Truth in the Wilderness

(Sorry about the lateness, I have spent most of the last 3 weeks with a nasty head cold and chest infection.)

Sermon notes are below the video.

Finding the truth can be a very difficult thing sometimes. Often we are blinded by the images around us, are tainted by the various forms of groupthink that try to set our identity. When we start living out the truth, the guardians of the groupthink will come after us with questions, especially when we step away from the power centers. John the Baptist preached from the outskirts and when the political leaders of his people came to see if he could be used, they found instead the truth.

19 This is the testimony given by John when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, “Who are you?” 20 He confessed and did not deny it, but confessed, “I am not the Messiah.”[g] 21 And they asked him, “What then? Are you Elijah?” He said, “I am not.” “Are you the prophet?” He answered, “No.” 22 Then they said to him, “Who are you? Let us have an answer for those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?” 23 He said, “I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord,’” as the prophet Isaiah said. 24 Now they had been sent from the Pharisees. 25 They asked him, “Why then are you baptizing if you are neither the Messiah,[h] nor Elijah, nor the prophet?” 26 John answered them, “I baptize with water. Among you stands one whom you do not know, 27 the one who is coming after me; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandal.” 28 This took place in Bethany across the Jordan where John was baptizing. John 1:19-28

• Who are the “Jews” in John?
• Questioning identity from power. Underlying questions.
• The kingmakers had come to see if John could be manipulated.
• I am not the one that can save. Important truth for us to remember. People want someone else to take responsibility.
• I am not someone from the past. John was fully engaged in the present and wasn’t going to let those in power pigeonhole him into the mold of someone who came before.
• I am not the prophet. Nuance: “a” vs. “the” Flattery and manipulation are a tool of those in the center of societal power.
• The voice in the wilderness “Make straight the way of the Lord.”
• John’s locating himself in the wilderness kept him from the temptation to go along with the status quo.
• If you don’t have the qualifications that come from our understanding, by what authority do you do x?
• Truth is found in a humble place, away from the centers of human power and greatness.
• In the centers of human power and greatness authority, power, truth, etc is used to promote self over others.
• John points to the one true God and doesn’t exalt himself but shares the truth with humility.
• We, like John the Baptist, are called to point to Jesus, to clear the path so that others can approach the Lord. As we enter into open worship…

 

No Place to Lay His Head

Click here to listen to the sermon inspired by the following notes.

When we think about Jesus, we tend to think in terms of images we have seen in movies or classical artwork, not the image on the front of today’s bulletin. What is so difficult to consider is that Jesus stepped out of the mainstream of Jewish society and spoke from the margins. In a very real way he was able to say and do many things he couldn’t otherwise because of his marginal location in that society.

18 When Jesus saw the crowd around him, he gave orders to cross to the other side of the lake. 19 Then a teacher of the law came to him and said, “Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go.”20 Jesus replied, “Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.”21 Another disciple said to him, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.”22 But Jesus told him, “Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead.” Matthew 8:18-22

1) Jesus trying to ditch the crowds…again!
2) Teacher of the law was a respected position in society. Served as local judges in outlying regions.
3) Jesus did not have a home, and this was a strategic decision on his part. (Play Rich Mullins’ You did not have a home.)
4) Simplicity means not being owned by the things/obligations of this world.
5) We repeat the phrase that we have been bought by a price, and then return to the old masters.
6) We fear the margins, but Jesus shows us that a church that is operating on the margins of society is being faithful.
7) The obligations towards family can come to distract us as well.
8) Following Jesus means making decisions that could marginalize us within our society, family and circles of friends, and Jesus is challenging us.
9) Take stock regularly and do an audit of time, money, and obligations. Think hard about what those say our priorities are.
10) Simplicity is not about stuff, it is about focus. Are the things/people/obligations in my life helping me focus on God’s call or are they distractions?

Speak Lord

Click here to listen to the sermon that came from the following notes.

On my mother-in-law’s bathroom mirror is a sticky note that says “We want God to work in a microwaveable moment. God uses a crock pot.” When I pray to God, I have to admit that I am looking for an answer now. But God speaks in his time, at his pace, and in his way. God’s word can sometimes come to us rarely. We pray and read scripture, but get “nothing” We sit waiting and it feels like everyone else has the connection we long for. It was at such a time in the history of Israel that a boy named Samuel was born.

The boy Samuel ministered before the Lord under Eli. In those days the word of the Lord was rare; there were not many visions.

² One night Eli, whose eyes were becoming so weak that he could barely see,was lying down in his usual place. ³ The lamp of God had not yet gone out, and Samuel was lying down in the house of the Lord, where the ark of God was.⁴ Then the Lord called Samuel.

