Trinity Presbyterian Church of Bethesda
Rev. David Williams; 12.14.08
Scripture Lesson: Isaiah 61:1-4; 8-11
Several months ago, anyone traveling across the Washington metropolitan area on our painfully inadequate public transportation system would have begun to notice some rather striking advertisements posted in Metro stations.
They weren’t the usual fare of metro maps or Macys ads or charities begging for you to remember them during a United Way campaign. They didn’t involve rail thin models looking at each other poutily while crammed into boot-cut jeans sized to provide a relaxed fit for skeletons. They weren’t pitching the latest Omnia touch screen phone from Samsung, with 3G browsing, an HD camcorder, and optional surgically implanted neural dock.
These ads showed stark images of a bleak Washington landscape after a nuclear attack. In the background of one ad, the Capitol building stands as a shattered ruin, nestled on a National Mall now painted with a mix matte grey ash and blast-black. In the foreground, a faceless warfighter stares out at you through the lenses of a bio-chem armored helmet. In another ad, the Washington Monument stood silhouetted like a broken, bony finger against a similarly grey sky, great gashes torn from it’s sides.
These ads got noticed. For those who have lived in the Washington Area long enough to remember the Cold War, such pictures of destruction are enough to stir up memories of the nuclear nightmares of childhood. For those who were in this area during the horrific moments of September 11, and felt the fear that held the whole region in a chokehold of anxiety after the anthrax and sniper attacks, this vision of WMD effects wasn’t particularly welcome either. People complained to the metro board. People wrote angry letters about the ads the Post and the Washington Times. Articles discussing the propriety of the ads and the product they were pitching appeared in the media. The ads themselves became news.
In other words, this was an insanely, wildly, gloriously successful marketing campaign.
What was being pitched was a game called Fallout 3, the latest from a well regarded Bethesda software publisher. The game is set in the post-apocalyptic remains of the Washington Metro Area, generations after a nuclear exchange between the United States and China leaves the world in ruins. Reviewers describe it as an absolutely haunting game, filled with a level of primal violence and survival-of-the-fittest moral ambiguity that makes Lord of the Flies look like good storytime reading for preschoolers.
So, of course, I’m playing it...for purposes of sermon research, of course, and only well after my boys have gone to sleep. It is relentlessly grim, both spare and tense, and filled with intelligent writing and voice acting. It completely engrosses you in it’s world, giving a profoundly realistic sense of the depths to which human beings will go to survive after everything they’ve known and the whole framework of their society has been obliterated. The struggles to rebuild something, to live something resembling a worthwhile life...well...they feel painfully real.
From the Book of the Prophet Isaiah today we hear a message from a time in which the struggle to rebuild from the ashes of a society was front and center. In our Bible studies over the last few weeks, we’ve discussed how most Bible scholars worth their salt see the Book of Isaiah divided up into three clear sections, each of which has it’s own particular focus.
Today’s section comes from what is known as Third Isaiah, which was written and preached perhaps 510-515 years before Christ by a prophet who followed the tradition of Isaiah. It’s visions and proclamations do not describe a Hebrew people comfortably ensconced in Jerusalem and the temple, as do the first thirty-nine chapters. They also do not assume that the Jewish people are shattered in the Babylonian exile, like chapters forty through fifty-five. The context of the last ten chapters is clear: the Hebrew people are struggling to rebuild.
What they’re struggling to rebuild is their whole society, wiped from the face of the earth in by the relatively low-tech but nonetheless effective implements of the Babylonian Empire. After Babylon was defeated by Persia, the Hebrew people were encouraged to return to their ancestral lands. They were filled with hope at the prospect of return, but what they came back to was the ancient equivalent of stepping out of a fallout shelter. There was pretty much nothing left.
The walls of Jerusalem had fallen, and the temple had been razed. Everything had to be rebuilt from the ground up. The people returned thinking that things were going to be easy, and things were the farthest thing from easy. Life was hardscrabble, a serious struggle from day to day. The bricks that had been part of the walls of Jerusalem did not leap up on their own and autonomously reassemble themselves into Zion Gardens Condos and Suites.
It was hard. It seemed hopeless. People began to despair.
But the word from God that Isaiah proclaimed defied that despair. It was a word of intense hope, a word that comes directly from the prophet’s sense of being anointed with the Spirit of the Living God. It’s a word of intense confidence in the power of God to work through his people to bring about restoration.
For the oppressed and the brokenhearted and the captives who had returned to the land and still despaired, the prophet affirmed the devastation that they were experiencing and the ruins in which they found themselves. Yet in the face of their suffering...and in some way because of their suffering...the prophet declares that God’s love for justice and covenant presence will make his people an instrument with which he will rebuild the brokenness of their land.
It’s a word that they needed to hear, and a word without which their hearts would have been too broken to continue. It’s also a word that many of us need to hear right now, as many of us look fearfully out at the seeming chaos and confusion of our economy.
With banks and businesses both small and large failing, families struggling with foreclosure and job loss, and retirees reading their investment reports with trembling hands, it is easy for us to fall into the same kind of despair that seems to have afflicted those Hebrews upon their return. With the media humming with hysteria, every headline and talking head warning of a new depression, it’s easy to give in. We feel an uncertainty that can paralyze us, allowing us to turn from the task of rebuilding. We become overwhelmed. We hunker down.
In his reaffirmation of God’s essential justice and care for his people, the prophet is telling those who despaired that no matter what happens, God will show grace to a covenant people. If we’re willing to accept that grace, and to practice it, those places of ruin will be rebuilt.
It won’t be easy, and it won’t come quick. Nothing good does. But if we turn our will towards righteousness...meaning care for one another...and praise...meaning care that glorifies God...then the garden will spring forth.
Showing posts with label hope. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hope. Show all posts
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Saturday, December 13, 2008
Water in the Desert
Trinity Presbyterian Church of Bethesda
12.07.08; Rev. David Williams
Scripture: Mark 1:1-8
A while back, I had the great pleasure of presiding over the wedding of a friend. I’d known her since high school, when she and my wife were part of a circle BFFs before the word BFF even existed. It was a complete joy officiating over her union with her husband, but as I prepared for the service, I got a little bit concerned about the location.
