(Open with the music and lyrics from “Circle of Life” from the Lion King). OK who can tell me the song and the movie? Yes, it is Circle of Life from the Lion King, one of the top grossing movies of all time. The reason I offer you this particular song this morning is because we are going to be talking about circles; specifically two circles, the first of which is the circle of life. Now the circle of life, which forms part of the core of the Lion King, and actually the core of many ancient religions, offers us a particular view of life. This view is one that I like to call the replacement view. In other words, Mufasa is king, he has a son Simba, Mufasa dies and Simba becomes king, then Simba has a son, Simba dies and you get the point. Nothing really changes in life…only the characters. At birth everyone assumes the role they have been given. They play it out and life circles and cycles on forever. This view of life is great as long as you are on top of the food chain and not on the bottom, as several of the characters in the movie point out. This is essentially a static view of creation.

 

I now want to offer you a second circle, one that comes to us from the First Letter of John. As I offer this circle I know that it is going to sound a bit cheesy, but bear with me. The second circle is the Circle of Love. Yes I know it sounds like some team building exercise from the 60s yet I think it accurately describes John’s alternate take on the Circle of Life. If you would like to, I would encourage you to draw a circle on your bulletin so that you can mark out how this circle of love works.

 

We begin at the top of the circle, at twelve o’clock high if you will, with the words “God loves.” The circle of love begins with God. John tells us that “love is from God”, “in this is love, not that we loved God but that God loved us”, “since God loved us so much”, and finally “we love because God first loved us.” Four different times John makes the point that the Circle of Love always has its beginning in the very heart of God because God is love; God is the one who is for us, for God’s creatures and for God’s creation. When God created all that there is God did not step aside and say, “Have a nice life.” Instead God poured God’s own love in this creation which had been declared to be good. It is God who seeks us out to love us, even when we are unaware of that love.

 

The second stop on the Circle of Love, is at the three o’clock position with the words “Jesus makes that love real.” This Circle of Love continues with God making it possible for us to experience and return the love that God has shown toward us. The larger story in which this circle operates is that when God tried to love us, we rejected that love, or as our children learn, we wandered far from God. God on the other hand did not abandon us, but “God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him”, “God…sent his Son to be an atoning sacrifice for our sins”, “by this we know that we abide in God because God has given us God’s own Spirit”, and we “testify that the Father has sent the Son as the Savior of the World.” God is not content to love us from afar. God desires an intimate relationship with us. God desires that we become more than we are. So God initiates reconciliation between God and us through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.

 

The third stop on the Circle of Love is the six o’clock position in which we write the words “We respond by loving others.” John puts it this way “Beloved let us love one another”, “Beloved since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another”, “We love because God has first loved us” those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also.” The love God has offered us initiates a response of love from us. This response is not simply to love God in some emotional way but love others around us through concrete acts of service. It is, for those of you who were here last week, to open our gut so that the love of God can come in and our love can go out making a difference in God’s world. Our 1,666 project is one of those love responses.

 

The final stop on our Circle of Love is the nine o’clock position where we will write “perfect love casts out fear.” John puts it this way, “Love has been perfected among us in this; that we may have boldness on the Day of Judgment, because as he is so we are in the world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love.” The key word here is perfection. This word does not describe perfect, as in without blemish. It describes the completion of the process. The completion of the Love Circle is that we live with an amazing peace knowing that God’s love is always for us. What John also tells us though is that perfection, completion, is a process; something that we have to work at. It is the process of becoming Christ-like such that our relationship with God drives all that we do.

 

There are two things then that I would like to get across this morning. The first is that the Circle of Love is not static, like the Circle of Life. The Circle of Love is a process through which we, both as individuals and as communities of faith, grow closer and closer to God, which allows us to love those around us more and more deeply. The Circle of love takes us some place. The second thing is that there is no greater reminder of how this circle works than the communion table. Here we see God’s love seeking us in the bread and cup, God’s love reconciling us in Jesus as we break and pour the elements, our response of sharing with one another the gifts as they come to us and of the peace that comes from partaking.

 

This morning then I the challenge i offer is for each of us to ask ourselves, where am I on the Circle of Love and how can I move closer and closer to that perfected love in Christ? 

