The Mayberry Preacher

KINGDOM-LIVING: THE NEW LIFE YOU'VE ALWAYS WANTED

Matthew 6: 7-13; 28: 1-15
Steve Lindsley
Easter Sunday
April 24, 2011

There’s a prayer we say every Sunday in this church, on glorious days like today and ordinary Sundays as well.  We say it as part of our children’s message.  And, you know, I love the fact that, as Shasta tells the kids to hold hands, I look out in the congregation and see many of you doing the same.  It’s the Lord’s Prayer, and it comes to us from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount; this “Kingdom Manifesto” that’s served as our scriptural focus this Lenten season.  I’m going to ask that we say it together, but only the first couple of sentences, at which point I’ll ask you to stop.  So let us pray:

Our Father, who art in heaven,
Hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come, thy will be done
On earth as it is in heaven….

Stop right there.  For all the hundreds and maybe even thousands of times that you’ve said that prayer, I’m wondering this morning if you heard what you said: Thy kingdom come…ON EARTH as it is in heaven.  On earth. 

We’ve been talking a lot the past few months about this kingdom and about the fact that, according to Jesus, it has more to do with what God is doing in our lives now than some far-off distant time after our death.  We’ve talked about how Jesus has called us in this kingdom – on earth – to do crazy things like love our enemies to death, and walk an extra mile, and stop making a show of our faith, and see who the “blessed ones” really are. And so for the hundreds or thousands of times we’ve prayed this prayer, whether we realized it or not, we’ve joined Jesus in praying daily for God’s kingdom on earth, just as it is in heaven. 

Easter is the culmination of that kingdom! Everything about Easter literally shakes the foundations of the cosmos.  There was an earthquake that Sunday morning, we are told – one so violent that it tossed aside the huge stone that covered the entrance to Jesus’ tomb. An angel appeared to the two women there – and as if the angel’s presence alone wasn’t enough, we are told his appearance was “like lightning.”  You know when you see lightning, how its image stays burned on your retina, seared into your brain long after it’s gone?  That’s how it was to look upon this angel.  The guards at the tomb were so afraid at the mere sight of him that they literally froze still as if dead.  The arrival of God’s kingdom on earth was too much for their bodies to physically handle. 

The angel told the women to go tell the others that Jesus was no longer dead; that God’s kingdom had indeed come down to earth.  They ran off and brought the others to the empty tomb.  And when they brought them back, it wasn’t the angel who greeted them this time, but the risen Jesus himself.  And in the lone anti-climactic moment of the whole affair, Jesus greets his friends with the equivalent of, Hey, what’s up?  Because even in the resurrection’s awe and majesty and wonder, the arrival of God’s kingdom on earth rightly begins with a friendly word of welcome. 

And so for two thousand years since that earth-jolting day, every year on this day, the people of God relive that Easter moment.  This we know.  It’s why we’re here this morning, dressed in our Sunday best.  It’s why we bring flowers to transform an instrument of torture into a symbol of eternal love.  It’s why we double the number of hymns; why we gather around the table together and take part in God’s holy meal.  Only on Easter Sunday could we do something un-Presbyterian like move the worship service an hour earlier and get away with it!

We know what happened on Easter.  But that’s a whole lot different than living it.  Frederick Buechner, a Presbyterian minister and writer, once explained kingdom-living like this:

Time after time Jesus tries to drum into our heads what he means by it.  He heaps parable upon parable like a madman.  He tries shouting it.  He tries whispering it.  What he seems to be saying is that the Kingdom of God is the time…when it will no longer be humans in their lunacy who are in charge of the world, but God in his mercy who will be in charge of the world.  It’s the time above all else for wild rejoicing – like getting out of jail, like being cured of cancer, like finally, at long last, coming home. (Secrets In The Dark by Frederick Buechner, New York: HarperCollins 2005, pg. 118)

My friends, this is a time for “wild rejoicing!”  This is what was set in motion in those first days of creation; a world where God is at the center and the people are charged with taking care of creation instead of manipulating it.  This is what the prophets spoke about time and time again as they railed against the leaders of their day and spoke about God’s justice.  This is what Jesus embodied in his life and death and, now, in his resurrection. Easter is a time for “wild rejoicing!”  Easter is a time for “Good News!”

But that does not mean that it is easy news.  For while kingdom-living is a gift we receive, it is also a burden we must bear.  As citizens of God’s kingdom, we cannot help but be put at odds with the kingdoms of this world:  And the contrasts between the two could not be any greater:

• The kingdoms of this world call blessed those who by human standards are considered “successful.”  God’s kingdom calls blessed the meek and mild, the suffering and the persecuted, all of those forgotten and overlooked.


• The kingdoms of this world say that following the letter of the law is the way to righteousness. God’s kingdom calls its subjects to a deeper level of understanding and a deeper level of faith.


• The kingdoms of this world tell us to love those who love you back and not worry about the rest. God’s kingdom calls us to seek out our greatest offenders and love them to death.


• The kingdoms of this world put a premium on outward appearances and a “good show.”  God’s kingdom cuts through all the fluff and focuses on what’s real.


• Most of all, the kingdoms of this world define power and might in terms of the size of one’s wallet or the stockpile of a nation’s weapons.  But in God’s kingdom, true power comes from a wooden cross, and an empty tomb, and death-in-reverse.

That’s why the kingdoms of this world have no clue what to do with God’s kingdom.  Just look at the end of our passage today – a full-on cover-up story to disclaim the resurrection.  Because the mere thought of something like “death-in-reverse” absolutely terrified them.  So they set out to minimize it, snuff it out like a flame that fades away when the wick is all used up.

But what they found – what the world found – is that the flame of the resurrection of Jesus Christ never gets used up.  And that’s why Easter is not just a nice little story we observe from a distance.  It’s one we enter into with our very lives!  And when we do, we find that our God doesn’t simply roll a stone away from a tomb – this Jesus rolls away anything and everything that acts as a tomb for us; everything that prevents us from living as full-fledged citizens in God’s municipality.  This Jesus does more than call the people of God to moral, upright lives.  This Jesus stirs something inside them – so that, as author Shane Claiborne once put it, they “believe so much in another world that they cannot help but begin enacting it right now.”

How amazing that world must be!  And the fact is, if we look around, we catch glimpses of it here and there – even in the strangest of places.  I saw God’s kingdom one time in a photograph taken, of all places, at an NBA basketball game. Game Five of the 1998 NBA Finals; the Chicago Bulls vs. the Utah Jazz.  I’m sure you’ve seen it before.  The final seconds are ticking off the clock, and Michael Jordan himself is launching a jump shot that, if it goes in, will win the game and the title for the Chicago Bulls.  The picture is taken from behind him, Jordan’s outstretched right arm thrusting the ball in the air.  It is a classic moment, frozen in time. 

It’s easy to focus on Jordan in this picture – he is the reason it was taken, of course.  But if you keep looking, you start to notice the crowd behind the basketball goal; hundreds of people in the picture.  All shapes and sizes.  They’re standing there in rapt attention; their eyes focused on the ball, mouths wide open, arms tucked in, hands clenched.  Their entire body language is hopelessly caught up in that basketball, suspended above the goal, and whether it’s going in or not.

And if you look  a little bit more, you notice something else: a young boy, around ten years old, to the left and six rows up.  What you notice is, while everyone around him is stuck in basketball purgatory, this little guy is ahead of the game.  He wears on his face a jubilant smile; his whole body is an expression of pure joy.  And you notice one last thing: while everyone else has their arms drawn in to their side, he is the only one - the only one - whose arms are raised up; raised to the rafters in a victory that had not yet come to pass. (http://issuu.com/relevantmagazine/docs/relevant49, visited on 3.8.2011)

Say the prayer with me once again please: Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.  Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.  My dear friends, if Easter means anything to us, it means this: the kingdom of God is at hand!  And not in some far-off distant time, but right here and right now.  If only we could be like that little boy and raise our hands to the heavens, even as the world around us continues to wait for what we know will happen.  For what, in a way, has already happened.  He is risen!  He is risen indeed!!  Alleluia!  AMEN!

KINGDOM-LIVING: NOT THE "DON'T'S" YOU'VE ALWAYS AVOIDED

Matthew 5: 21-42
Steve Lindsley
March 27, 2011

When I was a junior in high school, my English classroom was right above the school auditorium.  So when the girls chorus practiced in there during 5th period, our teacher, Mrs. Norton, would look over her shoulder as if her glare could pierce through the cinderblock wall behind her to the auditorium below.  Then she would face us and roll her eyes – she would drag it out for added emphasis.  Sometimes she would make some snide comment to go with it, but you could at least count on the eye-rolling.

It’s kind of sad that’s pretty much all I remember about Mrs. Norton.  Most of the time you have a stockpile of memories of teachers who heavily influenced you at some point during your life; and as hard as I’ve tried I can’t recall much more about her.  You might be inclined, then, to say that this woman wasn’t much of an influence on me.  But the fact is, she was.

Because there was one other thing I remember about Mrs. Norton’s English class, and it had nothing to do with loud girls choruses and predictable eye-rolling.  It was something that happened when our class was discussing one of the books we’d been reading – typical 11th grade book; I want to say it was Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie.  We were talking about the interplay between the characters, the dynamics of their relationships.  And that’s when Mrs. Norton provided me with one of those wonderful school moments when you know what you’re learning is going to stick with you far beyond the next test.  She said, Every person you come into contact with in your life, no matter how short or how long you know them, every person becomes a part of who you are.

It was simple enough, and yet I’ve never forgotten it – even to this day, some 25 years later.  The idea that everyone I meet in my walk of life – not only my wife, who knows me as well as anyone, but even the random person I briefly spoke with on my plane flight home from Austin last summer – every one has become a part of me in some significant way.