Her parents had left the Washington metro area years back, and now lived in Las Cruces, New Mexico. It’s an absolutely gorgeous place, smack out in the middle of the desert in the Rio Grande Valley and surrounded by mountains. The plan for the wedding ceremony was to have it in a park at the base of the mountains, at an amphitheater that had towering and glorious peaks as a backdrop. When the couple showed me pictures of where they wanted to have the event, I had to agree. It was a perfect place, just radiant with the glory of God’s creation.
That didn’t make me any less nervous. I tend to be a total wuss when it comes to outdoor weddings, because as complicated and challenging as organizing a service can be, adding the randomness of weather into the mix is just more than I can stand. What if it rains? What if one of those sudden storms pop up, and the wedding party has to flee from driving winds and torrential rain?
When I arrived to check out the site the day before and to do the wedding rehearsal prep, I realized that my worry about rain was totally off. This was really and truly desert. The sun was brilliant and intense, and the light pressed down like a physical presence. But the heat you felt was totally different. It was the complete opposite of the Washington August heat, which is like getting into a jacuzzi while wearing a sleeping bag. This heat was totally dry, and the strong winds that blew off of the desert and up the sides of the mountains had not a single molecule of H2O in them. As I stared into that wind, I felt it greedily pull the moisture from my mouth and throat. After five minutes, my tongue felt like sandstone, and my eyes were like sand-crusted marbles. It’s a good thing I wasn’t going to have to do any public speaking there. Oh. Wait. I was.
The only option was water. I had to drink, and drink both regularly and constantly. Without that, my vocal cords would have dried out like parchment in a matter of minutes. Fortunately, the wedding party had provided this aplenty.
They knew, as anyone with a lick of sense knows, that there is nothing more precious in the desert than water. We kinda sorta know how important water is, but it’s easy to forget it as we trundle about our day to day lives, our Big Gulps in hand. Water is everywhere. But in the intense scarcity of the desert, our appreciation of the humble liquid that makes up around 70% of our physical forms is heightened. We need it more, and we become aware of how deeply we need it.
The desert and those wilderness places in the world have always been central to the lives of those who wanted to get down to the most essential, the most necessary, the most vital parts of their faith. Throughout the history of the people of Israel, desert places had always been the ones that had provided refuge from the distractions of the world. It was into the wilderness that monks had fled seeking escape, and it was from the wilderness that prophets came with proclamations of truths that were beyond the grasp of those who had forgotten what was truly necessary in the world.
As Mark’s Gospel begins, we heard today of a prophet who came from the wilderness, of John the Baptist. Mark’s book of the story of Christ begins by first declaring itself good news, and then gets right into a reference from the prophet Isaiah. That prophet’s poetic cry of the arrival of a messenger in the wilderness is declared a reference to John the Baptist. What John did was not too uncommon among the Hebrew people. Rituals of cleansing in water were part of the way in which Jews in the first century reclaimed themselves and recommitted themselves to their faith. In order to be ritually pure for worship in the temple, the Torah requires ritual bathing. While the process of being baptized was not quite the same, it had the same spiritual foundation.
But while there were similarities between what John did by the banks of the Jordan and what others had done before, there were some real and significant differences. What was striking about John was how intensely he pointed beyond the act that he was engaged in. While he was engaging in a ritual that had deep symbolic roots, the one who was to follow on afterwards, and who John himself was to baptize...that one would engage in an act far more potent and transforming than the ritual and symbolic cleansing of baptism by water.
The baptism by the Holy Spirit described by involves a far deeper transformation, a changing of the will through the presence of the grace of God. That sense of the presence of God, and the awareness that in some strange way God is working through you to change you...that’s the very heart and essence of the Gospel message that Jesus proclaimed.
But, you may ask, how does this work for us, today? To get a sense of the powerful presence of God’s Spirit, the prophets wandered out into the wildernesses of Judea. To know the working of God’s grace in themselves, the monks of the early Christian church isolated themselves in the deserts of North Africa. How can we get that same sense of God’s presence?
We are far closer to the desert than we might think. Not a desert as defined by the absence of water, but a desert as defined by the absence of the Spirit. Just as water brings green life and blooms and fruit, the fruits that come from the presence of the Spirit are grace and comfort and forgiveness. All of us experience areas in our lives in which those things are as hard to find as an orange tree in Death Valley.
Those broken and barren places may be a friendship that has soured. It might be a relationship where once there was love and now there is only hurt. It might be a place that should bring direction and hope, but brings only anger and confusion. It might be a season that should bring comfort and joy, but instead yields only stress and greed. Our lives do not lack for deserts, and they test us as truly as the burning sun tested the prophets. How we respond to those times and places is the measure of our faith.
We all have our deserts. And just like we need to take every opportunity to drink in the desert to keep it from drying us out like a stone, we need to take every opportunity to both seek and express the fruits of the Spirit in those desert places in our lives. There is no moment or place in your life where that cannot be expressed, where the Spirit cannot work change. It comes when you offer a word of grace instead of a cutting remark. It comes when you choose to reach out to someone who is different, or who seems to stand in opposition to you. It comes when you choose to help someone grow, instead of ignoring them or allowing them to continue to fail.
That Spirit is always there, always present, always waiting to rain down upon the dead places and to bring life to them again.
Know that truth, and drink deep.
12.07.08; Rev. David Williams
Scripture: Mark 1:1-8
A while back, I had the great pleasure of presiding over the wedding of a friend. I’d known her since high school, when she and my wife were part of a circle BFFs before the word BFF even existed. It was a complete joy officiating over her union with her husband, but as I prepared for the service, I got a little bit concerned about the location.
Her parents had left the Washington metro area years back, and now lived in Las Cruces, New Mexico. It’s an absolutely gorgeous place, smack out in the middle of the desert in the Rio Grande Valley and surrounded by mountains. The plan for the wedding ceremony was to have it in a park at the base of the mountains, at an amphitheater that had towering and glorious peaks as a backdrop. When the couple showed me pictures of where they wanted to have the event, I had to agree. It was a perfect place, just radiant with the glory of God’s creation.
That didn’t make me any less nervous. I tend to be a total wuss when it comes to outdoor weddings, because as complicated and challenging as organizing a service can be, adding the randomness of weather into the mix is just more than I can stand. What if it rains? What if one of those sudden storms pop up, and the wedding party has to flee from driving winds and torrential rain?
