, to be better prepared for when things don’t turn out the way you hope. I’ve guilty of thinking, “Well, it’s their fault they’re in such a mess in the first place.” I pray God will forgive me, because if the Sidonian widow teaches me anything it’s this: God chose a poor, foreign, widowed, woman to care for God’s prophet, and even in the midst of her own lack, she did! So who am I to tell anyone who may be different from me in any way that God can’t use them for God’s glory and the kingdom? Amen.

"Cards on the Table" (Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost)

Hebrews 4:12-16

12 Indeed, the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow; it is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. 13 And before him no creature is hidden, but all are naked and laid bare to the eyes of the one to whom we must render an account. 14 Since, then, we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast to our confession. 15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin. 16 Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

            One of my favorite movie series of the past few years is the Bourne trilogy. In case you haven’t seen any of the movies, they are based on three books written by the late Robert Ludlum about a top-secret, American spy named Jason Bourne who is found adrift in the ocean, and when he comes to, he can’t remember who he is or how he wound up floating in the water. Matt Damon plays Jason Bourne, and these movies are the definition of non-stop action. There are car chases, explosions, people running on rooftops, and all of it takes place in countries all over the world.

The fight scenes, well they’re something else.  They are unbelievably well-choreographed, with Jason Bourne not only taking and throwing punches and kicks, but also using all sorts of objects as improvised weapons. In the second movie in the series, The Bourne Supremacy, Bourne is caught in the home of another spy, and after a long fist fight Bourne rolls up a magazine and proceeds to use it as a weapon. Then, after rendering his opponent unconscious, he sticks the magazine in a toaster in order to ignite a gas leak to blow up the house.

I remember when I first saw that scene; I thought to myself, “Did he just use a magazine? A magazine!?!?” See, like many of you, I’ve sat in doctors’ offices where outdated issues of Golf Digest are indiscriminately shuffled with Highlights, and Field & Stream. I’ve sat on twenty different airplanes this year, and all of them had at least two inflight magazines in the pocket in front of me, and at least once a week I get some catalog, some brochure, some magazine in the mail, and not once—not once—has it ever occurred to me that any of those periodicals could be used a deadly weapon! That’s not their intended use, though, is it? A magazine is supposed to provide information, entertainment, coupons, or puzzles to pass the time. A magazine isn’t supposed to be wielded as a weapon, used to harm another person, but in the hands of a fictional character like Jason Bourne, it can quickly become a weapon that can inflict immense pain.

I suppose I feel the same way when I see those billboards you pass sometimes on the highway. You know the ones I’m talking about—not the countless Alexander Shunnarah billboards—those with Bible verses scrolled in a menacing font, attempting to create converts at 70 miles per hour. I suppose it’s also how I feel about those religious folks who quote cherry-picked Bible verses in order to defend themselves in an otherwise indefensible situation. It’s how I feel about those politicians and other public figures who defend their opinions by quoting a few words from the Bible (completely out of context), or those Christians who proof text an obscure verse to bully unbelievers and those with whom they disagree, those bumper stickers, flyers, t-shirts, and church signs that all use the words of scripture like a rolled up magazine in the hands of Jason Bourne. Because for so many Christians, the words of Holy Scripture are wielded like improvised weapons against their adversaries, against their neighbors, and so often it’s the words of Hebrews 4 that are used to justify such an abuse of scripture.

“Indeed, the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword…” Why, that makes it sound as if the word of God in scripture ought to be used as a weapon, doesn’t it? These words make it sound as if scripture has been filed to a fine point, polished and sharpened for battle, ready to be wielded by the faithful against any and all challengers—especially those with different ideas, viewpoints, and convictions than us. I suppose if those words stood alone, one could justifiably cite them as a call to arms, a rallying cry for the faithful to take their bibles in their hands and begin to thrash them to and fro at whatever and whoever stands in the way of their religious traditions and spiritual comfort. But how arrogant is it to believe that the words of scripture are words aimed at everyone else but us, that they are words meant to be wielded by us against others? How arrogant to think the words of scripture are for everyone else and not us?

The writer of Hebrews goes on in our text this morning to say, “the word of God…divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow; it is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And before him no creature is hidden, but all are naked and laid bare to the eyes of the one to whom we must render an account.” Did you catch those important phrases in there: “no creature is hidden…all are naked…we must render an account…”? When the writer of this epistle speaks of the word of God being living, active, and sharp as a two-edged sword, what he’s referring to is the way in which the words of God (especially as we have them in the person of Jesus Christ) penetrate our arrogance, our ignorance, our sin, our pain, our grief, our doubt, our despair, our loneliness, our everything so that we are utterly and completely exposed before Almighty God. And if we’re truly honest with ourselves, that’s why we are so quick to point the Bible at others, to swing the sharpened edge of scripture at those different from us, because we know if we let the Holy Spirit speak to us through the words of scripture, we will be laid bare before God, and all our cards will be on the table.

