Sermons From Meadville FPC

05-27-2012 Sermon by The Rev. Dr. Brian K. Jensen

2012-05-29T10:37:00.001-07:00

LIVING THIS SIDE OF THE CROSS: PART IV

A good friend of mine passed away last week. He was only 43 years old. He leaves behind a wife and three children – a son in college, a son in high school, and a daughter still in elementary school. He was diagnosed a few months ago with a highly treatable form of leukemia, and seemed to be on the road to recovery. Then, something went terribly wrong. He died in the hospital, surrounded by his family, on Tuesday afternoon.

We have come, these days, to not expect such calamitous things to happen. So many previously deadly diseases are now treatable. Life expectancy seems to increase every year. We all expect to live to a ripe old age. So when such things do happen, we find ourselves at a loss for words. We grieve deeply, and then we begin to question God. “How can a loving God allow such things to happen?” we wonder. “Why do bad things happen to good people…like us?”

If any one of us takes the time to take stock of our lives, we will find that a great number of things have gone wrong. Illness and injuries set us back. Children don’t turn out quite the way we planned. A husband or a wife turns out not to be who we thought they were. The economy collapses and we wonder how we’re going to survive our golden years. These are not things we typically bargain for, and when we believe we are following Jesus Christ, we expect them even less. So when they do happen, our faith tends to falter. “How can a loving God allow such things to happen?” we wonder. “Why do bad things happen to good people…like us?” Keep that thought in mind as we move on.

This is the fourth in a series of sermons entitled, Living This Side of the Cross. The thesis of the series is pretty much summed up in verses 14 and 15 in the 4^th chapter of the book of Ephesians. There the Apostle Paul writes, “We must no longer be children tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of doctrine. But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head…into Christ Jesus our Lord.” In other words, this is a sermon series on growing up in Christ.

Four weeks ago, we talked about how the church is meant to represent the kingdom of God on earth. We said that the kingdom is here…but not fully here. Thus, could it be that the church we have is exactly what God intended when he created the church? Could it be that the church we have provides the very conditions necessary for growing up in Christ? While we live in a throwaway society these days, perhaps there are some things we shouldn’t throw away. After all, the providence of God means that wherever we have gotten to – whatever we have done – that is precisely where the road to heaven begins.

Three weeks ago we talked about living a worthy life. A worthy life – a life that is truly growing up in Christ – is a life formed not in isolation, but rather, in community. Christian maturity develops as we form friendships with the friends of God…not just the friends we prefer. You see, God chooses to act and intervene in the world through us. We see God acting in the world today when we witness the heartfelt convictions of those who serve him.

A man named Walter Percy wrote six novels in which he made us insiders to the sense of alienation that he found so pervasive in American culture. His name for this condition was, “lost in the cosmos.” In other words, from a spiritual perspective, we don’t know who we are. We don’t know where we came from, and we don’t know where we’re going. We are lost in the cosmos. This tends to be particularly true when things go wrong in our lives. So Walter Percy wrote his novels to wake us up to our desperate condition, and to set up a few signposts to help us find our way.

Believe it or not, the Apostle Paul knew a little bit about being lost in the cosmos as well, although he certainly would not have used those words. Yet Paul also tries to wake us up to our desperate condition, and to set up a few signposts to help us find our way. Paul does so, however, by providing an extensive witness to how God works in the world.

In the passage I read from the book of Ephesians, for example, it all begins with God. Paul fires off seven strong verbs that illuminate God’s way of working with us in the world. The verbs are: blessed, chose, destined, bestowed, lavished, made known, and gather. Let’s begin with the verb “blessed,” because I think that’s where our real questions lie. After all, when we take stock of our lives, we find that a great number of things have gone wrong. How blessed are we, really?

In verse 3 Paul writes, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.” That’s two “blesseds” and one “blessing” in a single sentence. The Greek word for bless is eulogia. We derive the word “eulogy” from this word. Eulogia literally means, “a benefit bestowed by God in Christ.” Yet there are times when we don’t feel very blessed, are there not? Could it be that this is simply a matter of perspective? Listen to this.

A group of students was once asked to list what they thought were the present-day Seven Wonders of the World. Though there were some mild disagreements, the following things received the most votes: 1) Egypt’s Great Pyramids, 2) The Taj Mahal, 3) The Grand Canyon, 4) The Panama Canal, 5) The Empire State Building, 6) St. Peter’s Basilica and 7) The Great Wall of China.

After gathering the votes, the teacher noticed that one student had not yet finished her list. So she asked the girl if she was having any trouble. The girl replied, “Yes, a little. I couldn’t quite make up my mind because there are so many.” The teacher said, “Well, tell us what you have, and maybe we can help.” The girl hesitated, then said, “I think the Seven Wonders of the World are: to see, to hear, to touch, to taste, to feel, to laugh and to love.”

The room was so quiet you could’ve heard a pin drop. Perhaps the Seven Wonders of the World are things we overlook as simple and ordinary…and often take for granted. Perhaps the same could be said about our blessings from God. If we could learn to dwell on the good things we have – instead of on the things we don’t – perhaps we would begin to see that. We are indeed blessed by God.

So first, Paul says that God blesses us. He goes on to say that God chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him. God destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ. God bestowed grace upon us through the person of his Son. God lavished redemption and forgiveness according to the richness of his grace. God made known to us the mystery of his will through our relationship with Jesus Christ. And finally, God gathers up all things to him in Christ.

There it is: your roadmap through the cosmos. As Christians, we are blessed by God…chosen in Christ, destined for adoption, bestowed grace, lavished redemption and forgiveness, made to know the will of God through Christ, and gathered up to God in the end. You are a precious child of God – created in the image of God – and destined for eternal life. Don’t let anyone ever tell you otherwise. Thus, there remains but one thing left for us to do. We must receive it. We must receive God’s gift to us in Christ. But how?

On a blustery autumn day, a young man named Bryan Anderson came across an elderly woman standing beside her car on an old country road. He pulled up behind her brand-new Mercedes Benz in his rusty, old pickup truck and asked her if she needed help. Yet even with the smile on his face, the elderly woman looked frightened. No one had even passed by – let alone, stopped to offer help – for over an hour. And this man looked tired, poor and hungry. “Was he going to hurt her?” she wondered.

The young man could see that she was frightened. He said to her, “I’m just here to help you, ma’am.” Noticing that her left rear tire was flat, he said to her, “Why don’t you just wait in the car where it’s warm? I’ll take care of this tire for you.”

So the woman got into the car while the young man crawled under it and looked for a place to set the jack. He got the job done – skinning his knuckles a time or two in the process, and getting pretty dirty. As he was tightening up the lug nuts, she rolled down the window and began to talk to him. She told him that she was from Philadelphia, and was only passing through. She could not thank him enough for his kindness.

The young man just smiled as he put away the jack and closed the trunk. The woman then asked how much she owed him. Any amount would have been all right with her. She had already imagined the terrible things that could have happened to her had he not stopped. But this was not a chore to the young man. This was helping someone in need. God knows, there were plenty of people who’d helped him out in the past. He had lived his whole life that way, and it never occurred to him to live it any other.

He told her that if she really wanted to pay him, the next time she saw someone who needed help, she could give that person the assistance they needed. Then he added, “And think of me – Bryan Anderson.” He waited until she started her car and drove off. It had been a cold and depressing day, but he felt good as he headed for home.

A few miles down the road, that elderly woman stopped at a small café for a bite to eat. It was a dingy-looking restaurant, but it was the only place in town. The woman went in and sat down, and the waitress brought a clean towel over so she could wipe down her wet hair. The waitress had a sweet smile – one that even being on her feet the whole day could not erase. The woman also noticed that the waitress was pregnant – very pregnant. The woman was touched by the waitress’s kindness…and then she remembered Bryan Anderson.

After the woman finished her meal, she paid the tab with a one hundred dollar bill. The waitress went to get change for the woman, but by the time she got back, the woman was gone. Then she noticed something written on the napkin. It said, “You don’t owe me anything. I have been where you are. Somebody once helped me the way that I am helping you. If you really want to pay me back, here is what you do: Do not let this chain of love end with you. And under the napkin, the waitress found four more crisp one hundred dollar bills.

Well, there were tables to clear, sugar bowls to fill and people to serve…but the waitress made it through another day. That night when she got home from work and climbed into bed, she was thinking about what the woman had written. How could she have known how badly she and her husband needed it? With bills to pay and the baby due next month, it was going to be really tight.

She knew how worried her husband had been about expenses. As she crawled into bed and he lay sleeping next to her, she whispered in his ear, “Everything’s going to be all right. I love you, Bryan Anderson.”

The issue at hand was receiving the grace of God. The question was, “How do we do that?” Maybe the way to receive God’s grace…is to simply pass it on. Amen.

05-06-2012 Sermon by The Rev. Dr. Brian K. Jensen

2012-05-07T12:46:00.000-07:00

LIVING THIS SIDE OF THE CROSS: PART III

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was an early 20^th century German theologian. He was educated at the Union Theological Seminary in New York City, and rose to become President of a theological seminary in Germany while he was in his early thirties. Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a brilliant scholar. He was also morally outraged by the tyranny of Adolph Hitler. In fact, he was so upset by the atrocities committed by Adolph Hitler that he actually became involved in a plot to assassinate him. The plot failed, and Bonhoeffer was arrested by the Gestapo. He was executed a mere 23 days before Germany’s surrender in World War II.

On that day – April 9^th, 1945 – a fellow inmate wrote: “Pastor Bonhoeffer held a little worship service that touched the hearts of all. He had hardly finished his closing prayer when the cell door burst open. Two evil-looking soldiers came in and barked, ‘Prisoner Bonhoeffer, come with us.’ The words meant only one thing…the scaffold. But as Pastor Bonhoeffer bid us goodbye, there was a light in his eyes. He said, ‘For me, this is the beginning of a new life – eternal life.’”

Like I said, Dietrich Bonhoeffer had a brilliant theological mind. During his 24 months in prison he continued to work out his theological convictions. In what was then referred to as the modern era, the consensus among theologians was that God had been pushed to the gaps of human existence. In other words, God was only relevant in places where human logic and sound reasoning failed. Why, it was almost as if God was being kept offstage in the play of human drama – until all was apparently lost – and then only lowered into the fray on stage in order to solve the unsolvable and explain the inexplicable. According to the best theological minds of the day, God had been pushed to the gaps of human existence.

Bonhoeffer wrote, “It is wrong to use God as a stopgap for the incompleteness of our knowledge. We are to find God in what we know, not in what we don’t. God wants us to realize his presence not in unsolved problems, but in those that are solved.” What he proposed was what he called a “religionless” Christianity – a faith that looks for God in what we know, and not in what we don’t.

Bonhoeffer’s reflections raise many important theological questions. By no means did he deny that God has acted and continues to act in human history. But he did reject the notion that God’s activity is only to be found in the mysteries of human existence. Yet if God is not to be found only in the gaps – if God is not the hypothesis we only use to explain what reason cannot – does that mean that God does not intervene in human history at all? What, then, does the Christian faith mean when it affirms that God acts or intervenes in the world as we know it? Keep that thought in mind as we move on.

This is the third in a series of sermons entitled, Living This Side of the Cross. The thesis of the first sermon was pretty much summed up in verses 14 and 15 in the 4^th chapter of the book of Ephesians. There the Apostle Paul writes, “We must no longer be children tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of doctrine. But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head…into Christ Jesus our Lord.” In other words, this is a sermon series on growing up in Christ.

Last week we talked about how the church is meant to represent the kingdom of God on earth. We said that the kingdom is here, but not fully here. Could it be that the church we have is exactly what God intended when he created the church? Could it be that the church we have provides the very conditions necessary for growing up in Christ? While we live in a throw-away society these days, perhaps there are some things we shouldn’t throw away. After all, the providence of God means that wherever we have gotten to – whatever we have done – that is precisely where the road to heaven begins.

It is generally believed that Paul wrote the book of Ephesians while he was in prison in Rome. As it says in verse 1 of chapter 4, “I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called.” Perhaps the first question, then, is this: What does it mean to lead a worthy life?

Allow me to begin by citing the work of a great Methodist theologian by the name of John Wesley. He taught what is now referred to as the Wesleyan Quadrilateral. Although John Wesley never used the word “quadrilateral” himself, the Wesleyan Quadrilateral was nevertheless inferred from his work. He taught that we lead a worthy life by building on the foundations of Scripture, tradition, reason and experience. In other words, we base our decisions in life first on what the Scriptures say, second on what our tradition teaches, third on what our reason infers, and finally on what our experience tells us. Scripture, tradition, reason, experience…in that order.

My theory is that, these days, we have reversed the order. We base our decisions in life first on what our own experience tells us. Then we might consider reason. Since we don’t really know what our tradition teaches, and now that biblical illiteracy is rampant, we hardly consider them at all. How can we lead a worthy life if we don’t even know what a worthy life is?

The Greek word Paul uses for worthy is axios. An axios is literally a set of balancing scales; the kind of scales formed by a crossbeam balanced on a post, with pans suspended from each end of the crossbeam. For example, you place a one-pound weight in one pan, and then measure out flour in the other pan, until the two pans are in balance. Balance means to be in equilibrium. So does a worthy life. A worthy life is a life lived in equilibrium.

The question now is: What are the two things that need to be in balance? Paul says to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called. Therefore, perhaps the two things that need to be in balance are these: God’s call…and our walk of faith. Again, the two things that need to be in balance are God’s call, and our walk of faith. For you see, when God’s call and our walk of faith balance…then we are truly growing up in Christ.

A man who is probably the best preacher I’ve ever heard graduated from Wooster College in the early 1970s. He became the senior minister at a large Presbyterian church in New Jersey while he was still in his twenties. Trust me, that doesn’t happen very often. About ten years later, he became the senior minister at one of the largest Presbyterian churches in the country, the Memorial Drive Presbyterian Church in Houston, Texas. Not long after that, he became the senior minister at the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church in downtown New York City…one of the most prestigious pulpits in the world.

That sounds like a man who was leading a balanced life, does it not? He was clearly balancing God’s call upon his life with his own walk of faith...and with a great deal of success, I might add. Then he hooked up with a seminary intern who was working at his church. He lost his wife, he lost his family, he lost his church, and he lost his ordination to the ministry. Then the husband of the woman with whom he had the affair sued him for a million dollars…and the church for three million more. That’s what can happen when God’s call and our walk of faith fall out of balance.

God calls us to serve him, and then God equips us with the gifts we need to serve. For example, I think of a woman who was appalled by the fact that there are so many couples who are not raising their children in the church. Young people who grew up in the church now have nothing to do with it, and thus, their own kids have nothing to do with it either. So she formed a group that gets together to pray for those kids – some of whom are their grandchildren. The group is called Grandmas in Prayer. And if God doesn’t listen to grandmas in prayer, I suspect he doesn’t listen to anyone.

I think of another woman who was appalled by the fact that the high school no longer held baccalaureate services for graduating seniors. So she formed a committee out of the high school’s senior council members to bring back the baccalaureate service. She involved her husband as an advisor to the senior council, and she involved me as a member of the Meadville Area Ministerial Association. Since her husband and I are both afraid to tell her no, we agreed to take part in the cause as well. The baccalaureate service has been growing every year for the past 8 years. Like I said, God calls us to serve him, and then God equips us with the gifts we need to serve. This applies to each and every one of us. And by the way, in case you were wondering, the word “retirement” is not in the Bible.

There is a catch, however. God calls us to serve him, and then God equips us with the gifts we need to serve. Note that I said, “God calls US,” and, “God equips US.” In other words, this is not just a conversation between God and me. Jesus is more than my personal savior. This is a conversation God wants to hold with each and every one of us. Thus, a worthy life – a life that is truly growing up in Christ – is a life formed in community. Christian maturity develops as we form friendships with the friends of God…not just the friends we prefer. In other words, if we are to grow up in Christ, we have to do it in the company of others who are responding to the call of God as well. Whether we happen to like them or not…has absolutely nothing to do with it.

Now back to the questions Dietrich Bonhoeffer posed at the beginning of this sermon. He said, “It is wrong to use God as a stopgap for the incompleteness of our knowledge. We are to find God in what we know, not in what we don’t.” The question was, “What, then, does the Christian faith mean when it affirms that God acts or intervenes in the world as we know it?”

I think the answer to that question…is us. God chooses to act and intervene in the world through us. In fact, that may be the most convincing argument for the existence of God there is. We see how God acted in the past when we read the pages of Scripture. We see God acting today...when we witness the heart-felt convictions of those who serve him. Amen.

04-29-2012 Sermon by The Rev. Dr. Brian K. Jensen

2012-05-01T07:33:00.000-07:00

LIVING THIS SIDE OF THE CROSS: PART II

Jean-Jacques Rousseau…did I get that right? Jean-Jacques Rousseau was an 18^th century social theorist. His political philosophy influenced the French Revolution, and the development of modern sociological thought. In a book entitled Discourse on Inequality, he wrote:

The first man who fenced in a piece of land and said, “This is mine,” then found people naïve enough to believe him...that man was the true founder of civil society. From how many crimes and wars and murders; from how many horrors and misfortunes might not anyone have saved mankind by pulling up the stakes or filling in the ditch and crying to his fellows: Beware of listening to this imposter; you are undone if you once forget that the fruits of the earth belong to us all, and the earth itself to nobody.

That is really quite profound. Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a brilliant man, but Jean-Jacques Rousseau was not a humble man. In the first pages of his final book, ironically titled, Confessions, Rousseau imagines himself having died and gone to heaven. He approaches the heavenly gates with his head held high. He carries a copy of his Confessions. As he passes through the Pearly Gates all of heaven turns toward him. The heavenly host actually set their praise of God aside to listen to his story. He boasts, “I have bared my secret soul, as God himself hast seen it. So let the numberless legion of my fellow men gather round me and hear my confessions. And may any man who dares, say, ‘I was a better man than he.’”

Wow! Now there was a man who was full of himself. Contrast this scenario with the story of a man named Karl Barth. Karl Barth was arguably the greatest theologian of the 20^th century. His epic work was entitled, Church Dogmatics. It consists of 14 volumes, and it is some of the most complex reading I have ever encountered. Someone once quipped, “When Karl Barth dies, God is immediately going to take him up to heaven so he can find out more about himself.” Such was the intricacy and complexity of Karl Barth’s writing.

In his biography of Karl Barth, a man named Eberhard Busch quotes the great theologian speculating on his appearance at the Pearly Gates. Barth imagines himself pushing along a cart full of books. Yet the heavenly host does not turn to him for a reading. Instead…they laugh. “In heaven,” Barth says, “we shall know all that is necessary, and we shall not have to write on paper or read any more. Indeed…I shall be able to dump even the Church Dogmatics on some great heavenly floor as a pile of waste paper.”

Rousseau dared to imagine that God and the heavenly host might be illumined by what he had to say. Barth understood that his mortal understanding of God – as great as it was – was still very limited. Which of these two stories better captures your understanding of your own self-worth in God’s eyes? Which of these two stories better describes your sense of your own standing before God? If it’s the former, I think you may have a small problem. If it’s the latter, congratulations! You’ve been paying attention all these years.

While we may have our standing before God in proper perspective, I’m not so sure we have our standing in the world in proper perspective. We have become an individualistic society. Ask a teacher. If a child gets in trouble at school and his parents are called into the principal’s office to deal with it, who are the parents most likely to believe is at fault: their child…or the teacher? Ask an employer. Many will agree that these days, a lot of people feel as if they are doing the employer a favor by showing up for work. As I’ve said before, there are two common phrases that pretty much sum up one of the greatest problems in our society. One is the Burger King mantra: “Have it your way.” The other is a code by which many retail stores abide. That code is, “The customer is always right.” Those two phrases have helped to skew our perspective on our place in the world. Perhaps we could even say that our world-view has become more Rousseauian than Barthian. Keep that thought in mind as we move on.

Last week we began a sermon series entitled, Living This Side of the Cross. The thesis of that sermon was pretty much summed up in verses 14 and 15 in the 4^th chapter of the book of Ephesians. There the Apostle Paul writes, “We must no longer be children, tossed to and fro, and blown about by every wind of doctrine. But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head…into Christ Jesus our Lord.” In other words, this is a sermon series on growing up in Christ.

When it comes to growing up in Christ, perhaps the place to start is the church. Jesus Christ himself established the church through his disciples. The church was called the body of Christ.

The church is not Jesus, yet it is called to do the work of Christ in the world. And many of the epistles in our New Testament were letters written to specific churches. Case in point, the passage I read from the book of Ephesians. The church in Ephesus was established by an eloquent Jewish preacher by the name of Apollos. Paul initially stopped to visit this fledgling Christian congregation on his second missionary journey. He met with them – there were only twelve of them at the time – and guided them into receiving the Holy Spirit. Due to certain trying circumstances, he ended up staying with them for three years.

Now most of the epistles in the Bible were written to resolve some particular problem that had arisen in the church. In Thessalonica some of the members of the church were sure that Jesus’ return was so imminent…that they quit working. The Corinthians were squabbling about diet, sex and worship. The Galatians were regressing into tired old Jewish legalism and needed a thorough shaking up. Like I said, most of the epistles in the Bible were written to resolve some particular problem that had arisen in the church. It seems as though there have always been problems in the church.

The book of Ephesians is the lone exception. The book of Ephesians was not provoked by a problem. Ephesians may have actually been a general church letter that was circulated among several first century congregations. So you see…the book of Ephesians works from the other direction. It immerses us in holy and healthy conditions...out of which a mature Christian life can develop. That is why it will be my primary text throughout the course of this series of sermons.

The book of Ephesians begins with such peaceful eloquence. “To the saints who are faithful in Christ Jesus,” Paul writes, “Grace to you, and peace from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ.” It sounds so calm. It sounds so serene. It sounds so ideal. And isn’t that the way we all want to experience church? Yet IS that the way we all experience church?

There is a quote from Eugene Peterson printed in the Silent Reflection portion of your bulletin this morning. He writes, “Church is the textured context in which we grow up in Christ to maturity.” Like I said earlier, “When it comes to growing up in Christ, perhaps the place to start is the church.” Then he writes, “But church is difficult.” In fact, “Many Christians find church to be the most difficult aspect of being a Christian.” Finally, he adds, “So many drop out. There may be more Christians who don’t go to church, or go only occasionally, than there are who embrace it, warts and all. And there are certainly plenty of warts.”

What has hurt the church more than the scandals involving Jim Bakker and Jimmy Swaggart? And need I mention the headlines some Catholic priests made a few years ago? And then there are the endless arguments over the ordination of homosexuals…and the burgeoning debate over same-sex marriage. Casual or superficial experience with the church can leave one with impressions of bloody fights, acrimonious arguments, blatant hypocrisy, and warring factions. If the church is meant to be God’s advertisement to the world – if the church is meant to be a utopian community put on display so that people will flock to it, clamoring to get it...it has obviously become a piece of failed strategy.

Yet the church is meant to be the core element for providing a human witness and a physical presence to the coming kingdom of God. In other words, it’s all we’ve got. As my systematic theology professor, Harold Nebelsick, used to say, “The kingdom is here…but not fully here.” Perhaps the question now...is this: Could it be that the church we have is exactly what God intended when he created the church? Could it be that the church we have provides the very conditions necessary for growing up in Christ? Could it be that God knew what he was doing when he gave us the church; this church? Perhaps the answer to those questions depends on whether you are Rousseauian or Barthian. In other words, is the church meant to please people, or is the church meant to challenge people to grow?

I want you to listen to a story. I don’t know who the author was, but one could assume that the person who wrote it is in his – or her – mid-to-late seventies. In any case, listen closely.

I grew up in the 1940s with practical parents. My mother would wash aluminum foil after she cooked with it, and then reuse it. She was the original recycling queen…even before they had a name for it. My father was always happier getting an old pair of shoes fixed, rather than buying new ones. Their marriage was good; their dreams focused. Their best friends lived barely a wave away.

I can almost see them now: Dad in trousers, a t-shirt, and a hat; Mom in a house dress with a dish in one hand and a towel in the other. It was the time for fixing things: a curtain rod, the kitchen radio, the screen door, the oven, the hem in a dress…they were things we kept. It was a way of life, and it sometimes made me crazy. All that fixing, saving and reusing…just once I wanted to be wasteful. Waste meant affluence. Throwing things away meant that you knew there would always be more.

But then my mother died, and on that clear summer’s night in the warmth of a hospital room, I was struck with the pain of learning: Sometimes, there isn’t any more. Sometimes, what we care about most gets all used up and goes away, never to return. So – while we have it – it’s best that we love it, and care for it, and fix it when it’s broken. This goes for the kitchen radio, the screen door, the oven…and the hem in a dress.

Yet maybe it also applies to marriages, to children with bad report cards, to strained relationships and even to churches. We live in a throw-away society. Yet maybe there are some things we shouldn’t throw away. Maybe there are some things that are worth fighting to keep.

God certainly feels that way about us. That’s why he sent his Son, Jesus Christ, in the first place. So maybe we can let ourselves off the hook when it comes to that desperate question: “Am I in the right place? Have I done the right thing?” Sometimes we need to acknowledge that we – or others – have made mistakes, and we must certainly try to learn from them. But we should not foster the kind of worry that leads to despair. We should not give up…on the church, on others, or on ourselves. The providence of God means that wherever we have gotten to – whatever we have done – that is precisely…where the road to heaven begins. Amen.

04-22-2012 Sermon by The Rev. Dr. Brian K. Jensen

2012-04-23T10:24:00.001-07:00

LIVING THIS SIDE OF THE CROSS: PART I

Wendell Berry is an author, a poet, and what some have called a prophet of contemporary culture. In a book entitled, What Are People For? he writes, “We think it ordinary to spend twelve or sixteen or twenty years of a person’s life – and many thousands of public dollars – on education.” Yet we spend not one dime or give one thought to character. Does character matter? Could there be a kind of wisdom or knowledge that exists outside of what we might learn in school?

Flannery O’Connor seemed to think so. Flannery O’Connor was a 20^th century American writer. Her novels and short stories often reflected her own Catholic faith, and frequently examined questions of morality and character. In a book entitled, Everything That Rises Must Converge, we meet a young man who has returned home to die…or so he thinks. He is arrogant, pretentious, intellectually proud, and very well-educated. On his deathbed, he decides he wants to see a priest; but not just any priest. He pictures in his mind the dramatic content of his end-of-life conversations with an equally well-educated priest…a person of culture, as well as religion.

Much to his consternation, however…instead of encountering a worldly, sophisticated and slightly cynical Jesuit priest – the priest of his imagining – the priest who actually arrives at his bedside is nothing of the sort. He is short, he is portly, he is anything but sophisticated, and he arrives at the man’s bedside and introduces himself by saying, “I’m Fahther Finn – from Purrgatory.” And instead of responding to the dying young man’s questions about the literary merits of James Joyce – or the significance of mythology behind the world’s great religions – the priest insists upon asking questions of his own.

“So,” the priest asks him, “do you say your morning and your evening prayers? You don’t, eh? Well, you will never learn to be good unless you pray regularly. You cannot love Jesus unless you speak with him. Do you have trouble with purity? We all do, but you must pray to the Holy Ghost for it. Mind, heart, body, and soul. Nothing is overcome without prayer. Pray with your family. Do you pray with your family?”

By this time, the proud young intellectual is fit to be tied. He isn’t having the kind of conversation he imagined. And at the suggestion that he should pray with his family, he shouts, “God forbid! My mother doesn’t have time to pray, and my sister is an atheist!” The priest responds, “A shame. Then you must pray for them.”

The conversation only becomes more tense from here on out as the young man attempts to steer the priest toward the more comfortable shores of the arts by saying, “The artist prays by creating.” To which the old priest responds, “That’s not enough! If you do not pray daily you are neglecting your immortal soul. Do you know your catechism?”

Here the young man feels as though he is on firmer ground. He doesn’t need a catechism. He is an intellectual – an artist – free to experience the world and form his own opinions of it. “Certainly not!” he replies. “I do not know my catechism. I do not need my catechism.”

The priest moves on relentlessly – not justifying, not explaining – just walking through the catechism. “Who made you?” he asks. The young man replies, “Different people believe different things about that.” “God made you,” the priest says. “Now, who is God?”

The young man replies, “God is an idea created by man.” The priest responds as if he hadn’t even heard the young man’s answer. “God is a Spirit; infinitely perfect,” he says. “Now…why did God make you?” The young man tries to deny the premise but the priest cuts him off. “God made you to know him, to love him, to serve him in this world, and to be happy with him in the next.”

Exasperated, the priest says at last, “If you don’t apply yourself to the catechism, how do you expect to know how to save your immortal soul?” “Listen,” the young man says, “I’m not a Roman Catholic.” “A poor excuse for not saying your prayers,” the old priest answers. “But I’m dying,” the young man says. “You’re not dead yet,” the priest retorts.

After a turn in the conversation in which the priest instructs the young man on how to receive the Holy Spirit, the old priest leaves. The last thing the young man hears the priest say, however, is a comment to his mother. “He is a good lad at heart,” the priest says, “but very ignorant.”

What strikes me most about this conversation is the confidence of the priest. He knows that the questions addressed in the catechism – fashionable or not – are the real questions at the heart of life. The old priest standing beside the young man’s bed, tenaciously asking questions that he callously brushes aside, reminds us of what faith looks like…and the contribution it can make to our character. Questions, like some of the great questions in the catechism, remind us that going deeper means asking very tried and true questions…whatever the preoccupation of contemporary culture may say about what matters most.

We think it ordinary to spend twelve or sixteen or twenty years of a person’s life and many thousands of public dollars on education. Yet we spend not one dime or give one thought to a person’s character. Does character matter? Is there a kind of wisdom or knowledge that exists outside of what we might learn in school? I think the old priest in that Flannery O’Connor story would say that character does matter and that there is a kind of wisdom or knowledge that exists outside of what we might learn in school. What do you think?

Consider the passage that I read from the gospel according to John. Jesus had been crucified on a Friday afternoon. Come Sunday morning, the disciples heard some wild reports from a few women who’d been to the tomb claiming that he was alive, but they were a bit unsure as to what to make of them. Then – suddenly – Jesus himself appeared to them. The only problem here was that Thomas – better known as Doubting Thomas – was not with them, and he refused to believe what the other disciples were telling him. “Unless I see the mark of the nails,” he said, “and put my finger in the mark of the nails…I will not believe.”

