Sunday, October 27, 2013

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


October 27th, 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 1st 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.
            

Saturday, October 12, 2013

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 1st 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.