Hebrews 13:1-6, Isaiah 40:27-31 

Charlie believed that he could teach everyone to sing. As the music director at my former church he spent many hours working with those who never believed that they could sing at all, much less in a choir. So that was his mantra…I can teach anyone to sing. It was good then that he had never met my mother. Now, my mother was an incredible woman. She held a bachelor’s from Rice University and a Masters in math from the University of Houston. She taught physics and calculus. She played a mean game of tennis and could climb 14,000 foot mountains in Colorado. Above all she could keep all four of her sons quiet during church. However, she could not sing. She could not pitch match, or as she herself admitted, carry a tune in a bucket. All of us in the family knew this because even after sitting in church for 50 years with my father, a bass with perfect pitch, she couldn’t do it.

As I thought about my mother this week, her inability to learn to sing raised a question for me. Should everyone be able to learn to sing or are there some people who simply cannot do so? This question then raised a second question. Are there some things that everyone ought to be able to do? I referred to this issue in an earlier sermon and the conclusion that we reached was that there are few if any things that all people can learn to do. We can’t all be great in math. We can’t all be great athletes. We can’t all run marathons, or understand nuclear physics or play the piano well. That being the case then, we are faced with what I believe to be an even more serious question than the two we have already asked. If there is no one thing that all people ought to be able to learn how to do, why then do we expect all Christians to be able to learn to lead a thoroughly Christian life? In other words, if not all people can sing, why do we expect all people to be able to live like Jesus?

I ask this question because the bottom line of the Letter to the Hebrews seems to assume that we all ought to be able to live the perfect Christian life. We see this in that at the end of his letter the preacher makes it clear that it is not enough for us to simply believe in Jesus. We are to practice Christian living as well…and the preacher offers us a considerable list of things we ought to be doing as Jesus’ followers.

He begins with mutual love. This is the ability not to simply do things for others, which is sometimes easy, but to actually care about others, which is often hard to do. This love is not agape or self-sacrificial love, but brotherly/sisterly love which demands that we work at caring for both loveable and difficult people. The preacher moves from there and reminds us that we are to be showing hospitality to strangers. For many of us this is a challenge because it implies not simply showing hospitality to friends and family, but to people we do not know and might not have anything in common with. Again though it is an expression of how God deals with us; always receiving us with open arms. Next we are to remember those in prison and being tortured as if we were there suffering with them. For many of us this is a boundary pusher. It pushes us because we often believe that those in prison or perhaps our enemies that are being tortured deserve it. We ask ourselves why we ought to care. The response would be that God cares for all persons…remember Jesus telling us to pray for our enemies…and so we are not only to remember them but to care about them as if it were ourselves there. No one is to be forgotten by the church.

The next two admonitions are where the preacher moves from preaching to meddling. He tells us first that marriage is to be honored. While this may seem to be a no brainer, in the first century it was a remarkable request. Recall that marriages in that time were all arranged marriages. Men and women might not have ever met until they were married. For that reason Roman society considered that adultery with someone you actually cared about was acceptable. You had your obligation marriage and your love affair. The bottom line for Christians however was that a commitment was a commitment; that one was to make the marriage work as much as possible. Finally we are supposed to keep our lives free from the love of money. Now I want to be clear at this point. We are not told to keep our lives free of money. We are to understand that money is simply a means of exchange. It is a means to carrying for family, friends and community. It is not to become and idol in and of itself.

I don’t know about you but this is quite a list of Christian obligations. Why is it then that we believe that all of us, as different as we are, are supposed to be able to do all of these things? The answer given to us by the writer of Hebrews is two-fold.

First we are to recognize that we are already doing them. This is the point made by the preacher. He began this section with these words…let mutual love continue. The point is that the recipients of this sermon were already doing all of the things on the list. They were already loving one another, showing hospitality, caring for those in prison, being faithful in marriage and using money appropriately. The community to whom this sermon was sent was trying their best to be faithful and the preacher was telling them to keep it up. I can say the same to you. Though I do not know all of you, or all of you well, I believe that to the best our abilities we are striving to do the right thing. We are striving to demonstrate the love and grace of God at home, school, our workplaces and in the community. We can do these things because we are already working at them.

The second reason we can do these things is because God is there to help us. Last week we spoke about the great cloud of witnesses that is cheering us on as we strive to be faithful to God. Here the writer is reminding us that God is present as well. He states that God will never leave us or forsake us and that the Lord is our helper. This is a reminder of Isaiah’s words, “But those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.” We are capable of living a Christ-like life because God is faithful to all of God’s people. In and of ourselves we could never live the kind of faithful Christian life which we are called to live. With the help of God all things are possible.

I want to make one last comment about this new reality. That is that even with the work of Christ, the presence of the Spirit, the great cloud of witnesses and the help of God none of us can live a perfectly Christian life. As imperfect people this is not possible. What we can do though is work at it. We can live as if the perfect Christ-like life is possible even if it is not. In other words we can be like my mother. What I mean by that is that mother could and did sing, just not on key. My mother knew that she should never appear on American Idol or do a solo in church. But she also understood that perfection was not what singing in worship was all about. She knew that it was about praising God. So every Sunday she would get out the hymnal, help us her sons read through the hymns and sing with gusto…sometimes flat, sometimes sharp and never on key. But that did not matter to her. What mattered was that she was giving her best to God. That is our challenge as follower of Christ. It is to keep on trying to live the Christ-like life even when perfection is not possible.

My challenge to you this day then is this…to ask yourselves, “Even though I know perfection is not possible, how am I intentionally working at demonstrting a Christ-like life in my daily routine?”

Daniel 3: 16-26, Hebrews 11:39-12:2

We had the right where we wanted them. It was our first soccer match of the season and we were playing the University of Texas. The temperature was running in the upper 90s and there were only a couple of minutes to go. With some luck we could win….well not exactly since we were down 11-0. Yes that’s right, we were losing an intercollegiate soccer game 11-0. It would have been easy enough to give up but we didn’t in part because we had some people in our corner. We had our fans. They continued to cheer, scream and yell for us…not at us. Now, in a sense of full disclosure what I need to let you know is that when I say fans, I use that term loosely. What I am referring to is the maybe 20 people in the stands were willing to hang out that long in the heat. In addition they were our girlfriends and roommates. However none of that mattered. We needed them and they were there.