One week later, Thomas got his wish. Jesus appeared to them again and said to Thomas, “Put your finger here, and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not be faithless, Thomas, but believe.” Thomas immediately blurted out, “My Lord and my God!” And Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and still believe.”

Now after this event, the author of the gospel of John lays out the purpose of his book. He writes, “Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples which are not written in this book. But these are written…so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of the Living God; and that through believing, you may have life in his name.”

Here’s the quandary. What does it mean to have life in his name? Our Americanized gospel has come to interpret life in his name to mean eternal life, and that’s true. But it means a whole lot more than that. The Greek word translated “life” here is zoane. It literally means life in the physical sense...of the supernatural life believers will receive in the future, as well as that which they enjoy in the here and now. Ladies and gentlemen, listen closely. Life in Jesus’ name has to do with eternal life. But it also has to do with life in the here and now...a life of grace and peace and beauty and holiness. This is what the old priest was trying to tell the dying young man. The question for us now, I suppose, is this: “How do we get there?” How do we attain a life of grace and peace and beauty and holiness ourselves?

I encountered a startling story in a book by Eugene Peterson entitled, Practice Resurrection. There was a woman who grew up in poverty in Arkansas in a harsh fundamentalist atmosphere and abusive circumstances. When she was eighteen-years-old, she escaped her home town and her family and fled to California. It wasn’t long before she became pregnant. She was ecstatic about this new life growing inside of her. She had never felt more “herself.” She had meaning; she had joy; she felt for the very first time as if she was taking part in the mystery of life. While she was no longer religious in any conventional sense, she was convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that God had created and given this life that was within her.

She gave birth to the baby. It was sheer ecstasy, beauty and goodness. And then, a few weeks later, she fell apart. She knew nothing about life. She didn’t know what to do. She was confused, bewildered, and without bearings. She had no idea what to do with a baby...and no visible means to support one. She started drinking and became an alcoholic. She went on to use cocaine and became an addict. It wasn’t long before she turned to prostitution. She spent the next twenty years on the streets of San Francisco, trying to keep herself and her son afloat.

And then one day, she wandered into a church. The church was empty, so she sat down and prayed. And then it happened. She didn’t know exactly how or why, but she knew that it had happened. She had become a Christian. Then it turned out that she was pregnant again. This time around, she knew that she knew nothing about living…but she also knew that this time around there wasn’t going to be any hand-to-mouth existence on alcohol, drugs and prostitution. After poking around a bit, she discovered and embraced the Christian faith, and gave herself up entirely to Jesus Christ.

But do you know what she found most difficult from that point on? American churches. It’s not that she wasn’t welcomed. She was. In fact, she was something of a prize to the church. She was one who had been plucked from the underbelly of the world, and had been transformed, literally. What she found, however, was that these American churches seemed to know a lot about being born again in Jesus’ name. The problem was that they seemed neither interested nor competent in matters pertaining to spiritual growth. They knew a lot about the life of Christ, but they weren’t very good at navigating life in Christ. The people of the church were unable to help her as she struggled to live this side of the cross. She was drowning in a sea of chaos, and there was no one there to toss her a lifeline.

What do you think about that story? Should the members of the church have been able to help her in matters pertaining to spiritual growth, or is that something that’s pretty much the responsibility of the individual? Should the members of the church have been able to help her to live this side of the cross, or are we pretty much on our own when it comes to such things? What it all comes down to is this: People are bobbing in a sea of chaos all around us. Are we equipped, as Christians, to toss them a lifeline? Or are we willing to simply let them drown?

At our Lake Erie Presbytery meeting last Tuesday night, a minister friend of mine by the name of Harry Johns addressed the presbytery. He said, “The church is one generation from death.” He said that when he used to make that statement as a young preacher he didn’t really believe it. But now, as a retired veteran of fifty years of ministry, he sees it as a distinct possibility. The church is one generation from death.

Jesus transformed the world with but eleven disciples. Judas, of course, betrayed him and was no longer counted among the twelve. The way I like to look at that is this: Even Jesus could only keep eleven out of twelve happy. That gives me consolation when people get upset with me. Ladies and gentlemen, we have nearly 1000 members on our rolls. Don’t you think we could make a difference in the name of Jesus Christ in our community…if we only knew how?

The sermon series we begin today is entitled, “Living This Side of the Cross.” It has to do with spiritual growth. As Howie read a moment ago from the book of Ephesians, “We must no longer be children, tossed to and fro, and blown about by every wind of doctrine. But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head...into Christ Jesus our Lord.” Join me over the course of the next few weeks. We’re going to spend a little time exploring spiritual growth. We’re going to spend a little time learning how to throw a lifeline. We’re going to spend a little time...developing character. Don’t you think it’s high time we did? Amen.

04-01-2012 Sermon by The Rev. Dr. Brian K. Jensen

2012-04-02T08:04:00.001-07:00

THE SUPERFICIAL SAGA: PART VIII

In the year of 1970 – I suspect that sounds like ancient history to some of you, while it seems like only yesterday to others – in the year of 1970 a single man and a single woman on a college campus started living together…and it made national news. You see, prior to 1970 it was illegal for a man and a woman to live together without the benefit of marriage. Today I’m guessing that at least 75% of the couples I marry are living together before their wedding day. It’s gotten to the point where I don’t bother to even ask any more. I figure…at least they’re trying to do the right thing now. We Americans have rationalized our way into believing that living together prior to marriage is a morally and socially acceptable practice.

Biblical mores aside, I used to be able to say that living together prior to marriage greatly increased the odds that the marriage would end in divorce. My theory was, “How do you go from a relationship with virtually no commitment to a relationship of the highest commitment?” And there were statistics to back me up on that. Then I read an article on the front page of The Meadville Tribune entitled, “Pre-Marriage Move-In No Longer Predicts Divorce.” Essentially, it said that nearly 50% of all first marriages break up in the first 20 years. And living together first is no longer a factor in determining the success rate of marriage.

Yet could it be that there is another factor that has contributed to the high rate of divorce in this country? Could it be that there is something deeper than couples living together that impacts the success or failure of a marriage? Keep that thought in mind as we move on.

This is the eighth in a series of sermons entitled, The Superficial Saga. It’s a sermon series on the seven deadly sins. We poke a lot of fun at sin these days. Truth be told, I don’t think we take sin very seriously. Yet God takes sin seriously. In fact, God takes sin so seriously…that he sent his Son to die on a cross in order to overcome it. Sin is not a matter to be taken lightly, as though a person could saunter into God’s presence at any time, in any mood, with any sort of life behind them…and at once perceive God there. No, the sense of God’s reality is a progressive and often laborious achievement of the soul; the soul that takes sin seriously and earnestly tries to dispel it.

Six weeks ago we examined the sin of pride. We determined that pride is a sin basically because Jesus said it was. The secret to overcoming pride is humility. And the key to humility is to approach God not as the big, self-sufficient, and self-reliant adults we pretend to be. Instead, we approach God as little children: frail, empty, dependent...needing a gracious and loving God in the worst possible way.

Five weeks ago we examined the sin of envy. We determined that envy is cold-hearted and cruel. From a theological standpoint envy is basically our own sense of dissatisfaction with the way God made us. The secret to conquering envy is love. And the secret to love…is to wish what’s best for someone else.

Four weeks ago we examined the sin of wrath or anger. We determined that anger is a normal human emotion that needs to be expressed. Yet that anger needs to be expressed in the form of an offering to God. In other words, we express our anger to God in prayer…and then leave it in God’s hands to rectify the situation. The secret to conquering anger is forgiveness. Forgiveness then breaks the cycle of anger that peace might rule the day.

Three weeks ago we examined the sin of sloth. We determined that sloth is essentially a spiritual apathy that stems from a sense of hopelessness about the world. The key to overcoming sloth is to remember that we serve God, not anyone else. We are called to remain diligent in our tasks, and in our belief, that God’s kingdom will come to pass when all the world comes to serve God.

Two weeks ago we examined the sin of greed. We determined that all that greed gets us is a whole lot of stress and a much shorter life. Greed says, “I want, I need, I’ve simply got to have.” Charity says, “Thank you, God, for what I do have.” Thus, perhaps charity is just as much for us as it is for whatever charitable institution it is to which we choose to give.

Last week we examined the sin of gluttony. We determined that gluttony is weakness…and that weakness is the door through which the devil always tries to enter. The key to overcoming said weakness is more a positive frame of mind than it is anything else.

Today we examine the sin you’ve all been waiting for – the sin of lust. As we saw in our passage from the first chapter of the book of Genesis, sexuality started out as a good gift from God. It says, “So God created humanity in his image; in the image of God he created them – male and female he created them. God blessed them and said to them, ‘Be fruitful, and multiply…and fill the earth.’” In the first chapter of the book of Genesis men and women are seen as equals – both having been created in the image of God and charged to propagate the species. It’s in the second chapter of the book of Genesis where things start to get messy...because that’s where we begin to make distinctions.

The second chapter of the book of Genesis records another account of creation. There we see that God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam. Then God took one of Adam’s ribs and with it he created Eve. And for the last six thousand years, women have been seen as being subservient to men.

It started with their temptation by the serpent in the Garden of Eden. For centuries, Eve was seen as the culprit. She was the one that was tempted by the Serpent, and she was the one who led poor Adam astray. Recent scholarship, however, has tried to get Eve off the hook. Experts say that at least Eve was thoughtful about what she did. Adam just did it. As one woman said, “That’s just like a man…always thinking about his stomach!”

I want to put a different slant on that story. I want every married man in the sanctuary this morning to raise his hand. Now, keep your hand up…if you think it’s a good idea to complain about what your wife puts in front of you for dinner. I don’t complain about what my wife puts in front of me for dinner. I’m afraid to! That’s probably what happened in the Garden of Eden. Eve put an apple in front of Adam and said, “Here. Eat this.” Adam knew better than to question Eve. So you see, I’m not letting either one of them off the hook. In any case, by the end of the story, when Adam and Eve are banished from the Garden, they are clearly at odds with one another. And it seems we’ve been unable to see one another as equals ever since.

Jesus weighs in on the matter, as well, in the passage we read from the gospel according to Matthew. There he says, “You have heard it said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” Now granted, it would have been nice if Jesus had talked about women looking at men with lust as well, but the point remains the same. To look at a person with lust is to not see them as a person. It is to see them...as an object. Lust sees another person as an object for the gratification of its own lewd desires. And therein lies the problem.

But hey, that’s easier said than done, is it not? We humans are passionate by nature. It’s biological, for crying out loud! But I submit to you that lust is not the same as love. Lust says, “I can’t wait to see him again,” or, “I can hardly keep my hands off her.” That’s what we call romantic infatuation. Love is showing compassion even when you don’t feel very compassionate. Love is continuing to give in spite of the desire to take. Love is holding on when it would be so much easier to just let go. Love is a mutual respect that is built upon years and years of hard work and sacrifice. You see, love is not something so fleeting as a fickle emotion. Love… is a state of being.

As I frequently say in my wedding sermons, love is bringing a beautiful, healthy child into a world full of pain because you truly believe your love can make a difference. Love is watching that child grow up and decide to share his or her life with that of another. Love is standing beside your spouse when they’re lying in a hospital bed…worried sick about what life would be like without them. Love is sitting across the room from one another after the kids have grown and gone – perhaps not saying a word to each other – but looking at each other and remembering a lifetime of shared memories. Love takes time because love is so much more than a fickle emotion. Love…is a state of being.

Now back to the notion of living together before marriage. It seems as though it is now a proven fact that living together prior to marriage does not impact the success rate of marriage in any way. Could it be that there is something deeper than couples living together that impacts the success or failure of a marriage? I think there is.

The general rule of thumb these days…is that after three dates, a couple is expected to sleep together. And by sleep, I don’t mean sleep. So here’s what happens. A couple sleeps together, and the sex is good. So then they move in together, and the sex is still good. Then they decide to get married, and the sex is still good. Then a few years down the road, the thrill wears off a little bit. Suddenly a couple discovers that they’re married to someone that, a) they don’t really know, and b) they don’t really like! Such is the fruit of a relationship built on lust. Now that’s just my theory. I’ve never read it or heard it anywhere. I just think that’s what the problem is. A relationship that is not built on mutual trust and respect is simply destined to fail.

So what have we learned so far? We’ve examined the seven deadly sins. And along with that, we’ve examined the seven holy virtues or the seven cardinal virtues. The seven holy virtues are meant to counteract the seven deadly sins. As I’ve mentioned in every sermon for the last seven weeks, the only way to conquer sin…is to replace it with something better.

Yet truth be told, we will never be able to completely master our sin, no matter how hard we try. If we could, then God would have sent his Son into the world for nothing. So we have a bit of a conundrum here. On the one hand we are miserable, wretched, hopeless sinners in desperate need of the grace of God. Yet on the other hand, we are the beloved children of God – more precious to God than life itself.

Martin Luther called this situation, simul iustis et peccator. What that means is this. We are both justified and sinner at the same time. We are loved, accepted, redeemed and saved – and we are rebellious, deceitful, dishonorable and vile – at the same time. Perhaps all this means… is that God isn’t finished with us yet.

My oldest son is going to have my hide for telling this story, but I’m going to tell it anyway. About ten years ago, my son and two of his friends had a book of matches and some fireworks. They were in a field and it had been very dry that summer. Let’s just say that shortly after they left the area where they had been…six to eight-foot flames erupted. A vigilant neighbor called the fire department and disaster was averted. Now in fairness to my son, he did not light the fire. But as far as I was concerned, he was guilty by association.

When I found out what had happened, I rounded up my son, Rob, and one of the other boys – a boy named Neal – and drug them down to the police station. There they made their confession and essentially received a slap on the wrist. As we were driving home, I said to the boys, “You got off easy. The next time, you may not be so lucky.”

I knew I had done the right thing when Rob immediately said, “There won’t be a next time.” He learned from his mistake. And Neal…Neal just rolled his eyes. Ladies and gentlemen, my son is currently interviewing for acceptance into a pharmacy school. Neal died last summer of a drug overdose.

Did I love my son any less for his mistake? No. Did I love him enough to let him learn the consequences of his actions? Yes. Maybe that’s what God is doing for us as well. He loved us enough to send his only Son. And he loves us enough to let us learn from our mistakes. God’s not finished with us yet. What will you make of your mistakes? Amen.

03-25-2012 Sermon by The Rev. Dr. Brian K. Jensen

2012-03-27T09:00:00.000-07:00

THE SUPERFICIAL SAGA: PART VII

My family and I moved to Meadville in November of 2003. Prior to that, I served a church in Salem, Ohio for about seven-and-a-half years. I believe it was near the end of September of 2003 when I formally announced to the congregation that we would be leaving Salem. I was surprised by how fast the news spread in the community.

For example, it wasn’t more than a few days after I made my announcement in church that I was approached on the street by a young man I knew from the gym. His name was Dominic Panzott. Dominic approached me and said, “I hear you’re leaving town.” I said, “Yes. We’ll be moving to Meadville, Pennsylvania. It’s a tremendous opportunity and I’m really looking forward to it.” He said, “Meadville. Isn’t that where Allegheny College is?” I said, “Yes, as a matter of fact, it is.” He said, “Oh.”

I was puzzled by his response, so I asked him, “Are you familiar with Meadville?” He said, “Yeah. I went to Allegheny College for a year.” Then I asked him, “Well, what did you think of Meadville?” He shrugged his shoulders and said, “Pretty boring.” I said, “Dom, I’m raising three kids. Boring is exactly what I want!”

Now, those of you who’ve been paying attention know that the subject matter for today is supposed to be gluttony. Thus, you’ve got to be wondering, “Why on earth I would begin my sermon with a story like that?” What has the relative boredom or excitement of Meadville got to do with gluttony? Just keep that thought in mind. Hopefully it’ll all make sense by the end of this sermon.

This is the seventh in a series of sermons entitled The Superficial Saga. It’s a sermon series on the seven deadly sins. We poke a lot of fun at sin these days. Truth be told, I don’t think we take sin very seriously. Yet God takes sin seriously. In fact, God takes sin so seriously…that he sent his Son to die on a cross in order to overcome it. Sin is not a matter to be taken lightly, as though a person could saunter into God’s presence at any time, in any mood, with any sort of life behind them…and at once perceive God there. No, the sense of God’s reality is a progressive and often laborious achievement of the soul; the soul that takes sin seriously and earnestly tries to dispel it.

Like I said, The Superficial Saga is a sermon series on the seven deadly sins. The seven deadly sins are: pride, envy, wrath, sloth, greed, gluttony, and lust. Yet along with the seven deadly sins there are what we call the seven holy virtues or the seven cardinal virtues. The seven holy virtues are meant to counteract the seven deadly sins. For example, the opposite of pride is humility. The opposite of envy is love. The opposite of wrath is forgiveness. The opposite of sloth is diligence. The opposite of greed is charity. The opposite of gluttony is temperance, and the opposite of lust is chastity or purity. You see, the only way to conquer sin…is to replace it with something better.

Five weeks ago, we examined the sin of pride. There we determined that pride is a sin basically because Jesus said it was. The secret to overcoming pride is humility. We determined that the key to humility is to approach God not as the big, self-sufficient, and self-reliant adults we pretend to be. Instead, we approach God as little children: frail, empty, dependent…needing a gracious and loving God in the worst possible way.

Four weeks ago, we examined the sin of envy. We determined that envy is cold-hearted and

cruel. From a theological standpoint envy is basically our own sense of dissatisfaction with the way God created us. The secret to conquering envy is love. And the secret to love…is to wish what’s best for someone else.

Three weeks ago we examined the sin of wrath or anger. We determined that anger is a normal human emotion that needs to be expressed. Yet that anger needs to be expressed in the form of an offering to God. In other words, we express our anger to God in prayer…and then leave it in God’s hands to rectify the situation. The secret to conquering anger is forgiveness. Forgiveness then breaks the cycle of anger that peace might rule the day.

Two weeks ago we examined the sin of sloth. We determined that sloth is essentially a spiritual apathy that stems from a sense of hopelessness about the world. The key to overcoming sloth is to remember that we work for God, not for anyone else. We are called to remain diligent in our tasks, and in our belief, that God’s kingdom will come to pass when all the world comes to serve God.

Last week we examined the sin of greed. We determined that all that greed gets us is a whole lot of stress and a much shorter life. Greed says, “I want, I need, I’ve simply got to have.” Charity says, “Thank you, God, for what I do have.” Thus, perhaps charity is just as much for us…as it is for whatever charitable institution to which we choose to give.

Today we examine the sin of gluttony. Gluttony is unique among the seven deadly sins in that it doesn’t seem to affect anyone but us. I mean, if you happen to eat too much, who are you hurting besides yourself? Of course, as we shall soon see, gluttony applies to far, far more than the mere intake of food. But for now, let’s focus on the intake of food. Eating too much these days is often perceived as a sign of the good life. Case in point…where would the holiday of Thanksgiving be without the sin of gluttony?

Have any of you ever seen the television show, The Big Bang Theory? Aside from the fact that – like far too many T.V. shows, it seems to be sex-obsessed – the writing is really quite clever. It features three physicists with Ph.D.s, an engineer who only holds a Master’s Degree and a pretty girl across the hall who is an aspiring actress. Leonard and Sheldon are two of the physicists, who happen to be roommates.

In one scene, Leonard walks into their apartment with a large bag of Chinese take-out food. He says to Sheldon, “I hope you’re hungry!” To which Sheldon replies, “Interesting. A friendly sentiment in this country, a cruel taunt in the Sudan. It’s a lesson in context.”

A lesson in context, indeed. Eating too much in this country is often perceived as a sign of the good life. Yet listen to what a woman named Francine Prose has to say about gluttony in a book entitled, Gluttony. She writes:

One-third of all Americans, approximately sixty-three million people, are overweight. Fifteen percent of all American children are overweight. Two hundred fifty thousand deaths can be attributed to poor diet and inactivity. Fifty percent of cardiovascular disease is related to excess weight. We spend as much as fifty billion dollars a year dieting. Laparoscopic gastric bypass surgery has become the new status surgery for the rich; more chic than a face-lift. That fifty billion for diets is more than we spend on education, training, employment and social services. We Americans spend more on dieting than the gross national product of Ireland.

Maybe gluttony does affect more than just ourselves. Thirteenth century theologian Thomas Aquinas once said that gluttony was the devil’s bait for our first parents. He’s referring to Adam and Eve, of course. As it says in Genesis 3, the forbidden fruit was a delight to the eyes and good for food. Thus, tempted by the serpent, Eve took of the fruit and ate. Then she gave some of it to her husband, and he ate of it as well. At that, sin entered the world. Could we go so far as to say it was gluttony that brought about original sin? After all, Adam and Eve were tempted with food, and they failed the test.

Now let’s consider the passage that Nancy read a moment ago from the gospel according to Matthew. After Jesus was baptized, he was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. Note, however, that it wasn’t until after he had fasted for forty days that the devil came to meet him. Hunger was the door through which the devil tried to enter. “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “command these stones to become loaves of bread.” The devil knew that hunger would be Jesus’ weakest flank at this point in time…and that’s where he chose to strike. Yet unlike Adam and Eve, Jesus did not fail his test. Jesus replied, “One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.”

The passing or failing of temptation aside, I think these stories reveal what gluttony really is.

Gluttony is weakness. And weakness is the door through which the devil always tries to enter. The devil always worms in…right at the point of our most glaring weakness.

I thought about this weakness as I read an article by Larry Peers entitled, The Problem Trap. You see a quote from Larry Peers’ article in the Silent Reflection portion of your bulletin today. He writes:

One of the primary kinds of stories that takes hold in a congregation and makes change difficult is what is known as the problem-saturated story, or one in which the focus is on who or what is or has been wrong. You can recognize the problem-saturated story when you’re in a group where someone offers an example of how difficult or awful something is in the congregation, and before you know it the rest of us can’t help but chime in with more evidence for how truly bad and impossible the situation is. We can almost hear ourselves say – even if the words aren’t verbalized – “If you think that’s bad, let me tell you how it is even worse than that!”

Weakness is the door through which the devil always tries to enter. You’ve heard the term, “Glutton for punishment,” have you not? How would it be if we coined another term here, because I think it truly applies. How would it be if we coined the term, “Glutton for misery?” A desire to be miserable is a very strange weakness that a lot of us seem to have. And the more we gripe and moan and complain, the more miserable we become…and the less likely we are to ever encounter a change for the better. It’s also the less likely we are to ever encounter God. For you see, our incessant grumbling can quickly become a cancer.

Such was exactly the case in the passage I read from the book of Jeremiah. The Hebrew people had been conquered by the Babylonians. Many had been deported from their homes in Jerusalem and forced to live in the city of Babylon. The Hebrew people were none-too-pleased about that. So what did they do? They griped, and they moaned, and they complained. And their incessant grumbling was quickly becoming a cancer.

This is the situation Jeremiah was addressing. Speaking on behalf of God, he cried, “Thus says the Lord of hosts, to all the exiles whom I have sent into Babylon: Build houses and live in them. Plant gardens and eat what they produce. Take wives, and have sons and daughters. Take wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage that they may multiply and not decrease. Seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you, and pray to the Lord on its behalf; for in its welfare you will find your welfare.”

Did you catch that last part there? “Seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.” In essence he was saying, “Don’t cave in to your sense of despair and hopelessness.” He reminded them of who they were outside of the problem, and encouraged them to do what they knew how to do when they were not in exile. These actions were the start of a new story. Jeremiah was prophetically helping the people of Israel to re-author their story in the midst of exile. In other words, bloom where you’re planted. And you’re either a part of the solution…or you’re a part of the problem.

I hear a lot of complaints about the church today. I hear a lot of complaints about the city of Meadville, as well. Why, it seems as though we truly are gluttons for misery. Yet as Jeremiah said to the people of his day, so, too, do I think he would say to us: “Seek the welfare of the city and the church where I have sent you…for in their welfare, you will find your welfare.”

My old friend Dominic Panzott said that Meadville was boring. To him, I suppose it was. To me, it’s not boring at all. In the end, I suppose it all comes down to what you make of it. Amen.

03-18-2012 Sermon by The Rev. Dr. Brian K. Jensen

2012-03-19T12:16:00.001-07:00

THE SUPERFICIAL SAGA: PART VI

Haddon Robinson is the Professor of Preaching at the Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary near Boston, Massachusetts. He recently gave a lecture that somewhat highlighted the evolution of preaching. More specifically, he said that the model for the preacher has changed. For example, up through the 1940s and into the early 1950s, the model for the preacher was the evangelist. In other words, preachers were doing their level best to get people to commit their lives to Jesus Christ.

In the late 1950s and on through the 1960s the model for the preacher became that of the Bible teacher. Helping people to understand the Bible came to be the most important thing. It’s interesting to note, however, that he never addressed the 1970s. Apparently the 1970s was a lost decade of preaching. In the 1980s and the 1990s, the model for the preacher became that of the therapist. In other words…the task of the preacher came to be meeting the needs of people who were trying to be Christian, but who were still largely secular.

He is much more critical of preaching today. He says, and I quote, “Sermons today are much more likely to be topical than expository…and many of the materials in the sermon come out of the behavioral sciences. The aim of most sermons today…is not to explain the biblical text. The aim of most sermons today is to connect with the listeners’ felt needs.” Then he adds, “The Bible is used as a way to get a divine imprint on what is simply good advice.”

Ouch! Is that what the preached word has become? Is it simply good advice? Or is the preached word still meant to be, by the power and presence of the Holy Spirit, the word of God to a lost humanity? Is the preached word still meant to be, by the power and presence of the Holy Spirit, divine instruction on the way to live a godly life? Is the preached word still meant to be, by the power and presence of the Holy Spirit, a means of grace by which one can draw closer to God? Hey, I’m old school. I still think theology is important. Thus, I suspect you know what I think. But just in case you don’t…let me tell you what I’m really trying to accomplish in a sermon.

The goal, plain and simple, is communion with God. All I’m trying to do is help you come to know God. As John Calvin noted in his Institutes of the Christian Religion, “Without knowledge of self, there is no knowledge of God.” Yet what do we see when we look at ourselves? We see ourselves as sinful human beings and we see a great chasm between us and God. Yet we also see a redeemer in the person of Jesus Christ: a redeemer who sets us right with God when we confess our sin and sincerely strive to repent, sincerely strive to live a better life, and sincerely strive to have a change of heart. Perhaps John the Baptist put it best when he came to announce the arrival of God’s Messiah. He cried, “Repent…for the kingdom of God is at hand.” In other words, we need to change the way we are. Thus, the goal of preaching is not to make us feel good about ourselves. The goal of preaching…is to inspire us to change.

This is the sixth in a series of sermons entitled, The Superficial Saga. It’s a sermon series on the seven deadly sins. We poke a lot of fun at sin these days. Truth be told, I don’t think we take sin very seriously. Yet God takes sin seriously. In fact, God takes sin so seriously…that he sent his Son to die on a cross in order to overcome it. Sin is not a matter to be taken lightly, as though a person could saunter into God’s presence at any time, in any mood, with any sort of life behind them…and at once perceive God there. No, the sense of God’s reality is a progressive and often laborious achievement of the soul; the soul that takes sin seriously and earnestly tries to dispel it.

Like it said, The Superficial Saga is a sermon series on the seven deadly sins. The seven deadly sins are: pride, envy, wrath, sloth, greed, gluttony, and lust. Yet along with the seven deadly sins there are what we call the seven holy virtues or the seven cardinal virtues. The seven holy virtues are meant to counteract the seven deadly sins. For example, the opposite of pride is humility. The opposite of envy is love. The opposite of wrath is forgiveness. The opposite of sloth is diligence. The opposite of greed is charity. The opposite of gluttony is temperance, and the opposite of lust is chastity or purity. You see, the way to conquer sin…is to replace it with something better.

Four weeks ago, we examined the sin of pride. There we determined that pride is a sin basically because Jesus said it was. The secret to overcoming pride is humility. We determined that the key to humility is to approach God not as the big, self-sufficient, and self-reliant adults we pretend to be. Instead, we approach God as little children: frail, empty, dependent…needing a gracious and loving God in the worst possible way.

Three weeks ago we examined the sin of envy. We determined that envy is cold-hearted and cruel. From a theological standpoint, envy is basically our own sense of dissatisfaction with the way God created us. The secret to conquering envy is love. And the secret to love…is to wish what’s best for someone else.

Two weeks ago we examined the sin of wrath or anger. We determined that anger is a normal human emotion that needs to be expressed. Yet that anger needs to be expressed in the form of an offering to God. In other words, we express our anger to God in prayer…and then leave it in God’s hands to rectify the situation. The secret to conquering anger is forgiveness. Forgiveness then breaks the cycle of anger in order that peace might rule the day.

Last week we examined the sin of sloth. We determined that sloth is essentially a spiritual apathy that stems from a sense of hopelessness about the world. The key to overcoming sloth is to remember that we work for God, not for anyone else. We are called to remain diligent in our tasks and in our belief that God’s kingdom will come to pass when all the world comes to serve God.

Today we examine the sin of greed. Perhaps the most famous personification of greed can be found in Charles Dickens’ novel, A Christmas Carol. I’m talking about Ebenezer Scrooge, of course. Why the very name “Scrooge” has become synonymous with the word “greed.” In the novel, Dickens introduces Ebenezer Scrooge with these words:

Oh! But he was a tightfisted hand at the grindstone, Scrooge! A squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner! Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire…secret and self-contained, and solitary as an oyster.

When it comes to the sin of greed, perhaps there is no more appropriate description. These days, we tend to view Bill Gates in a similar light. I’ve heard it said that Bill Gates was once asked by a reporter, “How much is enough?” To which Bill Gates replied, “You can never have enough.” I’ve got to admit that I was unable to substantiate that comment. However, I was able to substantiate a quote from one of Bill Gates’ predecessors in opulence…a man named John D. Rockefeller. A reporter once asked John D. Rockefeller, “How much money is enough?” Rockefeller replied, “Just a little bit more.” That, my friends, is greed personified.