Samuel answered, “Here I am.” ⁵ And he ran to Eli and said, “Here I am; you called me.”

But Eli said, “I did not call; go back and lie down.” So he went and lay down.

⁶ Again the Lord called, “Samuel!” And Samuel got up and went to Eli and said, “Here I am; you called me.”

“My son,” Eli said, “I did not call; go back and lie down.”

⁷ Now Samuel did not yet know the Lord: The word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to him.

⁸ A third time the Lord called, “Samuel!” And Samuel got up and went to Eli and said, “Here I am; you called me.”

Then Eli realized that the Lord was calling the boy. ⁹ So Eli told Samuel, “Go and lie down, and if he calls you, say, ‘Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.’” So Samuel went and lay down in his place.

¹⁰ The Lord came and stood there, calling as at the other times, “Samuel! Samuel!”

Then Samuel said, “Speak, for your servant is listening.”1 Samuel 3:1-10

• Rareness, expectation and the ways God speaks.
• Confusing the voices of authority with the voice of God.
• Revelation leads to relationship “knowing God”
• Expectant listening leads to changes.

So what is this “voice”? We talk about God’s word, but sometimes the bible doesn’t help, it gives us the words of the good shepherd, but sometimes that voice seems muffled to us no matter where we turn. Jesus opens up to us in John 10 who and what we are listening for.

1 “Very truly I tell you Pharisees, anyone who does not enter the sheep pen by the gate, but climbs in by some other way, is a thief and a robber. 2 The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. 3 The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. 4 When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice. 5 But they will never follow a stranger; in fact, they will run away from him because they do not recognize a stranger’s voice.” 6 Jesus used this figure of speech, but the Pharisees did not understand what he was telling them.

7 Therefore Jesus said again, “Very truly I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. 8 All who have come before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep have not listened to them. 9 I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved.[a] They will come in and go out, and find pasture. 10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.

11 “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. 12 The hired hand is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep. So when he sees the wolf coming, he abandons the sheep and runs away. Then the wolf attacks the flock and scatters it. 13 The man runs away because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep.

14 “I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me— 15 just as the Father knows me and I know the Father—and I lay down my life for the sheep. 16 I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd.

• The gate. The way in is through faith in the shepherd.
• Calls by name and goes ahead of us.
• Theft and destruction are signs that the robber has come.
• Lays down life.
• Other sheep not of this pen.
• Jesus has gone ahead and is calling us out to sheep not in this pen can we answer as Samuel did?

Where the Heart Is

(Click here to listen.)

There are a couple of things that I am led to address as the pastor of this community. The first is to thank you for the prayers you have poured out for Analise and us, there were times in the last couple of weeks that your prayers were what held me together. There are times in our lives when we need others prayers to make it through and by God’s grace we are. The second is to speak a bit about what is happening in Ferguson, and the larger conversation about race that still needs to happen in this country. I grew up in neighborhoods very much like Fergusen and can confirm that there are some members of our nation’s police forces that forget the “and serve” part of the motto that says “To protect and serve.” This happens most often with people of minority status and reflects some of the prejudices that have been active in our country for a very long time. As Christians we have a responsibility to speak the truth and while the expressions of violent rage are indeed counterproductive, we must admit that the rage we are witnessing is not without cause. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once said that riots are “the language of the unheard.” The question that I see as most important for us to answer is: What are we as a church called to do here, where we live, to bridge the divides that all too obviously still exist in our society? As Christians our first response to the kinds of tragedy we are witnessing is to fall to our knees. All too often we step out and act or speak before consulting with God and we speak to what we see before inviting God to examine our hearts. We have a responsibility to represent the kingdom of God and we cannot do that in isolated and segregated churches or without a proper foundation of prayer. Many of you have asked me what we can do in this climate of crisis we are in and I have a proposal that I want to lay before you: I would like to open the doors of our church from 8AM to 8PM Monday through Saturday for any who desire to come and pray. This will require some volunteers to be here hosting prayer times, but can any of us see the news and say that we don’t need centers of prayer to be open in our communities? I also want to invite you to consider ways in which God may be calling us to mourn with our brothers and sisters who are mourning in Missouri, Iraq, Palestine, Israel, Nepal, West Africa and the neighborhoods in which we live. Can I get a quick show of hands on who would be interested in hosting prayer times here at the church? Thank you.

