To Be Truly Wise 1 Kings 2

McGregor Exegesis

Pentecost 10 – August 1, 2010

Psalm 107:1-9, 43
Hosea 11:1-11
Colossians 3:1-11
Luke 12:13-21

The Twilight of a Possession

Passion for possessions seems to drive our society. Shopping is a cure for the blues. Anticipating the next major purchase gives life momentum. We are actualized in the act of acquiring things. When we have to move, however -- when we have to put every single thing we have bought into a box into a truck -- possessions take on another aspect. They become the source of anxiety. Will it get broken? Will it fit the new house? Why did I ever buy it in the first place? Early in their existence they buoyed our lives, but now they weigh us down. They become like a lead life preserver.

This is true for the little moves of our lives, but it is more true for the final move of our lives. Dying people don't have to be reminded that they can't take it with them. They have a declining interest in possessions.

Possessions always come to a twilight, not just because we pass away, but also because their ability to sustain us passes away. What happened to that toy for which you were willing to fall down in a screaming fit on the department-store floor before Christmas? What happened to it in March? What happened to that new car? Boat? Resort property? If you are still as excited about them now as you were when you bought them... If they still sustain your joy in living the way they did at first, then these Scriptures are not for you. No, these words are for the people who finally cannot be satisfied with material possessions regardless of how exciting they may have been – people who just can't sustain their lives with their possessions.

The material things that really sustain life move through us, e.g. air, water and food. The only security in them is that they keep flowing not that we possess them. When I see refugees leaving a war torn land, people who had ancestral homes, I remember how tenuous our grasp can be on even the most basic of possessions. When I look at my retirement account, I stop short of declaring, "Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry." (Luke 12:19)

Hosea reminds us that our real deliverance comes from the invisible God not the visible blessings of God. “Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk, I took them up in my arms; but they did not know that I healed them.” (Hosea 11:3)

Jesus calls me to mistrust my abundance and the abundance around me. (Although, I like to refer to abundance as “blessings”.) Paul reaches out to my faltering spirit with hope. I am being transformed from a person who breathes earthly air to one who breathes heavenly air. The currency of this world is being exchanged for the currency of the next. It is something God is doing in me, but it is also something I do. "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal." (Matthew 6:19-20)

The twilight of a possession can be the dawn of faith.

Pentecost 9 – July 25, 2010

Hosea 1:2-10
Psalm 85
Colossians 2:6-19
Luke 11:1-13

Temporary Damnation

In Matthew we hear Jesus contrast eternal punishment and eternal life, but most of the time when Jesus or any other voice in the Bible talks in absolute terms it is not about God as the agent of damnation but rather of reconciliation. (Matthew 25:46)

Hosea proclaims God’s damnation of Israel for nine verses then marvelously shifts to God’s reconciliation with Israel. The Psalmist starts out talking about God’s salvation then switches to damnation and back again to salvation. Paul reminds the church at Colossae of their salvation through Christ but spends some time warning them about losing it. Jesus uses the image of a disinterested friend to teach us not to settle for damnation.

Sometimes life gets so wrong that it can feel like damnation. The pressing question then is whether this damnation is temporary or eternal. Some people imagine that Jesus’ “ask, seek, knock” encouragement is about heaping up blessings, but I think of it more in terms of overcoming damnation, the damned quality of one’s life. Is the damnation eternal? No! Ask. Seek. Knock.

A local photographer is confined to a wheelchair because of Multiple Sclerosis. She said that the disease can take her mobility but cannot take away her faith and love. She has become a writer now instead of a photographer.

Never settle for damnation. God doesn’t.

Pentecost 8 – July 18, 2010

Amos 8:1-12
Psalm 52
Colossians 1:15-28
Luke 10:38-42

The Righteous, The Self-Righteous and The Rich

Righteous indignation is only becoming to the righteous. The words of Amos are a temptation to assume that you and I can stand in his place and point our fingers at others. Do we not live in a society that tramples the needy and declares the new moon past and all the blue laws with it – open for business 24/7. Amos can point the finger and it be the judgment of God. We on the other hand can’t rise above the culture enough to point down. All we can do is confess that Amos’ curse is upon us. Our definition of prosperity is ruining the land (and sea!) and will lay waste the people, but we have no intention of changing. That is why the judgment Amos pronounces is so certain. He doesn’t say these things will happen if we don’t change our ways. He just says they will happen.

The Psalmist like Amos can stand far enough above the fray to point the finger and let it be God’s hand. I’m not the Psalmist. I can’t point my finger with the same immunity to self-righteousness. Better I should let the Psalmist point at me, single out my sharp tongue and my deceit, than take shots at others using the Psalm as cover. The greatest threat to the church is inside the church not outside. “The godly” in the Psalm does not equate to you and me or to the church necessarily. Only God can designate the godly. Surely the church includes the godly, but it contains those who do mischief against the godly as well. This is sad. May the day come when the godly will indeed laugh; that is, be free from threat. The godly would not gloat over the ruin of anyone, but would be confirmed in being rich toward God.

