Does Holy Hospitality Happen in Hurried Lives?

Proverbs 8:32-36; Luke 10:38-42

“I want to suggest that one of the great reasons the church is declining during our day,” writes Luther Seminary professor David J. Lose, is that many “people have a hard time connecting what we do at church with what we do the rest of the week.”  

            He certainly had my immediate attention when I read these words.   I’m a practical guy in all areas of my personal and professional life.   I pray my grace fueled efforts for our Lord will have tangibly life transforming results.   When I hear the phrase “What would Jesus do?” I think it’s helpful but a little too academic.  I prefer to ask the more practical question, “What will Jesus do?”[i]      

            So I eagerly read on to learn more about what might be prohibiting me and other people from more fully living out our faith beyond the time spent in church building spaces.   This professor continued to state his view of this problem, saying, “Their faith practices on Sunday are nice, perhaps even comfortable, but they don’t inform their daily decisions at work, home or school.  In short, they don’t find their faith particularly useful.”   Given that our current culture is a “24/7 world of multiple opportunities and obligations,” he reminds us that biblical stories really do need to be thought about beyond Sunday.   Having them in mind and heart on a daily basis grows a faithfully fruitful life.

            In today’s Gospel lesson, Luke drops us into a home that has welcomed Jesus.    In this home are two practical examples, by way of sisters Martha and Mary, about how to be useful when offering and receiving holy hospitality.   Holy hospitality happens in all the times and places we graciously welcome and treat one another in the way Jesus taught in word and deed.

Opportunities for this hospitality happen on special occasions as well as every day for us.   After all, there isn’t any space we find ourselves in where the Spirit of our Lord is not present.   So whose example should we consider and follow each day?    Who is more faithful, Martha or Mary?   

            Actually, these questions wrongly suggest that the witness of Martha and Mary are mutually exclusive.   I believe this Gospel scene teaches that holy hospitality is truly about balancing the Martha and the Mary within us all. 

            The Martha within us all is diligently dutiful.   She does what is expected of her and so is always very, very busy.   She spends much of her time making check marks next to all the tasks on her to-do lists.   She takes pride in being very productive and in her accomplishments.  Hers is quite a hurried life of constantly serving others.    This is how she most understands what it means to live for the Lord.  

            But the Martha within us all is also often full of anxiety.   In trying to keep up and do the things expected of her, she worries that she doesn’t really measure up.    She finds comfort in reminding herself that her intentions are almost always faithful and honorable.   But this also keeps up the constant pressure, for she doesn’t want to disappoint herself or anybody else.  And when she gets to feeling exhausted and overwhelmed, she often finds herself angry and resentful about any and all reasons why.   

            It’s the Martha within us all that knew exactly how to offer hospitality to Jesus in this morning’s scene from Luke.  As a faithful servant of her culture, she had busied herself with the tasks of getting the house and meal ready to properly receive her guest.   This work of proper hosting, especially for Jesus, continued even after He’d arrived.

            While the Martha within us all was doing this, the Mary within us all focused her faith of sitting rather than serving.   In the presence of Jesus, she put aside any to-do lists and sat out doing what was culturally expected of her.    Helping her sister took a backseat to Jesus’ feet.  She found it more useful to sit there and listen intently to what he had to say (even though this was a position only allowed of men of her day).   This Mary within us all is deeply devout and cares most about making time to absorb and obey the Word of the Lord.  She has a cherished cross-stitch hanging on a wall someplace that reads, “Hear instruction and be wise, do not neglect it.” (Prov. 32)

            We know these faithful sisters well, don’t we?   Throughout our years of life, I trust we’ve seen them reflected back in our mirrors and in the faces of folks we know.   The sort of busyness varies with all the roles and responsibilities we and others have had and continue to have.   So too taking the time to honor our intrinsic desire to stop and set aside devotional time with the Word of God.   

            In that house on that long ago day, Jesus made it clear that Mary is the better example of what to do when offering and receiving the hospitality of the Lord.   The one thing we all need more than anything else is to make time for the holy, life giving and forgiving words of Jesus.   

            In making this clear, however, our Lord didn’t shame Martha for her diligently dutiful service.   Some folks do interpret his words to her as a harsh rebuke.    But I side with the interpretation that when he said, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things” he was compassionately helping her to recognize that she was allowing herself to be dragged in too many directions.   He did so to invite her back to the number one rule of hospitality – truly paying attention to and being present to the guest.     He did so to invite her to have a more useful, practical balance between serving and listening, between worrying about her life and trusting in Him.   Hospitality happens in hurried lives, but it is only understood as holy hospitality when time is set aside to sit with the Word and see the Light of Jesus Christ in the midst of it.