It’s not easy showing our hand. It’s not easy being vulnerable, uncovered, naked, “laid bare,” before anyone, but there’s something all the more uneasy about the thought of being exposed to God. It reminds me of the little boy who was asking his mom questions after church one Sunday. “Momma,” the little boys asked, “is it true that God is everywhere?” “Yes, sweetie,” she answered him. “Even at school?” “Yes, sweetheart. Even at school?” “What about at home?” “Yes, child. Even at home?” “Everywhere at home?” “Yes,” she said, a bit worried about where this line of questioning was going. “Even in the bathroom?!” For many of us, we seem to have outgrown the idea that God is omniscient or omnipresent; we no longer think of him the way young children think of Santa Claus (“He sees you when you’re sleeping. He knows when you’re awake…”). We’ve left such ideas behind. mostly because they make us uncomfortable, so the thought of scripture speaking truth into our lives as if God knows everything going on with us seems like an invasion of our privacy, as if God walked in the bathroom without knocking!

But here’s the thing: rather than the thought of God as some strange stalker, watching our every move, these words from Hebrews actually give me a deep sense of hope and encouragement, because I don’t see God as a divine being who sits invisibly in the corner noting my every action, feeling, and thought, counting every bad thought against every good one. No, these words tell me that I worship a God who knows all my junk and still seeks me out, still loves me! God is not a deity who sits in heaven with binoculars in one hand and a bolt of lightning in the other, waiting to strike you down at the first sign of failure; God is a God who is alive in Christ Jesus, a God who has been where we have been, felt what we have felt, been through the temptations, joys, heartaches, and pains we have been through. Or to put it the way the author of Hebrews puts it: “Since, then, we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast to our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”

You see, the word of God is not some sharpened stick given to us so we can jab each other in the eye when we fail to live up to each other’s standards of faith. The word of God exposes us all for who we truly are; it strips away all pretenses, all of our constructed reputations, all of our “holier-than-thou” attitudes. It leaves us naked before an all-knowing God, and that honestly terrifies us. But rather than leaving us exposed, rather than shaming us in our frailty, in our brokenness, in our weakness, in our sin, Christ says to us, “I know where you are, because I’ve felt that hurt, I’ve been tempted with those temptations, I’ve struggled with those same feelings of doubt, loneliness, and despair. I’ve been there for you, because I love you. I know where you’ve been and I know where you are, and I still love you.”

Perhaps that’s what really scares us, to think that we can be so truly messed up and God still loves us. Maybe that’s what we really struggle to believe, not that God is everywhere and knows everything—after all, that seems to be what being God is all about—but that even though God sees everything and knows everything about us, God still loves us—Jesus still loves us enough to pursue us, to call us into relationship with him, to trust us with the mission of God’s kingdom, the work of reconciliation, and the joy of love. Maybe that’s what we really struggle to believe.

Rather than being frightened to defensiveness, rather than taking up the word of God and the gospel of Christ as a weapon to wield against our enemies, let us approach the thrown of grace with boldness, knowing that God knows all of our baggage, all of our agendas, all of our faults from the very beginning. Let us approach God as a friend who knows us better than we know ourselves, and still chooses to love us. May we know that even though all of our cards are on the table, even though we are naked, even though we are exposed, weak, and vulnerable in our own fragile, sinful state, Jesus still calls us. Jesus still calls us to the mission of God in the world, a mission of faith, hope, and love, a mission of reconciliation and peace, a mission for a kingdom that doesn’t point fingers and sharpened swords at one another, a mission for a kingdom full of equally fallen, fragile, broken, hurting, arrogant, needy, lonely, heartbroken, wounded people. Jesus still calls each of us into a deeper relationship with God and with one another, so let us answer that call boldly, knowing God already knows you better than you know yourself, and God still loves you. Amen.

"Bigger than a Breadbox" (Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost)

John 6:35, 41-51

35 Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty…41 Then the Jews began to complain about him because he said, "I am the bread that came down from heaven." 42 They were saying, "Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, "I have come down from heaven'?" 43 Jesus answered them, "Do not complain among yourselves. 44 No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me; and I will raise that person up on the last day. 45 It is written in the prophets, "And they shall all be taught by God.' Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me. 46 Not that anyone has seen the Father except the one who is from God; he has seen the Father. 47 Very truly, I tell you, whoever believes has eternal life. 48 I am the bread of life. 49 Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. 50 This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. 51 I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh."