When I arrived to check out the site the day before and to do the wedding rehearsal prep, I realized that my worry about rain was totally off. This was really and truly desert. The sun was brilliant and intense, and the light pressed down like a physical presence. But the heat you felt was totally different. It was the complete opposite of the Washington August heat, which is like getting into a jacuzzi while wearing a sleeping bag. This heat was totally dry, and the strong winds that blew off of the desert and up the sides of the mountains had not a single molecule of H2O in them. As I stared into that wind, I felt it greedily pull the moisture from my mouth and throat. After five minutes, my tongue felt like sandstone, and my eyes were like sand-crusted marbles. It’s a good thing I wasn’t going to have to do any public speaking there. Oh. Wait. I was.
The only option was water. I had to drink, and drink both regularly and constantly. Without that, my vocal cords would have dried out like parchment in a matter of minutes. Fortunately, the wedding party had provided this aplenty.
They knew, as anyone with a lick of sense knows, that there is nothing more precious in the desert than water. We kinda sorta know how important water is, but it’s easy to forget it as we trundle about our day to day lives, our Big Gulps in hand. Water is everywhere. But in the intense scarcity of the desert, our appreciation of the humble liquid that makes up around 70% of our physical forms is heightened. We need it more, and we become aware of how deeply we need it.
The desert and those wilderness places in the world have always been central to the lives of those who wanted to get down to the most essential, the most necessary, the most vital parts of their faith. Throughout the history of the people of Israel, desert places had always been the ones that had provided refuge from the distractions of the world. It was into the wilderness that monks had fled seeking escape, and it was from the wilderness that prophets came with proclamations of truths that were beyond the grasp of those who had forgotten what was truly necessary in the world.
As Mark’s Gospel begins, we heard today of a prophet who came from the wilderness, of John the Baptist. Mark’s book of the story of Christ begins by first declaring itself good news, and then gets right into a reference from the prophet Isaiah. That prophet’s poetic cry of the arrival of a messenger in the wilderness is declared a reference to John the Baptist. What John did was not too uncommon among the Hebrew people. Rituals of cleansing in water were part of the way in which Jews in the first century reclaimed themselves and recommitted themselves to their faith. In order to be ritually pure for worship in the temple, the Torah requires ritual bathing. While the process of being baptized was not quite the same, it had the same spiritual foundation.
But while there were similarities between what John did by the banks of the Jordan and what others had done before, there were some real and significant differences. What was striking about John was how intensely he pointed beyond the act that he was engaged in. While he was engaging in a ritual that had deep symbolic roots, the one who was to follow on afterwards, and who John himself was to baptize...that one would engage in an act far more potent and transforming than the ritual and symbolic cleansing of baptism by water.
The baptism by the Holy Spirit described by involves a far deeper transformation, a changing of the will through the presence of the grace of God. That sense of the presence of God, and the awareness that in some strange way God is working through you to change you...that’s the very heart and essence of the Gospel message that Jesus proclaimed.
But, you may ask, how does this work for us, today? To get a sense of the powerful presence of God’s Spirit, the prophets wandered out into the wildernesses of Judea. To know the working of God’s grace in themselves, the monks of the early Christian church isolated themselves in the deserts of North Africa. How can we get that same sense of God’s presence?
We are far closer to the desert than we might think. Not a desert as defined by the absence of water, but a desert as defined by the absence of the Spirit. Just as water brings green life and blooms and fruit, the fruits that come from the presence of the Spirit are grace and comfort and forgiveness. All of us experience areas in our lives in which those things are as hard to find as an orange tree in Death Valley.
Those broken and barren places may be a friendship that has soured. It might be a relationship where once there was love and now there is only hurt. It might be a place that should bring direction and hope, but brings only anger and confusion. It might be a season that should bring comfort and joy, but instead yields only stress and greed. Our lives do not lack for deserts, and they test us as truly as the burning sun tested the prophets. How we respond to those times and places is the measure of our faith.
We all have our deserts. And just like we need to take every opportunity to drink in the desert to keep it from drying us out like a stone, we need to take every opportunity to both seek and express the fruits of the Spirit in those desert places in our lives. There is no moment or place in your life where that cannot be expressed, where the Spirit cannot work change. It comes when you offer a word of grace instead of a cutting remark. It comes when you choose to reach out to someone who is different, or who seems to stand in opposition to you. It comes when you choose to help someone grow, instead of ignoring them or allowing them to continue to fail.
That Spirit is always there, always present, always waiting to rain down upon the dead places and to bring life to them again.
Know that truth, and drink deep.
Sunday, November 23, 2008
Judgment Call
Trinity Presbyterian Church of Bethesda
11.23.08; Rev. David Williams
Scripture Lesson: Matthew 25:31-46
I’ve always loved bloopers.
When I was a kid, nothing struck me as funnier than watching someone make a highly entertaining error in judgment. I always thought that as I got older and more jaded I would stop finding America’s Funniest Videos quite as amusing. I’ve got a degree in Religious Studies from Mr. Jefferson’s University. I spent ten years working for the Aspen Institute, which is one of the most muckity muckity organizations in the Western Hemisphere, if it does say so itself. I graduated from theological seminary magna cum laude, and am now a Minister of Word and Sacrament with all of the rights and privileges thereunto bestowed.
But for some reason, watching a video of a guy knocking himself out while showing off with nunchucks still makes me laugh uncontrollably. Got a short video of someone dancing on top of an obviously too-flimsy table at a wedding? It works on me every single time. Show me a YouTube clip of that overeager amateur theater performer who’s great at belting out the mostly-on-key show tunes but not so good at knowing where the edge of the stage is? I’ll giggle till I just about pee. I just can’t help myself. About the giggling part, at least.
I know I shouldn’t. I’m not eight years old any more. I should be better than that, more mature, more dignified. But I’m not, and at the rate I’m going, I don’t think I ever will be. There is something about those essentially harmless errors that is fundamentally delightful. Why is that? I think we like those entertaining mistakes for a couple of reasons.
First, because they represent the unexpected. Human beings take joy in things that don’t turn out quite like we anticipate. If you know exactly how something will turn out, it doesn’t delight you, doesn’t stir you to rejoicing or infectious giggles. It’s what makes a good joke funny. The unanticipated, the wacky, and the absurd are the heart of comedy.