 

 

 

 

“Get your arm back in the bus!” The words caught me off guard and almost caused me to go off at the person who yelled at me. I was hot. I was tired. I, along with about thirty of my newest friends, had just landed in Manila after a very long flight from Los Angeles. We stepped off the plane into the 98 degree heat and 90 plus percent humidity of the Philippines. After struggling through customs we boarded un-air-conditioned buses to head to our training sight. Even though we had been told not to put arms or hands out of the windows I figured there was no real harm and so I just kind of leaned out. The angry demand from our trainer was not welcomed. It was not welcomed because, well, I do not like people telling what I may and may not do. I love suggestions and requests but have never like commands…so maybe it was good I was in the Peace Corps and not the Army. But what I disliked even more about his command was that no more than a few minutes later another bus passed by us going the opposite direction, and the two came literally within an inch of each other. In other words the trainer was right…had I left my arm out it would have been mangled.

 

Perhaps I am a bit unusual but my impression is that the majority of us are not fond of commands. We are not fond of them because they take away our freedom. They restrict us. Granted the whole idea of commands may be mitigated by the circumstances which are explained to us as to why we need to follow those commands…such as my not putting my arm outside of the bus. None-the-less as people who value our independence, being allowed a choice rather than having to be perfectly obedient seems to be our preference…which is why I would argue we are fonder of the New Testament than the Old. The New Testament with all of its admonitions to love appears to be much more appealing to us than the Old Testament with all of its commandments. Though we know there is something good about all of the shalls and shall nots, most of us would like it better if they were “we would prefer you nots.” We like Jesus who appears to leave all of that legalism behind in order that we live in a kind of warm and nurturing community governed by feelings of love rather than rules.

 

That being the case then it probably comes as a bit of shock to us when we encounter the one commandment that Jesus gives. I have often watched people try and downplay the idea of Jesus giving us a commandment; but if we are honest with the scriptures we can’t get past the use of that term. In fact the writer of First John uses the word command or commandment four times. “And we receive from him whatever we ask, because we obey his commandments and do what pleases him. And this is his commandment, that we should believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he commanded us. All who obey his commandments abide in him and he abides in them.” We are therefore confronted with the question of why Jesus, the one who laid down his life for us, would command us to do anything, even if it is to love one another. Wouldn’t a suggestion have been good enough?

 

Evidently the answer is no, a suggestion would not be enough. And I believe it was not good enough because loving one another is a matter of life and death. First it is a matter of life and death for others. As the writer opens this section of the letter he writes, “God’s love does not abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in needs and yet refuses to help. Little children let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action.” The word picture that is offered in the Greek becomes clearer when we realize that the word for “world’s goods” is “bion”, or a more familiar term, bios, from which we get biology, biosphere, meaning life. The word picture then is that if we possess the bios, the very things that make for life, and we do not share them with others, then those others may not have the bios for life and thus lose their physical lives. We are to share our bios because God cares deeply about our bodies, and all that it takes to keep them working. God cares that people have all the bios they need to survive and thrive. There is an old saying that some people are so spiritually minded that that they are no earthly good. The church while being spiritual has often failed to be of earthly good. God calls upon us to change that and be those who give our bios to those in need.

 

Secondly loving one another is a matter of life and death for us. In those same words we read a moment ago, “God’s love does not abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in needs and yet refuses help. Little children let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action.” there is a second word picture. The word picture comes from the words we translate “refuses to help.” A more accurate translation is to shut up our bowels against those in need. Yes I understand that is not a pretty picture, but the bowels, and not the heart, were considered to be the center of our wills…the place where we make our most important decisions. The writer implies that what happens when we shut our bowels to others is that we also shut our bowels to God. That is why the Greek makes it clear that those who refuse to offer some of their bios to others do not have the love of God in them. And if we do not have the love of God within us that we become stunted people…the growth which God wants to bring forth in us cannot happen. We are like potted plants kept in a dark room with no water or nutrients. Only when the door is opened and we let the light by serving others in do we grow into the people God calls us to be.

 

You and I live in a world in which the most basic bios is missing for a huge part of humanity. On this day half of the world’s population lives on less than two dollars a day; eight hundred million people are mal-nourished; nearly two hundred million of those are children; twenty four thousand people a day die from hunger and more than one billion people do not have access to clean water. I do not say this in order that we leave here feeling guilty, well not too guilty, but so that we see Jesus’ command as a matter of life and death; physical life for others and spiritual life for us. Each of us can fulfill Jesus’ command in hundreds of ways, one of which is to give to the Living Love 1,666 project in which we share the bios we have with children in Kenya. And in so doing we open our guts so that we might continue to grow not only into the people but into the community Christ calls us to be. So as we go from here today, my challenge for you is this, to ask, how am I opening myself to God’s love by sharing my bios with others? 