            I remember one afternoon when I was in the fifth grade, my mom picked up my sister and me from school and told us we were going to get a surprise that afternoon. Now, I’ve never really liked surprises. I suppose it’s because I’m not very good at controlling my reactions to such things—especially when I’m surprised with something I don’t necessarily want, but Stephanie and I buckled ourselves into Momma’s old, peeling-maroon Ford Taurus station wagon and we were off to get our “surprise.”

            All kinds of thoughts went through my head about what sort of surprise we were going to get. I had been after my mom for a while about getting me a pair of name brand shoes, because that seemed to be the only thing any of the kids in my class cared about—whether or not you wore the right kind of shoes. So I thought maybe, just maybe, my mom had finally given in as she noticed my shoes were beginning to split at the seams. I dreamed that maybe this would be the year I’d get my very own Louisville Slugger TPX bat for baseball season; I had always wanted one, and Momma said if I hit a homerun she’d buy me one, and I had hit two the season before. But then I started to think that since it was my sister AND me maybe this “surprise” was supposed to be for both of us, so I started dreaming, pondering, hoping. Maybe we were going to get a Super Nintendo! Maybe we were going to get our own TVs for our bedrooms! Maybe we were going to Wal-Mart and Momma was going to let us pick out whatever we wanted from the toy aisle! All kinds of thoughts ran through my head about the nature of this surprise—until we pulled into the slanted parking spot, just off Main Street in downtown Elba.

            You see, my aunt worked at a little shop in Elba called, “Dress for Less,” and my mom, after she put the car in park, turned around in her seat and said to us, “You’re going to get a brand new coat today!” It was not the kind of surprise either of us wanted, especially me, because, you see, the shop my aunt worked at (and as it turned out, where we could get a hefty discount) was a clothing store for women. I was a nine year old boy, and it didn’t take me long to figure out what was going on! But my mom, as she often had to do when we were growing up, made the best of it, and picked out this denim jacket with a red hood, and said, “This is really a boy’s jacket; they just sell them here because girls like them too.” I wore that girl’s jacket through the rest of my fifth grade year and some of sixth grade. It wasn’t the surprise I wanted. It wasn’t what I expected, and even though I didn’t like it, it was what I needed during those colder days in January and February. It wasn’t what I expected, but it was what I needed.

            I believe that’s how it is with Jesus. Jesus is never what we expect. I mean, think about it: in this same chapter of John’s gospel, Jesus feeds five thousand people, and he does it with a boy’s sack lunch. That’s not something you’d expect. You might expect him to pull out his credit card or pass the hat and take up a collection and send one of the disciples down the Little Caesar’s in Galilee for a stack of “Hot-N-Ready” pizzas, but you wouldn’t expect him to take five little barley rolls and two fish and break it enough to feed five thousand and then have some left over, would you? No, of course not, but Jesus is never what we expect—even when we think we know what to expect.

            After this miraculous feeding, the crowd pursues Jesus. Why? Because they like what he has to say? Because he’s a captivating speaker? Because he’s entertaining and they’ve got nothing better to do? No! They follow him around because they’re hungry! Let’s face it, you and I take for granted the ways in which we can secure food for ourselves: we can go down to the grocery store and pick up a loaf of white bread for about a dollar; we can turn any faucet on in our houses and get clean water to drink; we can buy canned fruits and vegetables, dried beans, and even powdered milk and eggs if we so choose. We have such easy access to so much food we even have to occasionally go through our pantries and refrigerators and thrown some of it away! But like too many in our world today, these folks following Jesus in the first century didn’t have such easy access to readily available food and clean water. So when Jesus fed the multitude, when he multiplied such a small portion to feed so many, what else do you think would have happened? Of course these hungry people would pursue this man who gave them food, because if he did it once, he’ll do it again, right? That’s the expectation.

            Then Jesus says in verse 35, "I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.” Never be hungry? Never be thirsty? I’ll sign up for that! You better believe that when those people heard those words they were ready to sign up. After all, it was there experience that Jesus could do it; it was their expectation that Jesus could give them food to eat and water to drink, their expectations that Jesus could quiet the growling in their bellies.