I’m here to tell you, however, that it’s not just the Bill Gateses and the John D. Rockefellers of the world that suffer from the sin of greed. I recently heard the story of a girl who told her friend, “My mom is only happy when she’s spending money. She went shopping every day until a thief stole her credit card.” “Oh, my gosh,” her friend replied. “Did your father report the stolen credit card?” To which the girl replied, “No. He says the thief is spending less money than Mom did!”

Now that’s not sexist! That story is true of both men and women. A recent survey indicates that the average American spends $1300.00 on credit for every $1000.00 they make. As someone once said, “People spend money they don’t have to buy things they don’t need to impress people they don’t even like.” A lot of us suffer from greed.

A lot of us may suffer from greed, but I don’t think anyone respects it or admires it. Not long ago, woman named Kristen Clawbury announced to her friends that she was suffering from ovarian cancer. Her friends immediately rushed to her side to comfort her, to cry with her and to pray with her. After a few months, she told her friends that the cancer treatments had not worked and that she was going to have to go out of state for experimental medical treatments that would not be covered by her insurance. Her friends then got together…and held fundraisers that brought in more than $40,000.00. Then they found out that it was all a great big scam. The woman had cut her hair to make it look like she was undergoing chemotherapy. She took the money her friends had raised and bought a car, went on vacation and had some plastic surgery. At the ensuing trial, one of her friends said, “She had a disease even more deadly than cancer. She had the disease of greed.”

Is greed a deadly disease? Consider the passage we read from the book of Acts. It’s the story of Ananias and Sapphira. Let me set the scene for you. It’s shortly after that very first Pentecost and the apostles have established a church in Jerusalem. As it says in Acts 4:32, “Now the company of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one said that any of the things he possessed was his own, but they had everything in common.” In other words, in the first century church, they were into communal living. Obviously it did not work, and that is why we do not do it today. But in the first century church, they held everything in common.

A man named Ananias, and a woman named Sapphira, were a married couple who belonged to this first century Christian community. Ananias sold a piece of property that belonged to him. What he should have done is bring all of the proceeds to Peter and lay them at his feet. Or, if he needed to keep some of the money for himself, he needed to be honest about that. Ananias and Sapphira plotted to do neither. Ananias brought a part of the proceeds forward and laid them at Peter’s feet...but he told him that he was giving all of it. Peter somehow knew better and he said to Ananias, “You have not lied to us, but to God!” And at that, Ananias dropped to the floor and died. Not long after that, Sapphira came in before the apostles. She, too, was questioned about the incident. She, too, lied about it…and she dropped dead as well.

And you thought greed was no big deal. Look, I’m not saying that greed is going to make you drop dead, but perhaps it can keep one from communion with God. Perhaps it can keep one from finding inner peace. Listen to this.

Once upon a time, an ambitious American businessman was standing at the pier in a Mexican costal village. A small boat with a lone fisherman inside puttered up to the pier and docked. The businessman noticed several large yellowfin tuna in the boat and complimented the fisherman on his catch. He asked the fisherman, “How long did it take you to catch those fish?” To which the fisherman replied, “Oh, it didn’t take long at all.”

Puzzled, the businessman asked, “Why didn’t you stay out longer and catch more fish?” The fisherman said, “I’ve got enough here to support my family’s needs for the day.” So the businessman asked, “Then what do you do with the rest of your time?” The fisherman replied, “Oh, I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, and take a siesta with my wife. Then at night I stroll into the village, I sip a little wine and play the guitar with my friends. I really have a full and busy life, senor.”

The businessman scoffed, “Look, I have an MBA from Harvard and I could really help you. You should spend a lot more time fishing, and with the proceeds you could buy a bigger boat. With the money you make from the bigger boat, you could buy a few more boats. Eventually, you’d have a fleet. Then instead of selling your fish to a middleman you could sell directly to the processor, eventually opening up your own cannery. You would then control the product, the processing, and the distribution. You would then need to leave this little village and move to Mexico City, then to Los Angeles, and eventually to New York City, where you could run your expanding enterprise.”

The fisherman thought about that for a moment. Then he asked, “Senor, how long would all of this take?” The businessman replied, “Oh, I suppose you could do it in 15 or 20 years.” “And then what?” the fisherman asked. The businessman laughed, “That’s the best part. When the time is right…you announce an Initial Public Offering, sell your stock to the public and become filthy rich. You could make millions.”

The fisherman asked, “Millions, senor? Then what?” The businessman said, “Then you could retire. You could move to a small coastal village where you could sleep late, fish a little, play with your grandkids, and take a siesta with your wife. At night you could stroll into the village, sip a little wine, and play your guitar with your friends.”

So what does greed really get us? A whole lot of stress and a much shorter life. The holy virtue that counteracts the deadly sin of greed is charity. Perhaps that’s the reason for the divine mandate of tithing. You know, people often cynically say that all the church cares about is money. Yet maybe God calls upon us to give because he knows that charity is the only cure for our greed. So maybe giving to the church isn’t just for the church’s sake. Maybe giving to the church is for our sake, as well.

Greed says, “I want, I need, I’ve simply got to get.” Charity says, “Thank you for what I have.” As 13^th century German mystic Meister Eckhart once said, “If the only prayer you ever said in your entire life was thank you…that would suffice.” Keep that thought in mind the next time you see something you’ve simply got to have. Amen.

03-11-2012 Sermon by The Rev. Dr. Brian K. Jensen

2012-03-12T08:32:00.001-07:00

THE SUPERFICIAL SAGA: PART V

There is a man that I have come to know in this town. He is big, he’s as strong as an ox, he is healthy…and he does not work. He has two cars and he lives in an apartment here in Meadville. The owner of the apartment complex is a friend of mine as well, so I know what the rent for one of those apartments is, and it is not cheap.

I was in my friend’s apartment one time and he proudly gave me the grand tour. It was a hot summer day and his air conditioner was blowing ice cold air. In his living room I saw a 50-inch flat screen T.V. The furnishings looked like they had come just come off of the showroom floor at Hovis Interiors. I was thinking to myself, “Wow! I don’t have air conditioning. I don’t have a flat screen T.V. And our living room furniture is falling apart!” After the tour was over and I was walking out of the apartment, I saw it lying there on the kitchen counter. It was one of those little green Access cards. What that means is that it’s our tax dollars that pay for his basic necessities. He seems to be able to afford a number of luxuries, but it’s our tax dollars that pay for his necessities.

It’s this kind of thing that has a lot of people up in arms these days. Is this what we mean when we speak of the sin of sloth? Is this what we mean when we bemoan the loss of the good old fashioned Protestant work ethic? Keep that thought in mind as we move on.

This is the fifth in a series of sermons entitled, The Superficial Saga. It’s a sermon series on the seven deadly sins. We poke a lot of fun at sin these days. Truth be told, I don’t think we take sin very seriously. Yet God takes sin seriously. In fact, God takes sin so seriously…that he sent his Son to die on a cross in order to overcome it. Sin is not a matter to be taken lightly, as though a person could saunter into God’s presence at any time, in any mood, with any sort of life behind them…and at once perceive God there. No, the sense of God’s reality is a progressive and often laborious achievement of the soul; the soul that takes sin seriously and earnestly tries to dispel it.

Like I said, The Superficial Saga is a sermon series on the seven deadly sins. The seven deadly sins are: pride, envy, wrath, sloth, greed, gluttony and lust. Yet along with the seven deadly sins there are what we call the seven holy virtues or the seven cardinal virtues. The seven holy virtues are meant to counteract the seven deadly sins. For example, the opposite of pride is humility. The opposite of envy is love. The opposite of wrath is forgiveness. The opposite of sloth is diligence. The opposite of greed is charity. The opposite of gluttony is temperance, and the opposite of lust is chastity or purity. You see, the way to conquer sin…is to replace it with something better.

Three weeks ago, we examined the sin of pride. There we determined that pride is a sin basically because Jesus said it was. The secret to overcoming pride is humility. We determined that the key to humility is to approach God not as the big, self-sufficient, self-reliant adults we pretend to be. Instead, we approach God as little children – frail, empty, and dependent – needing a gracious and loving God in the worst possible way.

Two weeks ago we examined the sin of envy. We determined that envy is cold-hearted and cruel. Envy is basically our own sense of dissatisfaction with the way God created us. The secret to conquering envy is love. And the secret to love is to wish what’s best for someone else. Not an easy thing to do.

Last week we examined the sin of wrath or anger. We determined that anger is a normal human emotion that needs to be expressed. Yet anger needs to be expressed in the form of an offering to God. In other words, we express our anger to God, and then we leave it in God’s hands to rectify the situation. The secret to conquering anger is forgiveness. Forgiveness then breaks the cycle of anger…in order that peace might rule the day.

Today we examine the sin of sloth. Webster’s dictionary defines sloth as a disinclination to action or labor. It also defines sloth as a slow moving mammal that hangs upside down in trees, but that’s not the kind of sloth we’re going to be talking about today. We’re going to be looking at sloth as a disinclination to action or labor.

Now back to my friend who seems to have a disinclination to work, yet who also seems to enjoy many of the finer things in life. Is that what we’re talking about when we talk about the sin of sloth? From a secular sense, we might be inclined to think it is. Yet that is not the sloth that is described in the seven deadly sins. The situation with my friend is the result of several generations of poverty. It is a mind-set and a state of being we middle and upper-middle class Americans simply do not understand. What’s more, I have a sneaking suspicion that God has placed such people in our midst just to see how we handle them. Are we compassionate and understanding…or are we condemnatory and judgmental? Perhaps our passing judgment on such people reveals just about as much of our sin as it does theirs.

So what, then, is sloth as defined by the seven deadly sins? Let me begin by explaining how the seven deadly sins came to be in the first place. The earliest Christian formation of the seven deadly sins came from a fourth-century monk named Evagrius. Evagrius established a group of monks, who formed a hermitage in the desert, that they might separate themselves from the evils of the world, and draw closer to God. The irony of this…was that in separating themselves from the rest of the world, they found that in living so close together, they often brought out the worst in each other. It was a little bit like the struggle a college freshman has getting along with a new roommate. The seven deadly sins were what these monks tried to overcome that they might live together in peace and harmony.

Here’s where sloth came in. The main meal of the day was served at 3:00 in the afternoon. Long about noon, as these monks were in their cells studying and praying, they started to get hungry. They started to get real hungry. They got distracted in their prayers and their minds began to wander. As their minds began to wander, the monks began to wonder, “What’s the use of all this holy effort anyway?”

The Latin word Evagrius used to describe this feeling was acedia. It literally means spiritual apathy. Spiritual apathy occurs when the great goal of life, communion with God, is abandoned for whatever reason. The French use the word ennui for apathy. Yet perhaps the Germans put it best with their word, Weltsmerz. It literally means, “pained by the world.” And perhaps that’s when spiritual apathy really occurs. It occurs when we become pained by the world and we start to think, “What’s the use?” There is so much pain and suffering in the world today. What’s the use in turning to God? What’s the use in worshiping God? For far too many people it’s the pain of the world that leads to sloth…as a defense mechanism against the hopelessness of the world.

There once was a man who was on fire for the Lord. He decided that he wanted to serve the Lord as best he could. So he spoke to the minister of his church and asked what he could do in the name of service. He got involved in a small group Bible study. He began serving on a church committee. He came to worship every Sunday morning. He threw himself whole-heartedly into godly service. And then he became, as he described it, burned out. Apparently he didn’t feel as though his service to God was making enough of a difference in his life, and so he just dropped out. He dumped his wife and his family. He began to pursue more worldly outlets for his personal satisfaction. You see, it’s one thing to have a life-changing conversion experience. It’s another thing entirely to maintain the tenacity and perseverance God asks from us over the long haul. That, my friends, is acedia.

I think of the couple who raised their children in the church. They wanted to ensure a good spiritual foundation for their kids. And then their kids grew up and went away to college. And then they, essentially, dropped out of the church. That, my friends, is acedia.

I think of the person who is on the rolls at the church. They come and worship God if they’ve got nothing better to do. But they don’t want to get involved. They want to remain anonymous. They figure there’s someone else who can do the job much better than they. That, my friends, is acedia.

You see, there are sins of commission, and there are sins of omission. Sins of commission are things we do that we ought not to do. Sins of omission are things we ought to have done, but did not. Acedia is a sin of omission.

Consider the passage we read a moment ago from the gospel according to Luke. There we see a rich young ruler approach Jesus and say to him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus says, “You know the commandments. You shall not commit adultery, you shall not kill, you shall not steal or bear false witness.” The young man replied, “I have kept all these since my youth.” Then Jesus got to the heart of the matter. “There is one thing you lack,” he said. “Go, sell all that you have, and give the money to the poor. Then come, follow me.”

When the young man heard this, he became very sad, for he had many possessions. Actually, I think I like the American Standard Version of the Bible’s translation even better. It says, “And his countenance fell at the saying, for he had great possessions.” His countenance fell. You see, he came to realize that he did not have what it takes to follow Jesus Christ. This is closer to what acedia means than laziness is. It’s more like a lack of commitment. Call it, “a lukewarm faith.”

Perhaps this is more theologically significant than we might notice at first glance. Have you ever heard the term, “Protestant work ethic?” It’s a term attributed to a sociologist by the name of Max Weber. In the late 1800s, he observed how hard Protestant people worked at their jobs and in their churches. He noted how those of Lutheran or Calvinist heritage believed in the concept of predestination. You know, people are saved by grace alone through faith in Jesus Christ alone. The catch is that it’s impossible to tell who is saved and who is not, except for one thing. The notion developed that it might be possible to determine who was saved and who was not by observing the way they lived their lives. Hard work and commitment – in life and to the church – were two important consequences to determining who was in and who was out.

Are you with me? What the Protestant work ethic is saying is that our diligence in serving God reveals the status of our salvation. We work not in order to receive salvation, rather, we work out of gratitude for what we have already received, by the power and presence of the Holy Spirit that lives within us. Thus, perhaps sloth is more than just sinful behavior. Perhaps what it really reveals is whether God is at work within us or not.

So how do we avoid acedia? How do we avert that spiritual burnout that keeps us at arm’s length from God? I think of a woman in my last church was elected at a congregational meeting to serve on the session. Someone actually said to her, “Now you’re going to see the church’s dark side.” It really upset her. But you know what? The church isn’t perfect. The church is imperfect people trying their best to imitate the perfection of God. Sometimes we get it wrong. But sometimes…we get it right. And it’s oh, so good when we do.

The point, however, is that that’s not what we should be observing. You see, when we work in the church, we are serving God…not anyone else. There will always be someone there to criticize us or to challenge us or to frustrate us. The point is that we don’t work for them. We work for God. If God is pleased…we will find the strength to persevere. Who cares what anyone else thinks? Amen.

03-04-2012 Sermon by The Rev. Dr. Brian K. Jensen

2012-03-05T11:13:00.001-08:00

THE SUPERFICIAL SAGA: PART IV

Will Willimon was once the chaplain at Duke University, and is now a bishop in the United Methodist Church. In a book entitled Sinning Like a Christian, he addresses the topic of anger. More specifically…he addresses the topic of how people deal with their anger. This is what he had to say:

As a pastor, I have grieved over those people – usually women – who suffer some great injustice…and who handle it by turning that pain inward upon themselves rather that toward its proper object, the perpetrator of the pain. There are those who think that Christians are not allowed to be angry. If you are Christian, you’ll always be all smiles.

I’m thinking of a woman whose husband left her without any word of warning after two years of marriage. She was terribly depressed. I asked her as her pastor, “Are you angry that your husband has done this to you?” “No,” she replied, “not really angry, just hurt.”

“Not angry?” I asked. “I think you’ve got a right to be angry with him. And maybe angry with God, as well. After all, God told you to be faithful in your marriage vows, and you were. But the other side of the bargain wasn’t kept. I would think you would be angry!” “No, just hurt,” she said. I decided then and there that depression is often the result of anger turned inward, anger inappropriately expressed, anger suppressed.

Willimon suggests that suppressed anger can result in depression. I suspect he’s right about that. But I also suspect that suppressed anger can result in something much, much worse. As many of you know, there was another school shooting in Chardon, Ohio – a community about sixty miles west of here. A teenage boy, named T.J. Lane, opened fire in the high school cafeteria, killing three of his classmates. It’s a newspaper headline that’s becoming all too common in our country these days.

What makes a person reach a point in their lives where they are willing to put their classmates to death? Many studies have been done over the years to try to obtain a psychological profile of school shooters. Those studies have reached the conclusion that no one shooter fits a definitive psychological profile. However, the studies did show that there were a few common denominators between the shooters. According to Katherine Newman, a sociology professor at Princeton, school shooters are people who feel they have failed at social integration. Other common factors include a feeling of rejection by others, being bullied by their peers, and a sense of severely suppressed anger. Like I said, suppressed anger can result in something much, much worse than depression. Keep that thought in mind as we move on.

This is the fourth in a series of sermons entitled, The Superficial Saga. It’s a sermon series on the seven deadly sins. We poke a lot of fun at sin these days. Truth be told, I don’t think we take sin very seriously. Yet God takes sin seriously. In fact, God takes sin so seriously…that he sent his Son to die on a cross in order to overcome it. Sin is not a matter to be taken lightly, as though a person could saunter into God’s presence at any time, in any mood, with any sort of life behind them…and at once perceive God there. No, the sense of God’s reality is a progressive and often laborious achievement of the soul; the soul that takes sin seriously and earnestly tries to dispel it.

Like I said, The Superficial Saga is a sermon series on the seven deadly sins. The seven deadly sins are as follows: pride, envy, wrath, sloth, greed, gluttony, and lust. Yet along with the seven deadly sins there are what we call the seven holy virtues or the seven cardinal virtues. The seven holy virtues are meant to counteract the seven deadly sins. For example, the opposite of pride is humility. The opposite of envy is love. The opposite of wrath is forgiveness. The opposite of sloth is diligence. The opposite of greed is charity. The opposite of gluttony is temperance, and the opposite of lust is chastity…or purity. You see, the way to conquer sin…is to replace it with something better.

Two weeks ago, we examined the sin of pride. There we determined that pride is a sin basically because Jesus said it was. The secret to overcoming pride is humility. We determined that the key to humility is to approach God not as the big, self-sufficient, self-reliant adults we pretend to be. Instead, we approach God as little children – frail, empty and dependent – needing a gracious and loving God in the worst possible way.

Last week we examined the sin of envy. We determined that envy is cold-hearted and cruel. Envy is basically our own sense of dissatisfaction with the way God created us. The secret to conquering envy is love. And the secret to love…is to wish what’s best for someone else.

Today we examine the sin of wrath, or anger. If it’s all the same to you I’ll be using the words interchangeably. Even though I believe there’s a basic difference between the two, I also believe that modern day semantics renders them synonymous. Thus, today we examine the sin of wrath …or anger.

In the stories we encountered at the beginning of this sermon, we saw that anger turned inward, or anger inappropriately expressed, or anger suppressed, can result in depression. It can also result in something much, much worse. Thus, there is a simple and obvious solution to our problem, is there not? Anger should not be bottled up inside. Anger should be expressed. To coin a phrase, perhaps we should let it all hang out and vent our anger at the drop of a hat. Now please, don’t turn your minds off just yet. I don’t want you to be saying to the police when they arrest you after you express your anger toward your spouse, or toward an aggressive driver, or toward some simple-minded sales clerk, that the minister at the Presbyterian Church said it was okay. You need to hear me out a just a little bit longer.

If you’re like me, you’ve heard it said that it’s okay to express your anger. I mean, even Jesus got angry. Look what he did when he chased the money changers out of the Temple in Jerusalem. It appears as though he flew into a rage, and drove them out with a whip of cords. In fact, that’s the very passage I read a moment ago from the gospel of John. I mean, if Jesus was allowed to have a temper tantrum, then why shouldn’t we be allowed as well?

I think there’s a difference between why Jesus got angry and why we typically get angry. Let’s take a look at what was really going on in the Temple in Jerusalem. The Passover of the Jews was at hand. Jewish pilgrims from all across the land would be making the trek to Jerusalem to offer their sacrifices in the Temple. They were required by Jewish law to sacrifice a cow, or a sheep or a dove…depending on their economic circumstances. Of course, you couldn’t travel all those miles and drag such an animal with you. No, you bought your sacrificial animal in the Temple courtyard. Unscrupulous businessmen were there with livestock in hand, which they sold at exorbitant prices. There were also what they called money changers in the Temple courtyard. The Temple tax – a lot like our per capita dues – was only allowed to be paid in Temple currency. In other words, if you were a Jewish person living in Rome – and you came to Jerusalem for the Passover – you could not pay your Temple tax in Roman currency. You had to have Temple currency. The money changers were there to make the exchange. The catch was that for ten dollars of Temple currency, it might cost you about a hundred dollars in Roman currency. Do you see the problem? Do you see why Jesus was so upset? These unscrupulous individuals…were making a profit at religion’s expense.

Jesus was upset about the fact that they were taking advantage of the humble people of God. His anger was aimed at protecting the powerless. That’s not where our anger is usually aimed, is it? Our anger is usually aimed at protecting ourselves, or our feelings, or a perceived violation of our rights. For us, anger typically protects the status quo of our egos. It’s far, far easier for us to get angry…than it is for us to trust that God will work things out.

Perhaps, of all things, the passage that Scott read a moment ago gives us some insight on how to deal with our anger. Let me set the scene for you. The Babylonians conquered Jerusalem in 587 B.C. A group of people from outside of Jerusalem – a group of people called the Edomites – delighted in the fall of Jerusalem. They encouraged the Babylonians to utterly destroy the city. What’s more, when persecuted Jews tried to sneak out of Jerusalem during the siege, Edomites actually captured them and sold them to the Babylonians as slaves. Now do you understand the Jews’ strong dislike for – and anger toward – the Edomites?

Listen to the last few verses of the 137^th Psalm. It reads, “Remember, O Lord, against the Edomites, the day of Jerusalem’s fall, how they said, ‘Tear it down! Tear it down!’ Happy shall be they who pay you back for what you have done to us! Happy shall be they who take your little ones and dash them against a rock!”

Happy shall be they who take your little ones and dash them against a rock? That doesn’t exactly sound very Christian, does it? But listen to this. The psalm does not say that THEY are going to dash Edomite children against a rock. The psalm simply says that if we have a just God who runs the world as he should, then God ought to even the score. The Jews have been the victims of injustice…and they want God to set things right.

Anger is a natural response to injustice in the world. Anger is an acknowledgement that the world is not the way it is meant to be. Yet that anger should be expressed in conversation with God. As the apostle Paul wrote in the book of Romans, “Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.” Vengeance, acting out our anger or even our righteous indignation, belongs to God, not us. In other words, our anger ought to be given to God as an offering when we come to that place in our lives where we are unable to fix that which afflicts us.

But there’s one more thing. Demitrius Hewlin was one of the boys who was killed in that awful school shooting in Chardon. Phyllis Ferguson was Demitrius Hewlin’s mother. In an interview with ABC News, she was asked what she would say to the shooter. She replied, “I would tell him that I forgive him…because, a lot of the time, people don’t know what they’re doing. That’s all I’d say.”

Anger is one of the seven deadly sins. The holy virtue that counteracts anger is forgiveness. Forgiveness prevents repercussions. It leaves the consequences in God’s hands. It keeps a person from reacting to the anger that seethes inside them, which clearly breaks the cycle of anger. You see, if Demetrius Hewlin’s mother lashed out, then someone else would lash out in return, then she would lash out again…It thus becomes a vicious and unholy cycle. Forgiveness breaks the cycle of anger.

A little more than ten years ago, our nation was devastated by the events of nine-eleven. Not long after that I preached a somewhat controversial sermon on forgiveness. I said something to the effect that we should forgive those who hurt us. Because if we retaliate we are likely to find our nation in a holy war that will not end. I received a couple of unsigned, nasty notes after that sermon. Someone clearly did not agree with me. To them forgiveness, in that situation, was incomprehensible.

Then I remember how swept up our nation was in the aftermath of Charles Carl Roberts’ killing of those five little Amish girls in Lancaster County. We were all amazed at how the Amish community forgave Charles Carl Roberts, and then invited his family into their circle of mourning. The Amish people forgave the killer of their children and it made national news.

You see, we believe in – and we admire – forgiveness. It’s when it touches a bit too close to home that we object. It’s when we are asked to forgive something ourselves that we become upset. Yet here’s the point. When we are wronged, and we lash out in anger, it only invites reprisal. When we are wronged, and we forgive, we give peace a chance. Give peace a chance. Amen.

02-26-2012 Sermon by The Rev. Dr. Brian K. Jensen

2012-02-27T08:58:00.001-08:00

THE SUPERFICIAL SAGA: PART III

Does anyone remember the name Vicki Van Meter? Vicki Van Meter was a sixth grader at East End Elementary School in Meadville, when she made national headlines in September of 1993. She flew an airplane from Augusta, Maine to San Diego, California…thereby becoming the youngest pilot ever to complete a solo flight across the United States. Nine months later she became the youngest pilot ever to complete a trans-Atlantic solo flight when she flew from Augusta, Maine to Glasgow, Scotland.

These achievements propelled Vicki Van Meter on a nationwide celebrity tour. She appeared on numerous television talk shows, including The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. She was a guest of Bill Clinton at the White House, and even had her picture on display at the Smithsonian. Vicki Van Meter was the toast of the town. She was a national celebrity. Yet she was vilified, ridiculed and tormented by many of her classmates at school. Vicki Van Meter ended up battling depression for much of her life, which ended all too soon. Why do you suppose that was?

Our former associate pastor, Travis Webster, had an interesting take on phenomena such as this. He called it, “crabs in a bucket.” I believe it was a South Carolina euphemism. When he first said that to me, I said, “What do you mean, crabs in a bucket?” He said it’s like this. Say you go out on the beach and you pick crabs and you put them in a bucket. What are those crabs trying to do? They’re trying to get out of the bucket, of course. And every once in a while one of those crabs manages to peek its head up over the rim of the bucket. What do the other crabs in the bucket do? They reach up…and they pull that headstrong crab back down to the bottom.

There you have it: crabs in a bucket. It was Travis Webster’s down-home way of describing the green-eyed monster we call jealousy, or envy. Envy can provoke people to do some pretty rotten things. Keep that thought in mind as we move on.

This is the third in a series of sermons entitled, The Superficial Saga. It’s a sermon series on the seven deadly sins. We poke a lot of fun at sin these days. Truth be told, I don’t think we take sin very seriously. Yet God takes sin seriously. In fact, God takes sin so seriously…that he sent his Son to die on a cross in order to overcome it. Sin is not a matter to be taken lightly, as though a person could saunter into God’s presence at any time, in any mood, with any sort of life behind them…and at once perceive God there. No, the sense of God’s reality is a progressive and often laborious achievement of the soul; the soul that takes sin seriously and earnestly tries to dispel it.

Last week we examined the sin of pride. There we determined that pride was a sin basically because Jesus said it was. The secret to overcoming pride is humility. We determined that the key to humility is to approach God not as the big, self-sufficient, self-reliant adults we pretend to be. Instead, we approach God as little children – frail, empty and dependent – needing a gracious and loving God in the worst possible way.

Today we tackle the second of the seven deadly sins; the sin of envy. What exactly is envy? Webster’s dictionary defines envy as a painful or resentful awareness of an advantage enjoyed by another, joined with a desire to possess the same advantage. I think the Oxford English dictionary’s definition is even better. It says that to possess envy is to be gripped with a feeling of mortification and ill will in thinking of another person’s life…when compared with your own.

In other words, envy causes us to seethe and to stew in resentment over the good fortune of another. From a theological standpoint this is to say that God made a mistake in creating us as we are; in giving us the gifts we have been given; and, by implication…in giving our neighbors the gifts that they have been given. Our envy is evidence that we were not created the way we wish we had been created. Thus, envy is evidence of our perception of certain mistakes we believe to have been made by our Creator.

Sins like lust and anger and gluttony have a warm-hearted, hot-blooded, all-too-human quality about them. Envy, on the other hand, is cold-blooded and cruel. Consider a first cousin of envy, what the Germans call Schadenfreude. Schadenfreude is defined as a perverse delight in the failure or misfortune of another. That’s why a philosophical friend of mine named Bob O’Shea has observed that you should never complain about your troubles in life. He says 90% of the people don’t care what’s going on in your life. The other 10% think you’ve got it coming!”

For example, weren’t some of us just a little bit pleased at the demise of Martha Stewart, a fabulously wealthy woman who kept her house just a little bit better than we keep ours? The taking of delight in another’s demise is Schadenfreude at its best. Ladies and gentlemen, enjoy the feast while you can. For one day we may wake up and realize that our celebration of Martha Stewart’s demise…just might reveal as much of our moral weakness as it does hers.

Jesus outlines his position on envy in the passage we read from the gospel according to Matthew. There we see that a landowner hired laborers to work in his vineyard. He agreed to pay them the usual day’s wages. For the sake of argument, let’s just say he agreed to pay them eight dollars an hour…not a bad wage for a laborer. Thus, those individuals toiling out in the hot sun all day would likely have brought home about ninety-six dollars. Chances are, they put in a good twelve-hour day.

Three hours later, he hired more laborers. Three hours later, he did it again. Then three hours after that, he did it one more time. And finally, two hours later, he hired the last of his laborers. For those of you doing the math at home, let’s get this straight. Some laborers worked twelve hours. Some worked nine hours, some worked six hours, some worked three hours…and some worked only one.

When it came time to settle up accounts at the end of the day, the laborers who only worked one hour got paid ninety-six dollars. It was the same way all down the line. Even the laborers who worked for twelve hours got ninety-six dollars. Let me tell you, they were not the least bit pleased. They grumbled against the landowner. But the landowner said, “Hey! I gave you what we agreed upon this morning. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous? So the last shall be first and the first shall be last.”

The lesson here is clear. God is the landowner…and we are the laborers. God bestows his gifts upon us and God is free to bestow them as he chooses. It remains for us to trust that God knows what he’s doing. It remains also for us to realize that there will always be Mozarts, and there will always be Salieris. There will always be someone just a little bit better than we are…no matter how hard we try.

