Tag Archives: Mark

09

Sep. ’12

Ephphatha—Open Up!

Mark 7:31-37 (NRSV)
Mark 7:31-37 (The Message)

You’re most likely reading this on the Internet in some fashion, through Facebook, e-mail or directly from the blog. If you’re like me, this is not always the most conducive environment for slowing down and spending time with God.

A computer or smart phone can buzz with activity. Other windows, apps or browser tabs may be open, streaming music or television. Little pop-ups may be appearing and disappearing, telling you “important e-mail” or alerting you to an incoming instant message. These glowing screens are like mirrors on the modern life, a swirling reflection of information overload.

Try something before you read any further. What you’ll experience is really important as we look at today’s text. Find a way to sit in silence, even if just briefly—say, five minutes. It helps to take some deep breaths.

Go ahead. I’ll wait.

My premise today is a simple one. We are like the deaf man in our story in Mark. We’re just deaf for a different reason. He had a physical problem. We have an environmental problem that causes spiritual deafness.

Something had stopped up his ears. Perhaps it was disease. Perhaps it was a head injury. He began to speak as soon as he was healed, so he apparently remembered sound and speech. But at some point in his life, the sound had no longer come in and intelligible words had stopped coming out.

The cure was not a simple one, not even for Jesus the miracle worker. This was no time for spectacle, for show. Jesus pulled the man aside to a private place. (It strikes me that the deaf man must have had little understanding of what was going on; he had to trust Jesus.) Imagine what it would feel like to have Jesus stick his fingers in your ears. Imagine what it would be like to have him take his spit and put it on your tongue.

Imagine what it would be like to have Jesus pray for you in the common Aramaic his very common people spoke, a prayer so deep that it comes out in a groaning command: “Ephphatha.” Open up!

When it comes to hearing Jesus, to really hearing what God has to say to us, we’re stopped up, too. The world is in our ears. We’re clogged with work, sport and school schedules, with plans, with worries, with diversions like television, Internet and video games. We’re so stopped up that we’re in danger of remaining deaf to God’s continuing call on our lives until the day we die.

This deafness also makes us spiritually mute. How can we declare what we have not recently heard?

On the day the deaf-mute man was healed, the people who witnessed the transformation remembered what the prophet Isaiah had said about the time to come, the time when all things would be set right, the time when God would return to his people and establish the kingdom that would save the world. “Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy.” (Isaiah 35:5-6)

And no one, not even Jesus, could keep them from proclaiming the signs they were seeing. (Was the deaf-mute man their keynote speaker as they ran about?) Their excitement was too great; they could not restrain themselves.

May we go to private places with Jesus long enough that our ears be unstopped. May we hear his message well. And may we declare the message of Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior with great excitement.

Ephphatha!

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08

Jul. ’12

Blinded by a Presumed Past

Mark 6:1-6

I suppose it should be of some comfort that even Jesus struggled when near the people who had known him the longest.

Outside of his hometown of Nazareth, he was Jesus the miracle worker, Jesus the prophet, Jesus who could be messiah and king. Just before returning to Nazareth, he had raised a little girl from the dead. But in Nazareth―well, it’s hard to impress the home folks, particularly when you’ve grown up in a little place where people think they know everything about you.

Jesus’ teachings and actions were the same in Nazareth as they had been elsewhere; the Nazarenes even acknowledged his wisdom and his deeds of power. They simply could not accept that such remarkable signs were coming from this particular man, whom they had seen grow from a boy.

When you get right down to it, their prejudice against Jesus likely stemmed from bad theology. The people of Nazareth had certain expectations about how God should work, and they could not match their expectations with some facts I think they had long assumed about Jesus and his family.

It’s hard to piece together what the problem was simply by reading Mark, primarily because Mark contains no account of Jesus’ conception and birth. For those events, we have to rely on the early chapters of Matthew and Luke and make a few reasonable assumptions about how those events would have been perceived in Nazareth.

As any good Christian knows, Jesus’ conception was not normal. While his mother, Mary, was engaged to Joseph, but before they were married, an angel told Mary she would conceive the Savior of the world through the direct intervention of the Holy Spirit, with no man involved. She accepted the task and became pregnant.

It took another angelic visitation for Joseph to accept what had happened. That leads me to think that a lot of people in Nazareth would have struggled with whether Mary’s pregnancy was appropriate.

Compounding the problem is that right after conceiving Jesus, Mary left the village to visit her cousin Elizabeth. She did not return for three months, Luke tells us. Even if she wasn’t “showing” at three months, it wouldn’t have taken long for her pregnancy to become obvious, and some simple math as she neared her due date would have become the basis for a significant scandal.