            As a congregation, we share experiences together that call upon us to balance the Martha and the Mary within us all.   I find this to be especially true every time we welcome IHN.   There sure is a lot of hurry up and do beforehand – such as setting-up the community house, going on grocery runs for non-perishables, recruiting meal-makers and overnight hosts.   And there are shifting schedules, good communications, and occasional troubleshooting to stay atop of when our guests are here.   How many here today experience the Martha within you before and during our IHN hosting?

            Yet these are also times to really rejoice in the presence of the Lord … times when the Mary within us humbly delights in being taught more about God’s unconditional love, acceptance, strengthening, and amazing grace.    This happens as we take time listen to heartfelt stories shared around the dinner table or out in the parking lot.    It happens as we experience the resilient sounds of children, the fun and therapeutic music of Macheis, the affirmations exchanged about how beautiful it feels to love our neighbors as ourselves.   And it happens when we lift up prayers aloud and in the quiet of our hearts.   

            We will regard our faith as useful when we keep in balance the Martha and the Mary within us.   As we do this together here in worship on Sundays, we are better prepared to do so in all the other areas of our daily lives.    And thus we become a great cloud of witnesses to what is holy in this often terribly hurried world!  Amen.  

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[i] www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?m=4377&post=2644

Taking Heart: Reflections from 2013 ECG Conference

Isaiah 42:5-9; Matthew 9:14-26

 

I praise God for the many inspiring, faithfully challenging conversations and experiences I had this past week.    These happened while attending the national Presbyterian Church (USA) Evangelism and Church Growth Conference held in St. Pete Beach, FL.   And I thank God for the support of both FPC and Newton Presbytery that made this ministry shaping trip possible.   Last Sunday, I indicated that I’d come back today and offer a big summary for you all.   Well, I confess that I can’t truly summarize it all in this space of time!   I’ll be deciding on some additional ways to share and foster open space for conversation, so please stay tuned.    I know to really process everything it’s going to take me a good deal more time in prayer, study, and honest conversations with brothers and sisters of our faith and particular tradition.

This said, it’s very much on my heart to start some place with you all.   So this morning I do have one perspective to share from this time away where we addressed how we can take heart in the face of the continued dramatic decline in our denomination.   Did you know the PC(USA) lost over 100,000 members between 2011 and 2012[i]?   And on our local level, I very much share with many of you the web of concerns that accompany the fact that FPC is not experiencing much growth.    

We begin taking heart by turning to Jesus, trusting Him to lead us by the power of the Holy Spirit because He knows us better than we know ourselves.  Our Gospel lesson today is witness to this, especially with regard to how hard it can be to present new ideas and new conceptions of holy truth.   He knew well that we tend to have an ardent attachment to traditions.  So when the Jewish Scribes and Pharisees cried out, “We’ve never done that before!” he fully understood that new ideas were actually considered sinful and not just mistakes.    He knew that every one of our minds can grow as hard as old wineskins lacking the elasticity needed to hold fresh wine. 

We also begin to take heart in the fact that our Lord taught that remarkable transformations happen when people aren’t afraid to reach out to Him no matter what others in the crowd may think and say.  Much like the suffering daughter of God in Mathew 9:20, we need to trust every time we faithfully reach out to touch the cloak of Christ, we will be acknowledged and be made healthier.

So, with fresh wine in one hand and the other hand reaching for our Lord, let me confess to you all that I totally didn’t see the gorilla.   I think I need to explain this carefully! 

My experience of the seemingly invisible gorilla happened Wednesday morning during an hour and a half presentation by Pastor Doug Pagitt, our second keynote speaker.  Fortunately, a real gorilla did not pass through the several hundred of us gathered in a big reception tent.    Neither did a person in a campy sort of gorilla suite saunter through.   If either of those had happened and I’d missed it, I’d be super worried about my ability to pay attention to what’s happening right in front of me in the life of our Lord’s church!   

The guy in the guerilla suite that I didn’t see at all instead appeared in a very short video that was shown to us on a large screen.    I saw everything else in the video – the three young women and three young men standing closely together in front of three closed elevator doors, frantically passing a basketball back and forth to one another.   Half were wearing white t-shirts and the other half black t-shirts.   I was specifically instructed to count how many times the folks in the white t-shirts passed the ball.    So that’s all that I did.   Afterwards, our speaker asked a couple times for a show of hands about the ball count.   Then he asked how many of us saw the gorilla -- as in the fake one that walked directly into the middle of the ball passing group, briefly paused for a mug shot, and then sauntered straight to the other side.  