When I was twelve years old, I was the third baseman for the best Little League baseball team in Sioux City, Iowa. I worked hard at baseball – probably harder than anyone else on the team – and I desperately longed to be the star. But there was a boy on the team by the name of Mike Courey who was just better than I was. Mike Courey ended up being a first team All-State short-stop in baseball, a first team All-State guard in basketball, and a first team All-State quarterback in football. Such a feat had never been accomplished in the history of Iowa sports. He received a full-ride college scholarship to Notre Dame. He backed up a guy his first two years of college by the name of Joe Montana. Perhaps you’ve heard of him. And by the time he was a senior, he was the starting quarterback for Notre Dame.

Some of the neighborhood kids – who we played against and beat – referred to us as a one-and-a-half-man team. I don’t suppose I have to tell you who the half-man they referred to was. Mike Courey was just better at baseball than I was, no matter how hard I worked. Like I said, there will always be Mozarts…and there will always be Salieris. We can envy those people all we want, yet some people just have the gift. They are just destined to be better than we are. God bestows his gifts upon us and God is free to bestow them as he chooses. It remains for us to trust that God knows what he is doing. How do we come to do that? I think Jesus sums it up when he says, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength and with all your mind. And you shall love your neighbor as you love yourself.” Therein lies the secret. It has to do with how we love our neighbors.

As the Eskimos have eleven different words for snow, the ancient Greeks had four different words for love. They are: eros, philos, storge and agape. Eros is passionate love, like that which might exist between a husband and a wife. Philos is the love of friendship, like that which might exist between best friends. Storge is the love of parenthood, like that which might exist between a mother and a daughter. Agape is often simply described as Christian love…and that is the love to which Jesus refers in the gospels. We are to love our neighbors with agape love.

Agape love is hard to define. So let me try to explain it as best I can. To love someone is to wish what’s best for them. Actually, I think that definition applies to all four kinds of love. To love someone…is to wish what’s best for them. And when we do that, the green-eyed monster goes out the window. We let the more adventurous crabs…climb right out of the bucket.

So you see, to love someone is – at least in part – a conscious choice. It is the conscious choice to wish what’s best for them – not for us – but what’s best for them. Try it some time. Take the time to intentionally wish what’s best for someone else. And in the process, you just might find what’s best for you as well. Amen.

02-19-2012 Sermon by The Rev. Dr. Brian K. Jensen

2012-02-21T08:07:00.000-08:00

THE SUPERFICIAL SAGA: PART II

I served the First Presbyterian Church of Luverne, Minnesota from April of 1991 until July of 1996. There were a number of farmers in my congregation and occasionally they would come to me to ask me to pray about the weather. Farmers tend to be a rather faithful lot. You have to be faithful when your livelihood is dependent upon something as precarious as the weather. In any case, occasionally a farmer would come to me to ask me to pray about the weather.

One Sunday morning, a farmer stopped me before worship and asked me if I’d pray for rain. I asked him when he wanted the rain. He said, “Tomorrow would be nice.” I said, “I’ll tell you what. I’ve got a softball game tomorrow. How would it be if we prayed for rain on Tuesday?” He said that would be fine. We prayed for rain during the worship service that morning…and on Tuesday morning, it began to rain.

Another Sunday morning, a farmer stopped me before worship and asked me if I’d pray for some sunshine. I said, “What, exactly, do you need?” He said, “How about eighty-five degrees and sunny by Wednesday? And a little wind to dry up the fields would be nice.” We prayed for that in church and what do you suppose happened? On Wednesday it was 85 degrees and sunny, and it was windy to boot. Of course, it’s always windy in Minnesota, but that’s beside the point.

As you might suspect, I began to get a little cocky. What was that line Janice read from the book of Proverbs? “Pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall?” Trust me. I was about to get my comeuppance.

Not long after my perceived success at impacting the weather, I was helping to lead a mission trip to New Hampshire. The youth director and I and twenty-one teenagers were camped in tents in upstate New York, right beside Lake Ontario. That evening there were ominous clouds out on Lake Ontario, and our youth director said that I’d better do something about it. I said, “No problem. I’ve got it covered.” After all, I had God on my side. I had prayer power over the weather …or so I thought.

That night at about 4:00 in the morning, we were hit with just about the worst electrical storm I’ve ever seen. Our tents flooded and we were forced to sleep in the van. The youth director said to me, “I thought you said you had it covered!” God taught me a very valuable lesson that night. The lesson is this: God is God and I am not. Oh, there is power in community prayer when there is a true need…but that power has absolutely nothing to do with me. We often shorten Proverbs 16:18 into five simple words. We say, “Pride goeth before a fall,” and that’s the truth. When we strut out to the end of the stage and place all the focus and the glory upon ourselves, we are wont to topple off the end of the stage…and fall, flat on our faces. I speak from first-hand experience. Keep that thought in mind as we move on.

This is the second in a series of sermons entitled, The Superficial Saga. It’s a sermon series on the seven deadly sins. We poke a lot of fun at sin these days. Truth be told, I don’t think we take sin very seriously. Yet God takes sin seriously. In fact, God takes sin so seriously…that he sent his Son to die on a cross in order to overcome it. Sin is not a matter to be taken lightly, as though a person could saunter into God’s presence at any time, in any mood, with any sort of life behind them…and at once perceive God there. No, the sense of God’s reality is a progressive and often laborious achievement of the soul…a soul that takes sin seriously and earnestly tries to dispel it.

Like I said, The Superficial Saga is a sermon series on the seven deadly sins. The seven deadly sins are as follows: pride, envy, wrath, sloth, greed, gluttony, and lust. Yet along with the seven deadly sins there are what we call the seven holy virtues or the seven cardinal virtues. The seven holy virtues are meant to counteract the seven deadly sins. For example, the opposite of pride is humility. The opposite of envy is kindness. The opposite of wrath is forgiveness. The opposite of sloth is diligence. The opposite of greed is charity. The opposite of gluttony is temperance and the opposite of lust is chastity…or purity. You see, the way to conquer sin…is to replace it with something better.

Today, we’ll be looking at the sin of pride. In The Parson’s Tale in The Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer refers to the seven deadly sins at length. He compares them to a tree whose branches produce twigs that stick out in many different directions. Yet at the root of the tree is pride. C.S. Lewis dedicates an entire chapter to the topic of pride in his book, Mere Christianity. There Lewis writes:

According to Christian teachers the essential vice, the utmost evil, is Pride. Unchastity, anger, greed, drunkenness, and all that, are mere fleabites in comparison. It was through Pride that the devil became the devil. Pride leads to every other vice. It is the complete anti-God state of mind.

That’s pretty harsh, don’t you think? After all, pride – considered in itself – can be a most attractive virtue. As parents, don’t we try to instill a sense of pride or self-worth in our children? My wife and I have two boys, and they could not be more opposite. For example, our oldest boy could be in a baseball game playing shortstop. He could boot four ground balls in a row, yet still he would come off the field believing that he was the best player on the field. Our youngest son could play in a baseball game as well. He could go four-for-four at the plate, with two doubles, two home runs, and ten runs batted in. Then he boots one ground ball and he comes off the field saying, “I’m no good!” My quandary was always to lower the pride level in the one and to build it back up in the other.

To be sure, too much pride is called “arrogance.” But perhaps there is also a beneficial side to pride. Pride can give us a sense of achievement, a desire for excellence, and an aspiration to do the best we can in all that we do. Surely those are not bad things, are they?

Pride is unique among the seven deadly sins in that it has undergone something of a transformation in recent years. It is not an overstatement to say that pride has moved from being the chief of the seven deadly sins – the root of all evil – to being the root of all virtue. We see it now as a positive good to be carefully practiced and lovingly nurtured. Pride has been rehabilitated from being a vice to be avoided…to being a virtue to be cultivated. How often do we hear the words proclaimed these days: Black Pride, Gay Pride, Pride of Workmanship, and so on?

Perhaps the great sin in our minds today is not pride, but rather, the great sin in our minds today is low self-image. Somehow pride and all of its cousins – arrogance, egotism, vanity, and conceit – got trumped by self-respect, self-esteem, self-confidence, and the like. As a philosopher named Adam Smith once said, “Take away pride…and you have a society of lethargic, slovenly creatures who are content to live in the mud.” To him, pride is a good thing. Greed is a good thing. Envy is a good thing. And we thus live in a world that could produce a Donald Trump.

To tell you the truth, I can’t think of much that’s wrong with a healthy sense of pride except for this one important thing: Jesus was against it. Only a faith that believes that Jesus Christ was the full revelation of God would consider pride to be a sin. When we take too much credit for our lives and for our achievements – and when we come to look at our lives as the product of our own striving, rather than as a gift from God – then we are moving close to an idolatry in which the creature refuses to give due to the Creator.

Arrogance, conceit and vanity are just some of the sins that stem from the sin of pride. Self- respect is one thing. Self-infatuation is another. Self-infatuation keeps us centered on ourselves and forever separate from the real world. The secret to overcoming pride and self-infatuation is humility. In fact, that is exactly what Jesus was getting at in the passage we read from the gospel according to Luke.

Jesus tells a story about two men who went up to the Temple to pray. One of the men was a Pharisee, while the other man was a tax collector. The Pharisees, of course, were an exclusive sect of the Jewish faith 2000 years ago. This particular Pharisee was a very righteous man. He worshiped God in the Temple, he gave God 10% of his income, and he dutifully obeyed Jewish law. Thus, the people listening to Jesus’ story would have seen him as the hero. The tax collector, on the other hand, was not a righteous man. The people listening to Jesus’ story would have seen him as the villain.

Tax collectors in Jesus’ day were actually thought to be traitors. They were ordinary citizens who had the good fortune – or the bad fortune, depending on how you look at it – to have been appointed by the Roman government to assess and collect taxes. They were notorious for their dishonesty. They frequently overcharged the Jewish citizenry, obtaining great wealth for themselves and earning the disdain of the general populace. Because the Pharisees hated tax collectors, they thought Jesus should hate them too. Thus, in the parable Jesus tells, we have a clear-cut case of good versus evil – the good and faithful Pharisee versus the evil and traitorous tax collector.

The Pharisee was quick to make distinctions. He actually said in his prayer, “God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers…or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of all my income.” The Pharisee sees the tax collector as less than human. In making this distinction between himself and the tax collector, he is arrogant in his assertion that he is not like him.

I think of a wonderful line from Jonathan Swift, who is perhaps best known to us as the author of Gulliver’s Travels. He once said, “We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another.” We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another. Perhaps that was the Pharisee’s problem as well.

The tax collector, however, was in the Temple to pray as well. His prayer was a little bit different than the prayer of the Pharisee. He stood far off – he could not even bring himself to look toward heaven – he beat his breast and he cried, “God be merciful to me, a sinner!”

Now remember, this is a parable. A parable of Jesus always has a twist and a central truth. The twist of the parable is this. Jesus says, “The tax collector went down to his home justified, rather than the other.” Jesus’ audience would have been shocked. It was not the happy ending they expected.

The question we’ve got to ask ourselves is this: “Why?” Why was the tax collector justified in the eyes of God while the Pharisee was not? I believe Jesus gives us the answer to this question at the end of the parable. He says, “All who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves…will be exalted.” That’s Jesus’ way of saying, “Pride goeth before a fall.” The secret to justification – the secret to peace with God – is humility.

Well what, exactly, is humility? Does it have to do with keeping your eyes to the ground and seeing yourself as a nobody? Does it have to do with self-deprecation? I don’t think it does. One can have a healthy sense of self-esteem and still be a humble person. Let’s look again to the writing of C.S. Lewis in, Mere Christianity. Regarding humility, he writes:

Do not imagine that if you meet a really humble man he will be what most people call humble nowadays. He will not be a sort of greasy, smarmy person who is always telling you that, of course, he is a nobody. Probably all you will think about him is that he seemed a cheerful, intelligent chap who took a real interest in what you said to him. If you do dislike him, it will be because you feel a little envious of anyone who seems to enjoy life so easily. He will not be thinking about humility. In fact, he will not be thinking about himself at all.

In other words, a humble person is a person who thinks of someone besides themselves. A humble person is a person who puts you ahead of him or herself. A humble person places others above himself because he has learned to see others as precious children of God as well. This is the kind of person who will be exalted, as Jesus says, because this is the kind of person who comes nearest to the heart of God. Think of the truly humble people you have known in your lifetime. They do seem strangely “Godly,” do they not?

How do we get there? I think of how we do the sacrament of baptism in this church. Typically, a mom and a dad bring a child to the baptismal font. After the parents answer a few questions, I take that child and baptize him or her. Then I present that child to you, as you sing, “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.” The child, ideally, looks at you and beams. And the child does nothing in the baptismal service…except humbly and graciously receive.

When it comes to approaching God, this is who we are. We are not the big, self-sufficient and self-reliant adults we pretend to be. We are little children – frail, empty, and dependent – needing a gracious and loving God in the worst possible way. You see, you can’t get into God’s kingdom if you are all grown up, and big, and important. You can only come in through a very small window…as a dependent and empty child.

To overcome pride, one must first encounter humility. To encounter humility is to see oneself as one really is. And to see oneself as one really is…is to see others in the world as being in the same boat in which we find ourselves. We all need God. We all need God in the worst possible way. And perhaps we need him now, more than ever. Humility…is the first step to finding him. Amen.

02-12-2012 Sermon by The Rev. Dr. Brian K. Jensen

2012-02-13T08:39:00.001-08:00

THE SUPERFICIAL SAGA: PART I

My wife had this dream not long ago in which she and I were killed in an automobile accident. Naturally, we went to heaven and we were met at the Pearly Gates by none other than Saint Peter himself. Peter said to us, “Heaven is not what you think it is. In heaven you are actually chained to another person based upon the life you lived on earth.”

The next thing she knew she was chained to a 400-pound man. He was toothless and hideous and mean. He looked an awful lot like Shrek…that’s Shrek from the Disney movies, not Frank Schreck from the Crawford Central school board. In any case, she was mortified. She said to Saint Peter, “Why am I chained to this hideous man?” To which Peter replied, “Leslie, you had sin in your life. Your punishment is to be chained to this ogre for all eternity.”

Crestfallen, she began to look around for me. Much to her surprise, she saw me chained to none other than Marilyn Monroe. She cried out to Saint Peter, “Why am I chained to this hideous man while my husband is chained to Marilyn Monroe?” To which Saint Peter replied, “Marilyn Monroe had sin in her life…”

We poke a lot of fun at sin these days. Truth be told, I don’t think we take sin very seriously. Yet God takes sin seriously. In fact, God takes sin so seriously that he sent his son to die on a cross in order to overcome it. Sin is not a matter to be taken lightly: as though a person could saunter into God’s presence at any time, in any mood, with any sort of life behind them and at once perceive God there. No, the sense of God’s reality is a progressive and often laborious achievement of the soul…a soul that takes sin seriously and earnestly tries to dispel it.

We are fast approaching the season of Lent. The church has traditionally seen the season of Lent as a time of repentance and fasting. In other words, in the season of Lent we are called to turn away from our sin and to focus on Jesus Christ. Such is the soul that takes sin seriously and earnestly tries to dispel it.

Now Lent doesn’t actually begin for two more weeks. Thus, you may be wondering why I’m beginning a Lenten series of sermons so early. The answer is twofold. First, this sermon series consists of eight sermons. Since Lent is only six weeks long I have to start a little early. Second, I didn’t want to spend Easter Sunday talking about sin. I’d rather talk about the resurrection on Easter Sunday. Thus, today we begin a sermon series on sin that a friend of mine suggested I call The Superficial Saga.

Once upon a time, there was One who came to us. He touched the untouchables, he turned his back on the bright baubles of the world, he loved us all the way to the cross…and he never turned his eyes away from God. And we hated him for it. He came to us with arms wide open in gracious invitation, seeking us…patient with us and hotly pursuing us at the very same time. And in the process, he brought out the very worst in us.

We figured that things between us and God were not really all that bad. But when he spoke to us of God and of ourselves, and rubbed our noses in the filthy rags of our self-righteousness, we had to do something about it. He called upon us to attempt great moral feats, then he watched as we fell flat on our faces. He invited us to sign on as his disciples, but then he set the demands for discipleship so high that when it came time to stand up and be counted, we fled…slithering into the darkness. He said, “Follow me, and take my yoke upon you.” And we, with one voice, cried, “Crucify him!” No one wants to see themselves as sinners.

A recent television documentary entitled, “The Changing Face of Worship,” took us into dozens of growing, innovative, “postmodern” churches. Sunday mornings at many of these churches was upbeat, energetic and shallow. It was just what you might expect from a well-furnished, modern, seeker-sensitive church. Yet one young pastor on the West Coast, the leader of a growing, mostly young adult congregation, was asked to explain why so many people flocked to his church. He said, “Too few young adults have had anyone look them in the face and say to them – with a sense of concern and compassion – ‘You really stink.’”

I’m not going to say that you stink in this series of sermons. But we are going to look at the truth. As Dr. Phil once put it, trying to explain his remarkable success, “People are ready to be told the truth about themselves, even when it hurts…because they know that without getting the truth, they won’t get life.” Yet perhaps 19^th century Russian physicist Anton Chekov put it best. He once wrote, “Man will only become better when you make him see himself as he really is.”

Who really are we, then? We are sinners…each and every one of us. As C.S. Lewis once said, “We are half-hearted creatures, fooling around with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered to us; like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at sea. We are far too easily pleased.”

Perhaps the place to begin is to explore just exactly what sin is. Humanity was created in the image of God for fellowship with God. Yet humanity fell from its destiny, as we saw in the passage Howie read earlier from the book of Genesis. Adam and Eve are persuaded to defy the command of God by a twofold argument. First, the word of God is questioned. The serpent says to Eve that if she eats of the forbidden fruit she will not die. Second, the serpent argues that if they do eat of it, their eyes will be opened and they will be like God.

Christian theology sees here the basis of sin as unbelief and pride. Humanity’s sin begins when it doubts God’s word, and culminates in its attempt to make itself like God. Yet the ultimate irony of humanity’s revolt against God is that it begins by declaring its freedom from God…and it ends by falling into servitude to a variety of idols of its own creation.

Allow me to simplify. Sin is defined as separation from God. The way I like to describe it is this. Obedience to God draws us closer to God. Sin is nothing more than turning our gaze in the wrong direction. So if that lectern over there is God, my obedience draws me closer to it. Sin is turning one’s gaze in the wrong direction. So what does my sin accomplish? All it does is lead me away from God. Sin…is separation from God.

Here we come to a closer understanding of what makes sin sin for Christians. For those of us who are trying to take Jesus seriously, sin is not a foible or a slipup. It is an offense and a rebellion against our Creator. Sin is that which separates us from a just and holy God. Jesus makes the rather astounding claim that, when it comes to sin, it’s the thought that counts. Sin carries with it its own punishment. It erodes the soul. It severs the intended relationship between Creator and created.

Eleventh century theologian Thomas Aquinas noted that the problem is that people never seem to see evil as evil. People are conditioned to seek that which they perceive to be good; that which adds to the joy of life; and to avoid that which they believe to be evil. Therefore, if someone pursues some harmful course of action, it is because of a failure to perceive it as wrong. He believed that our sin is mostly a matter of a failure to know what’s good for us. In other words, in the mind of Thomas Aquinas, sin is more often a failure of the intellect than it is a failure of willpower. Some would top that statement off by saying that biblical illiteracy is the scourge of our age.

The Superficial Saga is a sermon series on what we call the seven deadly sins. The seven deadly sins were first known as the seven mortal sins. Perhaps the word “mortal” sounds less lethal than the word “deadly,” but the result is essentially the same. And why seven deadly sins as opposed to, say, six or eight? Well, seven is kind of a sign of biblical perfection. Seven is the number of days in a week, there are the Seven Last Words of Christ, Seven Gifts of the Spirit in the book of Isaiah, Seven Hills of Rome, and…Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. Make of it what you will.

The seven deadly sins are as follows: pride, envy, wrath, sloth, greed, gluttony and lust. We will look at each in turn. Yet perhaps most importantly, we will note that along with the seven deadly sins are the seven holy virtues. The seven holy virtues are meant to counteract the seven deadly sins. For example, the opposite of pride is humility. The opposite of envy is kindness. The opposite of wrath is forgiveness. The opposite of sloth is diligence. The opposite of greed is charity. The opposite of gluttony is temperance, and the opposite of lust is chastity, or purity. You see, the way to conquer evil is to replace it with something better.

Of course, that tends to run against the grain of human nature. The great fourth century theologian Augustine described our penchant for sin in his epic treatise, entitled, Confessions. He talks about stealing some pears as a boy. By this time in the account of his life, Augustine has fathered a child out of wedlock and hinted at many other youthful indiscretions. Yet when he comes to describe the prime example of his deep perversity, of his own sinful nature, he gives as evidence an episode of stealing a few pears as a boy.

Augustine and some of his friends stole a few pears from a neighbor’s tree. They stole not because they were hungry or because they needed the pears in any way. They stole the pears, as he put it in Latin, eo liberet quo non liceret. It means literally, “that which is not permitted allured us.” In modern day vernacular we might say they stole the pears just for the heck of it. Ah, the important thing to Augustine was not the transgression, for that was relatively minor. The real problem here…is the inclination – or the desire – to sin. Perhaps the way to conquer evil then is to replace the desire with something better.

Along those lines, I think of something Harry Emerson Fosdick once wrote in a book entitled, The Manhood of the Master. He wrote:

Only by a stronger passion can evil passions be expelled, and a soul unoccupied by a positive devotion is sure to be occupied by spiritual demons. The safety of the Master in the presence of temptation lay in his complete and positive devotion to his mission: there was no unoccupied room in his soul where evil could find a home…for he knew what Dr. Chalmers called, “The expulsive power of a new affection.”

When Ulysses passed the Isle of Sirens, he had himself tied to the mast and had his ears stopped up with wax that he might not hear the sirens singing; a picture of many a man’s attempts after negative goodness. But when Orpheus passed the Isle of Sirens he sat on the deck, indifferent, for he too was a musician…and could make melody so much more beautiful than the sirens that their alluring songs were to him discords. Such is the Master’s life of positive goodness – so full, so glad, so triumphant – that it conquered sin by surpassing it. Have you such a saving positiveness of loyal devotion in your life?

The secret to facing the seven deadly sins is to possess the expulsive power of a new affection. One can only conquer sin…by surpassing it. Remember that as we embark upon our superficial saga. Amen.

02-05-2012 Sermon by The Rev. Dr. Brian K. Jensen

2012-02-06T11:06:00.001-08:00

ON EAGLE’S WINGS

The passage I just read from the book of Isaiah ends on a real high note, does it not? It says, “Those who wait upon the Lord shall mount up with wings like eagles. They shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.” Who doesn’t love the idea of soaring above the muck and the mire as the eagle does, looking down on creation below? Who doesn’t love the image of rising above the problems we encounter in life, as if we were resting on eagle’s wings? Yet before we explore life from an eagle’s perspective, I believe the prophet Isaiah invites us to explore life from a grasshopper’s perspective first.

Consider verse 22 in the passage I read from Isaiah. Speaking of God, Isaiah writes, “It is he who sits above the circle of the earth…and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers.” Its inhabitants are like grasshoppers? In other words, Isaiah is saying that compared to God, humans are more like grasshoppers than they are like eagles. How does that make you feel?

I’ve never been too fond of grasshoppers myself. Some of my cousins grew up on farms in Iowa. I can remember wandering through fields of corn or soy beans as a child and being completely engulfed by swarms of grasshoppers. And have you ever had a grasshopper land on the bare skin of your arm or leg? It’s an eerie feeling you don’t soon forget.

As they were to the ancient Egyptians, they were to the Iowa farmer, as well: a plague. Grasshoppers could devastate a field of corn or a field of soy beans and ruin a farmer’s income for the year. Unfortunately, they never seemed to bother the rhubarb. Thus, I was still forced to endure rhubarb pie or rhubarb crisp or rhubarb...you name it. I do not agree with Garrison Keillor when he says in his Prairie Home Companion sketches that rhubarb is a part of the good life.

Grasshoppers have traditionally gotten a bad rap in literature over the years as well. In Aesop’s Fables, the grasshopper is the lazy one who takes it easy all summer long, making fun of the ant who is busy storing up food for the winter. Then, come wintertime, who’s pounding at the door of the ant looking for food? The grasshopper! As I understand it, this then carries over into a movie called, “A Bug’s Life,” where the grasshoppers torment the ants like a street gang. And this is that to which Isaiah compares us? Not very flattering, is it?

Yet grasshoppers do have some positive attributes. They do have wings. While they may not be able to soar like an eagle, they can jump to a height of about twenty times their body length. For a human being, such a feat would be akin to jumping about 120 feet in the air. Imagine how much money the NBA would pay for an athlete who could do that! What’s more, grasshoppers are among the most successful insects on earth. They come in roughly 11,000 different species. Apparently the brighter colored grasshoppers warn birds that they are not good to eat, although my grandfather once said that they were good dipped in chocolate. I think he was kidding.

But here’s the most amazing thing of all. Grasshoppers have five eyes. They have two compound eyes and they have three simple eyes. Part of their adaptability and survival comes from their ability to see everything around them in a great panorama. Perhaps there’s a lesson in this for us as well. Perhaps we need to learn to see not just what’s happening all around us, but what the things that are happening all around us really mean.

If we see only the next blade of grass in front of us, we will not grow or thrive. As long as we remain deeply embedded in the grass, content to look only in front of us, we will quickly become mired in minutia. We will become easily annoyed by the attitudes and behaviors of others. We will forever be caught up in our own selfish struggles. And we will never be able to look beyond what is happening right in front of us…to how God intends to redeem that which is happening.

When I read Isaiah, I hear him saying to us, “Look, grasshopper. Look around you at what’s happening in the world. Behind it all is your Creator, who has the power to redeem creation.” A part of faith is the capacity to look at the vast expanse of the world with a sense of awe and wonder and possibility. Seeing things with the eyes of amazement, and seeing ourselves in the context of being a part of what God is doing to redeem creation…enables us to mount up with wings like eagles. Thus, may we learn to live with an eagle’s wings and a grasshopper’s eyes.

What was the context for Isaiah’s challenging words? Isaiah was prophesying to the Hebrew people during a very difficult time in their history. The Babylonian army, having defeated the Assyrian army that had threatened Jerusalem for so long, invaded the country and destroyed Jerusalem in 587 B.C. Jerusalem’s king, a man named Zedekiah, tried to escape. He was subsequently captured and forced to watch the execution of his sons, and then his eyes were poked out. The execution of his sons was the last thing he ever saw. People could be quite cruel in those days.

The so-called “movers and shakers” of Jerusalem were deported to the city of Babylon. The only people who were allowed to stay in Jerusalem were the poorest of the poor. The deported Hebrew people were not slaves in Babylon. In fact, some of them even prospered. And what they saw in Babylon was eye-opening indeed. Let me try to show you the way the Hebrew people might have seen things by painting a picture that I actually presented to you in a sermon last year.

Imagine you were born and raised in Meadville. Never in your life did you venture outside of Meadville, and Meadville was all you knew. You’d be proud of that gleaming college up on the hill. You’d believe that there could be no finer football venue than Barco-Duratz field. And you would know in your heart that the sanctuary of the First Presbyterian Church of Meadville is the most beautiful and glorious and sacred place imaginable.

Then Meadville gets overrun by Pittsburghers…kind of like Conneaut Lake in the summer. Sadly, you find yourself deported to Pittsburgh. There you come to realize that Meadville was not quite all you thought it was. You see the fabulous skyscrapers that dot the Pittsburgh skyline. You sit in Heinz Field and watch the Steelers play. You worship in churches that are literally twice the size of the First Presbyterian Church of Meadville. You come to realize that your previous world view was really rather limited. And then you start to wonder about some of the other things in life you had always believed to be true.

Such was the case with the Hebrew people who were deported from Jerusalem to Babylon. The glorious city they now inhabited made Jerusalem pale by comparison. It was then that they started to wonder about some of the other things in life they had always believed to be true. For example, could it be that their God was not as powerful as they had once believed him to be? The Babylonian god Marduk appeared to have defeated their God quite soundly. The life of faith, it seemed, was an exquisite but fragile flower that had been crushed by Babylonian boots. As far as they were concerned, their God had either failed them or abandoned them. A great many of the Hebrew people then signed on with Marduk – and the unrivaled prosperity and unbridled militarism – of Babylon. They bound themselves to the Babylonian culture, and their faith in God began to wane.

These are the people Isaiah is trying to address. Truth be told, they’re having a real hard time seeing beyond what’s right in front of them. They’re having a real hard time seeing why God would need to redeem a world such as theirs. They’re seeing that they’ve got it pretty darn good right now. Why on earth would they want things to change?

Can we blame them? Like them, we want quick and easy solutions. Why, these days we’ve come to expect life’s greatest mysteries to be resolved in the course of a thirty-minute sitcom or a sixty-minute drama or a two hour movie. What’s more, we’re most concerned with how things affect us directly. “Never mind the greater good,” we say. “What’s in it for me?”

Isaiah calls upon his people to remember. He calls upon them to remember the faith they were taught when they were young. He reminds them that God created the heavens and the earth. He points out that the inhabitants of the world are like grasshoppers before God. But perhaps most important of all, he reminds them that God gives power to the faint, and strengthens the powerless. In other words, God has not forgotten or forsaken you. And what’s important to you is also important to God. God wants what’s best for you. Did you catch that? What’s important to you is also important to God. God wants what’s best for you.

The unfortunate thing for us here is this: God’s greatest gifts tend to emerge from great personal travail. Write that down. God’s greatest gifts tend to emerge from great personal travail. Case in point, the gift of a child. Now I’ve never had a baby, but I understand it can be quite painful. Yet after a while, I suspect, people tend to forget how painful an ordeal it really was. Otherwise no one would ever have more than one child. Ladies and gentlemen, I’m here to tell you that great spiritual awakenings are much the same. The greatest spiritual awakenings tend to emerge from great personal travail as well.

For example, I have recently had a great spiritual awakening that emerged from great personal travail. I feel as if I have failed in a couple of pastoral care issues. When a minister fails in a pastoral care issue, people can be hurt very badly. And any minister who’s worth his salt agonizes very deeply about that. It hurts us deep in our souls. None of us get into the business of ministry to hurt people. And when we do, inadvertent or not, it literally tears us up inside.