Second, because they show us how flawed we are. If we’re really getting it, we’re not laughing because we’re enjoying the embarrassment or discomfort of others. The Germans call that dark enjoyment shadenfreude, and while that might be a factor for some, it isn’t a factor for me. I’m not laughing because I enjoy the suffering of others. I’m laughing out of sympathy. I’m laughing because I’m feeling it myself. All of us have messed up. All of us have...with the best of intentions...managed to totally mess up on at least a dozen occasions, possibly even over the last week. For all of our efforts to be dignified and in control, we aren’t. We just aren’t...and often it shows. For all of our conviction that we know exactly what we’re doing, more often than not, we’re the one who loses control of those nunchucks or walks too close to the edge of that pool. Our judgment fails us, and unexpected hilarity ensues.
Yet for some reason, the deeply unexpected moment of judgment we hear from Matthew’s Gospel today doesn’t strike us as particularly funny. It isn’t funny at all, actually, even though it is one of the most intensely unanticipated moments in all of Scripture. Throughout the Gospels, in all of the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, he speaks a great deal about the Kingdom of God. He tells us what it means to live and act according to that Kingdom. But in how many places does he teach about how the final determination? In how many places does he teach exactly what will happen on that final Day of Judgment?
Just one.
It’s right here, at the end of twenty-fifth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew. Unlike the stories that have come before, which told about the need to prepare for the coming kingdom, this story is not a parable. It is not a story told as a symbol. It is not a story that holds within it a message that you have to think about or puzzle over as you work your way through what it means. Though most of Christ’s storytelling was through parables, here he sets aside that way of teaching and does something completely different. Here, he tells it as it is. Or, rather, as it will be.
It’s a classical image, of the Son of Man on the throne of God, separating out all of the peoples of the world. It’s the big judgment call, the final moment when the lives of all of those who have lived are measured against the only standard that counts, the standard of Christ Jesus Himself, who is the Way, and the Truth, and the Life.
That should be a simple process. All the Son of Man needs to do is check whether you’re a member in good standing in the Presbyterian Church (USA). Right? But when all those nervous Methodists and Pentecostals get to the front of the line, we find that the nature of the judgment call being made is...well...surprising to them.
When the Son of Man congratulates the righteous for making the cut, he thanks them for showing him care, for feeding him and clothing him and visiting him when he was sick or imprisoned. And the righteous are...well...surprised. Um...when did I do that? I don’t remember doing that. I remember praying. I remember going to church...um...sometimes. I sorta got through reading the Bible, at least up until those long lists of names put me to sleep. But when did do any of those other things? When did I do any of those things for God?
The answer is a surprise. It’s unexpected. It’s unanticipated. You did those things for me when you did those things for the least of my brothers and sisters. For those who inadvertently made the right call, it’s a moment worth of joy and laughter. For those who didn’t...well...things aren’t so good.
But it’s that first group that really are the ones doing what we don’t expect. If you are a student of human nature, as we all become as the years go by, you quickly come to expect human beings to mess things up. Our basic instinct is to serve ourselves, is to seek our own interest, is to make sure that we come out on top and that the other guy is goin’ down. That’s human nature. It’s what we do.
Our judgment call, time after time, is in favor of ourselves and our buddies. It is in favor of our wealth and our pride and our comfort. It is what stirs wars. It is why human beings turn against each other and tear at each other, why they shout and scream and whisper, why they hate and hurt and lie. Honestly, it isn’t particularly delightful. It is certainly not unexpected.
What is unexpected is when we are surprised by our own grace, when we stumble into goodness, when we inadvertently fumble our own selfishness and surprise ourselves. By the standards of the world, it might seem like bad judgment. By the standards of the world, it’s like a mistake or an error, like the thing that wasn’t part of the plan and wasn’t supposed to happen.
[Where's the conclusion? Well...you had to be there.]
11.23.08; Rev. David Williams
Scripture Lesson: Matthew 25:31-46
I’ve always loved bloopers.
When I was a kid, nothing struck me as funnier than watching someone make a highly entertaining error in judgment. I always thought that as I got older and more jaded I would stop finding America’s Funniest Videos quite as amusing. I’ve got a degree in Religious Studies from Mr. Jefferson’s University. I spent ten years working for the Aspen Institute, which is one of the most muckity muckity organizations in the Western Hemisphere, if it does say so itself. I graduated from theological seminary magna cum laude, and am now a Minister of Word and Sacrament with all of the rights and privileges thereunto bestowed.
But for some reason, watching a video of a guy knocking himself out while showing off with nunchucks still makes me laugh uncontrollably. Got a short video of someone dancing on top of an obviously too-flimsy table at a wedding? It works on me every single time. Show me a YouTube clip of that overeager amateur theater performer who’s great at belting out the mostly-on-key show tunes but not so good at knowing where the edge of the stage is? I’ll giggle till I just about pee. I just can’t help myself. About the giggling part, at least.
I know I shouldn’t. I’m not eight years old any more. I should be better than that, more mature, more dignified. But I’m not, and at the rate I’m going, I don’t think I ever will be. There is something about those essentially harmless errors that is fundamentally delightful. Why is that? I think we like those entertaining mistakes for a couple of reasons.
First, because they represent the unexpected. Human beings take joy in things that don’t turn out quite like we anticipate. If you know exactly how something will turn out, it doesn’t delight you, doesn’t stir you to rejoicing or infectious giggles. It’s what makes a good joke funny. The unanticipated, the wacky, and the absurd are the heart of comedy.
Second, because they show us how flawed we are. If we’re really getting it, we’re not laughing because we’re enjoying the embarrassment or discomfort of others. The Germans call that dark enjoyment shadenfreude, and while that might be a factor for some, it isn’t a factor for me. I’m not laughing because I enjoy the suffering of others. I’m laughing out of sympathy. I’m laughing because I’m feeling it myself. All of us have messed up. All of us have...with the best of intentions...managed to totally mess up on at least a dozen occasions, possibly even over the last week. For all of our efforts to be dignified and in control, we aren’t. We just aren’t...and often it shows. For all of our conviction that we know exactly what we’re doing, more often than not, we’re the one who loses control of those nunchucks or walks too close to the edge of that pool. Our judgment fails us, and unexpected hilarity ensues.
