Williard on Church

"We must flatly say that one of the greatest contemporary barriers to meaningful spiritual formation in Christlikeness is the overconfidence in the spiritual efficacy of 'regular church services,' of whatever kind they may be. Though they are vital, they are not enough. It is that simple." ~Dallas Willard, Renovation of the Heart

Visual Aesthetics in Worship

"But we must listen carefully to this generation and reread Scripture in the light of their dreams and fears. Then perhaps we will present the gospel and plan our worship in ways that respond to their quest and reintegrate words and image. It is possible that we might actually win the battle of words but lose the battle of images. And losing that battle could well cost us this generation." ~William Dyrness in Visual Faith

Entertainment or Worship?

"Oh brother or sister, God calls us to worship, but in many instances we are in entertainment, just running a poor second to theaters." ~A.W. Tozer

Program or Worship?

"Most Christians are too busy to worship, and many church services are so filled with man-made promotion that God is almost forgotten. People go to church to be spectators at a religious program, not participants in spiritual worship." ~Warren W. Wiersbe

"A People of Mission"

Isaiah 42:5-7 Thus says God, the Lord, who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spread out the earth and what comes from it, who gives breath to the people upon it and spirit to those who walk in it: 6 I am the Lord, I have called you in righteousness, I have taken you by the hand and kept you; I have given you as a covenant to the people, a light to the nations, 7 to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness.

Matthew 28:18-20 And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

  

Sermon: I chose two scriptures for this morning because I want to talk about a consistent theme we find in the scriptures. Both of the scriptures we just heard have it. They both call a particular people to do something. In the passage from Isaiah, we hear a reference to a very consistent theme in the Old Testament. The Jewish people were called to be righteous for a purpose. Collectively, in their righteousness or unrighteousness, represented God’s covenant with the rest of humanity. They were called to be righteous precisely because that act would serve as a “light to the nations.” That means that the law and God’s covenant with the Jewish people had been meant for universal purposes all along. God had wanted his people to bear witness of his love to the world even in those days.

Abraham’s descendants were called to, “to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness.” The imagery is strong. It reminds me of the story we find in Plato where prisoners are born into darkness – a place where they can only see shadows – until one gets free and eventually makes his way out of the cave and into the light where he sees truth for the first time. And then, what does he do? He goes back into the cave to try and tell the other prisoners.

So it is with the passage from Matthew as well. It’s often referred to as the Great Commission. It’s called this because it’s the last great command that Jesus gives us. It’s the moment before he ascends into heaven and so he tells us what we must do – they’re powerful last words. So when Jesus tells us to go and make disciples of all nations, he’s repeating a theme we can find in the Old Testament – that the Good News of God’s faithfulness to us needs to be shared. That we are called to obedience and faithfulness because our actions are a testimony to our witness. Our actions are a testimony of the faith we claim to profess.

Illustration: So now we’re going to play a bit of a game. I’m sure many of you remember the game Pictionary. We’re going to play a little bit of that this morning!

• Draw – Discipleship
• Draw – Evangelism
• Draw – A Christian
• Draw – A Church Talk about those illustrations…

Sermon Continued: Here’s the thing. I don’t think we, or I, or American Christianity in general have done a really great job at following Jesus’ last command to us. I think we’ve made some omissions from the Great Commission. I think that many churches in our context have assumed a “let them come to us” mentality. We assume that people are already Christian, or that they were raised Christian, and that they’re all going to have some sort of interest in church after they wear out the indulgent temptations of youth. But maybe we were wrong about this all along. Maybe the rates of church attendance have been declining over the years because we’ve failed to do church right all along.

  

Church isn’t about a building where people inevitably find themselves, although that might occasionally be the case, it’s about a people who are called into discipleship. And people who are called into discipleship inevitably do mission. We are all missionaries! We’re missionaries wherever we go. The only question is what we’re testifying to when we go about our lives. So let me ask you, when your friends, relatives, and neighbors think about you what do they think? What do they see? What would they say you prioritize most in your life? What gods might they say you worship?