And in a sense I’m wondering if that’s what Jesus was getting at as he went deeper and deeper into his sermon on the hillside; as he got beyond his “blessings” and came to the very heart of his message to the people.  We’ve been talking about Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount during this Lent season, talking about this whole notion of “kingdom-living.”  And we’ve wondered out loud if the issue Jesus is getting at here is not how we get to heaven when we die, but how we live on earth before we die? 

So what exactly is “kingdom-living?”  Well, one thing’s for sure – whatever it is, it’s not easy!  That becomes quite apparent the more Jesus talks, as he digs deeper and deeper into the kingdom.  We find five statements – more like formulas, really: you have heard that it was said, where Jesus states a well-known Mosaic law, followed by but I say to you, where Jesus takes that law to a different place entirely.  And it’s more than simply adding a new twist to things; it flirts very closely with completely rewriting it: You know not to kill – but don't hate either!  You know not to swear falsely – but don't lie at all!  You know now to commit adultery – but man, don’t even look at her!  You know not to retaliate – but dare to fight violence with nonviolence! 

Two thoughts pop in my head as I read these.  First, if the “blessings” Jesus laid out mere seconds before didn’t leave the people collectively scratching their heads, you can bet this certainly did.   I mean, even some of the solutions Jesus offers sound pretty extreme – cutting off your hands or tearing out your eyes, turning the cheek, walking an extra mile.  If this was the first encounter most of those people had with Jesus, you have to wonder how many of them stuck around! 

The second thing that occurs to me, and I wonder if it does to you too, is that this deeper meaning that Jesus is getting at isn’t exactly making things easy for us, is it? We’re not supposed to kill – okay, that’s pretty basic.  But not be angry – how in the world are we supposed to do that?  We’re not supposed to cheat on our spouse – fine.  But we can’t control our thoughts and our feelings!  And we’re not supposed to fight violence with violence – makes sense.  But what are we supposed to do, then – just suck it up and take it? 

One of the pitfalls of these verses, I think, is that we wind up doing the very thing Jesus begs us not to do – to idolize the laws themselves, even the newer ones.  Which is why I wonder if Jesus is up to something far more subversive here; far more radical than some refined “do’s” and “don’t’s.”  I mean, look at what Jesus is talking about; look beyond the laws he quotes and the new ones he creates to see the key issues: Anger.  Broken relationships.  Lying.  Violence.  All of these share a common center: relationships.  In their own way they describe how people interact with each other, the dynamics at play, how we fail to live into the kingdom of God.

Which makes sense, if you think about it, that Jesus would bring this up now.  I mean, if the Beatitudes we talked about last week were the membership requirements of God’s kingdom – the “blessed” ones in Jesus’ eyes – then today’s verses are its Code of Conduct – not who the people are, but how the people treat each other.

And right here is perhaps where kingdom-living gets the hardest, where the proverbial rubber meets the road.  Because it’s one thing to follow laws and check them off your list and look out for yourself.  That’s what the Pharisees did – and, to be honest, it’s how a lot of people of faith seem to live today, treating the Christian journey as some solo excursion.  But it’s something else entirely, as Jesus talks about, to be in relationship with others and engage in the Christian journey together.  That’s hardly ever easy.
Now the fact that some people are difficult to get along with is reflected in, of all things, a sampling of bumper stickers that cruise around on the backs of our cars at any given moment.  Perhaps you’ve seen some of them:

The more people I meet, the more I like my dog.

Sometimes I wake up grumpy; other times I let him sleep.

All men are idiots, and I married their king.

How can I miss you if you won't go away?

We laugh, of course, because it’s funny.  But I think we also laugh because the truth hits home.  It’s hard business getting along with people these days.  It’s hard enough when you throw things into the mix like politics and religion and other things that we’re passionate about.  But sometimes there are just people who, despite your best intentions, for no real reason whatsoever, almost seem to thrive in making life miserable for you.  The fact that forgiveness is something we have to consciously choose to do, the fact that Jesus has to even broach the topics of anger and violence and truth-telling, tells us all we need to know – that our world is a broken one, and the greatest schisms come about from our fractured relationships with each other.

Shasta was telling me a few weeks ago about something the keynote speaker said at their recent senior high presbytery retreat.  He asked everyone to close their eyes and imagine someone they didn’t get along with; someone who had hurt or wronged them at some point.   Something I imagine we all could do!  And then Todd invited everyone to do something that probably didn’t come very naturally – to pray for that person.  And not pray things like, Dear God, please let so-and-so know what a rotten jerk they are.  Not to pray at them, but to pray for them, sincerely and completely, as the child of God they are.

I wonder if that’s the kind of thing that Jesus was getting at here – beyond simple “do’s” and “don’t’s,” beyond basic exhortations like not being angry and going the extra mile.  I wonder if what Jesus really wanted us to hear in all of this was the undeniable truth of the matter – that we were never intended to be unto ourselves, blazing our own trail, making our own way alone.  We all are, in fact, tied to each other, symbiotically; and this is not some kind of sociological concept or psychological observation, but it is in fact our God-created and ordained reality.

I wonder if that’s why my 11th-grade English teacher continues to make such an impression on me all these years later.  Because it changes the way you think when you realize that every person you come into contact with becomes a part of you, doesn’t it?  It leads you to realize that in God’s kingdom – in this very world, in fact – we are all intertwined in a very real and powerful way.  That kingdom-living, when we grab a hold of it the way Jesus so very much wants us to, will truly transform how we treat each other:

• We would not simply condemn the act of murder, but we would promote the value of all life, no matter how young or old, how rich or poor; no matter the nationality or religion;
• We would not only advocate strong marriages, but we would uphold the sacredness of all human relationships, as well as relationships with other creatures of God and with creation itself;
• We would not only chastise someone for using God's name in vain, but we would condemn any language that tears people down; and instead we would push for open honest dialogue to take its place;
• We would not only press for fairness and equality - “eye for eye and tooth for tooth” – but we would go out of our way to support peacemaking and nonviolent resistance to oppressive powers.

A long time ago, an ancient rabbi once asked his pupils how they could tell when the night had ended and the new day was dawning. "Could it be," asked one student, "that it happens when you see an animal in the distance and can tell whether it is a sheep or a dog?"

"No," answered the Rabbi.

Another student raised his hand.  “Well, Rabbi, could it be that it happens when you look at a tree in the distance and tell whether it is a fig tree or a peach tree?"

The rabbi shook his head again.

Still another student spoke up.  “Rabbi, I’m wondering if it happens when you look off in the distance and can see faint signs of light where there was once only dark.”

“That is close,” the Rabbi replied, “but still incorrect.”

The pupils were stumped.  "Well then, Rabbi, what is it?"

And the wise old teacher responded with words of immense wisdom: "You can tell when the night has ended and the new day is dawning when you look on the face of any woman or man and see that they are loved by God and that they are therefore your brother or your sister.  Because if you cannot do this, then no matter what time it is, it is still night." (http://homileticsonline.com/subscriber/illustration_search.asp?item_topic_id=927, visited on 3.21.2011)

My friends, my brothers and sisters, Jesus came to put us on notice: The night is ending.  A new day is dawning.  Thanks be to God!  AMEN.

BRAVING THE INNER COURT

Esther 4:10 - 5:3
Steve Lindsley
May 17 2009

As best as I can remember I've known only three Esthers in my life.  There's one who lives here in Mount Airy that I used to coach in swimming.  There's another one who sat next to me in 7th grade math, and she'd always help me with the problems I didn't understand (which was most of them).  I also knew an Esther; an elderly lady who lived down the street from where I lived in Richmond.  She made excellent oatmeal raisin cookies. 

There's one other Esther that I know about but have never had the pleasure of meeting her – although I'd like to very much.  In fact, I wish we all could.  We learn about her in the scripture reading Mark just read – an amazing story about how an obscure Jewish woman finds herself queen to the Persian King, and the unbelievably difficult choice she comes to face.

The book of Esther in the Old Testament has all kinds of stuff that makes for a good story – romance, drama, betrayal, lies, justice.  I like to tell my college students that it's like a soap opera, except a good one.  To try and do justice to the whole story would be hard in a sermon.  But suffice to know that a plan has been set in motion by some in the king's court with ill intent; a plan that would result in the extermination of every Jewish person living in the kingdom.  The king himself is not aware of this, nor is he aware that his beloved wife Esther is, in fact, a Jew herself.

It is frightening, I know, just to talk about this sort of thing, the wiping out of a whole group of people; especially when that group is the Jewish nation.  It wasn't too long ago that our world was faced with that very prospect, and someone who actually set out to do it.

Esther, by the way, is aware of what's going on, so it would seem like a no-brainer that she run and tell the king as soon as possible, right?  Ah, but see, there's the catch (and there's always a catch in a good story, isn't there?)  The catch is that no one – and I mean no one – was ever to appear in the king's inner court unannounced.  You could only go in when the king himself summoned you there.  Crashing the scene was not just poor form, it was a most egregious transgression that could get you put to death – literally.  They weren't fooling around.  And it applied to everyone, including the queen whom the king loved so much. 

So it's a difficult choice Esther faces in the fourth chapter:  either risk her life speaking to the king the truth he needs to hear, or keep her mouth shut and witness the horrible injustice.  If this were really a soap opera, we'd be cutting to commercial right about now, with the camera focusing in on the conflicted face of the great queen, mood music in a minor key pulsating as the screen went to black. 