Yet for some reason, the deeply unexpected moment of judgment we hear from Matthew’s Gospel today doesn’t strike us as particularly funny. It isn’t funny at all, actually, even though it is one of the most intensely unanticipated moments in all of Scripture. Throughout the Gospels, in all of the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, he speaks a great deal about the Kingdom of God. He tells us what it means to live and act according to that Kingdom. But in how many places does he teach about how the final determination? In how many places does he teach exactly what will happen on that final Day of Judgment?
Just one.
It’s right here, at the end of twenty-fifth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew. Unlike the stories that have come before, which told about the need to prepare for the coming kingdom, this story is not a parable. It is not a story told as a symbol. It is not a story that holds within it a message that you have to think about or puzzle over as you work your way through what it means. Though most of Christ’s storytelling was through parables, here he sets aside that way of teaching and does something completely different. Here, he tells it as it is. Or, rather, as it will be.
It’s a classical image, of the Son of Man on the throne of God, separating out all of the peoples of the world. It’s the big judgment call, the final moment when the lives of all of those who have lived are measured against the only standard that counts, the standard of Christ Jesus Himself, who is the Way, and the Truth, and the Life.
That should be a simple process. All the Son of Man needs to do is check whether you’re a member in good standing in the Presbyterian Church (USA). Right? But when all those nervous Methodists and Pentecostals get to the front of the line, we find that the nature of the judgment call being made is...well...surprising to them.
When the Son of Man congratulates the righteous for making the cut, he thanks them for showing him care, for feeding him and clothing him and visiting him when he was sick or imprisoned. And the righteous are...well...surprised. Um...when did I do that? I don’t remember doing that. I remember praying. I remember going to church...um...sometimes. I sorta got through reading the Bible, at least up until those long lists of names put me to sleep. But when did do any of those other things? When did I do any of those things for God?
The answer is a surprise. It’s unexpected. It’s unanticipated. You did those things for me when you did those things for the least of my brothers and sisters. For those who inadvertently made the right call, it’s a moment worth of joy and laughter. For those who didn’t...well...things aren’t so good.
But it’s that first group that really are the ones doing what we don’t expect. If you are a student of human nature, as we all become as the years go by, you quickly come to expect human beings to mess things up. Our basic instinct is to serve ourselves, is to seek our own interest, is to make sure that we come out on top and that the other guy is goin’ down. That’s human nature. It’s what we do.
Our judgment call, time after time, is in favor of ourselves and our buddies. It is in favor of our wealth and our pride and our comfort. It is what stirs wars. It is why human beings turn against each other and tear at each other, why they shout and scream and whisper, why they hate and hurt and lie. Honestly, it isn’t particularly delightful. It is certainly not unexpected.
What is unexpected is when we are surprised by our own grace, when we stumble into goodness, when we inadvertently fumble our own selfishness and surprise ourselves. By the standards of the world, it might seem like bad judgment. By the standards of the world, it’s like a mistake or an error, like the thing that wasn’t part of the plan and wasn’t supposed to happen.
[Where's the conclusion? Well...you had to be there.]
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Sight Unseen
Trinity Presbyterian Church of Bethesda
07.20.08; Rev. David Williams
Scripture Lesson: Romans 8:12-25
Nobody in their right mind buys anything important without taking a good hard look at it first.
When you’re buying a *cough* pre-owned car, you don’t just order it and have it show up at your door. You want to inspect the paint for blemishes. You want to check the wheels for dings and damage and check the tires for wear. You pop open the hood and stare at the engine, stroke your chin, and make a few comments so that you’ll seem like you actually know a thing about engines. Hmmm. Is that dipstick carbon fibre?
Then you have drive it, to get a sense of how comfortable it is and how well it actually runs. How smoothly does it shift? You turn down the stereo and concentrate on it. How well does it brake? You find a spot and hit the brakes hard. How does it perform in a sudden evasive maneuver? You make a hard sudden lane change to find out. How long can you balance it on two wheels? That last one isn’t really necessary, but the salespeople always enjoy it. If it passes all of those tests, after you’re sure you know the car inside and out, then and only then would you consider buying it.
When you’re buying a house, you don’t just show up and write a check. You hire a home inspector. You have professionals pore over the house at every level. You check the foundation for cracks. You check the insulation and the quality of the windows and the water flow around the house. And it’s not just the house you examine. You check out the neighborhood around the house, and the quality of the schools and the resale values over time. It matters. You want to know every last possible detail you can before you hand your soul over to the bank at six-and-a-quarter percent for the next thirty years.
When we can’t physically see the thing, like when we’re buying online, we check double extra carefully. What’s the seller’s reputation? You check that they’re trusted, that they have all the right reviews of their service. What’s the product’s reputation? You check out consumer reviews and industry magazines and listen to the voices of level-headed friends who’ve owned the product.
We want to have a full and complete grasp of the things we buy before we buy them, because we know if we don’t, we’ll be disappointed. We need to have a complete grasp of every last thing we’re going to possess, because trust just isn’t ever a factor when it comes to our lives as consumers. If we have to have a motto, it is caveat emptor, which means “buyer beware.” And so we are wary, always careful and on our guard.
But today, we heard the Apostle Paul tell us a little bit about what it will mean when the promise of Christ is fulfilled. You’ve been hearing a whole bunch of preaching on the Book of Romans these last few weeks, and today, I’m sure you’ll be excited to hear, will be no exception.
As we reach the middle of chapter eight of this highly complex letter, Paul has just finished giving us an explanation the role of the law and the role of faith in our salvation. It’s an argument that he begins in chapter one, and that ends at the end of this chapter. It ain’t an easy read.
When the Apostle Paul starts describing the end results of faith, the results of our struggle to embrace and serve God in this life, what’s interesting is the degree to which he managed to couch the end result of that struggle in terms that aren’t matter of fact. His writing here isn’t about the specifics. The struggle is deeply there, the groaning and the effort of faith, but the reward...well...Paul there gets a little coy.
He speaks about life governed by the Holy Spirit, but that’s in the now and not in the fulfillment of God’s time. He speaks about a glory to be revealed, but then he doesn’t actually reveal it. Paul speaks instead in soaring and rhythmic cadences, but when it gets right down to the nitty gritty of what awaits us in glory...we don’t hear details. What we get instead is Paul telling us about hope.