I sat at the table feeling incredulous.   My wife and ministry colleague Stefanie was sitting right beside me and saw it just fine … so too did all but one other person seated at our table.    I did not believe it had been in the video until the video was replayed starting at the point of the gorilla entrance.   All true.   I just completely didn’t perceive what was directly in front of me.   I’d been too intensely focused on the one specific task I was asked to do.

And this, of course, was our keynote presenter’s big point.    Just like the psychology researchers who created the video, he wanted us to be aware of our “selective attention,” which is a way of saying many people miss what is going on around them and they really have no idea they are missing so much.

What Doug Pagitt then led us through was an intensive, rapid fire discussion about how many churches and church leaders are not seeing the cultural shifts going on around them and thus really don’t know they are missing so much.  Noticing the cultural shifts is critical for church growth.   They can bring about changes in the way we talk about faith, how we understand and house authority, and how we choose the “tools” used to live out our values.    Again, unpacking how this might relate to us will take more time than I have allotted for this worship service.    But let me give you the thumbnail version he offers regarding the three major “ages” of American culture over the past two hundred years.   Then we’ll make note of the one we are in right now and ask ourselves how well we’re able to see the gorilla here at FPC.[ii]

The distinct “ages” of American culture are as follows – the Agrarian Age, the Industrial Age, and the Information Age.   We are now in a new era, one Pagitt has dubbed the “Inventive Age.”   In his book on this topic, he notes that “Few cultural institutions have been able to move through all these shifts with their central identity intact.” and that “the church has been a steady – though not unchanged – presence in each age.”

Our congregation began in the Agrarian Age.   Speaking broadly, this was an age when the “majority of human beings lived pretty much as their parents, grandparents and great-grandparent had.  They worked the land, rarely lived more than one hundred miles from where they were born, and knew they’d be luck to see their 50^th birthdays.” Success was measured by survival, this church was regarded as a local parish, and our church leaders were viewed as Pastors, akin to Shepherds.

With the Industrial Revolution in Europe and the United States of the late 1800’s, we would have likely begun referring to my predecessors as preachers.   It was a sermon by preacher William Otis Ruston (1875-1877) that offered invaluable record for our FPC history book.   Perhaps he recognized how critical it was to document our history from 1747 – 1876 before it got lost, for this was an age when people began moving from farms to cities to work in factories.   Manufactured goods became the currency of the culture.   The manufacturing mindset impacted local parishes, as they found themselves shifted into major denominational groupings and their preachers charged with maintaining and repeating the denominational “brand” (Presbyterians, et al.)  

With the Industrial Age still booming (these shifts don’t happen in neat succession), came the start of the Information Age in the 1920’s and 1930’s.    The Industrial Age made it possible for more and more people to have access to “books, newspapers, radios, and eventually televisions,” so “knowledge and information became the most valuable assets of our culture.”   Our denominational churches were viewed as learning centers and their leaders regarded first and foremost as Teachers.   We added Christian Education wings to our worship and fellowship spaces, such as we did here at our Community House in 1965 under the leadership of pastor-teacher John Cooney.  Success in this age was synonymous with expertise.

I know this is going long, but here I find myself pausing to assess my call in ministry.   I go by the Agrarian Age title of Pastor because my heart most connects with Jesus shepherding the marginalized and because of my love of small “flocks.”  And I have been trained through a Master’s degree to be both the denominational “brand” representative preacher as well as the information age knowledge dispenser of Bible and theology.   I believe these three identities fit my service with you all in FPC’s ministry.    Following this conference, however, I’m wondering how best to continue in this way (as I believe is necessary given the ways our church family reflects the first three ages) while also helping to lead us all in reaching out to the present age of American culture with the Good News of Jesus Christ.

Presently, we are in the Inventive Age.   These are days built around big ideas being fueled by rapidly changing computer and communication technologies.   These technologies create a remarkable, immediate sense of global interconnectivity.  I think that smart phones are the best symbol of this cultural shift.  As Doug Pagitt put it at the conference, we’ve moved from people who didn’t know anyone beyond one hundred miles to instant Twitter updates on our mobile phones from people we don’t really know reporting from the middle of the Arab Spring.   These are days of quick discovery, constant creativity, pluralistic perspectives, “inclusion, participation, and collaboration.”  It impacts all of us, but I find it especially frames the way my school aged children and most all young adults think and interact.   It’s an age of personalization that is not narcissistic, but instead about a “longing to attach meaning to experiences.”   So we have 24-7 personalized Google news instead of an entire newspaper delivered to our doorsteps every morning.   I read and hear the word “relevant” a whole lot.  