 

 

 

 

They were all very excited. It was the day when all of the Junior High students visited their new high school. All of us guys were in the gym on the bleachers waiting for the coaches to come and tell us about how we could be part of their teams. What everyone in the bleachers understood however was that there was really only one coach that we were all waiting for; the baseball coach. We were waiting for coach Knoblauch. We were waiting for him because he was the winner. He had multiple district, regional and even state championships. Ultimately several of his players would play in the majors. Finally he came in the room, scanned the bleachers and said something like, “I know many of you want to play for me. But unless you have played baseball every year since you were seven, played in the majors and were an all-star I do not even want you on my field. You are not good enough to play Bellaire baseball.” You could almost hear the air being sucked out of the room. For many of the boys there it was as if life was over. This is what I have since come to refer to as a “bleacher moment.”

 

Sooner or later most of us have bleacher moments when we realize that the myth of unlimited potential is just that…a myth. We are raised in a culture that tells us that we have unlimited potential; that if we work hard enough, and long enough we can be anything we want and accomplish anything that we want. Anybody, the saying goes, can grow up to be president. But this is myth. Just ask Newt Gingrich or Rick Santorum or all of those guys whose names we have forgotten because they did not become president. No, along the way most of us have bleacher moments. We realize that our unlimited potential is in fact limited. Though a blessed few make it to the highest level of achievement in their fields, sooner or later they too discover that they become a bit slower, a bit less able, have less energy and so their bleacher moment comes later, rather than sooner. But there are also those whose bleacher moment comes much earlier. It comes at birth with words like, Downs Syndrome or medically fragile. It comes in the first few years with words like Autism or dyslexia. And with those words parents, grandparents and friends begin to wonder…what now? What do we do now that the bleacher moment has already arrived?

 

There are many different ways to answer that question; therapy, tutoring, great patience; but there is one more answer to “what now” that I would like us to consider. That is that we turn to the short piece out of First John that we read this morning, where we discover that in God’s economy all children, teens and adults sill have unlimited potential to live into the fullness of being Christ-like people. This begins with John telling us that we are children of God. We are God’s children because, as John writes in verse 9, the seed of God is within us. This seed is a reminder that it is God who created each of us. This relationship gives us intrinsic value; meaning that we are not defined by our ability to dribble a basketball, or do differential equations, or anything else that we might learn or practice. The very fact that we are created by God gives us not only inherent value but opens us to the potential to become fully Christ-like.

 

The second way we see this unlimited potential is when John tells us that we have an open future. John writes, “We are God’s children now, what we will be has not yet been revealed.” So often, as with the boys on those bleachers, we think that when our bleacher moment arrives that life is over; there is nothing more ahead. What John tells us is that this is not so…what we will be has not yet been revealed. As many of you may or may not know, my wife Cindy was the principal of an elementary school which was the cluster school in her for all children with disabilities. One year a woman arrived with her son Ezra. They had moved from a different district where the mother had been told that Ezra, who had autism, did not speak and simply lay in a corner and screamed, had no future. This was all he would be. Cindy was a believer that what we will be has not yet been revealed. In fifth grade Ezra was not only part of a regular class but one day when he was next to Cindy waiting for the buses to arrive, he saw a child crying, hit Cindy on the leg and said, “That boy having a bad day.” Speech, empathy…a future was still being written because the seed of God is within Ezra and within us.

 

The final way in which John reminds us of our unlimited potential in becoming Christ-like people is that God has a plan for remaking each of us. “What we do know is this, when Christ is revealed, we will be like him because we will see him as he is.” The vision that scripture offers is that one day there will come a time when no one has a bleacher moment; when each and every one of us is renewed and made whole so that we can discover the fullness of who we were created to be. We will be made into human beings whose lives completely reflect the love and grace of God at every turn. As the Book of Revelation puts it, God is making all things new. God is renewing the face of the earth and everyone in it. In other words the seed of God will come to full bloom within us.

 

It is for these reasons that we at First Presbyterian Church have an All Abilities Inclusion Ministry. We believe that every child, teen and adult are children of God, with the seed of God within them, that we are to be part of helping their futures unfold and that God has something amazing in store for them. We are to be co-workers with God in helping every person discover the love that God has for them and to discover the potential God has placed in front of them. We invite you then to be a part of this process; to help teach our children and teens; to be a mentor or partner in our AAIM ministry; to join us not only at our monthly Rejoicing Spirit’s worship service or our special service this week for the Angel’s Place homes. The challenge before us is to not simply believe what John tells us, but to live into it. So here is my challenge for the week, to ask yourselves, “How am I helping to make Everybody’s Church a place in which all children, teens and adults get to discover their unlimited potential to be a Christ-like child of God.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I want to begin this morning with a very unscientific poll. The first question is how many of you can name one winner of some major sports event, in any sport, be it college or the pros…such as the Super Bowl or the Man’s College Basketball Championship? Now the second question is how many of you can, right away, name the team that was in last place or had the worst record in any major sport. Right, there are many more of you who name the winners rather than the losers.