I’ve done a lot of thinking and praying about this. It struck me that in the Presbyterian Church we call the minister of a large church the Pastor/Head of Staff. Most of us tend to emphasize the Head of Staff part because there are others on staff who are called to address pastoral care. Thus, we end up spending the bulk of our time trying to run an institution. Yet in light of the agony I have felt over a couple of pastoral care issues, my great spiritual awakening is that I am going to dedicate myself anew to the Pastor part of my job.

And listen to this. A couple of women in this church were also aware of what happened. They were quick to point out that such things have been happening in this church – and other large churches, I’m sure – for 50 years or more. They came to me to work with me to devise a better system of communication in the church as a whole. That way, there will be fewer oversights. More specifically, there will be fewer pastoral oversights.

The greatest spiritual awakenings tend to emerge from great personal travail. If you find yourself suffering from some great personal travail, put on the eyes of a grasshopper. If we see only the next blade of grass in front of us, we will not grow or thrive. As long as we remain deeply embedded in the grass, content to look only in front of us, we will quickly become mired in minutia.

A part of faith is the capacity to look at the vast expanse of the world with a sense of awe and wonder and possibility. Seeing things with the eyes of amazement, and seeing ourselves in the context of being a part of what God is doing to redeem creation…enables us to soar on eagle’s wings. Amen.

12-18-2011 Sermon by The Rev. Dr. Brian K. Jensen

2011-12-28T12:32:00.000-08:00

ONE MORE THING

Several years ago, our oldest son, Rob, took the SAT and the ACT tests before he went off to college. The scores he achieved were higher than the scores my wife or I achieved when we were in high school. Upon learning that fact, Rob boldly pronounced himself to be the smartest member of the family…much to the chagrin of his younger brother and sister.

Not long after that, we all went to visit my wife’s family in Iowa. The day we returned to Meadville, we were packing all our suitcases in the back of my truck. Now we knew they fit because I’d managed to squeeze them all in the back of the truck on the way out. In any case, Rob took charge of the packing. Yet somehow, he couldn’t seem to make them all fit. Finally, our daughter Mariah said, “Dad, will you please come pack the suitcases? The smartest member of the family can’t seem to figure it out.” She’s always been very good at biting sarcasm.

That story is actually indicative of the recent data on Intelligence Quotients and Creativity Quotients. Researchers at Duke University examined IQ tests of 1.7 million fifth, sixth, and seventh graders between 1981 and 2010. What they discovered is that IQs have increased by an average of three points per decade. Thus, theoretically, the current generation should have IQs that are about 20 points higher than their grandparents. That explains why Rob had higher test scores that my wife and I, I suppose.

On the other hand, The Torrance Test of Creative Thinking indicates that the creative ability of American children has been trending downward over the last 20 years. This test examines a child’s ability to come up with original ideas and put them into practice. Call it a CQ, or, Creativity Quotient. Perhaps that explains why Rob couldn’t seem to figure out how to pack the luggage in the back of the truck.

The data seems to indicate that while Americans are growing smarter, they’re becoming less creative. IQ test scores are up while CQ test scores are down. The question I have for you now is: “How are our SQ test scores doing?” If IQ stands for Intelligence Quotient and CQ stands for Creativity Quotient…then SQ stands for Spiritual Quotient. It’s a term I thought I made up for this sermon, but when I looked it up, I found that there actually is such a thing. Yet the typical SQ test has little or nothing to do with Christianity. They advertize palm reading on those websites, for crying out loud.

Thus, allow me give you my own unsubstantiated theory. One’s Spiritual Quotient tends to be inversely proportional to one’s worldly savvy. In other words, the more one seems to be in tune with the ways of the world, the less one tends to be in tune with the ways of God.

I think a man named Graham Standish would agree with my theory. Graham Standish is an adjunct professor at the Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, and is a contributing author to an organization called The Alban Institute. In a recent article addressing the decline of the mainline church, Standish wrote:

Many denominations, churches, pastors, and members have become mired in a series of worthless arguments in their attempts to diagnose why mainline denominations and churches are in decline. Too many in the mainline church think the problem has to do with theological position, style of worship or the availability of programs. So they say the decline is the result of churches being too liberal or too conservative, or the decline is due to our worship being too traditional. They say we don’t meet enough of people’s needs and we need to offer more programs.

Ladies and gentlemen, such conclusions are the result of burgeoning Intelligence Quotients and declining Spiritual Quotients. In other words, we truly believe we can figure things out for ourselves. Who needs God when we’re as smart as we are these days? Graham Standish calls this belief rational functionalism. What is rational functionalism? Rational functionalism is the belief that we can uncover all the mysteries of God and life through rational thought and disciplined investigation. Rational functionalism ignores the possibility of spiritual experiences and miraculous events. Rational functionalism actually has very little use for God. And therein lies the problem.

Consider Mary in the passage we read from the gospel according to Luke. The angel Gabriel appears to Mary and says to her, “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.” Then in verse 29, Luke adds, “She was much perplexed by his words…and pondered in her heart what sort of greeting this might be.” Perhaps a better description of Mary’s response would be this: “She was terrified beyond measure, and trembled at the sight of an angel in her room.”

In any case, the angel Gabriel describes what’s about to happen to her. She will conceive and bear a child, and that child will be called the Son of God. Not having a husband, Mary wonders how this will be. Gabriel tells her that the Holy Spirit of God will overshadow her. Then he even tells her how her kinswoman, Elizabeth, is about to bear a son as well. Gabriel concludes by saying, “For nothing will be impossible with God.” To which Mary then replies, “Let it be with me according to your word.”

Let it be with me according to your word. No more profound words have ever been spoken. I think of that famous line from Miracle on 34^th Street: “Faith is believing when common sense tells you not to.” Mary simply says, “Let it be with me according to your word.”

Ladies and gentlemen, that’s my job in a nutshell. Every single sermon I preach is basically aimed at increasing faith. Every single sermon I preach is aimed at getting you to say to God, “Let it be with me according to your word.” It’s the exact opposite of rational functionalism. And it will greatly enhance your Spiritual Quotient.

You see, I don’t think faith in Jesus Christ is just meant to get us into heaven when we die. I truly believe that faith in Jesus Christ can solve all the world’s problems. How different the world would be if everyone loved their neighbors as they love themselves. How different the world would be if people would only say, “Let it be with me according to your word.” We should leave room for spiritual experiences. We should leave room for miracles. We should leave room for God to speak and move and act by way of the Holy Spirit.

Perhaps the question now is, “How do we leave that room?” How do we leave room for God to speak and move and act? Abraham Heschel addresses that issue in his book, God in Search of Man. Listen to what he has to say:

To sense the presence of God, one must learn to be present to God. Presence is not a concept, but a situation. To understand love, it is not enough to read tales about it. One must be involved in love to understand love. One must be inspired to understand inspiration. Just as we cannot test thinking without thinking, we cannot sense holiness without being holy. Presence is not disclosed to those who are unattached.

“We cannot sense holiness without being holy,” and “Presence is not disclosed to those who are unattached.” Holiness and attachment: those seem like worthwhile goals for us, do they not? Perhaps the question now is, “How do we find them?”

That’s what we were attempting to do in the sermon series, The Seven Covenants of a Disciple of Jesus Christ. I began the first sermon by making the case that Christ’s Great Commission, as recorded in the gospel of Matthew, is the reason for the church’s existence in the first place. The church is called to make disciples. Yet it the church is ever going to make disciples, the people who habituate the church…must first become disciples themselves. That’s what the seven covenants of a disciple of Jesus Christ were all about.

The seven covenants of a disciple of Jesus Christ are as follows: worship regularly, pray daily, study diligently, live faithfully, serve joyously, give generously…and witness boldly. The first sermon delved a little more deeply into the first covenant: worship regularly. We said in essence that it was Jesus’ custom to worship, and it should be ours, as well. Yet we should come to worship expecting God to speak, to move, and to act. That’s what keeps our faith from being a mile wide and an inch deep.

Then we examined the second covenant: pray daily. There we saw that we are called to share our hurts, our sorrows, and our joys with God. God listens to us in compassion and love…much like we do when our children come to us. And when we do that what we discover is that by praying, we learn how to pray.

Then we examined the third covenant: study diligently. We learned that God is responsible for the Scriptures in a revelatory way, not just in an informational way. The Bible is how God reveals God’s self to us. It’s something we absolutely, positively never could have come up with on our own. What’s more, we learned that you’ve got to read the textbook if you’re going to take the course.

Then we examined the fourth covenant: live faithfully. We learned about orthopraxis, or, right practice. People tend to pass judgment on Christianity by the way they see Christians living their lives. It is absolutely imperative that we set a good example.

Then we examined the fifth covenant: serve joyously. We learned that God calls each of us to ministry. God calls each of us to an occupation or to a task that God believes we are uniquely qualified to do. Just don’t forget that how you serve is every bit as important as who you serve. Attitude is everything.

Then we examined the sixth covenant: give generously. We learned that it’s our responsibility to form the framework of a world that is the unique dwelling place of the Immortal God. Thus, Christians in important secular environments have a responsibility to see to it that what’s done with the goods of the world is done as God would have it done. We must never take that charge lightly.

Finally, we examined the seventh covenant: witness boldly. We learned that the first step to witnessing boldly is to stop complaining. Yet the fact of the matter is, we encounter situations all the time where we realize that if family, friends or neighbors just had a little faith in God, a lot of their problems would be resolved. We need to be bold enough to invite them to share in our own life of faith. We need to stop being so blasted afraid of rejection.

But there’s one more thing. The seven covenants of a disciple of Jesus Christ aren’t just about raising up disciples within the church in order to raise up disciples outside the church. The seven covenants will also aid you in your quest for holiness…and will necessarily draw you closer to God.

So you see, there is something in it for us. Are you feeling unbelievable stress in your job on a daily basis? Maybe it’s because you don’t have your priorities in order. The seven covenants could help. Do you feel an emptiness deep inside that you can’t quite put your finger on but that you know is very real? Maybe it’s because you’ve drifted away from God. The seven covenants could help. Do you feel as if your life has no meaning, and that you’re wandering around on this earth without purpose? Maybe it’s because you’ve lost sight of God. The seven covenants could help.

The seven covenants of a disciple of Jesus Christ have become the vision statement for the First Presbyterian Church of Meadville. But there’s something in it for you as well. Take them home with you. Post them in a highly visible place. Live them to the best of your ability. Then, like Mary before us, we just might find ourselves saying to God, “Let it be with me according to your word.” And suddenly…the world won’t seem like such a bad place after all. Amen.

12-11-2011 Sermon by The Rev. Dr. Brian K. Jensen

2011-12-15T13:08:00.001-08:00

THE SEVEN COVENANTS OF A DISCIPLE OF JESUS CHRIST: PART VII

Several weeks ago my wife and I were driving in downtown Pittsburgh on our way to pick up our daughter at college. As we approached a stop light, there was one of those airport shuttles in front of us that – when it stopped at the light – was completely blocking the crosswalk. Trying to cross the street at that crosswalk was a blind man. We knew he was blind because of the distinctive white cane he was carrying.

The man seemed confused. He sensed there was something in front of him…and it was as if he did not know what to do. Suddenly a young woman, who’d been leaning against the side of a building waiting for the bus, sprung to his aid. She took his arm, whispered something in his ear, and led him around the bus to the other side of the street. Then she scurried back across the street to her post against the building.

When the light turned green and we began to proceed through the intersection, my wife caught that woman’s eye. She gave her the thumbs up sign. The woman just smiled. It was an absolutely beautiful picture of human compassion. When you witness an event like that, you’ve just got to tell everyone you see all about it. A good story like that simply begs to be told, does it not?

So does a bad one. Listen to this. As you know, before my mother died, she wanted to see me one more time. So I flew down to Phoenix, Arizona to see her. Now since my brother is going blind and has no business driving, my father gets confused on the road at night, and my sister is busy with her own life, I decided to rent a car. I rented a mid-sized car because I don’t really fit in a small car and a big car costs so much more. Yet when I went to the garage to pick up my car they didn’t have any mid-sized cars. The man in charge told me I could take a car from the second or the third row. The second row was full of little bitty cars. The third row was full of Chevy Malibus and Ford Crown Victorias. I found a key in a Chevy Malibu and drove off the lot. I ended up getting a full-sized car at a mid-sized price.

Two weeks later, my wife and I flew down to Phoenix for my mother’s funeral. I again rented a car for the same reasons I expressed earlier, and I rented it from the same place I had rented the last time. I told the man behind the counter about how I’d gotten a full-sized car at a mid-sized price and asked if it was going to be the same this time. He said, “No. We’ve got a full complement of mid-sized cars.” Then he told me that for a mere $55.00 more, I could have a full-sized car. So I agreed to pay the extra money, which with the local taxes on rental cars ended up being $75.00 instead of $55.00, and went to the garage to pick up my car. And wouldn’t you know it? The second row was full of little bitty cars and the third row was full of Malibus and Crown Victorias, just like it was the last time. The good news is, I drove out of there in a brand new Crown Victoria. The bad news is…that guy snookered me out of 75 bucks.

Good stories just beg to be told, do they not? Yet so do bad ones. When we see or hear something spectacular we can’t wait to tell everyone all about it. The same is true when we see or hear something bad. We simply cannot wait to express our sense of injustice or indignation.

Case in point, my family and I moved to Meadville a little more than eight years ago. I still remember how everyone told us that we’ve got to eat at…where? Eddie’s Footlongs. And for dessert we’ve got to try what? Hank’s Frozen Custard. Of course, I later discovered that there are Hank’s people and there are Casey’s people, but that’s another story. People simply could not wait to tell us all about Eddie’s and Hank’s. I honestly don’t think Eddie’s or Hank’s even have to advertize. They get all the publicity they need by word of mouth.

Perhaps the question now is: How good of a job do we do at publicizing the church by word of mouth? Or, perhaps even more important, how good of a job do we do at publicizing Christianity by word of mouth? Listen to this. Many years ago, two men moved into houses next door to one another. One Sunday morning, the two men walked out their front doors at the very same time. The first man said to the second, “Hey, I’m going golfing. You wanna come along?” To which the second man replied with a hint of indignation, “No. I’m going to church.”

The very next week the two men walked out their front doors at the very same time again. The first man said to the second, “Hey, I’m going golfing. You wanna come along?” To which the second man replied with a bit more indignation, “No. I’m going to church.”

Now believe it or not, this went on for twenty years. Yet another Sunday morning, the two men walked out their front doors at the very same time. The first man said to the second, “Hey, I’m going golfing. You wanna come along?” To which the second man replied, “No! I’m going to church!” Then he added, “You know, it would do you a lot of good to go to church sometime as well.” The first man looked at his neighbor and said, “You know, for twenty years I’ve been inviting you to go golfing with me. And in all that time…you’ve never once invited me to go to church with you.”

How good of a job do we do at publicizing the church by word of mouth? Or, perhaps even more important, how good of a job do we do at publicizing Christianity by word of mouth? A few years ago at a presbytery meeting, our General Presbyter said that the average Presbyterian invites someone to worship with them once every 17 years. On the plus side, at least that was better than the Methodists. The average Methodist invites someone to worship with them once every 24 years. Ladies and gentlemen, that has got to change. Keep that thought in mind as we move on.

A number of weeks ago we began a sermon series entitled, The Seven Covenants of a Disciple of Jesus Christ. I began the first sermon by making the case the Christ’s Great Commission, as recorded in the gospel of Matthew, is the reason for the church’s existence in the first place. The church is called to make disciples. Yet if the church is ever going to make disciples, then the people who habituate the church…must first become disciples themselves. That’s what the seven covenants of a disciple of Jesus Christ are all about.

The seven covenants of a disciple of Jesus Christ are as follows: worship regularly, pray daily, study diligently, live faithfully, serve joyously, give generously, and witness boldly. The first sermon delved a little more deeply into the first covenant: worship regularly. We said in essence that it was Jesus’ custom to worship, and it should be ours, as well. Yet we should come to worship expecting God to speak, to move, and to act. That’s what keeps our faith from being a mile wide and an inch deep.

Then we examined the third covenant: study diligently. We learned that God is responsible for the Scriptures in a revelatory way, not just in an informational way. The Bible is how God reveals himself to us. It’s something we absolutely, positively never could have come up with on our own. What’s more, we learned that you’ve got to read the textbook…if you’re going to take the course.

Finally, we examined the sixth covenant: give generously. We learned that it’s our responsibility to form the foundation and framework of a world that is the unique dwelling place of the Immortal God. Thus, Christians in important secular environments have a responsibility to see to it that what’s done with the goods of the world is done as God would have it done. We must never take that charge lightly.

Today we examine the seventh and final covenant: witness boldly. In his Great Commission, Christ challenged his disciples to make disciples of all nations. To make disciples of all nations, we must spread the gospel of Jesus Christ. We begin by sharing our faith and values with family, friends and neighbors. We aspire to fearlessly encounter situations where we have the courage to speak, and our Christian witness can truly make a difference.

I think that is exactly what Jesus was getting at in the passage we read from the gospel according to Matthew. “You are the light of the world,” he said. “You are the light of the world.” In other words, your life and witness as Christian disciples is meant to brighten an ever-darkening world. We can have all the faith in the world; we can possess the most profound theological knowledge in the world; we can have a perfect church attendance record for a decade…but if we don’t let our light shine in the world, what good is it? Listen to this.

Many years ago, a great legal battle was fought over a terrible automobile accident that involved a train near Blue Mountain, Georgia. The accident happened on a dark and rainy night as a fast-moving car flew down a mountain road and ran head-first into a train. Several people lost their lives in that accident.

In a fiercely contested courtroom battle, the railroad flagman told precisely how he had gotten off the train before it reached the railroad crossing. He then stood on the highway, swinging his lantern back and forth, to signal any approaching vehicle. It was a notoriously bad intersection, and on this particular night he had done precisely as he had been instructed, and has he had done on many occasions before.

Under determined cross-examination, he consistently answered each question regarding his procedure that fateful night. Yes, he got off the train ahead of the crossing. Yes, he swung his lantern back and forth. He even noted how he had had to jump out of the way of the speeding automobile just before it hit the train. The jury deliberated and in the end, the railroad won the case, primarily because of the unwavering testimony of the flagman.

About a year later, that flagman was fishing on a nearby lake. The attorney who represented the family who died in the crash just happened to be there as well. The attorney approached the flagman and said, “Hey, you were a witness at that railroad crash last year. You know, that was the best-fought trial I ever had. I should have won that case. You were the best witness I ever cross-examined. I lost that case because of your magnificent performance.”

The humble flagman squirmed a little and said, “Oh, man, I was scared that day! I have never been so frightened in all my life!” The lawyer replied, “Well, it didn’t show. You were great the way you handled me.” “Oh, I was scared,” the flagman said. “I was afraid you were going to ask the question.” “What question is that?” the attorney asked. “You know,” the flagman replied, “I was afraid you were going to ask, ‘Did you have your lantern lit that night?’”

Jesus says to us, “You are the light of the world.” But if our lanterns are not lit – if our lights do not shine – the world will remain forever dark. Listen, I see churches all across the country advertizing for ministers all the time. The ads are often quite similar. They want some young, dynamic minister to come in and inspire them to grow. They’re missing the point. It’s a different age. The church is not going to grow because of some young, dynamic minister. The church is going to grow when people in the congregation intentionally invite others to worship with them. Mass evangelism doesn’t work anymore. Relational evangelism is what works today. Relational evangelism has to do with forming relationships with people, and then letting them walk with you in your life of faith. If a church is going to grow, the people who populate that church must take an active, intentional role.

Now I could go on for another hour about this. So I’m just going to give you step one today. I don’t think the problem with the church today is that people aren’t witnessing boldly. People today are witnessing boldly. But what is that about which they are witnessing? They are witnessing about their own dissatisfaction. There is far too much complaining going on. One person says the music is too slow. Another says the preaching is boring. Someone else says that all they talk about at church is money. Yet another says the people aren’t friendly. Who would ever want to go to a church where all the people do is complain? Why, it’s a lot like waving a lantern that isn’t lit. Step one to witnessing boldly is to stop complaining.

Listen, that’s the secret that a lot of these mega-churches today have uncovered. No, their music is not for everyone. And yes, their theology tends to be a bit shallow. But they brag about their programs. They brag about their staff. They’re proud of their church and they want everyone to enjoy it with them. Where would you rather go on a Sunday morning? Ladies and gentlemen, you are the light of the world. Witness boldly…and let your light shine. Amen.

11-13-2011 Sermon by The Rev. Dr. Brian K. Jensen

2011-11-14T13:02:00.001-08:00

THE SEVEN COVENANTS OF A DISCIPLE OF JESUS CHRIST: PART VI

Once upon a time, there was a very wealthy man who was not known for his generosity toward his church. In fact, he was not known for his generosity at all. There came a time when his church was involved in a major building campaign, so the fund-raising committee decided to pay him a visit. They set up the appointment, and over to his house they went.

During their meeting together, the fund-raising committee pointed out that in view of his considerable financial resources they were just sure that he would want to make a substantial contribution toward their building campaign. “I see,” the wealthy man replied. “So you have it all figured out, have you?” Then he added, “In the course of your investigation, did you discover that I have a widowed mother who has no other means of support but me?” Sheepishly, the committee chair replied, “No, we did not know that.”

The man went on to say, “Did you know that I have a sister, who was left by a drunken husband with five children and no means to provide for them?” Again the committee chair replied, “No, we did not know that either.” The man added, “And did you know that I have a brother who is crippled due to an automobile accident, and can never work another day to support his wife and family?” The committee chair replied, “Sir, we did not know that.”

The wealthy man then stood up and thundered, “I’ve never given any of those people a dime. So why would I ever give anything to you?” A man by the name of Robert Rodenmayer once wrote: “There are three kinds of giving: grudge giving, duty giving and thanksgiving. Grudge giving says, I give because I have to. Duty giving says, I give because I ought to. But thanks-giving says, I give because I want to. The latter comes from a full heart. Thanksgiving is an open gate into the love of God.” Keep that thought in mind as we move on.

A number of weeks ago we began a sermon series entitled, The Seven Covenants of a Disciple of Jesus Christ. I began the first sermon by making the case that Christ’s Great Commission, as recorded in the gospel of Matthew, is the reason for the church’s existence in the first place. The church is called to make disciples. Yet if the church is ever going to make disciples, then the people who habituate the church…must first become disciples themselves. That’s what the seven covenants of a disciple of Jesus Christ are all about.

The seven covenants of a disciple of Jesus Christ are as follows: worship regularly; pray daily; study diligently; live faithfully; serve joyously; give generously; and witness boldly. The first sermon delved a little more deeply into the first covenant: worship regularly. We said in essence that it was Jesus’ custom to worship, and it should be ours, as well. Yet we should come to worship expecting God to speak, to move, and to act. That’s what keeps our faith from being a mile wide and an inch deep.

Then we examined the second covenant: pray daily. There we saw that we are called to share our hurts, our sorrows and our joys with God. God listens to us in compassion and love…much like we do when our children come to us. And when we do that what we discover is that by praying, we learn how to pray.

Then we examined the third covenant: study diligently. We learned that God is responsible for the Scriptures in a revelatory way, not just in an informational way. The Bible is how God reveals himself to us. It’s something we absolutely, positively never could have come up with on our own. What’s more, we learned that you’ve got to read the textbook…if you’re going to take the course.

Finally, we examined the fifth covenant: serve joyously. We learned that God calls each of us to ministry. God calls each of us to an occupation or to a task that God believes we are uniquely qualified to do. Just don’t forget that how you serve is every bit as important as who you serve. Attitude…is everything.

Today we examine the sixth covenant: give generously. The way we give of ourselves and our resources should reflect the self-giving love of God in Christ. We begin by committing to giving a set proportion of our time, our talent and our financial resources to God. We aspire to live lives in which our giving is sacrificial.

Now this might be the least popular of all the covenants – the one about which people least desire to hear. However, I want you to reserve judgment on that until you hear what I’ve got to say about witnessing boldly in a couple of weeks. I have a sneaking suspicion you’re not going to like that one much either!

The sixth covenant of a disciple of Jesus Christ is give generously. Perhaps the question now is, “Why do we give in the first place?” Most of us work hard for what we have. Why on earth would we want to work our fingers to the bone to earn what we have…and then simply give it away? The question is, “Why do we give in the first place?”

I think the best answer to that question is this: “Because God said so.” Consider the passage that Janice read from the book of Deuteronomy. Verses 22 and 23 say, “Set apart a tithe of all the yield of your seed that is brought in yearly from the field. In the presence of the Lord your God, in the place that he will choose as a dwelling for his name, you shall eat the tithe of your grain, your wine and your oil – as well as the firstlings of your herd and flock – so that you may learn to fear the Lord your God always.”

Let’s take those verses apart. The first issue has to do with tithing. “Set apart a tithe of the yield of your seed,” it says. What exactly is a tithe? The old rule of thumb is that a tithe is ten percent. It was long believed that the concept of tithing 10% was introduced to the Church by Mosaic law. Yet the truth of the matter is, the 10% concept probably really came to the church by way of Roman law. Anyone who obtained a part of the public land in a conquered country automatically paid a tenth of the revenue earned from it to the State.

Of course, we pay a whole lot more than 10% of our income to the state, do we not? I think of an article I once read in the Wall Street Journal entitled, “God will provide…unless the government gets there first.” The United States government has taken on a lot of the responsibility that used to be held by the church. Specifically, the government tends to provide for those less fortunate than ourselves. In some respects, that might be a good thing. In other respects, perhaps it is not. But I really don’t want to get into all of that here. The point is that the government takes a whole lot more than 10% of our income.

Yet still a lot of church leaders blindly call for ten percent. I remember attending a conference on stewardship many years ago. The leader of the conference told we clergy to set an example for our congregations by giving 10% ourselves. Someone raised the question: “Do you mean 10% of gross or 10% of net?” The leader said, “You get to 10% of net, and then we’ll talk about gross!”

Tithing has traditionally meant 10% of our income. Yet we give a whole lot more than that to the government, do we not? Perhaps the point is that tithing doesn’t necessarily have to mean exactly ten percent. For some people it might be less. Yet for others, it might be even more. Let me try to explain.

The issue of tithing aside, why were the Hebrew people called by God to give in the first place? I think we see that explained in our passage from Deuteronomy as well. They were to bring their sacrifices – and a sacrifice wasn’t just what was left over at the end of the day – a sacrifice was something that truly cost them something. It was meant to be the first and the best of what they had. That’s important. They were to bring their sacrifices to one particular place, and they were to all feast together in the name of God.

Do you see what’s really going on here? God called for a sumptuous feast in thanksgiving for all he had done for them. What’s more, everyone got to partake of it. The wealthy, who probably ate well on a regular basis, feasted with the poor, who probably only ate well at this God-inspired banquet. It was meant to be a celebration of life. It was meant to show that God’s desire was for all to share in the bounty he provides. Yet let me also note that all were to contribute something. It was never God’s plan that anyone should receive a free ride. Because truth be told, God is the source of all that we have and all that we are. And it’s only when we sacrifice…that we truly act as if we really believe that.

Contrast this truth with the passage I read from the gospel according to Luke. There, a rich, young ruler approaches Jesus with a profound question. He says, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus tells him, in essence, to follow the Ten Commandments. To which the rich, young ruler replies, “I have kept all these since my youth.” Jesus then looked at the man and said, “There is one thing you lack. Sell all that you have and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” As the story goes, the man hung his head and went away sad, for he had a great many possessions.

This passage – and others like it – have been used for centuries to disdain the wealthy. I’m not going to do that. I’m not going to say that the wealthy are going to burn in hell. Because I don’t think that’s what the Bible says. The Bible doesn’t say that the wealthy are going to burn in hell. It only says they might. The issue is: Is wealth a means to an end, or is wealth an end it itself? If wealth is an end in itself, then like the rich young ruler, we have completely missed the point. But if wealth is a means to an end, then still there is hope.

Here’s the point. The role of the Christian minister, I think, is to communicate the gospel of God’s will to all…and to prepare those who stand in the crucial secular areas of the world to be faithful caretakers of the world’s goods. If we teach it well, Christians within important secular environments will then be on the job to see to it that what needs to be done with the goods of the world will be done as God would have it done. So you see, you have to pay attention in church.

I think a man named Dallas Willard sums things up quite well in a book called, The Spirit of the Disciplines: Understanding How God Changes Lives. Listen closely:

The church certainly is to lead the way in charitable works, and after that is to exhort and advise all public agencies concerning policies of public welfare. But this is not to be the fundamental aspect of its service to the world. Its fundamental work is to show those who gather in its meetings how to enter into full participation in the rule of God where they are. In this way the church will ultimately bring all nations to itself to find out how humanity can realize the universal ethical vision of righteousness and well-being. Through vision and discipline taught and practiced, our Christian ministers and teachers should shape a people who can form the foundation and framework of a world that is the unique dwelling place of The Immortal God.

So you see, we give because our goal is to form the foundation and framework of a world that is the unique dwelling place of The Immortal God. It’s like we say in the Lord’s Prayer every week: “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” Thus, there is no shame in being wealthy or comfortable. And I’m not trying to make anyone feel guilty. It’s really just a matter of where your priorities lie. Amen.

10-23-2011 Sermon by The Rev. Dr. Brian K. Jensen

2011-10-24T08:35:00.001-07:00

THE SEVEN COVENANTS OF A DISCIPLE OF JESUS CHRIST: PART V

As Christians, we often times say that God calls us to a particular occupation, or God calls us to do a particular thing. Well, what exactly is a call from God? Frederick Buechner, in his book Wishful Thinking, defines it this way: “The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger…meet.” Personally, I’ve always believed that a call from God is accompanied by an inner urgency. In other words – try as we might – a call from God is something we feel deep inside that we cannot explain…and that we cannot dismiss.

Each and every minister has his or her own sense of call from God. Mine occurred when I was but 16 years of age. I was a junior in high school and was actually employed by the First Presbyterian Church in Sioux City, Iowa, as a custodian. There were a couple of us teenagers who worked as custodians at the church. We basically babysat doors while the choir practiced, mowed the lawn, and shoveled snow. It wasn’t a terribly taxing occupation. It was just a high school job. I think I made a whopping $1.40 an hour.