In a really wonderful book, the late Dallas Willard wrote that Western Christianity, particularly in its American context, has made two great omissions from the Great Commission.

Two Omissions from the Great Commission:[1]

1. Making disciples

2. Taking either converts or baby Christians through training that will bring them ever-increasingly to do what Jesus directed.

His claim is that we’ve become so wrapped up in a cultural conception of Christianity that we’ve forfeited the very things that animate our faith. Instead of proclaiming the Good News to the people in our lives, we’ve settled for isolation. We’ve settled for a state where we put up a sign that implicitly says, “Come hang out with people just like you.” We don’t say that directly of course. But our Christian subculture seems to really enjoy its isolation. When we hear someone challenge the authority of scripture, we get defensive because we don’t think they’ve been respectful enough of something they don’t hold in the same esteem as us. Large segments of the Church – as it exists in the United States – retreats when confronted with the challenge of mission. We’ve grown accustomed to hiding in buildings with people just like ourselves.

  

But this isn’t what Jesus called us to do. This isn’t what Jesus’ life illustrated. He didn’t spend all of his time in the Temple or synagogues. Jesus spent his time with tax-collectors, hookers, homeless people, fishermen, political revolutionaries, the sick, and the dying. In other words, Jesus went where the people were. He didn’t hide among the holy men or scribes. He lived with people who were incredibly flawed; and in that action gave the world hope. Discipleship seems like a big word, but all it really means is that we follow Jesus. But it’s also helpful to think about what non-discipleship means.

Non-discipleship costs:

• abiding peace
• a life penetrated throughout by love
• faith that sees everything in the light of God’s overriding governance for good
• hopefulness that stands firm in the most discouraging of circumstances
• power to do what is right and withstand the forces of evil

In short, it costs you the abundance that Jesus came to bring you.

So when I read about studies like the National Survey on Youth and Religion I’m a bit horrified. For a couple of generations now the church in the United States has been raising religious people whose faith sociologists refer to as “Moralistic Therapeutic Deism.” A title that’s usually defined as follows:

Moralistic Therapeutic Deism – “religion helps you feel good and do good, but God pretty much stays out of the way. Now, you can call on God if you need God to solve a problem, but God's track record on solving problems is pretty bad. So the primary God-images that the kids had were either as the "cosmic therapist" or the "divine butler." The therapist serves as the one who helps you feel good about yourself; the guidance counselor image comes to mind here when working with teenagers. The divine butler is somebody who comes when called upon but otherwise stays away.” [2]

The problem with this worldview is that it’s too self-serving. If we settle for a faith that just tells people to be nice to each other, we’re cutting ourselves short. Moralistic Therapeutic Deism falls short of the high ideals Jesus lays out for discipleship; and, for the Church. Theologically, the church is supposed to exist for the world. We don't exist to perpetuate ourselves or to make ourselves happy. It's nice if that can happen, but that's not the purpose. If anything, that might be a fringe benefit. The Gospel story that animates the church is about self-giving love and dying in order to live.

Missiologists, people who study missions and evangelism, often talk about a tension between irrelevance and syncretism. When Christians don’t adapt to the culture and incarnate the Gospel in ways that are relevant to the people – they’re irrelevant. When Christians adapt to the culture too much and become indistinct from it, they’re syncretized with it and lost the unique value that they could have offered. This is what Moralistic Therapeutic Deism is. It’s a faith that is too compromised, too enculturated, to be properly considered Christian.

  

Yes, we want our kinds to be good people – to not kill people – and we want them to be happy, but we don’t need Christianity for that! God isn’t our cosmic therapist and He’s not out divine butler. Christianity really boils down to discipleship. “Do you want to follow Jesus?” Do you want to answer his call to discipleship – to follows his instructions and spreading the Good News of that path? The story of Jesus is the story of resurrection amidst death. It’s the story of empowerment. It’s the path where all those hollow feelings of meaninglessness and isolation can be healed. It’s a life-long walk that breathes life into the world. That’s our task. We are a chosen priesthood empowered to go and make disciples, to go and breathe hope and meaning into a world that doesn’t have it.