 

What this means is that we love winners! We love all sorts of winners. We love sports winners. We love lottery winners. We love the winners of reality TV shows and Dancing with the Stars. We love winners so much that the Tigers are willing to spend $214 million dollars on a single individual who can make them a winner. We love winners so much that we idolize them by buying their clothes, wearing their shoes and following every Tweet they make. The epitome of this is that when I won my first game of solitaire on my iPad it asked me if I wanted to share my victory with my friends. How desperate are we to be a winner that we will share our victory in a solitaire game? Interestingly enough what this also means is that we love losers. When I say, we love losers, I don’t mean that we love loveable losers…like the Cubs…no offense to anyone here from Chicago…but that we love them because without losers we would not have winners. We have never been a society that really appreciates the “everyone gets a trophy for showing up” mentality. No we like to have our winners to celebrate and our losers to look down upon.

 

Lest you think somehow that we created this kind of winner/loser mentality…think again. We did not invent it…we inherited it. We inherited from our homosapien ancestors who held a parade when they drive the last Neanderthal out of the neighborhood. And there were few societies that knew how to differentiate between winners and losers as did Rome. Rome loved winners more than we do. Rome in fact was a society in which winning meant fame, fortune and political power. It was so important that political leaders would vie for the privilege of raising and funding an army to go and conquer in the name of Rome. They believed that victory would bring honor and it did. When victorious leaders would return home there would be parades, accolades and all the perks we associate with success. Rome also loved the losers…those poor souls whose lands were conquered and their citizens enslaved. The losers would trail behind the victorious legions with their heads bowed; their hands tied in order face the taunts and humiliations of the crowds. If they were fortunate they were sold into slavery…if not it was the arena or perhaps the cross.

 

We can imagine then that on a particular Friday evening almost two-thousand years ago there were a number of Roman soldiers stationed in Jerusalem who were figuring out winners and losers. Actually it was not very hard to do. The men on the cross were the losers. They had marched out three rebels to be executed. One of the condemned men had even been proclaimed King of the Jews…what a joke. The soldiers had stripped them all bare, nailed them naked to the cross, humiliated them with curses and slowly watched them die. In the shadow of the cross they had argued and gambled over their clothes and meager possessions. The winners? The winners were the Romans as always. Rome was all powerful. No one got in their way. Soon the Roman guards would head back to the barracks, have some dinner, laugh about the brutal but all too predictable deaths of those who opposed the Empire and then would get a good night’s sleep. Once again Rome won and whoever opposed her lost…or so it seemed for the moment.

 

As the sun dawned on the following Sunday it certainly appeared that the accounting of winners and losers was spot on. The three women, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and Salome all went to the tomb to anoint Jesus, the one who had lost, with spices; something they had been unable to do before the Sabbath had begun. As they approached however something was amiss. The stone was rolled back and inside the tomb was not Jesus but a young man dressed in white. His words stunned them. “Do not be amazed; you seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has risen. He is not here; see the place where they laid him. Go and tell Peter that he is going before you to Galilee; there you will see him as he told you.” The women did the only natural thing…they fled filled with astonishment and fear. In that moment and in the moments that followed when Jesus appeared to the women, then the disciples and finally to others it appeared as if the calculations of winners and losers had been incorrect. Rome did not win…the Jewish people did. Jesus did not lose…Rome did. The vanquished had become the victor; the loser…the winner.

 

It would have been very easy for the early followers of Jesus to have told the story in this fashion; the brutal Roman Empire had lost and the noble Jesus had won. But that is not how they couched this sudden and miraculous turn of events. They told the story very differently. First it was not Rome that lost. The losers were sin and death. The early church believed that in Jesus being raised from the dead the power of sin and thus of death were broken. The power of sin, that power that leads human beings into death dealing, rather than into life giving ways, had been broken. Human beings now had the capacity to truly begin to love God and love neighbor. Second, the power of death was also broken. Death no longer reigned because God had raised Jesus and promised to raise the rest of humanity as well. No longer would human beings have to spend their lives worried about what was on the other side of death. We now knew…what was on the other side was life.

