The Mayberry Preacher

STANDING BEFORE PARTED WATERS: "DIDN'T WE TELL YOU THIS WOULD HAPPEN??"

Exodus 14: 10-14, Luke 19: 36-40
Steve Lindsley
September 26 2010

The story goes that a family was sitting down for their traditional Sunday lunch after church.  As Dad carved the turkey breast, he asked his six-year old what he learned in church that day.  The young lad spoke at length about a story from some book called Exodus, where the Hebrews had escaped Egypt and arrived at the Red Sea.  He took a bite and then continued telling his father that, when they saw Pharaoh's soldiers coming, they pumped up inflatable boats so they could float across to the other side.

Now I want to stop here for a second and ask you a question – and this is not the writing-down type like we've been doing: but what if that really was the way it happened all those years ago – so that the image that's made its way down through time to us is not of a larger-than-life Moses with hands outstretched and staff raised to the heavens, but a frantic Moses blowing up inflatable rafts with super-human lung power?  Would that make the miracle by the Red Sea any less of a miracle?

Well, we thankfully don't have to deal with that – but the boy's father did.  He stopped carving the turkey when he heard the part about the inflatable boats.  He looked  at his son and said, Now wait a minute, I'm confused – is that the way it really happened?

His son gazed at him with very serious demeanor and replied, Dad, if I told you the way my teacher told me, you wouldn't believe it! (Alex A. Sternberger, LaughLines, Presbyterians Today, September 1997, 5)

To be sure, there is a lot about our faith journey that is “unbelievable.” And on this Dedication Sunday, as we conclude our Fall Discipleship journey, it is a journey that, oddly enough, has us standing still.  Like those Israelites of long ago, who took pause as the waters of the Red Sea were parted before them, we have given great thought these three weeks to what keeps us “standing still” in our walk of faith.  And we've centered our journey around three questions the people asked Moses at the water's edge:

The first one: Weren't the cemeteries large enough in Egypt??  We talked about how the people let their fears get the best of them.  And to this question, Moses later answered, DO NOT BE AFRAID.

The second: What have you done to us??  Last week we looked at how the people tried to lay blame elsewhere, unable or unwilling to face change.  And to this question, Moses answered, STAND FIRM.

And now, we arrive at the third and final question the people launched in Moses' direction.  And it's a good one!

Didn't we tell you this would happen??

In other words, We knew all along it was going to come to this, Moses.  We knew it way back in Egypt, back when you were so excited about leading us into the desert.  We tried to tell you this wasn't a good idea, that only bad things would come of it, but you wouldn't listen.  You were having too much fun, relishing in your little victory over mighty Pharaoh.  Who, by the way, is not a good person to offend.  Do you happen to see that approaching army, Moses?  Don't you know what this means for us?  Didn't we tell you this would happen??   

You gotta love those Israelites, don't you?  Cause they look and sound an awful lot like us sometimes!  We've seen the fear-mongers, we've heard the blamers, and now we meet a new breed: the naysayers.  You know these people.  They are the ones who almost seem to take delight when things go awry, who claim to have known all along that something wasn't going to pan out.  The ones unwilling to believe that the impossible might actually be possible.  The ones for whom inflatable boats seem more plausible than parted waters.

Naysayers have been around as along as there have been people to say “nay.”  I can picture in my mind, somewhere deep in the recesses of human history,  a guy banging a chisel on stone and creating what would become the very first wheel – and his buddy standing next to him, shaking his head and saying, It'll never work!  I can hear the naysayers that had to have come out in full force when NASA began talking years ago about the ludicrous idea of putting a man on the moon.  I can hear the naysayers in the St. Louis Rams locker room back in the late 90s, when a washed-up quarterback and grocery store bag boy named Kurt Warner walked in to his first training camp – the same Kurt Warner who later that year would lead his team to the Super Bowl Championship and break all kinds of passing records while doing it.

I can hear the naysayer that once plagued American engineer Robert Fulton as he tested out the  world's first steamboat. The naysayer kept yelling, It'll never start! It'll never start!  And after the steamboat pulled away from the dock and moved majestically up the Hudson River, the observer quickly changed his tune to: It'll never stop! It'll never stop!    

Thankfully, most of the time the naysayers are on the wrong side of history.  Most of the time.  But sometimes, the naysayers get the best of us.  I'm thinking of Justin, who was a third-grader in my class growing up.  He was a nice-enough kid, and I liked to sit next to him at lunch because his Mom packed double-stuff Oreos every day.  But that wasn't the only thing that Justin's Mom filled her son with.  I found out later in the year that she spent an awful lot of time telling Justin how stupid he was, how he would never amount to anything, how he was no-good just like his father.  I always wondered as a kid why she did this.  I still do.  Not surprisingly, Justin learned to live up to her expectations – or down to them, as it were.  I don't think Justin made it to fourth grade the next year.

When we stand on the cusp of something extraordinary, when we find ourselves at those “parted-water” moments in our lives, when God's goodness is as good as it gets, that's when the naysayers come out the strongest.  And the thing is, it's not always an outside voice doing the naysaying.  More often than not, the voice comes from within us.  And it plays right into our doubts and fears; it looks for someone else to blame in the midst of change.  And if we're not careful, it can get the best of us, especially in our walk with Christ: No, I'm not going to church this Sunday; I'm a little upset with something and I need a break.  I won't be able to help with Friends Feeding Friends this week; I've just got too much going on.  I like the idea of giving more to the church in Fall Discipleship, but you know, the economy's tough and I don't think I can swing it.  We become our own worst enemy – we become, in effect, our own naysayer.

So as we have done the past two weeks, I invite you to grab a pen or pencil and find the bulletin insert.  Take a minute to jot down some thoughts to this first question: IN WHAT WAYS ARE YOU YOUR OWN WORST NAYSAYER WHEN IT COMES TO YOUR JOURNEY OF FAITH? ...........

Look at that list for a second.  The voice of the naysayer is a powerful one, isn't it?  Especially when it comes from ourselves.  And in that regard we are a lot like the Pharisees in our other scripture reading today.  Jesus and his entourage had staged a little parade in Jerusalem.  It looked like an innocent celebration, but the Pharisees knew differently.  They knew that another parade was going on at the same time on the other side of the city; this one with Roman soldiers and all the pomp and circumstance of the Empire.  It was their way of kicking off the Passover celebration and reminding the huge crowd of people who descended on Jerusalem – not unlike the crowd that comes here for Mayberry Days – it was a way of reminding them who was really in charge.  And as the ones commissioned by the Roman empire to keep the peace, the Pharisees knew that Jesus' little soiree could be seen as high treason.  So they pleaded with Jesus, as one translation put it, “Get your disciples under control!”   

The voice of fear and doubt.  The voice of discontent.  The voice of the naysayer.   

To which Jesus responds with what has to be one of the classic lines in the entire New Testament: If these people were silent, even the stones would cry out!  In other words, “No matter how hard you try to snuff out God's action, you can't do it.  God acts regardless!”   

And that, my friends, is an entirely different kind of voice  It is the voice that trumps the naysayer; the voice that dispels the fear and removes the doubt.  The voice that is so strong and powerful, so prevalent and persistent, that even a mass of mineral matter can't hold back!   

It is the voice that told those women and men in our country's space program in 1969 that it was in fact possible to go to the moon.  It's the voice that compelled a washed-up quarterback shelving Cheerios at the local grocery store to give his dream one more try. It's the voice that compelled Justin to overcome his obstacles and led him to the dean's list every year at his Ivy League school.  It is the voice of Jesus to us; and it is the voice of Moses as he answered God's people by those parted waters, saying: SEE THE DELIVERANCE.  See God in action!    

And there really could be no greater message for us in our faith journey, could there?  For we, too, are a people standing before a promise – right here, right now!  But even so, we are still fearful of the unknown, we are hesitant to change, we are prone to listen to the naysayer within us.  And thanks be to God that absolutely none of that changes the fact that we are standing before the promise, if only we open our hearts to see it.     

Which is why I'd like to ask you to spend some time on one last question, jotting down your thoughts, and this may really be the most important question of them all: WHERE DO YOU SEE GOD IN ACTION IN THIS CHURCH?  WHAT ARE THE PARTED WATER MOMENTS FOR FIRST PRESBYTERIAN? 

I thought, in addition to having some time to meditate on your own thoughts to this question, that you'd appreciate hearing from some of your brothers and sisters in Christ on where they see God in action in our church:

There are so many places in our church where we see God in action.  Here are some special ones to me.  I see God in action in the hundreds of cans of soup we collect for the Souper Bowl of Caring, to help feed the hungry in our community.  I see God in action in the faces of the people who work at Friends Feeding Friends at First Baptist Church to help provide people a meal.  I see God in action in the Backpack program that allows the schools to pack food for kids to have on the weekends to eat.  I see God in action in the Pennies for Hunger and Yokefellow Ministry.  But one that's especially dear to my heart is in the financial support we provide for Surry Medical Ministries, which is a free clinic with a pharmacy to serve the uninsured and poor in our community.  This is where I see God in action in our church. (Millie Beal)

I see God in action in all of you - but I definitely see God in action in the little ones in our church.  I've taught Sunday school and I've been on mission trips.  And the kids really change your lives - they know exactly what to say.  I want you to pay attention to them. (Alex Mayes)

You may not know me; my name is Bruce Arnold.  I retired here to Mount Airy in August, and I've been attending the church since mid-August.  I see God in action in your church in that you have a great mix.  I came from a church in Texas where the average age of the congregation is 73!  But here you have babies, toddlers, young couples, teenagers, young adults, middle-aged adults and retired people like myself - all working together.  You converse with one another; you're not a group of people who don't really do anything together.  And I've seen this in Friends Feeding Friends and Habitat for Humanity, where there were young and old all working together.  This is really a great revelation for me - I've been a member of a lot of Presbyterian churches, but the best ones are where everyone is a big family working together. I really appreciate this church. (Bruce Arnold)

Folks, as these three have said, as you yourselves know, we are a blessed congregation.  And it's not because we possess lots of things, or because wonderful people fill our pews every Sunday, or because we've served God faithfully for 150+ years. We are blessed for no other reason than the fact that we are children of the promise, plain and simple.  And that promise has brought us here to this Dedication Sunday, to yet another parted waters moment.  So DO NOT BE AFRAID. STAND FIRM. And SEE THE DELIVERANCE.     

Do you see it, my friends?  Do you see God in action?  Because you do, let us never cease to shout with the stones!  Thanks be to God!  AMEN.

STANDING BEFORE PARTED WATERS: "WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO US??"