After commercials we'd come back to the mood music and find Queen Esther, all decked out in her Sunday best, standing at the entrance of the king's inner court.  I have no idea what that entrance looked like, but let's imagine it was pretty noticeable – an awning, a large curtain, something which separated everything outside from what was inside.  Esther is standing there, fighting off her fears and the distinct possibility that she could be taking the last few steps of her life.  She breathes in a deep breath and proceeds forward; and on the other side she is greeted by the surprised and horrified looks of the court hands and the king himself.  The attendants glare at Esther as if she is a walking dead woman; but the king nevertheless extends to her his royal scepter – a kingly way of saying, “hey, we're cool.”  Most curious as to why his queen has risked her life, he asks Esther what she wants.  And Esther invites the king to a special dinner, for him and one of his highest court hands, who she knows instigated this plan against her people in the first place.  And it is there at that meal where she will speak the truth to the king and tell him all that is happening around him, exposing the injustice before his eyes.   And in the end, like any good story, the bad guy loses, the Jewish people are spared, and Esther is hailed as a hero.

It's an amazing story about an amazing woman who spoke the truth, even when it wasn't convenient for her to do so, even when it could have cost her her life.  Even though every fiber of her being wanted to resist, she chose to go ahead and step inside the inner court.  The inner court – that place where reality is not as real as it should be, where people have either grown accustomed to the brokenness that surrounds them or are unaware of it.  Where the temptation is not to go in, but instead to stay outside and keep to yourself.  The inner court is that place in our world, in our communities, in our families, in society where God's good word is not fully good yet.

Esther's story is not unique to the Bible, we know.  Countless others found themselves in the same place – the choice between keeping their mouths shut or speaking the truth.  Moses told Pharaoh to let God's people go. The prophet Amos told the rich landowners to stop preying on the poor.  Nathan said to King David, as he revealed his great sin, “you are the man!”  John told the crowds that he was preparing a way.  Jesus told his accusers that he was God's son.  All of them, like Esther, had a decision to make – play it safe or take a risk.  And all of them made the choice to brave the inner court.

I wish we could all be more like Esther, don't you?  As individuals in our own lives.  And especially as the church.  Especially as the church.  We've been called as the body of Christ to “go out into the world, baptizing in the name of the Father and Son and Holy Spirit, teaching everything we've been commanded.”  But it's easier said than done, isn't it?  You know as well as I do that, just as the church has done some wonderful things in the name of Jesus, there have also been some not-so-wonderful things done in his name, too.  The Crusades, The Spanish Inquisition, indulgences.  And it's not just about what has been done, but even moreso what's been left undone.  Consider this, from an op-ed piece I read in the newspaper this past week:

Between 1933 and 1945, as a series of restrictive laws, brutal programs and mass deportations culminated in the slaughter of 6 million Jews, the Christian church, with isolated exceptions, watched in silence.

Between 1955 and 1968, as the forces of oppression used terrorist bombings, police violence and kangaroo courts to deny African Americans their freedom, the Christian church, with isolated exceptions, watched in silence.

Beginning in 1980, as a mysterious and deadly new disease called AIDS began to rage through the homosexual community like an unchecked fire, the Christian church, with isolated exceptions, watched in silence.
(http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2009177077_opinc06pitts.html, visited on 5.11.2009)

Now it'd probably be good to mention that the writer of this column is not some anti-Christian with an ax to grind.  On the contrary, he's an active member of his church.  But he's a church member who recognizes the many instances where the church has chosen to remain on the sidelines with issues that the gospel speaks to directly, opting not to enter the inner court but instead to “play it safe” and focus on more benign elements of faith that easily distract from a higher calling.

Ouch!  But you know, hard as it is to admit, he's got a point.  And not only has the church had a tendency to stand pat from time to time, it's also watched as others have gone on to do our work for us.  Last month my family attended this year's Earth Day celebration at Wake Forest University.  Hundreds of organizations, groups, schools, students, musicians, and businesspeople came together to educate, inform and inspire.  Know how many Christian churches or groups took part?  Not a one.  The church has stood at the entrance to the inner court and watched as others have taken up this cause, even though we label as “God's word” a holy book where God creates everything, calls it good, and commends it to our care.

We've stood at the entrance and watched a late-night comedian on Comedy Central take center stage in the debate over torture.  A late-night comedian!  We've stood and remained silent, even though the one to whom we pledge our utmost faith was a Middle-Eastern man who was arrested by the imperial government of his day, unjustly imprisoned, and wound up being a victim of the worst kind of torture himself.

We've stood at the entrance to the inner court and watched as dozens of rock stars and movie celebrities banded together to form The One Campaign, to tell the world about the tens of thousands dying of hunger each day – a football stadium of people, disappearing from the face of the earth every 24 hours.  We've stood there, even though we follow a man who once saw thousands of hungry on the countryside and commanded his disciples to give them something to eat.

Now don't get me wrong: I'm glad these folks have done what they've done.  It just frustrates me sometimes that the church hasn't been at the forefront, you know?  How is it that we have grown so comfortable standing outside the inner court?  How is it that we as the church have sometimes become, as that writer described in his column:

...a people who live contentedly in our moral comfort zones, doing spiritual busywork and clutching pieties, things that let you feel good, but never require you to put anything at risk, take a leap, make that lonely stand...

How is that?  You know, there are probably a hundred answers to that question, each with some varying degree of truth.  Some think the church needs to change things totally and embark on a completely different course; others believe the church must “get back to the basics.”  There are those who think the church needs to look more like the culture in which it exists if it wants to be effective; while others believe it should totally remove itself from the culture.

There is no easy answer.  There rarely is.  But there is one thing I am convinced of, beyond a shadow of doubt – and that is that the church is worth fighting for.  Just this past week I had a conversation with a friend, someone who has struggled in her relationship with the church over the years.  She feels like the church is too hypocritical, too exclusive, too focused on fear.  And while I think that's a pretty big generalization there, I have to admit she's got a point.

At one point in our conversation she told me, I'll become part of a church when they get their act together.  I don't want to be part of something and have to try to fix it at the same time.  And that's when I suggested to her that the only way to really “fix” anything, including the church, is to become part of it – if you believe enough in it, if you have a passion to make it better, to make it more like it should've been all along.  Besides, I asked, aren't the things we care most about the very things worth fighting for?

That's why more and more I sense our calling as the church, in this day and time, is to be like Esther and brave the inner court.  We need to be reminded that the God who transforms our lives and offers us redemption can do the same for his church.  We need to find our voice – not a voice of condemnation but one of love; not a voice of reticence but one that speaks out against injustice; not a voice that excludes anyone, but one that includes everyone; not a voice of fear but one of hope and promise.   We need to find this voice alongside other Christians, especially those we don't always agree with, and especially with Christians all over the world.  We need to find our collective voice together, not acting out of our own agendas and desires, but pursuing something larger than us: pursuing the very kingdom of God on earth.

You know, in so many ways the church of the 21st century is standing outside that inner court with some incredibly good news to share!  The question is: will we be brave enough to go in?  Will we be brave enough to speak to and live out the grace and mercy and love of our God?  My friends, they don't call it “faith” for nothing!  Thanks be to God.  AMEN.

MAKING THE HIDDEN KINGDOM VISIBLE

Matthew 13: 31-33, 44-52
Steve Lindsley
February 22, 2009

One of my great joys as a pastor is getting to officiate weddings.  Maybe I wouldn't think that as much if I were pastor at, say, Rumple Memorial Presbyterian in Blowing Rock, where they typically have at least one if not two weddings every weekend for ten months straight!  But here, it's just a few each year; enough to enjoy meeting the couple and getting to be part of their momentous occasion.

I always look forward to our initial gathering because it's there where I get “the scoop” - how they met each other and how the proposal went down.  There are usually some neat stories, the when and where and how of it all – Christmas Day with her family, on top of Pilot Mountain, at Disney World.  And while I know it's not kosher to rate the “best” engagement story, there is one I learned of many years ago that has yet to be topped.

It involved a high school friend of mine, Brian, who had been dating Heather for a couple of years – they met as counselors at a sailing camp near New Bern.  It was near the end of the summer and Brian had decided to do something he'd been thinking about for a while – ask Heather's hand in marriage.  But he wanted to do it in a special sort of way; a way that they'd always cherish.

So he came up with a plan.  Brian and Heather loved the beach - Atlantic Beach in particular.  He decided to propose to her there.  But he didn't want to just hand her the ring – he wanted it to be even more special.  So Brian got an oyster shell from a nearby inlet, cleaned it out, put the ring inside, and sealed it with a light poxy around the edges.

They went out for a romantic dinner and later took a walk on the beach, their favorite spot, on this glorious late summer evening.  Brian had it all planned out.  When they got to a point where he was ready to turn around, he took the sealed oyster shell out of his pocket and inconspicuously dropped it in the sand.  They took a few more steps, and he suggested they turn around.  They came upon the oyster shell and Brian reached down to pick it up, acting surprised.  Look at this, said to his soon-to-be fiance.  That's strange – you usually don't find oyster shells here; they're over there in the inlet.  This must be a special one.  He shook the shell gently and it made an expected rattling sound.  And he said, Oh, there's something inside here too.  He handed the shell to Heather, and she looked at it curiously.  He expected her to be compelled to open it herself and find the ring – that was, after all, the plan.  Instead, without warning, Heather shrugged her shoulders and promptly launched the shell into the ocean.

Brian later told me that he could not recall another time in his life when he moved as fast as he did at that moment, as he plunged fully clothed the waves and surf of the Atlantic Ocean.  He began diving up and down in the water, searching desperately for a shell that was far more valuable than his girlfriend had realized.  Heather, still up on the beach, could only look on in stunned silence, wondering what in the world the love of her life was doing.  And finally, in a true miracle, Brian emerged from the surf with the oyster shell in hand.  Exhausted, he walked slowly on the shore to a most perplexed-looking girlfriend and, soaking wet, got down on one knee and opened the shell himself to reveal the treasure within.  And in what must have been a moment of both unbridled joy and abject horror, Heather cupped her hands over her mouth and was rendered speechless.  She hugged him with all of her might, and eventually managed to utter the word “yes.”  They still have the ring.  And I believe they still have the oyster shell too.