Maybe the rumor was that Jesus’ father was a man other than Joseph. Certainly, this rumor went on for some time. The Greek philosopher Celsus, who was a second-century opponent of Christianity, promoted the idea that Jesus’ father actually was a Roman soldier stationed in the area. Early church fathers had to spend a significant amount of time showing that Celsus had no evidence for his claim.

Maybe the rumor was that Joseph was the kind of man who could not control himself until the wedding night, impregnating Mary early. Most likely, both rumors floated about, and if Nazarene gossips were like most other gossips I’ve known, they took great delight in repeating both.

It’s notable that in Mark 6:3, the Nazarenes are quoted as calling Jesus the “son of Mary” rather than the son of Joseph, an odd variation in a culture that emphasized a man’s paternal lineage. (There are variants in some manuscripts of Mark where the verse reads “son of the carpenter and of Mary,” but even then, Joseph’s name is avoided.)

Whatever the precise details of the rumor or rumors, it’s not a stretch to think that when Jesus went home to Nazareth, he still was considered “illegitimate,” a product of sin rather than a product of the most holy conception in the history of the world. And that problem of perception, that undeserved stain on Jesus’ reputation, was enough to keep the Nazarenes from accepting the astounding wisdom and evidence before them.

It’s also possible that as residents of an insignificant village in what most people considered a backwater province of the Roman Empire, the Nazarenes simply couldn’t accept the idea of someone homegrown being that important. I see some of that at work when they point to Jesus’ family and essentially say, “Wait a minute, he’s with them, and they’re like us, nobodies.”

I saw this attitude in my previous job, when I worked for a company that spent a lot of money on reforestation efforts in Central and South America. It was hard to get people in those areas to accept the idea that native trees were the best trees to plant. Many of these very poor people in tiny villages on the edges of the rain forests believed they needed North American trees―everything north of them was better, they reasoned, so the trees must be better, too.

The Nazarenes’ lack of acceptance―more precisely, their lack of faith―astounded Jesus, even with his divine understanding of how sin and salvation work. The effect of their unbelief was so powerful as to prevent him from doing great works, although he still was able to heal some of the sick.

All this causes me to wonder: How do our own prejudices interfere with Christ’s work in the world today?

Is it possible we miss the Holy Spirit at work because we expected him to come some other way? For example, will an inspired word from a homeless person mean as much to you as the everyday words of a prominent member of society?

Do we even go where we might hear holy words and see great signs in lowly places?

We need to be mindful that Jesus entered the world in a way so humble that his circumstances likely were misunderstood as shameful. He also grew up among a people with no sense of pride or place.

Don’t be surprised if Jesus is still most visible among such people and places today.

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02

Jul. ’12

A Powerful Touch

Mark 5:21-43

When Michelangelo depicted “The Creation of Adam” on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, he chose to focus on the hand of God and the hand of humanity reaching toward each other. God’s hand is active, offering life with the extension of one finger; Adam’s hand seems to willingly accept.

A split second before or after the moment shown, there is touch, and life flows from the Creator to the created.

Touch is a powerful concept throughout the Bible, just as it is a powerful part of our lives. Sometimes God speaks creation into existence, but other times God takes a very hands-on approach, forming man from the dust of the ground, planting a garden in Eden, and taking a rib from the man’s side to fashion a woman. These stories imply intimacy and close, careful attention to detail.

Touch also has been corrupted by sin, however. You see evidence in the Bible; you see it in the news today. I simply have to say “Jerry Sandusky” or “pedophile priests” for you to know what I mean.

The idea of touch is at the core of our text from Mark today. It contains two interwoven stories of healing, and in both cases, healing is dependent on touch. One healing comes from a desperate reach for the Son of God; the other comes as Jesus breaks down barriers erected by sin.

The story begins with the leader of a synagogue—the kind of powerful Jew least likely to seek Jesus—going to the miracle worker in a moment of fear and need. Jairus’ 12-year-old daughter is dying, and Jesus, surrounded by a crowd, is willing to help.

Jesus has healed in other ways, sometimes from a distance. But in this case, the request is specific. “Come and lay your hands on her,” Jairus says, “so that she may be made well, and live.” Life, he desperately hopes, is in Jesus’ touch.

Along the way, the crowd jostles Jesus. A woman makes her way through the crowd, and she is as desperate as the leader of her synagogue. She has been bleeding as most younger women occasionally do, except her menstrual bleeding has gone on nonstop for 12 years—the entire lifespan of the little girl Jesus is going to help—rather than a few days.