One Sunday morning after worship, I was walking up the aisle of the sanctuary and the minister, the Rev. William F. Skinner, was walking down the aisle after greeting the congregation. He said to me, “Brian, have you thought about what you’re going to do with your life after you graduate from high school?” I thought to myself, “That’s all I’ve been thinking about!” I said to him, “Well, I’ll probably go to Iowa State and become an engineer like my dad.” I couldn’t think of anything else. He said to me, “Have you ever thought about becoming a minister?” I quickly replied, “Me? A minister?” I was a skinny, quiet, shy kid in high school. It was something that I truly hadn’t considered…but I told him that I would.

That’s how the seed got planted. I wrestled with the idea – and in my late teens I literally ran from the idea – but I felt an inner urgency that I just could not explain…that I simply could not dismiss. Then Bill Skinner said something to me, that his father had said to him, that really cemented the issue in my mind. He said – and please pardon the sexist language – he said, “Use your talents in the best way that you know how to help better mankind.” I thought that writing and speaking were the things that I did best. What better way to utilize those talents than in the ministry? And the rest, as they say, is history.

That’s how I was called into the ministry. Like I said, each and every minister has his or her own sense of call from God. In the Christian church in general – and in the Presbyterian Church in particular – we say that ministers are called by God to serve. Perhaps the question now is: Does God call people to other occupations as well? Does God call doctors to practice medicine, lawyers to practice law, homemakers to make homes, and engineers to drive trains? That’s what an engineer does, right? Does God call people to occupations other than the ministry? Keep that thought in mind as we move on.

Several weeks ago we began a sermon series entitled, The Seven Covenants of a Disciple of Jesus Christ. I began the first sermon by making the case that Christ’s Great Commission, as recorded in the gospel of Matthew, is the reason for the church’s existence in the first place. The church is called to make disciples. Yet if the church is going to make disciples, then the people who habituate the church must first become disciples themselves. That’s what the seven covenants of a disciple of Jesus Christ are all about.

The seven covenants of a disciple of Jesus Christ are as follows: worship regularly; pray daily; study diligently; live faithfully; serve joyously; give generously; and witness boldly. Five weeks ago, we delved a little more deeply into the first covenant: worship regularly. We said in essence that it was Jesus’ custom to worship, and it should be ours, as well. Yet we should come to worship expecting God to speak, to move, and to act. That’s what keeps our faith from being a mile wide and an inch deep.

Four weeks ago, we examined the second covenant: pray daily. There we saw that we are called to share our hurts, our sorrows and our joys with God. God listens to us in compassion and love much like we do when our children come to us. And when we do that…what we discover is that by praying, we learn how to pray.

Two weeks ago, we examined the third covenant: study diligently. We learned that God is responsible for the Scriptures in a revelatory way, and not just in an informational way. The Bible is how God reveals himself to us. It’s something we absolutely, positively, never could have come up with on our own. What’s more, you’ve got to read the textbook if you’re going to take the course.

Last week we examined the fourth covenant of a disciple: live faithfully. We learned about orthopraxis, or, right practice. People pass judgment on Christianity by the way Christians live their lives. It is absolutely imperative that we set a good example.

Today we examine the fifth covenant of a disciple of Jesus Christ: serve joyously. Each of us is called to ministry. We seek the field of ministry most closely aligned with the call of God on our lives that hauntingly stirs our deepest passion. We begin by engaging in some form of ministry with others. We aspire to create ministries in which we engage others as partners in ministry with us.

The first – and perhaps the most important – statement in the fifth covenant is this: “Each of us is called to ministry.” It’s not just ministers who are called. Each of us is called to ministry. That wasn’t always the belief that Christians held. As Os Guinness wrote in his book The Call, “For most Christians in medieval times, the term call was reserved for priests, monks, and nuns. Everyone else just had work.”

Reformation theologian John Calvin helped to change all that. In 1559, he addressed the notion of vocation or calling in his epic work Institutes of the Christian Religion. He wrote, “Wherefore no man can doubt that this vocation is, in the sight of God, not only sacred and lawful…but the most sacred – and by far the most honorable – of all stations in mortal life.” What is that most sacred and honorable station in life? Is it the ministry? No. Calvin went on to say, and I quote:

With regard to the function of magistrates, the Lord has not only declared that he approves and is pleased with it, but moreover, has strongly recommended it to us by the very honorable titles which he has conferred upon it. When those who bear the office of magistrate are called gods, let no one suppose there is little weight in that appellation. It is therefore intimated that they have a commission from God, that they are invested with divine authority, and in fact represent the person of God, as whose substitutes they in a manner act. Wherefore no man can doubt that civil authority is – in the sight of God, not only sacred and lawful – but the most sacred, and by far the most honorable, of all stations in mortal life.

What is the most sacred and honorable station in mortal life? It’s not the ministry. According to John Calvin, the most sacred and honorable station in mortal life is that of the politician. We need to remember, of course, that Calvin is not speaking of the person holding that office. He is speaking of the office or the calling itself. Regardless of whether the person holding that office is wise or is a fool, it is the office itself that is worthy of honor.

All I’m trying to say is that it’s not just ministers who are called by God. Doctors, lawyers, homemakers and engineers can all be called by God as well. Consider the passage I read from the book of Genesis. God said to Abraham, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.” Was Abraham blessed that he might hoard those blessings unto himself? No, he was blessed that he might become a blessing to others. The same is true of us. We are blessed…to be a blessing.

Perhaps our dalliance into the arena of calling should take both mental aptitude and spiritual giftedness into consideration. Ideally, these factors should be wedded to a strong sense of mission, such that our blessedness might be a blessing to others. Questions that come to mind now are these:

1. What has God called YOU to do in partnership with the community of Christ?

2. How can you fulfill your mission for Christ in the world…based upon what you feel you have the mental aptitude and the spiritual gifts to do?

For Theresa, the defining moment came one night with an unexpected knock at the door. At the time, she was a teacher in a private girls’ school. But when she opened the door that night, she found a dying woman, crumpled up on her doorstep. Theresa took the dying woman from one hospital to another looking for help…but none of the hospitals would accept the woman as a patient. Finally, it was too late. The woman died in her arms.

It was a defining moment. It touched something deep inside her; a well of deep love and deep anger. From that moment on, Theresa was not the same. Her life would be dedicated to making sure that the poor people in her city died with dignity, knowing that they were loved. By the way, that woman named Theresa came to be known as Mother Theresa. She sensed what God was calling her to do, in partnership with the community of Christ. And she fulfilled her mission based upon what she felt she was gifted to do. She felt that she was called by God to make a difference in Jesus’ name, and she dedicated her life to fulfilling that calling.

It’s good to pay attention to such unexpected moments in our lives – moments that I think each of us have now and then – moments that reach deep down into our souls. They can sometimes become the foundation for our own unique ministries. They can sometimes become the foundation to our own call to serve joyously. A call from God does not refer exclusively to an occupation. Sometimes it’s more like a task that needs to be done…a task God thinks you are uniquely qualified to do. As someone once said, “The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger…meet.”

Does that seem a little out of reach to you? Are Mother Theresa’s aspirations perhaps a bit too lofty? Listen, people in this very church have felt called by God to take action in our community as well, and they have done so. That’s how the Fairview/Fairmont low-income housing development got started. That’s how the Meadville Area Free Clinic got started as well. People from this very community of faith felt called by God to accomplish something in Jesus’ name in their own community…and they did so.

I think of a woman from this church who was appalled by the fact that the Meadville high school no longer held baccalaureate services for graduating seniors. So she involved her husband, who is a teacher, she involved the student council, and she involved the Meadville Area Ministerial Association. We’ve been holding baccalaureate services in Meadville for 8 years now and attendance has grown each and every year. That’s what it means to be called by God. That’s what it means to make a difference in Jesus’ name.

I think of another woman from this church who finds it disturbing that so many young people who were raised in the church…do not involve their own children in the life of the church. This kind of thing upsets grandparents to no end. She recently formed a group that’s bit of a spinoff of a group called, Moms in Touch, and calls it, Grandmas in Touch. A group of grandmothers now gets together to pray for their grandchildren. I suspect God listens to “grandma” prayers. That’s what it means to be called by God. That’s what it means to make a difference in Jesus’ name.

Yet one more thing needs to be said. The fifth discipline of a disciple of Jesus Christ is not just to serve. It is, rather: Serve Joyously! That’s why I had Nancy read the story of Cain and Abel a little while ago. Attitude is everything.

As the story goes, Cain and Abel were the sons of Adam and Eve. Cain was a tiller of the ground while Abel was a keeper of sheep. One day they each made an offering to God. Abel brought the best he had to offer – the firstlings of his flock. Cain…Cain pretty much brought what he had left over. God was pleased with Abel’s offering, but he had no regard for Cain’s. Cain was angry about that…and in the end, he slew his brother, Abel. Why was God pleased with Abel’s offering and displeased with that of Cain? I think it comes down to attitude. Abel recognized that God was the source of all that he had and all that he was. Therefore, he offered up to God the best he had to give. Cain thought more of himself and his own efforts than he did of God. Giving – to him – was an afterthought…a burden. Attitude is everything. We are called not just to serve, but to serve joyously.

The fifth covenant of a disciple of Jesus Christ is: Serve Joyously! Each of us is called to ministry. We seek the field of ministry most closely aligned with the call of God on our lives, that hauntingly stirs our deepest passion. We begin by engaging in some form of ministry with others. We aspire to create ministries in which we engage others as partners in ministry with us. Just don’t forget that how you serve is just as important as who you serve. As the Apostle Paul once put it in the second book of Corinthians, “The Lord loves a cheerful giver.” Attitude…is everything. Amen.

10-16-2011 Sermon by The Rev. Dr. Brian K. Jensen

2011-10-17T11:34:00.000-07:00

THE SEVEN COVENANTS OF A DISCIPLE OF JESUS CHRIST: PART IV

Are all of you familiar with the story of Samuel and Eli? Samuel’s mother, Hanna, had long desired to have a child. She prayed and prayed and prayed to God…and finally her prayer was answered. She had a son, and she named him Samuel. Then in gratitude to God for answering her prayer, she gave her son to God. After he was weaned, he was raised in the temple by Eli, the priest.

One night, God called to Samuel, saying, “Samuel, Samuel!” Samuel thought it was Eli who was calling him, so he ran to the sleeping Eli’s side, awakened him and said, “Here I am, for you called me.” After this happened about three times, Eli perceived that it was God who was calling the boy. He instructed Samuel to say, “Speak, Lord, for thy servant hears.” And the rest, as they say, is history.

Of this story, theologian Jack Hayford once said, “The younger generation needs the older generation to help them identify the voice of God, just as Samuel needed Eli to help him know that God was calling him.” Then he added, “Yet the older generation must also realize that God is speaking to the younger generation as well.” Keep that thought in mind as we move on.

You’ve heard me mention the name of David Kinnaman in the past. He and a man named Gabe Lyons were coauthors of a book called unChristian. The basic premise of that book is that Christians these days are characterized more by what they stand against than they are by what they stand for, and that’s not a good thing. Kinnaman’s latest book is entitled You Lost Me: Why Young Christians Are Leaving the Church and Rethinking Faith. In it, I believe he raises some rather profound concerns for the modern day church.

David Kinnaman is currently the president of the Barna Group, which is a private, nonpartisan research and resource company. Though Kinnaman is only 37 years old, in his sixteen years with the Barna Group he has supervised more than 350,000 interviews with people on matters of faith, politics and social dynamics. In other words, he knows that of which he speaks.

Let me begin our discussion today by laying out the definitions of a few basic terms that Kinnaman refers to on a regular basis. People born prior to 1946 are often called America’s Greatest Generation, or Baby Boosters. Kinnaman refers to these people as Elders. People born between 1946 and 1964 are called Baby Boomers. Kinnaman just calls them Boomers. People born between 1965 and 1983 are often referred to as Generation X. Kinnaman calls them Busters. People born between 1984 and 2002 are often times called Generation Y, or, Millennials. Kinnaman calls this group of people Mosaics. A mosaic, of course, is a unique piece of decorative art. Now for those of you listening in who were born after the year 2002, I offer my sincere apology. You have not yet been categorized. Rest assured, however, in the knowledge that one day…you will be.

Okay, so we have Elders, Boomers, Busters and Mosaics. Bob Buford, in a book called Half Time, says that each generation uses about five words or phrases to describe itself. Elders use words like: World War II and the Great Depression, smarter, honest, work ethic and respectful. Boomers use words like: work ethic, respectful, values, morals, and smarter. Busters use words like: technology use, work ethic, conservative/traditional, smarter, and respectful. Mosaics use words like: technology use, music and pop culture, liberal/tolerant, smarter, and clothes.

For those of you keeping score at home, you will note that each generation refers to itself as being smarter than the previous generation. Yet when it comes to Mosaics, Buford points out, “Where has the word respectful gone? And what happened to the term work ethic?” Those are terms not chosen by Mosaics. Perhaps this is indicative of the fact that we are dealing with a different kind of generation here. David Kinnaman calls them discontinuously different. In other words, there’s never been anything quite like them before, so patterns of behavior from previous generations simply do not apply.

This is a group that, generally speaking, is missing from the pews of the church today. Often times Mosaics were raised in the church. In fact, many of them were quite active in the church as teenagers. Yet by the time they reach their early twenties, more often than not, they are no longer active in the institutional church. The reasons these young people drop out are very real and very personal to those who experience them. Yet the Barna Group, through a diligent research project, has uncovered a pattern to the church dropout problem. There are three basic ways that Mosaics are lost, when it comes to the church. David Kinnaman refers to these people as Nomads, Prodigals and Exiles.

Nomads walk away from church involvement, but still consider themselves to be Christian. Prodigals, on the other hand, lose their faith…and no longer describe themselves as Christian. Exiles are still invested in their Christian faith, but they feel stuck or lost between culture and the church.

Kelly is an example of a Nomad. She grew up in a Protestant church. Her father worked for Christian organizations during Kelly’s entire life and regularly teaches Sunday school. Both of her parents are committed churchgoers. Yet Kelly describes struggling with an anxiety disorder and feeling that she never fit in at church. As Kelly herself puts it, “The first strike against the church was the youth group where I didn’t fit in and no effort was made to help me. The second strike was in college when the campus ministry I attended started talking about quotas for getting people saved. The third strike was the judgments my parents received from their church friends about me. They actually told my parents that they must have done a poor job of raising me.” Yet Kelly fits the profile of a nomad because she claims she prays...and she reads her Bible regularly. As Kelly herself puts it, “I never lost faith in Christ, but I have lost faith in the church.” That’s a Nomad.

Mike fits the profile of a Prodigal. He grew up in the Catholic Church, but his love for science and razor-sharp wit – which was sometimes perceived as disrespect – often times put him at odds with parish leaders. After a period of searching and wrestling with his faith, Mike says, “I just stopped believing in all those Christian stories.” Time will tell if Mike will return to faith later in life, but the mindset of a Prodigal typically rejects that kind of outcome. In my mind, we need to pray for Prodigals, not argue with them. They believe what they believe for a reason.

Nathan fits the profile of an Exile. Nathan’s parents – like Kelly’s – were fixtures in the church during his childhood years. Then his parents split up. As Nathan puts it, “I was really volatile toward church and faith for a long time…but way more so toward church than faith.” In an interview with Relevant magazine he described his enormous cynicism toward all things having to do with institutional Christianity. He and his friends say they are embarrassed by a lot of the Christian subculture from which they came, but not necessarily embarrassed by their beliefs. They claim to be searching for something more from their faith. In other words, they want their faith to make a difference. Such is the profile of an Exile.

There you have it: Nomads, Prodigals and Exiles. Truth be told, I think there are Nomads, Prodigals and Exiles in more generations that just the Mosaics. That aside, the question thus becomes: What can we do about it? What can the church do about the questions and the cynicism that young people seem to have about the church today?

David Kinnaman believes that the dropout problem – at its core – is a faith-development problem. Kinnaman says, and I quote, “The church is not adequately preparing the next generation to follow Christ faithfully in a rapidly changing culture.” Then he adds, “To use religious language, we have a disciple-making problem.” We have a disciple-making problem? Now you know why I utilized Kinnaman’s work so extensively.

Several weeks ago we began a sermon series entitled, “The Seven Covenants of a Disciple of Jesus Christ.” I began the first sermon by making the case that Christ’s Great Commission, as recorded in the gospel of Matthew, is the reason for the church’s existence in the first place. The church is called to make disciples. Yet if the church is going to make disciples, then the people who habituate the church must first become disciples themselves. That’s what the seven covenants of a disciple of Jesus Christ are all about.

The seven covenants of a disciple of Jesus Christ are as follows: worship regularly; pray daily; study diligently; live faithfully; serve joyously; give generously; and witness boldly. Four weeks ago, we delved a little more deeply into the first covenant: worship regularly. We said in essence that it was Jesus’ custom to worship, and it should be ours as well. Yet we should come to worship expecting God to speak, to move, and to act. That’s what keeps our faith from being a mile wide and an inch deep.

Three weeks ago we examined the second covenant: pray daily. There we saw that we are called to share our hurts, our sorrows, and our joys with God. God listens to us in compassion and love, much like we do when our children come to us. And when we do that…what we discover is that by praying, we learn how to pray.

Last week we examined the third covenant: study diligently. We learned that God is responsible for the Scriptures in a revelatory way, not just in an informational way. The Bible is how God reveals himself to us. It’s something we never could have come up with on our own. What’s more, you’ve got to read the textbook…if you’re going to take the class.

Today we examine the fourth covenant of a disciple of Jesus Christ: live faithfully. Our lives should be lived with integrity and holiness. We strive to live in harmony with the will of God. We begin by taking to heart that which we read in Scripture, comprehend in worship and sense in prayer. We aspire to live lives reflecting the faith we profess…looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith.

I know the Presbyterian Church failed my generation, in a manner of speaking. In Sunday school, in the early years, we were taught the basic Bible stories. Then by the time we reached junior and senior high school – at a time when we could finally begin to comprehend the meaning behind those stories – we were taught how to apply our faith. Do you see what I’m trying to say? In other words, our junior and senior high school Sunday school teachers were trying to build a house without laying a firm foundation. We were taught what to do, but we were never taught why.

In the passage we read from the gospel according to Matthew, Jesus tells a parable about just such a thing. He says, “Everyone who hears these words of mine – and acts upon them – will be like the wise man who built his house upon a rock. The rains fell, and the floods came, and beat upon that house, but it did not fall because it had been founded on rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not act upon them, will be like the foolish man who built his house upon the sand. The rains fell and the floods came and beat upon that house and it fell…and great was the fall of it.”

We need a firm foundation. Jesus Christ provides that firm foundation. That foundation is built just like we said in the fourth covenant of a disciple of Jesus Christ. We take to heart that which we read in Scripture, comprehend in worship and sense in prayer. In other words, we live what we believe. It’s a little thing theologians like to call orthopraxis. If orthodoxy means right belief, then orthopraxis means right practice. Easier said than done though, don’t you think?

I think the secret to living faithfully is revealed in something a wise man from this church recently said to me. He said, “When my wife and I got married, we both agreed to follow the rule of sixty/forty.” I said, “What’s the rule of sixty/forty?” He replied, “We agreed to give sixty and expect forty in return. Most people think marriage is fifty/fifty. It’s not. We agreed to the rule of sixty/forty.” Then with a glint in his eye he leaned forward and said, “Sometimes it’s seventy/ thirty.” The rule of sixty/forty must work…because Chuck and Janet Koller have now been married for more than 60 years.

You know, the people who leave the church generally don’t do so because of the church itself. They do so because they’ve been upset by people in the church. They sense an incongruity between the faith people profess and the way they live their lives. We need to learn orthopraxis. We need to learn to live the life of faith we say we believe.

I think the rule of sixty/forty just might apply to the discipleship practice of living faithfully as well. If we think that all of our relationships are going to be fifty/fifty, we’re going to be sorely disappointed and we’re going to feel as if we’ve been mistreated a great deal of the time. But if we approach our relationships with the attitude of sixty/forty – and are sometimes even willing to give seventy/thirty – then we will likely find ourselves living a whole lot more faithfully than we have in the past. And we’ll be well on the way…to living out the fourth covenant of a disciple of Jesus Christ. Amen.

10-9-2011 Sermon by The Rev. Dr. Brian K. Jensen

2011-10-10T10:55:00.001-07:00

THE SEVEN COVENANTS OF A DISCIPLE OF JESUS CHRIST: PART III

One of my all-time favorite quotes comes from a book that was written by a man named James Allen in 1902. The title of the book is As a Man Thinketh. That title comes from the King James Version’s rendition of Proverbs 23:7 where it says, “As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.” In any case, here’s the quote:

And you, too, youthful reader will realize the Vision (not the idle wish) of your heart – be it base or beautiful, or a mixture of both – for you will always gravitate toward that which you, secretly, most love. Into your hands will be placed the exact results of your own thoughts. You will receive that which you earn; no more, no less. Whatever your present environment may be, you will fall, remain, or rise with your thoughts, your Vision, your Ideal. You will become as small as your controlling desire; as great as your dominant aspiration…The Vision that you glorify in your mind – the Ideal that you enthrone in your heart – this you will build your life by; this you will become.

That, my friends, is indicative of the power of the mind. “The Vision that you glorify in your mind – the Ideal that you enthrone in your heart – this you will build your life by…this you will become.” The problem today is that a lot of advertisers are now well aware of that fact, as well.

Some of them have even begun to play upon our subconscious minds in an effort to get us to buy more of their products. Martin Lindstrom is the author of a new book called, Brandwashed. He begins his book with these words:

Have you ever been primed? I mean, has anyone ever deliberately influenced your subconscious mind and altered your perception of reality without your knowing it? Whole Foods Market, and others, are doing it to you right now.

For example, let’s pay a visit to Whole Foods’ Columbus Circle store in New York City. As you descend the escalator, you enter a realm of freshly cut flowers. These are what advertisers call symbolics or unconscious suggestions. In this particular case, they let us know that what is before us is bursting with freshness. Flowers, as everyone knows, are among the freshest, most perishable objects on earth. That’s why flowers are placed right up front; to prime us into thinking of freshness from the moment we enter the store. Then the prices for all the fruits and vegetables are scrawled in chalk on little blackboards. This is meant to suggest that the prices are subject to change daily, just as they might at a roadside farm stand. The truth of the matter is, most of the produce was flown in days ago, and the price was set at the home office in Austin, Texas. Ladies and gentlemen, we’ve just been primed.

I don’t know about you, but there are few things in this world that offend me more than being referred to as a consumer. To me that suggests that human beings are nothing more than automatons who blow their hard-earned cash on producers’ products rather than precious creatures created in the image of God. Yet advertisers are well aware of the power of suggestion…well aware of the influence of the mind. As James Allen put it so well, “The Vision that you glorify in your mind – the Ideal that you enthrone in your heart – this you will build your life by…this you will become.” I think of the words in that old United Negro College Fund commercial: “A mind is a terrible thing to waste.” Perhaps the question now is, “Are wasting ours?” Keep that thought in mind as we move on.

Several weeks ago, we began a sermon series entitled, “The Seven Covenants of a Disciple of Jesus Christ.” I began the first sermon by making the case that Christ’s Great Commission, as recorded in the gospel according to Matthew, is the reason for the church’s existence in the first place. The church is called to make disciples. Yet if the church is going to make disciples, then the people who habituate the church must first become disciples themselves. That’s what the seven covenants of a disciple of Jesus Christ are all about.

The seven covenants of a disciple of Jesus Christ are as follows: worship regularly; pray daily; study diligently; live faithfully; serve joyously; give generously; and witness boldly. Three weeks ago, we delved a little more deeply into the first covenant: worship regularly. We said in essence that it was Jesus’ custom to worship and it should be ours as well. Yet we should come to worship expecting God to speak, to move and to act. That’s what keeps our faith from being a mile wide and an inch deep.

Two weeks ago, we examined the second covenant: pray daily. There we saw that we are called to share our hurts, our sorrows and our joys with God. God listens to us in compassion and love, just like we do when our children come to us. And when we do that…what we discover is that by praying, we learn how to pray.

Today we examine the third covenant of a disciple of Jesus Christ: study diligently. We study Scripture in an attempt to shape our minds to become more attuned to the will of God. We begin by setting aside a small block of time each day to read the Bible, and participating in at least one group learning experience each week. We aspire to spend a significant amount of time in Christian study every day, and take part in two or three learning experiences each week.

Theologian Eugene Peterson would seem to be in agreement with that. In fact, the Silent Reflection in your bulletins this week is taken from a book by Dr. Peterson entitled, Eat This Book. Peterson writes:

The challenge – never negligible – regarding the Christian Scriptures is getting them read, but read on their own terms, as God’s revelation. In this business of living the Christian life, ranking high among the most neglected aspects is one having to do with the reading of the Christian Scriptures. It’s not that Christians don’t own and read their Bibles. And it’s not that Christians don’t believe that their Bibles are the word of God. What is neglected, however, is the reading of Scriptures formatively; that is, reading in order to live.

The question thus becomes: “How do we read in order to live?” Many people are fascinated by the intellectual challenges of the Bible. Our Seminaries are full of students – and professors – who study their Bibles diligently and dig out some absolutely incredible truths…but they never apply those truths to their own daily lives. To them, the Bible is nothing more than intellectual fodder. Some come to the Bible with more practical concerns. They want to live well, and they want their children and neighbors to live well. The problem here…is that the issue seems to be more about us than it is about God. Still others come to the Bible for inspiration. In other words, they want their Bibles to make them feel better. As H. Richard Niebuhr once put it, “Too often we want a God without wrath, who brought men without sin, into a kingdom without judgment, through the minstrations of a Christ without a cross.” Truth be told, reading the Bible formatively is far more likely to keep us up at night wringing our hands in holy horror…than it is to bring us peace and relaxation.

C. S. Lewis, in the last book he ever wrote, talked about two different kinds of reading. One is reading in which we use a book for our own purposes, kind of like a self-help book. The other is reading in which we use a book for the author’s own purposes. Ladies and gentlemen, there is a significant difference. C.S. Lewis describes that difference this way:

When we receive it, we exert our senses and imagination and various other powers according to a pattern invented by the artist. When we use it, we treat it as assistance for our own activities…Using is inferior to reception because art – if used rather than received – merely facilitates, brightens, relieves or palliates our life and does not add to it.

In other words, when it comes to reading Scripture, we must learn to receive it rather than use it. We must learn to seek out the author’s purposes, and not merely use it for our own. And that just might take a little more effort. Perhaps the Scriptures themselves can show us how.

In the passage from Ezekiel that Henry read, and in the passage that I read from the book of Revelation, God said to his prophets, “Take this scroll and eat it.” Or, more succinctly put, God was not merely saying to them, “Read your Bible.” God was actually saying to them, “Eat this book!” As the one and only Eugene Peterson puts it, “Christians feed on Scripture. Holy Scripture nourishes the Christian community in the same way that food nourishes the human body.”

The act of eating a book is not merely looking at the words and trying to ascertain their meaning. The problem is that we’ve been trained these days to read books with a cool objectivity that attempts to preserve their scientific or theological truths by eliminating any kind of personal participation that could contaminate the true meaning. Yet in order to seek out an author’s purpose – in order to truly “eat this book,” that is exactly the opposite of what we must do. We must learn to personally participate in what we read in the Bible if we’re ever going to comprehend its deeper meaning…if we’re ever going to be even remotely impacted by what we read. We should stop and ask ourselves at multiple junctures, “What is God trying to say to me in this passage?” And if we see the finger of God constantly pointing at someone else, then we’re not reading the book as it was meant to be read. We’re not receiving it; we’re using it.

Listen: however we think that the words of the Bible got written down on paper, the Christian Church has always believed that God is somehow responsible. Yet the Church has also always believed that God is responsible in a revelatory way, and not just in an informational way. The Bible is revelation, personally revealed to us by God. It’s something we could never have come up with on our own. In other words, God is actually letting us in on something – telling us person to person – what it means to live our lives as men and women created in the image of God.

Eugene Peterson describes it this way:

This may be the single most important thing to know as we come to read and study and believe the Holy Scriptures: this rich, alive, personally revealing God we experience as Father, Son and Holy Spirit…is personally addressing us in whatever circumstances we find ourselves – at whatever age we are – and in whatever state we are.

Yet in my mind, there are two great themes that typify our culture and keep us at arm’s length from God. The first theme is the Burger King mantra: “Have it your way.” The second theme is what anyone who was ever in the retail business had drilled into their heads. And that theme is: “The customer is always right.” Thus, if culture does a thorough job on us – and it turns out to be awfully effective on most of us – we enter adulthood with the assumption that whatever we want, whatever we feel or whatever we need…has come to form the divine control center of our lives. And the Holy Trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are reduced to a personal trinity of My Wants, My Feelings, and My Needs. Could we go so far as to say that consumption and acquisition have become the new fruits of the Spirit?

Yet the fact of the matter is – in spite of all our sophistication, knowledge and self-indulgence – we don’t know how to run our own lives. The sorry state of affairs in many people’s lives is a tribute to the path of self-reliance. The sorry state of affairs in this country is a tribute to the path of self-reliance. Where do you suppose we could find the God who loves us – the God who created us in his own image – revealing a better way?

Before I end this sermon, however, I’ve got one more thing to tell you. A man in this church – a man who wishes to remain anonymous – was asked to deliver the eulogy at his brother-in-law’s funeral. His brother-in-law’s name was Fred. What follows is a part of what he said. Listen closely.

Fred was a dedicated Christian with a strong faith. I remember talking with him on the phone a couple of months ago and telling him about a Bible study class that I was taking at church. I said that I really didn’t know the Bible as well as I should. He replied, “You have to read the textbook if you’re going to take the course.”

You have to read the textbook if you’re going to take the course. My friend’s eulogy went on to say, “While living with them on 8^th Street, he encouraged me to join their church – Gloria Dei Lutheran. I remained a Lutheran, until I married that cute pharmacy student…different denomination, same textbook.”