What this brought to mind this week was that there are times when we all need someone in our corner. There are times when we all need someone rooting for us; cheering us on. Those cheering us on do not have to be able to fill a stadium. It can in fact be a single person; a teacher, a parent, a friend, a coach or a mentor. The number is ultimately not important. What matters is that there is someone who believes in us, when we need them the most. Have any of you ever had someone like that?

What the writer of Hebrews wants his audience to know is that they have someone like that as well. He wants them to know this because they really need someone in their corner. They need someone because they are getting ready to give up; to quit. Remember that those first hearing this sermon were former Jews. And being Jewish was more than a religious choice. Being Jewish was a matter of identity. They lived differently. They worshipped differently. They dressed differently. They had their own community. They had their own legal protections. By choosing to follow Jesus Christ they gave up all of this. They lost their families, their community and for many their livelihood. They had expected Jesus to arrive and give them hope. But as time went on and he did not they were beginning to think about giving up and going back to what they had always known. They needed someone to cheer them on.

The preacher tells them that they have a cheering section even if the cheers cannot be heard. Their fans consist of all of God’s people across the centuries who had kept the faith through thick and thin; in good times and in bad with a single purpose in mind, to find the messiah. All of these people, the writer intones, had been waiting for what these letter readers had received…Jesus of Nazareth. “Therefore,” he begins, “since we are surrounded by so great al cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us.” The imagery is of a great stadium filled with people cheering on the readers; remind them that they are not alone. Reminding them that they have someone in their corner…and these someones are their Jewish ancestors encouraging them not give up what all those ancestors had waited to see. They needed someone in their corner.

We need someone in our corner as well. We need someone because it is difficult to be a Christian in the 21^st Century. Let me be clear here what I mean by it being difficult to be a Christian in this day and age. I do not mean that it is dangerous. While there are places in this world where Christians are regularly imprisoned, arrested, bombed and discriminated against because of their faith; this nation is not such a place. In fact there are probably few places in the world where it is safer to go to church and publically declare oneself to be a follower of Jesus Christ. What I mean then when I say it is difficult to be a Christian in the 21^st Century what I mean is that we live in a time and place success has become the “be all and end all” of existence. Society pushes us to shed everything that does not help us gain fame and fortune. We are to do what is expedient, what is easy even when we know it is wrong, if it will lead us to our ultimate goal of success. Ethical standards can be shed. Rules can be skirted. Lives can be ruined. None of it matters if it might get in the way of our success. In this world then we need someone to cheer us to make the Christ-like choices. And we have it.

Just as those reading the Hebrews sermon were surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, so too are we. All around us are more than 2,000 years of faithful followers of Jesus Christ who are cheering us on; encouraging us to leave expediency behind and do what is right and good. In addition we have this community cheering for us as well. In this family of faith there are those who will cheer us, pray for us, listen to us and give us the courage we need to do what is the Christ-like thing to do. We are not alone. We have those around us who will help us finish the race that is set before us.

This morning then here is my challenge, to ask yourselves two questions: First, am I willing to hear those cheering for me? Second, how am I cheering on those around me.

Hebrews 9:11-14; Amos 5:21-24

He is my favorite on-screen villain as well as one of the top-ten on screen villains of all time. His name is Khan Noonein Sing. His back story is that he was one of the genetically engineered super humans that were created in the late 20th century in an effort to improve humanity…to weed out all of the flaws for which human beings have been known. However, along the way the genetically engineered humans decided that they needed to run things and so took over the world. Ultimately they are driven from power by ordinary humans in the Eugenics wars. Khan manages to survive and appears in not only the original Star Trek series in 1967 but in the second Trek movie in 1982. I realize that all of this introduction may seem a bit much for a Sunday sermon, except that this character and the story line built around it demonstrates one of the great truths about humanity; that superiority breeds contempt. In other words almost any time one group believes they are superior to another group, oppression and death follow.

In the history of the world we see this in virtually every aspect of life. We see it in cultural superiority. The Roman Empire believed that they were the civilized superior people and that everyone outside of their borders were inferior barbarians. This belief allowed the Romans to pillage, murder and enslave millions of people. We see this in racial superiority. Anglo western Europeans believed they were superior to black Africans. This superiority gave whites permission to capture, enslave, buy, sell and brutalize blacks. This superiority was ultimately engrained in our constitution and was only removed after a bloody civil war. We can see this in genetic superiority. While Michigan is known for many wonderful things most of you probably do not know that in the early 1900’s over in Battle Creek there was an organization called the Race Betterment Foundation which helped to spearhead the Eugenics movement in the United States. This movement believed that persons of inferior genetic makeup ought to be sterilized so they could no longer reproduce. Sterilization was forced upon promiscuous women, minorities and the persons with special needs until the early 1970s. We can see this today in social superiority. This occurs when teens and young adults believe their superiority allows them to text, tweet and Facebook cruel statements about others. It leads to cyber-bullying. Superiority breeds contempt.

We might assume that the one community in which this formula would not work would be the people of God. As a once upon a time oppressed community themselves the Israelites ought to have taken particular care never to allow this sense of superiority to determine how they lived. In addition they had been given the Torah, the Law of Moses in which it was made clear that not only were they not superior but that they had a special calling to care for the weak and vulnerable; they were to insure that kindness was shown to strangers, immigrants, widows and orphans. Finally while they could hold slaves they were to be treated as members of the community. Unfortunately, even with all of this as background the people of God, or at least the powerful among the people of God, regularly understood themselves as being superior to others in the community. This belief led to the oppression and abuse of the poor, the widow and the fatherless. While they powerful tried to hide behind the sacrificial system, believing that a simple sacrifice would absolve them of their ongoing intentional oppression, God refused to be bought off. We can hear the echoes of this in Amos where what God desires is not sacrifice but justice. Even with the people of God then, superiority bred contempt.

