Waiting on the World to Change: A Sermon Preached at First Baptist Church

Waiting on the World to Change

Advent IV, December 22^nd, 2013

Matthew 1:18-25

First Baptist Church West Jefferson

Will you pray with me?

            God of life and love, what do you dream about? What is your dream for us? May we hear that word today. In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.

            Do you believe in dreams? It was a few days before Christmas. A woman woke up one morning and told her husband, "I just dreamed that you gave me a pearl necklace for Christmas. What do you think this dream means?" "Oh," her husband replied, "you'll know the day after tomorrow." The next morning, she turned to her husband again and said the same thing, "I just dreamed that you gave me a pearl necklace for Christmas. What do you think this dream means?" And her husband said, "You'll know tomorrow." On the third morning, the woman woke up and smiled at her husband, "I just dreamed again that you gave me a pearl necklace for Christmas. What do you think this dream means?" And he smiled back, "You'll know tonight." That evening, the man came home with a small package and presented it to his wife. She was delighted. She opened it gently. And when she did, she found a book! And the book's title was "The Meaning of Dreams."

            The question returns again, do you believe in dreams? We hear Matthew’s account of a dream and we hear it loud and clear. An angel shows up and says in angelic fashion, “Don’t be afraid.” Now normally when an angel shows up, it’s a good idea to be afraid, because Joseph’s dream changed the course of history. It changed the very reality of our world by Joseph’s obedience to his dream. So the question becomes not do you believe in dreams, but to echo what Michael said last week, what are you waiting for?

            Too many times we find ourselves waiting on the world to change. John Mayer even wrote a Grammy award winning song of the same name. We’re all here warm and cozy in church talking about the most incredible moment of all time and I guarantee some of you are making your last minute shopping lists and grocery plans. We’re waiting on the world to change. Why not be a little more like Joseph and Mary and believe in the dreams that change history.

            What if Dr. King hadn’t believed in his dream? What if Nelson Mandela on Robben Island hadn’t dreamed that apartheid could end? What if Mother Teresa had abandoned her dream that people deserved healthcare on the streets of Calcutta? What if you abandon your dream? What could the world be missing out on as you wait on the world to change without your dreams in place?

            As we approach the culmination of our Advent season I’d like to challenge you to dream again. Dream like you’ve never dreamed before. Because, as Frederick Buechner put it,  “If the Christmas tale is true, it is the chief of all truths. What keeps the wild hope of Christmas alive in a world notorious for dashing all hopes is the haunting dream that the Child may be born again in us - in our needing, in our longing for him."

            Friends do you see this truth beyond all truths, we don’t celebrate Advent, we ARE advent. We are the present and real coming of God to earth in our time for as Teresa of Avilla said, “Christ has no body but yours,
no hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
compassion on this world”

            So here we are, sitting on the vast expanse of Christmas about to dive into a world of joy and delight as family draws near and presents opened and candles lit. We stand with great expectations for what is about to happen and it’s time to start dreaming again. It’s like my dog Rusty. You see Rusty loves riding in the car, and whenever I am home in Statesville he hangs out with my dad. When my dad is out in the yard working on chores he will put Rusty in the passenger seat of the car with the car door open. Now my dad doesn’t call Rusty by his name because they both have the same name, so he calls Rusty, Little Man. Little Man sits in the side seat of the car and with anticipation for God knows what wags his tail the entire time he is in the car. He has no idea what, if anything is about to happen but he knows that if it does happen it will be grand.

            Friends like my dog we have no earthly conception of what Christmas might bring this year, but I can assure you when God bursts onto the scene it is grand. So this season of Advent, let expectancy and hope and love and peace and joy envelop you in a world of grace.

            What if God showed up in your dream? Would you have the courage of Joseph to say yes? What if God showed up in your life? Would you have the grace of the Virgin Mother to give your life for the advancement of God’s dream for the world? These answers are life-changing, and yes we are asked the very same questions today.

            You all know this story could have gone terribly wrong, correct? Even if Joseph had dismissed Mary quietly word would have gotten out and during that time in society Mary would have met a not so great ending. We have the hope of Christmas because people were obedient to their dreaming. They were obedient to what God had called them to. They were obedient to the incarnation, to Emmanuel.