And so it is that we can see ourselves and the Great Commission in the following passage from the book of Ezekiel Chapter 37:

The hand of the Lord came upon me, and he brought me out by the spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. 2 He led me all around them; there were very many lying in the valley, and they were very dry. 3 He said to me, “Mortal, can these bones live?” I answered, “O Lord God, you know.” 4 Then he said to me,

Prophesy to these bones, and say to them: O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord God to these bones: I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. I will lay sinews on you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live; and you shall know that I am the Lord.

7 So I prophesied as I had been commanded; and as I prophesied, suddenly there was a noise, a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone. 8 I looked, and there were sinews on them, and flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them; but there was no breath in them. 9 Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, mortal, and say to the breath: Thus says the Lord God:

Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.

10 I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood on their feet, a vast multitude. 11 Then he said to me, “Mortal, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say, ‘Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely.’ 12 Therefore prophesy, and say to them, Thus says the Lord God: I am going to open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people; and I will bring you back to the land of Israel. 13 And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people. 14 I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you on your own soil; then you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken and will act, says the Lord.”

May the Lord bless our reflection upon His Word this morning. Amen.

[1] Dallas Willard, The Great Omission: Reclaiming Jesus’s Essential Teachings on Discipleship (San Francisco, CA: Harper Collins, 2006).

[2] Kenda Creasy Dean, “Almost Christian: An Interview with Kenda Creasy Dean” on Pathos (June 22, 2010): http://www.patheos.com/Resources/Ad...

“‘Pentecost’ and other Weird Church Words”

John 14:8-27

Scripture:

Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.” ⁹ Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? ¹⁰ Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own; but the Father who dwells in me does his works. ¹¹ Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; but if you do not, then believe me because of the works themselves. ¹² Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father. ¹³ I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. ¹⁴ If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it.

¹⁵ “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. ¹⁶ And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. ¹⁷ This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you.

¹⁸ “I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you. ¹⁹ In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live. ²⁰ On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. ²¹ They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me; and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them.” ²² Judas (not Iscariot) said to him, “Lord, how is it that you will reveal yourself to us, and not to the world?” ²³ Jesus answered him, “Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. ²⁴ Whoever does not love me does not keep my words; and the word that you hear is not mine, but is from the Father who sent me.

²⁵ “I have said these things to you while I am still with you. ²⁶ But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you. ²⁷ Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.

Sermon:

When I was thinking about my sermon over the course of this week, I came to a startling realization. I didn’t know what “Pentecost” was. Sure I knew that it was the day when we celebrate the story of the Upper Room. A story where the disciples are gathered together, after Jesus’ ascension, and a strong wind breaks in through the windows and suddenly flames of fire appeared above everyone’s heads. When I was a little boy I always imagined that must have made some bald guy really happy!

So then, after everyone gets their flame-on, a lot of them go outside and talk to people in languages that they didn’t know before. Everyone is, of course, startled. But Peter gets up and delivers a sermon and a bunch of people get saved. This was the coming of the Holy Spirit. But as I was preparing for this week, I realized that I had no idea why that had anything to do with Pentecost. I kept asking myself, “What five things are costing someone something?”

So I did some reading and discovered some pretty interesting things. One of the interesting things I found is that there’s a sharp distinction between a Jewish Pentecost and a Christian one. “The Jewish Pentecost was a harvest feast that commemorated the covenant and was assigned to the fiftieth day after Passover.”[1] The Passover is that time when the descendants of Abraham were stuck in Egypt as slaves and God instructed them to make a sacrifice and put blood over the posts to their front door in order to avoid a plague – story that symbolizes God’s provision and work of deliverance for his people.

But to get back on point, the Jewish Pentecost happens fifty days after Passover. So let’s think now… What were we doing fifty days ago? We were celebrating Easter!