There is confusion among us about the world’s riches and the will of God. On the one hand Amos and Psalm 52 assume that rich people are the enemy of the poor and the godly, maybe even that the godly are poor. On the other hand God promised the children of Israel a land flowing with milk and honey. Could it be that the problem is not so much being rich as trying to make ourselves rich?

Martha is all of us. Who can claim to have chosen the better part and made it stick? We have our moments centered on Christ, but mostly we “are worried and distracted by many things.” We want to make ourselves rich, but then Christ can’t make us rich.

Paul has a clear picture of the riches of Christ Jesus. God has made Paul rich, even his suffering is rich in meaning. The church at Colossae can be rich. Your church can be rich too, but if it is to be rich, it will be rich in the confession of Jesus in whom “the fullness of God was pleased to dwell.”

Pentecost 7 – July 11, 2010

Psalm 82
Amos 7:7-17
Colossians 1:1-14
Luke 10:25-37

All you need to know about eternal life you learned in kindergarten.

We make salvation complicated in order to avoid obedience. Moses says, "All you needed to know to live in God's kingdom you learned in Deuteronomy." Jesus simplifies it further, "All you needed to know to live in God's kingdom you learned in the Shema."

The story of the Good Samaritan is an explication of the proposition that the rule of love is the only rule you need to know. A devout and astute colleague of mine once observed about a church that they didn't need any more Bible study. They needed to start doing what the Bible says. W. C. Fields was caught reading the Bible on the movie set. To which he responded, "I'm looking for loopholes." Was the Levite studying the Torah when he passed by the man beaten and lying by the side of the road? Is Bible study itself obedience? Is Biblical knowledge itself the source of salvation? Is theological sophistication the same as intimacy with God? The thief on the cross didn't know the Bible. He knew Jesus. This is not an argument against studying the Bible or pursuing the knowledge of God but rather an argument for the spirit of God's love in our hearts and the practice of God's love in our actions.

The Priest and the Levite in Jesus' parable can stand for those who seek to possess eternal life by their knowledge and practice of the religion; the Samaritan, for those on whose heart God has written the law by the imposition of the Holy Spirit.

Just as Amos said, God has dropped a plumb line into the house of Israel. But Jesus has found this heir of Jeroboam, this Samaritan, to be upright and the house of Judah to be askew. The plumb line of God is love and can be dropped into any setting as both a guide and a judgment. “’What do you see, Amos?’ Yahweh asked me. ‘A plumb line,’ I said.”

“For this reason, since the day we heard it, we have not ceased praying for you and asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of God's will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding...” (Colossians 1:9)

We can all be like the Good Samaritan when we allow God to transform our minds with "the hope laid up for us in heaven". The priest operated on the hope of getting to Jericho before dark; the Samaritan, a higher hope. The fruit that each bore was appropriate to the hope that each had.

Professing love for God and not loving the neighbor is not acceptable to God. We didn’t need Jesus to tell us; the Psalmist had already heard God tell us. “No more mockery of justice, no more favoring the wicked! Let the weak and the orphan have justice; be fair to the wretched and destitute; rescue the weak and needy; save them from the clutches of the wicked!” (Psalm 82:2-4)

"May you be made strong with all the strength that comes from his glorious power, and may you be prepared to endure everything with patience, while joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has enabled you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the light. He has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins." (Colossians 1:11-14)

As Malcolm Muggeridge put it: "It is not that Christianity has been tried and found wanting, but that it has been found difficult and not tried."

Pentecost 6 –

July 4, 2010

Psalm 30
2 Kings 5:1-14
Galatians 6:1-16
Luke 10:1-11, 16-20

Sales and the Marketplace

Don’t waste your time with a closed mind. Jesus sounds like a sales manager giving a pep talk before the dealership opens for the weekend. First he tells them how successful they can be (“the fields are white for harvest”). Then he tells them how to close the deal (“peace to this house”). He also braces them against the corrosive effect of rejection, not to take it personally (“whoever rejects you rejects me”). Then he gives them the power they need for their mission (“See, I have given you authority to tread on snakes and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy). Finally, in case they are tempted to get puffed up with power, he reminds them about the true and lasting reward. Thus the Christian faith entered the religious marketplace of the first century. It’s hard to imagine one more tempestuous than ours today, but it probably was.