Co-op models are most authoritative and abound everywhere, including the church.   To quote Pagitt’s book, people who are living out and into this cultural shift “don’t want to simply use resources created by and controlled by others … [authority] isn’t in the wisdom of the village leaders or the deep pockets of the factory owners or the knowledge of the corporate executives. Authority is found in the way our experiences come together and create reality.”   It is found in relationships and is “user generated.”   The values of previous ages still exist, but in different, even subservient, roles.   Knowledge, for example, is important, but only as a means of discovering something else.  In the view of the Inventive Age, church leaders such as myself thus do well to identify ourselves less as pastors, less as preachers, less as teachers, and more as facilitators.  

The overall implications of this Inventive Age are still emerging, but we can be sure that new norms have and will continue to be created.    This is why I am now in the middle of reading Pagitt’s book Evangelism in the Inventive Age and will be putting it into conversation with what I learned from the conference workshops, clinics, and the other amazing keynote speaker.   Then I hope to put all this in further, less formal conversation with many of you and your loved ones and your neighbors.   
 
I understand why I didn’t see the gorilla, how my mind was trained on only one thing.   The one thing I’ve been most trained to be is pastor as “brand name” preacher and pastor as knowledge-disseminating teacher.  In other areas of my life, I’m deep into the Inventive age.  But aside from my creating and maintaining our church website, my being able to text and email, my having a personal and somewhat pastoral presence on Facebook, and a few other inklings of what to do  … I’m on a journey to discover how to be more of a pastor-as-facilitator church leader.  How will we as a church family in and for Jesus Christ truly start to see and engage the Inventive Age happening right in the middle of our passing the ball around our predominantly Industrial and Information age FPC framework?  

So I hope many of you will join me on this journey of making connections between the dominant ages of American culture so as to better understand the implications for church growth in 2013 and beyond.   Together in the Spirit, we’ll take heart by putting the wine of salvation in fresh wineskins and we’ll reach out to touch the strengthening cloak of Christ!  Amen.

 

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[i] http://www.pcusa.org/news/2013/5/30/stated-clerk-releases-pcusa-2012-statistics/

[ii] Doug Pagitt, Evangelism in the Inventive Age, Section 2

Where the Living Water Spills and Flows

Psalm 65; John 4:1-28

  With Anna starting High School this week, I found myself lost in a few memories from my own teen years.   And as I began a fresh study of this morning’s lesson from John’s Gospel, one memory in particular surfaced.  It has nothing to do with academics, sports, music or social clubs.    It has to do with my male buddies and I being glued to the T.V. so we could be part of the action taking place as we watched “professional wrestling.”   Developmentally, I think we were all wired for this.   Emotionally, it was a way to process anything we were … well, wrestling with.   It was especially cathartic for working out the anger those of us surviving in broken, abusive homes had to deal with.     The hyped up battles between all kinds of overblown, ballistic bad guys and super-sensationalized, heroic good guys was something we really looked forward to seeing.  

            Many of the bad guys were simple stereotypes based on them being from a hostile foreign country or from a particular part of American culture.   But some were walking, talking, body-throwing, arm-pinning object lessons.    It’s one of these that came to mind this week.  His character name was “Mr. Perfect.”    I don’t feel a need to describe him in detail.  Just know, or perhaps you remember, that he grandly demonstrated everything anyone needs to know about the foolishness of believing you are or ever can be perfect at anything.   Sadly, and adding some additional poignancy to this memory, the actor-athlete who performed as Mr. Perfect died in 2003 from a hard drug, steroid and painkiller combination.  He was my age at the time.

            While this character was an object lesson that I laughed at, in reality, those were days when I felt all kinds of cultural pressures to grow into or come as close as possible to certain ideals of perfection – from my complexion to my clothing to my social standing to my smarts, my skills, my future career and what kind of family I should one day have.  I drank in every  message of imperfection.   And when I found myself a few years later, at the age of 22, standing at Central Presbyterian Church of Summit with a wet forehead and a fresh identity after receiving the Sacrament of Baptism, I can honestly say I pressured myself to be some kind of perfect servant of our Lord.  

            Can you recall times in your life when you pressured yourself or were pressured by others to strive for perfection?    If so, how’d that go?   And did you also believe on some level that this is what God expected of you?

            There is a traditional folktale of anonymous origin that I find helps us gain some faithful perspective on the sinful temptation to want to be perfect.    It’s a story about a water bearer who carried two large clay pots attached at the ends of a pole upon his shoulder.   One pot was perfect, always delivering a full portion of water.   It was proud to perfectly accomplish what it was made for.   The other pot, however, had a crack in it.  So when it arrived at the home from the long walk back from the stream, it did so half-full.   It was miserable and ashamed of its imperfection.  