At the time Jesus was alive Passover wasn’t just a one day thing. It went on for a while and that’s when Jesus was crucified and resurrected. So it is perhaps quite understandable that early Christians would draw a direct connection between Passover and the Resurrection. The harvest feast that occurred fifty days after the Passover wasn’t really all that important anymore, because the preceding and more significant holiday had changed. For Christians it was Easter.

So by the time we get to the year 300 AD, Pentecost had also become a Christian holiday. So much so that the Council of Elvira prescribed that we should all celebrate it.[2] But this new, reinterpreted, holiday was a bit different. Initially, it wasn’t really separated from Ascension Sunday (last week) when we recognize Christ’s ascension to heaven. But by the time we get a little further on it focused in on the story many of us are probably familiar with – the account from Acts.

One thing we might not remember though, is that Pentecost Sunday is the last day of the Easter season. You see Pentecost literally means “fifty days” and for a couple thousand years now, or at least 1700, Christians have celebrated Easter as a season for fifty days following the actual day we think of. In this time we’re supposed to be joyous and reflective on how we too will be resurrected. And it concludes with this day, today, where we in many regards recognize the birthday of the Church – the day when the Holy Spirit descended and inhabited the Church.

Consequently, there are a number of scriptures that are used on this particular occasion. As most of you probably realize, there are some scriptures that fit occasions better than others. One of the popular prophecies that’s used refers to the time when the church will become the anti-Babel, an assembly of formerly divided human beings who have been united by the work of the Spirit. As one early commentator wrote, “the Spirit brought all the estranged races into unity and offered to the Father the first fruits of all the peoples.”[3] The second Old Testament text that’s usually used refers to the time when the Spirit will write a new law onto the hearts of human beings. The third, prophecies to a day when the gift of the Spirit will cause a new people of God to rise from the dead.

The passage I decided to have read before us today records Jesus’ promise that the disciples will not be left alone. Its words of encouragement tell us, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.” We hear about peace precisely because Jesus wants to alleviate any tension or anxiety about a lack of guidance following his ascension into heaven. He wants to console his disciples and let them know that they won’t be alone – that the Spirit of God will reside with them and guide them in obedience and in truth. To my eyes, the passage seems to imply that obedience and truth exist together simultaneously – codependent, interrelated, and dialectical. To be obedient one must think, but to think clearly one must be obedient. But in both cases, we will fail unless we are given outside help – the work of the Holy Spirit.

So it seems to me that this passage is a message of comfort precisely because it’s a moment when Jesus tells his disciples that they don’t need to fret or worry over their ability to follow and be obedient once Jesus is gone. God’s presence and guidance never leaves our side. Instead, we can rest assured that the Holy Spirit rests with us and helps guide us towards the best decisions we can make, so long as we open our hearts to a state of obedience and searching.

In some ways, I think that a theology of the Holy Spirit inevitably leads to a theology of humility. When we learn and think about the work of the Holy Spirit, we learn about our own incapacities to live a righteous life apart from grace both individually and collectively. We learn about our limits and the way God acts in our lives to overcome of deficiencies and heal us. The Holy Spirit dwells with us precisely so we can grow into and participate within that weird thing Jesus always referred to – the Kingdom of God. If we let it, the Holy Spirit will lead us towards a place within God’s continuous work of recreation and rejuvenation.

As some of you know, my father’s family has deep roots in the Assemblies of God. My father and I went to the oldest Assemblies of God college in the country –Bethany University. When he went there it was called, Bethany Bible College. So I would say that I’ve spent a lot of time in Pentecostal chapel services and services. As the name even implies, Pentecostals take Pentecost very seriously. They celebrate it because they think it can be a call to revival. If you’d like, we can have a conversation about ‘tongues’ and all that rather eccentric stuff a later on.

But needless to say, I don’t consider myself Pentecostal. I was always the kid who sat in the back of chapel and cracked jokes with the debate team. For many people, it’s a tradition rich with emotional appeal – it brings the heart into a wondrous cornucopia of feelings, both highs and lows. But for me, I also tend to think that it’s a tradition that lacks a life of the mind. Some within it are trying to become more thoughtful and many others are trying to take the Bible seriously. The details of their internal fight between Evangelicals (who are driven by the missionary community) and the Fundamentalists (who are driven by American mega-churches) is their own thing and something we could talk about later if you’d like.