As I was preparing for this week’s sermon, I looked at the upcoming text, and as I prayed over the text on fasting, I got the sense that it was ground that didn’t need to be covered again since it was a continuation of the prayer theme from three weeks ago in which we talked about the ways we can abuse public acts of piety to place our glory ahead of God’s. Jesus’ top priority was the work of spreading the kingdom, and as he invested his teaching in the disciples he gave them tools to help diagnose their priorities and warnings about how placing other priorities ahead of God’s work causes a divided life. God’s call on us is not to divide our allegiances and loyalties between the things of this world and God, but to instead place our entire being, way of life, and value systems into the hands that knit us together in our mothers’ wombs. We live in a society that is based on the consumption of goods and services, more so than at any other time in history. This society teaches us that what we produce and consume is the measure of our worth as human beings, and everything is designed to fail or be used up. That attitude bleeds over into our opinions on the value of human beings and we see interactions like those in Fergusen and elsewhere in which people are treated as disposable. This is what happens when we place value in finite things, and Jesus gives us words from God to check ourselves.

19 “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. 20 But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. 22 “The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy,[c] your whole body will be full of light. 23 But if your eyes are unhealthy,[d] your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness! 24 “No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money. Matthew 6:19-21

Now that Jesus has addressed the controversial topics of sex and power he turns his attention to money and the ways we determine value. These teachings of Jesus are not intended to shame us, but instead to invite us into relationships that have their value in the things of God. Jesus begins by warning us about storing up what the world around us holds to be valuable. Let me give you an example from the past, does anyone remember beanie babies? These were small stuffed animals that were mass produced and marketed as “collectibles.” They were released in an artificial scarcity with a slick marketing campaign. Many people got caught up in the craze and jumped on the bandwagon with some paying upwards of $200 for a single stuffed toy. This bubble eventually burst, but not without some people losing a lot of money in their speculation. The things marketed to us as valuable can all too easily turn out to be worthless in the long run, and Jesus is reminding us that there is only one place in which our investment is safe.

There is no security here on this earth. Let me repeat that: no matter what anyone tells you or promises, there is no place on this globe or in this universe in which any of us will be secure from loss. The flowers fade, the grass withers and our flesh is as dust, my future hangs on my feeblest breath. Every town and city will wither and every nation will eventually crumble. Every currency will collapse, every bit in our bitcoins will be set to zero. Little geek humor reference: there are 10 kinds of people in the world…those who understand binary and those who don’t. In binary there are only two numbers, zero and one so 10 would be two in decimal. Every corporation will close its doors and its books. Even the very world we tread on is susceptible to the dangers of space. Nowhere that life exists can be secure. Jesus is preparing his disciples for the next part which says don’t worry, and we will get there in a few weeks. For now Jesus is telling his disciples that trust and hope placed in the things and powers of this world is misplaced. Hope and trust cannot be supported by things doomed to fail.

There is only one source of hope and trust, one source for security that is not dependent on circumstances. When what we treasure is the joy that comes from being in the presence of the God whose love caused the universe to exist, there is nothing more needed to feel a sense of security, and nothing will shake us, not even other people’s religious opinions. I we are feeling insecure in our faith or life, it might be time to do some prayerful evaluation to discover what we might be trusting in that isn’t God. Where is my treasure invested? That might just tell me where my priorities are.

The next passage requires a bit of explanation since there is a bit of a translation issue here. The word Jesus uses that our bibles translate as “healthy” implies generosity and the word we translate as “unhealthy” implies stinginess. When we don’t allow ourselves to be controlled by accumulating things or wealth we look at others with generous and healthy eyes. This is a consequence of living in the light of God’s truth, that nothing is more valuable than the treasure of serving God. When we look upon others with the understanding that our treasure is entirely in God’s hands we can be healthy in the ways we give to others. Jesus hasn’t really changed the topic that he has been talking about, just approaching the need to have right relationships built on the foundation of God’s loving grace and mercy from a different angle each time. Every display of unhealthiness and darkness comes from being afraid of losing what we rely on. It comes from treasuring that which is fleeting in its very nature. When we are deceived into believing that things or money are where our value lies, we look out at others in unhealthy ways, we hoard what we have. The fear of loss will then begin to taint our relationships and as we gather our things up to hide them and keep them away from others. That fear and anxiety will then begin to dominate our thinking and any disagreement will be perceived as a threat to the house of cards we have built on the shifting sands of worldly power, reputation, or wealth. Why is it that Jesus could hang around the people that his society deemed worthless? What was it that prevented the Pharisees from hanging out with the tax collectors, gluttons, hookers, and other broken types? He did not treasure the things or opinions of the world, but instead invested himself fully in the love of God. This is the source of power and courage, that God is with us and we can serve him. This is what can enable us to truly befriend the people who our society tells us are threats. What would it mean for us as Clackamas Park Friends Church to place our treasure, the resources we have been gifted with, entirely into God’s hands to be used up and given away without fear of loss? What kind of faith statement would it be for us to declare with our actions that we trust the generosity of God to overcome our fear of loss? That we could lose every worldly possession and still rejoice because our treasure is secure in God?