Exodus 14: 10-14, Matthew 6: 25-34
Steve Lindsley
September 19, 2010

In last Sunday's sermon I shared with you the story of Moses parting the Red Sea – and I suggested that this was not only the defining moment of the Israelites' history, but it is also a fitting image for us as we embark on this Fall Discipleship season.  It's a powerful vision – Moses, long white beard, well-worn robe, hands raised to the heavens as the waters before him stood at attention on either side.  If you were to do a Google search on this, you'd be amazed at the sheer number of images that would come up, depicting in all kinds of ways the glory of this hallmark event in the Hebrew faith.

You'll also undoubtedly find some comedy relief there too.  There's one cartoon I saw showing a diver diving into a swimming pool, except there was no water in the pool, because Moses was standing on the deck, hands raised.  The caption reads: Moses' first and last day as a lifeguard.  There's another with baby Moses in a tub, dry as a bone because the water is everywhere he is not, and his mother is saying to him, Moses, stop playing around and take your bath!  Another depicts Moses on a major highway with dozens of cars shoved to the side, hands raised, caption reads: Moses comes to Los Angeles.  If only!

It's good that we can have some fun with this – not because it's not important, but because it lets us know that it's sinking in, this image of the parting of the Red Sea.   It's sinking in, how the people of God were thrilled with God's action, but still hesitant to live into the promise of it.  If you were here last week you remember the three questions the people asked Moses: three questions that get to the heart of why they stood still before those parted waters:

Weren't the cemeteries large enough in Egypt??
What have you done to us??
Didn't we tell you this would happen??

We looked at the first question last week.  And we talked about how the underlying issue was a great fear of the unknown, even when that unknown is God's mighty work.  We took time in the sermon last week to name our own fears, and we heard the message from Jesus and Moses that we are defined not by our fears but by God's promise. 

Today we look at the second question in the mix: What have you done to us??  And, you know, I have to be honest with you – that question takes me back a ways to something that happened years ago.  I was in fifth grade; the only year my younger brother and I went to the same school.  I remember that I was picking on him as we boarded the bus that morning.  Which was all well and good, until some other kid decided to join in.  And what he failed to realize was that, while it was perfectly okay for me to pick on my own brother, it was not okay for him. 

I told him to stop, multiple times, but he didn't.  So that's when the fists started flying!  Next thing I knew we were sitting in the principal's office, getting a stern lecture on fighting, and a note that we were instructed to take home to our parents.  Later that afternoon, as Mom read the note and the color ran out of her face, she sent me to my room and told me to wait there until my father got home.  So I waited, and after what seemed like an eternity I heard the back door downstairs open.  And that's when I heard my mother proclaim those six words that are spoken by countless parents around the globe:  Guess what your son did today!  Not “our son,” but “your son.”  As if I was in the process of being punished and partially disowned at the same time.

And maybe I'm just imagining things, but I can almost hear that same intonation in the voices of those Israelites at the shore of the Red Sea: What have you done to us, Moses??  Which is interesting, isn't it?  I mean, it wasn't like Moses dragged them out of Egypt against their will or anything.  When those gates opened on that glorious day, you couldn't have held back the people of God if you tried!  They may not have had a clue where they were going, but none of that mattered, because the only thing that mattered was that the Israelites were putting as much distance between Egypt and themselves as possible.

Well, as the saying goes, that was then.  This is now.  And now, several years later, things had changed for those Israelites.  The glory of that moment of freedom was long gone, replaced with fear and uncertainty, and the promise of a God whom they questioned more and more each day.  Things had changed for those Israelites – and they didn't know how to handle that change.  So they expressed their apprehension and fears the only way the knew how: What have you done to us, Moses?? 

As I imagine them yelling this, it reminds me that people are always looking for someone to blame, aren't they?  To get angry at?  When things in life aren't going right, it's a whole lot easier to look “outside” than inside.  As crazy as it sounds, we end up taking our anger out on things that have nothing to do with the reason for that anger.  Sometimes we take it out on the ones we love – our family and friends – which doesn't make a lot of sense, but that's what we do.  Sometimes other groups or institutions become lightning rods for our discontent, like our kids' schools or civic organizations or, yes, the church.   And sometimes, we even take it out on God.   

A few years ago there was an interesting article in Time Magazine titled, “Should God be blamed for the subprime mortgage mess?”  In it the author talked about a significant number of Christians in the early 2000's who adhered to the prosperity gospel – where faithfulness is  supposedly rewarded with financial gain – and took chances on risky mortgage investments that they shouldn't have.  Well, we all know how that turned out!  And while most investors later acknowledged the mistakes they made, apparently some of these “prosperity gospel” folks dealt with their discontent by blaming God for their ill-advised actions (http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1847053,00.html, visited on 9.13.2010).

Which is nothing new, mind you – God gets blamed for a lot of things.  When a hurricane or earthquake wreaks havoc, God is held responsible.  When someone dies unexpectedly and loved ones are desperate for a reason why, God often takes the rap.   When our life isn't progressing like we we feel it should, we say it's God's fault.  It's nothing new – we've been doing it for centuries.  You have to figure God's used to it by now.

The truth of the matter is that, just as those Israelites blamed God for their predicament by the Red Sea, you and I are prone to do the same – even at those “parted water” moments when God's great work is taking place all around us.  We are eager to take the credit when things are going well, and just as eager to lay it at someone else's feet when things go awry.  As I said to my Mom when I was trying to explain why I had gotten in that fight, “It all started when he hit be back!”

What have you done to us, Moses??  Let's dive a little deeper into that question, shall we?  You recall last week when I invited you to take time to respond to a couple of questions by writing down your thoughts.  We're going to do that again.  Let me invite you to find a pew pencil or pen out of your purse, as well as the back side of the announcements sheet in your bulletin.  And let me ask you to take a minute to jot down your thoughts for this first question:  In what ways is your relationship with God not where you want it to be?............

Now let me ask you to give some thought and jot down a few things for this question: Who or what tends to get the blame when your relationship with God isn't going well?............

Questions about our relationship with God are never easy ones.  That's because that relationship, like all relationships, is not always a smooth venture – it has its bumps in the roads.  It's been that way from the very beginning.  From the moment Abraham first heard God tell him I will be your God and you will be my people, this standoff with Moses at the Red Sea was inevitable.  Intimate relationships, like the one God has with each one of us, change and grow over the years, because we change and grow.   Our relationship with God is never a static, predictable thing.   

And if anyone knew this first-hand, it had to be Jesus.  Earlier, Shelley read some familiar verses from the Sermon on the Mount – comforting images like “Do not worry” and “Consider the lilies” and “Look at the birds” and stuff like that.  But just like our relationship with God, the message here goes much deeper than the surface.  So this passage isn't just about pleasant platitudes and Jesus telling the people to live a happy and carefree life. In fact, given his audience that day – predominately poorer, oppressed Jews – that message would've been most inappropriate!

Which makes me wonder if the key to this passage is found in the way that Matthew wraps up:

Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness,
and all these things will be given to you.

That's the foundation, isn't it?  That's what gives us calm amidst the storm; a bedrock underneath us when everything's in flux.  We seek God's kingdom together; we keep our focus on who we are and whose we are – the people of God, belonging to God.  We seek God's kingdom, even and especially when those “parted water” moments crash down on us and force us to deal with the challenge and hope of change.

And I imagine that's exactly why Moses said what he said in answering their question – Moses, the undeserving recipient of the people's fear and blame.  STAND FIRM, he told them.  Stand firm, and in doing so, fasten yourself solidly to the foundation of your faith.  Don't waver, don't blame, but embrace the change that surrounds you, just as God embraces you.

This past month I wrote about change in the September Grapevine and how amazing it is, the magnitude of change our congregation has encountered in just this year.  We are preparing to celebrate the conclusion of 44 years of Sandy Beam's service to this church and move into the future God has planned for our church's music ministry – change. We've replaced our children's traditional Sunday school program with the new Spark ministry – change.  Our church is in the thick of Fall Discipleship, facing numerous challenges as we strive to meet the needs of God's church – change.    Your pastor recently returned from a three-month sabbatical – change.  All of this on top of the mountain of change each one of us encounters in our own lives – loved ones in poor health, job situations in flux.  Even good change, change that is welcome and positive, even that kind of change can be difficult sometimes.  In its own way, change is a loss of something – a loss of something familiar, where we then have to face something unfamiliar.

But here's the difference, my friends – we don't have to face the unfamiliar alone.  We face it with each other, and we face it with our God – a God who parts the waters for us and paves the way to the promise.  The man tells us to stand firm in what we believe and how we live our lives.  And it's kind of ironic, isn't it, that in standing firm we make our greatest strides forward?  Thanks be to God!  AMEN.

STANDING BEFORE PARTED WATERS: "WEREN'T THE CEMETERIES LARGE ENOUGH IN EGYPT??"

Exodus 14: 10-14, Mark 4: 35-41
Steve Lindsley
September 12, 2010

It very well could be the most powerful image in the entire Bible.  It is the story of a people and their God and their relationship over the years – the joys of freedom and answered prayers, the hardship of the journey through the desert.  And all of it, it seemed, was culminating in this one moment: a moment of incredible promise and salvation, but also one of reservation and trepidation.

And however you choose to envision it in your mind, this is what it boils down to: the people have a path across the waters of the Red Sea; a path opened for them by none other than the hand of God.  It is the path of their deliverance as they make their long journey to the Promised Land.  And it is a path that will lead them out of harm's way, as there is another making their own path to them: the fast-approaching Egyptian army led by a vengeful Pharaoh.    So there they are – quite literally on the doorstep of God's greatest act of salvation in their long and storied history.  The waters are parted!  The way is clear!    Salvation is theirs!

And yet, the people of God do not move.  Contrary to what Charlton Heston Moses movies might have us believe, the Israelites stood there, as if paralyzed.  But paralyzed by what??  Were they afraid that the waters, suspended high in the air, would come crashing down on them?  Did they hold out hope that Pharaoh and his band of merry men were coming to rescue them from peril?  Or were they simply afraid to embrace the chance that the impossible might actually be possible?

This, my friends, is the journey I invite us, the family of First Presbyterian Church, to embark on over the next three weeks.  You know well the season that we have come to call Fall Discipleship, where our Discipleship Ministry Team asks each of us to prayerfully consider how we can support the work and ministry of this great church in the coming year.  Part of this task is a practical one – there is a budget that our session has recently approved, and we are asked to support that budget with our financial giving. 

But part of the Discipleship journey is about much more than simple dollars and cents.  It is about grasping hold of the promise God has made to us here; a promise we are all part of by virtue of our presence in this family of faith.  And this is not always an easy thing.