I wanted a picture of the statue of John Wesley, founder of Methodism, in old town Savannah, Georgia. When I got to the square I found Wesley with his hand outstretched to an assembly of yellow-shirted Falun Dafa devotees promoting a religion I had never heard of. I had arrived not at a safe haven for my religious tradition but at the religious marketplace. Sometimes I wish discipleship were easier. I weary of all the effort to reach new people. I wish they’d just come to worship and learn. I never wanted to be a salesman. But, “sales” is not a bad word. It affirms people’s freedom to choose. It challenges the salesman to be convincing. It forces us back to the sales manager for our power and direction. It gives the world a chance it wouldn’t have if Christianity were an exclusive boutique.

Does Elisha have an eye to the religions marketplace when he says to the king, “Why have you torn your clothes? Let him come to me, that he may learn that there is a prophet in Israel.” Paul is in open competition with other salesmen in Galatia, but he will not abandon the faithful representation of the Gospel to close the deal, “May I never boast of anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. For neither circumcision nor uncircumcision is anything; but a new creation is everything?” Then with a blessing much like the one Jesus offered to the welcoming household, Paul closes his presentation, “…peace be upon them and mercy, and upon the Israel of God.”

Pentecost 5 – June 27, 2010 2 Kings 2:1-2, 6-14 Psalm 77:1-2, 11-20 Galatians 5:1, 13-25 Luke 9:51-62 The Mantle of Christ Being led by the spirit is the issue. Elisha wants to have the spirit in him that was in Elijah, his father in the faith. With this spirit comes power and direction, the power to part the waters so that one may go as God directs. With this same spirit comes direction that is superior to the law. Christ has set us free from the law not that we might be set adrift but that we might be led by his spirit. People adrift wash up on flesh beach. At first we think Paul is just talking about hedonism, but his detail list includes idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, envy and factions. In an election cycle it is good for us as a country to measure ourselves against this list. “My political party, right or wrong,” sounds mighty like factionalism. Campaign media consultants promise their sorcery. Any contest for power has swirling around it all the other signs of the flesh-directed life. Jesus says if you are going to water-ski, grab the line and don’t let go – use both hands. Otherwise you are all washed up. It is the power and direction that keeps you afloat. People that dabble in discipleship are just wading in the shallow water. When the boat motor roars and the line tries to pull your arms off, if you gird your loins and brace your legs, you will soon be walking on water. The spirit is this kind of force. It doesn’t leave you much time or reason to consider another direction. That’s why you don’t need the tedious law, the law that lacks saving power. But let go the Spirit and you need all the law and then some. Have you picked up the mantle of Christ? Have you traded the sinful reflexes of this world for his high calling? Are you his disciple lock, stock and barrel? Martin Luther said that his young colleague Phillip Melanchton had swallowed the Holy Spirit feathers and all. He meant this as a criticism, but it is an image of doing more than just nibbling at the Spirit of God. Are you just nibbling, washed up on flesh beach. It’s time to walk on water. It’s time to part the sea. Can you hear the motor revving? God is about to line up both hands and your whole heart.

Pentecost 4 – June 20, 2010

Psalm 42
I Kings 19:1-15a
Galatians 3:23-29
Luke 8:26-39

Wait On The Lord

Ready to give up? Elijah was. So was the Psalmist. Paul could have given up on the “foolish” Galatians, and Jesus certainly could have given up on people who respond to his miracle by asking him to leave town. But, they didn’t give up. Why? They were oriented more toward God than toward their own success.

It wasn’t so much a show of force that gave back Elijah’s zeal, as it was the quiet recognition that God was not through with him. The Psalmist can’t get back to his life of worship in Jerusalem. The Bible doesn’t tell us why. Faced with the option of despair he receives the gift of hope instead. He preaches himself a little sermon:
“Why are you cast down, O my soul,
and why are you disquieted within me?
Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,
my help and my God.” (Psalm 42:11)

Paul found out that the church in Galatia had abandoned the cornerstone of his teaching and the heart of the Gospel. He could have said, “Phooey on them,” but instead he wrote a letter that has helped the church better understand the good news Paul preached -- the promise of reconciliation among people, e.g. Jew, Greek, slave, free, male and female; and people with God: ”for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith” (Gal. 3:26)

The man who lived crazy didn’t want to stay with the people who preferred him crazy, but Jesus hadn’t given up on them. He told the man to stay in his own land and tell people what had happened. We don’t know for sure, but it may have been that man’s testimony that prepared those Greek cities to become one of the strongholds of the early church.

So, there is no wind in your sail? You are dead in the water? Wait on the Lord. God has a future you haven’t dreamt of.

Pentecost 3 – June 13, 2010

Psalm 5:1-8
1 Kings 21:1-21a
Galatians 2:15-21
Luke 7:36-8:3

“Revelation Collision”

The Old Testament lections tell us that God will not tolerate evil, and the New Testament lections tell us that faith in Christ will free us from judgment -- revelation on a collision course.