What we receive in the letter to the Hebrews though is a ray of light. We see the possibility that all of this sense of superiority breeding contempt could be alleviated. This light comes to us in the second half of verse 14 where we read that the blood of Christ purifies our consciences from dead works in order that we become capable of worshipping the Living God. Let me take a second to unpack this statement. As I mentioned a moment ago the manner in which Judaism usually dealt with sin, including the sin of superiority, was to offer a sacrifice. While this sacrifice might reconnect the individual with God and bring about forgiveness, it did not change the individual. They would still be prone to commit the same sin again. The writer of Hebrews on the other hand argues that in Jesus Christ the very center of our decision making process, our conscience, had been purified or changed. In a sense the writer is telling us that in Christ God has done some spiritual genetic engineering. We are human beings 2.0. We are those human beings that have been given the gift of being able to leave all of the baggage of the past behind us in order that we offer ourselves to God in true and right worship.

That being the case then, we are left with a single question; what happened? What I mean by that question is that Christians quickly fell into the superiority breeds contempt sin as quickly as any other people. We can see this as occur as soon as the faith was legalized in the early fourth century. It was not long before Christians were persecuting all other faiths; Roman faiths and Judaism. Then over the years came everything from Crusades, to the inquisition, to religious wars, to slavery and Westborough Baptist church whose members believe they are the only people God loves. It did not matter whether it was individual Christians, churches or cultures somehow it would seem that the cleansing had not worked. So what happened? The answer, simply put is that Christians came up against the choice of Khan. Remember that the backstory for Khan was that he had been given great abilities; an almost unlimited future. In so doing he had to choose how to use those abilities. He chose domination. Christians, while having our consciences cleansed still have to choose what to do with the gifts we have been given.

The gift of the cleansed conscience is that we can indeed to do what is right. We are not trapped in the past. We can see this at work in the church as surely as we can see superiority at work. For every crusade there were humble Christians caring for the poor. For every slaver there were those who opposed slavery and worked to eliminate it. For every one who said segregation and Jim Crow laws were necessary there were those who marched and worked for Civil rights. For every one who wanted to discriminate against other faiths, against women, against individuals with special needs and against the LGBT community there were those who chose differently. There always have been and always will be those who chose the way of right worship; of letting justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.

Because of the work of Jesus Christ in our lives and in our community we are not trapped by the baggage of the past. We can choose the way of service and not superiority. We can attest to our connection with creation and all of the communities around us. The challenge that I offer you this morning is this; to ask yourselves, “How am I using my cleansed conscience to choose the way of service over superiority; compassion over contempt?

Isaiah 53:1-5, Hebrews 2:14-18

During the filming of the movie "Marathon Man," actor Dustin Hoffman attempted to put himself into the shoes of Thomas "Babe" Levy. Levy was an avid runner and historian who became entwined in an elaborate spy plot. In order to realistically portray the character, Hoffman deprived himself of sleep for several days. When Hoffman arrived on set one day, he was in such a state of disarray that fellow cast member Laurence Olivier reportedly asked him, "Why not try acting? It's much easier."

While acting in the Olivier sense – embodying a character from the outside-in – might seem easier, actors who ascribe to what is known as “The Method,” believe they have to start from a different place. “The Method” is an acting technique inspired by the work of Constanin Stanislavski in the late 1800’s and later developed in this country by Lee Strasberg and others at the Actor’s Studio in New York. “The Method” teaches actors to access their personal emotional life, to draw on their actual experiences, to embody the role of a character. It assumes that we cannot accurately portray an emotion we have not actually felt.

Some actors have taken method acting to the extreme, believing that they must share the experiences of the characters they are playing in order to embody the role.

To prepare for his role as a concert pianist and Holocaust victim, actor Adrian Brody practiced the piano for four hours a day. To further immerse himself in the role, Brody sold his car and apartment, stopped using phones and moved to Europe with only two bags and a keyboard. The 6'5" actor eventually dropped down to a weight of 130 pounds. He explained his method, saying, “There is an emptiness that comes with really starving that I hadn't experienced… I couldn't have acted that without knowing it. I've experienced loss, I've experienced sadness in my life, but I didn't know the desperation that comes with hunger.”

In a way, the writer of Hebrews believes God is like a method actor. In the great cosmic theatre, God desires to be in intimate relationship with humans. In order to accomplish this, God became fully immersed in humanity – sharing our flesh and blood, knowing suffering and pain, becoming like us in every respect. Gregory of Nazianzus, a fourth-century monk, asserted, "That which was not assumed is not healed.” Like a method actor, Christ had to experience the fullness of humanity in order the accurately portray the role of the Son of Man, the Savior of humankind.

Extreme method actors may starve themselves, gain weight, spend months in character off-screen, live in mental hospitals and refuse to walk or see in order to get as close as possible to the experience of the character they are playing. But what they cannot finally do is change the very essence of who they are. They cannot rewrite their DNA or their actual life experience. The transformation of method acting can go a long way, but there is a limit beyond which it cannot take us. At the end of the day, Dustin Hoffman is still Dustin Hoffman and Adrian Brody is still Adrian Brody.

God, on the other hand, is not subject to these limitations.

In the first few centuries of Christianity, a major debate arouse around the limits of Christ’s incarnation.

Some theologians argued that the Logos, the Word of God spoken of in the beginning of John’s gospel, was a kind of divine wisdom that inhabited the human Jesus. I like to think of this as body-snatchers Christology.

Others believed that Christ’s flesh was not really human flesh. Jesus looked human, but he was really God looking and acting like a human. He did a great job of making us think he was human from the outside, but ultimately he was completely divine. We might call this Lawrence Olivier Christology.

These positions were meant to protect the divinity of Christ, to keep God from becoming co-mingled with humanity. God was understood to be almighty, unchanging, and immortal. So these early theologians believed that if Jesus were “fully human” and “fully God,” as the Nicene Creed says, it would open the door to believing that God was able to be hurt, to change, even to die. And these were not acceptable theological propositions. And so they sought out ways to separate the divine and human natures of Jesus. It was fine for God to be a method actor, to go through the motions and experiences of being human, so long as God’s nature did not actually change.

Other theologians, like Gregory of Nazianzus, were more concerned with maintaining the oneness of God’s nature. This school of thought believed that to separate the Christ or the Logos from Jesus, to divide the human and divine natures, was akin to polytheism. So they asserted that Jesus was of one nature, both human and divine, without separation of the two natures and undivided from God. In Jesus, God was able to remain God and take on full humanity at the same time. We might call this the spiritual mutation Christology.