Because the truth of the matter is that you and I are in very much the same situation that those Hebrews were thousands of years ago – in a figurative sense, of course, but no less significant.  We, too, are standing before parted waters; the impossible promise of God made possible right before our very eyes!  A path to our deliverance has been opened up for us, clear as day, leading us in the way God would have us go.  It is God at work in the most magnificent, complete, and unquestionable way.  It is exactly what we have prayed for all these years, what we have longed to come to fruition!

Except......except we, too, do not make our way through the parted waters.  We too are as if paralyzed.  And why is that?  Why do we sometimes fail to take hold of God's promise for us?  What is keeping us from walking through those waters?

Answering that question is the task that lies before us over the next three weeks, and it will undoubtedly lead us to do some soul-searching as individuals and as a community of faith.  It is a task that will involve us taking time in each sermon – and I mean this quite literally – to consider some very direct and powerful questions.

Because it wasn't any different for the Hebrew people, really.  They were full of questions.  In the five short Exodus verses that we'll be looking at over the next three weeks, the people of God asked three specific questions of their leader Moses – and, in essence, asked them of God.  And not only do these questions tell us an awful lot about why the Hebrews remained still in front of those parted waters, but I would suggest that at their heart they are very similar to the questions we ask this time of year as a community of faith.

The three questions the Israelites asked, using The Message translation, were as follows:

Weren't the cemeteries large enough in Egypt??

What have you done to us??
Didn't we tell you this would happen??

Each question, going deeper and deeper into the heart and soul of those people, revealing what kept them from taking hold of that promise.  Our task, over the next three weeks of Fall Discipleship, is to ask ourselves these questions and discover what keeps us from doing the same.

And you know, you've got to chuckle a bit at the first one, don't you: weren't the cemeteries large enough in Egypt??  Even in their turmoil they still had a sense of humor!  Sarcasm often makes itself known when people are at wit's end, as the Hebrews certainly were.  And the truth of the matter is that it had been brewing for quite some time. 

It started brewing the moment the gates of Egypt were flung open and Moses led the people out into the vast wilderness, and some quietly wondered if the devil they didn't know would be worse than the one they'd know for a generation.  It grew as the people went hungry and thirsty for days, enduring hot days and cold nights, moving deeper into an endless desert.  And it was crystallized as they were caught between an expansive sea and the approaching Egyptian army.  Even the parted waters did not allay their biting sarcasm, because fear had blinded them from the very thing they had so longed to see.

Fear can do that, you know.  Oh man, if there's one thing we know fear can do, it is blinding us from seeing “parted-waters” moments in our lives.  Fear paralyzes us, obstructs our view of the promise, makes us focus on the worst-possible scenario instead of the best that could happen.  Fear keeps us from seeing the redemptive power of God that is literally embodied in us, the body of Christ. 

And perhaps there is no greater sign of the power fear has over us than this past weekend, the ninth anniversary of 9-11.  For the past few months, the fires of fear have been stoked in full, fanned by concerns about an Islamic Center two blocks from Ground Zero and a pastor and his 50-member church in Florida that came this close to hosting a “Burn the Koran” event yesterday.  For these reasons and for so many more, it is hard to deny that our fears are truly getting the best of us.  And it is disheartening that, even after all these years, despite our noblest efforts, we continue to be defined by those things that separate us from “the other,” rather than those things we share in common with one another.

Harvard religion professor Peter Gomes once wrote this: 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, 10)

Gomes is right – fears define who we are.  They hold us captive, in fact.  And the only way we can break free from that captivity is to name those fears – to call them out into the open.  Which is why I want to do something we've never done in a sermon before, at least one of mine.  If you look on the back of your announcements sheet in the bulletin, you'll see two sections with some lines for writing.  If you would, please grab a pencil from the back of the pew or a pen out of your purse.

I want to ask you to take a few moments in silence and jot down your thoughts in the first section, answering this question: What are your greatest fears?  What fears define your life?........................

Now I'd like to ask you to consider this next question in the second section: How do these fears keep you from fully engaging your faith?  How do these fears keep you from fully engaging your faith?............................

Take a second and look at what you've written.  And ask yourselves: how much are you defined by those fears?  Do you find those things written down in front of you dictating the course your life takes, guiding what you do or do not do, rather than being guided by the promise of the God that is in your very midst?

If that's true, then trust me, friends, you are in good company!  That's the way it was for those disciples in our New Testament reading.  Jesus was in the boat with them – Jesus himself, in the flesh!  But the disciples weren't focusing on him.  All they could think about was the storm that surrounded them; the swirling winds and chaotic waters.  If you've ever been on a boat when a storm's at sea, you know the totally helpless feeling it is – anchored to nothing, totally at the mercy of the wind and waves.  Sometimes life can feel like that.

Scripture makes a point of mentioning that, during all of this, Jesus was sound asleep on the boat, until the disciples woke him in panic.  And all he had to do was utter the words, Peace, be still, and the storm stopped.  And it's interesting – while the disciples are all caught up  in a man who has divine control over nature, Jesus is focusing on something else entirely: God's redemptive power in the world, bringing order to the chaos that engulfs us.  Which is why he asks them, Why are your afraid?  The disciples were paralyzed by their fears; Jesus points them – and us – to God's promise.

On that monumental day long ago in the desert, when the people were in turmoil and Moses stood on the rock ledge, God brought order to the waters of the Red Sea, parting them aside so the Israelites could continue on their quest for the promise.  And at the same time, God also brought order to the chaos in their lives; reminding them that they did not need to be defined by their fears one minute longer.  And to the people's question, Weren't the cemeteries large enough in Egypt, Moses sees right through the sarcasm to the real question and answers it accordingly: Do Not Be Afraid.  Do not be afraid of the approaching army; do not be afraid of the parted waters, do not be afraid of the promise that God has laid right in front of you.  And thousands of years later, as you and I stand before parted waters of our own, the same God bears the same message to us: Do Not Be Afraid. 

So let us re-imagine and remake our lives so that it is not our fears that define us, but our hopes and our passions.  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 as we begin together our journey of Fall Discipleship and prayerfully consider how we support the work and ministry of this great church, let us not place limits on God's redemptive power by talking about what we can't do, but what we can.  We need not be afraid one moment longer.  And for that, thanks be to God!  AMEN.

LIVING THE VISION - LIVING BY FAITH INSTEAD OF FEAR

Matthew 6: 19-33

Steve Lindsley

Fall Discipleship

September 27, 2009

You know those moments where things just seem to line up and fall into place, and you have absolutely nothing to do with it? You know those moments where things just seem to line up and fall into place, and you have absolutely nothing to do with it?  I experienced one of those moments myself.  Two weeks ago, on the kick-off Sunday of our Fall Discipleship season, a bunch of folks filled our church Fellowship Hall, where we enjoyed a wonderful covered dish lunch and listened to Lee Daniels walk us through “The 15+ Plan” and the challenge to our church in the coming year and years after.  As part of our conversation Lee asked us to define the word DISCIPLESHIP – or, more accurately, to come up with words or phrases that helped to unpack what that word meant.  This is what the group came up with:

OBEDIENT.  CHRIST-CENTERED.  PEOPLE-FOCUSED.  UNSELFISH.  FOLLOWER.  LEADER.  EXAMPLE.  RISK-TAKER.  SERVANT.  OBSERVANT.  GETTING OUT OF THE COMFORT ZONE.  PRAY-ER.  PEACEMAKER.  CONTRIBUTOR.

Now what struck me about these words was not only that they were good descriptions, but that they were also words of action, of vibrancy.   Discipleship is not a laid-back or passive thing.  It requires something of us, involves a commitment on our part that is more than simply believing in something or showing up on Sunday mornings.  

That was followed last week by a heart-felt Minute for Discipleship given by a member who had forewarned Lee and myself that he was going to speak from the heart and might offend some folks in the process.  To be honest, I am always grateful when people feel comfortable speaking the truth in love in the community of faith.  John gave us many things to chew on in this Discipleship season – one of which really stuck with me, so much so that I asked Shasta for a pen and wrote it down on my bulletin while John was still talking.  He said that part of the reason true discipleship is so hard, and why we often fail at it, is that by and large we are a people living by fear instead of living by faith. 

Now this dilemma – and these two experiences of the past two weeks – have been heavy on my mind; as I've pondered and prayed about our ability on one hand to recognize true discipleship as evidenced on the newsprint, and on the other the incredible difficulty we encounter in trying to live into that reality, of being guided by our fears instead of our faith.  I don't think it takes a rocket scientist to recognize that you and I live in a culture saturated with fear.  We've almost come to expect it, grow comfortable with it, let it define everything from our religion and politics to the way we interact with others, to our life decisions, to how we view and respond to the world.

Just consider any number of studies conducted over the years that identifies our greatest fears.  According to one of them, some of the top ten stressors for Americans are: death of spouse,
divorce, death of a close family member, personal injury or illness, losing one's job, or a change in one's financial situation.  Even some things that we consider positives – marriage, pregnancy, retirement – even they carry a burden to be reckoned with: will my new baby be healthy?  Will our marriage last?  Will I really like not having to go to work?  If these are the classic worries we face, then it's no wonder that ours is a culture mired in fear – fears we face on a regular, even daily basis.

Not too long ago I was catching up with an old friend on Facebook – actually the truth is that were engaged in a rather spirited discussion on a hot-topic issue.  Once the angry words subsided, my friend got to the heart of what was bothering him: he told me that he was afraid.  And when I asked him what he was afraid of, his response was swift.  “What am I NOT afraid of??” he typed.  “I'm afraid of losing my job – they've already kicked others to the curb.  I'm afraid if I keep my job they'll cut my salary, which already is barely enough to make ends meet.  I'm afraid that those in charge who have power over me and the things in my life are not thinking of me when they make their decisions.  I'm afraid of all the things I know I should be afraid about, but I've even more afraid of the things I don't know!”

Do you know what that's like?  Do you know how my friend feels?

It is into this kind of world, that Jesus gathered some folks on a mountainside and had the audacity to call them “disciples” – even in the midst of their fears.  We've been trying to imagine this scene for the past few weeks.  And you know, I don't know if this is right or not, I don't think there's anything in scripture to back it up, but I've always kind of wondered if the more Jesus talked, the smaller that crowd on the mountainside got.  I mean, really – calling them to serious discipleship, telling them to love their enemies and turn the other cheek, suggesting that faith isn't about show and needs to be authentic – you've got to figure that there were some people who just decided this wasn't for them!

And if that were the case, then it very well could've been a small remnant who heard Jesus say this – as recounted in The Message translation: 

If you decide to live for God, it follows that you don't fuss about what's on the table at mealtimes or whether the clothes in your closet are in fashion.  There is far more to your life than the food you put in your stomach, more to your outer appearance than the clothes you wear.  What I'm trying to do here is to get you to relax, to not be so preoccupied with getting so you can respond to God's giving.