            Then again, the opponents, the critics of Jesus’ movement had expectations too. You can hear them in verse 42 as They were saying, "Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, ‘I have come down from heaven'?" You can almost feel the sting in their words can’t you? “This Jesus, the son of Joseph…” One has to believe that after Mary’s miraculous pregnancy that folks around Galilee began to talk: “Oh I bet the child she’s carrying was conceived by the Holy Spirit…poor Joseph, taking in a girl like that…I bet Mary’s parents sure are disappointed in her…” You can imagine because it’s the kind of things that are too often said about the young girl, alone in the grocery store line, crossing her fingers that she has enough left on the EBT card to buy her little girl groceries for the week. Of course Jesus grew up as Mary’s son; the truth is after the nativity stories in Matthew and Luke we never see Joseph again. Maybe he ran off, but more than likely he had died as so many men then did at what we might call a young age.

            These critics of Jesus, though, they believed they knew Jesus’ story. They knew who his parents were. They knew where he grew up, the kids he played with, where he went to school, and the kind of life he lived. They believed they knew all they needed to know about Jesus, and with that kind of background information they formed certain expectations about him. Perhaps their expectations involved Jesus growing up to be like Joseph, a laborer, one who would follow in the family trade. Maybe they had expectations of him growing up to be a popular rabbi, one who could draw a crowd to listen to his teachings on the Law and the ways of God. They had expectations alright, but Jesus never meets our expectations—Jesus is always more, always bigger than our expectations.

            The crowd wanted someone to give them food to eat. The critics wanted a Jesus that fell in line with their expectations, who was easily managed within the boundaries of familial and cultural norms. They all had these expectations about who Jesus was, about what Jesus did, about what Jesus’ ministry meant, but Jesus didn’t meet their expectations. Jesus is far bigger than their expectations—and he’s far bigger than ours.

            You see, I’m convinced that we’ve been trying to put Jesus in a box for too long. We’ve seen him like those in the crowd saw him: he’s a source of bread, of food, of stuff. Think about it? What do most of our prayers sound like? “Lord Jesus, thank you for giving us food…for healing my friend…for giving me a nice house to live in.” While I think it’s extremely important to recognize the ways God cares for us, the ways God provides for us and the ways we are privileged, I don’t think that’s the whole shebang. I’m afraid we’ve given in to the message of the so-called prosperity gospel and its so-called preachers: we see God as a vending machine, as a being that exists to give us what we need and want when we need and want it. We hear “Whoever comes to me will never be hungry or thirsty,” and we assume that must mean that if we que up and ask in the right way, Jesus will give us what we want, whether it’s food, water, shelter, or a shiny halo, a robe, a harp, and a home in heaven. If we’re honest with ourselves, that’s the expectation we have—that Jesus is really just a means to an end. But Jesus is more than that. Jesus is bigger than that. Jesus is bigger than any of our expectations.

            Like his critics too, we often have expectations about Jesus that come from a place of experience. We’ve been told the same old stories about Jesus so much that we think we’ve got him figured out. We’ve lived in the so-called “Bible Belt” for so long that many of us really think that we know all there is to know about Jesus (or at least all we ever need to know). We have expectations of who Jesus is, what Jesus does, whom Jesus is for and against, what Jesus will do. We have all of these expectations based upon a collected knowledge of what we and others have assumed and expected from Jesus, but Jesus is always bigger than our expectations.

             I’m afraid that makes us uncomfortable, because when we want bread to eat, to fill our stomachs in order to satisfy our hunger and quiet the growling, Jesus gives us the Bread of Life that satisfies the deepest hunger, the hunger to know God, to be loved by God. When we expect Jesus to be like us, to hold up our way of thinking, our way of seeing the world, our rules, regulations, and restrictions, Jesus opens doors, tears down walls, and shows us that there are no limits to his love. It’s like we expect Nintendo, but Jesus gives us a coat—it’s not what we expected, but it’s exactly what we need.

            Let me encourage you today to not let your expectations of Jesus keep you from experiencing the fullness of who Christ is. As we gather around the Lord’s table together to take part in this meal, may the bread we eat together remind us all of the Bread of Life, the one who is greater than we can ever imagine, the one who is far bigger than our expectations. Amen. 

"Living on a Question" (Tenth Sunday after Pentecost)

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.”

             When life is going well, when things are running smoothly, we seldom pause to ask why. When things go our way, when we seem to get everything we need and want, we seldom (if ever) stop to ask how. But when life hits a bump, when things aren’t going so smoothly, when things aren’t going our way, when it seems we’re not getting anything we want…well, we’ll ask all sorts of questions. Won’t we? “Why me?” “Why now?” “What did I do to deserve this?” “When will this end?” “Where is all of this coming from?” Often when we ask these questions, we project our voices towards the heavens, as if our demanding an answer from the Almighty will produce a response. When those difficulties come, when our mind races with questions, we are too often left without answers—and we don’t like not having answers when we have questions.