Ahab is a cowardly sinner, but Jezebel is brazen. They are both beneath contempt in the eyes of the biblical author, partly for their own sakes and partly for what the Northern Kingdom might have been. These are God’s chosen people, after all, who are being ruled by a “surfer girl” from the Mediterranean coast and all her “new age” priests. (I can hear the “Beach Boys” singing in the background.) Ahab is a babe in the woods when it comes to politics, but Jezebel shows him the way called “disinformation” in the lexicon of propaganda, a euphemism for the better Anglo-Saxon word “lying”. She was a political advisor from the Baal Foundation, a Phoenician political think tank. Her plan is clever without being wise. Like most political stratagems, it works for the immediate objective but fails the test of time. Elijah arrives to pass that judgment from God.

What Jezebel and Ahab did was venal and common as dirt. How far back do you have to go in your local newspaper to find an unscrupulous land deal reported? That is not the issue. The issue is “Can they be saved?” Can they turn, repent, believe in Christ and be saved? As much to the point is this: “Do you even want them to turn and repent and start attending your church?”

There is something in our hearts that would rather keep the “bad guys” bad and the “good guys” clearly identified with us. The Gospel looks beautiful in print, sounds great in sermons, and plays well when I am the one “justified not by the works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ”. However, it is a real challenge in general practice. What if Jezebel had met Jesus? Could it not have been she weeping at his feet? Could God not have heard the sound of her cry? And how might she have met Jesus, if no one could visualize her forgiveness, if everyone were pleased to leave her in her role as the villain, pleased to let her die like a dog in the end? How is it then with the Gospel entrusted to your church for Jezebel's sake? What might you do or say as the body of Christ that would stir her heart and bring her to salvation? How might it be at your next covered dish dinner if she were there for the Gospel feast?

Pentecost 2 – June 6, 2010

1 Kings 17:8-24
Psalm 146
Galatians 1:11-24
Luke 7:11-17

Light Up and Live

“God is light and in him there is no darkness at all.” (1 Jn 1:5) Therefore the presence of God lights up life. Jesus lit up the life of the widow from Nain – to say nothing of the life of her son. The crowd lights up in response. Glorifying God is turning your light in God’s direction. Paul recounts how God lit up his life and how the churches of Judea turned their light toward God in response to his conversion. Another widow lights up when Elijah revives her son, and she reflects that light toward God. The Psalmist lights up thinking about who God is and what God does.

Light and power are both in play here. The power of God enlightens those who witness and receive it. The widow in Zarephath knows that Elijah is the real thing. The crowd and around the widow of Nain knows they are in the presence of a great prophet or something marvelous. Paul knows that he is an apostle by divine authority, and the churches in Judea know that God is turning the enemy into an ally. In three hundred years, God will turn a whole empire of enemies into allies of sorts.

What do you know? You know you worship the living God when that God surprises you. Idols never surprise us because they are projections of us. God surprised Paul and the widows. It is surprising in the world that God sets the prisoners free, opens the eyes of the blind, lifts up those who are bowed down, loves the righteous, watches over the strangers and upholds the orphan and the widow. That is not the God of human projection.

This God is a surprise to a nation that leads the world in the number of prisoners it holds -- a surprise to a country teaming with single-parent type widows, strangers from across the border and children orphaned by poverty. The compassion your church shows to these is surprising to the world and sheds light on the living God.

So where’s the light? Where’s the power? Where’s the surprise appearance of God? Where’s the glory and those glorifying? Will it be in your message this week? “This word about him spread throughout Judea and all the surrounding country.”

Trinity Sunday – May 30, 2010

Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31
Psalm 8
Romans 5:1-5
John 16:12-15

Clever We Are; Wise We Aren’t

There was a time when Wisdom delighted in the human race, according to Proverbs 30. It must have been before we figured out how to open a hole in the ozone layer and turn atoms into poison eternal and open an artesian oil well in the Gulf of Mexico. Clever we are; wise we aren't.

Of all the reasons we need an outpouring of God the Holy Spirit, our need for wisdom is seldom mentioned. We know we are clever, so we think we are wise. We need the Holy Spirit to make us feel good, to heal our bodies and minds, to give us love and enthusiasm, to grow the church and to confirm our hope. If we have all that, we can figure out the rest. What we don't want is restraint or constraint. We don't want wisdom telling us to consume less. We don't want wisdom telling us to share more. We don't want wisdom telling us to have fewer children and take better care of the children we have. "Come Holy Spirit so we can sustain our foolishness?" No. "Come Holy Spirit; make us truly wise that we may ever enjoy your consolations."