 

The winners? The winners were all of humanity. Humanity won because the love and grace of God had been poured out into the world offering forgiveness and new life to any who would take it. Jesus’ resurrection meant that all person; male and female, Jew and Greek, slave and free were invited to participate in the new kingdom that God had inaugurated in the world. This meant that Rome won because it was invited. This meant that the Parthians, Rome’s enemies won, because they were invited. It meant that those who were captives of Rome won because they were invited. The world won while sin and death lost. The winners are all who are willing to live into the joy and life that God brought about by raising Jesus from the dead.

 

So on this Easter day, the challenge I want to offer you is this, to ask yourselves, “How am I living into the victory God won for me in raising Christ from the dead? How am I living as a winner, set free from sin and death?”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

He had pushed the queen over the edge. Elijah had finally gone too far and pushed queen Jezebel over the edge. Elijah, like all prophets, understood that his job was to push the people, kings and queens included. He was to push them away from other gods and toward the God of Israel. He was to push them away from lawlessness and into following God’s law. But this time he had gone too far. As was said earlier, Queen Jezebel was a follower of the god Baal. Jezebel had in fact tried to replace the God of Israel with her own god. Elijah had resisted and pushed back. Finally he lost his cool and decided that there had to be a “god-off”; a contest to see whose god was stronger. The contest went like this. Two bulls were sacrificed and put on top of a pile of wood which served as an altar. Each side, the prophets of Baal and Elijah, would pray to their gods, in turn, and the first god to send fire down from heaven wins. Needless to say the prophets of Ball failed and Elijah, because of the power of the God of Israel won. Not satisfied with his victory, Elijah and all of the prophets of Baal executed on the spot. Needless to say, since they all worked for the queen, this action pushed her over the edge and Elijah had to flee for his life. It should have been a lesson learned.

 

Elijah’s story ought to have been a cautionary tale for all of the prophets who followed him. It is OK to push a little but not too much. And at first Jesus seemed to understand. He would push people but not push them over the edge. I realize that for many of us the idea of Jesus pushing people does not fit our sweet Jesus meek and mild stereotype. But Jesus did push people. He pushed the religious leaders by eating with the wrong kind of people; sinners, tax collectors and prostitutes. He pushed the religious establishment by doing the wrong kind of things; healing on the Sabbath, touching lepers, and forgiving people of their sins. He pushed the them even further by teaching the wrong kind of things; that what makes someone unclean is not what goes into their mouth, meaning what they eat, but what comes out of their mouths, meaning what you say about others. Finally he even pushed the political authorities by calling the king a fox and by not denying that he was King of the Jews. Jesus pushed people…but not too far…until his final trip to Jerusalem.

 

As Jesus approached Jerusalem he didn’t just push, he shoved; and he shoved his opponents over the line. In fact everything he did leading up and during his entry was intended to push people over the edge. Let’s go down the list. He begins by insuring that he entered the city on the opposite side from that of the Judean King…at about the same time. He insured that he was going to come in riding on a colt…and not just any colt but one that had never been ridden…a sure sign that he was claiming to be the messiah. Next he evidently welcomes the chants of the bystanders as they yell out the Hillel Psalms which were intended to celebrate the entry of the King. And finally the people not only spread their cloaks but they cut palm branches and waved them…once again declaring, here comes the King. Each of these was a slap in the face of both the religious and civil authorities. And the response was what Jesus expected. They wanted him dead. This time though, Jesus, unlike Elijah, did not run. Jesus allowed himself to be arrested, tried and crucified.

 

So where does this leave us? What are we to do with this pushy Jesus? I would like to think that we would ask ourselves one question. “When was the last time Jesus pushed us over the edge?” OK, that probably seems like an odd question, but it’s not really. It’s not because Jesus never quit pushing. Even after the resurrection Jesus kept pushing. Through the power of the Spirit Jesus kept pushing his followers to love more deeply; care more compassionately; serve more sacrificially and follow more faithfully. And Jesus kept pushing them to do so because his death and resurrection radically transformed them into different people capable of great things. In the same way Jesus keeps pushing us. Jesus keeps pushing us out of our comfort zones. Jesus keeps pushing us to take the leap into the new life he makes possible for us. Jesus keeps pushing us to be the people God has created us to be. He keeps pushing us till we come to the edge of what we thought possible…and then into the reality God has planned for us.

 

The question then I would like you to ponder as you come to the table this morning is this…am I willing to let Jesus push me over the edge into the greatness he has planned for me?