            Perhaps that is a product of our constantly-connected culture; we live in a time when the answer to every question can seemingly be found in our pockets. Can’t remember the capital of Venezuela? Ask Siri. What was the name of that guy who as in that movie with that other guy? The answer is on your IMDB app. Where’s the cheapest place to buy gas in Jacksonville? What will the weather be like tomorrow? Where are the Braves playing this week? How tall is Mt. Everest? You can find the answer to these questions and a million others if you just “Google” them. Gone are the days when we’d have to guess at an answer, look it up in an actual encyclopedia or dictionary, ask someone else who might actually be educated in the subject, or (heaven forbid) we might have to simply be ok with not knowing, letting our imaginations wonder. Answers are easy to get; they’re cheap, so to have a question without an answer, without certainty, creates within us such anxiety that we’ll become defensive to the point of regression in order to find that level of certainty again. But this isn’t a new phenomenon born in the age of smartphones and 4G data connectivity—it’s a condition as old as humankind, a condition shared by those liberated Israelites in the Sinai desert nearly 3,500 years ago.

            Can’t you hear their questions? “Are we there yet? When are we going to stop for a break? How much farther? Where are we going anyway? I forgot something; can we turn around and go get it? What are we going to do for food out in this desert? Who’s in charge of this mess we’re calling an exodus anyhow?” It’s been about two months since they’ve left Egypt: they’re tired; their bread has grown moldy or run out altogether; they’re sunburned; the kids are complaining to their mothers, who are complaining to their husbands, who are complaining to each other, and all the people are complaining to and about Moses and Aaron. When they can’t get answers to their questions, they complain. (What is it about the people of God and complaining, especially to and about their leaders?) The complaining of the Israelites is so constant that it becomes a sort of theme throughout the entire narrative of their desert wandering. Why are they complaining? They’re complaining because they’ve seemingly hit a snag in their travel plans, and things aren’t going the way they think they should.

            We can see such a snag in verse 3 when they say, "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." Remember, they’re two months out of Egypt. Most of them probably weren’t thinking it’d take this long. They likely had visions of what things were going to be like in this Promised Land: they’d be settled in their own house, on their own land, with their own gardens, growing their own food. They’d have to taskmasters to answer to, no schedule to keep, no monument to build except the ones they chose to build. After two months though, when the food they brought with them was running out, when the kids were crying, when the ribs on the animals they brought with them were showing, those lovely visions of life in the Promised Land were starting to fade. The certainty of life back in Egypt, back in bondage was starting to sound more and more appealing.

            That’s how it goes, isn’t it? When our present predicament creates questions without any answers, when our visions and plans seem to be unraveling before us, we convince ourselves that the old way was better, that we should retreat to a time when it seems we had all the answers, when things (at least in hindsight) seemed easier and all the problems of the present were non-existent. We convince ourselves that the “good ol’ days” were better than today, that the “way things were” is better than the way things are. That’s what the Israelites are saying: “It’s so bad out here in this desert that we’d rather be back in bondage, under the whip of the taskmaster. At least back there we had full bellies and we knew what to expect!” Their reaction to the seeming shortage of food reveals just how deep their faith is—that’s our critique anyway, but we know the rest of the story.

            We know that God is going to provide them bread from heaven; we know that they’ll make it across the Jordan and into the Promised Land; we know and they’ve witnessed the way in which God brought them across the Red Sea and out of the sights of Pharaoh’s army. With all we know, it’s easy to say things like, “well, if they had just had faith, if they had just held on a little longer, they would have seen how God was going to provide for them.” To tell the truth, though, I don’t think we can’t be too hard on the Israelites. After all, we’re not too different, are we? God can show up in powerful and amazing ways in your life one day, and the next—when things aren’t going the way you want—you’ll wonder if God is even real. We can have a lifetime of stories detailing the ways God provides, the way God shows up, yet when a difficult season comes, when the ground is hard and dry, when the work isn’t there, when it’s harder to get out of bed, we’ll long for the days when we didn’t have to worry about things like our faith, when things were easier and answers were handed to us.