Ever since Brian shared that story with me some ten years ago, I always find myself thinking about that shell and that ring when I hear those words Jesus once spoke: the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls; on finding one pearl of great value he went and sold all that he had and bought it. I almost feel it should continue, And he searched furiously for it when his girlfriend threw it in the ocean, but I digress.

But that's what you do, isn't it – when you find something of “great value?”  When you have this incredible symbol of life-long love and devotion, you don't just say, “Oh well, we'll get another one.”  You run in the ocean – fully clothed, if need be – and you don't stop searching until you find it.  And when you're looking for the “kingdom of heaven,” as Jesus talks about, you don't end the search before it's begun.  You sell all you have and you search tirelessly until this wonderful “pearl” is in your possession.

This story about the merchant searching for a great pearl is part of a group of smaller parables that Jesus shares with a crowd of people, and then later with his disciples.  It may seem odd to even call these “parables” - we're used to the longer stories, like the Good Samaritan or the Prodigal Son.  But parables can also be short images, little vignettes, just enough to get the point across.  And they were also Jesus' favorite teaching tool.  One imagines that he would tell these parables – long ones and short ones – and then just sort of sit back for a second and let the full effect take place inside the listener.  Rarely did these parables need explanation – Jesus preferred that impact come from within the person rather than forced on them.  In other words, he wasn't as interested in relaying information as instigating transformation – and that's what parables do.

So we find in this chapter a string of short parables about a variety of things that, at first, glance, don't appear to be connected.  I mean, look at them: a mustard seed.  Yeast.  A treasure.  A pearl.  A fishing net.  They don't have a whole lot in common.  So were these just five random things Jesus thought of on the spur of the moment, or was there some common thread connecting them?

I posed this question a couple of weeks ago to that group of esteemed Biblical scholars and coffee drinkers known as the Bob Chilton Bible study.  As you know, we gather at the Good Life Cafe on the second and fourth Wednesday mornings to drink some jo and talk about the upcoming sermon scripture.  I asked them what they thought might be the connection between these five things.  As usual, words of wisdom sprung forth.  One said that all of them were things that folks in Jesus' day would've been familiar with.  Someone else brought up the fact that it took people to make any of these things worthwhile. 

And then one person thought for a second and said, You know, all of these things are things that are hidden, or out of our sight, or things we don't recognize.  We don't see their full potential.  And then something happens and they're revealed, they're made known to us. And we talked about this for a while.  Mustard seeds are tiny, but the plant they yield grows like wildfire.  Without yeast bread is flat and lifeless; with yeast it grows into a large full loaf.  The point of hidden treasures is to find them, the point of nets is to bring fish to the surface.  And the oyster shell contains something of great value but – as my friend Brian could attest to – it's got to be opened in order for that value to be known.

Hidden things becoming visible.  That's the essence of Jesus' parables, isn't it?  They reveal to us things that we don't readily see, especially in the midst of our busy, hectic, fast-paced world.  They encourage us to read between the lines and pay attention to the subtle nuances of a gracious and almighty God – who often chooses not to work through burning bushes and parted waters, but through a barren woman, a shepherd boy, a farmer prophet, a Pharisaic Jew, and a carpenter from Nazareth. 

And just as important is not only what these five things have in common – revealing that which was hidden – but also what is being revealed.  Jesus calls it the kingdom of heaven – it's not what we typically think.  Most of the time we're inclined to think it's about heaven – the afterlife, where we go when we die.  So we think these parables are telling us that heaven is hidden, and that it's something of great value, a treasure, something we should constantly search for. And this makes sense, because we do believe life with God after life is a marvelous thing, and none of us can see it or experience it at the moment.

But the interesting thing is that Jesus is not talking about the afterlife at all.  In fact, when he says “kingdom of heaven” he's really talking about our life right here and right now – God's kingdom; on earth, if you will.  Where God's plan, God's way, God's dream becomes a living, breathing reality for all people.  And not just the “chosen” or for a select few, but for everyone.  And in a curious sort of way, this “kingdom” is not only coming soon, not only in our very near future, but it is already here.  It's with us every day of our lives.  We just can't see most of the time - it's hidden.  But it's still here.

Now think about this – think about what these parables tell us.  They tell us that right here in our midst, we've got God's secret hidden kingdom all around us.  We walk through the course of our day and don't have a clue.  We go to school, take our calculus test – and we're in God's kingdom.  We go to work, type words in a computer, cross things off the “to-do” list – and we're in God's kingdom.  We run our errands, pick up milk at the grocery store, feed the dogs, take the kids to soccer practice – and all the while we are full-fledged residents of a kingdom that very few people , including ourselves, truly take the time to see.

How surreal is this!  It's just strange that the very thing that gives us our current hope and our future promise is the very thing we flat-out ignore.  In a sense we're like Heather on that beach – we've been handed a most amazing gift, a treasure of great value hidden in a rather ordinary and unattractive encasing.  We hold it in our hands for a second or two, surveying it with an undiscerning eye.  And then we make the snap decision that it just isn't worth all that much to us.  So we turn and chuck it into the ocean's waters.  We literally throw away this amazing reality, this kingdom of heaven. 

And that's the very point of these five parables in the 13th chapter of Matthew.  They are there to remind Jesus' followers – and us – that this kingdom of heaven is here.  it may not be flashy and attractive and obvious to us.  God's kingdom is not about the big, the powerful, the strong.  It's about the subtleness of things like love and faith and grace and hope.  It's where a tiny mustard seed can become an enormous vine, or where one pearl becomes the single focus of the one searching for it, or where simple rope and twine can be fashioned into a means by which the catch of the day is brought forth from the depths of the ocean to the surface. 

It's just so hard to see it, isn't it?  It's just so hard to recognize the kingdom of heaven that is all around us.  And that's why we give thanks for people down through history who have made it their lifelong goal to reveal God's kingdom to the world.  In the late 1970's, one of those was Oscar Romero, archbishop of El Salvador.  In a land fraught with corrupt politics and senseless killing, Romero made it his mission to make the hidden kingdom visible to all – not only through his tireless work but through his writings.  Listen to something he once wrote:

We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of
the magnificent enterprise that is God’s work and God's kingdom.
We plant seeds that one day will grow.
We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise.
We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces effects beyond our capabilities.

We cannot do everything, and yet this enables us to do something.
We may never see the end results,
but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker.
We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs.
We are prophets of a future not our own.
[from The Secret Message of Jesus: Uncovering the Truth that Could Change Everything by Brian McLaren
(Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2006), 205-206].

Now I doubt my friend Brian ever thought of himself as a “prophet.”  He was just trying to give his girlfriend an engagement ring, for crying out loud!  But when you and I search for the hidden treasure of God's kingdom of heaven on earth, when you and I work to bring that kingdom to fruition, we are indeed “prophets of a future not our own.”  We are residents of a kingdom that the world cannot always see.  So let's open the oyster shell, shall we?  Let's reveal God's goodness to all.  Thanks be to God.  AMEN.  

AT THE END OF THE WAY

Mark 1: 1-8; Isaiah 40: 1-11
Steve Lindsley
December 7, 2008

It didn't happen like this, of course.  It's not really the way the writer of Isaiah wrote it.  But I like imagining it anyway.  Prepare the way of the Lord, he said.  The Way – he's talking about a road.  They were preparing a road in the middle of the desert.  Not a real one, of course.  But if it were a real one, I imagine it might have gone something like this.

It's a massive building project that the prophet Isaiah describes – utilizing every resource available, every piece of equipment they could find, and numerous workers.  The bulldozer fleet is out in full force.  Earth movers work night and day to lift up the valleys and make low the mountains.  The greatest engineering knowledge of the day is put into practice.  Literally and figuratively, no stone is left unturned.

Two of the workers are side by side, digging their holes and moving their earth.  One turns to the other and, over the hum of the machinery, asks, So what is this thing we're working on, anyway?

Without taking his eyes off his job, the other replies, We, my friend, are working on The Way.

What way? the first says.

THE way, is his answer.  It leads to the greatest of places.

He still doesn't understand, so he tries a different take.  So where does this “way” go?

With a wry smile the other turns to face him and says, You'll just have to see it for yourself.

Months and months they labor on this “way.”  Years, in fact.  It never seems to end, but instead it keeps on going and going, through whatever terrain lies in its path.  On the hottest of days and the coldest of nights they continue to “make this way.”  And all the time, the first continues to think to himself: what can this be?  Where in the world could this road be leading to, and what will we find at the end of this road?  A huge metropolitan city?  An oasis in the desert?  The ninth wonder of the world?  What?  What could possibly be at the end of this road?

Years and years go by, and finally – finally – they reach the end.  The massive construction, engineering project concludes.  And as he peers around the corner to see what this road has finally brought him and everyone else to, he is shocked and dismayed to find  not a huge city, not an oasis in the desert, not the ninth wonder of the world – but sheep.  A bunch of sheep and their shepherd.  He will feed his flock like a shepherd, Isaiah says, he will gather the lambs in his arms and carry them in his bosom, and gently lead the mother's sheep.

And other than that, nothing.  Nothing else.  Nothing that in his mind would've merited all the fuss, all the hard work, all the resources and years and time invested.  When he is finally somewhat over his shock, he turns to the guy beside him, who had been with him every step of the way.  And he asks incredulously, What is this??  Is this it?  Is this what we've been working for all these years?