            So this year as we light candles, as we sing carols, we dream. We dream of a teenage mother who doesn’t have all the answers but accompanies her fiancé to be taxed in Bethlehem of Judea. We dream of the child who would save us all, and in our dreaming we see that God was with us. God is with us, and God will be with us for the rest of our existence. So may you rest and learn to dream again in the majesty of God’s grace and the hope of all creation.

            If God shows up this year, be prepared for what might happen. One of the lines to John Mayer’s classic Waiting on the World to Change goes something like this: “It’s hard to be persistent when you’re standing at a distance.” Friends I think God realized that long before John Mayer did. God realized that persistence from a heavenly distance wasn’t working with a hard-headed, stubborn people like us. So as St. Iranaeus famously said ‘God became like us so that we might become like God.”

            What does that look like for you? What does God’s dream of persistence and patience for our lives look like for us? Deeper than that how are you living it out? How are you making God’s dream your reality?

            The greatest gift you can give yourself this Advent season is to believe in the dreams that God has given you. Believe in the calling placed on your life, believe in the hope that the incarnation is here to stay and that God has surrounded you with love, joy, hope and peace this season and all the days of your life.

            I must confess that I haven’t always believed in dreams. I’m a skeptic, I don’t buy into people’s dreams easily. But all of that was humbled this past week with none other than my little brother Scott. You see Scott is one of my favorite people in the world, and I want what’s best for him So six months ago when he started voice lessons I thought it would be a passing fad. He had other things he was so much better at that would make colleges notice him. I wanted to cry when he told me that he was going to be auditioning for the Hayes School of Music at Appalachian because I knew that his dream of singing might be crushed by people he would never meet sitting behind a desk. I knew the odds were against him.

            You see Appalachian’s admissions process to the School of Music goes a little like this: You send in a video recording and they call you back if they’d like to hear more from you. Well last night Scott got that call. Scott received the phone call that his dream was alive and well, and that my own ignorance to his dream was only hindering myself. So needless to say today I stand as a proud brother of a kid who will be auditioning at one of the most prestigious music schools in the state.

            Believe in the dreams of the ones you love. God worked 2000 years ago through a young and wonderful woman, and her husband who believed in her and believed in his dreams. That miracle can occur again and again. Believe in dreams this Christmas, and God will appear. Stop waiting on the world to change church, and start dreaming again.

All glory, honor and power be to the One who was, who is, and who is to come. Amen.

My Interview with Stanley Hauerwas

A few years back I had the opportunity to interview Dr. Stanley Hauerwas via email for the Record and Landmark. While the interview was never published I hope to publish it here, I am reminded ever so presently of his influence on my own theological reflection, and I hope you find it meaningful. 

Dear Rob,

Here are my short responses to your questions. These are good questions, by the way.

1. Rob: Dr. Hauerwas, in one of your pieces, The Ethicist as Theologian you speak of humor being is important to theological reflection. How do you feel about the issue of theology and humor? How do they co-exist?

Hauerwas: The relation between theology and humor is very simple: what could be more humorous than theologians thinking they can say something interesting about God. God surely laughs at our efforts. I think it’s probably true that you shouldn’t trust a theologian who doesn’t have a good sense of humor. Theology and humor must co-exist.

2 Rob: How has the church embarrassed you in your beliefs? We all find times when we cringe at what the church has done, how does that pertain to your personal walk of faith?

Hauerwas: I’m not sure I’ve thought of the church embarrassing my beliefs. But I often worry if I embarrass faithful Christians. I do, of course, worry about the accommodated character of the church. But in that same accommodated church I often discover lives that put my own life in perspective. So God is great, able to raise up faithful Christians even in the midst of a severely compromised church.

3. Rob: How can a person or church in a small town truthfully hold fast to theological ethics within the context of the greater community? 

        

      Hauerwas:Well, smallness doesn’t necessarily mean “narrow”. It can mean locality which allows for the development of practical reason and judgment that cannot be known elsewhere. So I say, take advantage of locality.

     

     4. Rob: At Duke, you teach a course on John Howard Yoder's the politics of Jesus. Yoder's work is phenomenal and lays claim to Jesus' response to the social behavior of his disciples. How do you think that Jesus would respond to the social behavior of modern day Christians? 