That is a bad condition to have in our time. It was terrible in Jesus’ day. Under the Jewish purity codes, her condition made her untouchable. Even the things she sat on or slept on could not be touched. Brushing against her meant a person had to ritually bathe and be unclean until evening. Her effort to slip into the crowd and get near Jesus was in itself dangerous; if her neighbors recognized her, they might not be happy about her presence.

But she is that desperate. “If I but touch his clothes, I will be made well,” she believes. And she is correct. She touches Jesus’ cloak, and knows she has been made well.

Jesus knows something has happened, too. As the disciples note, people are pressing in everywhere, bumping him and his followers. But in one of those touches, the power of life has been transferred, and Jesus senses it.

There’s a lesson here: When a real connection is made—when God’s grace transfers through one to another—it’s going to affect the conduit, too. As a pastor, I sense it when I preach and someone is moved, or when communion changes people, or when I baptize someone. For me, I’m left with what feels like a mixture of exhaustion and elation.

Any of you who work with the poor or the sick in any way will know what I mean, too. Something seems to go out, but you’re left with something new, and you’re happy to have it.

Jesus commends the woman’s faith, expressed in simple touch, and lets her know that her faith is why she has been healed.

The story continues, and it seems to take a sad turn. The daughter has died; the professional paid mourners, sensing a payday, are already at the prominent Jairus’ house, wailing away.

Jesus is cryptic, saying she is only sleeping, an assertion that moves these obnoxious opportunists from weeping to derisive laughing. And oh, how they have missed the opportunity for a deeper understanding of God’s plan for the world.

She is dead, of course, but the one who will go to the cross—the one who will be the first fruits of the resurrection—knows that even death will be undone. And he’ll give them a taste of what is to come, again using holy touch to heal.

In fact, Jesus seems defiant of the rules sin and death have imposed on human behavior. Again, in an attempt to keep separate what is pure and impure, the Jews have rules about contact with a dead body. Any such contact required a seven-day purification ritual.

But just as he made no issue of the bleeding woman’s touch, he makes no issue of touching the dead girl, taking her by the hand. “Little girl, get up!” he says in Aramaic, the everyday language of his people. And she arises, restored to life.

As people who follow Christ, we know the world remains corrupted. We know touch can be used in terrible, wrong ways.

We also know, however, that God’s power is in us. We are, after all, the body of Christ on earth today, reliant on the Holy Spirit for power. Therefore, we can touch rightly, helping God bring healing to a broken world. There are hands reaching out to us, seeking wholeness, healing and comfort.

It is the primary task of the church to reach for those hands, offering the lost and hurting life.

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25

Jun. ’12

Satan in Our Septic Tank

Normally on a Sunday or Monday, I use this blog to provide a synopsis of the sermon delivered at Cassidy UMC. The last several days have been odd, however, and I’m in a reflective mood.

As you can see from the previous posting in this blog, we had some plumbing problems develop late Friday. The clogged septic system could not be fixed on Saturday, so our normal worship schedule was basically canceled—it’s hard to have 170 people or so in a building where you cannot flush toilets or run water.  (Apparently the problem has been repaired; as I write this, I can hear the septic pump truck driving away. I also just heard multiple flushes down the hallway, and a man cry out, “Boy, they’re flowing now!”)

This sudden infrastructure problem was in many ways a major letdown, considering what a wonderful week we had experienced otherwise. Dozens of volunteers helped put on a great Vacation Bible School Monday through Friday. We had far more children than we had expected show up (76 on our peak evening), to the point that additional supplies had to be procured mid-week.

And more importantly, this VBS was full of good, holy teaching. We used the Babylon Holy Land Adventure materials this year, and the children spent the week learning the story of Daniel living in exile. The Cassidy folks basically turned the church building and grounds into a miniature version of ancient Babylon, including Daniel’s room and a marketplace. An important Bible story really came to life for a few days in our church.

The children experienced the importance of worshiping and trusting the One True God. They learned to let go of their fears, and they learned to see God as their savior in difficult times, a message that will help them better understand Jesus as Savior for all time. The lessons, played out in drama and ongoing conversations with “Babylonians” in the marketplace, became very real for many of these kids. (At one point, the sound of lions roaring as Daniel was led away became scary enough that we had to show some of the younger children it was a recording.)

By the time of our closing VBS program on Friday, I was talking with parents who came up to me to ask about becoming involved at Cassidy UMC, saying they had no church home. All pastors love having those conversations. And of course, it was about an hour after the last of these conversations that the floor drains began to bubble up whenever a sink or toilet emptied.