            I think that’s how we’re all alike, how we’re like the Israelites, how they’re like us, how all us people are just like each other. We have short-term faith memory; we’re quick to forget the ways God has brought us to where we are once we encounter trouble. We long for certainty, for answers. We want a plan, not some aimless, thrown-together wandering. We want a faith that runs on a rail, not a faith that wanders in the wilderness. The Israelites wanted certainty: “how are we going to eat out here in the desert? when will we eat? what will we eat?” We want certainty: “where is God? how did we get here? where did we come from? where are we going?” None of us want to live with questions—we want answers! We want to know what’s next. We want certainty. We want to have the answer in our back pocket, ready to dispense it to whomever may ask us a question. We want things black-and-white, cut and dry, lines clearly defined. We want to know who’s in and who’s out, what’s right and what’s wrong. We want a schedule, a checklist, a program, an agenda. We want certainty—answers, NOT questions. We want certainty because we believe it is only when we have all the right answers that we have the right faith, but I’m learning something the longer I travel on this journey with Jesus, with God: faith flies in the face of certainty. Faith isn’t found in the answers: it’s found in the struggling, the wrestling with the questions.

            You see, the Israelites (who, by the way, are named for the patriarch Israel, whose name literally means “to wrestle with God”) wanted the certainty of the fleshpots of Egypt, the certainty of knowing where their next meal would come from. They wanted to retreat to the time and place—before God’s deliverance—when it seemed they had all the answers to all of their questions. And when the Lord had heard their complaining, when God had heard the Israelites and the way they complained against Moses, the way they complained against God, the way they wanted answers, what did the Lord give them? God gave them manna, in Hebrew, man hu, the literal translation “What is it?” What did God give the Israelites when they complained? Yes, God gave them sustenance, food, but what was it God gave them when they wanted certainty, when they wanted answers? Why, God gave them a question, “What is it?”

            Isn’t that something? For forty years, God sustained the Israelites with a question—not an answer or a list of answers, but a question. To me, that’s what faith is. Faith is living with the questions; it is the search for the answers, not the answers themselves. Church isn’t a place to come get all the answers, but it ought to be a community of people in which it is safe to wrestle with the questions. I’m learning as I get older, as I grow closer to Christ, that I’m not supposed to have all the answers, and I know that frustrates some of us, to think we’re not supposed to have all the answers. I know we want answers, and we want certainty. We want to be able to say things like “the Bible clearly says…God can do this, or God can’t do that…” We want clearly defined boundaries and lists of rules and regulations. We want the answers so we can be sure we’re in. But having all the answers, all the rules figured out, all the criteria written down, being completely certain…that’s not faith. Faith is not having all the answers. Faith is wrestling with the uncertainties and questions of existence. Faith is trusting that even if you never have the answers God is still God (and you are not!).

            So to those of you who are wrestling with the questions, those of you who feel as if you’re always asking, “Why?,” those of you who feel like the way things were is better than the way things are, those of you who feel like you’ve got to have all the answers—to all of us who wrestle with the questions of life, faith, and existence, I say this: hold on, keep the faith! For the Lord led a nation out of bondage, through the wilderness, and into the Promised Land, and God sustained them on that journey with a question. May the Lord sustain you on your journey with the questions of faith that call us into closer relationship with Christ. May this church be a community where questions are welcome and answers aren’t required. May we have the kind of faith that calls us ever on, relying on God when we don’t have the answers. Amen. 

"Don't We Pay You to do That?" (Part 4 of "Am I a Church Member?")

1 Timothy 3:1-7

1 The saying is sure: whoever aspires to the office of bishop desires a noble task. 2 Now a bishop must be above reproach, married only once, temperate, sensible, respectable, hospitable, an apt teacher, 3 not a drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, and not a lover of money. 4 He must manage his own household well, keeping his children submissive and respectful in every way— 5 for if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how can he take care of God's church? 6 He must not be a recent convert, or he may be puffed up with conceit and fall into the condemnation of the devil. 7 Moreover, he must be well thought of by outsiders, so that he may not fall into disgrace and the snare of the devil.

            Just about a month ago, on Sunday, May 31^st, I read a news story that I’m afraid is becoming too common. Phil Lineberger, a well-known, well-respected pastor in Sugarland, Texas—a pastor who had served his congregation for nearly twenty years, a pastor who had been a leader among Texas Baptists, serving as vice-president and president of the Baptist General Convention of Texas (BGCT) from 1988-1991, a pastor who from all appearances was a well-rounded, active, and beloved pastor—took his own life. He had been on medical leave from the congregation since mid-March. His son-in-law said, “[he] lost a battle with depression and took his own life.”[1]