The debate between these competing Christologies was heated and at times violent, with bishops writing nasty letters, accusations of heresy flying back and forth, and occasional fist-fights breaking out. We might wish for such WWE-style theologians today.

What was at stake for them, in addition to the peripheral political jockeying, was the very nature of God. Could God really become human? Could God be more than a method actor? Could God actually assume humanity in all its fullness and still be God?

Long before this particular debate broke out, Irenaeus of Lyon said: “Our Lord Jesus Christ…became what we are, that he might bring us to be even what he is himself.” This changes the subject of the debate. Instead of a concern about the nature of God, it attends to the work of God. If God is not fully human, can God really redeem our humanity?

God became what we are – flesh and blood, a descendant of Abraham, like us in every respect – so that we might become what God is – holy and whole, imperishable and incorruptible. Within this theological argument lies the question of our relationship with God, our ability to be reconciled.

Given that God is essentially unfathomable, I’m much more comfortable theologizing about God’s work in the world than about God’s nature. I’d prefer to look at what God has done rather than argue about what God can do.

And that is where the writer of Hebrews focuses his efforts as well. In discussing Christ’s incarnation, life, death, and resurrection, he concentrates on the “so what?”

Christ shared our human flesh and blood so that he might destroy the power of death and free all who are held in slavery by the fear of death.

One of our Confirmation students wondered if people only believe in God because they are afraid of death. While I don’t think it builds a very strong faith to have fear as your foundation, this is one aspect of the hope we have in Jesus Christ. We might still fear death, not having a clear picture of what happens next. But we don’t have to be enslaved to that fear.

Slavery to the fear of death means that we will do whatever it takes to stay alive. No matter what moral or ethical sacrifices must be made, personal preservation is the ultimate goal of life. There are plenty of people who live this way, who live in that slavery to the fear of death.

But as Christians, we have been freed from that slavery. We might have fears and doubts that remain, but we can seek out a higher good, we can give our lives for others because we know that the power of death has been destroyed. God fully experienced the terror and finality of a human death so that God could prove to us that it no longer holds power over us.

The writer of Hebrews says that Christ became like us in every respect so that he might make a sacrifice of atonement. I’m not going to get into different theories of atonement here, but essentially this means that Christ has made it possible for humans to be in relationship with God, for God and humanity to be united. There is, therefore, as the apostle Paul says, nothing that we can do that will separate us from the love of God in Jesus Christ.

Finally, the writer of Hebrews says that Christ was tested by what he suffered so that he is able to help those who are being tested. The philosopher Aristotle believed that the secret to moving the passions in others is to be moved oneself. We can be moved by God because God was moved by us. God was subject to the same trials and temptations that every human experiences. So we know that in the midst of our struggles our God is there.

In the end, Lawrence Olivier was right. Acting is easier. It is easier to imagine a God who would remain invincible in the heavens. It is easier for God to be God and humans to be human.

But God is not interested in the easy way. God desires the most effective way to redeem humanity. God chose the hard way. The way of the cross and the grave.

God did this so that we might be free to live our lives for God and for others. God did this so that we might have a way into the heart of God. God did this so that we might be moved toward God. God did this so that we might have strength and guidance in our struggles.

God changed so that we might change.

To God be all glory forever and ever. Amen.

Genesis 1:26-31, Hebrews 1:1-5

Doug needed to be able to be in two places at one time. His work was demanding and needed more time of him than he could give. His wife and children were asking more of him than he had time to give. How in the world could he cope? Well the answer came to him when he was overseeing the construction of a new wing for a large scientific corporation. It turns out that this company had perfected human cloning. After a brief conversation with the scientists who took pity on him they cloned him on the spot. The clone had his knowledge and his memories. Though it was not exactly like him, it was close enough. Now Doug really could be in two places at one time. This is the premise of the movie Multiplicity with Michael Keaton playing Doug and his clones. That’s right…clones…because in the end Doug is cloned twice more…with each clone reeking more havoc than the one before. At the movie’s conclusion there is a happy ending, but what the movie points out is that being close is not the same thing as being exactly the same. Just as cloned animals (and yes for a mere $100,000 you can have your favorite pet cloned) are not exactly the same…neither were Doug’s clones.

Lest you think that this idea of an exact duplicate is something new, don’t. Don’t because this is where the writer of Hebrews begins his sermon almost two thousand years ago. What I mean by that is that the preacher makes the claim that Jesus not only reflects the glory of God but that Jesus is the exact imprint of God. The Greek word translated as exact imprint is the “karacter” from which we get our English word character. In other words Jesus is not the physical duplicate of God, as in Multiplicity, but Jesus is the Son who shares the exact character of God. Jesus is the Son who is not just a little like his Father…Jesus is the Son who is the exact imprint of God. In order to make his point the preacher directs us to how God and Jesus share the same character. Together they create. Jesus is the one “through whom God also created the world.” Together they save. Jesus is the one “who made purification for sin.” Together they sustain the world. Along with God, Jesus “sustains all things by his powerful word.” Jesus is the son who is the perfect imprint of his father.

The question which this image raises for us is why does this matter? Why does it matter if Jesus is exactly the imprint of God or if Jesus is simply a pretty good replica? The answer is that in Jesus we discover completely who God is and what God wants of us. In the opening words of this sermon the preacher tells us that God had spent a lot of time and energy communicating with humanity. For better or for worse this communication was mediated…in other words it passed through an intermediary. It passed through the words and voices of the prophets…everyone from Moses to Malachi. What this meant was that the information about who God was and what God wanted was always shaded and slightly shaped by the human beings through whom it came. These prophets were not magic writing machines that took heavenly dictation. Thus the message from God was always nuanced. With Jesus however, we receive the message directly. Because Jesus is the Son who is the exact imprint of God…we hear from and see in Jesus the exact character…and thus the exact message of God.

This was important for those first reading this letter because they wanted to return to Judaism and cease following Jesus. They desired to go back to the Law of Moses as the final message from God. The preacher reminds them though that the perfect message from God is not in the Law, but Jesus. This message is important for us because, as studies have shown, our image of God is created far more by our relationship with our fathers than it is by what is in scripture. Thus if we have a loving father, then God is loving. If we have a distant father, then God is distant. The writer of Hebrews reminds us that if we really want to know God then what we have to do is to look to Jesus…far more than we look at our fathers.