Now on the surface these word seem clear enough – calling the faithful to “not worry.”  It certainly makes sense – worry isn't going to add a day to our lives, and if you believe some studies, it may even lessen it.  But I've got to tell you something – I've got a little problem with this.  I mean, don't get me wrong – I'm not criticizing Jesus – but something about simply telling a person who is worrying to not worry seems insufficient at best and callous at worst.  It's like the young kid who wakes his parents in the middle of the night to inform them that there are monsters under his bed; only to be told by a half-awake father that there's no such thing as monsters so he should just go back to sleep.  Which, if you're wondering, is in fact advice I have been known to dispense myself at 3 in the morning!  No, the question here is: does dispensing advice like this really make anyone feel better?  Does it help to get to the heart of the matter?

I'm not sure that it does – which is why I'm inclined to wonder if Jesus was doing something more here than just invoking his inner Dr. Phil.  Is it possible that Jesus was calling those disciples to a different way of living – a way that is more than not worrying about things, but a way that redefines how you and I live our lives?

Remember that famous line from our scripture ready today: No one can serve two masters.  He speaks specifically about money and wealth, and there's a whole other sermon there.  But maybe, just maybe, Jesus is also calling attention to things in our lives that compete for our devotion that are not of God?  I mean, think about it – when we let the things we “possess” possess us, when we allow them to become our masters, we live in the uncertainty of what might happen if we lose those things, if we ever acknowledge that there really are parts of our lives we have no control over.  And the byproduct of all of this, the result of this kind of mentality, is that we worry.  And we live by our fears.

And that is why I wonder if what Jesus is calling us to here is to live by faith instead of our fears.  To be freed from the things that bind us up and realize the full impact of the presence of God in our midst.  To see that our worries do not define us but serve to remind us  that each and every day we get out of bed, we entrust our lives to a God who calls us to a new understanding of discipleship.

It's risky living, isn't it?  It's other things too – like that newsprint from two weeks ago.  It's getting outside of our comfort zone, it's being unselfish, it's living as a servant, it's being obedient.  And let me tell you something – crazy things happen when we do this.  Crazy things happen when we make the decision to live by faith instead of our fears.  

Just ask Kevin Kelley, football coach at Pulaski High in Little Rock, Arkansas.  There was a small write-up about him and his team in last week's Sports Illustrated.  Over the years the team has adopted a very curious style of football that does not include punting – the typical thing a team does on fourth down when they don't have enough yards to get a first down.  In fact there isn't even a punter on their team – instead they go for it every time.  They also don't have a field goal/extra point kicker, making the pursuit of the end zone and two-point conversions their only options.  It sounds crazy and unconventional, but the thing is, Kelley has the stats to back it up – his team actually has a better chance of scoring points to win the game without punting and kicking for points.  And their record – 100 wins this decade – seems to back that up. (http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1160256/index.htm, visited on 9.24.2009.)

Now that's some fearless, faithful living!  And that's only on the gridiron.  So let's ask the question: what does this look like in the church?  How does “living by faith instead of fear” not only define who we are as a body of Christ, but literally change the ways in which we live into our mission together?

I was reading a book the other day that asked that very question.  In fact, it put together a formula of sorts to determine what could happen if every Christian in America tithed their after-tax income to the church.  They ran the numbers and arrived at a figure somewhere between $46 and $133 BILLION dollars.  Now that's a load of cash!  But more important than the dollar signs is what could be accomplished in the name of Jesus with it.  Again, they did their research and offered well over fifty significant initiatives.  Here are just a few:

• We as the church could sponsor 150,000 new missionaries and pastors;
• We could fund the complete eradication of polio and malaria;
• We could finance 10,000 faith-based programs of AIDS/HIV prevention, education, and medication in sub-Sahran Africa;
• We could provide food, clothing and shelter to ALL 6,500,000  refugees in Africa, Asia and the Middle East;
• We could quadruple the current budget of Habitat for Humanity;
• We could provide food, education and health care to 20 million needy children;
• We could hire 10,000 new youth ministers and 50,000 Christian educators;
• We could raise the salaries of 50,000 of the most needy U.S. pastors by $15,000 each, thereby encouraging “the best and the brightest” to enter the ministry;
• We could finance the installation of heating, cooling and electrical systems in 20,000 of the most inefficient U.S. church buildings per year, including the installation of solar panels;
• We could finance 25 faith-based organizations that would provide assistance and to pay heating and utility bills for the most needy in our country.

[Passing the Plate: Why American Christians Don't Give Away More Money by Christian Smith and Michael Emerson (Oxford University

Press, 2008), 13-18.]

And that's just the tip of the iceberg, folks.  I mean, can you imagine??  We're not talking about simple upgrades here.  We're talking about huge bold strokes that would not only change the face of the church, but quite literally change the world – all in the name of Jesus!  Of course, it's nothing more than a hypothetical.  But it shows us what can happen when we as people of faith come to realize the truly amazing, wonderful, meaningful, life-changing power we have when we live by our faith instead of living by our fears.  

And I want to ask you to keep this power in mind – not only as you prayerfully turn in your pledge card for the coming year by next Sunday, not only as you contemplate your calling to be part of “The 15+ Plan,” but also as you consider how you and your family can be changed and bring about change in the body of Christ that is First Presbyterian Church.

Because we are so much more than an organization, a benevolence, a social gathering.  We are so much more than a place to teach children morals, a program center, a building.  We are so much more than a club, a distributor of goods and services, a feel-good center.

We have been, and always will be, the body of Christ on earth, continuing 2000 years after the fact what Jesus started on that very mountainside.  We are a gathering of disciples, in every sense of the word, helping to spread the good news of the gospel which says that no one needs to live by their fears any longer.  We are the people of God, sin-full and grace-filled, sent on a mission and vision that by its very nature calls us out of our comfort zones and into the possibility of the promise.

We can worry about all that if we want, friends.  Or we can embrace the transforming presence of God in our midst and watch as it takes us to wonderful places.  I'm thinking the latter sounds pretty good.  And you know what?  I'm betting that you do too.  Thanks be to God.  AMEN.

LIVING THE VISION - INSTEAD OF A SHOW

Amos 5: 21-24; Matthew 6: 1-18

Steve Lindsley

Fall Discipleship

September 20, 2009

I will never forget my first Broadway show.  It was October 2001 – one short month after 9-11.  As fate would have it (or some say providence), I had already scheduled to be at a pastor's conference at a Presbyterian retreat center about an hour north of Manhattan.  As part of our “free time” during the week, we traveled into town one afternoon and evening to enjoy the city's offering.  A quick tour of the World Tower remains was juxtaposed by joining some others in the group a few hours later to see the musical “Rent.”  We had great seats, about ten rows back, just a hair to the right of center.  As the show went on, I found myself totally immersed in the experience – the story, the music, the people, the emotions of it all.  If the test of a good musical is that it leaves its audience spellbound and transfixed, then this production was a true success.  

It was an amazing experience, a phenomenal show.  But the thing is, none of it was real.  The names of the people on that stage were not Mark and Roger, Mimi and Angel.  They were Anthony and Adam, Tracie and Julia, and the only thing they had in common with the characters they played was that they all lived in New York City.  It was not real apartments the audience saw from their seats but well-constructed props situated precisely on a stage.  The  sunlight coming through the window was nothing more than a strategically-placed spotlight turned on and off at the right intervals.  Even the story itself – a wonderful tale of brokenness, redemption and the celebration of life – was totally made up.  And the next night, long after I boarded my plane home, those same actors would stroll around on that same stage and tell the same story all over again.  It was compelling, it was powerful, but none of it was real.  It was just a show.

Now don't get me wrong – shows are wonderful forms of art that recreate a semblance of reality for us.  And they're perfect for everything from the spotlit Broadway stage to the “rock shows” my two boys put on for the wife and me most every night after dinner.  Shows allow us to step outside ourselves and travel to places and times that couldn't happen in the real world.  Shows are part of the creative muse that exists in the human race; our God-given gift of imagination and inspiration.

But putting on a show has its proper place and time – and according to Jesus, that place is not on the mountainside.  We remember last week how Jesus was speaking to a gathering of all kinds of disciples, sharing with them the essence of discipleship and the transformation it brings to their lives.  Those who witnessed Jesus' Sermon on the Mount  heard how his presence did not signify the abandonment of the law but the fulfillment of it.  And that can't help but change things – which Jesus gets to next.  Listen to how the translation “The Message” puts it:

Be careful when you are trying to be good so that you don't make a performance out of it.  It might be good theater, but the God who made you won't be applauding.  When you do something for someone else, don't call attention to yourself.  You've seen them in action - “playactors” I call them – treating prayer meeting and street corner alike as a stage, acting compassionate as long as someone is watching, playing to the crowds. When you help someone out, don't think about how it looks.  Just do it.

The message Jesus is trying to get across here is pretty obvious – no shows.  He'd later say the same thing about prayer.  The concern for Jesus is not about whether one prays right, or how much help one offers, but how one goes about doing these things.  Are our acts of faith truly altruistic and sincere, or are other agendas coming into play?

It's a big question.  In our day and time, from religion to politics to the community and even in our own families, the sincerity of one's actions is almost as important as the act itself.  Jesus was not the first person to deal with this in the context of the Hebrew faith.  Thousands of years before a rural cattle rancher named Amos was called by God to speak the divine word to a wayward people.  The target of his prophetic wrath were those whose faith had become empty expressions, practices void of the passion and spirit they were originally created for.  Amos' words leave nothing to the imagination:

Thus says the Lord: I hate, I despise your festivals

I take no delight in your solemn assemblies.

Even though you offer me your burnt offerings, I will not accept them.

Take away from me the noise of your songs,

I will not listen to the melody of your harps.

And then that famous line:

But let justice roll down like waters,

And righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.

There's a folk song by singer/songwriter Jon Foreman that's based on this passage of Amos; the chorus of which goes like this:

Instead let there be a flood of justice

An endless procession of righteous living

Instead of a show

There is, of course, a word that comes to mind in all of this; a word that seems to capture what Jesus was saying to the crowd on the mountainside and what Amos was crying out from the ranch.  That word is “hypocrisy,” defined in Webster's as “the practice of claiming to have moral standards or beliefs to which one's own behavior does not conform.”  It's interesting – in our culture we can put up with a lot of things in other people, petty differences and habits that annoy and all the things that can separate us.  We can agree to disagree if need be.  But almost universally, the thing we have the hardest time dealing with are people who put forth a front that is not at all who they are.  We just can't stand hypocrisy – in our friends, in our work colleagues, in our religious and political leaders, in anyone.  It drives us nuts.