It didn’t take me long to make a connection between our clogged main drain and the key point I was planning to preach Sunday. I had spent all week in the Gospel lectionary text, Mark 4:35-41, the story of Jesus stilling the storm. Ironically, I had even entitled the sermon “Swamped.”

The key point: The evil forces that remain in this world mess with us, particularly when Christ’s kingdom is expanding in some dramatic way. The point is fairly obvious in the story, if you read carefully. When Jesus calms the storm, he uses exorcism-type language, rebuking the wind and commanding the sea to be still. This fits our big-picture understanding of a world tainted by sin; we know from Scripture that all of creation is broken and susceptible to the influence of evil. Only Christ, through his sacrifice on the cross and his resurrection, is overcoming and will fully overcome the powers and principalities of this world.

This lesson caused me to ask myself a question: Is Satan messing with Cassidy’s plumbing? As so-called modern, enlightened people, most of us find such an idea medieval. And as a former p.r. guy for a utility company, I’ll be the first to admit that infrastructure tends to collapse during a peak usage event—in this case, more than 100 people in the church on a nightly basis for five days.

If Satan were trying to interfere, however, the timing couldn’t be better. Lots of excitement about what just happened in VBS? Well, shut them down for a Sunday and see how long that excitement lasts.

That’s why I’m proud of the 33 folks who turned out to worship in the front parking lot Sunday. It was simple worship, and surprisingly pleasant in the shade.

Some of us also went visiting in Cassidy’s neighborhoods afterward, talking with folks we found at home during the traditional church hour. We didn’t use our building Sunday, but we took a taste of church to people who perhaps needed to know God was thinking of them. I in particular treasure the 10 minutes one of our youth and I were able to spend with a lady in need of prayer, a lady who invited us into her home.

The work of the kingdom continued, even if only in a small way. And if Satan wants to hang out in our septic tank, it’s an appropriate place for him to be.

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10

Jun. ’12

Sounds Crazy

Mark 3:20-35

You may be a Christian, but are you willing to be crazy for Christ?

In the Gospel of Mark, there’s no real information about Jesus’ birth or early life. Instead, we begin with a prophet’s declarations about who Jesus is. Jesus then is baptized, the Spirit falls upon him, and “immediately”—a word used regularly in Mark—we enter a cycle of preaching and healing that rapidly creates a following among astonished Jews. They press in, wanting their share of this powerful, loving grace handed out so freely.

Jesus seems completely immersed in his ministry. There’s no evidence of detailed planning, a formal schedule, or even time for regular meals. Everything is just happening; energy and excitement rule the day, and Jesus, the Son of God, follows the Father’s will perfectly.

He is, of course, the perfect model for how to respond to the Father, showing us how to love God and our neighbors with passionate energy. Those of you who are Christians likely remember being filled with a similar excitement when you first understood Jesus to be your Lord and Savior.

Do you remember? Did anything else seem to matter? Did anything else take precedence, even food, family, or work? If you really experienced conversion, I suspect you’re remembering an all-consuming experience, the fire of Christianity burning bright in you.

It’s hard to sustain, I know. Life starts to get in the way. In fact, life can pound away at you like a relentless surf, and over time, the flame can seem to cool. Satan could not overcome Jesus, but Satan still wants to overcome us, if only to slow us down, to delay his inevitable destruction.

To do that, he works through people to use some of the same techniques we see at work in today’s text. The first is to make the Christian message seem out-of-step with whatever “normal” is supposed to be. Essentially, he wants observers of a passionate Christian to say what the observers of Christ said: “He is out of his mind.”

You can hear Satan whisper: “Yes, great things are happening. Yes, there’s excitement in the air. Yes, lives are being changed. But careful—the whole thing sounds crazy. Better stay away from crazy.”

But here’s the problem when we as Christians succumb, when we fade back into the background out of fear of being called crazy. We fail to be the followers Christ sought.

Christianity is not supposed to look normal. It is countercultural. We declare the world is capable of being something it currently is not.

We declare that a man died on a cross nearly 2,000 years ago and then walked out of his tomb, remade and eternally alive, so that what the world considers normal—suffering, sickness, cruelty, violence, death—could be turned upside down.

I’m sorry, but if you think being Christian somehow means you’re normal, then you’ve never understood Christ’s work. When you accepted your baptism, you did a very odd thing in the eyes of the world, so odd that people might consider you dangerous if you really begin to live your faith.