So what then is the character of God? The character of God is the story that this communion table tells. Because the character of Jesus is the exact character of God, then at this table we see that the character of God loves us enough to become one of us, flesh and blood. The character of God is that of one who will die for us in order to save us. The character of God is that of one who loves us so much that death cannot defeat us. The character of God is that of one who loves us so much that we are prayed for every day. The character of God is radical love for us and for all of creation.

This morning then as the elements are passed I would challenge you to ask yourselves this question…how is the character of Jesus helping me shape my understanding of the character of God? 

Isaiah 25:6-9, John 20:1-18

He had been standing right there beside be. He had been looking intently at the toys on the shelves when suddenly he was gone. My five-year old son Andy was gone. We had gone to the local Toys-R-Us store to do some shopping. We had had the “you need to stick close to daddy speech.” I had paid close attention to keeping him close by as we moved up and down the aisles but now he was gone. A certain level of panic began to arise in me. Cindy had sent me off to the store with her first-born and I was now going to come home empty handed. This would not be good. A couple of people looked at me with the “you really are a bad parent look.” I began to call Andy’s name and no response. Quickly I covered the aisles close by and then, with my heart nearly pounding out of my chest, I found him. He was seated in front of the Thundercat characters trying to decide which one he really wanted. He was lost and then he was found. The feeling of relief was palpable.

My guess is that Mary would have loved to have thought that she could find that kind of relief as she sprinted for the tomb in the darkness of the morning. But she knew it was not possible. All she was going to find was the body…the body of her crucified friend Jesus. It would be hard for us to imagine the kind of week she had had. Only a few days before, Jesus had, as Pastor Amy put it, gone viral. His enemies said that the whole world had gone after him. He was the toast of the town. However, as is often the case, his fame was fleeting. In the blink of an eye the tide turned and Jesus was betrayed, arrested and tried. In a whirlwind of dubious legal activity complete with interviews with the nation’s highest political and religious authorities Jesus is convicted of crimes against the state and sentenced to death. Perhaps the saddest part was that most of his followers then deserted him, while only Mary and a handful of other women were willing to go to Golgotha and witness his crucifixion and death. Now, even before the morning broke, Mary headed to the tomb hoping to say one last goodbye.

As we read this morning however such a last goodbye was not going to be possible. Someone had taken the body. This was sacrilege beyond belief. In her panic Mary decides that she needs help in her search for Jesus and so she runs…and by the way there is a lot of running in this story…to get the disciples to try and find the body with her. Upon hearing of the missing corpse, Peter and the disciple whom Jesus loved, sprang into action and ran…there is that word again…to the tomb. Looking and venturing in they saw that Mary was right…the body was gone. Then they left and went back home; not really a lot of help. Mary’s grief deepens. She begins to weep bitterly. All of the pain and loss which she was feeling had welled up to the point where it could no longer be contained. It had to spill out. But she was not done with her grieving yet…there was still one more stage and that was anger. Upon spotting someone she took to be the gardener she unleashes it. “Tell me where you have taken him and I will take him away.”

Then came a single word and everything changed. The word was her name, Mary. In the instant her name was spoken it was as if her eyes were opened and she recognized Jesus and called him rabbi. She had found the one for whom she was looking…or at least that is how we often tell the story. Mary comes looking for a dead Jesus and finds a live one. While that may be somewhat true it misses the point of the story and of the Gospel of John. What we are supposed to hear is just the opposite; that it is Jesus who finds Mary and not the other way around. I say this because in the Gospel of John Jesus knows where he came from…the Father; why he came…to give his life for the world; and where he is going…back to God. What this means is that Jesus was never lost. His life trajectory was preplanned and it was carried out exactly as it was supposed to occur. Mary on the other hand was the one who arrived in darkness…which for John symbolizes confusion and blindness. Mary was the one who was lost in the darkness of pain, doubt and despair. In that sense is was Jesus who came looking for Mary…while Mary was wandering in the dark looking for a body.

There are in the course of human existence certain experiences that bind us all together; that we share in common. One of those is the death of someone we care for. It may be a grandparent, a parent, a sibling, a spouse or most difficult of all a child. One of the euphemisms we use to describe that event is that we lost someone…and in a sense that is very accurate. Unlike Andy whom I found a few aisles over, these are people that we know we can no longer find in the land of the living. Their voice and presence are lost to us. In the same way we may become lost. We feel lost because a portion of ourselves is missing. This is the human way; that when we connect with another human being they become part of us and we become part of them. When they die it is as if we have lost a part of ourselves and thus it is easy for us to become lost; lost in the darkness.

The gift of the resurrection however, is that we are reminded that they are not lost at all; even though we may feel that way. They are not lost because Jesus has prepared the way home for them and has come and received them to himself. In his death and resurrection the power of death to hold people in bondage…in other words to insure that they are lost to us and to themselves…has been broken. Death no longer holds sway; life does. I mentioned a moment ago that in the Gospel of John one of the great themes is that Jesus knew who he was, where he came from and where he was going. One of the other great themes is that Jesus has prepared a way for us so that we know where we are going. Jesus told the disciples that he had prepared a place for them and would come to receive them. This is Jesus finding us. This is Jesus speaking our names when we draw our last breath and welcoming us home. They are not lost.

We are not lost either…though again, it often seems that way. We are not lost because the risen Jesus comes and speaks a word to us, just as he did to Mary. I can attest to this because I have heard that word. I only knew one of my grandparents really well. She was the one who loved to have me spend the night and eat all the things that were not allowed in my house. She was the one who introduced me to Coca-Cola and in whose living room I watched the flickering black and white images of Neil Armstrong stepping onto the moon. She died when I was a freshman in college. At that time I was still very unsure about all of this God stuff. I was not sure I even believed in God. Then something happened. As a pallbearer I was reaching down to grab the handle on the casket when a voice said, “She is not dead. She is alive.” I was never sure if the voice was audible or in my head, but it was real. Then as my hand took hold of the handle the casket felt as if it had been filled with Helium. It felt as if I could have lifted it over my head by myself. In that moment I knew that she was not lost. In that moment I was no longer lost because I knew she lived.

Lost and found, it is the way of the world. Yet on this Easter we can leave here as people of hope knowing that we have been found by God. Whether it is in life or in death we know that we will never be lost because we are connected to the God who has become connected to us through the Son who has pioneered our way home.