And without taking his gaze off the flock, the other says to him, Yeah, it sure is.  And isn't it just wonderful!

Of course, it didn't really happen like that.  It's not a real road Isaiah is writing about.  It's an image – an image of a way that is prepared for us, prepared for the Lord; a way that cuts through the harsh desert and leads the people to God, who is both strong and meek, both powerful and powerless, both ruler and shepherd.  It is wonderful.  And it is not at all what we expect.

Advent is a season of expectations.  The word itself means “awaiting the coming.”  At least that's what it tries to be.  It tries to be about waiting expectantly for things to come, but the world you and I live in makes that hard sometimes.  There's very little to expect or wait for when December rolls around these days.  That's because this world has a nasty habit of giving away the secret before it's time – when we start seeing Christmas decorations up in Wal-Mart before Halloween, and Christmas music on the radio 24/7 before Thanksgiving, and Christmas ads out in full force in mid-fall.  Back in September, Amazon.com sent me an email reminder about the “upcoming holiday season” and buying that special gift for that special someone – from them, of course.  In September.  What's to expect anymore?

So it is probably hard for us to get a feel for the expectant times that the prophet Isaiah lived in.  For years they had endured captivity, thousands of miles from their beloved Jerusalem.  There were plenty of roads that led out of Babylon, but there were none they could take.  When it came to their faith and the future of that faith, every road around them was a dead end.

And that's when the prophet spoke new words to the people; and it was a message far different from the one they had heard before.  They were words of comfort and peace.  Of being spoken to tenderly instead of with a harsh tone.  They were words about how penalties had been paid and how the time of suffering was over.  And out of these words came the road they had hoped for for so long; the “way” that would lead them home:

A voice cries out:
In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord,
Make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
Every valley shall be lifted up,
and every mountain and hill be made low.
The uneven ground shall become level,
and the rough places a plain.
Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed,
and all the people shall see it together.

And with the prophet's words, the long-awaited building project had finally begun.  And it wasn't with bulldozers and earth movers and engineering know-how that the way would be made.  It was with a strengthened faith and a renewed hope.  Their time of expectation had come – and, unlike us, they didn't have TV or radio or our cultural conveniences to give the ending away.  They only had the limits of their heightened and overjoyed imagination to keep them going on this spiritual and figurative journey back home, as they wondered what waited for them at the end of the way.

So – how would you have felt if you came to that figurative ending, the one Isaiah describes for us, to find nothing more than a sheep and their shepherd?  Not a symbol of power and might, as we might expect, but one of meekness and humility?  Not one of victory and rule, but one of nurturing and submission?  How would you have felt if you were one of them, finding that all your years of hoping, all your years of labor, led you and everyone else to this most unexpected ending?

I don't know.  This may sound strange, but in a weird sort of way it reminds me of that scene from the Charlie Brown Christmas special – you know, the one they show ever year before Thanksgiving.  You remember.  Charlie Brown has been appointed director for the annual Christmas pageant, but things aren't going so well.  No one's really focusing all that much on the task at hand.  After some thought, Charlie Brown decides what they need is something to help get them in the “Christmas spirit.”  Like a Christmas tree, for instance.  That's exactly what they need.      

So Charlie Brown and Linus head out the door to go find the perfect Christmas tree.  They walk outside, all bundled up in their coats and hats; and looking up in the sky they see these two huge skylights shining all over the place, the same lights the car dealership uses when they have a sale going on.  They follow the lights to a Christmas tree lot, draped with strings and strings of small lights.  Now the trees in this lot are all aluminum trees – Linus knocks on one with his fist and it makes this hollow, metallic sound, like when you hit an empty gas can.  As Linus surveys the scene he looks to Charlie Brown and says, Boy.  This really brings Christmas close to a person.  And Charlie Brown can only say, Fantastic!

The camera scans through the lot of multi-colored aluminum Christmas trees – red and blue, gold, silver and purple – until it stops at one in the middle which stands out from the rest.  It is a puny little tree; and unlike the others it's a real one.  Three stubby branches hang off its tiny trunk, each containing a handful of needles.  It is anchored to a cross stand with some nails.  And in perhaps the most classic line of any Christmas television special, Linus asks, Gee, do they still make wooden Christmas trees?

What Linus sees as a curiosity, though, Charlie Brown sees as an opportunity.  This tree, he declares, will be the one they'll take back to bring Christmas spirit to the Pageant.  Linus is skeptical, reminding him that Lucy wanted a tree that would “represent the modern Christmas spirit.”  But Charlie Brown insists and picks the tree up – only to see half its needles fall to the ground.

Now if you're like me, and you've watched this special religiously every year, you know the rest of the story – the other kids make fun of his “poor Christmas tree, Linus goes on stage to recount the second chapter of Luke, Charlie Brown takes his tree and decorates it and all the kids huddle around it and sing “loo-loo-loo....”  Like any good Christmas special, it has a happy ending.

But see, I wonder if the lesson in all of this is found not at the end as the credits roll, but right there in that aluminum Christmas tree lot.  It is, to be sure, the most unlikely of trees Charlie Brown chooses, isn't it?  Because it's exactly what everyone least expects.  Because like Linus and Lucy and Pig-Pen and Schroeder and Snoopy and all the rest, we too expect big and flashy at the end of the road.  We expect the “way” to lead us to something that holds our attention in a world that moves a mile a minute.  The last thing we'd ever expect to find at the end of the way are shepherds and sheep, or a puny little Christmas tree.

Or, for that matter, a dusty old shack.  We'd never expect in our wildest dreams to find that at the end of the way.  Nor would we expect to find in that shack a random assortment of some barnyard animals.  They're scattered about the place, lying on whatever tuff of hay they can pull together, trying to keep warm on this chilly night.  They look cute, but the smell that emits from the place is anything but.  We don't expect to encounter that at the end of the way.

And we certainly don't expect to find at the end of that way, in that dusty old shack, a teenaged couple, probably high school sophomores at best.  They look like they hadn't slept in days, because they hadn't; and the look on their faces is one of absolute joy and absolute fear and exhaustion all rolled together.  She has that glow about her, and he is looking around trying to figure out exactly how he got here.  No, we don't expect to find them there either. 

But most of all, most of all, the last thing we'd ever expect to find at the end of the way is a newborn baby, just hours old.  Hours old!  He is wrapped in what amounts to a burlap sack, and the wooden structure he's laying in is used to feed the animals when morning rolls around.  He is asleep for the moment, but that will change when he gets hungry, and he'll let the whole world know it.  Right now, though, he's sleeping peacefully; teenage mom and teenage dad are looking on, as are the animals, all of them in this dusty old shack at the end of the way.

Now none of this, if we really think about it, is what we expect to find at the end of the way – a way that the prophet spoke of us preparing for; a way that the Baptist yelled and screamed about from the wilds of the desert.  You don't “prepare the way” for some animals and a couple of teenagers.  You don't “make straight” the path that leads to a baby in a food trough.   How is it, exactly, that thousands of years after the fact, we continue to follow the way prepared for us and come upon something as simple and profound as baby Jesus? 

If we are truthful with ourselves, Advent is a journey that makes no sense. A rewarding one – absolutely.  A life-transforming one – you bet.  But it makes little sense to a world who expects big and bold at the end of the way.  And until we realize that they have a point, until we recognize the absolute scandal of the manger – God of the universe, enfleshed in a lower-class, first-century Middle Eastern baby – until we get a grasp on the enormity of that, it is hard for us to ever really appreciate the journey that takes us there. 

So let's take time on this journey, shall we?  Let us marvel at the majesty of the way prepared for us, and how the valleys have been lifted up, and the mountains made low.  Let us stare in amazement at all the machinery and soak in the engineering masterpiece.  And when we finally – finally arrive at its end, let us never lose the ability to be utterly astonished, down to our foundations, at what we find there.  As followers of the baby, let us never be surprised about being surprised.  Thanks be to God.  AMEN.

   

SHEPHERDING 2.0

Ezekiel 34: 1-16, John 21: 15-17
Steve Lindsley
November 16, 2008

I have a college buddy in Atlanta who owns a small business with a dozen or so employees.  We were catching up a few weeks ago – we were instant messaging on Facebook!  We do this about once a month.  I guess we could pick up the phone and actually talk, but Facebook is so much easier.

Anyway, our conversations usually revolve around the standard “how are you doing” stuff.  I, of course, I tell him about this wonderful church that I have the pleasure of serving, all the great things we have going on here; the fact that there's a little bit of dust around because of the construction but you know, at least we're warmer now....

It's a different kind of response when I ask the same thing of him.  It's one of those deals where you ask someone how they're doing, and you kind of figure it'll be the obligatory “fine” or “great,” but you wind up with a five-minute answer that's much more than you bargained for – you know what I mean?  My friend usually goes into some story about how things are tough with his company, and it's not just the economy.  There's the employee who didn't get the package in the mail on time, the office manager who missed their deadline, the business partner who never seems to carry his own weight.  My friend laments that he has to step in all the time to keep the wheels spinning, even if it means taking on the work of others. 

And most every time he's nearing the end of his rant, he closes with the well-known line: You know, Steve, if you want a job done right, you gotta do it yourself.  And every time he says this I can't help but feel a little sorry for him, you know?  That he feels like he's the only one who can do it right; that he doesn't feel he can put his faith and trust in his fellow co-workers, that he seems to think his way is the only way.

Maybe that's what's going on here – I kind of have a suspicion it is.  But then again, maybe it's not.  Sometimes people really do mess up, fall down on the job; and the boss has to come in and straighten everything out, make everything right, do it all on their own.  I mean, it doesn't say it explicity in our scripture reading today, but that seems to be pretty much what God does in the 34th chapter of Ezekiel, don't you think?  If you want a job done right, you gotta do it yourself. 