We need wisdom for our own sakes, but we need wisdom for God's sake too. "O LORD, our Sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth! ... what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them? Yet you have made them a little lower than God, and crowned them with glory and honor. You have given them dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under their feet..." (Psalm 8:1,5-6) Does God's decision to put all things under our feet make God look majestic or foolish? The Scriptures reveal that God has chosen to be known in part by looking at God's covenant partner. "What are human beings that God is mindful of them..." Yes, and, "What is God that God makes such a blunder?" Our foolishness raises doubts about our claim to the created order. Maybe we are just a clever species that blundered into its own dead end. Much is at stake when we pray for God the Holy Spirit to come and impart to us wisdom.

If God the Holy Spirit can impart wisdom to us, then we can know and understand things that we didn't know and understand before. We can know that God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit even if that were not clear to us when the New Testament was being written. "When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth..." (John 16:13) This truth is not a wisdom concocted from things lying around but a wisdom that God brings from outside the creation, outside the cleverness of the clever. "[It] has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us." (Romans 5:5) Paul is talking about love, but a love that includes wisdom because it is God the Holy Spirit pouring in. Paul is talking about a future in which the love and wisdom of God are characteristic of the human race. The love and wisdom of God in us is both God's glory and ours. "...we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God." (Romans 5:3)

The presence among us of God the Holy Spirit means there is still hope -- hope that we may become truly wise in addition to clever; that, rather than blunder into an evolutionary blind alley, we may ever enjoy God's consolations.

Pentecost – May 23, 2010

Acts 2:1-21
Psalm 104:24-34, 35b
Romans 8:14-17
John 14:8-17 (25-27)

Taking the Message to the Streets

The disciples were sitting down when the Holy Spirit arrived. Surely they jumped up. They must have jumped up and run out into the street. Else, how would the sundry residents of Jerusalem have heard them in their own language? They came out of the house saying what? "Look at these flames on our heads?" Doubtful. Luke assumes that we know what message would issue from such a power. We don't know what the Jews all heard in their own language, but we know what Peter said in one language. It was a message about the end time and the beginning time. The coming of the Holy Spirit marked the end and the beginning. Jesus was the end of waiting for the Messiah and the beginning of the waiting for the one already known to be the Messiah. Baptism marked the end of being a thrall of the present age and the beginning of a new citizenship.

Jesus had to end his sojourn with the disciples following the resurrection in order for the new age to begin. The new age needed Jesus in the sky and the Holy Spirit in the heart. The new age was to knit back together the human fabric that had been shredded on the tower of Babel. It was like a space ship departing. Everyone had to make the decision to get on or stay behind. It sounds as if it were a general boarding, open to all regardless of race, religion or national origin. "Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved." (Acts 2:21) But, it also sounds as if it one boards by invitation only, "If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever." (John 14:15-16) The new age is somehow a mutual venture of God and people. Is that why the new age is so old now and so incomplete? Did we get on board too slowly? Or, were too few invitations sent out?

The Psalmist looks briefly at the dark side of the dependence of the creation on the Spirit of God. "When you hide your face, they are dismayed; when you take away their breath, they die and return to their dust. When you send forth your spirit, they are created; and you renew the face of the ground." (Psalm 104: 29-30) If there is a Pentecost, then can there be an un-Pentecost? What is the sound in the room when the Holy Spirit withdraws? And, what happens then when the disciples go out into the street? It doesn't have to be tongues that we remember when we leave a worship service, but it does have to be some manifestation of the presence of God. Otherwise, we have nothing to take to he street, nothing to send us out of the room with a message.

It isn't tongues that Paul holds up as proof of the new citizenship but prayer, a crying out in prayer. Paul wants to be sure that all disciples stay in touch with the experience of the Holy Spirit when they leave the church, "When we cry, "Abba! Father!" it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God," (Romans 8:15-16) When we leave our worship services, do we take with us any such touchstone? Do we take a burning message into the street? In the present age, are the only burning messages among us commercials?

It is asking too much of preachers to expect us to come up with something everyone will recognize as the Holy Spirit. It is too much to ask of an order of worship or a liturgy to guarantee such experience. A tongue-speaking service is a contrivance. The disciples didn't meet that day to speak in tongues. But, it is not asking too much to expect God to give us the Holy Spirit. Our liturgy and our preaching should be filled with such expectation and supplication. Then, just before our people leave the room, we should prompt them to reflect on the worship hour and search their hearts for the evidence of God's having drawn near. "They said to each other, 'Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?'" (Luke 24:32) For it is only after we identify our own experience of the Holy Spirit, that we take the message to the street.

Easter 7 – May 16, 2010

Acts 16:16-34
Psalm 97
Rev 22:12-14, 16-17, 20-21
John 17:20-26

The Integrity of the Church

If God grants a slave girl the healing for which she didn't pray, how much more will God give to the church the unity for which Jesus did pray. If the feeble testimony of a demon disturbed Paul that much, how much more does the feeble testimony of a divided church disturb the martyrs. When we divide the church, when we feed the division of the church, when we profit by the division of the church, we deny all those who gave their lives to bear witness to a faith that is above division; and we deny the efficacy of the prayer of Jesus "that they may be one, as we are one".