Zechariah 9:9-10, John 12:12-19

Over two hours of video gets uploaded to the website YouTube every minute.  And its Kevin Allocca’s job to sit there and watch it all and figure out why some videos get millions of hits and others get none.

Oddly enough, it has nothing to do with the quality or content, the timing or influence of the video.

According to Allocca, in order to stand out, to be seen by millions, to make someone suddenly, if momentarily, famous – in other words, in order to “go viral” – a video needs three things.

First, tastemakers need to be talking about it. When T.V. personalities and celebrities talk about a video on their Twitter or Facebook, or it gets featured somehow in the wider media – a video takes off.

But there’s another component needed to keep up the momentum and put a video over into the viral category. A community needs to be able to creatively participate in it. Within days of Rebecca Black’s “Friday” video taking off, there was a spoof of this video for every other day of the week. People need to be able to take the material and somehow personalize it.

Finally, it seems that viral videos tend to contain something totally unexpected. If you’ve ever watched that show “America’s Funniest Home Videos,” the videos that consistently win contain something you didn’t see coming, something, sometimes literally, completely out of the blue.

A mouse pops out of someone’s coffee cup. A guys walks into the wrong house on Christmas morning. And a kid hits a baseball directly where…it’s not supposed to go.

The unexpected is entertaining. It’s fascinating. And with almost 70,000 hours of video uploaded to YouTube every day, it’s becoming increasingly hard to find.

While the first century didn’t have YouTube, Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem shares a lot in common with today’s viral videos.

Let’s start with the unexpected. Days before his arrival in Jerusalem, Jesus did something rather unexpected. He raised his friend Lazarus from the dead. Not something that happens every day.

This unexpected event, in close proximity to Jerusalem, gets the tastemakers talking about Jesus.

Jesus has been travelling all over the countryside, visiting small towns and fishing villages, speaking to crowds in deserted places, and communing with his disciples. He’s performed miracles and healed people and said some sensational stuff.

But it isn’t until he gets near Jerusalem and does something unexpected that he really gets noticed by the big players. The chief priests find out what Jesus has been up to, and they start talking about it.

Jesus suddenly becomes big news for the same reason Rebecca Black and her song “Friday” went viral. People of good taste hated it and started telling other people about it.

The tastemakers, the chief priests, might not have liked what Jesus was doing, but that was beside the point. Because of them, word got out about Jesus.

People who saw Jesus raise Lazarus from the dead shared this news with a bunch of other people who shared it with other people…and so on.

Then people got together and said, “this is a really great thing! How can we be a part of this?”

The community got together to creatively participate in what Jesus was doing. Like all those spoofs of the “Friday” video, they took what Jesus was doing and made it their own.

They heard that Jesus had the power to raise the dead. Someone this powerful, on his way to Jerusalem, was surely coming to liberate his people from Roman oppression. After the Maccabean Revolt two hundred years earlier, the Jews had coins minted with palm branches on them. This was a symbol taken from their oppressors – a sign of victory.

The community rallied in the equivalent of a first-century flash mob to welcome Jesus to Jerusalem, announcing his victory, and theirs.

And then, as the Pharisees say, the whole world goes after him. Right after this, some Greeks come to the disciples and want to meet Jesus. Already, he’s gone beyond the Jewish community and reached across religious and cultural barriers in his popularity. Jesus becomes so popular, in fact, that he has to hide from the crowds like a celebrity hiding from the paparazzi.

Two thousand years later, Jesus has several Facebook pages and Twitter feeds and his book is the best-selling manuscript of all time. In other words, he’s still pretty popular.

Tastemakers are still talking about him. News media, late-night talk show hosts, and cultural icons publish, talk, tweet, and text about everything from the election of a new pope to statistical reports on Christianity in America. People hear about sensational comments made by Christian leaders and the church’s position on social issues.

It doesn’t matter if the tastemakers are saying good or bad things about Jesus. As they say, any publicity is good publicity. Jesus is still making headlines.

And this is because Jesus is still doing unexpected things. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: we are currently in the midst of the most important transformation within Christianity in at least 500 years, possibly the most important and major transformation ever. People are changing the way they understand and experience faith in Jesus Christ like never before.

But this doesn’t mean that Jesus isn’t also doing unexpected things in individual lives. Every day, people are encountering Jesus in surprising ways and in surprising places. Those kinds of encounters, and a growing desire for them, are driving this whole revolution in Christianity. People expected to find Jesus in the church, but he is turning up in the streets and the hospitals and the home.

So the only thing left in the recipe for going viral is to have a community of people creatively participating in what Jesus is doing.

Enter, First Presbyterian Church of Birmingham.

When I heard that we were going to call ourselves Everybody’s Church I immediately knew that it was how this church was going to take the good news and go viral. Being Everybody’s Church is how we are creatively participating in God’s surprising work. People who thought church wasn’t for them, or who thought they weren’t good enough for the church, have understood that they are welcome in this community and loved by God. There’s a new openness to discussing our differences rather than sweeping disagreements under the rug. One of our Muslim friends even said this was his church because of our claim that this is Everybody’s Church.

But that’s not the only way the good news is going viral here. Individual members of this community are taking the good news of Jesus Christ and putting their own interpretation to it and making something fresh and new.

For Kate Thoresen, Jesus’ good news means good news for foster kids who need basic necessities for life and the love of a community of people. For people like Pam Smith and Sue Foehr and the medical mission team that just got back from Mexico, Jesus’ good news means helping people live healthier lives. For our Deacons, Jesus’ good news means visiting our members who can’t get to church, giving rides to those who don’t drive, and reaching out and caring for all kinds of needs in our church and in our community. For our Pontiac schools volunteers, Jesus’ good news means a better education for children facing overwhelming obstacles to learning.

We have people in this church ready to greet Jesus waving loaves of bread to feed the hungry, cinder blocks to build a better life for our neighbors, and smiles to welcome everyone to God’s family. We are a community of creative participation in God’s great work. People, the good news of Jesus Christ is going viral in this place!

But I have to offer a note of caution.

When a video goes viral, it takes on a life of its own. It becomes whatever the viewer wants it to mean, not necessarily what the creator intended it to be.