      Hauerwas: I suspect Jesus would think that those who call ourselves Christians are pretty close to those he identifies in the gospel of Matthew as scribes and Pharisees. It’s a harsh judgment, but it’s one I fear is unavoidable.

      5. Rob: Finally, Dr. Hauerwas, death and dying seem to be on the headlines of news these days. Society is fascinated by it, but how should the church respond to the issues of death and dying? I know you have done significant research in this as an issue of ethical behavior, and I hope this isn't too forward but how do you see death coming for you? How can a Christian live a life ready for death? 

      

      Hauerwas:  I’m not sure if Christians today can live lives such that they are ready to die. We simply no longer know how to do that. We can, however, keep before us that we are a people shaped by martyrdom. That can never be forgotten. Just to the extent that we remember this we continue to have hope that we too will be faithful as we face death.

Harry Potter and the Kingdom of God

Harry Potter and the Kingdom of God

A sermon preached at First Baptist Church, West Jefferson

November 24^th, 2013, Christ the King Sunday

Will you pray with me?

Great God of Light,

Let this King’s cross become the shape of our lives; let this Lord’s compassion form our hearts; let this Shepherd’s embrace welcome us to Paradise. We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God for ever and ever. Amen.

            September 1^st, 1998 changed American culture forever. A little known British author’s book was published in the United States and the Harry Potter craze began. The Harry Potter series chronicle the story of Harry, the orphaned boy wizard whose glasses and lightening bolt scar captivated a generation. The author who wrote the first book on napkins now has more money than the Queen of England, and we are all eternally grateful for a series that told us the story of the boy who harnessed not only magic, but life itself.

            In the first book, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, Harry has arrived at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and is hearing stories about the elusive sorcerer’s stone, this elixir of life is the key to eternity, and Harry must find it before the dark Lord Voldemort does. The dark Lord Voldemort and Harry already have a history as Voldemort had killed Harry’s parents. As Harry searches for this stone, this key to eternity, Harry wants to use it for good by keeping it out of the hands of evil. Throughout the course of the book he has to traverse various adventures and eventually does find the sorcerer’s stone. As Harry destroys the stone he realizes that Voldemort cannot touch him for some reason and cause him harm. As professor Dumbledore explains, “Your mother died to save you when Voldemort tried to kill you. If there is one thing evil cannot understand, it is love. Love as powerful as your mother's for you leaves it's own mark. To have been loved so deeply, even though the person who loved us is gone, will give us some protection forever.” But we’ll get back to that.

Let’s clear the air; we shouldn’t be hearing this text today, should we? We come this Sunday on the cusp of the liturgical New Year, with Advent a stone’s throw away and we hear words of crucifixion. I’m not exactly sure why the lectionary decides this year to veer off and take us down the road towards Golgotha but part of me is glad that we do. We need to hear these words, ‘Jesus remember me, when you come into your kingdom.’ These desperate words come from a criminal. Now this criminal was not any ordinary crook, the Greek words used here for criminal and context clues as to how this man was being killed meant that this man had like Jesus, incited trouble for the Roman Empire. This man got what he was asking for and standing on the abyss of the afterlife he begs Jesus to remember him.

            One of the things I love about Jesus is he often ends up doing way more than any of us could ever imagine or hope for. Jesus looks lovingly at his companion opposite him on a stage set for all time and space to see and says, ‘Truly I tell you, you will be with me in Paradise.’ Friends I think we need to take Jesus at his word.

            We don’t take Jesus at his word anymore do we? As progressive Christians we have an answer for everything. If we trust what Jesus actually said then truly we too can be with him in Paradise. Deeper than that if we take Jesus for what Jesus said in the text today then we can see that truly anyone can be with God in Paradise. You see today Christians often use heaven and hell as cosmic bargaining chips by which we ignore the hells around us. We use the afterlife as a proverbial game in which someone might attain that if they vote the right way, look like they deserve it and are card carrying members of the rotary club.