            After years of feeling like a failure, the fragile pot one day spoke to the water bearer.    It said, “I’m ashamed of myself. I apologize to you.  I’ve only been able to deliver half my load because this crack in my side causes water to leak out all the way back to your house.  Because of my flaw, you’ve had to do all this work and you don’t get full value from your efforts.”    The water bearer responded right away, saying, “Have you noticed that there are flowers only on your side of the path?  This is because I have always known about your flaw.  So I decided to plant flower seeds on your side.  Every day, on our walk back, you water them.  Through our years together, I’ve been able to pick the loveliest flowers to decorate my dining table.  Without you being just the way you are, there wouldn’t be this beauty to grace my home.”

            God knows, none of us is perfect.    None of is perfect in our family life, our friendships, our employment, our citizenship, our faithful service to the Lord.  But what an inspiration this little story is.  It invites us to accept ourselves for who we are and to trust that God (the One who truly carries us on every pathway of life) knows us fully, loves us fully, and graciously chooses to grow beauty in this world through us.    Imperfections and all!   

            In the fourth chapter of John’s Gospel, we meet one of God’s imperfect but very precious pots.   She is an unnamed woman called upon to realize that she is filled with the living water of salvation in Jesus Christ.    At the start of this true life story, she is presented as being a fragile pot.   She had come to be this way because of people’s perceptions and definitions of her.  How we choose to see, and how Jesus sees us, is a key theme throughout John’s Gospel.

              Her fellow Samaritans apparently saw her in quite a negative light.   All John tells us as to why has to do with the number of her marriage partners.   Generally, women of her ancient culture were socially marginalized and shamed, unable to live independently.    So the negative light likely had to do with her being widowed or divorced any number of times, or, out of necessity, financially dependent on a male she was not married too.    Whatever the exact reason, it apparently forced her to fetch water from the well in town at midday, in the scorching hot sun.   Nobody chose to go to the well at that time of day.   So she really would have only done this to avoid being seen and reminded with unkind words or sideways glances from her own people about her culturally appointed imperfections.   

            Her neighboring Jews would have seen her and immediately felt animosity.   Despite common ancestors, Jews and Samaritan had a long standing ethnic, religious rivalry.   Actually, it’s more like Jews wouldn’t have seen her at all -- they usually avoided traveling through Samaria altogether. 

            And yet with cultural boundaries firmly in place, a tired and thirsty Jesus not only traveled through Samaria, he sat down for a spell at that very well.  At high noon.   In the brightest light of day.    To reveal a different Son.   That’s when she sees him and he truly sees her.  Rather than abiding by a lot of religious and traditional rules strictly forbidding such a thing, they then have a radically honest and direct conversation about faithful identity, the hope of salvation and true worship.    By the end of it, she is transformed.  She realized Jesus is her Messiah, her well of hope, the bearer and giver of life sustaining spiritual water, the pure source of her salvation and that of the world.    She accepted that she had been gifted with this living water and that it was welling up within her and that she no longer needed to feel dependent upon that old worldly well with its ethnic controversy and social oppressions.    Seeing herself as Jesus saw her, she confidently leaves behind her old water and enthusiastically presents herself as a precious pot full of the Lord’s living water for everyone in town to see.   And though they all still saw her as cracked, they got watered along their rough edges.   And beautiful salvation through Jesus came to bloom and grow among them all.

            Imperfect as we are, the Living Water that is Jesus, with His life saving and sustaining grace and love, the water symbolized in our baptisms, is within all of us too through the free flowing power of the Holy Spirit.   As is later declared in John’s Gospel, in verse 38 of chapter 7, “Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water.”    And so may our heart sing a praise song -- “Flow river flow, flood the nations with grace and mercy, send forth Your Word, Lord and let there be light!”     May we all rejoice in believing that we are fully known, filled to overflow with love, and graciously called by God to let the Living Water leak, spill and flow out of us today as we carry on being carried through all of life’s labors.    Amen.

 

How The Gospel Grows

Psalm 119:1-20; Colossian 1:1-14

            I only have a green thumb when I’m finger painting.   And I haven’t finger painted with any color in very many years.   And even when I did, I don’t quite recall using my thumb.   Anyway, instead of a green thumb, I’m happier having a Gospel thumb.   I’ve spent my adult life trying to plant and help grow seeds of God’s gracious, Good News love in Jesus Christ.  I especially hope and pray I’m able to reveal a big Gospel “thumbs up” every week I have the privilege of the pulpit. 