Hypocrisy in the community of faith is particularly frustrating – whether it's giving alms or praying for show, or going through the motions of our faith, or simply not taking the time or effort to practice what we preach.  There's a great story that missionary Stanley Jones once told about a conversation he had with Gandhi.  They were talking about why the famed spiritual and social activist would often quote the words of Jesus but never gave thought to becoming a Christian himself.  Did he, in fact, reject Christ?  Gandhi's response was telling.  “Oh no,” he said, “I don't reject your Christ at all.  I love your Christ.  It's just that so many of you Christians act nothing like your Christ.” (http://jmm.aaa.net.au/articles/14522.htm, visited on 9.15.2009.)

Ouch.  But you know, the guy's got a point.  None of us fully live up to the example Jesus set for us.  Part of this is due to the fact that we are, most certainly, imperfect people following a perfect God.  But there's another part of the problem too, and I'm beginning to wonder if “hypocrisy” may not be the word we're after.  Perhaps a better way to envision  what Jesus was trying to tell his disciples that day is “authenticity.”  Because “authenticity” is more than just the inverse of hypocrisy – it speaks to an issue rooted deep within the human condition; a question of genuineness and living into our calling as a transformed community of faith.

In his book A New And Right Spirit, author Rick Barger puts it this way: “The main calling of the church is not a matter of more programs, more strategies for membership recruitment, and more ways to meet people's needs.  It is a matter of authenticity.”  Think about that – and yes, think about it as it relates to our current season of Fall Discipleship.  The calling of this church, this congregation, is first and foremost about being authentic – being as real and as genuine and as un-show-like as we can in how we worship, how we fellowship, how we serve others, and how we respond to God's grace.  All the ministries we do here, all the “programs” we “offer,” all the many tasks we immerse ourselves in – all of them are secondary to the single pursuit of being an “authentic church.”  

Sounds great, doesn't it?  It is!  But be warned: this kind of thing can be dangerous, too.  Authenticity often comes at a price – just as people like Dieterich Bonhoeffer, Oscar Romero, Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King Jr.  Even the church itself takes on some risk in its pursuit of authenticity.  Imagine, for instance, if you logged on to a church website or opened a church information brochure to find this description: 

Here at First Authentic Presbyterian Church, you will be immersed in a story – a story that exposes much of what our world has handed to you about human life – its values and its purposes – as lies; declares our world and all of its schemes dead; and promises to put you to death and raise you to new life.  You will be so grasped by this story and pulled into our congregation that lives out of this story that you will one day find yourself at odds with the values, attitudes, and priorities of many of your neighbors, work colleagues, classmates, and maybe even your own family.

(Rick Barger, A New And Right Spirit: Creating an Authentic Church in a Consumer Culture (Alban Institute, 2005), 3)

How about that?  What kind of response do you think this would get from folks – would they close the brochure and stick it back in the rack, or click on the “X” at the top of the web page?  What kind of response do you think those people back then gave – did they turn a deaf ear to the prophet's rant; did they try to inconspicuously slip out of the gathering on the mountainside?   And yet there they are: Amos telling us that God has has it with our shows; Jesus proclaiming that the last thing prayer and generous giving needs to be about is ourselves.  The calling of the community of faith to authenticity is critical if the church is going to continue living its mission and vision in the world.  And that calling begins with each one of us.

A few years back, a congregation was looking to add on to their church facility and had decided to solicit outside help in raising funds.  A special committee was formed to conduct the interview process.  One weekday evening they gathered in the Fellowship Hall for the first presentation, a group that came armed with their top two people in tow, a slick PowerPoint presentation, pricey full-color handouts that highlighted their past accomplishments, and promises that far exceeded the moon.

About five minutes into the PowerPoint, though, one of the church members spoke up.  Excuse me, sir, would you please turn that off?  Yes, please turn it off, thank you.  The firm members were taken aback, but they did as asked.  The man continued.  Listen, we don't want to be disrespectful, but we know how marketing works, we know how fundraising works.  A lot of us here work in the business world and we watch this stuff all the time.    

The thing is, tonight we are gathered as the church.  And that means we need something different.  We're less interested in you wowing us with your presentation.  What we really want is for you to simply have a conversation with us and listen to us.  We want to know you who are, what your values and mission are, why it's important for you to be with us.  Mainly we just want to know who you really are. (Barger, A New and Right Spirit, 93-94).

“Who are you?”  What a great question for the church!  What would it look like if all churches pursued this question, not only in how they conducted a capital campaign but in how they viewed fellowship, education, nurture, mission?  What would it look like if you and I did the same in our own lives?  And what would it look like for this church to embrace authenticity in its Discipleship season – being honest about God's presence in our midst, and how you and I can faithfully respond to that presence?

That is why Jesus calls us to something instead of a show.  Instead of a show, Jesus desires authenticity.  Instead of going through the motions, Jesus calls for genuineness.  Instead of trying to “wow the crowds,” Jesus wants us to focus on wowing God.  Instead of living our lives of faith as if we have something to prove, Jesus longs for you and me to recognize that God has done all the proving God needs to do.  Instead of trying to work our way into God's embrace, Jesus wants us to accept nothing less than the grace by which we stand.

And believe me - there's nothing “showy” about that.  Thanks be to God.  AMEN.

    

LIVING THE VISION - DISCIPLING THE DISCIPLES

Matthew 5: 17-31; 33-48

Steve Lindsley

Fall Discipleship

September 13, 2009

I often wonder what it's like when you realize that it is not just any sermon you're going to be hearing, but a “Stewardship” sermon.  Or, as we call it now, a “Discipleship” sermon.  I wonder if this sort of thing excites you or elicits some level of dread, like doing taxes or getting a root canal.  Because, see, I've thought and prayed about these sermons for quite some time. I've mapped out scriptures that coordinate with future Discipleship sermons.  I've spoken with our Discipleship Ministry Team moderator,  Lee Daniels, about our theme and the message we hope to convey.   In other words, I've known for a while this was coming down the pike.

But I'm betting that for perhaps half of you, maybe more, this is catching you by surprise.  Maybe you knew today was the first Sunday of Fall Discipleship but forgot about the sermons that went along with it.  Maybe you haven't yet opened your Discipleship packet you received in the mail this past week to see what was going on.  Or maybe you are lucky enough to just be visiting today; either as a first-timer or a regular visitor!  Maybe you're sitting in your pew this morning wishing you had decided to make that extra cup of coffee an hour ago, or maybe you're wondering if there's a tactful way to slide out of here unnoticed.

Maybe so.  But I'll tell you this: I'm glad you're here this morning.  I'm glad you're hear whether you're a church member or a visitor.  I'm glad you're here whether you've pledged consistently before to the work and ministry of this church, or whether you've struggled in the past with doing that.  I'm glad that you're beginning this three-week journey with us; a journey that concludes on the first Sunday of October, when Reverend Byron Wade joins us for what will be a Dedication Sunday unlike any we've had in recent years.

I'm glad you're here – because I want you to see the new ways that we are engaging Discipleship this fall – that it is not just about dollars and cents, and more importantly it is not about looking just one year down the road.  We should never feel that the number we write on a pledge card determines the full extent of our response to the grace, mercy and love of Jesus Christ.  Nor should we ever view such a thing as an obligation – or, as one church member used to jokingly say, “paying your dues.”  Our very lives are what's involved in how we choose to follow Jesus.  And it's not just the church that's transformed by  our annual pledge.  Each of us is transformed as well.

All of this is part of the reason why we made the switch from referring to this season as “Stewardship” to  “Discipleship.”  Trust me, it is more than just a simple cosmetic change!  Did you know, for instance, that the word “disciple” is used 269 times in the New Testament; and the word “Christian” is found only three times?  Why is that, do you think?   Perhaps what it's saying to us is that, while the term “Christian” seems to express one's identity, or a group that one belongs to, “disciple” speaks more to the substance of a person – what makes them tick as one who follows Christ.

Most of the time that word is used to refer to a group of people – the twelve we collectively call “the Disciples.”  Although we know that there were more than just these dozen who get all the press time.  They were all part of the group that Jesus spoke to on the mountain that day long ago.  There were men and women, children and adults, rich and poor.  They all brought their lives to the foot of the mountain that day – lives that at varying levels were incomplete, lives that were broken, lives that needed wholeness and healing.  Lives that looked a lot like yours and mine.

If these disciples were expecting a stump speech, if they were anticipating a call to arms, if they thought they were going to get a simple pep talk, they were certainly surprised.  Instead they were treated to what amounted to something else entirely – an amazing work of art; a rhetorical painting with broad, colorful strokes that, like gazing at a Picasso for the first time, pushed the soul and mind to unchartered territory.  You know not to kill – but don't hate either!  You know not to swear falsely – but don't lie at all!  You know not to retaliate – but dare to fight violence with nonviolence!  You know to love your neighbor – but love the person who is the hardest for you to love!  With each passing moment on the mountain, Jesus unveils a new dimension of what it means to be a disciple – a dimension perhaps best revealed when he tells them:  Do not think that I have come not to abolish the law – I have come to fulfill it.

I try to imagine myself as one of the folks on the mountain that day; as one who heard Jesus speak these words.  I try to imagine, but it's hard – I am not, after all, a middle-eastern man living in first-century Palestine.  I'm not at the mercy of the brutal Roman empire; I'm not part of a people who have waited generations for the coming messiah, wondering if the man I'm listening to now could actually be it.  

I'm also not one who understands the essence of what Jesus speaks about here – the law, the torah.  But if I were, I'd know that this was more than just a simple code of conduct he was referring to – the Ten Commandments and the hundreds of other laws that fill up Leviticus and Deuteronomy.  No, I'd know that to speak of torah was to get to the very heart of God and the relationship between Creator and creation.  These laws were not simple “do’s” and “don’ts” - they were the foundation of God’s being and actions in the world.  The Torah spoke of God’s faithfulness, God’s justice, and God’s worthiness of devotion and praise.  It symbolized the heart of faith for every one of those Hebrews on the mountainside that day.

But somewhere along the line things got mixed up.  Rather than focusing on what the laws were pointing to – our relationship with God and with each other – they began fixating on the laws themselves.  The laws became not the means to an end, but the end itself.  And throughout his three years in mission Jesus would forever contend with this.  There were the Pharisees who scoffed at the way he broke the holy Sabbath by performing miracles on a day of worship.  There were the Sadducees who reacted in horror when Jesus shared company with lepers and other “unclean” folk.  There were the temple priests who tore their robes in half because just hearing him proclaim himself as God’s son was an unimaginable blasphemy.  