And if you really try to live it, Satan may even go so far as to twist what is evil and what is good, in the hope that people may reject your Christian behavior as evil. It’s happening all over the world right now. People in the Middle East, in huge portions of Asia, in Africa, in Europe and in many other places are labeled a threat to “normal” society for preaching the crazy idea that Christ is remaking this world and will remake it in full one day.

Often, they lose their jobs or their status in society. Sometimes they lose their lives, joining the ranks of the martyrs, the people who die rather than allow their beliefs to be co-opted.

It’s going to happen here, if the divide between secular values and Christian values continues to grow. (I’m careful to say “if.” This nation has experienced Great Awakenings before, and can do so again.) Already, when Christians say the Bible clearly defines what is and is not sin, and try to live accordingly, we are called “intolerant,” code language designed to set us apart from “normal” society.

I am concerned for those who attack Christianity as evil. Christians have debated for years precisely what it means to commit the unforgivable sin, blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. But certainly, it has something to do with describing the presence of God as evil, and also certainly, the presence of God is found in the church, among Christ’s followers today.

Mostly, though, I look to this elaborate text for inspiration. Oh, to feel such excitement in every moment of ministry—to see people so stirred up for healing and words of grace that meals must be foregone and schedules tossed out as the crowds press in.

Remember, it is in such raucous, upside-down moments that Jesus finds the people he calls his brothers and sisters.

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01

Apr. ’12

City of the Blind

Mark 11:1-11

The story of Jesus’ final entry into Jerusalem proves it is possible to celebrate the right person for all the wrong reasons.

Jesus entered Jerusalem riding a colt. People lined the road, covering it with their cloaks and palm branches and crying out, “Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!”

In other words, they greeted him as a king. In our day, we know this was appropriate. As people who understand the full story, we know that God in flesh, the very source of salvation, rode before them.

But at the same time, we must remember that the cheering crowd and the disciples who walked with Jesus were blind. The people were blind to what was about to happen, to the way salvation would be made possible.

Their blindness didn’t happen because Jesus had left them in the dark. Three times he had told his followers the truth: that the Messiah must be condemned, mocked, humiliated and killed before rising from the dead on the third day.

No one wanted to see this picture he had painted, however. Instead, prestige, power and instant gratification were on the minds of Jesus’ followers.

Jesus told the truth about where the colt was leading him, but not long before the ride, James and John instead tried to maneuver themselves into seats alongside the earthly throne they believed Jesus would soon occupy. I want to scream across 2,000 years and warn them, “Open your eyes, see what’s coming—blood and violence and a cross splintered by nails driven through flesh.”

Jesus told the truth about the road ahead of him, but during the ride, the crowds that would abandon him in just a few short days cheered him onward, believing he would conquer both the corrupt Jewish leaders and their Roman puppet masters. If only they could have seen Jesus’ humiliation and suffering to come at the hands of these earthly powers.

Jesus told the truth about the need for the Messiah’s death and resurrection, but not long after the ride, even nature failed him. Hungry as he left Jerusalem for the evening, the creator of the universe rightly expected a part of his creation, a fig tree, to provide him sustenance. The tree failed to see to the needs of the one for whom it was made, and withered under the creator’s curse.

Everyone had something he or she wanted from Jesus, but no one for a moment seemed to consider what God wanted through Jesus. What God wanted was a complete and total solution to the problem of sin, a repair to the gap between God and the people made in God’s image. God didn’t want Jesus to storm a fortress. He wanted Jesus to retake and ultimately remake the universe.

This solution goes beyond earthly kingdoms, beyond who gets which title once Jesus takes control. It’s a solution no human could see because no human could imagine how far God was willing to go to redeem us and live in harmony with us.

We do know something of the mind of the man who rode that colt into Jerusalem. Philippians 2:5-11 helps. Here, we see the infinite mind humbled, reduced and emptied of any sense of entitlement.

The crowds cheered, but Christ knew he rode toward death. Did the trip into Jerusalem at any time give Jesus a clear view of Golgotha? The cry of “hosanna” must have contrasted sharply with the shout Jesus knew would come just a few days later—”Crucify him!”

But as I’ve said, the people lining the road and walking with Jesus could not see what was in the mind of Christ, and even his closest disciples refused to hear his words. They wanted what they wanted, standing as a cheering mass, thinking they knew everything but actually knowing nothing of God’s plan.

To understand, they would first have to wonder at a stone rolled away from a tomb and see a battered and broken body restored to life. Only the cross and the resurrection would allow them to “come to themselves,” to borrow a phrase from the parable of the prodigal son.

Let me ask you this:

Do you really grasp what God has done through Jesus? Do you know he rode to his death for you, for your sins, the sins committed years ago, the sins committed yesterday, the sins still to come?