            Ministry and gardening imagery is found throughout Scripture.   It began to come together for me in an especially influential way some eighteen years ago, in my second year of seminary studies.    I had a preaching professor, Dr. Nichols, who claimed he was “a gardener of sorts.”   He had built plenty of new gardens, had “reaped the special joy of seeing bare lots or tangled patches of woodland become places of beauty and abundance.”    But what he most enjoyed was coming upon gardens “once ordered and lovely, now gone to rack and ruin and crying out for restoration.”[i]   Tilling and tending to sin-stricken soil  was his true vocation in ministry.

            Let’s recall that God’s good garden, this amazing world we live in, was once upon a time perfectly, harmoniously ordered and lovely.   But then, as the great faith story of our beginnings goes, the first of our humankind freely chose to abuse the freedom they were created with.  They chose to rebel against their loving Creator.    The blight of sin settled in and began spoiling all the good fruit God had created.  It has been seeded within every one of our generations as a spiritual inheritance ever since.    Gone to rack and ruin, cries for holy restoration have been constant across the ages.   

            Those cries are fully and mercifully answered by the forgiving, garden-restoring Word of God in Jesus Christ.  Do you recall how our Lord chose to appear to Mary Magdalene after His resurrection?   As a gardener!    In Christ, all of us, in a myriad of amazing ways, are gifted with Gospel thumbs and called to go out and sow His Good News each day in this sin soiled world.

            As we go about this, we really should keep in mind an important teaching from this morning’s lesson in Colossians -- the Gospel grows itself.   Its reality doesn’t depend on us.  Our Lord’s blight-of-sin banishing, soul restoring truth is all-sufficient.   This is secure for us in heaven.    While it doesn’t depend on is, it is for us.   Through the mysterious working of the Holy Spirit, the Gospel is planted in our hearts and minds.  There, by grace and through our faith, it grows the good fruits that reveal and sow its restorative power wherever there is rack and ruin.  

            Listen again to how Colossians 1:5-6 speaks to the Gospel as an all-sufficient power unto itself that makes salvation and sacred living possible for us – “Just as it is bearing fruit and growing in the whole world, so it has been bearing fruit among yourselves from the day you heard it and truly comprehended the grace of God.”    The Gospel grows itself. 

            Do you recall how you first came to realize the Gospel was within you?  Were there moments when you truly felt God’s grace in Christ dispelling darkness and growing true light in your life?   What kind of good fruit – faith, hope and love -- has it born through you to feed the spiritual, emotional and physical needs of your loved ones and neighbors?   And who were the Gospel thumb gardeners who helped sow the Word within and with you?

            For the early people living in first century Colossae, the Gospel became known and grew when their garden, I mean, their congregation was planted.    It was not planted by the Apostle Paul.  This restoration garden was instead established by a convert from paganism named Epaphras whose Gospel thumb was trained, loved and admired by Paul.    

            As first Colossians makes clear, Paul, who was imprisoned in Rome at the time, was tremendously pleased to received reports from Epaphras about the ongoing good growth happening in this Christian community.   He rejoiced learning about all the fresh shoots of Jesus’ love, about their holding fast to sustaining roots of spiritual wisdom and understanding, about the many good works being done for all God’s people.   But he also exhorted them to stay strong, grateful and joyful in the Lord.  He reaffirmed that they needed to “endure everything with patience.”

            Why this word about patient endurance?   Was there a particular blight visiting their plot of world-restoring work in the Lord? 

            Bible commentaries tell us that there were indeed certain people trying to spoil the Gospel fruit grown from the truth of salvation in Christ alone.   Presbyterian scholar William Barclay simply and bluntly calls them “The Mistaken Thinkers.”   More academically, they were a movement known as the Gnostics.   These were intellectual elites who believed they alone were “in the know” and who were “dissatisfied with what they considered the rude simplicity of Christianity.”   They couldn’t accept that the only thing needing to be done for salvation was freely accept the Good News -- the Gospel -- of God’s love in Jesus Christ.  They preferred to think that there must be some further means in addition to this message, something else they could do to save themselves from sin.  They wanted to change the Gospel into yet another fancy world philosophy”[ii] such as were in vogue across the Greco-Roman empire.     

            There’s much more to what these mistaken thinkers taught, but suffice it to say Paul preached that any complicating, culturally coopted teaching about Christian faith is to be patiently endured and totally rejected.  Nothing further needs to be believed about the, yes, simple message that “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.” (John 3:16).  There’s nothing rude and instead everything righteous about proclaiming in word and deed that God “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.” (1:13)  This Gospel graciously grows itself, we need only freely and faithfully accept the restorative fullness of it and commit ourselves to bearing its good fruit of faith, hope and above all, love.