Jesus knew he would face this – the very natue of the gospel made it inevitable.  So when he spoke to the crowd that day, he doesn't talk about holding fast to hard rules.  More or less, he said this: I know what I say and do might seem strange to you.  I know there are those who will stop at nothing to silence me.  But understand – the last thing I desire is to lead you astray from the faith of our ancestors.  In fact, I've come not only to lead you back to it, but to complete it.  I've come to make the Torah whole again.  I've come to make YOU whole.  I've come to make you my disciples.

Seeing the big picture.  Looking beyond the “letter of the law” to the “spirit of the law.”  Like gazing upon a Picasso for the very first time.  This is what Jesus set out to do in his Sermon on the Mount – to show them that being his disciple required something more of them; more than they had perhaps been used to, more than they had ever thought  necessary.  The story of the New Testament is the story of how the followers of Jesus during and after his life maneuvered the tricky waters of discipleship – successful in some instances, not so successful in others.  

That story – and that tricky maneuvering – continues to this day, to our time and context; where we too are disciples, trying to learn what it means to follow Jesus.  It is a journey we still have much to learn about.  One contemporary Christian author made this observation:

For at least several decades the churches of the Western world have not made discipleship a condition of being a Christian. One is not required to be a disciple in order to become a Christian, and one may remain a Christian without any signs of progress toward discipleship. Contemporary American churches do not require following Christ in his example, spirit and teachings as a condition of membership...discipleship clearly is optional.

(Dallas Williard, The Spirit of The Disciplines: Understanding How God Changes Lives, HarperCollins, 1999, 258-259)

So we settle for a watered-down Christianity that focuses on perception more than reality.  We look the part – but that's all it is, just a part.  We settle for the surface, like those laws – following them to the letter, perhaps, but failing to see what they are pointing us to, or who they are pointing us to.  We very well may be believers in Christ, but we haven't yet learned – or have little interest in – becoming followers.

What do you think – is that an accurate depiction?  Is that really the state of today's church?  It seems to me, at least, that when we lose our focus on living the vision God has so graciously given us, we lose a sense of the transforming power of the gospel in our midst.  I mean, imagine with me what the church would look like if we focused our energies on being disciples to the fullest extent of the word, using Jesus' very words on the mountain to guide us:

• 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 what nationality or what creed;


• 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 the 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 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;


• And we would not simply love those near and dear to us, but we would make a point, like the Samaritan did, of extending loving kindness to the one we least feel deserving of it.

That is what being a disciple is about: it's about taking the essence of the gospel Jesus proclaimed and having it come alive within us – and not just in our heads, but in our hands, in our mouths, in our feet, in our eyes and ears, in our hearts.

It's about being transformed – the very essence of our church's Discipleship season.  It's got to be something more than just filling out a Time & Talent sheet in the spring or signing a pledge card in the fall, as if it's an “obligation” of “membership.”  It's got to be about each one of us becoming part of the transformation that takes place when followers of Christ come together as disciples, living and loving and serving in the world.  And it's not just the church that is changed in all of that – the change also takes place within us too; as we learn what it means to be a disciples of Jesus Christ.  Discipleship and transformation go hand-in-hand.

Over the course of the next few weeks, as we journey together in this season of Fall Discipleship, let me ask, as your pastor, that you ponder and pray about how God is moving you to become transformed – how you might solidify your role of discipleship in this community of faith that is First Presbyterian Church.  How together we can look beyond the letter of the law and live into the spirit of it, as God always intended.  How following Jesus transforms you and me into something different than what we were before.

Because I am convinced that the quest to follow Jesus has never been greater; the calling to discipleship never more strong.  That's why I'm glad you're here this morning, and every Sunday morning, as we worship God and fellowship with one another – even if it is Discipleship Season.  Especially if it's Discipleship Season!  Be ready to be transformed, folks!  Thanks be to God.  AMEN.

IN THE WILDERNESS: THE MIRAGE THAT TEMPTS US

Matthew 4: 1-11
Steve Lindsley
March 29, 2009

A few weeks ago I found myself in the precarious position of having to try to explain the refraction of light to a six-year old.  It was Friday Family Movie Night and we were watching, of all things, a Scooby-Doo cartoon – old-school Scooby Doo, the way it should be.  The movie began with Shaggy and the gang driving “The Mystery Machine” van around the Egyptian desert.  Then the automobile breaks down and they all have to get out.  It's very hot and they get very thirsty very quickly.  While the other three are trying to figure out what to do, Shaggy and Scooby get distracted by a large pool of water they see off in the distance.  Quickly they run to it, only to find that it's not there at all.  It's that whole refraction of light thing, their eyes playing tricks on them.  And as they're trying to figure out where the water went, red-headed Daphne turns to Fred and asks, “Should we tell them it's just a mirage?” 

The question came from our eldest as I expected it would: Daddy, what's a mirage?  And so I was  left trying to explain that a mirage is, in fact, “an optical effect caused by the bending or reflection of rays of light by a layer of heated air of varying density” (www.m-w.com).  I don't think I was very successful in getting him to understand what a mirage was.  And it didn't matter, because by the time I found that long definition in Merriam-Webster's, he'd been sucked into the rest of the cartoon.  He had long forgotten his mirage curiosity – but not me. 

And not from the Scooby-Doo movie – although it was a good movie, as far as those things go – but from our scripture reading today.  I couldn't shake the idea of a mirage as I thought about our sojourn into the wilderness this Lenten season.  This journey has taken us many places over the past few weeks – in that same Egyptian desert, by the waters of Babylon, on the outskirts of Galilee listening to a burlap-wearing prophet.  They are real places that mark real points of our journey.

And now we come upon something that is there, but isn't there.  As the gospel of Matthew tells it, it's right on the heels of the guy we met last week, John the Baptist.  John has just finished baptizing Jesus – the one he'd been speaking about all his time in the wilderness, the one whose way he was preparing, the one whose sandal he was unfit to untie.  Jesus is almost ready to begin his work that would lead him to mountaintops and valleys and eventually the cross.  He's almost ready – but not yet.  Not yet.  Because before he can do anything else, even Jesus himself had to take a trip “into the wilderness” - Matthew's words, not mine. 

He goes into the wilderness for a long period of time, without food – no walk in the park, folks.  He's a hungry guy; and perhaps his hunger plays some part in the mirages that start to form before him.  Except these mirages have little to do with the science of refracted light, and more with delusions of a different way than the one John was preparing for him.  We've come to call these mirages temptations.  Three times, Jesus is tempted to divert from the path that had been laid out before him: miraculously turning stones into bread, jumping off the high temple and living to tell about it, acquiring the kingdoms of the world.  They are just mirages, possibilities – but we are led to believe that Jesus could make them reality if he wanted to.  For Jesus they are the most trickiest place in the wilderness, “caught between promise and fulfillment” as we've been saying.

It's a fascinating exchange here between Jesus and what the New Revised Standard Version simply calls “The Tempter.”  The first appeal goes straight to the heart of Jesus' human hunger – turning stones to bread.  When that one doesn't work, the second is an attempt to cajole Jesus into a miraculous display of his power – which, interestingly enough, the Tempter backs by quoting scripture.  And the final temptation is one of world power and dominance, with Jesus at the center of it all.

Now we know this goes – Jesus refutes all three, tossing them aside with the logic and skill of a seasoned politician.  And I guess that's why the typical understanding of this story is something along the lines of a “test” that Jesus passes with flying colors; a test he had to endure before he could move forward into the work that awaited him.  And there may be something to that line of thinking, I guess.

But you know, I've always wondered if that understanding runs the risk of trivializing Jesus' time in the wilderness.  What about you?  I'm just not convinced that this served as some sort of final exam or senior project.  This was not a test.  This was the hard stuff of real life, the kind of mirages faced by humanity on a daily, hourly, second-by-second basis.  This sojourn into the wilderness was no different than the trips you and I take every time we, too, are caught between promise and fulfillment.

And that trip is complicated even further when our choices and decisions may not be so obvious – when it's not all cut and dry what we're supposed to do.  I mean, look at how we use temptation language today.  We say we're “tempted” to have that extra scoop of ice cream on our sundae when we're trying to watch what we eat.  We say we're “tempted” to tell our neighbor just exactly how we feel about his dog who keeps coming  into our yard. They're not exactly hard-core, foundational issues are they? 

No, Jesus' sojourn into the wilderness is something else entirely.  See, it's one thing when you and I are faced with choices and decisions that are obviously wrong – you know, Ten Commandment-type stuff.  You don't kill anybody.  You don't steal.  You don't lie.  But it's a whole different ball of wax when the right choice is not all that obvious.  What if you kill someone in self-defense?  What if you're stealing food to feed your starving family?  What if the lie you tell is more of a “white lie” that doesn't harm anyone? 

Take Jesus' temptations, for example.  It's not all black and white, is it?  There's a whole bunch of grey that's in there.  Can you imagine, for instance, how many millions of the world's hungry could be fed if one could turn stones into a source of food?  World hunger could be wiped out in hours – what, pray tell, is wrong with that?   Jumping off the temple and living to tell about it is a sure fire way of “wowing the crowds” and securing a mass of followers, don't you think?  And what about that last temptation – I mean, wasn't Jesus’ mission ultimately about establishing a kingdom on earth?  Wouldn’t being handed the keys to all the world’s nations be exactly what Jesus came here for, without the messiness of the cross?

That's the mirage that tempts us – when the choices you and I face are not so clear and cut and dry.  And I kind of wonder if it's this nebulousness, this grey that permeates every aspect of our lives:

• You are waiting with a few other people to board a bus. The bus pulls up and before you can board the driver gets out and goes into the convenience store to get a coffee. You and the rest of the group at your stop get on board while the driver is still inside. Do you pay the fare?


• It is 2 a.m. and you are heading home from a long business trip, delayed by a meeting that went later than expected and a bad accident on the interstate.  You're almost to your neighborhood, and as you approach the intersection the light is red.  No one else is in sight.  Do you drive through the red light?


• You run an orphanage and have had a hard time making ends meet. A car dealership offers you a new van worth $15,000 for free if you report to the government that the dealership donated a $30,000 van. You really need this van to carry on daily business. Do you agree to take the van?


• You're on a walking trail late one afternoon by yourself.  You look down and see some green paper off to the side.  As you walk over and reach down to pick it up, you notice that it's a folded $100 bill.  When you unfold it, you find that there are actually six of them.  Do you keep it for yourself?

That last one, by the way, actually happened to someone I know.  It was during our last year in seminary, and among other things going on in his life, his car was in need of some serious maintenance work – hundreds of dollars he didn't have.  He was just your typical struggling grad student who lucked across $600.  But it didn't belong to him.  So what should he have done?  What would you have done?