            You see this is precisely the mentality Christ the king comes to combat on the cross. There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female for we all one in Christ Jesus. What might that look like for us today? In Christ there is neither Republican nor Democrat, there is neither gay nor straight, there is neither immigrant nor legal citizen for we are all one in Christ Jesus. Perhaps this is best summed up in the story of St. Lawrence. After the death of Pope Sixtus II, the prefect of Rome demanded that Lawrence gather all the wealth of the church and present it to the emperor. Lawrence asked for three days to gather the wealth and on the third day he came back with the poor, the lame, and the diseased and looked the prefect in the eye and said, “These are the church’s riches. The Church is truly rich, far richer than your emperor." Lawrence was martyred for his actions but in his death and his presentation of the church we see exactly where God calls us to be. We see the plight of the crook on the cross begging Jesus to remember him and we see Jesus doing so much more.

            Friends we come here to this Christ the King Sunday, this Sunday when we enthrone Christ in the throne of our hearts and minds and as Lord of all Creation and we are on the brink of Advent, the expectation that Christ came, Christ rose, and Christ will come again. What if we as a church started treating each other like the Messiah was in our midst. Because let me fill you in on something, the Messiah is already here. For we are called to be like Christ to people and experience Christ in people, that ultimately, is what the kingdom of God looks like.

            Truly I tell you today you will be with me in Paradise. All of us here are still waiting for the fulfillment of that promise. We wait with expectancy and with fervor as Christ stands above time and space bringing the hope that we can take God for what God has spoken to us through the prophets, the martyrs, the saints and Christ himself. Perhaps we need this text this week because it shows God’s way of ruling is far superior to our way of ruling things. It’s almost comical that we threw the worst we had at Jesus, a cross, and Jesus laughs in the face of death with a holy laughter that echoes through our own lives and our own deaths as well.

            There are things in life that we will never of and eternity is one of them. But perhaps not only what happens after death is Paradise, maybe dying with Jesus, knowing the Savior of the nations stands with us to face what he has already faced is as close to Paradise as we will get this side of the Jordan.

            What is Paradise for you? If I could have my paradise it would be at my grandmother’s house on Christmas Eve. You see Nana has one of those artificial trees that is older than I am, it must be at least 30 years old and the lights flicker but the warmth of the room is full and bright. I remember the first year after my uncle had died and many of us wondered how we could celebrate such a holiday in Paradise without my uncle there. God has mended, God has restored, nothing is ever the same, there will always be a place missing at the table but we must hold our past in Paradise on earth in tension with God’s future Paradise prepared for us since before our pasts occurred. God reminds us in this text that at the fruition of our lives God will keep God’s word. If that is the case then we need to be so bold as to proclaim it for ourselves, we must actually believe these words, we must commit them to memory and recite them in our last moments, ‘Jesus remember me when you come into your kingdom.’

            Fifty years ago this past Friday John Kennedy was shot and killed by a gunman’s bullet. I’m sure some of you remember where you were that fateful day. John Kennedy, the king of what became known as an American Camelot famously said, “And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country.”

            Friends we come to this place asking too many times what the kingdom of God can do for us, sure it promises us eternity and bliss, which is good, but what else does the Kingdom of God demand of us? It demands we become the very Christ for others, we must live incarnate the kingship of faith. This kingship is not wealth or fame or crowns. No this kingship involves a cross, and a crown of a very different kind.

            Have you ever wanted a second chance? This text offers precisely that. It offers Paradise, what the Jewish faith knows as the second Eden. How are we preparing to be with Jesus in Paradise? How will we be when we are faced with our cross?

            Church do you see where I’m going with this? God’s love for us was so strong on the cross that even in our own deaths love will come out triumphant. As in Harry Potter when Voldemort could not touch Harry because of his mother’s love, God loves us so much that it leaves a mark on us so that we can laugh at death and know that it has been swallowed up in victory. Therein lies our hope on this Christ the King Sunday. Our hope should not be in elixirs of life or sorcerer’s stones that promise eternity from anything other than Jesus. When we ask Jesus to remember us that is a love that death and hate and evil cannot overcome.

            There was a 2012 movie released that struck a particular chord with me. Silver Linings Playbook tells the story of Pat, a man with bipolar disorder who is released from a psychiatric hospital and moves back in with his parents. Determined to win back his estranged wife, Pat meets recently widowed Tiffany Maxwell. She tells Pat that she will help him get his wife back if he enters a dance competition with her. The two become closer as they train and Pat, and a romantic comedy ensues in the process. In one of the most pivotal scenes in the movie Pat’s father declares, “Let me tell you, I know you don't want to listen to your father, I didn't listen to mine, and I am telling you you gotta pay attention this time. When life reaches out at a moment like this it's a sin if you don't reach back, I'm telling you it’s a sin if you don't reach back!”