Friends, if there is fear in our lives it comes from having something other than God’s priorities guiding our actions. I can only speak this from my own experience of this truth given us by Jesus: when I am fearful it is because I am trusting in something that can be shaken. This is the hard truth that Jesus gives us today: we can only serve one master, there can never be “God and” there is only “God or”. I really would like there to be some way for me to serve God and money, God and food, God and my family, but as soon as I allow for any other master, no matter how important that master is to follow in this world, the door to fear has opened because of my idolatry. Every one of us in this room has something that it is most easy for us to slip an unconscious “and” into our lives, something that we tend to focus on instead of God. Let us take the time now to renew our determination to follow God and God alone.

Let us begin our time of silence with a time of confession and renew our focus. Friends, every day we must get up, face into the unhealthy patterns of this world and ask God to give us the strength to resist the temptation to put other things first in our lives. We are called together as a body to help each other resist, to help each other overcome, to redirect each other’s attention and priorities back to God as our eyes slip off the mark. Let us take this time of open worship to confess our fears to God, renew our determination to serve God alone, and resolve to support each other as we face into the unhealthy patterns of fear that close us off from the generosity that comes from serving  God. Let us put everything with God that our treasure may be stored up in His presence and our hearts reside in his steadfast love. Let us pray.

Poking Holes in Public Holiness

(Click here to listen. Speaker’s Note: The audio version of this sermon deviates from and significantly improves on the printed text below.)

In the Sermon on the Mount, we have seen how Jesus consistently raises the bar for his disciples from the letter of the law which kills to the spirit of the law which brings life. From a faith that is self-centered to a faith that is God-centered. Today’s text is no different, and the critique Jesus levels has been echoed repeatedly through the centuries. One of my favorite Dilbert comics is a conversation between Dogbert and Ratbert in which Dogbert had just cashed out as CEO of a company and was going to turn his attention to Philanthropy. Ratbert, being the comic foil, asks if that is the study of people named Phil to which Dogbert replies “It’s mostly about watching people beg and having buildings named after me.” In Jesus’ time the practice of giving alms to the poor was a part of Hebrew tradition and throughout the scriptures there are commands to care for the poor, the stranger, the alien, the orphan and the widow. The awesome thing was that the Jewish people really did make a big deal about the importance of their acts of charity, and their theology reflected it. However, as with many good works, there came a time in which a line of glorification was crossed. The line between glorifying God and glorifying self gets blurry awfully fast sometimes, and Jesus was fully aware of that fact. In today’s teaching Jesus addresses some of the things that will help us to keep our eyes on the mark of God’s glory.

“Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven. “So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. Matthew 6:1-4

Today’s text is one that we can struggle with applying, so to get our minds on the same page I want to share one way I saw this done. In a large high school like the one I attended the statistical likelihood of someone experiencing tragedy was pretty high, and we often heard through the grapevine how someone’s parent had cancer or was getting divorced. What was really interesting was that usually within two days of the tragedy making the rounds of the school, a bouquet of handpicked flowers addressed to the student would appear overnight. Nobody could figure out who was doing this, and it had a hugely positive effect on the student body. I still couldn’t tell you who, but it had to be someone or some people on the staff who had access to the student address records. Regardless of who did it, on the back of each card was the 23^rd Psalm. Whoever did this found a way to apply today’s text and led others to share secret acts of compassion in ways that point to the goodness of the God who inspires them.

When we give in secret, without strings or even allowing others to know who is doing the giving there are some amazing opportunities that open up. The first opportunity is for God to be glorified. When I was growing up in the ministry in New York, we were trying to feed 25-40 people three meals a day and some months we used all of the tricks the third worlders who lived with us knew about stretching food. Occasionally a miracle would happen. We would open our front door in the morning and there on the porch would be bags and bags of food. There would be no note or anything to identify where this came from other than the name of the store on the shopping bags. That food came from God, and everyone in our house knew it. When whoever left that food did it in secret they turned away from credit and acclaim so the people who were living with us would know that the source of this food was Jesus. God received the glory.