This bugs us. We don’t want hope. We want to see the end product, or at least a highly informational brochure. We want to have evidence of everything that God has intended for us, right there in front of us. We want to see our rightness with the Big Guy played out across everything we do. We want evidence of our successful career, we want to drop three inches from our waistline, we want the Lord to miraculously improve the mileage we’re getting. Having those things right in front of us would be tremendously confidence building. We’d know exactly what we were getting in for.
Unfortunately for us, that’s not how God works. Instead of that absolute, you-can-touch-it-you-can-feel-it certainty, we approach God and the fulfillment of God’s promise with hope. And as the Apostle Paul puts it so bluntly, hope is not certainty. I do not hope that which I know. Hope is about trust, and that means that hope includes an element of doubt, at least some small sprinkle of not-knowing. To have hope is about a yearning for a future reality that you don’t quite yet grasp.
Hope is, in fact, something viewed as essential to the Christian journey. In verse 24 of today’s reading, the New Revised Standard Version translation says that “in hope we were saved.” The NIV says “in this hope we were saved.” The King James says “by hope we were saved.” Somehow, our willingness to accept the unknowability of what God has intended for us...to accept it’s goodness but know that some things will have to be anticipated...that abiding hopefulness is an important part of our salvation.
Hope surfaces at other places in Romans, and it is woven up deeply with the fulfillment of the faithful life.
It’s that hope that we’ve got to embrace whenever we turn ourselves towards the future. For all of our planning and careful mapping out of every possible option before us, the future isn’t something that we can hold in our hands. We can try to take that good, hard look at our futures...but the reality of what lies before us is not known to us and can’t be known to us...until we get there.
That’s doubly true about what God has in store for us. Yes, we can’t touch it. Yes, we can’t feel it. But it’s not a product. It’s not a commodity. It’s not something we go out and buy. We can’t think of it that way, because that way of thinking has nothing to do with God.
Think of it, instead, as a present, a gift given to us by someone who loves us. Nothing ruins the joy of getting a gift like knowing exactly what it is beforehand.
So have hope. Don’t try to spoil the surprise.
07.20.08; Rev. David Williams
Scripture Lesson: Romans 8:12-25
Nobody in their right mind buys anything important without taking a good hard look at it first.
When you’re buying a *cough* pre-owned car, you don’t just order it and have it show up at your door. You want to inspect the paint for blemishes. You want to check the wheels for dings and damage and check the tires for wear. You pop open the hood and stare at the engine, stroke your chin, and make a few comments so that you’ll seem like you actually know a thing about engines. Hmmm. Is that dipstick carbon fibre?
Then you have drive it, to get a sense of how comfortable it is and how well it actually runs. How smoothly does it shift? You turn down the stereo and concentrate on it. How well does it brake? You find a spot and hit the brakes hard. How does it perform in a sudden evasive maneuver? You make a hard sudden lane change to find out. How long can you balance it on two wheels? That last one isn’t really necessary, but the salespeople always enjoy it. If it passes all of those tests, after you’re sure you know the car inside and out, then and only then would you consider buying it.
When you’re buying a house, you don’t just show up and write a check. You hire a home inspector. You have professionals pore over the house at every level. You check the foundation for cracks. You check the insulation and the quality of the windows and the water flow around the house. And it’s not just the house you examine. You check out the neighborhood around the house, and the quality of the schools and the resale values over time. It matters. You want to know every last possible detail you can before you hand your soul over to the bank at six-and-a-quarter percent for the next thirty years.
When we can’t physically see the thing, like when we’re buying online, we check double extra carefully. What’s the seller’s reputation? You check that they’re trusted, that they have all the right reviews of their service. What’s the product’s reputation? You check out consumer reviews and industry magazines and listen to the voices of level-headed friends who’ve owned the product.
We want to have a full and complete grasp of the things we buy before we buy them, because we know if we don’t, we’ll be disappointed. We need to have a complete grasp of every last thing we’re going to possess, because trust just isn’t ever a factor when it comes to our lives as consumers. If we have to have a motto, it is caveat emptor, which means “buyer beware.” And so we are wary, always careful and on our guard.
But today, we heard the Apostle Paul tell us a little bit about what it will mean when the promise of Christ is fulfilled. You’ve been hearing a whole bunch of preaching on the Book of Romans these last few weeks, and today, I’m sure you’ll be excited to hear, will be no exception.
As we reach the middle of chapter eight of this highly complex letter, Paul has just finished giving us an explanation the role of the law and the role of faith in our salvation. It’s an argument that he begins in chapter one, and that ends at the end of this chapter. It ain’t an easy read.
When the Apostle Paul starts describing the end results of faith, the results of our struggle to embrace and serve God in this life, what’s interesting is the degree to which he managed to couch the end result of that struggle in terms that aren’t matter of fact. His writing here isn’t about the specifics. The struggle is deeply there, the groaning and the effort of faith, but the reward...well...Paul there gets a little coy.
He speaks about life governed by the Holy Spirit, but that’s in the now and not in the fulfillment of God’s time. He speaks about a glory to be revealed, but then he doesn’t actually reveal it. Paul speaks instead in soaring and rhythmic cadences, but when it gets right down to the nitty gritty of what awaits us in glory...we don’t hear details. What we get instead is Paul telling us about hope.
This bugs us. We don’t want hope. We want to see the end product, or at least a highly informational brochure. We want to have evidence of everything that God has intended for us, right there in front of us. We want to see our rightness with the Big Guy played out across everything we do. We want evidence of our successful career, we want to drop three inches from our waistline, we want the Lord to miraculously improve the mileage we’re getting. Having those things right in front of us would be tremendously confidence building. We’d know exactly what we were getting in for.
Unfortunately for us, that’s not how God works. Instead of that absolute, you-can-touch-it-you-can-feel-it certainty, we approach God and the fulfillment of God’s promise with hope. And as the Apostle Paul puts it so bluntly, hope is not certainty. I do not hope that which I know. Hope is about trust, and that means that hope includes an element of doubt, at least some small sprinkle of not-knowing. To have hope is about a yearning for a future reality that you don’t quite yet grasp.
Hope is, in fact, something viewed as essential to the Christian journey. In verse 24 of today’s reading, the New Revised Standard Version translation says that “in hope we were saved.” The NIV says “in this hope we were saved.” The King James says “by hope we were saved.” Somehow, our willingness to accept the unknowability of what God has intended for us...to accept it’s goodness but know that some things will have to be anticipated...that abiding hopefulness is an important part of our salvation.