            Next Saturday morning, many local Gospel thumbs are hitting the road to Warfield, Kentucky as part of the Appalachia Service Project.   This will be my ninth straight trip, my wife Stefanie’s second trip, and my daughter Anna’s first trip.  We are very excited for many reasons, including the fact that we’ll be in the good company of the following folks from our church family – Bob Eyet and daughter Katie Eyet, Gary Falkenstern, Lindsay Fritz, Rick Frost and daughter Emma Frost, sisters Avery Gavornik and Madison Gavornik, siblings Rachel Giardin and Garret Giardin, Gill Smith and son Kevin Smith.   Plus, we fifteen from our church family will also be there with 79 brothers and sisters from Presbyterian churches in Chester, Califon, Stillwater, as well as the United Methodist Church in Califon and St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Flemington.  

            The 94 of us aren’t going to work on our salvation.  Again, as Colossians reminds us, is secure in heaven through Christ our Lord.   We are going there to be gardeners of the Gospel growing itself!   We’ll do this by sowing faith, hope and love as we simultaneously make the homes of poverty-stricken neighbors in great need warmer, safer and dryer.   

            We will be inspired and guided by a bible study theme, which, for this year, is “Radical Reversal.”   This means living into what it means to take on the attitude of Christ, an attitude which begins with the radical reversal of realizing that “people of faith don’t just make plans; they believe God has plans for them.”[iii]   For all of you who have been so supportive in prayer and fundraising, and by committing to go on this mission trip, I trust that at our returning worship service at the Community House on the 28^th, there will be many fruitful words of love in the Spirit to share.   

            Over the coming two weeks, notice and use your Gospel thumbs.   And please pray Colossians 1, verses 11 and 12 for us preparing for and going to Warfield.  Please pray that we all may be “made strong with all the strength that comes from [Christ’s] glorious power,” and “be prepared to endure everything with patience, while joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has enabled [us] to share in the inheritance of the saints in the light.”   Amen.

 

             

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[i] The Restoring Word, J. Randall Nichols, p. 4

[ii] William Barclay, Daily Bible Study series, Colossians, p.114

[iii] http://resources.servicenetwork.com/AppServ/GroupLeaderResources/DevosforSummer.pdf

At This Season ...

Romans 8:31-38; Psalm 33

 

Another 4^th of July in America has come to pass.   Explosive pyrotechnics etched open late evening skies right before our eyes.   Corollary concussive sounds played catch with our eardrums somewhat in tune with John Philip Sousa’s “The Stars and Stripes Forever.”  Sulfuric scents slid up our nostrils.  Grilled gastronomy settled further in our stomachs.    Patriotic camaraderie pulsed through crowds of family, friends, and neighbors.    And, through it all, my heart and mind hearkened back to the original revolutionary reasons for all such celebration, hoping for some amplifying word about God's providence and July 4, 1776.

            Once again, I found myself drawn to pay attention to the person and ministry of Rev. Dr. John Witherspoon.   Born in 1723, this native Scotsman grew up to be wary of the power of the British Empire.   The son of a preacher, he himself was ordained to the Presbyterian Church of Scotland at the age of 22.   He became a prominent evangelical through his ministry with two different parishes over the next 23 years.    During the latter part of this time period, he was visited by soon-to-be founding fathers Benjamin Rush and Richard Stockton.   Soon after, at the age 45, John Witherspoon emigrated here to New Jersey with his family, where his staunch Protestantism and support of our republic earned him the post as the sixth President of what is now Princeton University.   He was later elected to the Continental Congress as part of the New Jersey delegation and promptly appointed Congressional Chaplain.   His is the sole clergy signature forever inked on our Declaration of Independence.

            This isn’t the first time I’ve been inspired to speak about this founding father.    It is, however, the first time I’m going to quote, at some length, a famous sermon this prominent “political parson”[i] preached in Princeton on May 17, 1776 titled, “The Dominion of Providence Over the Passions of Men.”   Please open your hearts and minds and listen attentively to these words about liberty being more than a secular matter, offered from a pulpit during our nation’s birth –

            “Put your trust in God, and hope for his assistance in the present important conflict. He is the Lord of hosts, great in might, and strong in battle. Whoever hath his countenance and approbation, shall have the best at last.  I do not mean to speak prophetically, but agreeably to the analogy of faith, and the principles of God’s moral government.  I leave this as a matter rather of conjecture than certainty, but observe, that if your conduct is prudent, you need not fear the multitude of opposing hosts.  