Ah the grey.  This is our wilderness now.  This is where so many of life's mirages happen upon us; entering into our lives like they did with Jesus.  And it's so easy for you and me to get caught up in all of this, to lose our bearings, to get sucked into the uncertainties that life can sometimes throw at us.  That's why the overarching temptation in all of this, it seems to me, is less about the choices we make, but what – or who – guides us as we make those choices.  Because at the heart of the mirage is the notion that we are the ones who forge our own course; we are the masters of our own destiny.  That was the common thread in all of Jesus' temptations: the Tempter saying, I know there's been a way prepared for you, Jesus, but I want to show you another way, one where you're in the center of it all, one where everything revolves around you.  Man, that's tempting!

You know, I wonder if maybe, just maybe, this story of Jesus in the wilderness is there in the Gospel of Matthew more for you and me than for Jesus.  I mean, it's almost as if the writer of the gospel knew what every follower of Christ would face in their own faith journey – this mirage in the wilderness, these choices that are not always clear.  I think he knew how hard it would be for the Christians of his day, and the Christians of our day, to follow Jesus, especially when it leads them straight into this grey. 

Which is why I also wonder if the real message here is not about passing a test but about taking a step back from the mirage that surrounds us and be reminded of what else we're surrounded by.  Perhaps he’s trying to show us that none of us are unto ourselves; that, as the old spiritual goes, no man is an island.  We stand firmly in the presence of a community of faith that goes back thousands of years, a community accounted for over and over again in the scriptures, a community that has spent plenty of time in the wilderness and not only lived to tell about it, but thrived in it.  So we keep our eyes firmly set on the God who holds us together – even when the temptation is to split apart, even when the temptation is to do some good on our own terms, even when the temptation is to abandon our calling and go a different way. 

I keep coming back to something the great theologian Henri Nouwen once said – about how easy it is to succumb to the temptations, the mirages of our lives because “power offers an easy substitute for the harder task.”  You know what he said the harder task was?  Love.  “It seems easier to be God than to love God,” Nouwen goes on to say; “easier to control people than to love people.” (http://homileticsonline.com)

For forty days in the desert, Jesus came face to face with the temptation to set love aside and go headfirst into the mirage in the wilderness.  The cornerstone of our faith is the fact that he didn't do that.  And so now it's our turn.  You and I are in this wilderness of Lent, in the wilderness of our lives.  And it is hard sometimes to recognize the mirage that's right in front of us.  So let's do our best to see through what really is there: a God who journeys with us wherever we go, and wants us to put our full trust in Him in everything we do.  That's what got Jesus through his time in the desert.  And it's what will get us through, too.  Thanks be to God.  AMEN.

IN THE WILDERNESS - GOOD NEWS FROM THE FRINGES

Luke 3: 1-20
Steve Lindsley
March 22, 2009

As much as I try not to, there's a distinct image I get in my head when someone brings up “John the Baptist.”  I think of this guy I encountered when I was an undergraduate at Wake Forest.  You may have heard me tell this story before.  It was a sunny spring afternoon and I was heading to my Statistics class on the first floor of Wingate Hall, directly behind Wait Chapel on the campus quad.  If you've ever been to Wake, you know that the Quad may not be the geographical center of campus, but it's pretty much where everything happens and, from time to time, where a sports victory is celebrated.  From time to time.

So I was walking across the quad to Wingate Hall; and as I got closer I heard this yelling.  Very loud yelling.  It doesn't take a whole lot for sound to travel across the Quad, so I pretty much heard it all the way; getting louder as I got closer.  I was just about in front of the bookstore when I saw its source – a man in his 40's was standing on the steps of Wait Chapel, holding what looked like a worn leather Bible.  And as students passed him by, he would point at them and tell each of them that they were going to hell.  If they responded in like kind with a few choice words of their own (usually something other than just “hell”), it only encouraged the man more.

I saw this scene unfold and my heart sank.  Not because I was worried about being yelled at (although I wasn't crazy about the idea), but because as a person of faith I was, frankly, embarrassed by his behavior.  The last thing I wanted people thinking was that Christians acted like this.  When he yelled at me I just ignored him.

I got to my class and all the conversation was about the “preacher on the steps.”  Folks were not very high on the guy, to put it mildly.  If his intention was to scare people into some kind of faith conviction, it totally backfired.  I can't repeat most of what was said in reference to him, although one guy did observe, Man – he's a regular John the Baptist.

And that was it.  So since my sophomore spring semester, that's how I picture John the Baptist.  And I don't like that I do, you know?  I wish I could see him differently. Although to be honest, he probably did his fair share of yelling.  And he was a little “out there,” too.  And he wore the equivalent of burlap for clothes.  And he ate bugs and wild honey and didn't bathe much or practice proper oral hygiene.  Hmm.  You know, the more I think about it, the more ol' Johnny may have had some things in common with that yahoo on the Wait Chapel steps.  Neither of them would win  any congeniality competition, and you probably wouldn't be inclined to invite either over for dinner.

Truth is, there aren't many characters in the New Testament more colorful than John the Baptist.  The fact that all four gospels mention him seems to suggest that he's a pretty central figure to the Jesus story.  Either that, or he's just too bombastic to overlook.  Probably a little bit of both.

He hung out on the outskirts of the city around the Jordan river - “in the wilderness” is how Luke appropriately describes it.  He baptized people in the river there and “proclaimed a gospel of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.”  Luke even quotes the prophet Isaiah to describe his message:

The voice of one crying out in the wilderness:
Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.
Every valley shall be lifted and every mountain and hill shall be made low,
And the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth;
And all flesh shall see the salvation of God.

It sounds positive, and in a sense it was – but John didn't mince words, either.  More than once John called out some in the crowd – or the whole crowd, it's kind of hard to tell – and he referred to them as “broods of vipers.”  Strangely enough, though, and quite unlike my college friends, these folks were actually convicted by his message; and they asked what they needed to do to repent.  They also wondered aloud if he himself might be the Messiah, but John shut that down pretty quick.  The one who is coming is more powerful than I, he told them.  I am not even worthy to untie the thong of his sandals.

I've always had this odd attraction to the story of John the Baptist, and the whole idea that someone who reminded me of that “preacher on the steps” could still draw the crowds he did.  I've never quite understood what brought them there; what coerced them to make the long journey through an unforgiving desert wilderness – to him.  In fact, part of me wonders if the person and the location are kind of intricately tied together.  I'm not sure that John could've given the same message in the heart of Jerusalem – outside the temple, in the marketplace.  No, it had to happen in the wilderness, away from life as everyone knew it, apart from the hustle and bustle.  Because Good News always comes from the places we least expect it – even out in the middle of nowhere from a radical preacher wearing burlap.

We now find ourselves four weeks into this journey of Lent; and our journey of going Into The Wilderness.  It's been quite a trip thus far, don't you think?  We started off with the joy and anticipation of leaving Egyptian tyranny.  Then we found ourselves hungry and thirsty when the novelty began to wear off.  Last week we were at the end of our rope, banished to a wilderness we no longer wanted, searching desperately for God's presence and finding God's absence.  And now the wilderness has led us to John the Baptist, imploring us to “prepare the way” for the embodiment of all our hopes and dreams.  It's not here yet. But it's coming very soon.  We are people who, as the quote goes, find ourselves caught between promise and fulfillment.  Out in the wilderness with John.

And for whatever reason, reasons we may not fully understand, we choose to stay there with him.  We watch him baptize people, we hear him call out those whose intentions are less than noble.  And we listen as he tells us what we need to do:

Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none;
and whoever has food must do likewise.
Tax collectors should collect no more than the amount prescribed;
Soldiers should not extort money from anyone by threats or false accusations.

You know what's interesting about this?  All four of the gospels, as I mentioned before, talk about John the Baptist.  But Luke's gospel is the only one that has Jesus saying this.  The others focus on his initial message – Repent and be saved!   But Luke doesn't stop there.  For Luke, “Preparing the way” was not just about acknowledging the wrong that's been done in the past.  It's about turning away from that wrong and turning toward something new, which is what the word “repent” actually means.  It's about actually taking steps into that newness – living into the change that's taken place.  That's what John's message leads us to.  That's how we prepare for Jesus.

This past week I got to attend a church conference at Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary.  There were three speakers at the event, and I doubt their names would mean much to you.  But they are part of a widening group of Christian scholars, pastors and educators that's being referred to as “emerging Christianity.”  It's a term that tries to capture how some people of faith are responding to the changing landscape of our culture – and thereby our church.  And there's no better snapshot of this change than a recent study on religion in America.  Perhaps you heard about it.  Fifteen years ago, some 86-87 percent of people categorized themselves as “Christian” - more recently, that number has dropped to the low 70's.  Every denomination experienced declines, with the lone exception begin those who classified themselves as “non-denominational.”  And the only religion category that showed any significant increase during that time was the group of folks who put a check by “none of the above.”

One of the speakers was named Brian McLaren; and in his lecture he showed a powerful picture that he felt demonstrated the current struggles – and opportunities – for the church.  It was a picture of the aftermath of a powerful hurricane that hit a country in South America a few years ago.  The storm was so destructive that it cut a new path for a river that ran through the area, forever altering its trajectory.  And in its aftermath it left a section of a bridge that once crossed it, about a half-football field in length, sitting out in an open area, both of its ends washed away.  It was totally unusable and served only to remind folks of what once was there; what once was “usable.”  Trying to do something with this bridge section would make no sense.  The only thing they could do was build a new bridge over the new river. 

That old bridge, McLaren suggested, is like the old way of doing and being the church; and it's not working anymore.  Something has changed around us – and if we try to respond the way we've always responded before, it's like trying to utilize a bridge that cannot be accessed and doesn't go anywhere.  A new church must come out of the storm of change – not a different church, because the heart of the gospel stays the same.  God's love for us stays the same.  Jesus' life for us stays the same.  But a new way of doing and being the church.  And this change that the church faces – this emerging church – is not a burden or something we should be afraid of.  It's a tremendous opportunity to be relevant again; to renew our sense of call and mission as a community of faith.  It's not changing the church to fit the culture.  It's changing us to go where God leads.

As I was at this conference, also putting the pieces together for today's sermon, it occurred to me that these speakers bore a striking resemblance to John the Baptist, without the burlap or wild honey.  They help us “prepare the way” across the wilderness where crooked paths are made straight and mountains made low.  They serve to remind us that the church's mission, like so much in our world, is constantly changing and evolving; and so must we.  They also remind us that, like John the Baptist, there will be many who do not care for this message.  One of the speakers told us that she's created a folder in her email account simply titled “Hate Mail,” and you can guess what kind of emails she drags over there.