The truth is that God answered Jesus' prayer. We are one as the Father and the Son are one. What is untrue is the division we practice. It is untrue and un-evangelical because the unity that God gives the church is not for its own sake but "so that the world may believe".

This unity of the church is not just integrity within itself but integrity with God. The jailor was about to kill himself because the earthquake opened the doors of the prison and opened the shackles of all the prisoners. He was about to kill himself because he assumed the integrity of his prisoners; that is, the unity of their self-interest, to flee captivity. He assumed the integrity of his superiors, their common allegiance to punishment -- his execution for dereliction of duty. What he discovered instead was an integrity with God on the part of Paul and his company. The prayers and hymns were a foretaste of this integrity; the mighty act of God in opening the doors of the prison was a confirmation of this integrity; but Paul's interest in the salvation of the jailor rather than his own escape revealed this integrity. God's love for the jailor and Paul's love for the jailor were one. The jailor discovered God's motive and God's love in Paul, the very integrity for which Jesus had prayed. That is what led to his conversion, not the worship service, not the miracle but the integrity of the church with God.

"The LORD is king! Let the earth rejoice!" This was the affirmation of the Jailor and his entire household that day. He had found the transcendent power of life, and it was far above the power he knew when he sought to take his life, "All worshipers of images are put to shame." Luke doesn't tell us what happened to the jailor when he had to account to his superiors for the prisoners he had personally escorted out of the jail. The jailor may have had the privilege of joining the martyrs.

"Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they will have the right to the tree of life and may enter the city by the gates." (Rev 22:14) This is the jailor being welcomed into the new Jerusalem by Jesus himself, his robe washed in the blood of the Lamb and in his own -- his robe the integrity of the church with God.

Easter 5 – May 2, 2010

Acts 11:1-18
Psalm 148
Revelation 21:1-6
John 13:31-35

God’s Love Conquers

Acts
Peter dreamed that the Pizza deliveryman showed up with "The Works."
"I didn't order all those toppings," said Peter, "just kosher."
"Try it; you'll like it," said God.
In order to be sure it was the right order, he tried it three times, and he bought it.

The lynch pin of the theological argument for Gentiles being included in the Jewish sect arising from Jesus is the discovery that the Holy Spirit works equally in Gentiles to convince them (us) of the resurrection and convert them into disciples of Jesus, "the repentance that leads to life." (What is that exactly, the repentance that leads to life?") God delivers the movement of the faith across the borderline between Jews that believe and Gentiles that come to believe. It was not a church growth insight on Peter's part or a marketing breakthrough. Church growth is appropriately a function of perceiving what God is doing and then following.

Psalms
"All things praise the Lord" is not exactly the same as all things are good to eat, but it might mean that there are no taboo things in creation. God called them all good. "Clean and unclean" (taboo) is a different distinction than "good and bad". God sets aside the distinction "clean and unclean" along with "Jew and Gentile."

Revelation
The movement of the consummation of history is not from earth toward heaven but from heaven toward earth. It is therefore not something we perfect and give to God, but rather something God perfects and gives to us. Therefore, our appropriate response is faithful, prayerful submission to the gift. We cannot create it and bestow it on ourselves. The role of the church is not to perfect the world, but to show faith to the world and call the world to faith. The image of the church in Acts, the image of Peter in our text, is one of faithful, prayerful submission.

John
Our public relations are to be based on our obvious love for one-another. This is the sign that Jesus gave us to give to the world, not the cross. The cross is an appropriate reminder of the kind of love that flowed to us from God, but it is this love that should relate us to the world. It is in this sign -- love, not the cross -- which we conquer. And, what do we conquer? We conquer (the love of God in us conquers) the barriers that break down community: God-people, Jew-Gentile, religion-religion, male-female, class-class, age-age, nation-nation. This requires a new commandment, not just that we love our neighbor as we love ourselves, but that we love our fellow church member the way Jesus loved us. It doesn't replace the former commandment. It adds to it. We are to love our neighbor as we love ourselves and to love each other as Jesus loved us. Is there a difference between the way we love ourselves and the way Jesus loves us? I should say.

The United Methodist Church is contemplating striking a blow for the faith by creating a new distinction among us, "Confessing" versus just plain. Does God's love conquer by dividing? One could ask the same question of every division of the church through history. No, God's love reveals a unity from which people may separate themselves. The vast majority of the Jewish community of the first and second centuries chose to separate itself from that unity revealed to Peter and the church. John quotes Jesus as using the term "the Jews" to indicate that choice, i.e. people choosing to separate themselves from the unity that God reveals. We do it for the best of reasons and the worst of reasons, but when we do it, we do not love one another as Jesus loved us.