            If your cause is just, you may look with confidence to the Lord, and entreat him to plead it as his own. You are all my witnesses, that this is the first time of my introducing any political subject into the pulpit.  At this season, however, it is not only lawful but necessary, and I willingly embrace the opportunity of declaring my opinion without any hesitation, that the cause in which America is now in arms, is the cause of justice, of liberty, and of human nature. So far as we have hitherto proceeded, I am satisfied that the confederacy of the colonies has not been the effect of pride, resentment, or sedition, but of a deep and general conviction that our civil and religious liberties, and consequently in a great measure the temporal and eternal happiness of us and our posterity, depended on the issue.  The knowledge of God and his truths have from the beginning of the world been chiefly, if not entirely confined to those parts of the earth where some degree of liberty and political justice were to be seen, and great were the difficulties with which they had to struggle, from the imperfection of human society, and the unjust decisions of usurped authority.”[ii]

            I hear more than the bold defense of American independence from the British Empire in this historic sermon.   I hear a call to bold dependence … a bold dependence on God’s moral government.   I hear him defining this as human government that supports instead of suppresses civil and religious liberty through the proper conduct of its people.   Such are the people who truly know and trust, who place their first confidence and hope in the power of God to bring about justice and peace though the conflicts that result from our always imperfect human society.    This is not government and conduct born of pride and resentment against human tyranny, but chiefly of bold belief in the prevailing providence of Almighty God.    Rev. Witherspoon also speaks to this in part of the sermon I did not read, which urges us with great evangelical fervor to be united to the mercy of Christ Jesus with a “lively faith” rather than with what he called “resentment of a haughty monarch.”  

            This sermon is a clarion call to have faithful humility at the foot of the Cross in every season of our totally interdependent human life together.   For upon that Cross, Jesus liberated all of humanity from eternal bondage to the greatest tyranny of all – the oppressive, unjust power of sin.   Individually and collectively, we therefore have the freedom to choose time-bound and timeless happiness through our obedient living to the steadfast love of God in Jesus Christ.

             How good to know and be reminded that at the birth of our country 237 years ago, Rev. Dr. Witherspoon’s well respected and highly charismatic voice was heralding our Lord as the one true hope of human society.  He is one founding father nobody can claim was a deist.   Have you ever heard it said that more of our founders were deists rather than Christians?   Deists believed that God created the world and then let it operate under its own natural laws, not ever intervening in human affairs.   I’ve heard this claim many times.  And it’s something I’d love to study in greater depth sometime.  But from what I have come to know, none of our founders were atheists, some were deists, one was Roman Catholic (Charles Carroll) and the majority were a diverse mix of Protestants.   Messiah College history professor, John Fea, concludes that they “all believed in an active God who, to various degrees, governed the world by his providence.”   That is, in God who remains faithful to us, upholding and blessing and guiding us.

            Witherspoon was certainly and blessedly specific about this. Through him we hear a full echo of Psalm 33’s declaration that “The counsel of the Lord stands forever, the thoughts of His heart to all generations.  Happy is the nation whose God is the Lord, the people whom he has chosen as His heritage.”  We also hear in his voice the Apostle Paul’s conviction that Jesus intercedes for us in all human hardship, distress and persecution, and from this gracious power we can never be separated.  

            Beyond affirming the example and the preaching of Rev. Dr. Witherspoon, plus my bit of reflection on deism, as well as expressing my desire for further study, I’m not one to speak much from the pulpit my opinion about any ongoing American culture wars related to whether we were founded as a Christian nation.   As with all of us, I generally trust that as our founders matured in faith throughout their lifetimes, they varied their opinions about how it might directly and freely influence public affairs.   I’m content to keep fundamentally teaching and reminding us as Americans and as Christians to pop up the umbrella of God’s providence and grace in Jesus Christ so that we find ourselves securely holding onto its protection as we go out to diversely express our faith through personal words and deeds across the many contexts of our lives.     In doing so, I’m glad to conclude today’s reflection with these words from Dr. Daniel Migliore, my Systematic Theology 101 professor at Princeton Seminary –

             “God does indeed rule and overrule the events of each human life and all of history.   But the way in which God rules and overrules the world of freedom, sin, and suffering is by the power of Word and Spirit, the power of sacrificial love that is stronger than death.  This is the way of the divine [government] in the light of the ministry, cross and resurrection of Christ.  To be in Christ and to walk by the Spirit is to participate in the energy of God’s liberating, sacrificial love and to be given new courage and hope by it.”[iii]   Amen.   

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[i] an appreciated title from http://liberty-virtue-independence.blogspot.com/2011/08/dominion-of-providence-over-passions-of.html

[ii] http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/the-dominion-of-providence-over-the-passions-of-men-excerpt/

[iii] Faith Seeking Understanding, Daniel L. Migliore, p. 188