It's the middle of the sixth century before Christ, and the lives of God's people have been thrown into chaos.  The entire nation of Israel had been hauled off to live in Babylon, taken away from their homeland.  The people were defeated and demoralized, and their leaders were either gone or had become a shadow of their former selves.  They had failed to be the kind of leaders God had hoped they'd be, and the people needed them to be.

So the prophet Ezekiel enters into the fray, preaching a message of hope and renewal for the captives.  Except he doesn't call them captives, or people even.  He refers to them “sheep.”  And if you think about it, it's a perfect image, albeit not a very flattering one!  Sheep, generally speaking, are not the smartest animals in the barn.  They kind of wander around in groups, always in danger of going astray and never finding their way back to the fold.  They are fully dependent on their caretakers, the shepherds, to guide them from one green pasture to another.

As rough as the sheep have it, it isn't a picnic for the shepherds, either.  It's a 24-7 job just to keep up with all those sheep.  Good shepherds have to be attentive at all times, watching over their flock to make sure every one is okay.  But they can't just be focused on the here-and-now.  Shepherds have to always be thinking ahead of the game, to where the next green pasture would be, and make sure that their sheep get there safe and sound.

So the way Ezekiel sees it, Israel is the sheep, and their leaders are the shepherds.  Over the years God had sent them many shepherds, kings and priests and the like, to watch over the people and lead them to “greener pastures.”  But in this time of exile, when the sheep needed help the most, the shepherds had failed them.  The leaders of Israel had not been leaders; and they had failed their people in four specific ways:
     - They had not strengthened the weak;
     - They had not bound up the injured;
     - They had not brought back home those who had strayed;
     - And they had not taken time to seek out those who were lost.

Now according to Ezekiel, God has something to say about this.  God calls the leaders on the carpet, essentially saying to them, “You have failed your job!”  But that's not all God does.  In the next few verses, God puts on his best Donald Trump, “Apprentice” imitation and tells them, “You're fired!”  These no-good shepherds are out of a job, because they didn't do the job.

God has one more thing to say, and happens to be the divine equivalent of, if you want a job done right, you gotta do it yourself.  Amazingly, God declares, “I am the new shepherd!”  And God proceeds to do the very things the old shepherds should've done all along.  God will be the one to give strength to the weak, to bind up the injured, to bring back those who have wandered away, and to seek out the lost.  God will take care of the people, and no longer will they be forgotten or left to fend on their own.  God will be the new shepherd of Israel, and Israel – even in captivity – will be all the better for it.

Now no verses in scripture capture this image of God as shepherd any better than the 23rd Psalm – The Lord is my shepherd, it begins.  And what does this shepherd do?  He makes us lie down in green pastures; he leads us beside still waters.  He restores our soul.  With God as our shepherd, we are cared for, and we will never be forgotten again.  With God as our shepherd, we are protected from those who would do us harm.  With God as our shepherd, all wrongs are made right.  It 's great that God is our shepherd, isn't it?  It's something we celebrate in the joyous moments of our lives; and it's something we cling to when life is dealing out its worst.  It is a wonderful thing to have God as our shepherd.

I know I could end the sermon right here, but I'm not going to!  Because you know something?  At the risk of discounting God's love and grace, which I'm certainly not doing, there's a small part of me that feels funny about this.  And it's not God's fault – I think we're all grateful for all God does.  I'm pretty fond of the green pastures and cool waters myself.  It's just....it's just that it's a shame that God had to step in and take over the shepherding business in the first place.  It's a shame that God had to go all Donald Trump on us.  Because that used to be our job.  That's what we were supposed to be doing.  So while it's great that God stepped in like God did, shouldn't we feel sort of bad about failing to be the shepherds we were called to be?  Shouldn't we want our job back?

And I say “we” very intentionally here, my friends.  Because it is “we” that Ezekiel is speaking to.  When we're talking about “shepherds,” we're not just talking about the pastor, or the session, or the Congregational Care ministry team.  We're talking about all of us.  Do me a quick favor if you would – take your bulletin and look at the back, at the bottom, where all the staff are listed. Do you see the very first thing?  It says: Ministers: All the members of the church.  I'm not the only minister here, folks.  Every single one of you is a minister too – a shepherd.  Which makes it kind of interesting, really; because the fact is that you are both the members and the ministers; you are both the sheep and the shepherds.  You need to be cared for and kept in the fold, nurtured and loved.  But you also need to be the ones who care, who are the “keepers of the fold.” You're not just sheep.  You're shepherds too.

Jesus himself made this crystal clear when he met with his disciples on the lakeshore one morning after his resurrection – hanging out on the beach, munching on some grilled fish. He turns to Peter, whom he had previously called the rock upon which he would build his church.  And what does he say to Peter, what are his last words as he prepares to leave the future of the church in their hands?  Feed my sheep, he tells him.  That's what shepherds do for their sheep.  And that's what you and I are supposed to be doing for each other.

And that's the problem, isn't it? That's where we fall short.  Because we still don't quite have this shepherding thing down all that well, if we're honest with ourselves.  I mean, sometimes we're pretty good at it.  Sometimes we're great about seeing the needs around us and responding as the shepherds we're called to be.  But other times we're not so great.  You know, maybe we're okay with being a shepherd, but for a particular kind of sheep – the easy ones, the ones that don't require a lot of effort.  Or maybe we're fine with the whole shepherding thing, but we really want to do it as it's convenient for us, on our own timetable.  Then we can be shepherds.  Or maybe we feel, you know, that we've already done our time as shepherds, so we walk away from the flock, assuming that someone is going to step in take our place. 

I can't help but think as I read this story in Ezekiel that God's action forces us to ask ourselves all kinds of questions.  Are we really being the kind of shepherds God needs us to be?  Are we?  Are we being the kind of shepherds God needs us to be in our families?  Are we being the kind of shepherds God needs us to be for this church – because there's a whole lot of sheep here, ya'll, and there's plenty of shepherding to do!  Are we?  Are we being the kind of shepherds God needs us to be for our community, for our world; where the needs are great, where plenty of people have strayed from the flock, where there is precious little of those green pastures and cool waters to nurture and sustain us.  Are we being the kind of shepherds that God needs us to be?

That's the question this story poses to us, and the mandate Jesus gives us – to be shepherds in a world of lost sheep.  And I wish you and I could see, every minute of every day, what a wonderful privilege it is to serve God, to serve this church, and to serve our people.  I wish we had the ability to fully grasp how awesome it is, with God's help, to pick up our shepherd's crook and go out into a world of lost sheep.

I really wish we could be more like the lady that Shasta spoke to on the phone this past week.  This lady had called the church, like so many other people this time of year, about Thanksgiving meals – the ones the youth fundraised for and you all donated for.  You know, every year about this time there's a running joke around the church office – that when the phone rings we really don't need to answer it “First Presbyterian Church” but rather “Shasta's Thanksgiving meal answering service!”  You have no idea how many calls we get from people asking about their Thanksgiving meal.  It gets crazy.

On a particularly crazy day this past week, Lynn buzzed Shasta in her office: Phone for you about you-know-what.  Shasta picked up the phone.  The lady on the other end quickly introduced herself and then cut to the chase.  I need to talk to you about Thanksgiving meals, she said.  So Shasta dutifully launched into her spiel – how this woman would need to speak with so-and-so at the Salvation Army, how they would reserve the meals with them, how she could pick everything up on the Wednesday afternoon before Thanksgiving at such-and-such a time.....

Shasta said that when she finished, the lady patiently responded that she was not calling about a meal for herself.  She was calling because she wanted to make a donation, and she explained why.  She told Shasta about how her two sisters had experienced difficult times in recent years, really struggled with some things in their lives, and money was more than tight.  But thanks to the work of this church, their families had not had to experience a Thanksgiving holiday without a Thanksgiving meal.  This lady told Shasta, “You all fed my sisters and their families when they couldn't feed themselves.  Now it's my turn to help you feed someone else's sister.”

Feed my sheep, Jesus said.  Wow.  I don't know about you, but that woman on the other end of the phone sounds an awful lot like a shepherd to me.  Because a shepherd strengthens the weak and binds up the injured.  A shepherd brings home the strayed and seeks out the lost.  A shepherd serves God and serves everyone around them, not necessarily because they want to all the time, but because God needs them to all the time.  And listen – I don't doubt for one second that God will always be our shepherd.  It's just that I think we should do everything we possibly can to get our old job back.  Let's get our job back, shall we?  Thanks be to God.  AMEN.

DO NOT FEAR!

(Note to readers: We had a guest preacher this past Sunday, so I don't have a "new" sermon to post.  However, I thought it would be appropriate to post an older sermon of mine; one I preached prior to starting this blog.  I wrote this sermon during the combative primary election season of the spring/summer.  As we enter the final month of the presidential campaign and are once again forced to endure "fear-mongering" by political campaigns, I felt this message was once again appropriate.

I make reference in the sermon to a number of faxes the church received that used fear tactics to malign one particular candidate.  It's not in the text, but I actually received one of these faxes the very morning I was to deliver the sermon.  I took it with me into the pulpit and, after making my point, tore it up in front of the congregation!  They weren't expecting this, and to be honest neither was I.  One of those "spontaneous" things. Spirit-driven, perhaps?

Whatever the case, take the sermon for what it's worth in our presidential election/crumbling economy situation.)

************

Isaiah 43: 1-4; John 14: 1-6, 25-27
Steve Lindsley
May 4, 2008

What are you afraid of?  That question was posed to a group of football players in the 2000 movie The Replacements.  The real players had gone on strike, and teams were stocked with second-rate players who just the week before were working in grocery stores or factories or – in one case – in prison.  The head coach, played by Gene Hackman, was faced with the daunting task of uniting a motley group of misfits into a cohesive team in a matter of weeks.