But there’s one thing I think the Pentecostals get right and that’s the significance of Pentecost. I think that focusing in too much on the flames of fire and tongues thing might miss the point a bit, but the recognition and reorientation around the event seems appropriate to me. It’s the day when the Spirit of God descended to dwell with humanity. It’s the day when the Church gained the guiding voice, not just of the scriptures, but of the Spirit which propels us – if we let it – towards all things good. It’s the day when peace came to dwell in our hearts because we know that God stands within and among us. So in this respect then, I think that it’s a glorious holiday – the last day of the Easter season. It’s a time to celebrate.

So I’d like to conclude with a poem from T.S. Eliot entitled Little Gidding:

. . . The dove descending breaks the air
With flame of incandescent terror
Of which the tongues declare
The one dischage from sin and error.
The only hope, or else despair
Lies in the choice of pyre of pyre-
To be redeemed from fire by fire.

Who then devised the torment? Love.
Love is the unfamiliar Name
Behind the hands that wove
The intolerable shirt of flame
Which human power cannot remove.
We only live, only suspire
Consumed by either fire or fire . . .

---

[1] Pierre Jounel, The Church at Prayer: An Introduction to the Liturgy, ed. Aimé-Georges Martimort (Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 1986), p. 59.

[2] H.T. Bruns, Canones Apostolorum et Conciliorum (Berlin: Reimer, 1839) 2:7.

[3] St. Irenaeus.

Foucault and Humanism

"Man is disappearing in philosophy," he explained in 1968, "not as an object of knowledge, but as the subject of liberty and of existence."

Foucault, "Foucault répond à Sartre" (interview with J.-P. Elkabbach), in Dits et écrits, vol. I, 1954-1969, p. 664.

"In a 1979 letter to the Iranian Prime Minister, Paras points out, Focault mentioned 'human rights' no less than four times, and 'rights' and additional seven." 

Michael C. Behrent, "Liberalism without Humanism" in Foucault and Neoliberalism, eds. Daniel Zamora and Michael C. Behrent (Malden, MA: Polity Press, 2016), p. 28.  Citing: E. Paras, Foucault 2.0: Beyond Power and Knowledge (New York: Other Press, 2006), p. 97.

Foucault's Rejection of Humanism

"Our task, is to emancipate ourselves definitively from humanism."

Foucault, "Entretien avec Madeleine Chapsal," in Foucault, Dits et écrits, vol. I, 1954-1969, ed. D. Defert, F. Ewald, and J. Langrange (Paris: Gallimard, 1994), p. 516.

Foucault's Interview with Paul Rabinow

"I think I have in fact been situated in most of the squares on the political checkerboard, on after another and sometimes simultaneously: as anarchist, leftist, ostentatious or disguised Marxist, nihilist or secret anti-Marxist, technocrat in the service of Gaullism, new liberal, etc... None of these descriptions is important by itself; taken together, on the other hand, they mean something. And I must admit I rather like what they mean." M. Foucault, "Polemics, Politics, and Problematizations," trans. Lydia Davis, in The Foucault Reader, ed. P. Rabinow (New York: Pantheon Books, 1984), 383-4.

Foucault, Biopolitics, and Liberalism

"With the emergence of political economy, with the introduction of the restrictive principle in governmental practice itself, an important substitution, or doubling rather, is carried out, since the subjects of right on which political sovereignty is exercised appear as a population that a government must manage."

"[p. 32] This is the point of departure for the organizational line of a 'biopolitics.' But who does not see that this is only part of something much larger, which [is] this new governmental reason? Studying liberalism as the general framework of biopolitics."