Do you cheer and cry hosanna for the right reasons? Do you cry hosanna with every moment of your life, conforming yourself to the one who has saved you? Is your life now his?

Thank God for Easter Sunday and the blindness it heals.

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11

Mar. ’12

Wind in Our Sails: Our Gifts

The third mast of our Lenten ship brings us to the subject of gifts.

We have many gifts to offer God; certainly, we’re giving gifts back to God and our neighbors when we use our time and talents to spread the love of Jesus Christ. Those gifts tie more directly to the idea of service, however, and we’ll talk about service next week.

Today, I want us to return to a topic we discussed in January, our financial gifts. By the way, I should once again say thanks. We’ve started off the year on a positive financial note, with your tithes and offerings exceeding your expenditures by about $5,000 so far. If the trend continues through the rest of the year, it’s going to be much easier to expand our outreach to people who need to know Christ.

I don’t want us having an extended conversation about numbers today, however. During this Lenten season, as we talk about prayers, presence, gifts, service and witness, we’re talking about matters of the heart, or perhaps “habits of the heart” would be a better phrase, if I can borrow a title from an important book published in 1985.

In our Scripture reading today, Mark 12:41-44, Jesus pointed out the very heart of giving by showing us a poor widow making her offering at Jerusalem’s temple. Specifically, she was in the part of the temple known as the treasury, located in the Women’s Court, as deep into the temple as women were allowed to go.

Here, rich and poor men and women mingled, making their offerings by pouring them into what looked like 13 brass trumpets, their bells upturned like funnels. The handfuls of valuable Jewish silver shekels from the rich would have rattled mightily going in, drawing attention to the wealthy givers.

In contrast, the copper clink of the widow’s two almost worthless coins would have been either lost in the din or perhaps even laughable to some, if she were unfortunate enough to drop them in during a moment of quiet.

And yet Jesus told his disciples, “This poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury. For all of them have contributed out of their abundance; but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.”

Clearly, when we talk about gifts, it’s not just about the number of digits following a dollar sign. The widow’s gift is a financial expression of deep love for God regardless of her particular situation. (I wonder what her mansion in heaven must look like; surely it is one of the biggest ones on the highest hill.)

In an ideal world, the widow who gave her all would have had nothing to worry about. At the foundations of Jewish society was the principle that the least in society—the orphans, the widows, the landless wanderers, the poor—were to receive care from those more blessed. In particular, the people in charge of the temple system, making proper use of the resources flowing through it, should have guaranteed this woman had nothing to fear.

We do not live in an ideal world, however. Back up a few verses in Mark, and you can see the problem in Jesus’ day. In Mark 12:38-40, Jesus denounces the scribes, lawyer-like bureaucrats who worked the religious system to their advantage. In particular, Jesus noted, “They devour widows’ houses and for the sake of appearance say long prayers.”

For a modern analogy, think of silk-suited televangelists who pick and choose Bible verses to build a convincing argument that the elderly poor and others should write checks to them.¹ Scribes used Jewish law in a similar way, selectively choosing and interpreting rules to tell widows the additional burdens they needed to bear. Those brass funnels in the treasury turned into black holes, with bureaucrats on the receiving end sucking up the money so it never emerged to help those in need.

The system could have worked if those with plenty had maintained hearts for those without. Instead, the rich used religion to show off.

The system could have worked if those running it had stayed true to their calling, remembering that the core of Jewish law was to love God with all your heart, mind and strength, and to love your neighbors as yourself.

These principles for giving and using gifts wisely remain the same today. I asked you in January to make percentage pledges based on how you felt God was leading you, using pledge cards that you took home. If you’re still considering that pledge or want to reconsider it, I’ll give you another piece of guidance.

Make your giving decisions when your heart is full of love for God. That may be during a particularly fulfilling moment in worship or in prayer, or simply at a time when you feel blessed. It even could be during a low moment—I know that might sound strange, but it often is in our lowest moments when we’re most sensitive to how much God loves us.

Remember what Christ has done to relieve us of the burden of sin. Like the widow he watched in the treasury, Jesus gave his all. Don’t give because I say so; I’m just Chuck. Give because you truly understand who God is and what God is doing in the world.

I’ll also tell you when not to give. If you ever think this church has stopped doing Christ’s work, don’t give it another penny. I don’t think anyone can legitimately make that complaint right now, though; there’s just too much good being done here in Christ’s name. We may disagree on strategies and priorities from time to time, but the leadership of this church, and most of its membership, I dare say, understand why we exist.