When the crowds come to greet Jesus with the palm branches of victory, they are claiming Jesus as a military victor. Those waving palm branches symbolize weapons to destroy the enemy, arms ready for warfare.

In response to this, Jesus takes a donkey’s colt, an animal used for sacred purposes, and rides it into town like the king described by the prophet Zechariah, the king who is “triumphant and victorious,” yes, but also “humble.” He is the king who will not allow war, who will “command peace to the nations.”

It took people a while to figure out what this meant. John’s gospel tells us that even Jesus’ disciples didn’t get it until after his death and resurrection. Ultimately, Jesus doesn’t live up to people’s expectations. He is not the kind of victorious king the crowds have decided he should be.

It’s the plight of all celebrities, really, especially those who rise to fame in an instant. There’s no way they can live into what the culture interprets them to be. Fame is one-dimensional. Actors talk about getting pigeon-holed or typecast. A single public blunder becomes a celebrity’s defining characteristic.

When Jesus enters Jerusalem, he is typecast as the military victor, despite his attempt to portray himself differently. And so it is profoundly disappointing to the Jews of Jerusalem when he allows himself to be captured by the enemy. When given the choice, of course they’d prefer the criminal Barabbas to the colossal failure Jesus.

This cycle of fame and disappointment can become a microcosm of the way many of us experience our faith in Jesus. We typecast Jesus as the healer or the provider or the teacher or the peacemaker. We create a one-dimensional Jesus. And when that Jesus doesn’t heal our loved one or provide what we need or help us make sense of the world or bring an end to warfare – in other words, when Jesus doesn’t live up to our wants and needs, we walk away and chase after something else.

The week ahead is a tough one. The stories left to tell of Jesus’ life are not pretty. This is not G-rated material. In order to endure it, and to truly experience the hope and joy of Easter, we have to be willing to watch Jesus fail, to watch his followers abandon him, to hear the crowds cry out “Crucify him!” It isn’t all miracles and resurrection, happiness and hope.

But it is still good news. Just maybe not the kind we were expecting.

As the good news goes viral here, let’s continue to creatively participate in God’s surprising work. But we can’t make Jesus one-dimensional. We can’t ask him to play one role for us. We have to look at everything Jesus is doing. We must watch closely and interpret carefully. And when we’re tempted to walk away because Jesus, or his church, are not what we expected, we have to make sure we’re looking at the whole picture. Remember that we may have to watch Jesus fail in order to watch him succeed.

Amen. 

Isaiah 60:1-7, John 17:20-26

He was different…and by different I mean different in a good way. Most of the draftsmen who worked with us were the usual guys being guys kind of guys. They would talk about women, guns and adventures that probably never happened. Each one of them could have been someone famous but they chose not to be. But this one guy was different. At lunch he would read his Bible. He was always polite and quiet. Knowing that I was going to be going to seminary I decide he was someone I ought to get to know. We ended up having lunch together on a regular basis and eventually I asked what church he attended. His answer was, “The Church.” And I asked again which church he attended. His answer was again, “The Church.” It turned out that that “The Church” was founded by a Chinese Christian named Watchman Nee. Nee, who was eventually died as a prisoner for his faith, believed in the unity of all Christians. He taught that, like the New Testament, there ought to be only one church in each town. As we discussed this I asked…so it doesn’t matter whose church is the only church as long as there is only one church, right? No, my friend replied…it can only be “The Church.”

I have to say that this was the answer I was expecting. I was expecting it because this is the way that not only churches, but all religions usually act. They all want unity, but unity means united with us. In Islam you have Sunni, Shia and Sufi and each one believes they are the true path. In Buddhism you have at least three major branches each claiming to be the better path. And in Christianity you have, now prepare yourselves, at least 41,000 different denominations…so yes we take the prize. Many of those denominations do not see themselves as the only church to which all others ought to cleave. Yet there are plenty who do. The Roman church, while recognizing our baptisms and engaging in dialogue with other churches still sees itself as the true church. The Orthodox churches do the same as do many Protestant denominations. On a smaller scale there are Church of Christ congregations that believe they are the only true church and so unity means be one of them.

As Reformed Protestants we object to this exclusive claim to being the one church where true unity ought to dwell…and feel somewhat comfortable with 41,000 denominations…yet the question is ought we to be that comfortable; or, is there something to this idea that we ought to be one church? I ask that because Jesus, in his closing prayer in the upper room certainly focuses on unity. Jesus prays that his future followers might all be one (vs. 21); that they may be one even as God and Jesus are one (vs. 22); and that they may be brought to complete unity (vs. 23). Jesus does not sound like he is praying that his followers divide faster than cells in a petri dish. He is praying for his future followers to be as close as he and God are. You cannot get more united than that. This prayer for unity begs the question then of what is it that Jesus is looking for and what is this unity thing all about? I think that we can gain some insight by looking at a single verse; verse 23 in which Jesus lays out this two reasons for unity.

Jesus’ first reason for unity is the message. Jesus wants the church to be united so that the world will know that God has sent Jesus into the world. This message is at the heart of the Gospel of John. In this gospel we are told that Jesus is the Word made flesh. We are told that when we encounter Jesus we are encountering God. We are instructed that Jesus and God are one. In other words in the Gospel of John we are reminded that if we want to know who God is, what God is like and what God wants of us then we turn to Jesus. As the Apostle Paul reminds us, Jesus is the fullness of God. Unity then is found in a common message. Just as this message is the heart of the Gospel of John it is to be the heart of Christian unity. We are all to stay on message. I don’t know how many of you remember that we only recently had an election. One of the most over-worn phrases from the election cycle was staying on message. If a campaign was really tightly united they stayed on message and people know what the candidate supposedly stood for. When the campaign came apart its message was confusing and unclear. Jesus prays that his future followers will be united on our message about him.

The second reason for unity is the mission. Jesus wants his future followers to know that God has loved them and the world. Again this is the second theme that is at the heart of this Gospel…that not only did God so love the world but that we are to love one another and be willing to give our lives for those around us. This living out of God’s love for the world is supposed to be done in such a way that the world will know that God loves it. One of the great problems with the church ancient and present is that we often act like, and how can I put this delicately, jerks toward one another and the world. It is as if we have come to see our mission as being the hyper-critical parent for whom nothing is ever done well enough. We spend our time condemning rather than loving; excluding rather than including. Then, when the world looks at us as being unloving, it comes to doubt that God could love anyone; that if God’s followers are filled with this kind of condescension then maybe that is the way God is as well.