            That same day, I saw Facebook posts, tweets, and Instagram pictures of the Sunday morning worship at the First Baptist Church of Decatur, a suburb of Atlanta. Julie Pennington-Russel, who had served as First Baptist’s pastor since 2007—the first woman to serve as pastor in the church’s history, and the first woman to serve in such a prominent church—gave the benediction at the conclusion of the service for the final time. She had announced her resignation on April 29^th, and May 31^st was her last Sunday. In her letter to the congregation she said, “After months of prayer and contemplation, [my husband] Tim and I have discerned that for the sake of my own mental, physical and spiritual health, I must step away from First Baptist, Decatur.” She didn’t resign because she was called to another church. She didn’t resign because she was called to a denominational position or to serve on a seminary faculty. She resigned because she felt she had (in her words) “done my best to listen for God and to lead this congregation according to Holy Spirit’s guidance. However, I’m afraid that today our church has become ‘stuck’. The sticking point for more than a few appears to be me, and my leadership.” [2] She resigned without “something to fall back on,” without a “plan B.” She resigned due to the pressures and stress that inevitably come with leading a congregation forward, to make bold moves for the kingdom of God.

            The next day, Monday, June 1^st, I was sitting in our living room with Sallie, watching television, when I heard my phone vibrate. I had a message from a friend of mine who serves a rather large (one might say “successful”) congregation in another state. His message asked, “Are you doing ok?”

It reminded me of my time as an intern at Shades Crest Baptist in Birmingham, when the pastor there, one day, was catching me up on all the things going on at church: the progress we were making on our capital campaign, the upcoming plans for a choir tour, the great things happening with our mission partners. After he had run down the list, I simply said to him, “Ok, but how are you doing?” A few weeks later, at my end-of-the-semester review, he said to me, “One of the most important things you did was ask how I was doing. When you enter the ministry, few (if any) will ask you that. They will bring you their troubles; they will dump their complaints in your lap; they will hold insanely high expectations of you and your family, but they will rarely ask how you’re doing, how you’re really doing.”

As my pastor friend and I messaged each other that night, it became clear that even though his church seemed to be doing so well, that even though he was such a highly respected pastor and leader, the stress gets to him at times too. He said, “I’m always thinking of a ‘plan B’…I just about quit three times in the last two weeks.” I had this conversation with him with the news of Phil’s suicide and Julie’s resignation still fresh on my heart and mind, and if I’m completely honest with you, it’s just one of many such conversations I’ve had with friends and colleagues in ministry.

Can I tell you all something without sounding too much like I’m complaining? You see, one of the hardest things for us clergy folks to do is advocate for ourselves. It’s hard for us to admit when we don’t know what to do; it’s hard for us to ask for something for ourselves; it’s hard to speak up when we feel we’re being stretched too far, spread too thin, or held to ridiculous standards of availability and self-sacrifice. So, can I just talk to you all for a few minutes? I know some of you won’t hear what I’m saying, and some of you will just write it off as the whining of some young pastor, but I think you all need to hear what I have to say, what too many of us in ministry—most of us in ministry—have to say, but we’re afraid we can’t. I want you to listen, to listen to these statistics reported by numerous surveys of thousands of pastors across North America.

Every month, 1,500 pastors leave the ministry FOR GOOD due to burnout or contention in their congregations. They don’t take a leave of absence; they don’t leave for another church or another ministry position—they leave vocational ministry FOR GOOD: 1,500 every month!

Fifty percent of pastors’ marriages end in divorce. While that sounds like a familiar statistic among the “non-ordained,” keep in mind these are ministers, and many of them site the reason for their marriages ending is the stress and demands of ministry. I know that’s true because 80% of pastors and 84% of their spouses are discouraged in their ministry, and 80% of pastors report that congregational ministry and its demands have adversely affected their families—80%! That’s a number too big to ignore.

At least 40% of pastors seriously considered leaving the ministry in the past three months. With schedules that are more often bent than flexible, pastors find the fixed boundaries of a “normal job” tempting: the thought of clocking out and leaving it all in the office until tomorrow is something many pastors dream about. This seems to be especially true when one considers this sad statistic, one I found particularly telling when it comes to the expectations of those of us in pastoral ministry: pastors who work fewer than 50 hours per week are 35% more likely to be asked to resign or fired. That means if a pastor makes time for him/herself, time for rest, time for their families, that pastor is more likely to lose his/her job than a pastor who snubs Sabbath rest, ignores their families, disregards their health, and doesn’t care about their overall physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being.

Only one out of every 20 pastors who enters the ministry will retire from ministry. Half (50%) of pastors feel so discouraged in being unable to meet the unrealistic demands of their congregations that they would leave ministry for another job if they could, but they have no other way of making a living (seeing as how they have devoted their lives, education, and training to ministry). One in four pastors has been forced out or fired from a ministry position at least once. Ninety percent—90%!—of pastors say they feel inadequately trained to cope with the stress and demands of their jobs (many of them have undergraduate and extensive graduate degrees in religion, theology, ministry, etc., and still feel this way!). I suspect it’s not the training itself, but rather the insurmountable expectations placed upon clergy.