If you give with loving hearts, and if the church continues to use those gifts to reach out with loving hearts, the Kingdom of God will expand because of the people at Cassidy UMC.

——————–

¹I had a fascinating experience while writing this sermon. I needed to get away somewhere quiet, so I went down the street to Warriors Path State Park and wound up sitting in the grill at the marina. While there, two middle-aged women and a much younger woman began talking rather loudly about their opinion of preachers. (I was not dressed like the stereotype of a preacher, instead wearing hiking pants and a baseball jersey.)

“I just don’t trust them,” one of the older ladies said. “I believe in God, but I don’t go to church.”

A big part of her complaint was that she thought preachers were too well-off, citing one she knew “living in the big house with the rich people.” (Even as grateful as I am for the house this church provides its pastor, I don’t think she was describing the Cassidy UMC parsonage.)

Apparently, we all need to spend more time at the grill, and I look forward to getting to know these ladies better.

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04

Mar. ’12

Wind in Our Sails: Our Presence

Mark 14:37-42

Today we’re going to try to better understand how to fill the sails on the second mast of our five-masted ship, which carries us toward the resurrection we celebrate at Easter.

Last week, we looked at the mast of prayer; this week, we’ll see how the mast of presence helps drive us along.

As far as today’s Scripture is concerned, we’re picking up in Mark where we left off last Sunday. Jesus was praying for the strength to follow Father God’s will in the Garden of Gethsemane. In the midst of that intense process, he went to check on the three disciples he took along, Peter, James and John. Jesus found them asleep—even Simon Peter, the assertive disciple who only recently had pledged to stand by Jesus even unto death.

“Simon, are you asleep?” Jesus asked, his rhetorical question capturing the irony of the moment. “Could you not keep awake one hour? Keep awake and pray that you may not come into the time of trial; the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.”

Two more times Jesus returned to find them similarly asleep, suffering from a drowsiness that seems to me more the work of the devil than the result of any physical exhaustion.

“Are you still sleeping and taking your rest? Enough! The hour has come; the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners,” Jesus said. “Get up, let us be going. See, my betrayer is at hand.” Jesus then was arrested and taken down the rocky, thorn-strewn path toward crucifixion.

I have no doubt that Jesus’ followers had many moments they would have handled differently if “do overs” were possible. They would have been by Jesus’ side as he prayed in anguish. They certainly would have stayed with Jesus and spoken up for him at his trial and crucifixion rather than denying knowing him and hiding. Nearly all of those do overs would be tied to their level of presence in both a physical and spiritual sense.

I am sympathetic to their situation. We, of course, are blessed with a full understanding of the story. The disciples were struggling with the collapse of their high expectations as their teacher faced torture and ultimately murder on a cross.

They could not comprehend what Christians now declare, that this death was only temporary. The core of our belief system is this: Jesus rose from the dead, resurrected, remade, inaugurating God’s remaking of all creation, rescuing us from sin.

Even knowing what we know, however, our biggest problem may be the failure of many of our own church members to be fully present. There are many in the American church who call Jesus “Savior,” perhaps even attending church regularly, but who are for all practical purposes asleep in the garden at a critical time.

It’s not a new problem. In the 18th century, Methodism became a British religious movement as a response to the lukewarm, Laodicean behavior of the Anglican church.

In one of John Wesley’s more famous sermons, “Awake Thou That Sleepest,” the founder of Methodism expressed his deep concern for those content with this life, particularly if they were outwardly religious but not particularly engaged with God or with the work God is doing in this world through the resurrection.

“Awake, thou everlasting spirit, out of thy dream of worldly happiness!” Wesley said. “Did not God create thee for himself? Then, thou canst not rest till thou restest in him. Return, thou wanderer!”

In modern times, the problem is similar, but worse, I think. We have more to distract us, more to keep us feeling content until our time in this world is all used up.

We are tired because we do too much that is not really of God’s will. And when it comes to worship (loving God) and active engagement in Christian ministry (loving our neighbors), we treat those activities as just more items on a troublesome to-do list rather than the priorities they are.

In short, we fail to be present. We stop being present spiritually, simply going through the motions, acting like what Wesley called an “Almost Christian.” Once there, we’re not far from reducing or ending our physical presence, withdrawing from church and ministry, and quietly hoping we bought enough fire insurance with our baptism to cover our eternal souls.

If any of this is sounding uncomfortably true, the answer is to engage in a little spiritual warfare. I am convinced that this problem goes beyond simple apathy. We are under attack, and the best weapon Satan has found in the 21st century may be distraction.