What are you afraid of?  He asked the question at a team meeting, hoping it would stir players to dig deep into their personal and collective psyches, to the heart of what was ailing this rag-tag group of wannabees.  He asked the question in hopes that, through admitting their deepest fears, they could conquer them, get beyond them, and realize their full potential as a football team

A 300-plus pound, former sumo wrestler offensive lineman named Franklin was the first to speak up: Spiders, he said, I’m scared to death of spiders.  Another player nodded his head, and a third chimed in: Yeah, spiders creep me out too, man!  Hackman shook his head in disgust: No, no, I’m talking about on the football field. What are you afraid of on the football field?  Franklin, with a quizzical look, offered, Spiders on the football field? 

And when it seemed as if this little pep talk was ending before it begun, Falco the quarterback raised his hand.  I’m afraid of quicksand, he said, but not the way you think.  See, you’re playing football.  You think everything is going fine... but then one thing goes wrong... and then another... and another.  And you try to fight back, but the harder you fight, the deeper you sink.  Until you can't move, you can't breathe, because you're in over your head.  He shrugged and said, Like quicksand.

The head coach smiled, and the conversation took off from there – and one by one the players shared how they were deathly afraid of messing up this second chance at a career in professional football, one they’d only dreamed of.  A successful team meeting, as they went on to win some football games.

Well, listen – I’m not all that afraid of spiders; and I’d probably be afraid of quicksand if I ever got in some, but there are other things I’m afraid of.  I’m afraid of stepping into this pulpit on Sunday morning without a sermon – I have nightmares about that one every so often.  I’m afraid of not being the best parent or spouse I can be.  I’m afraid of rising gas prices and lost jobs and food shortages and how these things make it even harder for those living on the financial edge.  I’m afraid of how much longer we’ll continue to lose fine young women and men, like our own Adam Marion, in Iraq. 
We all are afraid of something, and it starts early.  A few months ago I was stirred to consciousness late one night by our eldest, who in a hushed but slightly panicked voice informed me that there were, in fact, monsters in his closet.  In my sleep-deprived state I offered the typical parental response: there were no such things as monsters and he could go back to bed rest assured.  This did not do a whole lot to convince him.  So together we stumbled down the hall to his room, turned the light on and inspected the closet ourselves.  No monsters – so we pronounced an “all clear” and returned to our respective beds, and eventually sleep.

As we grow into adulthood our fears change to other monsters in the closet. And rarely do we talk openly about those fears of ours, perhaps because we don’t want anyone to get concerned or worried – especially ourselves.  In our country’s recent history, 9-11 is perhaps the most prominent instance where we, as a collective group, came face to face with our greatest fear.  When those towers fell, it shattered our innocence and opened our eyes to see the hate and violence and anger that most of the rest of the world had seen long before us.  Nowadays our fears are many: recession, terrorism, insecurity, apathy, just to name a very few.  And so we go running into God’s room in the middle of the night to tell God about the monsters in our closet.  Kind of funny, isn’t it – not much has changed.

You know, I would venture to guess that Jesus sensed that his disciples were at that same sort of place.  It shouldn’t surprise us, really.  It was the night before Jesus was crucified; and although they didn’t know that’s where things were heading, they sensed something was up.  There was just a different “feel” in the air that evening.  What began as an innocent meal among friends quickly turned into chaos and uncertainty.  When Jesus washed his disciples’ feet, as John tells it – well, that’s when they really started to wonder.  And when they saw Judas leave them and later learned why, it was all too much.  Something bad was about to happen and their time together as rabbi and followers was quickly coming to an end.

So in his rather long speech to his disciples – it goes on for three whole chapters – Jesus offers these words:   

Do not let your hearts be troubled.  Believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places.  If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?  And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself – so that where I am, there you may be also.

Now I like these words of Jesus.  You may have heard them read at a funeral perhaps; a time when the fear of death can get a grip on us.   Jesus, though, wants to tell us something quite different: that death does not have the last word, and that fear of any kind never can separate us from the ones we love or from God.  Because it’s not the “where” of this place that Jesus prepares that really matters – it’s more of the “who.”  Do not let your hearts be troubled is God speaking directly to our hearts, for any occasion, for any fear that life can throw at us.

But here’s the thing – it is not about God getting rid of the fear – that’s not what Jesus is talking about here and that’s not what this sermon is about.  See, I don’t think Jesus ever envisioned a life on earth where you and I are free from pain and hardship and things to be fearful about.  Lord knows Jesus knew all about life’s difficulties in his 33 years!  The truth of the gospel is that Jesus never promised us a pain-free existence.  God never said that he would take all our fears and make them disappear.  God simply said that he would make a place for us where we can bring those fears to him and be comforted.

Some believe – and I would tend to agree – that this “place” he speaks of is right here – in the community of faith.  For it is in the presence of fellow brothers and sisters in Christ that you and I can confide our fears, share them with one another, renewed for service in and through them.  And I have to think that’s precisely what Jesus was trying to say to his disciples that night; his very last night with them: saying, I’m sending someone to take care of you, called the Holy Spirit.  But don’t ever forget that I want you to take care of one another. 

And let me tell you, that’s a very good thing, my friends.  It’s a very good thing that we have each other.  Because the fact of the matter is that you and I don’t just live in a world of fear; you and I live in a culture that is unashamedly obsessed with fear.  Fear-mongering, it’s sometimes called – when fear is used to coerce people into doing what you want them to do.  Promising them the worst, so they can give you their best.

Where is this in our world today?  Where is it not! I think of factions of the church that twist the words of the Bible, like the book of Revelation, to “scare” people to Jesus.  I think of the horrible stigma placed on people who are different from us, just because of what they believe or what they wear on their heads or what their lifestyle is or what disease may be flowing through their veins. And especially in this season of election, I think of three faxes our church and other churches have received over the past month – faxes with no names or contact numbers – suggesting that a vote for a particular candidate in this year’s presidential election is a vote for an “apostate”, is a vote against the will of God, and is a vote that would lead to the complete deterioration of the Christian church and American society.

What is going on??   I mean, these sorts of things have always been with us, but they seem to have crystallized and taken on a sense of urgency in our post 9-11 world.  In his book The Scandalous Gospel of Jesus, Harvard religion professor Peter Gomes had this to say:

Perhaps the greatest tragedy of September 11th, 2001…..is not the loss of the human lives or the buildings, tragic as those losses were and painful as they are to recall.  The greatest tragedy may be that we have since been programmed to live by our fears and not by our hopes.  Once we were a people defined by our compassions; today we are more and more a people defined by our fears.  And to be defined by our fears is to accept the lowest possible level of emotional intelligence. [from The Scandalous Gospel of Jesus by Peter Gomes (New York: HarperOne, 2007), 104, 106]

This twisting and abuse of fear is not just tragic and wrong.  It is unbiblical.  Hundreds of years before Jesus promised his anxious disciples a dwelling place, God’s people were devastated by the destruction of Jerusalem and the holy temple, carted off to live in Babylonian exile.  It was an unrivaled emotional and spiritual obliteration, and many of them felt as if God had hung them out to dry.

It would’ve been so easy for the people to succumb to their fears and respond in like kind.  It would’ve been easy for those in power to use their circumstances to sway God’s chosen for their own purposes.  And yet, to this horrible situation the prophet Isaiah delivered God’s radical and unwavering message: DO NOT FEAR.  Why?  Because God goes with you into the unknown, into the devastation.  Why?  Because God is God; and God is your God.  Why?  Because more than anything else, more than anything else in the world, God loves you.  God loves you and will never leave you.  So Do Not Fear.

Fifty-eight times in the Bible, God says these three words, loud and clear.  Fifty-eight times, God implores the faithful not to be misguided by their fear, not to have their life dictated by what Gomes eloquently calls the “absence of courage” and the “poverty of imagination.”  Fifty-eight times, God proposes a radical alternative – to replace fear with hope, hate with love, prejudice with acceptance, indifference with compassion, judgment with forgiveness.  This is what God said to his people thousands of years ago; and this is what God still says to us today.

I’ll be honest with you – I’m tired of all of this.  We all are tired of it! We are tired of fear ruling our lives and our world.  We are tired of people using fear to get their way with us for their own gain.  We are tired of the faithful, time and time again, succumbing to fear when the very foundation of our beliefs calls us to something else entirely.

So let us do something else entirely, shall we?  Let us re-imagine and remake our lives so that fear is replaced with hope and compassion. Let us live into the beauty and promise of a world that is guided by its possibilities instead of its pitfalls.  Let us embody a church that stands against the power of fear, and for the hope of the gospel of Jesus Christ.  And most of all, let us not allow those in our world to tell us what their fear can do to us; let us tell them – and show them – what God’s love can do for everyone.

Because maybe, just maybe, those ol’ monsters in the closet won’t seem as bad as we sometimes make them out to be, you know? Thanks be to God.  AMEN.

THE BEATITUDES - JESUS' REVOLUTIONARY MESSAGE

Matthew 5: 1-12
Steve Lindsley
September 28, 2008 – Dedication Sunday

Dust is what's on our mind.  And on our sandals and legs, on our hands and arms, in our lungs and in the air.  Dust is everywhere.  And so is the sun – the hot Palestinian sun beating down on us, further aging our already-aged Middle-Eastern skin.  We are surrounded by dust and sun. We're also surrounded by the crowd – a huge crowd of familiar faces and not-so familiar ones.  The crowd is everywhere, just like the dust and the sun, gathered together to hear him speak.