Forty-five percent of pastors say they’ve experienced depression or burnout to the point of needing to take a leave of absence (I doubt most of them do, or that most of their congregations would let them). Seventy percent of pastors say they do not even have one close friend. Another 70% say they have lower self-esteem than when they entered the ministry. According to denominational health insurance agencies, medical costs for clergy are higher than for any other professional group, as pastors deal with stress-related health issues such as high blood pressure, obesity, insomnia, and depression. And one of the most telling statistics for me comes from the Schaeffer Institute: of the 1,050 pastors interviewed, every single one of them had a close friend from seminary who has quit ministry because of burnout, conflict in their church, or a moral failure. [3] Personally, I can think of at least five, and one of them left the faith altogether.

Now, I know what some of you will say: “Chris, my job is hard too. My job comes with a lot of stress too.” I don’t doubt that; I don’t doubt that for one minute. But here’s where I think things are different: too many pastors are forced to resign, are fired, or take their own lives, because their vocation is completely intertwined with their faith, their spiritual lives, their very identity as a child of God, and when they do their job, when they seek to lead others in the way of Christ, when they strive for justice, when they make bold steps towards revealing the in-breaking kingdom of God, and are then faced with constant criticism, the downright hateful actions of those who wish to see them removed, the ignorance of those who wish to carry on with their ways of life as if the call to come and follow Christ is only a nice suggestion, is it any wonder so many want out? When pastors pray, study, and wrestle with a text for hours, only to be told that they are wrong by someone who’s reflections are only minutes old, when a pastor gives every waking hour to the ministry and work of the church only to be told she forgot to visit someone’s great aunt in the hospital in another county, when a pastor weeps and prays over the pains and trials of a member who is going through hell only to be chastised for not smiling at some other church member at the grocery store last Tuesday, when a so-called church member—a supposed follower of Christ—stands in a pastor’s office and threatens him to stop preaching about this or that or else he’ll make his life miserable, when a pastor rejoices in the news of another giving her life to Christ only to be deflated by complaints about length of the service, the order worship, or the temperature in the sanctuary, when we’ve poured ourselves out spiritually only to be told that the toilet upstairs is clogged, there’s a committee meeting waiting on our arrival, and that same person who always has something say is waiting for us in the hallway to tell us the dozen things we’ve done wrong this week…is it really any wonder so many of us give up? Is it really any wonder so many of us think about walking away several times a month? a week? a day?

When we are called by God to lead, when we give of ourselves to others, folks who might otherwise be total strangers, when we pour our hearts and souls out and preach what the Lord has given us, and yet our leadership is ignored, our words dismissed as the irrational opinions of someone who doesn’t know any better, and when our ministry is seen as an “easy living,” is it really any wonder so few of us make to retirement?

I really hope you don’t hear this as complaining, but I want you to know what those of us in ministry go through. I want you to know that ministry isn’t just some cushy job that only requires working one or two days a week. I want you to know that, as your pastor, I can’t do it all. You can’t pay me enough to add more hours to the day or cause me to spontaneously self-replicate. I want you to know that ministry isn’t just my job, my vocation. As a church member, it’s yours too! We are all in this together! That doesn’t mean your part is to pay for stuff, to pay salaries, to make requests, to sit back and hope things go your way. That means we are all in the dirty, hands-on business of kingdom work together. That means we all have to work together—even when we don’t agree, even when we think it’s someone else’s job, even when the work is hard. That’s what it means to be a church member. That’s the difference between a member of the body of Christ and a mere spectator. That’s the difference between following Christ and giving lip service to religion. That’s what it means to be a church member, to join in the work of love, to follow the ever-forward call of Christ, to trust in the God who has called some out as shepherds, to listen for the voice of the Spirit in your own heart, as God may be calling even you out of the fold to the work of ministry.

May you all listen for the voice of Christ. May we all join in the uniting work of God’s kingdom. May we all know and live what it means to be part of the body of Christ, what it means to be church members. All of us, not just those of us who are called “clergy” and hired to do it. Amen.

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[1] The article from Baptist News Global can be found here: https://baptistnews.com/ministry/people/item/30138-denominational-leader-pastor-phil-lineberger-dead-at-69

[2] You can read Julie’s resignation letter in its entirety on her Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/julie.penningtonrussell/posts/10102080126262183

[3] J.R. Briggs, Fail: Finding Hope and Grace in the Midst of Ministry Failure. IVP Books: Downers Grove, IL (2014). pp. 46-7.