Michel Foucault, "Footnotes" in The Birth of Biopolitics, ed. Michel Senellart, trans. Graham Burchell (New York: Picadore, 2008), p. 22

Seneca on Freedom

"The soul stands on unassailable grounds, if it has abandoned external things; it is independent in its own fortress; and every weapon that is hurled falls short of the mark. Fortune has not that long reach with which we credit her; she can seize none except him that clings to her. Let us recoil from her as far as we are able." Seneca, Letters to Lucilius, pp. 82 & 5.

Foucault on Socrates's Unexamined Life Quote

"In order to formulate what is both a general principle and an attitudinal schema, Epictetus refers to Socrates and to the aphorism stated in the Apology: 'An unexamined life [anexetastos bios] is not worth living.' In reality, the examination Socrates was talking about was the one to which he intended to subject both himself and others apropos of ignorance, knowledge, and the non-knowledge of this ignorance. The examination Epictetus talks about is completely different: it is an examination that deals with representations, that aims to 'test' them, to 'distinguish' (diakrinein) one from another and thus to prevent one from accepting the 'first arrival.' [...] This inspection is a test of power and a guarantee of freedom: a way of always making sure that one will not become attached to that which does not come under our control." Foucault, "The Care of Self," in The History of Sexuality, Vol. 3 (New York: Vintage Books, 1988), pp. 63-64.

Seneca on Training for War

"In days of peace the soldier performs maneuvers, throws up earthworks with no enemy in sight, and wearies himself with gratuitous toil, in order that he may be equal to unavoidable toil. If you would not have a man flinch when crisis comes, train him before it come." Seneca, Letters to Lucilius, pp. 18 & 6.

Foucault speaking of Artemidorus and Greek Sexuality

"Sexual dreams foretell the dreamer's destiny in social life; the actor that he is on the sexual stage of the dream anticipates the role that he will play in the theater of family life, professional endeavor, and civic affairs."

"There exists in Greek - and in many other languages as well, to varying degrees - a very pronounced ambiguity between the sexual meaning and the economic meaning of certain terms."

Foucault, "Dream and Act" in History of Sexuality, Vol. 3 (New York: Vintage Books, 1988), p. 27.

Plato - Spirit, Appetites, and Wisdom

"When he has quieted both spirit and appetites, he arouses his third part in which wisdom resides and thus takes his rest; you know that it is then that he best grasps reality." Plato, The Republic

Walking In God's Promises

Isaiah 30:18-21

Scripture:

Therefore the Lord waits to be gracious to you;
    therefore he will rise up to show mercy to you.
For the Lord is a God of justice;
    blessed are all those who wait for him.

¹⁹ Truly, O people in Zion, inhabitants of Jerusalem, you shall weep no more. He will surely be gracious to you at the sound of your cry; when he hears it, he will answer you. ²⁰ Though the Lord may give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, yet your Teacher will not hide himself any more, but your eyes shall see your Teacher. ²¹ And when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left, your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, “This is the way; walk in it.” 

Sermon:

Introduction – As most of you know, I tend to have a normative form or style that I fall into when I preach. When I interviewed here with the search committee I even mentioned that I’m a teaching pastor. Or to put it another way, that my sermons are often educational in nature.

That’s part of who I am and what my ministry is about. But I also know that the work of a pastor is not limited to education. It’s not limited to the moment I get up here to deliver a profoundly rich exegetical understanding of some obscure biblical text and some hermeneutical extrapolation about how that’s relevant to your life. I certainly I hope I do that sometimes! 

But I’m also concerned with making time and space for other kinds of moments in our weekly time together. We are, after all, people and people are complicated and sometimes we don’t need to hear rich theology from the book of Romans, although that is certainly edifying and profitable. It’s a wonderful book.

Sometimes though, we need to be spoken to on another level. Sometimes we need to hear a voice from the scriptures that reaches out and gives us a hug and a word of wisdom. That’s what I think this morning’s passage does for us.

The passage I chose from Isaiah has a context and those things are important, but it’s also intuitively simple. And sometime that’s the kind of message we need to hear. Sometimes we just need to be told that we are loved and this morning God is telling you that you are loved.