            Holy People of God whether you are coping with disease, with loss, with mental illness, with struggles far too deep to name in words, may you be ready to experience the coming kingdom of God. For God is reaching out to you and when God reaches out to you at a moment like this, it’s a sin not to reach back. You have to listen to your father for you have been given a mark, a mark of love that no one, not even the powers of hell and death could hope to tarnish. For God’s love is too strong and those powers too weak.  You are the face of God’s beloved. You are marked as Christ’s own forever. Jesus remember us, when you come into your kingdom.

A Homecoming of a Different Kind: A Sermon Preached at First Baptist Church

October 27^th, 2013

Isaiah 2:2-5

Luke 18:9-14

First Baptist Church

            I once heard it said that the Kingdom of God is the human experience as it is meant to be. Will you pray with me?

God of heaven and earth, may the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be pleasing in your sight oh God our strength and our redeemer. Amen.

Two weeks ago, Stephanie and I joined with Mark, Kelly, and Mallory Vannoy in attending Appalachian’s homecoming. Homecoming, the time when people come back, various campus organizations and clubs have events to commemorate this coming home of alumni and remind the students of the beauty of the place they called home. This culminates in the football game held on Saturday when Appalachian squared off against Samford University. While Michael is the only one on this side of Georgia who was happy that Samford won, the rest of us were pretty bummed when Appalachian lost 34-10 to a school any other year we could have beaten. Homecoming didn’t turn out the way we wanted it to.

            The Gospel text doesn’t turn out the way we wanted to either, now, does it? Two men decide to go to church, a Pharisee and a tax collector. They are about as opposite as one could get on the sociological spectrum in 1^st century Palestine. The Pharisee begins to pray and boy, what a prayer. ‘I thank you that I’m not like them, the other, the downcast, the scum of the earth, I fast give a tenth of my income.’ I wonder if the tax collector heard this as he said beating his chest, ‘God have mercy on me, a sinner.’ It doesn’t seem right, does it, that a no good IRS agent would go home more justified than the preacher.

            But that is precisely what Jesus says in this parable. This story, this way of life Jesus is offering is a homecoming of a different kind. Will you go home justified? Will you at the end of the course of your life be able to say that you were bound for the kingdom of God and managed to fumble your way there? You see for us the question of homecoming is will we get there justifiably?

            For God, the heart of the Gospel is that things are beginning to look up for the people who are looking down. God is all about taking those who think they know everything and flipping that knowledge on its side. The possibilities are endless in the Kingdom of God, but ultimately for us to get up there we’re going to have to get down here and get dirty in the messiness of grace and love that become incarnate by our actions.

            This text in the Gospel is dangerous when we think about it in a kingdom mindset, isn’t is? You see we know the endgame of the story, we know who was right in the eyes of God, but how many times have we been the Pharisee? How many times have we become so consumed with ourselves that we thank God we’re not like them? For us we shouldn’t be quick to condemn the Pharisee because if we look in the mirror we all at times have been the Pharisee. But God has an awesome return policy. We don’t have to stay the Pharisee forever we can in fact become tax collectors.

            My former senior minister, colleague and friend Rob Rollins tells the story of Murphy High School in the town he is serving in the Western part of the state. It was homecoming for that school and as tradition, the homecoming court was lined up on the football field. My friend couldn’t help but notice the accolades that had been named for these young ladies. All of them were going on to bright futures full of hope and dignity and deserving of respect. Morgan was among them, and she is what we call here in North Carolina an Exceptional Child. She had some sort of developmental disability that required a label as such, but amidst the accolades and college plans of all the others, Morgan was crowned homecoming queen of Murphy High School, and from what my pastor said all the other contestants and students at that high school couldn’t contain their sheer, unbridled joy for Morgan.

            Friends if that’s not the kingdom of God looks like I don’t know what is. God took what was often something confined to a popularity contest much like our Gospel lesson and made it in to a moment of interjected grace. That’s what the Pharisee didn’t get, the Kingdom of God isn’t a popularity contest with winners and losers. The kingdom of God is a journey in which we journey together, as sinners in need of mercy, as a flock of sheep who need redeeming.