Hope surfaces at other places in Romans, and it is woven up deeply with the fulfillment of the faithful life.
It’s that hope that we’ve got to embrace whenever we turn ourselves towards the future. For all of our planning and careful mapping out of every possible option before us, the future isn’t something that we can hold in our hands. We can try to take that good, hard look at our futures...but the reality of what lies before us is not known to us and can’t be known to us...until we get there.
That’s doubly true about what God has in store for us. Yes, we can’t touch it. Yes, we can’t feel it. But it’s not a product. It’s not a commodity. It’s not something we go out and buy. We can’t think of it that way, because that way of thinking has nothing to do with God.
Think of it, instead, as a present, a gift given to us by someone who loves us. Nothing ruins the joy of getting a gift like knowing exactly what it is beforehand.
So have hope. Don’t try to spoil the surprise.
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
Send/Receive
Trinity Presbyterian Church of Bethesda
03.30.08; Rev. David Williams
Scripture Lesson: John 20:19-31
We breathe in, we breathe out. It’s a simple and basic part of our existence, so simple that we don’t really even think about it. The muscles of our diaphragm contract, and pull air deep into our lungs. The muscles of our diaphragm relax, and the air is released. That action happens between 8-15 times a minute, around 17,000 times a day. We do it mostly without thinking, without thought, and we do it alot.
We can control it, sure. You can breathe really really fast...but if you keep that up, you’ll hyperventilate and pass out. You can stop your breathing entirely for a while......but that ends up having the same effect. For breathing to work, we have to take the air in, and give the air out. We receive it, and we send it. We send it, and we receive it. If we don’t, we die.
Our lungs are partnered with our heart, which functions in a similar way. The oxygen taken in by our lungs enters our blood, and needs to get out to the body. Our heart is like the heart of any other mammal, and has four chambers. The left atrium receives oxygen rich blood, and the left ventricle sends that blood to the body. The right atrium receives the oxygen-depleted blood back, and the right ventricle sends it back to the lungs. All this happens without our thinking, 72 times a minute, 2.5 billion times over an average lifetime. Receiving and sending, sending and receiving. It’s absolutely necessary if we are to live.
Breathing and sending and receiving are at the heart of what Jesus was proclaiming in today’s passage from the Gospel of John. This little chunk of John’s Gospel is full of intriguing stories, like, for instance, the description of the doubts that Thomas felt and Christ’s response, as He told us what it meant to believe.
If you read it closely, you might also notice that this was probably the point where some early version of John’s Gospel actually ended. Take a look at the last two verses, at John 20:30-31. Those verses read like the conclusion of a book. They wrap things up, telling us that there were other witnesses to Christ, and telling us why John’s Gospel was written. Of course, after that, we get a whole ‘nutha chapter...but that’s fine. It’s just part of the story..one of the “many other signs”...that was remembered later, and that they absolutely had to include.
But what I want to raise up about this final section of John’s Gospel has everything to do with sending and receiving. The story comes after the resurrection, after Mary had met the risen Jesus in the garden. It’s John’s post-Easter story, but when we encounter the disciples, we don’t find them happy and uplifted and never wanting to see another chocolate bunny again. Instead, they are frightened and isolated, huddled behind locked doors and unwilling to move out into a world that has just taken the life of the rabbi that they loved.
Suddenly, Jesus is among them. He just is, right there, in the flesh. Though they’ve closed ranks, he works his way among them. They are, understandably, overjoyed.
But his arrival isn’t without purpose. First, he offers them his shalom, his peace. Then he tells them that peace will be with them a second time. Having promised them peace, he presents them with a challenge. They’ve received him in. They’ve been filled with rejoicing at his impossible presence.
So he tells them this: “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” He has found them holed up, locked away, and he wants them out in the world. This is, as John’s Gospel tells it, the equivalent of the Great Commission. Get out there. Be sent, as I was sent.
And then Jesus breathes on them. It’s not something that we’d usually expect someone to do when they’ve asked us to do something. Giving marching orders? Sure. Giving instructions? Fine. Pointing us to the door and telling us not to let it whap us in the behind on the way out? We’d expect that. But Jesus breathes on them.
In the Greek that John’s Gospel uses to tell the story of Christ, of course, the words for “breath” and the words for “spirit” are the same. So out flows Christ’s breath, and it carries with it the words “Receive the Holy Spirit.” Having given them the breath and the spirit, Jesus then makes a radical statement. He tells them that they have been charged with the ability to forgive or retain sins. That’s an odd mirror of such passages as Luke 7:49, where people can’t believe that Jesus would have the audacity to forgive sins himself. But remember, right here Christ is sending them, just as he was sent, using the same Spirit, the same breath, the same hope, the same Gospel.
Just as He also sends us. That is a difficult thing to grasp here, even if we are sorta right in the middle of a church. I mean, here we are on Sunday, as always. We’re doing the stuff we do, praising and worshiping and eating Cheez Doodles afterwards. We listen to passages like this and we think, great! Good for them. I’m so glad Jesus sent them!
But passages like this aren’t meant to be heard as referring to some long distant time, or as being intended only for the ones gathered there in that room. They are spoken just as directly to us. It is we who need to receive them, we who need to know that we are sent, we who need to feel the warm sweetness of that breath upon our brow.
And if we can allow ourselves to be grasped by that truth, then we have to ask ourselves...having received this Spirit, having been entrusted with this Spirit and this calling...what are we supposed to do?
What we cannot do is hold it in. We can’t just receive and receive and receive and not send it out ourselves, any more than lungs can fill themselves with air and not breathe it out, or a heart can fill with blood and not send it on. Holding it back, keeping it to ourselves, trying to grasp it and keep it...none of these things can lead to our own spiritual life. If we receive only, and do not act and send...we’ve missed the point.
How do we send? Being willing to share our faith, to speak it and breathe it out into the world...these things are important. But we also have to be able to live and act in such a way that those who hear us talk about our faith know that we aren’t holding back.
Take, for simple instance, Christ’s affirmation that we are empowered to forgive. Sure, we can also retain sins, keeping a careful log of all the ways that we have been wronged or slighted or disrespected. We can do that. Problem is, most of us were doing a great job of that before Jesus came along. Human beings have that one down pat.