[A flashpoint for recent schism has been the treatment of homosexuals in the church. The contention of one side is that full equality for them would be contrary to Scripture and the will of God. I wonder if they are thinking of gays and lesbians in terms of taboo rather than evil. People shun taboos like evil, but they are not the same. We must always resist evil, but we can grow past taboos.]

Easter 4 – April 25, 2010

Acts 9:36-43
Psalm 23
Revelation 7:9-17
John 10:22-30

God to the Rescue

Peter raises the dead as an extension of the power of the risen Lord. The Psalmist lives in the promise of a shepherd's rescue. John of Patmos see the saints "...who have come out of the great ordeal," rescued beyond their death. In the Gospel of John, when asked his identity, Jesus points to the works of God that he does. As the blind man said, "Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a person born blind." (John 9:32) Only God can perform such a rescue; therefore, this must be God.

"God to the rescue" sounds melodramatic, unless you are the one being rescued. If God is creator and sustainer, can God not also be rescuer? There is a problem with God's coming to the rescue, though. It implies that the Holy One is not adequately in charge. "Oops, Tabitha died. I didn't intend that -- good of Peter to remind me." It challenges us to understand randomness within God's will. Some things just happen, maybe a lot of things. They happen because of all the decisions people make every day. They happen because of forces working independently. Otherwise, why would God intervene in anything? Why would God raise the dead, shepherd people around the dangers of life, or provide alternate consequences for the faithful, alternate to the normal consequences found on earth, if God were totally in charge of the day-to-day events. You don't rescue people from consequences you ordain; and if you ordain trouble just so you can rescue people, you are sick.

Did God ordain Tabatha's death or not? What is the meaning of this rescue? What does it say about the identity of God and the church? Luke doesn't say Peter labored long in prayer over the body. He doesn't mention prayer chains stretching across the country with their own web page. All he says is that Peter prayed and bingo... Don't you suppose there were other mourners in Joppa at that time? If people could be resuscitated as easily as Tabatha was, couldn't the church have made that its primary business? Who could have competed with such power? "Raising of the dead every Wednesday at 7:00 PM in the chapel, members only."

The church didn't take up the resuscitation of corpses as its mission because that was not its mission. Raising Tabatha contributed to the mission of the church by identifying the power by which the church lived: God the Holy Spirit. "...many believed in the Lord," is the consequence of the raising of Tabatha not "many came and brought the deseased with them." So, maybe her death wasn't so random after all. Maybe both her death and her resuscitation were ordained by God for the sake of identifying Christ in the church. Maybe miracles aren't for us at all, but for the sake of another audience. Expecting a miracle for myself is vain. Receiving a miracle in order to identify God to a lost and desperate world is humble service.

"Well, preacher, does God come to the rescue or not?" Certainly God does. That is what makes such rescuing God's very signature. The Gospel is the story of God's rescue mission. "Then can I expect the rescue I want?" If you expect the rescue you want, you may miss the rescue you get -- better just to trust the rescuer.

Easter 3 – April 18, 2010 Acts 9:16, 7-20 Psalm 30 Revelation 5:1114 John 21:119 The Risen Lord Raises Up the Church The risen Lord takes an active role in managing the church. He waylays Paul to recruit him as the missions chairperson. He makes Ananias a member of the nominating committee. He interviews Peter for the position of lay leader. John of Patmos, he makes worship chair. The church can exult like the Psalmist, "I will extol you, O LORD, for you have drawn me up, and did not let my foes rejoice over me." (Psalm 30:1) The church was and is the singular witness to the resurrection of Jesus. Jesus busies himself with the organization and direction of the church immediately following the resurrection, and the church busies itself in proclaiming the resurrected Lord following Pentecost. The church is a community of witnesses with a single priest who is Jesus himself. In Acts, Luke makes it clear that God in Christ leads the church out of its original setting as surely as the Holy One brought the children of Israel out of captivity in Egypt. Saul, like Moses, is accosted by God while in the pursuit of his own mission. God changes that mission and reinterprets the reality in which both Moses and Paul operated. John, presumably the Disciple that Jesus loved in some distinctive way, is clear that Jesus chose Peter, not him, for authority over the original community of witnesses. Jesus, even more than the rest of the community, knew Peter's weakness for power, either to be intimidated by not having it or to be arrogant in having it. Jesus knew this to be true of all future church leaders, too. So, Jesus ties power to love and love for him to love for the community of witnesses. The early witnesses interpreted the resurrection to be the confirmation of their vision for the conversion of the world, one that looked much like a half-hour western on TV where the Lone Ranger and Tonto come into town from nowhere, identify and dispatch the bad guys, establish the reign of righteousness and ascend the throne on the horizon with a hearty, "Hi Ho Silver." The author of the Apocalypse seems to embrace this vision, but the way he describes it leaves the action hovering in space. The rescuer doesn't quite ride into town. The shoot-out is in the sky. There is a parallel drama to the one on earth going on above, and it is on that plane that the conquering lamb clearly conquers. On this earthly plane, he also conquers, but not with the same finality. Worthy is this lamb who was slain and who conquers for the sake of the church. Worthy is this lamb who was raised and leads the church, worthy to be praised. His victory can be seen on earth the way other invisible forces can be seen, by their impact on the visible, e.g. the raising up of a joyous, loving community from a bitter, hateful execution; the turning of a persecutor into a missionary; the sustaining of genuine righteousness in a church populated with sinners. It is the risen Lord who creates and directs the church. Apart from that the church has no mission and no proper existence. I promise to try harder to keep this in mind when I prepare an order of worship and a sermon. It is the risen Lord who raises up the church.