John the Baptist told those people in the wilderness – and tells us – that God's mission is always changing, always evolving; and you and I need to be in tune with that. We need to participate  in it, rather than fight God's movement in the world.  And we do this not by focusing on ourselves, but by focusing on one another. Clothing the cold and naked.  Feeding the hungry.  Treating people with grace and mercy.  The church is not an institution in the business of selling people a product – heaven, salvation, forgiveness.  The church is a community of faith, called together by God, to love one another incessantly.

And the truth of the matter is this: we are not just there with John the Baptist out in the wilderness.  We are John the Baptist, commissioned with the same task of telling and living the good news from the fringes: Prepare the Way of the Lord; make his path straight.  And we do this not only with our words but with our actions, such as the Spring Discipleship that Lee kicked off for us last week.  We look for ways to become actively involved in the body of Christ – not because we feel guilted into it, not because we're supporting an institution.  We do these things because they are a natural byproduct of what happens when people build a new bridge to cross the wilderness after the storm, rather than trying to make the old one work.

We may not wear burlap sacks or eat wild honey – but we are messengers in the wilderness, screaming at the top of our lungs.  What an exciting and wonderful thing it is to be out there, don't you think?  Thanks be to God.  AMEN.

IN THE WILDERNESS - BROOM TREES AND WEEPING WILLOWS

1 Kings 19: 1-9, Psalm 137: 1-9
Steve Lindsley
March 15, 2009

You've no doubt heard the expression before: A picture is worth a thousand words.  There are some images that are familiar enough to us that words aren't really all that necessary in describing them; images that evoke deep emotions and thought and reflection.  I've got a few of these images for you this morning. Check these out:

   

    Here's one – remember this?  John Kennedy Jr. saluting at the funeral procession of his father.

   
   

   

    Another classic – the cover of the Beatles' album Abbey Road

   

    We all remember this like it was yesterday....

 

    Here's a face we'll never forget....

       

       

        .....or this one!

   

    

  

Here's the infamous picture of the “Loch-ness monster” - except it     really wasn't a monster.  The guy put a six-inch stick in the water     and snapped a photo, and the world fell for it.  Proof positive that     you see what you want to see!

   
   
   

These images conjure something from within us – sorrow at the sight of little Johnny saluting, pride in watching the US flag raised over the ruins of 9-11.  We see the cover of Abbey Road and we can almost hear the opening bass riff of “Come Together.”  We see the face of perhaps the greatest mind of the 20th century, sticking his tongue out like a gradeschool kid.  These pictures summon thoughts and feelings within us that go far beyond words.

So let me share with you another image, one that's probably not easily recognized:

   

It's what's called a “broom tree,” and it grows in  desert climates, particularly in the Middle East.  There's not a whole lot to them – some scraggly branches that intertwine and grow in and around itself.  Some greenery may occasionally grow on them, but not much.  Suffice to say that planting a bunch of these in your front yard would not yield recognition from the Mount Airy Appearance Commission!

Now I want to further this image a bit; add something to it. I want you to picture this broom tree, but now I want you to imagine a man sitting underneath it.  He is in his mid-60's, perhaps, but he looks much older.  He is bent over, hunched down on the ground.  He has his head in his hands so you can't see his face – but if you could, you'd see that his eyes are closed and his features are void of spirit.  He is sitting underneath this broom tree because he has retreated into this desert – this wilderness – to save his life.  There are people looking for him – people who want to cash in on the bounty on his head.  If they find him, they will take his life.  So he is there underneath this broom tree, because it is the only thing that will provide him any comfort, any relief from the merciless sun above.  This.  He is in agony, emotionally and spiritually. 

The man's name is Elijah, and right now the last place he should be is in the desert under this pitiful broom tree.  He should be on Cloud 9 – the toast of the town, the man of honor in the lead float of the victory parade.  There had been a contest between him and the other prophets to see who was superior – Yahweh or the god of the Canaanites.  His win could not have been more convincing.  And yet all it did was anger the queen more; and she put a bounty on his head, leaving him with no choice but to run away and hide.

So instead of basking in the glory, he's baking in the sun.  Instead of being vindicated, he's now a hunted man.  Instead of knowing his mission in life, he is consumed by uncertainty.  And instead of finding solace from the mid-day sun, he can only muster the “shade” of a broom tree. 

Quite an image, isn't it?  Let me describe another imagine for you; another kind of tree.  This one is a willow tree – a willow tree just a stone's throw from a river in the land of Babylon.   The willow tree grows quickly with long, flowing branches and tiny leaves that hang down, almost like a canopy of sorts.     

But there's something else besides leaves in those branches.  There are musical instruments hanging in the branches; small harps and a few lyres as well.  They were put there by the people lying underneath them, whose body language looks eeriengly similar to Elijah's.  One has her head in her hands.  The other is hunched over his lap so you can't see his face.  And the third is leaning up against the second; their arm draped on his back.

They are the Hebrew people, and they are the owners of the harps and lyres.  They've hung their instruments in the trees because they can't play them anymore.  They haven't forgotten how to play them, they just don't have the heart to play them.  They are emotionally and spiritually bankrupt; the musical muse has left town.  Actually, they are the ones who have left town – ripped from their beloved Jerusalem, their homeland; now exiles in a strange and foreign land.  They have made the journey from familiar surroundings into the unfamiliar wilderness.  They are there underneath the willow tree by the waters of Babylon, but all they can think of is where they are not.  And even though their captors mockingly ask them to “sing a song of Zion,” they can't.  They could make themselves hold the instruments and press flesh on metal strings and strum, but the sound would not be like it used to be.  The song has left them.  And they wonder: how will they ever sing the Lord's song in a foreign land?

These images are images of the wilderness.  They are different than the ones we've encountered in the first two weeks of our Lenten journey; images of a people freed from Egyptian tyranny or images of water gushing from a rock.  This sermon today is not about those moments of salvation or redemption or homecomings.  They're not about those things because the truth of the matter is that the wilderness is not always about the happy ending.  It's not always about a future of promise and hope, or where the novelty of the journey begins to wear off.

Now, at this place in the wilderness, we find ourselves at wits end.  We're beyond simple novelty.  The wilderness is not a place we go to intentionally or willingly.  It's one that we are dragged to, forced to; uprooted from our homes or fleeing for our very life.    And we take into that wilderness all our anguish, all our desperation, all our hopelessness, and even our anger.  And we just sit there with it.  We try to find shade from the merciless sun, but all we can muster is a pathetic little broom tree.  We try to sing the songs of old – hymns that infuse our spirit and remind us of better times.  But we can't even pluck the strings.  We can't sing the notes.  All we can do is hang them in the tree branches where they painfully remind us of what we can do no longer. 

This is the nature of the wilderness sometimes.  And it is also the nature of our Lenten journey, and the journey of our faith.  We don't like it, but it is what it is.  There are times where we come face-to-face with Elijah's anguish and despair, where we feel that nothing we do matters anymore.  There are times when we encounter the same bitter ambivalence and anger that the Israelites felt by the waters of Babylon. 

Our instinct, of course, is to want to avoid this part of the journey; to sidestep it, to take a detour around it.  But as much as we'd like otherwise, we can't choose where the journey takes us.  Some parts of the journey cannot be avoided.  Some parts of the journey have to happen, whether we like it or not.  I think of the Footprints In The Sand poem – you know, where the man has a dream that he's walking on a beach with God as scenes of his life flash before him?  You remember.  He notices that during the good scenes of his life there are two sets of footprints in the sand – him and God, journeying together.  But during the bad scenes there is only one set of footprints.  And he assumes that it's his, and that God has abandoned him.  Just like Elijah under the broom tree, and the Israelites by the waters of Babylon. 

We know how that feels don't we?  We've been there before – maybe it's been a while, maybe more recently.  Maybe right now.  And we know the anguish of the wilderness is only a temporary state and that, like the ravens that brought Elijah cakes and waters, God will one day come to our aid.  Like the people who eventually returned home to Jerusalem, God hasn't forgotten about us.  Like the man in the dream who discovered that the one set of footprints belonged to God, and it was God carrying him, like that man we know God will see us through whatever life can dish out.  We know our sojourn into the depths of the wilderness won't last forever.

But sometimes what we know in our heads is not at all what we feel in our hearts.  Sometimes the light at the end of the tunnel is too far away for us to see.   It was that way for Jesus too, as he encountered a tree of sorts in his own wilderness, hung on a cross.  And in the midst of his agony that was physical, emotional and spiritual, he cried out: My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?  It was a psalm he was quoting – the first verse of the 22nd psalm.  It goes on to say this:

Why are you so far from helping me, from the words of my groaning?
O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer;
and by night, but find no rest.

Sometimes the wilderness is like that.  It's like the 22nd psalm, which goes on for 31 verses, waffling back and forth between bold proclamations of faith and complaints of a world crashing around them; and a God who seems to have wandered off somewhere.

Sometimes the wilderness is like that.  It's where we feel God's absence.  But in a strange sort of way, a way we can't understand, a way that goes beyond words, it is also where we feel God's presence too.  Maybe not in the way we're used to.  Maybe not in the way we want to.  But God is there – somewhere in the midst of our wilderness.

Which brings me to one last image to describe to you.  Imagine with me a group of me on a boat.  They are fisherman – more specifically, they are disciples of Jesus tending to their day job.  A storm suddenly descends upon them, and the calm and cool waters turn vicious and angry in a matter of minutes.  The boat careens back and forth; and the men realize that if they lose they boat they will lose their lives as well.  They are in the depths of their journey into the wilderness.

And then quite unexpectedly, through the storm and the surge and the waves, a man comes walking to them.  It is Jesus.  He comes to them in the midst of their storm, in the midst of their time of greatest need, when they thought all was lost.  Jesus comes to them, right where they are.

   

We've been talking about how the wilderness stories of the Bible are stories of a people caught between promise and fulfillment.  If that's the case, then perhaps sometimes the wilderness is where God's people encounter both God's painful absence as well as God's most acute presence.  When our spirit has been emptied, when we are left trying to find shade underneath a broom tree or hanging our instruments in the willows' branches – when we feel we can go no lower, God comes to us.  Maybe not emphatically; maybe not in a way we may easily recognize.  But God comes to us. 

God comes to us in the hand we feel on our shoulder at the funeral home.  God comes to us in the smile from across the room.  God comes to us in familiar routines amidst unfamiliar circumstances.  God comes to us in the new morning sunlight that follows a sleepless night.  God comes to us in a single set of footprints in the sand, or through the threatening storm surge.  God comes to us in broom trees and weeping willows, both reminding us of what we've lost and reminding us of all we still have.

God comes.  And that, my friends, that is an image that needs no words.  That is an image will stick with us for a long, long time.  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.