            How we go home matters. We have the opportunity to go home justified but for that to happen the swords must be beaten into plowshares and the spears into pruning hooks. For that to happen we must be willing to accommodate the Spirit in our own life.

            The 1996 film the Hunchback of Notre Dame is one of Disney’s classics that captivates audiences with its rendition of an old book by Victor Hugo. As Esmeralda sings a song in one of the scenes, you begin to catch another glimpse of the kingdom of God. It goes like this, “God help the outcasts hungry from birth, show them the mercy they don't find on earth. God help my people we look to you still, God help the outcasts or nobody will. I ask for nothing I can get by, but I know so many less lucky than I. Please help my people the poor and downtrod, I thought we all were the children of God. God help the outcasts Children of God.”

            You see this is ultimately what this text is about. Those people, the outcast the downtrodden the broken are the people the Pharisee rails against and are the exact people that God brings the keys to the kingdom to. Jesus was notorious for hanging out with the likes of these tax collectors, adulterers, and criminals because ultimately they received the message of the kingdom far better than the church folk ever could.

            This week is one of memories. I would classify it as one of the hardest anniversaries of anything I have to face on a yearly basis. Four years ago this Thursday one of my dear friends was killed in a car accident. I remember very vividly the call I received that day and the ensuing visit with Abbey’s family that evening when I was asked to preach at the funeral. I sat across from Abbey’s mother and I confessed in that moment and said I had no earthly idea what I could ever say that would be of any meaning. Ellen looked at me and with a tax collector simplicity said this, “Offer them Jesus, that’s what worked for Abbey. Just offer them Jesus.” In those moments I felt lest justified, I felt more like a Pharisee. This woman who I was supposed to be consoling ultimately taught me more about the justification that Jesus offers than I could ever hope to offer

            You see both the Pharisee and the tax collector were offered the life-changing magnificent grace we are all offered today. The way they received it was very different. But you see in the economy of God’s grace all are equal, there is no richer or poorer when it comes to grace. The only indicator of that grace is our acceptance of it and our willingness to wrestle with it in this transient life.

            As you go forth from this place take with you the hope that you have been offered grace. You can stand tall and thank God you’re not like those people or you can accept it with a kingdom mindset that presents humility and a gratefulness we all need to have. We all have the potential to go home justified.

            Deeper than that this grace wipes away our silly notions and comparisons of who is greater in the kingdom of God. In the kingdom of God the labels we create to divide are celebrated rather than divisive. The notion we have about who is greater are turned upside down for the trivial realities that they ultimately are. For this passage and the one in Isaiah is about singing the song in the heart of God. And the song in the heart of God presses us forward, closer, together, bound for the kingdom.

I want to tell you about a colleague I met this week at the Fund for Theological Education’s Leadership Discernment Conference. Trevor and I met as we rode from LaGuardia Airport to our community. Trevor had an opportunity to play with the kids at the community by making piles of leaves for them to jump in. He was teaching these city folk how to jump into leaves.

            I have images of what the kingdom of God might look like, and in my head that image has been added to the vocabulary of heaven. We learned about the beauty of play and love and grace. We learned that Jesus was talking about this in the Gospel text, and Isaiah gave voice to it in the Old Testament lesson today. But

            I left out one detail about my friend that I would consider rather important. You see Trevor lives in South Chicago. Last week, Trevor’s family was robbed at gunpoint, his possessions taken and his reality shaken. Trevor played with such joy with those children I couldn’t help but ask him about his story. I was curious as to how such pain could turn into such laughter in medicinal leaf piles. He mentioned how in Chicago where he lived that playgrounds had become battlefields and no longer places of play. He had never had the opportunity to jump in leaf piles like he was able to do here in this community.