Unity for Jesus then does not appear to be built upon one denomination, one church or even one theological paradigm. Unity is actually much deeper than that. It is unity of message and of mission. In a sense that is the stand that John Calvin took. When asked to describe the marks of the true church he wrote that there were only two; the Word rightly preached (the right message) and the sacraments rightly administered (the right mission of sacrificial love). Calvin never implied that there would be one universal church or denomination. Instead unity was to be built upon message and mission. This is why you will see that we, as Everybody’s Church are regularly working with other churches for worship and service. You can come on Good Friday and worship with Methodists, Lutherans, Baptists and Disciples. This is why you can join us in the fall for the Crop Walk where we serve the hungry by raising money along with members from hundreds of other denominations. This is why we join together with other denominations to work for community and social justice. We do so because we are one. We do so because we are united in our message and in our mission.

This morning then as we conclude our series this is the question I would like you to ponder this morning and respond to on the sticky notes; how can I help build unity by staying message and on mis

John 15:12-17, Jeremiah 7:1-11

I loved it the first time I saw it. It was one of those commercials that just warms the heart. The opening scene is of a father and son playing catch. The viewer immediately becomes aware that the son does not know how to throw. He has that awkward kind of motion that a beginner always has. He is in need of instruction, which is what his father is doing. The whole thing is almost Norman Rockwellesque. The more times I saw the commercial however the more it dawned on me that there was something wrong…not with the son but with the father. It was the father who had the awkward motion and was teaching his son to do the same. The instant I understood that I wanted to leap through the television and save the boy. I wanted to save him because if that was the way he started throwing when he played catch with other boys he would be covered by guy-shame. All of us guys know what that is. There are simply some things a guy is supposed to be able to do…and throwing a ball is one of them

As I reflected on that commercial it reminded me of the great truism of life which is that we cannot know how to do anything well unless someone teaches us how to do it well. This is a truth that we often forget. Once we know how to do something we often begin to assume that everyone else ought to know how to do it. Let me offer you a quick fill in the blank exercise to prove my point. Here is the first line and you complete it. Everyone knows how to….. Here is the second one. You mean you don’t know how to…. The reality is that except for our autonomic functions almost everything else has to be taught to us. We have to learn how to throw a ball, run correctly, use proper grammar, interview for a job and get along with other people. Some of us are fortunate to have people around us to teach us the right way to live and function in the world. Others do not. Cindy used to talk about families in her district who were generational pharmaceutical entrepreneurs. This was what they knew and what they were taught.

Jesus understood this concept and so he had spent three years teaching his disciples so that they could graduate with their masters’ degrees in Kingdom living (take a moment and it will come to you). He had taught them with parables, miracles, aphorisms and lengthy discussions. When they did not understand a teaching he would elaborate. He would also teach through personal example, such as a few moments earlier in the upper room when he had taken a towel and washed their feet. Jesus understood clearly that the world in which the disciples lived, while giving them a good basic religious education had not fully preparing them to be the kingdom people God desired them to be. So now he had one last chance. He was going to the cross and so he had one more opportunity for a last lecture. He had one more chance to summarize all that he had taught them such that they might remember the most essential components of this teaching. And as any good Presbyterian would do, he boiled it down to three points.

Jesus begins by giving the only commandment of his career…love one another. “This is my commandment, “Jesus says, “that you love one another as I have loved you.’ What is fascinating about this to me is that this is indeed the only thing that Jesus commands his disciples to do, and yet the church across the centuries has created many other commandments. We have pretended that whatever was the religious conviction of the day ought to rise to the level of a Jesus given commandment…but that is not what Jesus had to say in his last lecture. What I want you to notice about this commandment is that Jesus does not tell us how to love one another. He does not give us a list of the top ten things we are to do in order to love one another. Instead what he is doing is commanding us to take a particular orientation toward “the other.” Remember that in this same Gospel we are told that God so loved the world that he sent his only begotten Son and that this same son then commands us to love as he loved. This is the orientation of love is that every human being is worthy of our grace and our care. Loving one another is offering ourselves to all people believing that they are worthy of our grace and care.

Next Jesus reminds them that they have been chosen to create something that lasts. “You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit; fruit that will last…” The disciples were not part of this Kingdom of God enterprise so it would look good on their resume, but because they were supposed to be building something that was to change the world now and in the future. This is often a frightening concept because often what we create does not last. A pastor friend of mine upon his retirement decided that he would go and visit all of the congregations he had served. When he returned I asked him what it was like to look back. His response was that it was pretty depressing because not a single program he had begun was still running. He said in some ways he felt like he was a failure. At that moment in time I would have agreed with him. Fortunately I have come to realize that the fruits we bear that last are never programs or churches. The fruits that last are the impact that we have upon other people; the simple kindnesses, the lessons of love taught, the compassion offered. Each of these demonstrates love and changes the other…who then changes another…and the impact of our love lasts.

Finally Jesus wants them to know that they could accomplish both of these things, loving one another and bearing fruits that last, because the Father will give them whatever they ask in his name. This statement, “..so that the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name” has either been used and abused or ignored more than almost any other scripture in the New Testament. It has been used and abused by those who claim that if we are good enough God will simply give us whatever we want. It is what I call the “I want a pony” passage. In other words if we are good enough God will give us a house, a car or even a pony if we ask in God’s name. This passage has been ignored for the opposite reason; the belief that God does not really give us anything and so we can pay little if any attention to it. What we have to do in this moment is place this line back into context. The context is that we are to do the impossible; love one another and bear fruit that lasts. In and of ourselves we cannot do these things. With God however all things are possible. Jesus reminds the disciples and us, that in God we are equipped for every good work and are capable of doing great things in the name of Christ.

The disciples were about to graduate and go out on their own. As we said last week they would not be leaderless, but would be led by the Spirit. Nonetheless they would have to choose what to do next. They would have to take what they had been taught and put it into practice. The same is true for us. We do not have an app that tells us how to be Kingdom people in any and every circumstance. We too have to decide what to do next. With that in mind here is the question of the morning; What would God have me do now to love others and bear lasting fruit.