Easter 2 – April 11, 2010 Acts 5:27-32 Psalm 150 Revelation 1:4-8 John 20:19-31 Welcoming the Hero Home “This is the day that the Lord has made," is not a celebration of another sunrise or another day's life but rather an exultation over the king's victory in battle. The whole city has turned out to welcome the conquering hero home, a king of a smallish state unlikely to win, a king who got passed over in favor of another, a king who nevertheless by the power of God has gotten the victory. It could be David, but it could be Jesus. ”Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the LORD." (Psalm118:26) Didn't we just hear that on Palm Sunday? Wasn't that supposed to be the exaltation of Jerusalem? It fizzled just like the Psalm does. Palm Sunday started out fine, but when Jesus got to the Temple -- nothing, no delegation, no high priest -- nothing. And, by the time Psalm 118 gets to verse 25, we are back pleading for success. The real consummation of the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem is the scene from Acts where Peter is standing before the high priest and the Sanhedrin. It is as if Jesus and the high priest got their calendars mixed up. Jesus shows up with a procession at the temple, and the high priest isn't there. The high priest shows up to confront what God is doing, and Jesus isn't there. In place of Jesus and with his full authority is Peter. Peter is no longer the cowering figure in the flickering firelight outside the house of the high priest on Good Friday, a man with nothing but defeat on his mind. Now, he is inside the house standing before the high priest with nothing but victory on his mind. The high priest, for his part, having failed to meet Jesus when he could celebrate victory, now must meet him with bitterness and defeat as Peter declares, "We must obey God rather than any human authority. The God of our ancestors raised up Jesus, whom you had killed by hanging him on a tree. God exalted him at his right hand as Leader and Savior that he might give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins. And we are witnesses to these things, and so is the Holy Spirit whom God has given to those who obey him." (Acts 5:29-32) This transformation in Peter is the surest witness to the resurrection in the whole story of the early church. He went from a mindset of defeat to a mindset of victory. He went from being intimidated by earthly defeat to being captivated by heavenly victory. Why? How? The resurrection of Jesus is the answer given and the most plausible explanation there is. We mortal humans are constantly in search of victory thinking. That is why we have these endless play offs in sports, so someone can for a fleeting moment break free form the mind set of defeat, thrust an index finger into the air and proclaim, "We're number one!" Consumer confidence even rises briefly, "I'm buying." But, the world champions of 2010 are the dogs of 2011, and the fans are back to pleading with God for victory again. Peter has found something different. He has experienced a permanent change. It is more than his memory of seeing the risen Lord. That experience recedes into history. Peter has something that doesn't recede, that is more than memory. He has the witness of God the Holy Spirit. When Jesus breathed the Holy Spirit into him and the rest of the disciples, they were transformed. (John puts this in the final discourses, but the historical sequence has to be otherwise.) The mindset of defeat was replaced with the mindset of victory. It was a permanent change. This is the change the risen Lord has for you and me. The conquering hero had to overcome locked doors to receive the welcome of the disciples, had to pierce a locked heart to change it from defeat thinking to victory thinking. In prison on Patmos with all the earthly signs of defeat, another John welcomes our hero home in a vision of his coming on the clouds. I welcomed the risen Lord home when I heard his story proclaimed in the worship service as a child. By the time I was twelve years old Jesus was my hero. That has not been equal to the transformation in Peter yet, however. I still struggle to keep the risen Lord at the center of my thinking and my mind stayed on spiritual victory amid earthly defeat. Where the disciples received the Holy Spirit in a rush, I am afraid God the Holy Spirit only seeps into my life, but... Da-yenu, it is enough for me. To receive the Holy Spirit as God pleases is enough for me.