            He said something remarkable in those moments of conversation. He said to me, “I figure that if I can play here, I can go home and play there too.” In those moments in which I would give anything for Isaiah’s prophecy about beating swords into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks to come true for the city of Chicago, and I realized very truly that Trevor was one of those people who was bringing about the kingdom of God. For if he can go home justified, why can’t we? If he can jump in the leaves, why can't we? The kingdom of God is partly an invitation into a divine dance that has been going along time and space and for centuries before we joined in. Now that we’re apart of it can we stand in the face of the violence in Chicago or in our own backyard and find justification to play in grace? What if that is the ultimate point for us? Life is a war between fear and grace, between violence and playing in leaf piles. And yes we cover it up with lofty prayers like a Pharisee of old, but in the end I have a secret that shatters hell and death and lofty pious prayers and violence in Chicago and everything with it. The secret is this: Grace wins. Grace comes and it justifies us so that we can go home with a song in our heart and leaves in our backyard. Grace wins my friends, Lord have mercy on us sinners because ultimately… Grace wins. Amen.

            

With Thankfulness in Your Eyes: A Sermon Preached at Jefferson United Methodist Church

October 13, 2013

[Luke 17:11-19]

Jefferson United Methodist Church, Jefferson NC

            It was Frederick Buechner in his book Secrets in the Dark who said, “I will ask you a terrible question, and God knows I ask it also of myself. Is the truth beyond all truths, beyond the stars, just this: that to live without him is the real death, that to die with him is the only life?” Will you pray with me?

God who inspires thankfulness and gratefulness,

            May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be pleasing in your sight oh God our strength and our redeemer. Amen.

            A year and a half ago, I went to the Avery County Humane Society. You see I had wanted to adopt a dog for some time, but the right one hadn’t come along. As I walked the long hall of the kennel no dog stuck out to me, there wasn’t any one in particular that had that eternal connection that pets create when you meet them and spend any amount of time with them. We came to the end of my tour without any dog to bring home. As I was walking out I heard a whimper behind a metal door, a dog obviously in pain and lonely. Rusty had seen about as hard a life as any dog could see. He was abused, badly injured and in need of surgery. We made the necessary arrangements and got him well. After the first month of living with me it came time to go visit the vet.

            Now I left out one particular detail of importance to this story. Remember I had said Rusty was in need of surgery, after his abuse and neglect he had to have his eye removed. So this one-eyed mut got in my car and we went to the vet. When the vet saw us, she saw the joy that Rusty (who had affectionately become known as little man) had found in his new life. I asked her how she knew he was happy and if it had made a difference. Her response was simple yet something I will remember forever, “He has thankfulness in his eye, but I’m confident in time you’ll see he saved you as much as you saved him.”

            Part of me wonders what Jesus’ expression was when he realized that one leper, a Samaritan at that had come back to thank him for what he had done. I honestly wonder if this man had restored Jesus’ hope in humanity as Jesus declared, “Your faith has made you well.” This leper was the polar opposite of Jesus. On one end you had this 1^st Century Jewish Rabbi, Messiah, and Savior of the Nations and on the other you had a half dead leper from Samaria, that bad part of town across the tracks that no one really liked to go to. But herein lies the hope of this leper. He noticed the holiness in the divine, they saw the messianic promise of Jesus. As Barbara Brown Taylor says, “Whoever you are, you are human. Wherever you are, you live in the world, which is just waiting for you to notice the holiness in it.”

            Friends we live in a world where thankfulness and gratefulness are things that we talk about in church on Sunday but don’t live out on Monday. We find it odd when people thank us, almost awkward as we go about our lives. Even for Jesus it was odd at best when he says, “Were not ten made clean? But the other nine, where are they?  Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?” Perhaps we need to remember what a famous UN Secretary General said, “For all that has been, thanks, for all that will be, yes.”

            We’re finding more and more that thankfulness, turning that thanks to yes leads to happiness. A recent study showed that the more thankful you are, the happier you are. You find this in so many ways, have you not just beamed with thankfulness and experienced the warm glow of happiness? You see, that stuff is Biblical.

            However, we need to move into a lifestyle and reality that takes our thanks, our praise, our joys and turn them into action. How are you taking your thankfulness and living with it shining not only in your eyes but also in your actions? How are you accomplishing a saving work in the lives of others simply because someone has initiated that in your own life as well? How has God turned your thanks into yes?

            Perhaps it’s through a ministry here in this church or in the greater community, maybe it’s in a conversation with a friend who is experiencing close to what you have experienced. For it is in these ways that God declares healing grace and love in the lives of all of God’s children.