There is an odd quiet of anticipation that falls over the crowd, and it's then that we see him standing up on an embankment.  And other than the occasional sound of a crying child we hear him as clear as day.  And this is what he says:

You're blessed when you're at the end of your rope:
with less of you there is more of God.
You're blessed when you feel you've lost what is most dear to you:
only then can you be embraced by the One most dear to you.
You're blessed when you don't have much: that's the moment that you find yourself proud owners of everything that can't be bought.
You're blessed when you've worked up a good appetite for God:
he's food and drink in the best meal you'll ever eat.
You're blessed when you show mercy to others, whether or not they show it to you:
If you are merciful, you will receive it.
You're blessed when your mind and heart – your inside world – is set right:
then you can see God in the outside world.
You're blessed when you seek a better way other than conflict or competition:
that's when you discover how much a part of God's family you really are.
You're blessed when your commitment to God provokes persecution:
and that persecution drives you even deeper into God's kingdom.
And you're blessed when people put you down or throw you out or speak lies about you to discredit me.  It wasn't any different for the prophets, and it won't be any different for you.

So be glad when that happens – give a cheer!
All heaven applauds because you are so blessed.

(Adapted from The Message: The Bible in Contemporary Language by Eugene Peterson (Colorado Springs: NavPress, 2002), 1750-1751.  With all due respect to Peterson's wonderful rendering of the scriptures, I've adapted some of the language to better reflect what I think the Beatitudes are trying to get at.)

We listen to Jesus, and we are taken aback.  No one has ever spoken like this before.  Not our parents or our rabbis or our leaders.  Not the Zealots, or the Herodians, or the Essenes, or the Pharisees.  No one.  And it's not that Jesus is just engaging in some fantastic rhetorical exercise.  His words actually speak to our very heart; each and every one of us in that dusty, sun-scorched crowd.  And it's obvious that Jesus wants things to be dramatically different from the way they are right now.

And that's when it hits us: if Jesus wants things to be so different, then why in the world is he talking to us??  I mean, we are a vast assortment of “nobodys” - shepherds and farmers, tradesmen and crafsmen.  Women and men, young and old, all gathered together like sardines in a can in the dusty, sunny desert.  We don't have influence over our own lives, much less the lives of others.  Surely if Jesus wants things to change so much, he should be talking to people who actually have the power to do it.  People like Herod, the governor; diplomats of state; the Sanhedrin priestly council.  Even the Roman emperor himself.  Why is he not talking to them?  Why is he talking to us?

Why indeed?  In a sense that's the question we've been asking ourselves for the past three weeks, as we've been looking at these Beatitudes during our Fall Stewardship sermon series.  Today, of course, is Dedication Sunday – when we dedicate to God's church not only our pledge for the coming year, but indeed our very lives, as we “celebrate God's mission for our church.”  The Beatitudes, I believe, are an appropriate thing for us to look at as we consider our stewardship response.  We know Jesus was being prophetic, calling out the powers of the world.  We know he was being political, refusing to be “pigeon-holed” into this group or that group.  But what else was Jesus trying to accomplish here?  And why is he talking to us?

I mean, surely he was doing more than just offering us some “moral exhortations;” standards we're supposed to achieve and the rewards we get when we achieve them.  Surely he's doing more than that.  Because it's not that the meek are striving to be meek, is it?  Do the hungry and thirsty really want to be hungry and thirsty? 

No, we think to ourselves, it's got to be more than that.  These Beatitudes have got to be more along the lines of what one commentator calls “objective realities.”  They simply state what already is.  They state that the people of God are blessed.  Not that we will be blessed, not that we can be blessed if we do certain things, but that we are blessed, right here and right now.  And if that's the case, they also tell us something quite shocking: that we are the poor in spirit.  We are the meek.  We are the peacemakers.  We are the hungry and thirsty.

See, the issue is not about whether we are these things or not.  The issue is whether we realize that we are.    And that, right here, is the heart of the revolutionary message of Jesus, my friends – the heart of its message, and also its greatest challenge.

It's a challenge for us because it plays with our concept of how the world operates.  How, for instance, can anyone who is poor or humble or thirsty or persecuted ever be blessed?  It flies in the face of everything you and I have been brought up to believe and trust in.  It forces us to ask questions like: can the meek succeed in a business world that promotes hard work and success at all costs?  Can the merciful survive in a society where the prevalent belief is summed up best in the slogan I once saw etched on a sheriff deputy’s car in my old stomping grounds of Davidson County: “You do the crime, you pay the time?”  Can those who mourn survive in a culture that looks down on open expressions of grief?  Can the persecuted make it in a world where “winning is everything?”

Maybe – just maybe – the Beatitudes are there to tell us that we truly do have it all backwards.  I remember a story that Shasta shared at our Bob Chilton Bible study this past week.  She was talking about her time with the Beacons on the mission trip in Toronto earlier this summer.  One morning she and a few other youth were making their rounds through downtown, taking breakfast to the homeless there.  At one point they came upon a man sleeping on the park bench – and literally the only thing he had with him were the clothes on his back.  They gave him his breakfast, which he received gratefully, and then asked him if he needed anything else.  And this homeless man, in downtown Toronto, looked at Shasta and the kids and said with a smile, “I've got a beautiful sun rising today, I've got air in my lungs, and you fine folks have just brought me breakfast.  What more do I need?”

What more do you need??? My gosh, you need a home, man!  You need some more clothes, because the ones you've got are filthy.  You need a job, so you can make money, and then use that money to get more stuff you need.  What do you mean, what more do you need? You need everything!  That's what we think when we hear this guy, isn't it?  Our society is based on the premise that people who sleep on park benches with only the clothes on their back have nothing.  We have no idea what to do when a guy like this tells he has everything he needs. And the fact that he can even say this shows us that this guy understands the revolutionary message of the Beatitudes far better than you and I do.  He understands that it points us to another way of living – not in a different place, not removed from things – but a different way of existing in the here and the now.  In some ways the Beatitudes tell us we're already doing it – but they also point us to a time that is to come.  Jesus and the scriptures have a name for this other way of living.  They call it the kingdom of heaven on earth.

Let me be clear about something: this is not heaven that's being talked about – although heaven will certainly be wonderful too.  The “kingdom of heaven on earth,” as Jesus envisions it, is exactly what it says: a time when God's way, God's economy, God's reality is our reality.  It is a time when we hear the teachings and wisdom of Jesus not with our own ears, but with the new ears God has given us.  It's a time when people aren’t so concerned about understanding everything or having every answer; because they’re quite comfortable and satisfied knowing that God has all the answers. Most importantly, it's a time when folks are always willing to grow, always excited about the new things that God has to reveal to them; even when – and especially when – it may differ from what others around them believe, or from what they’ve believed before.

“Kingdom living” is how some refer to it. It's not leaving the world behind, and it's not just 'following rules,” and it's not about fighting until we win.  It's about choosing to see things differently and then acting on those differences in the crowds of our life.  Like Jesus' Beatitudes, it's not something that can be described all that well.  But a few weeks ago I came across something by Christian writer Brian McLaren that I thought did as good a job as anything of showing us what the kingdom of heaven on earth might be like.  Listen:

A friend returns from vacation and tells you about this new land she has seen, and it sounds wonderful.  You've always been more or less satisfied with your homeland: it's the only reality you've ever known.  But her stories make you notice things you've never noticed before.  Compared to the new land your friend has described, your homeland suffers from stifling air pollution; the scenery is blah; the culture is boring, crude and uncreative; and the economy is stagnant.  The more you replay the scenes and stories described by your friend – stories of exciting people, vibrant culture, beautiful scenery, and a robust economy – the more you feel restless. One evening, your dinner is interrupted by six successive calls from telemarketers selling gas masks so you can breathe more easily on high-pollution days, and something in you snaps.  That's it!  I've had it!  I'm leaving, and I'm going to start a new life in this new land my friend has told me about.
   
So you slowly begin to imagine life in the new kingdom.  Gradually, you can see yourself there – and life is better.  Still, you're not sure.  Do you have enough faith to pack your suitcase and head to the border?  Do you really trust your friend enough to make a move like this?  You share with her you dreams – and your doubts – and she says, “If you go, I'll go with you.  Ever since I visited, I can't stop thinking about going back for good.”  And that tips the balance.  You sell your house and all your possessions, and the two of you set off.
   
With some apprehension, you approach the border and declare yourself an immigrant.  They ask you one simple question: “Do you wish to leave your past behind and start a new life in a new kingdom?”  When you say yes, they let you in – no questions asked.  You step into the new land and take a deep breath, and your lungs feel as if you're inhaling pure health, joy and peace.  It's as if the spirit of the new kingdom is entering into your body.
   
You find a new home, meet your new neighbors, and settle into a whole new life.  You quickly realize you have a lot to learn.  The people speak a new dialect here. It's not the familiar accent of pride, judgment, bragging, misleading, insulting or lying.  Rather, it's an accent or gratitude, encouragement, truth-telling, admitting faults, and celebrating joys. You also notice that people here live at a different pace than you're used to – they're not lazy, but they're not workaholics either.  They live with a certain rhythm, weaving rest and work and worship and play and fellowship and feasting and fasting.  As you settle into your new life, you almost feel that you have been born into a new autobiography and a new world.

(Adapted from The Secret Message of Jesus: Uncovering the Truth That Could Change Everything by Brian McLaren (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2006), 112-113.)

The kingdom of heaven on earth is coming, my friends.  In fact, it's already here.  Jesus painted a picture of it with his words ing the fifth chapter of the gospel of Matthew  - words that call us to live into the prophetic, political and revolutionary message of his love. What in the world are we waiting for?  Thanks be to God.  AMEN.