So it is with this in mind that I want to switch things up and do things differently. This morning we’re going to take time to hear four stories from the NPR show Story Corps. In between these stories I’ll reflect a bit and maybe even ask you to turn to someone near to you and discuss what you may have heard or what’s sitting on your heart.

Our first story comes from my childhood and perhaps some special element of your life as well. There’s a very special Presbyterian minister who we all probably have some exposure to, even though he passed away in 2003. He was educated at Dartmouth College and Pittsburgh Theological Seminary and testified before the U.S. Senate on behalf of public funding for children’s television. By now you may have guessed that I’m referring to Fred Rogers the host of Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood.

When I was growing up I didn’t have a lot of access to T.V. In the first grade, I would sneak over to a neighbor’s house to watch Power Rangers both because my family didn’t have cable and because I wasn’t allowed to watch it. But one show my family was always happy to see me in front of was Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood.

This first story that we’re going to listen to is told by François Clemmons, the actor and singer who played Officer Clemmons on the show. In fact, François was the first African-American actor to have a recurring role on a kids TV series in the United States. So it with that in mind that we might perhaps hear something from his story:

["I was not excited about being Officer Clemmons at all."]

Some of the memories François just spoke of might bring back memories of our own. Of difficult times perhaps, or maybe a time when we had to empathize with someone else’s place. Or perhaps most miraculously, when we may have experienced that kind of expression of love and acceptance.

Though we may sometimes eat the bread of adversity and drink the waters of affliction, the Lord answers our cries and longs to be gracious and merciful to us. We are, and you are, loved.

This second story takes place in the course of a conversation between Janet Lutz, a hospital chaplain, and Lori Armstrong her friend.

["We go around and we bless the hands of all the people who work in the hospital."]

I’d like to ask you at this point to turn to someone near you and talk for a moment. Think about these two questions and then share with your neighbor:

·        How did those stories affect me?

·        How might I grow to take more care of moments like those?

Our third story might surprise you a little bit. It’s a conversation we’ll overhear between an older man, who’s possibly full of life experience, and a very young man who’s just now starting to turn his life around from some poor choices. I think you might find it a bit moving.

["At the age of 18, I didn't know what I was going to be doing with my life."]

I’m sure that one may have surprised all of you a little bit. I know that I chuckled when I heard it for the first time. But I never felt a sense of inauthenticity to it. Perhaps it’s my own background and childhood, but it spoke to me and some of the difficult times I went through as a kid.

Perhaps it’s a story that can help us reflect a bit on the last verse we heard from this morning’s scripture: “And when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left, your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, ‘This is the way; walk in it.’”

Finally, I want to conclude with a very powerful story between two brothers who came into such a relationship through unusual means. In my mind this next story illustrates the kind of love that Jesus talks about, particularly in the Sermon on the Mount.

["My American soldier became my Iraqi brother."]

Perhaps after hearing that story we can think about how we too might come to love those who we might think of as different or even enemies. We won’t go too deep into the idea today, but what does it mean when Christ calls us to love everyone, even our enemies. This story wasn’t even about enemies. It was about two men who overcame their prejudices and fears to become such close friends that they’d call each other “brother.” War has a funny way of cementing tight bonds between men. Perhaps it’s the horror and that drives our fundamentally social natures to seek something human amidst all the pain. Or perhaps it’s something else. I’m not in a position to speak to that, but I can say that this story illustrated the kind of relationship that can grow when we embrace love.

Conclusion:

I want to close this morning’s time of reflection with another reading of this morning’s scripture passage. May we be blessed with this reading from the prophet Isaiah.

Therefore the Lord waits to be gracious to you;
    therefore he will rise up to show mercy to you.
For the Lord is a God of justice;
    blessed are all those who wait for him.

¹⁹ Truly, O people in Zion, inhabitants of Jerusalem, you shall weep no more. He will surely be gracious to you at the sound of your cry; when he hears it, he will answer you. ²⁰ Though the Lord may give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, yet your Teacher will not hide himself any more, but your eyes shall see your Teacher. ²¹ And when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left, your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, “This is the way; walk in it.”

Amen.