            If you’re like me, you were taught as a child to be thankful for what you received. When guests would begin to leave as a child I would be remiss with my parents if I did not thank them for being in our home. I was taught to say, “Thank you for coming, I’ve hope you had a wonderful time.” I knew how to rattle that off quickly and as quietly as humanly possible as not to actually mean what I said. I just didn’t get it. But then life changes doesn’t it? You start to grow up and meet someone who you could actually be compatible with in the long run as a friend or spouse and they stand to leave and you say with all your heart, “Thank you for coming, I’ve had a wonderful time!” Or you find yourself visiting a relative who doesn’t have much time left and they say to you, “Thank you for coming, I’ve had a wonderful time.” These moments, this same vocabulary but different context is exactly what Jesus was talking about and what Jesus wants from us. Jesus wants to change our empty hope to present reality. He wants to change our thanks to yes, he wants to heal and restore and redeem. For that is the Christ that we know, resurrected and triumphant over death and pain and darkness.

            Perhaps you like me look to this time of fall as the first hint that we have reached the holiday that our stomachs enjoy most, Thanksgiving. If you enjoy the holiday like I do, I’m sure you’ve heard the hymn Now Thank We All Our God. This hymn has words such as these, “Now thank we all our God, with heart and hands and voices,
who wondrous things has done, in Whom this world rejoices;
who from our mothers’ arms has blessed us on our way
with countless gifts of love, and still is ours today.
” Beautiful words, but have you ever heard about the man who penned those words all the way back around 1637?

            Martin Rinkart the author of this hymn was a Lutheran minister who came to Saxony at the beginning of the Thirty Years War. The walled city that Rinkart lived in became the refuge for political and military figures, but the result was overcrowding, and deadly plague and famine. Armies overran it three times. The Rinkart home was a refuge for the victims, even though he was often hard-pressed to provide for his own family. During the height of a severe plague in 1637, Rinkart was the only surviving pastor in Eilenburg, conducting as many as 50 funerals in a day. He performed more than 4000 funerals in that year, including that of his wife.

            Friends we come to this place with the lavish thanksgiving of the ages. Countless sung and unsung heroes of the faith just like Martin Rinkart show us that thankfulness is a part of the economy of God. God is just in the business of bestowing incredible grace and love upon us and all we can do in response is be thankful. However our thankfulness, if done right, turns to action, our gratefulness becomes the incarnation of God to those around us. We are lost in wonder, love and praise as Charles Wesley would say and that is beautiful.

            You see our saying thanks does not ground us to the past Christ has restored for us, but it binds us to a future God has planned for us. Saying thank you, showing gratitude is a deeply vulnerable action in which we set ourselves up to be embraced and welcomed by another. The vulnerability we share brings us close to the heart of God, and that is a good thing.

            Let me point out another thing about this text. Notice that unlike other places in the Gospel of Luke as Jesus was heading towards Jerusalem the text says he ‘was going through the region between Samaria and Galilee.’ It doesn’t give the exact location as in previous chapters, it simply states a region, if I may ponder if but for this sermon if that was intentional. Perhaps this lack of geographical certainty allows you to cover this text with your own story. We’ve all been in that region between Samaria and Galilee, we’ve all been a part of a leper colony, or a no-good Samaritan, but we’ve also been so lost in our thankfulness we’ve forgotten to thank the one who matters. But maybe, just maybe, we could turn around for a moment and look God in the eyes and thank God for what God has completed in our lives.

            Back to what I first told you about my dog, Rusty. Rusty likes to run in the yard. He’s one of those dogs that almost gallop to show his joy and happiness, but every time he runs he’ll stop to turn around and see where I am. As I pondered what he might be thinking, it could be just seeing if he can get away with running, I often look at him and see the thankfulness in his eye. I see the joy that he has been given new life and the love and attention he deserves. The same could be said for you with God. The next time you are lost in the beauty of this world or the reality of your existence, you could turn around as you are running through this life and have thankfulness in your eyes. You can have thankfulness in your eyes and be unbridled by the fear of death and the grave. You could celebrate the reality that you are beloved. You can be thankful that God has made you to be who you are. With thankfulness in our hearts, we turn to look back for we know our pasts have been restored and that God is looking to a future full of hope.

            Friends be thankful, know that you are the product of love and life and joy. Most importantly, remember that for all that has been, thanks, and for all that will be, yes.