The third covenant of a disciple of Jesus Christ is Study Diligently! We study Scripture in an attempt to shape our minds to become more attuned to the will of God. We begin by setting aside a small block of time each day to read the Bible…and participating in at least one group learning experience each week. We aspire to spend a significant amount of time in Christian study every day and take part in two or three learning experiences each week. Ladies and gentlemen, you have to read the textbook…if you’re going to take the course. Amen.

9-25-2011 Sermon by The Rev. Dr. Brian K. Jensen

2011-09-26T10:59:00.001-07:00

THE SEVEN COVENANTS OF A DISCIPLE OF JESUS CHRIST: PARTII

Back when I was a senior in seminary, I had what was called a student pastorate in a town called Manchester, Kentucky. One Sunday afternoon I was in the home of one the families in my church. Fourteen-year-old Ben was busy doing his science homework. All of a sudden he blurted out, “Mom! Did you know that the sun is 93 million miles away?” His mother replied, “Of course, Ben. Everybody knows that.” Ben scowled and said, “Well, I didn’t know that. I just thought it came up over here and went down over there!”

That story brings to mind the seed I want to plant in your minds for you to consider throughout the course of this sermon. Does the sun revolve around the earth, or does the earth revolve around the sun? And when we can’t see the sun, is it because the sun has turned away…or because the earth has turned away? Keep that though in mind as we move on.

Last week, we began a sermon series entitled, “The Seven Covenants of a Disciple of Jesus Christ.” I began the sermon by making the case that Christ’s Great Commission, as recorded in the gospel according to Matthew, is the reason for the church’s existence in the first place. The church is called to make disciples. Yet if the church is going to make disciples, the people who populate the church must first become disciples themselves. That’s what the seven covenants of a disciple of Jesus Christ are all about.

The seven covenants of a disciple of Jesus Christ are as follows: worship regularly; pray daily; study diligently; live faithfully; serve joyously; give generously; and witness boldly. Last week we delved a little more deeply into the first covenant: worship regularly. We said in essence that it was Jesus’ custom to worship and it should be ours as well. Yet we should also come to worship expecting God to speak, to move and to act. That’s what keeps our faith from being a mile wide and an inch deep. Today, we’re going to delve a little more deeply into the second covenant of a disciple of Jesus Christ…the covenant that calls us to pray daily.

A disciple of Jesus Christ prays every day. Prayer is communication with God. It ushers us into communion with God. We begin by setting aside at least one time period each day when we will communicate with God. We aspire to live lives guided by God through continual prayer.

We yearn for prayer in our lives these days…yet we seem to hide from it as well. Why, it’s almost as if we’re drawn to prayer and repelled by it at the very same time. Deep down in our hearts we believe that prayer is something we should do – even something we want to do – but it seems as if there’s a great that chasm stands between us and God. Maybe we’re afraid that if we pray we might actually have to change something about ourselves. What happens then is we come to experience the emptiness of prayerlessness.

We’re not quite sure what it is that holds us back. Of course, we’re all busy with work and family obligations, but truth be told…that’s really a smoke screen. Our busyness seldom keeps us from eating or sleeping or going out on the town. Perhaps there’s something deeper – something more significant – that keeps us from having an active prayer life. Perhaps, in reality, the problem is that we don’t really know how to pray.

Living in a postmodern world as we do, we assume that prayer is something we master, like algebra or economics. That puts us in a position where we feel competent and in control. Prayer, however, doesn’t really work like that. Prayer puts us in a position of not being in control. In fact, in prayer, we deliberately surrender control. As Emile Griffin once wrote in a book called The Experience of Prayer, “To pray means being willing to become naïve.” That’s not exactly a feeling with which many of us are terribly comfortable.

Then we wonder if what we’re asking for in prayer is proper. Many years ago, I was leading a confirmation class at the First Presbyterian Church in Luverne, Minnesota. One of the things I like to do at the beginning of every session is to have one of the students lead the class in prayer. That particular day, a boy named Calvin led the class in prayer. He said something like, “Let us pray. Dear God, bless our confirmation class. Bless all the people in this church. And could you please make Jeanie Gamble like me? Amen.”

Someone immediately blurted out, “You can’t God ask for that in prayer!” I said, “Why not? God can take it. God wants to know what’s really on our minds. We are free to bring the deepest, darkest longings of our hearts to God. That’s what it means to be a child of God.”

Truth be told, we all come before God with mixed motives. We come before God feeling generous or selfish, merciful or hateful, loving…or bitter. Yet Jesus reminds us that prayer is a lot like a child making a request of his or her parents. Oh, we may not be pleased with everything our children ask of us, and sometimes the answer might be no, but aren’t we always glad they came to us, just the same?

I guess what I’m trying to say is that God receives us just as we are, and accepts our prayers just as they are. Richard Foster calls this kind of prayer, “Simple Prayer” or, “The Prayer of Beginning Again.” In Simple Prayer we are the focus of our prayers. Our needs, our wants and our concerns tend to dominate the conversation. And that’s all right…in the beginning.

What Richard Foster calls Simple Prayer is probably the most common form of prayer in the Bible. I think of Moses in the wilderness when his people grew tired of bread from heaven. They wanted meat. So Moses cried out to God, “I am not able to carry these people alone. The burden is too heavy for me. If thou must deal thus with me, kill me at once!” Then there was the prayer of Elisha after he took over from Elijah. Some little boys made fun of him and called him a baldhead. Elisha cursed them in the name of the Lord, and then two she-bears came out of the woods and mauled the little boys. And in the 137^th Psalm the Israelites were upset with the Babylonians. They cry out to God against their oppressors: “Happy shall be he who takes your little ones…and dashes them against a rock!” Even some of the most significant biblical exemplars of faith would on occasion let their darker sides get the best of them.

The point is, we can bring before God that which lies on our hearts. Simple prayer involves ordinary people bringing ordinary concerns to a loving and compassionate Father. Thus, it was all right for Calvin to ask God to make Jeanie Gamble like him. It’s fine if we ask God to help us pass a calculus test. And there’s nothing wrong with asking God to make us feel better when we don’t feel very good at all. As C.S. Lewis once put it, “We should lay before God that which is really in us, not what we think ought to be in us.” For when we pray, the real condition of our hearts is revealed…and that is when God can truly begin to work with us. Again, when we pray, the real condition of our hearts is revealed and that is when God can truly begin to work with us.

Perhaps the best illustration of this is Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof. He’d look up to the sky and talk about whatever was on his mind. In the song, “If I Were a Rich Man,” he sings, “Lord, Who made the lion and the lamb, You decreed I should be what I am. Would it spoil some vast, eternal plan…if I were a wealthy man? Ya da da da da da da…” Sorry.

Don’t worry about proper praying. Just talk to God. Share your hurts, your sorrows, and your joys…freely and openly. God listens in compassion and love, just like we do when our children come to us. God delights in our presence. And when we do this, perhaps we will discover something of inestimable value. Perhaps we will discover that by praying, we learn how to pray.

A good way to start is by getting yourself a devotional guide. I have a devotional guide that I’ve been using for more than 25 years. It’s called, A Guide to Prayer for Ministers and Other Servants, by Rueben P. Job and Norm Shawchuck. I begin every day with devotions and prayer time. There’s an opening prayer, a Psalm and a daily Scripture reading. Then there’s what they call “Readings for Reflection.” Those are typically snippets from spiritual classics like, The God Who Comes, by Carlo Carretto, or, The Wounded Healer, by Henri Nouwen. And then, there’s a time set aside for prayer. I like to practice what we call contemplative or listening prayer.

What is contemplative prayer? It has to do with listening for God. Typically, when we pray, we fill the airwaves with our incessant chatter. Contemplative prayer has to do with giving God a chance to respond. We actually listen for God in silence.

Here’s how it works. Make yourself completely comfortable so that your body doesn’t become a hindrance in any way. I like to lean back in my chair, put my feet up on my desk, rest my hands in my lap and close my eyes. That’s why I keep my office door closed. If someone actually saw me like that, they’d think I was taking a nap. I’m not taking a nap; I’m praying!

The next thing to do is to completely clear your mind. Some people use what we call “The Jesus Prayer.” They repeat the words, “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” “Lord, Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” Repeat those words a number of times, and then just clear your mind. That’s one way.

I like to use a way that was taught by the unknown 14^th century English mystic who wrote a book called, The Cloud of Unknowing. He – or she – said to do this. Repeat the words, “God, God, God!” in your mind. Then simply clear your mind. Allow God an opportunity to communicate with you. Shut out the noise of the world, and just listen. Trust me…you’ll be amazed at the results.

But let me add what I think just might be the most important thing of all about prayer. All Christian prayer should be closed in Jesus’ name. Every prayer you’ve ever heard me say is closed with the words “We pray in Jesus’ name” or “Through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Why? Because apart from Jesus Christ, we do not have access to God. We pray in Jesus’ name because it’s through Christ’s sacrifice on the cross…that we have access to God. God made a covenant with the Hebrew people through Abraham. Jesus Christ fulfilled that covenant and established a new covenant – a covenant of grace and mercy. We are a part of that covenant of grace and mercy. And that’s why we pray in Jesus’ name. Ladies and gentlemen, it’s not just a formality. It’s a theological reality.

So let’s go back to our initial analogy of the earth and the sun. The sun is 93 million miles away from the earth, although Allegheny physics professor Dan Willey tells me that I can’t prove it. It’s just something that we accept. The question was, “Does the sun revolve around the earth, or does the earth revolve around the sun? And when we can’t see the sun, is it because the sun has turned away...or because the earth has turned away?” Science tells us that the earth revolves around the sun. And when we can’t see the sun, it’s because the earth has turned away…not the other way around.

Is this a good analogy for us and God? Could we be so bold as to say that God is the center of the universe and that we are not? And could we also say that when we can’t sense God in the day-to-day events of our lives that it’s we who have turned away, and not the other way around? I think we could say that. I think we could say that…and we’d be right.

The second covenant of a disciple of Jesus Christ is: pray daily. Prayer is communication with God. It ushers us into communion with God. We begin by setting aside at least one time period each day when we will communicate with God. We aspire to live lives guided by God through continual prayer. Do that…and you’ll be well on your way to becoming a disciple of Jesus Christ. Amen.

9-18-2011 Sermon by The Rev. Dr. Brian K. Jensen

2011-09-19T11:19:00.001-07:00

THE SEVEN COVENANTS OF A DISCIPLE OF JESUS CHRIST: PART I

Artemus Ward was the pen name of a man named Charles Farrar Browne. He was an early American humorist who once was called America’s first standup comic. He lived from 1834 until 1867…and profoundly influenced another American humorist who went by the name of Mark Twain. Anyway, in one of his routines Artemus Ward tried to describe the South Platte River in northeast Colorado. He said it was a mile wide and an inch deep. “It would be a considerable river,” he added, “if it were turned on its side!”

A mile wide and an inch deep…a little research reveals that that particular phrase has been used to describe politicians, writers, consultants and T.V. newscasters. The question I have for you today however, is this: Does that statement also apply to the modern day Christian Church? Is the Christian Church in America today…a mile wide and an inch deep?

Recent surveys lead us to believe that 80 to 85% percent of Americans today identify themselves as Christian. One particular survey went so far as to say that 90% of Americans surveyed believe they have a personal relationship with God. One might naturally assume, then, that the battle is won. Oh, there may be a few stragglers, but America would appear – statistically speaking – to be a Christian nation. That’s the mile wide part. The question now is: How deep does that river run?

Obviously, that’s a very difficult question to answer. There is no way anyone can get inside a person’s head and measure the depth of his or her faith. However, a woman by the name of Yvonne Reeves-Chong has an intriguing story to tell on the subject. She writes:

My son is a wonderful young man with an amazing love for the Lord. As a teenager he was blessed to go on two high school mission trips: one to Zambia and the other to Los Angeles. He made a rather astute observation. In Africa, Christianity is rare. Evangelism is simple and direct, and the fruits of conversion are very evident. In Los Angeles, however, while almost everyone claims to be Christian…the fruit is nearly nonexistent. Los Angelians knew the language of Christ, but they did not know the love of Christ.

The question was: Is the Christian Church in America today a mile wide and an inch deep? A good scientist would tell me that I haven’t proved my point because I don’t have a broad enough sample, and that scientist would be right. So let me throw in a little something else. Loren Mead is the founder and President of The Alban Institute…which might be defined as a Christian think tank. In a book called The Once and Future Church, Loren Mead has this to say:

All the uncertainties and changes of the emerging age of ministry come to a head in the life of the local congregation. The church was once the stable center and foundation of community and family life. It witnessed to the deep values and commitments that made life coherent and whole. Today the local church has become merely one institution along-side all the others – competing for time and energy – and often less sure than the others… about its basic reason for being.

Do you understand what Loren Mead is saying? He’s saying that the church has become one institution alongside all the others. The church is an institution like the Masons, or the Rotary Club, or the Lion’s Club or Kiwanis. And like those other organizations, the church competes for the time and the energy – and dare we say the money – of its members. Yet often times in our society today the church is less certain than those other organizations about its basic reason for being.

Perhaps fifty years ago people were aware of the church’s basic reason for existence. Or maybe they weren’t. After all, fifty years ago it was a societal expectation that upstanding members of a community would naturally belong to a church. That is not the case today. Today people will not belong to an organization or an institution unless they have a good reason for belonging. Thus, we need to discern the church’s basic reason for existence. The church can no longer afford to be a mile wide and an inch deep. Its members have to know exactly why it’s here; or they won’t be.

I think that reason is revealed in the passage Howie read a moment ago. The church was established by none other than Jesus Christ. He said to his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?” They replied, “Some say John the Baptist, some say Elijah, and some say Jeremiah or one of the other prophets.” Jesus then asked them, “But who do you say that I am?” It was Peter who spoke up first. He said, “You are the Christ, Son of the living God.”

Jesus replied, “Blessed are you, Simon bar Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven. I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church.” The church was built on the Apostle Peter’s confession of faith. The disciples were comfortable with that…but then Jesus went and died. As you know, they gave up on him for a time. They gave up on Jesus, and they gave up on his dream. Then Jesus made several post-resurrection appearances to them. In the passage Howie read, he gave them a charge as to what they should become. He gave them a commission that still serves as the mission of the church today. Jesus said to his disciples:

All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always…to the close of the age.

There you have it in a nutshell: the mission of the church. That, my friends, is the reason for our existence. We are to make disciples of all nations. We are to baptize them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. And we are to teach them to observe all that Christ commanded. Why? Because Jesus said so.

You know, my mother used to say that to me all the time. She’d tell me to do something and I’d say, “Why?” She’d say, “Because I said so.” That reason never carried much weight with me when I was a child, but as an adult I found myself saying it to my kids on occasion as well. The church does what Christ commanded…because Jesus said so.

Here at the First Presbyterian Church, we were certain that Christ’s Great Commission is, in fact, the reason for our existence. But we were also convinced that in order for us to make disciples, we would first have to become disciples ourselves. That’s why we spent a great deal of time and energy composing our own covenant of discipleship. We call it The Seven Covenants of a Disciple of Jesus Christ.

Each individual covenant has three separate components. The first component is what we call a Discipleship Practice. That is essentially a spiritual discipline. The second component begins with the words, We Begin By. In other words, this is where you start. The final component begins with the words, We Aspire To. In other words, this is your ultimate goal. Are you ready? I present to you now, “The Seven Covenants of a Disciple of Jesus Christ of the First Presbyterian Church of Meadville.”

The first discipleship practice is: Worship regularly! Worship is integral to the life of faith. It was Jesus’ custom to worship and it should be ours as well. Communal worship is the primary way Christians connect with God and with each other. We Begin By: Worshipping with a congregation on a weekly basis. We Aspire To: Worship God in every moment of life and join with God’s people as often as possible.

The second discipleship practice is: Pray daily! Prayer is communication with God. It ushers us into communion with God. We Begin By: Setting aside at least one time period each day when we will communicate with God. We Aspire To: Live lives guided by God through continual prayer.

The third discipleship practice is: Study diligently! We study Scripture in an attempt to shape our minds to become more attuned to the will of God. We Begin By: Setting aside a small block of time each day to read the Bible and participating in at least one group learning experience each week. We Aspire To: Spend a significant amount of time in Christian study every day and take part in two or three learning experiences each week.

The fourth discipleship practice is: Live faithfully! Our lives should be lived with integrity and holiness. We strive to live in harmony with the will of God. We Begin By: Taking to heart that which we read in Scripture, comprehend in worship, and sense in prayer. We Aspire To: Live lives reflecting the faith we profess, looking to Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith.

The fifth discipleship practice is: Serve joyously! Each of us is called to ministry. We seek the field of ministry most closely aligned with the call of God on our lives…that hauntingly stirs our deepest passion. We Begin By: Engaging in some form of ministry with others. We Aspire To: Create ministries in which we engage others as partners in ministry with us.

The sixth discipleship practice is: Give generously! The way we give of ourselves and our resources should reflect the self-giving love of God in Christ. We Begin By: Committing to giving a set proportion of our time, talents and financial resources to God. We Aspire To: Live lives in which our giving is sacrificial.

The seventh discipleship practice is: Witness boldly! In his Great Commission, Christ challenged his disciples to make disciples of all nations. To make disciples of all nations, one must spread the gospel of Jesus Christ. We Begin By: Sharing our faith and values with family, friends and neighbors. We Aspire To: Fearlessly encounter situations where we have the courage to speak, and our Christian witness can truly make a difference.

There you have it: The Seven Covenants of a Disciple of Jesus Christ. Today we’re going to explore in a little more depth the first discipleship covenant: Worship regularly. Why do we worship regularly? I think the answer is revealed in the passage I read from the gospel according to Luke. That passage is famous for what Jesus said. He said, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.” This passage, of course, marks the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry. It was from here that everything began, and that’s what preachers generally talk about when they preach on this passage.

Yet there’s something else in this passage that’s really quite easy to overlook. Jesus had just been baptized and shortly thereafter he went to his home town of Nazareth. In verse 16 it reads, “…and he went to the synagogue, as was his custom, on the Sabbath day.” Jesus went to worship God on the Sabbath day AS WAS HIS CUSTOM. Thus, why do we make the worship of God a habit? We make it a habit because Jesus made it a habit. There is no answer that could be more clear-cut than that.

Yet still people say, “I don’t need a church to worship God. I can worship God far, far better in nature than I can in a building.” To that I say, “That may be, but do you?” And then there’s the old, “I’m spiritual but not religious,” routine. To that I say, “Spiritual but not religious generally means that one turns to God when one wants something from him, but for the most part… one is pretty much content to leave God alone.” Of course, that brings to mind what has become my new favorite question of late. That question is this: Does God exist to serve us, or do we exist to serve God? I think you know the answer. We need to remember that worship is about God, not about us.

Craig Satterlee is the author of a book entitled, When God Speaks through Worship. In it I think he really puts a finger on why we come before God in worship. He talks about a minister who was struggling with what God was trying to say and do in worship. The minister says, “I have been to the mountaintop; those experiences don’t last. I’ve worked hard on the plain, and come away empty and exhausted. I want to get wet in the river. How do I get in…and how do I know when I’m there?” Satterlee answers that minister’s question this way:

Simply stated, we get into the river by worshipping. Though the extent in intensity of God’s transformation of our lives and our congregations may remind us more of a lazy river than a rapid stream, God works in worship over time to shape us and move us, as surely as flowing water smooths stones and carries them to the sea. Even when the current of God’s reconciling love does not knock us over and sweep us away, we can worship with the expectation that God is present, speaking, and acting. Expecting God to speak and act in worship makes us actively engaged.

That, my friends, is how we get into the river. Perhaps that’s also how we keep it from being a mile wide and an inch deep. The first covenant of a disciple of Jesus Christ is worship regularly. If we come to worship expecting God to speak, move, and act…then we will have taken the first step to becoming a disciple of Jesus Christ. Amen.

9-11-2011 Sermon by The Rev. Dr. Brian K. Jensen

2011-09-12T08:22:00.001-07:00

THINGS WE DON’T UNDERSTAND

Where were you on September 11^th, 2001? That’s a question that I suspect a lot of us could answer with a great deal of accuracy. What happened on that day defined a generation, much like the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963…or the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941. Where were you on September 11^th, 2001?

I was serving the First Presbyterian Church of Salem, Ohio at the time. That night we held a prayer service in our sanctuary. I remember standing up and saying, “I don’t know what to say. Let’s just spend some time in prayer. Let’s just let the Holy Spirit intercede for us, as the Apostle Paul says, ‘in groans that words cannot express.’” And that’s exactly what we did. We sat there in stunned silence, not knowing what to say. Some sat for close to an hour.

About six months later, my family and I took a trip to New York City. While we were there, we went on a bus tour of the city. We sat in the open top of a double-decker bus. Our tour guide told us that we were going to be the first tour bus allowed to go past the original site of the Twin Towers. I remember the tour guide saying, “We would appreciate it if people would give the site the reverence that it is due.”

We then went by the original site of the Twin Towers. It was nothing but a pair of gaping holes filled with rubble. And everyone on the bus was completely silent. No one could bring themselves to say a word. In a manner of speaking, we found ourselves on holy ground.

The events of nine-eleven shook up our nation. It seemed as if everyone’s faith was impacted…one way or another. On the one hand, the Sunday after nine-eleven, churches all across this great nation of ours were packed to the rafters. It was a spiritual revival that lasted for nearly a week. For many others, however, faith was impacted in a negative way. The question was asked time and time again, “How could a God of love have allowed this to happen?”

Theologian Serene Jones describes trauma as something that happens not just to those who directly experience violence. She says our minds are like offices. They store incoming information in one of the thousands of files we have created to make sense of the world. When trauma occurs, the incoming information is so overwhelming…that we don’t know where to store it. It fits none of our categories and we are left stunned and confused.

Traumatic events then come to affect our faith. They affect our faith…one way or another. In times of crisis, some will turn to God with renewed fervor. Others will turn away from God, disgusted with the way they perceive God operates. Along those lines, I have a story I want to tell you now. It’s called, Potatoes, Eggs and Coffee Beans. I think it’s really quite pertinent to the subject matter at hand.

A number of years ago a woman was going through some very difficult times. She complained to her father that her life was miserable and that she just didn’t know how she was going to make it. She was tired of constantly struggling just to keep her head above water. It seemed to her as if – just as one problem was solved – another one cropped up to take its place.

Her father listened, nodded, and said, “Come with me.” They went into the kitchen where he filled three pots with water. He put them on the stove and turned the flames up high. Once the pots began to boil, he placed potatoes in the first pot, eggs in the second pot…and coffee beans in the third. He let them sit and simmer without saying a word to his daughter.

The woman waited impatiently, crossing her arms and tapping her foot, wondering what on earth her father was doing. After twenty minutes or so, he turned the burners off on the stove. He took the potatoes out of the first pot and placed them in a bowl. He took the eggs out of the second pot and placed them in a bowl. Then he ladled the coffee out of the third pot and placed it in a cup. Turning to her, he said, “My dear, sweet daughter, what do you see?”

“I see potatoes, eggs and coffee,” she snorted. “Look closer,” he said, “and touch the potatoes.” She did so, and noted that they were now very soft. He then told her to take an egg and break it. When she did so, she observed a hard-boiled egg. Then he told her to take a sip of the coffee. The coffee was good, and its rich aroma brought a smile to her face. “But Daddy,” she said, “what has this got to do with all my problems?”

He then explained that the potatoes, the eggs and the coffee beans had each faced the same adversity. Each had been placed in boiling water. The difference, however, is that each one reacted differently. The potato went in strong, hard and unrelenting…but in boiling water it became soft and weak. The egg was fragile, with a thin outer shell protecting its soft interior, until it was put in the boiling water. Then the inside of the egg became hard and unyielding.

The coffee beans, however, were different. After they were exposed to the boiling water, they changed the water and became something new. “Which are you?” he asked his daughter. “When adversity knocks upon your door, how do you respond? Are you a potato, an egg, or a coffee bean?” In this journey we call life, many things will happen all around us, and many things will happen to us. Perhaps the thing that matters most is what happens inside us.

Back in 1978, M. Scott Peck catapulted onto the American literary scene with his best-selling book, The Road Less Travelled. The book was labeled, “A new psychology of love, traditional values, and spiritual growth.” Yet perhaps the key to its success was embodied in the very first sentence. The book began with these words: “Life is difficult.”

Life is difficult. Traumatic events will occur in our lifetimes that will make us or break us. I think of something Billy Graham said at The National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. immediately after the events of nine-eleven. He said, “God is sovereign…even in things we don’t understand.” God is sovereign, even in things we don’t understand. With those words as the foundation of our faith, we are far more likely to persevere in the face of adversity. We are far more likely to be a coffee bean than we are an egg or a potato. The question is, how do we get there?

The answer is simple, but the process is complex. I think the answer just might be something that a friend of mine in this church recently said to me. He believes he received a message from God. And frankly, to me, it sounds exactly like something God would say. He said, “Read your Bible, and pray to Jesus every day.” Read your Bible…and pray to Jesus every day.

When we read our Bibles, it will come to shape our minds in accordance with the will of God. We will read the ancient stories of faith. We will see how God was active in the lives of faithful people who went before us. And we will begin to comprehend the way God works in the world.

When we pray every day, we will come to be in communion with God. As someone once said, “Prayer doesn’t change God. Prayer changes us.” And that might be the best part of all. Perhaps we will come to be transformed into a man or a woman of God.

Like I said, I think the answer is simple but the process is a bit complex. Let me try to explain. Fourteen years ago my wife was diagnosed with Sartoli-Leydig cell cancer…a particularly deadly form of ovarian cancer. Every woman over the age of 40 diagnosed with this particular cancer had died. She was 35 at the time.

It was the summer of 1997. Our oldest son Rob was eight, our daughter Mariah was five, and our baby Travis was three. I was faced with the prospect of having to raise three children all by myself. She was faced with the prospect of not seeing them grow up at all. It was a particularly trying time in our life of faith.

Back then, I was just learning about what we call contemplative prayer. Contemplative prayer is listening prayer. In other words, instead of filling the airwaves with my incessant babble, I actually took the time to listen for God. During one of those periods of contemplative prayer – thinking about my wife’s situation – I sensed four distinct words. I did not hear voices; I wasn’t losing my mind. I sensed four distinct words. Those words were, “She will be fine.” My immediate response was to ask, “Does that mean she’s going to live?” And again I sensed those four distinct words: “She will be fine.” Then suddenly I knew – that whether she lived or whether she died – she would be fine. And if she would be fine…then perhaps the kids and I would be fine, too.

That was the singularly most profound spiritual thing I have ever experienced. My faith literally moved from my head to my heart as I came to realize that the promises of God are true. We call that the move from secondary faith to primary faith. We move from secondary faith to primary faith – in other words, our faith moves from our heads to our hearts – when we come to realize that the promises of God are true because we have experienced the grace of God for ourselves. And in light of such an event, we come to develop a spiritual memory. When we have a spiritual memory, we come to believe that…if God was faithful in the past, then why would we think God might not be faithful in the future as well? Again, if God was faithful in the past, then why would we think God might not be faithful in the future as well?

Perhaps M. Scott Peck put it best when he said, “Life is difficult.” Life is difficult. Yet if we read our Bibles and pray to Jesus every day, perhaps we will manage to persevere. Perhaps our faith will move from our heads to our hearts as we come to realize that the promises of God are true. Then, as Billy Graham put it so well, we will know in our hearts that God is sovereign…even in things we don’t understand. Amen.

9-4-2011 Sermon by The Rev. Dr. Brian K. Jensen

2011-09-12T07:44:00.001-07:00

THE WAY: EPILOGUE

Back on the 15^th of May, we began a sermon series based upon John 14:6. There Jesus says to his disciples, “I am the way and the truth and the life.” From that simple statement theologian Eugene Peterson derived the following theory: “The Jesus way wedded to the Jesus truth brings about the Jesus life.” While countless battles – and even wars – have been fought over the Jesus truth, very seldom do we invest much energy in discerning the Jesus way. Well that is precisely what we are attempting to do in this series of sermons. The question thus becomes, “What is the Jesus way…and how do we go about following it?”

From the time of Abraham to the time of Jesus Christ, the Hebrew people – our ancestors in the faith – lived in proximity to a succession of some of the greatest civilizations the world has ever known. There was Sumeria, Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome. Their leaders stand tall in the leadership hall of fame: Hammurabi, Ramses, Tiglath Pilesar III, Nebuchadnezzar, Cyrus, Alexander the Great, and even Caesar Augustus.

But think about this. For many centuries, with all this empire-building going on around them, the Hebrew people kept to their own ways, and maintained a unique counterculture. It was a unique counterculture in terms of the way they worshipped God and the way they lived their lives. Ultimately, however, they wanted to be like everyone else. They wanted a king of their own. Finally God acquiesced. The prophet Samuel was called to anoint Saul to be the first king over Israel. Then David became king. Then Solomon became king. Then it all fell apart over the course of the next five hundred years. When all was said and done, there were no more kings over Israel. In fact…there was no more kingdom of Israel at all. And it was all because they abandoned their unique counterculture. It was all because they came – in time – to neglect the ways of God.

Then Jesus came and showed the world how to live in what he called the kingdom of God. That’s what we need to recover. That’s what we need to rediscover. As Christians, we need to become a unique counterculture once again. We should be different than the world around us. We should have alternative priorities. We should seek to live the Jesus life by encountering the Jesus truth and following the Jesus way. Perhaps then people will see us and say of us as they said of Christians some 1800 years ago: “See how those Christians love one another, while we ourselves are ready to kill one another.” Ladies and gentlemen, that’s what the Jesus life looks like. It looks like Christians who love one another.

As we noted initially, however, the Jesus truth – in and of itself – is not enough to bring about the Jesus life. Jesus calls us to follow the Jesus way as well. Then we noted that the Jesus way is not a list of rules and regulations. The Jesus way cannot be codified or simplified or summarized. The Jesus way is meant to be lived.

When we examined the life of the prophet Elijah, we discovered that the Jesus way involves making choices. The question at the heart of the matter is this: Do we possess an insatiable desire to get our own needs fulfilled, or are we willing to simply be present to God? When we examined the life of the prophet Isaiah, we discovered that God’s primary work in us is not condemnation, but rather, God’s primary work in us is forgiveness. Then when we manage to live our lives in light of God’s grace and mercy, what we find are the roots of holiness.