Distract them with material wants, and they’ll miss seeing the needs of others. Distract them with entertainment—sports, television, sports on television—and they’ll think they’re much busier than they actually are, lacking time to worship God.

Fire these weapons accurately and often, and one day these Almost Christians wake up to realize their best years are behind them, even if they are surrounded by lots of stuff. All they have left is a longing for Christ and no way to make up lost time.

I sincerely believe Christ’s grace remains available even to those who learn only late in life the value of being present in Christ’s church both spiritually and physically. We are saved by the grace of God, not by our works.

It’s still good to say thanks for eternal life, however, to respond to such a tremendous gift from God with all the loving presence we can muster.

Actively loving God and our neighbors from the day of our baptism until the day our bodies give out is one of the best ways I know to offer such thanks, particularly when you consider it is how God asks us to respond.

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29

Jan. ’12

Take Thou Authority

Mark 1:21-28

Mark’s gospel tells us that early in Jesus’ ministry, our wandering Messiah and his band of followers went to a synagogue, a Jewish house of worship, and began to teach.

We don’t know what part of the Jewish Scriptures Jesus might have referenced, or if he had a particular topic in mind while in Capernaum, a little fishing village along the Sea of Galilee. Mark is typically spare in the details provided. The story instead focuses on the reaction the worshipers had to Jesus.

“They were astounded at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes,” Mark 1:22 tells us. In other words, the truth and power of what Jesus taught seemed rooted in the man himself, more so than the words on the parchment most likely in front of him, words they could have a scribe read to them any time.

Their reaction to Jesus happened even before the next, more tangible event, the entry of a possessed man into the synagogue. The “unclean spirit” within the man seemed to fear Jesus would destroy it and its kind, and it also declared through the man, “I know who you are, the Holy One of God.”

With a very direct command—”Be quiet, and come out of him!”—Jesus exorcised the evil spirit, freeing the man from the possession he had experienced. And of course, the witnesses were astounded.

For nonbelievers, the story sounds anachronistic, rooted in a worldview of mysticism and evil spirits that a rational person should no longer accept. And even for Christians oriented to the idea of a spiritual realm, the story can seem distant, another tale of what Jesus did by way of his divinity a couple of thousand years ago.

It is my prayer, however, that I can convince you this is a story for today. Understood as part of the larger Bible story, it is evidence of the power available to Christians now.

My argument is fairly simple: Jesus was a convincing source of truth and power while on earth because he is God; the church as a whole has the same authority because the people who make it up are empowered by God. It is a very scriptural argument.

John’s gospel captures Jesus promising as much in John 14:12: “Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father.”

Jesus also promised power for his followers in Acts, after his resurrection and just before his ascension into heaven. And we see that power come, the Holy Spirit falling on Jesus’ followers and allowing them to spread the word.

The stories in Acts show those followers matching Jesus’ signs and miracles, up to and including the raising of the dead. We see healings so powerful that the sick need only fall under Peter’s shadow, and like the story of Jesus in Capernaum, we see even the evil spirits having to acknowledge the power now present in the world in Christ’s followers.

This doesn’t mean that all who come to the church for healing of one kind or another will be healed today; if you read carefully, you’ll see that wasn’t the case even in the early days of the church. And it doesn’t mean physical healing is permanent—we sometimes forget that everyone Jesus physically healed eventually died, as far as we know. Universal, permanent physical healing is a promise for the future, a mark of Christ’s final return and our entrance into eternity with our Savior.

We should have confidence as a church in our ability to show the world signs of the Holy Spirit’s presence among us, however. We should seek healing for people who are physically, emotionally or spiritually ill, praying that such healing will be a sign for those who need to know Christ.

We especially should look at the story of Jesus in Capernaum for clues about what our role in the world is today. He does a couple of very special things.

First, he takes Scripture and somehow shows people that it is alive and full of God’s power. Do we know the Bible well enough, and are we filled enough with God’s Holy Spirit, to show people how it applies in every moment of every day?

Second, he engages with evil so powerfully that what is evil already knows it is doomed. Are we confronting evil everywhere we find it—not just shaking our heads at it, but confronting it, rebuking it, calling it out?

When I was ordained, the bishop said something interesting as part of the ordination ritual. He told me to take authority, instructing me that I am supposed to draw on the power God has given me to do the particular work pastors are called to perform. The traditional words in the service of ordination are “Take thou authority,” spoken with booming conviction by a bishop.

Every Christian needs to hear those words. Every Christian needs to live those words. All of you, Take thou authority, using the spiritual power God grants you until such time as Christ returns.

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