Do those around you...and *particularly* those you’ve gotten into disagreements with, who are on your bad side...have any idea that you’ve been given the power to forgive? We’ve all received that forgiveness ourselves, from the one whom we crucified...all of us...with the nails of our selfishness and the hammer of our hatred. But do we give that forgiveness out in return...or do we sop it up like a heart that refuses to beat, or a chest that refuses to breathe?
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
Receive.
Send.
It’s as simple as living.
03.30.08; Rev. David Williams
Scripture Lesson: John 20:19-31
We breathe in, we breathe out. It’s a simple and basic part of our existence, so simple that we don’t really even think about it. The muscles of our diaphragm contract, and pull air deep into our lungs. The muscles of our diaphragm relax, and the air is released. That action happens between 8-15 times a minute, around 17,000 times a day. We do it mostly without thinking, without thought, and we do it alot.
We can control it, sure. You can breathe really really fast...but if you keep that up, you’ll hyperventilate and pass out. You can stop your breathing entirely for a while......but that ends up having the same effect. For breathing to work, we have to take the air in, and give the air out. We receive it, and we send it. We send it, and we receive it. If we don’t, we die.
Our lungs are partnered with our heart, which functions in a similar way. The oxygen taken in by our lungs enters our blood, and needs to get out to the body. Our heart is like the heart of any other mammal, and has four chambers. The left atrium receives oxygen rich blood, and the left ventricle sends that blood to the body. The right atrium receives the oxygen-depleted blood back, and the right ventricle sends it back to the lungs. All this happens without our thinking, 72 times a minute, 2.5 billion times over an average lifetime. Receiving and sending, sending and receiving. It’s absolutely necessary if we are to live.
Breathing and sending and receiving are at the heart of what Jesus was proclaiming in today’s passage from the Gospel of John. This little chunk of John’s Gospel is full of intriguing stories, like, for instance, the description of the doubts that Thomas felt and Christ’s response, as He told us what it meant to believe.
If you read it closely, you might also notice that this was probably the point where some early version of John’s Gospel actually ended. Take a look at the last two verses, at John 20:30-31. Those verses read like the conclusion of a book. They wrap things up, telling us that there were other witnesses to Christ, and telling us why John’s Gospel was written. Of course, after that, we get a whole ‘nutha chapter...but that’s fine. It’s just part of the story..one of the “many other signs”...that was remembered later, and that they absolutely had to include.
But what I want to raise up about this final section of John’s Gospel has everything to do with sending and receiving. The story comes after the resurrection, after Mary had met the risen Jesus in the garden. It’s John’s post-Easter story, but when we encounter the disciples, we don’t find them happy and uplifted and never wanting to see another chocolate bunny again. Instead, they are frightened and isolated, huddled behind locked doors and unwilling to move out into a world that has just taken the life of the rabbi that they loved.
Suddenly, Jesus is among them. He just is, right there, in the flesh. Though they’ve closed ranks, he works his way among them. They are, understandably, overjoyed.
But his arrival isn’t without purpose. First, he offers them his shalom, his peace. Then he tells them that peace will be with them a second time. Having promised them peace, he presents them with a challenge. They’ve received him in. They’ve been filled with rejoicing at his impossible presence.
So he tells them this: “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” He has found them holed up, locked away, and he wants them out in the world. This is, as John’s Gospel tells it, the equivalent of the Great Commission. Get out there. Be sent, as I was sent.
And then Jesus breathes on them. It’s not something that we’d usually expect someone to do when they’ve asked us to do something. Giving marching orders? Sure. Giving instructions? Fine. Pointing us to the door and telling us not to let it whap us in the behind on the way out? We’d expect that. But Jesus breathes on them.
In the Greek that John’s Gospel uses to tell the story of Christ, of course, the words for “breath” and the words for “spirit” are the same. So out flows Christ’s breath, and it carries with it the words “Receive the Holy Spirit.” Having given them the breath and the spirit, Jesus then makes a radical statement. He tells them that they have been charged with the ability to forgive or retain sins. That’s an odd mirror of such passages as Luke 7:49, where people can’t believe that Jesus would have the audacity to forgive sins himself. But remember, right here Christ is sending them, just as he was sent, using the same Spirit, the same breath, the same hope, the same Gospel.
Just as He also sends us. That is a difficult thing to grasp here, even if we are sorta right in the middle of a church. I mean, here we are on Sunday, as always. We’re doing the stuff we do, praising and worshiping and eating Cheez Doodles afterwards. We listen to passages like this and we think, great! Good for them. I’m so glad Jesus sent them!
But passages like this aren’t meant to be heard as referring to some long distant time, or as being intended only for the ones gathered there in that room. They are spoken just as directly to us. It is we who need to receive them, we who need to know that we are sent, we who need to feel the warm sweetness of that breath upon our brow.
And if we can allow ourselves to be grasped by that truth, then we have to ask ourselves...having received this Spirit, having been entrusted with this Spirit and this calling...what are we supposed to do?
What we cannot do is hold it in. We can’t just receive and receive and receive and not send it out ourselves, any more than lungs can fill themselves with air and not breathe it out, or a heart can fill with blood and not send it on. Holding it back, keeping it to ourselves, trying to grasp it and keep it...none of these things can lead to our own spiritual life. If we receive only, and do not act and send...we’ve missed the point.
How do we send? Being willing to share our faith, to speak it and breathe it out into the world...these things are important. But we also have to be able to live and act in such a way that those who hear us talk about our faith know that we aren’t holding back.
Take, for simple instance, Christ’s affirmation that we are empowered to forgive. Sure, we can also retain sins, keeping a careful log of all the ways that we have been wronged or slighted or disrespected. We can do that. Problem is, most of us were doing a great job of that before Jesus came along. Human beings have that one down pat.
Do those around you...and *particularly* those you’ve gotten into disagreements with, who are on your bad side...have any idea that you’ve been given the power to forgive? We’ve all received that forgiveness ourselves, from the one whom we crucified...all of us...with the nails of our selfishness and the hammer of our hatred. But do we give that forgiveness out in return...or do we sop it up like a heart that refuses to beat, or a chest that refuses to breathe?
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
Receive.
Send.
It’s as simple as living.
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