And finally, when we examined the life of the unknown preacher we refer to as Second Isaiah, we uncovered the concept of Midrash, or interpretation. In other words, what do we see when we look at God? Do we see an angry, vindictive, judgmental God, or do we see a loving, forgiving, grace-filled God? What do we see when we look at the world? Do we see a frightening place filled with nightmares and terrors around every corner, or do we see a place filled with boundless potential and loving hearts just waiting to be unlocked? It all depends on Midrash. It all depends on how we interpret it.

Of course, at this point in time, a lot of you have to be saying to yourselves, “Those Old Testament characters lived way before the time of Jesus Christ. What do they have to do with the Jesus way if they didn’t even know him?” They may not have known him, but Jesus certainly knew of them. The Jesus way is his perfection of the righteousness of the holy ones who went before him. Unfortunately, Jesus did not give explicit lectures and seminars on how to LIVE in the kingdom of God. Jesus simply said, “Follow me.” We have seen that Jesus was anticipated by some 2000 years of men and women who walked in the way of righteousness. Some of their stories we know. We know of the stories of patriarchs and prophets like Abraham, Moses, David, Elijah, Isaiah and Second Isaiah. That’s why we considered the paths of their lives. Yet perhaps the issue now is what they had in common. How is it that Abraham, Moses, David, Elijah, Isaiah, and Second Isaiah were able to walk in paths of righteousness? What was the key to their exemplary lives?

In a word, it was discipline. Their lives were guided by what we call spiritual disciplines. In other words, if we want to live our lives the Jesus way, then we’ve got to practice the spiritual disciplines as well. Just what exactly are the spiritual disciplines? A man named Dallas Willard outlines them as well as anyone I’ve ever encountered. Dallas Willard was a professor at the University of Southern California, and an ordained Southern Baptist minister. He divides the spiritual disciplines into two distinct categories. There are Disciplines of Abstinence, and there are Disciplines of Engagement.

Roughly speaking, the Disciplines of Abstinence counteract sins of commission, while the Disciplines of Engagement counteract sins of omission. In the Disciplines of Abstinence, we abstain to some degree from the satisfaction of what we generally regard as normal and legitimate desires. In the Disciplines of Engagement, we involve ourselves in activities that are beneficial to our spiritual growth. The Disciplines of Abstinence include: solitude, silence, fasting, frugality, chastity, secrecy and sacrifice. The Disciplines of Engagement include: study, prayer, worship, celebration, service, fellowship, confession and submission.

That doesn’t sound like a cakewalk, does it? That’s why we have more and more churches these days that aim at being consumer-oriented. For example, a minister friend of mine by the name of Hal Shafer recently sent me a cartoon with a church billboard announcing “The LITE Church.” That’s L-I-T-E…just like the beer. The cartoon read: “The LITE Church. We have 24% fewer commitments, 10 minute sermons, 45 minute worship services and only eight commandments. It’s everything you ever wanted in a church…and less!” Does that sound appealing to you? Be truthful, now.

I was doing some research on preaching a number of years ago. I came across the most interesting statement in my Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge. It said in essence, “If you’re preaching the message that Jesus preached, then you’re going to be met with the same reactions with which Jesus was met.” In other words, if you’re preaching the message that Jesus preached, you’re going to be met with ridicule, disrespect, scoffing, insults and the like. Preaching Jesus… will not make one popular. It might even breed animosity.

Once upon a time, a Catholic priest and a Presbyterian minister were fishing in a creek near a road. The two of them were clearly visible from the road. They made a sign and placed in on the roadside to make people turn around from imminent disaster. The sign said: “STOP! THE END IS NEAR! TURN YOURSELF AROUND BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE!”

It was a quiet road and there wasn’t much traffic. Pretty soon a car finally did come down the road. The driver read the sign and was incensed by it. He yelled at the clergymen, “Leave us alone, you religious fanatics! Just keep your faith to yourselves!” The clergymen heard the man’s angry words as the man drove off, and then they heard a big splash. The priest said to the pastor, “Maybe we should have just written, ‘Bridge Out.’” Like I said, abiding by the Christian faith will not make one popular. And preaching the way of Jesus Christ…can make one even less so.

Still, theological integrity is important to me. Someone recently said to me, “You’re one of the five best preachers in the country.” I said, “I don’t know about that. I’ve heard many of the so-called best preachers in the country, and I don’t know if they’re any better than I am. That’s probably a matter of personal opinion. But here’s the difference between them and me. They’re all a lot more politically savvy than I am!” By that I mean…I don’t have sense enough to know when to leave well enough alone. I say what I think I should say and then let the chips fall where they may. Sometimes I have a bad case of what I like to call foot-in-mouth disease. Perhaps it’s God’s way of keeping me from being popular.

So I’m going to do it again. I’m going to say what I think needs to be said about the Jesus way and let the chips fall where they may. You may not like what I have to say, because it’s far from Christianity LITE. Walking the Jesus way requires discipline, and there’s nothing easy about it. It requires dedication, hard work and sacrifice. So here goes…

Here at the First Presbyterian Church, we have devised what we call The Seven Covenants of a Disciple of Jesus Christ. Each covenant has a Discipleship Practice, which is a spiritual discipline. And each covenant has a line that says, “We Begin By” and “We Aspire To.” In other words, one is where you start and the other is your ultimate goal. Are you ready? Here are The Seven Covenants of a Disciple of Jesus Christ.

The first discipleship practice is worship regularly. Worship is integral to the life of faith. It was Jesus’ custom to worship and it should be ours as well. Communal worship is the primary way Christians connect with God and with each other. We begin by: Worshipping with a congregation on a weekly basis. We aspire to: Worship God in every moment of life and join with God’s people as often as possible.

The second discipleship practice is pray daily. Prayer is communication with God. It ushers us into communion with God. We begin by: Setting aside at least one time period each day when we will communicate with God. We aspire to: Live lives guided by God through continual prayer.

The third discipleship practice is study diligently. We study Scripture in an attempt to shape our minds to become more attuned to the will of God. We begin by: Setting aside a small block of time each day to read the Bible, and participating in at least one group learning experience each week. We aspire to: Spend a significant amount of time in Christian study every day and take part in two or three learning experiences each week.

The fourth discipleship practice is live faithfully. Our lives should be lived with integrity and holiness. We strive to live in harmony with the will of God. We begin by: Taking to heart that which we read in Scripture, comprehend in worship, and sense in prayer. We aspire to: Live lives reflecting the faith we profess, looking to Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith.

The fifth discipleship practice is serve joyously. Each of us is called to ministry. We seek the field of ministry most closely aligned with the call of God on our lives that hauntingly stirs our deepest passion. We begin by: Engaging in some form of ministry with others. We aspire to: Create ministries in which we engage others as partners in ministry with us.

The sixth discipleship practice is give generously. The way we give of ourselves and our resources should reflect the self-giving love of God in Christ. We begin by: Committing to giving a set proportion of our time, talent and financial resources to God. We aspire to: Live lives in which our giving is sacrificial.

The seventh discipleship practice is witness boldly. In his Great Commission, Christ challenged his disciples to make disciples of all nations. To make disciples of all nations, one must spread the gospel of Jesus Christ. We begin by: Sharing our faith and values with family, friends and neighbors. We aspire to: Fearlessly encounter situations where we have the courage to speak, and our Christian witness can truly make a difference.

There you have it: The Seven Covenants of a Disciple of Jesus Christ. They reflect how the patriarchs and prophets who went before us lived, and they are the source through which we can once again create a unique counterculture. But perhaps most important of all, follow them...and you will be well on the way to living your life the Jesus way. Amen.

8-28-2011 Sermon by The Rev. Dr. Brian K. Jensen

2011-08-29T12:20:00.001-07:00

THE WAY: PART VIII

As we noted initially, the Jesus truth – in and of itself – is not enough to bring about the Jesus life. Jesus calls us to follow the Jesus way as well. Then we noted that the Jesus way is not a list of rules and regulations. The Jesus way cannot be codified, or simplified, or even summarized. The Jesus way is meant to be lived.

When we examined the life of Abraham, we discovered that the Jesus way involves testing and sacrifice. God has a way of sifting people when he wants to use them to accomplish great things for his kingdom. When we examined the life of Moses, we discovered that God has a unique purpose for our lives. What’s more, that purpose is subject to change from time to time and we have the responsibility of continuing to seek out God’s purpose for our lives in spite of whatever changes might take place. When we examined the life of David, we discovered that living a godly life in spite of all our imperfections is part and parcel to walking the Jesus way. God may not expect perfection from us, but God does expect noble intentions. When we examined the life of the prophet Elijah, we discovered that the Jesus way involves making choices. The question at the heart of the matter is this: Do we possess an insatiable desire to get our own needs fulfilled, or are we willing to simply be present to God? And finally, when we examined the life of Isaiah, we discovered that God’s primary work in us is not condemnation. God’s primary work in us is forgiveness. When we live our lives in light of God’s grace and mercy, what we find are the roots of holiness.

Today we come to part VIII in our sermon series on The Way. In our journey through the Old Testament we have examined the lives of Abraham, Moses, David, Elijah and Isaiah. Today we examine the life of a man we call Second Isaiah. If I were to come up with a subtitle for the sermon today it might be called: The Way of Second Isaiah or…The Way of Midrash. In any case, I invite you to come along with me as we seek to discern The Jesus Way.

I suppose the first thing we need to do is to answer the question of who Second Isaiah really was. Most of our Bibles record the book of Isaiah as one single unit. However, close examination of the text reveals that sections of the book of Isaiah come from different eras in Israel’s history. For example, First Isaiah – which consists of chapters 1 through 39 – discusses issues surrounding the Assyrian occupation of Jerusalem, which occurred around 700 B.C. Second Isaiah – which consists of chapters 40 through 55 – discusses issues surrounding the dispersion of the Hebrew people following Jerusalem’s conquest by the Babylonians in 587 B.C. Third Isaiah – which consists of chapters 56 through 66 – discusses something else altogether. Are you with me? Today we’re going to be examining the life of Second Isaiah – whose real identity is actually unknown – as he prophesied to the Hebrew people during a very difficult time in their history.

The Babylonian army, having defeated the Assyrian army that had threatened Jerusalem for so long, invaded the country and destroyed Jerusalem in 587 B.C. Jerusalem’s king – a man named Zedekiah – tried to escape. He was subsequently captured and forced to watch the execution of his sons, and then his eyes were put out. The execution of his sons was the last thing he ever saw. People could be pretty cruel in those days.

The so-called “movers and shakers” of Jerusalem were deported to the city of Babylon. The only people who were allowed to stay in Jerusalem were the poorest of the poor. The deported Hebrew people were not slaves in Babylon; in fact, some of them even prospered. Yet what they saw in Babylon was eye-opening indeed. Let me try to illustrate.

Imagine you were born and raised in Meadville. Never in your life did you venture outside of Meadville, and Meadville was all you knew. You’d be proud of that gleaming college up on the hill. You’d believe that there could be no finer football venue than Barco-Duratz field. And you would know in your heart that the sanctuary of the First Presbyterian Church was the most glorious and beautiful and holy place imaginable.

Then Meadville gets overrun by Pittsburghers; kind of like Conneaut Lake in the summer. Sadly, you find yourself deported to Pittsburgh. There you come to realize that Meadville was not all you thought it was. You see the fabulous skyscrapers that dot the Pittsburgh sky-line. You sit in Heinz Field and watch the Steelers play. You worship in churches that are literally twice the size of the First Presbyterian Church of Meadville. You come to realize that your previous world view was really rather limited. And then you start to wonder about some of the other things in life you had always believed to be true.

Such was exactly the case with the Hebrew people who were deported from Jerusalem to Babylon. The glorious city they now inhabited made Jerusalem seem like an old cow town. It was then that they started to wonder about some of the other things in life they had always believed to be true. For example, could it be that their God was not as powerful as they had once believed him to be? The Babylonian god Marduk appeared to have defeated their God quite soundly. The life of faith, it seemed, was an exquisite but fragile flower that had been crushed by Babylonian boots. As far as they were concerned, their God had either failed them or abandoned them. A great many of the Hebrew people then signed on with Marduk, and the unrivaled prosperity and the unbridled militarism of Babylon. They bound themselves to the Babylonian culture…and their faith in God began to wane.

Perhaps we find ourselves mired in a Babylon of sorts today. For example, Public Policy Polling is an organization that conducts opinion polls. Recently the subject of one of their surveys was God. On the issue of God’s creation of the universe, 71% of the people surveyed approved. Believe it or not, 5% of the population disapproved of God’s creation of the universe, and 24% were unsure. Pertaining to God’s handling of natural disasters, 50% approved, 13% disapproved, and 37% were unsure. This left God with an overall approval rating of 52%. Only 52% of the population approves of the job God is doing! As an internet newspaper called The Huffington Post recently pointed out, God’s approval rating is still higher than all the members of Congress and media mogul Rupert Murdoch. Alas, we find ourselves mired in Babylon. Like the Hebrew people before us, our faith in God has begun to wane. What do you suppose will come of that?

Here’s what has come of that. Between August 6^th and August 10^th, the London Riots occurred. Many London districts suffered widespread rioting, looting and arson. Perhaps an iconic scene was the 20-year-old college student in East London who was beaten for his bicycle, and fell bloody to the ground. His tormentors gently helped him back to his feet, then rifled through his backpack to get his phone and wallet.

A youth worker named Shaun Bailey wrote, “Young people have been looting the shops they like: sporting goods stores and mobile phone shops have been hit, yet bookstores have been left alone…This is criminality in raw form, not politics.” In other words, people are not robbing and looting food to feed their families, they are robbing and looting what we might call luxury items.

A doctor named Theodore Dalrymple believes that a degenerate British popular culture is at least in part to blame. He wrote, “A population thinks that it is entitled to a high standard of consumption, irrespective of its personal efforts. Therefore it regards the fact that it does not receive that high standard, by comparison with the rest of society, as a sign of injustice.” In other words, they think they should live in the lap of luxury, without lifting a finger to earn it. Much of what they have is provided by welfare programs, but they are not grateful. Dependency does not encourage gratitude, rather, dependency seems to encourage resentment.

Peggy Noonan writes in The Wall Street Journal that we’re starting to see the same kinds of things right here in the United States. Philadelphia recently began enforcing curfew laws due to “flash mobs.” Flash mobs occur when young people send out the word on a social media like

Facebook, and suddenly dozens or even hundreds of them hit a targeted store – steal everything on the shelves – then run…knowing that you can’t catch all of them.

Noonan points out that a lot of these young people come from broken and terror-filled homes. Many are raised in single-parent homes by overwhelmed mothers or beleaguered grandmothers. Far too many of them have suffered from physical and/or emotional abuse. The normal response is something like this: “The government has to do something! They need to start a program or create an agency.” But our governments are tapped out. They’re cutting back, doing everything they can just to avoid bankruptcy. Ladies and gentlemen, like the Hebrew people before us, we find ourselves mired in Babylon. Is there any way out? Is there any hope for the future of our nation?

Some twenty-five hundred years ago, the Hebrew people were mired in Babylon. They were questioning their world view, they were questioning their belief structure, and they were questioning God. And then, as if out of nowhere, there came a voice. It was a powerful, persuasive, convincing voice. It was the voice of the unknown prophet we refer to as Second Isaiah. He reminded the people of the glory of God. He prophesied of a coming Messiah who would set all things right. He was a powerful preacher who practiced an ancient art we call Midrash.

What is Midrash? Midrash refers to a particular way of reading and interpreting a biblical text. It is the activity of a person who seeks out the true meaning of the word of God. That is exactly what Second Isaiah did. He cried to the people in essence:

Did you think Creation was over and done when the mountains were carved, and the

rivers were set flowing, and the cedars of Lebanon were planted? Did you think that salvation was only a date in the history books and some stories you heard from your grandparents? The Creator is still creating, right here in Babylon! The Savior is still saving…right here in Babylon!

Second Isaiah restored the faith of the dispersed Hebrew people through the ancient art of Midrash. He interpreted the events of their lives in light of the Scriptures. He wove a pattern with his words that recreated a tapestry of faith. And the Hebrew people were inspired.

Midrash has to do with interpretation. A woman named Barbara Johnson was good at that. Barbara Johnson was the founder of Spatula Ministries and the author of a book called Stick a Geranium in Your Hat and Be Happy. She once wrote:

Look at it this way: One family out of 5000 lost a son in Viet Nam. We are one of those families. One family out of every 800 has a child killed by a drunk driver. We experienced that, too. Statistics say that one family out of every ten will have a homosexual child. We know all about that. One out of every forty women will develop adult onset diabetes. This is something that is brand new in my life.

Barbara Johnson had every reason to suffer from depression. Barbara Johnson had every reason to be angry, to be bitter and to question her faith in God. Yet like I said, Midrash has to do with interpretation. Here’s how Barbara Johnson interpreted her situation. She wrote:

We can choose to gather to our hearts the thorns of disappointment, failure, loneliness and dismay due to our present situation. Or, we can gather the flowers of God’s grace, unbounding love, abiding presence and unmatched joy. I choose to gather the flowers.

Midrash has to do with interpretation. What do we see when we look at God? Do we see an angry, vindictive, judgmental God? Or do we see a loving, forgiving, grace-filled God? What do we see when we look at the world? Do we see a frightening place filled with nightmares and terrors around every corner or do we see a place filled with boundless potential and loving hearts just waiting to be unlocked? As 19^th century Scottish historian Thomas Carlyle once said, “It’s not what we have, nor even what we do that gives us our kingdom. It’s what we are that gives us our peace.” What do we see when we look at the world around us? Every tree and every flower, every dog and every cat, every little girl’s beauty and every old man’s worn face…has a deeper meaning. There is always far more than meets the eye. Midrash is required to see all that stands before our eyes – to see the surface, but also to penetrate beneath the surface. Such was the gift Second Isaiah brought to the Hebrew people. He taught them to see the real beauty of the earth.

Ladies and gentlemen, sin is not redeemed by scrubbing it out of existence. Sin is redeemed when we see it as a sacrifice that Jesus Christ conquered on the cross. That, obviously, is what Jesus Christ did. But we are not Jesus Christ, are we? Yet perhaps we can participate in what Jesus did with the sin of the world. We can enter into the WAY of Jesus Christ…and become participants in God’s reconciliation. Perhaps salvation is not an escape from what is wrong, but rather, a deep and reconciling and transformational embrace of all that is wrong. I suspect…it’s all in how you look at it. Amen.

8-21-2011 Sermon by The Rev. Dr. Brian K. Jensen

2011-08-29T11:11:00.001-07:00

THE WAY: PART VII

Quite some time ago now, we began a sermon series based upon John 14:6. There Jesus says to his disciples, “I am the way and the truth and the life.” From that simple statement, theologian Eugene Peterson derived the following theory: “The Jesus way wedded to the Jesus truth brings about the Jesus life.” While countless battles – and even wars – have been fought over the Jesus truth, very seldom do we invest much energy in discerning the Jesus way. Well that is precisely what we are attempting to do in this series of sermons. The question thus becomes, “What is the Jesus way…and how do we go about following it?”

When we examined the life of Abraham, we discovered that the Jesus way involves testing and sacrifice. God has a way of sifting people when he wants to use them to accomplish great things for his kingdom. When we examined the life of Moses, we discovered that God has a unique purpose for our lives. What’s more, that purpose is subject to change from time to time, and we have the responsibility of continuing to seek out God’s purpose for our lives in spite of whatever changes might take place. When we examined the life of David, we discovered that living a godly life in spite of all our imperfections is part and parcel to walking the Jesus way. There are times when we have to throw ourselves upon the mercy of God and sincerely strive to do better in the future. And finally, when we examined the life of the prophet Elijah we discovered that the Jesus way involves making choices. We are called to choose between God and culture. The question at the heart of the matter is this: Do we possess an insatiable desire to get our own needs fulfilled, or are we willing to simply be present to God?

Today we come to Part VII in our sermon series on The Way. In our journey through the Old Testament we have examined the lives of Abraham, Moses, David and Elijah. Today we will be examining the life of the prophet Isaiah. Thus, if I were to come up with a subtitle for the sermon today it might be called: The Way of Isaiah, or…The Way of Holiness. In any case, I invite you to come along with me as we seek to discern The Jesus Way.

The characteristic name for God throughout the book of Isaiah is “The Holy.” Thus, if God is known as “The Holy,” then what does it mean for us to be holy? Eugene Peterson defines it this way. “When the ways and means by which God works…interpenetrate the ways and means by which we work, we have a name for it. We call it holy.”

“Holy” may be the best word we have for the all-encompassing providence of God that transforms us into a uniquely formed and set-apart people. Yet to be holy is never something that can be understood apart from the bodies we inhabit or apart from the neighborhoods in which we live or apart from the God whom we worship and serve. Holy is something that we live. It is the life of God breathed into our own lives. A theologian might call this “sanctification.”

Unfortunately, the culture in which we live tends to look down upon sanctification or holiness. Holiness is often reduced to banality. We call it boring or dull or uneventful. Ellen Glasgow has a telling statement along those lines in her autobiography. Of her father – a Presbyterian elder who was pious and rigid – she wrote, “He was entirely unselfish, and in his long life, he never committed a pleasure.” How’s that for boring, dull and uneventful?

Twenty years ago, I was teaching a confirmation class at my church in Luverne, Minnesota. As is typical of confirmation classes, some are there because they want to learn and they want to become active members of the church. Others are there because their parents force them to go, and there are a million other places they’d much rather be. Such was the case in this particular class some twenty years ago. Sarah was there because she wanted to be there, while Tim was there because his parents made him go.

Sarah was a model child. She worked hard in school, she attended church regularly, and she truly aimed to please. Tim was not a model child. He was frequently in trouble at school and he usually sought attention in negative ways. Tim always wore a hat to confirmation class that had thumbtacks on the bill – some stuck up and some stuck down. When I asked him why the tacks were there he said, “To keep people from stealing my hat!” If someone tried to grab his hat, they would invariably get pricked by one of the tacks.

One time in class I asked a question – I don’t remember now what it was – and Sarah quickly answered it. From the back of the class Tim blurted, “Sarah’s such a goody-goody!” Sarah shot back, “I’m not a goody-goody!” It was as if she was embarrassed about choosing to be good. I said, “What’s wrong with being good? The problem these days is that those who choose not to do well are always putting down those who do. And all we end up doing is lowering our standards. Why must we perpetually sink to the lowest common denominator?” I suspect there’s a teacher or two here today who could relate.

Of course, my lecture did no good at all. And in the end, I let them both join the church. Sarah continued to be active in the church, while I never saw Tim again. Holiness is often reduced to banality. We call it boring or dull or uneventful. Yet holiness is meant to be an interior fire. It is designed to be an all-consuming passion for living for God. And truth be told, there’s nothing boring or dull or uneventful about that at all.

Isaiah saw holiness as an all-consuming passion for living for God. That’s why we find him in the sixth chapter of the book of Isaiah – sitting in the Temple waiting on God. But before we get to that, there’s one thing we have to consider first. Verse 1 of chapter 6 begins with these words: “In the year that King Uzziah died.” Before the story of The Holy is told, a warning is posted in bold letters. The warning is the name of Uzziah. Everyone in Isaiah’s world would have known what that name meant. It meant, “Caution. Danger Ahead. Watch Your Step.”

Uzziah was king in Jerusalem for 52 years. By all accounts, he was a good king. He subdued the Philistines, he built a strong army, he developed the country economically, and he learned of the Lord in the Temple. As it says of him in the second book of Chronicles, “His fame spread far and wide, for he was marvelously helped (by God)…until he became strong.”

Once Uzziah became strong, the power went to his head. He arrogantly walked into the Temple and took it over. He told the priests to get lost. He was trying to create a religion of his own choosing. He was trying to create God in his own image. No more of this taking God for who he was and for what he had to say. He was looking for a God he could control. And what happened to Uzziah in the end? He was struck with leprosy. He spent the rest of his life in isolation – not only from the Temple, but also from the community. As Eugene Peterson puts it himself, “The holy is never something of God that we can take as if we owned and use for our own purposes.”

In the year that King Uzziah died, Isaiah went to the Temple to listen for God. He never intended to use the holy for his own purposes. He was there merely to be present to God. It was there that he saw a vision. He saw the Lord sitting on a throne and the hem of his robe filled the Temple. Heavenly beings flew into the room and cried, “Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory.” The foundations of the Temple shook and the house filled with smoke. Isaiah dropped to his knees and cried, “Woe is me, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips!”

Do you understand what Isaiah was doing here? Isaiah was making a confession of sin. He recognized the fact that he was unworthy to be in the presence of God. He understood that his life was full of sin. So he dropped to his knees and he made his confession. Ladies and gentlemen, that is the always the first step to holiness. It all begins…with confession.

Have you ever noticed the way our worship services are set up? There are four basic parts. They are: We Gather Around God’s Word, God’s Word Is Spoken to Us, God Moves Us to Respond, and God Sends Us Forth to Serve. Our worship is not set up that way by accident. Now I’m not going to go into a long explanation about all the parts of our worship service, so let me just say this. Consider how the part entitled, “We Gather Around God’s Word” is set up. We begin with a Call to Worship, usually based upon one of the Psalms. Then we say a Prayer of Adoration. We sing a hymn, then we hear a Call to Confession. We confess our sin corporately, and then – ideally – we confess our sin individually as well. After that, of course, we hear an Assurance of Pardon. But do you understand the preparation that goes into every worship service before we come to hear God’s Word? We are not prepared to encounter God’s Word until we have first confessed our sin. We are not prepared to encounter the holy until we have first sought forgiveness for our mistakes.

And we do make mistakes, do we not? Close your eyes for a moment, and reflect upon your life. That’s something we very seldom do. We surround ourselves with so much noise and activity that we never have the opportunity to reflect upon our deeds…or misdeeds. What mistakes have you made in your life? Where have you fallen short of the holiness God desires of you? And remember, there are sins of commission and there are sins of omission. Sins of commission are those things we ought not to have done but have done anyway. Sins of omission are those things we ought to have done but didn’t. Close your eyes and take a quick inventory. If we’re honest with ourselves, our hearts should be breaking and our eyes should be filling with tears.

That’s the position in which Isaiah found himself when the Lord appeared to him. “I am a man of unclean lips,” he cried, “and I live among a people of unclean lips.” Then one of the heavenly beings touched Isaiah on the lips with a burning coal. He said, “Now your guilt has departed and your sin is blotted out.” Isaiah confessed his sin before the Lord, and he found himself forgiven.

God’s primary work in us is not condemnation, rather, God’s primary work in us is forgiveness. As it says in John 3:17, “For God sent the Son into the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him.” We find acceptance rather than rejection. We find conversation rather than a tirade. We find that holiness is no longer outside of us, but rather, through the working of the Holy Spirit, it now dwells within us. Instead of focusing on what we have been, we are now freed to focus on what we can become. Again, instead of focusing on what we have been…we are now freed to focus on what we can become. And it all begins with an overwhelming sense of inadequacy – an overbearing feeling of unworthiness – and an over-arching awareness of sin. Yet like Isaiah, through our confession, what we find is God’s mercy and what we encounter is God’s grace. What does that mean? Listen to this.

Once upon a time, there was a peasant girl named Miriam who lived in a small village. Her widowed mother spent a great deal of time teaching her right from wrong. Yet when Miriam was 12 years old, her family became quite destitute. A severe drought had caused the family’s little garden plot to wilt and to die. There would be no vegetables to can for the cold winter months that lay ahead. Food had become quite difficult to find.

At first, Miriam missed the taste of fresh corn and carrots. Then she craved them. Each day Miriam had to venture further from home to find water for her family, and each day she desired even more what she had always taken for granted. Then the day came when Miriam discovered an artesian well. Cool, clean water gushed forth from deep underground.

She followed the stream as it flowed from the well and discovered a beautiful garden filled

with corn, potatoes, carrots and cabbage. She could almost taste the fresh pot of homemade soup her mother could make from it. And the longer she looked at the garden, the more she desired its contents. Miriam then quickly loaded her apron with as many vegetables as she could carry. As she made her way back home, she glanced over her shoulder to see if anyone had seen what she had done. She knew she had stolen. She knew that what she had done was wrong.

Suddenly a voice resounded out of nowhere: “Where did you get those vegetables?” Miriam was startled, and she replied, “I, uh…I found them.” “In the middle of a drought?” the man then asked. “I think not.”

Miriam wrestled with defiance, then anger, then a rather feeble attempt to justify her thievery. In the end, she could do no less than to admit to the man that she had stolen the vegetables. The man replied, “I knew you took my vegetables.” “Your vegetables?” Miriam asked. “Tis true,” the man replied. “I have worked hard all summer growing these crops and I had grand plans for them,” he added. “I am so sorry,” Miriam confessed, bowing her head in shame.

The man was warmed by Miriam’s act of contrition. Then he said, “I am willing to extend to you either mercy or grace. Which do you desire?” “Are they not the same thing, sir?” Miriam asked. “Indeed they are not. If I were to grant you mercy, you would be completely forgiven for taking my vegetables,” the man stated. Miriam quickly interrupted, “Then mercy is what I desire most.”

The man continued, “Perhaps that is true, but first you should hear of the matter of grace.

Should I extend grace, you would be invited to come and gather any vegetables from my garden that you like, at any time you like. It would be as if you were a member of my own family with all the rights of a daughter.”

Miriam marveled at the opportunity afforded to her. She knew that she did not deserve the man’s kindness, yet she longed in equal measure for both mercy and grace. “Sir,” she said, “I do not deserve either mercy or grace. For I deserve punishment and am in no way deserving of the rights of a family member. Still, I could not leave with a contented heart without an equal measure of both.”

The man smiled broadly and replied, “My dear child, you shall indeed have both – mercy and grace. For in my mercy I will not exact the punishment that is justly deserved, and in my grace I will give you that which you could never earn.”

Like I always say, confession is good for the soul. We avert the punishment we justly deserve, and we receive from God that which we could never earn. God’s primary work in us is not condemnation. God’s primary work in us is forgiveness. And in the end what we find are the roots of holiness. Amen.