There was something else that happened as well, when miracles occur it doesn’t feel like a handout. There is no weird relational dynamic that places the giver over the receiver because nobody knows where things came from. One of the dynamics that Jesus is really addressing here is giving with an eye towards exerting influence or control over others. When we don’t let our left hand know what the right hand is doing in our giving we are exercising a very important act of trust. We are expressing a trust that God will be glorified and we trust that the right things will be done in God’s church without our exerting financial influence over the process.

These acts of trust and faith are not easy, and we are bombarded constantly with the message that other people are not trustworthy, especially people in the church, especially the fallible people who lead our churches. Don’t hear me say that we should not have checks and balances, but that those checks and balances need to be disconnected from personal financial involvement. The problem is one of a misplaced sense of ownership, and I must confess that I have heard that little voice in my soul that says things like “I am a consistent giver so the leaders had better listen to me.” and “Hey, this is my church because I help support it.” and even “I helped found this church and everyone knows I give to make this ministry happen so my voice needs to be heard on this.” I think all of us have heard variations on those themes and have had to check ourselves with the reminder that “No. This is God’s church and I have to submit to his leading.” All glory, authority, control, and power belong to God and God alone, and Jesus is helping us find ways to silence those voices that tempt us to think otherwise.

Jesus is doing more here than keeping us from trying to Lord it over others because of the amount of money we are able to give. He is reminding us of the answer to one of the big questions of life “Why am I here?” Humanity has asked this question for as long as there has been the ability to think about it. For a majority of my life, the answers that I would give, even in theologically prettied up language, were mostly variations on the theme of do the best I can for myself and my family. As I have been part of the Friends and experienced the challenge to live simply, below my means, God has used that to help me focus on the purpose we all are created for: To glorify God; to serve God’s purposes in the world and to show by my trust that God is worthy of the glory, worthy of honor, worthy of praise. When I surrender my desire to control and let my giving be hidden from others, I create an opportunity for others to experience the goodness of God. In that experience of God’s goodness, maybe, just maybe a seed will be planted and God can be glorified in another person’s life as they accept the gift of Jesus.

Jesus is reminding us in today’s teaching to once again keep our eyes on the end game. The mark we aim at is that mark of loving perfection which we see in Jesus. We need his help to keep our eyes focused on that, and Jesus points out for us the reward that comes from following him and his purposes in the world. God’s glory is shown and when we are in his presence we get to hear the words we so long to hear: “Well done my good and faithful servant.” As we enter into our time of open worship take the first five minutes of silence to allow your thoughts to quiet. As we consider this teaching of Jesus maybe you will be inspired to an act of creative hidden generosity. What joy can we bring to others so that they might give glory to our God? Who knows, maybe if enough of us take on this task we can begin to see the fulfillment of the promise in Habakkuk 2:14 “For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.” Let us pray.

 

The Mark Of Perfection

Today we look at what I consider to be extremely high difficulty level Christianity. In our pursuit of perfection the hardest part of ourselves to overcome is that piece within that desires to lash out when we are hurt. I think every one of us in this room can tell stories of the times in which we lashed out, and the long term negative consequences that had, but today I want us to think about what happens when we keep our eye on the end game and don’t get distracted by the pains of the moment. Jesus does something amazing in this passage and defines Godly perfection in a way that went completely beyond the Jewish understanding of perfection to God’s heart for all of humanity.

38 “You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’[h] 39 But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. 40 And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well. 41 If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles. 42 Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you. 43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor[i] and hate your enemy.’ 44 But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. 46 If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? 47 And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? 48 Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect. Matthew 5:38-48

All of our common sense and societal training screams at us that this can’t possibly work. Let’s be honest here, every criminal justice system in human history is based on retributive justice, the idea that the punishment must fit the crime and that justice is fully served when offenders are punished. Punishment is the focus in that sphere of life and those ideas seep their way into our understanding of what God’s justice is all about. However, Jesus is sharing that the purpose of God’s justice is not punishment but restoration and redemption. Retributive justice leads to full prisons and the continuation of suffering, while redemptive justice leads to restoration of the person and a society that better reflects God’s heart. This is one of the reasons that I so deeply appreciate the ministry that Chuck Colson founded and its work in bringing victims and offenders together which has an amazing record in terms of preventing repeat offenses. I highly recommend checking out their site at https://www.prisonfellowship.org/ and their Restorative Justice project at http://restorativejustice.org.

Each of Jesus’ examples in today’s text has at its core a concern for the ways we look at ourselves and other people, for the ways we judge those with more or less power than we ourselves have. Jesus is saying here that the categories we make to define people, and which we use to justify our passing of judgment on the motives of others, are unjust. We must make our starting point for determining the value of any human being, including that jerk in the mirror, the image of God that each person is stamped with. Do we through our actions and attitudes distract ourselves and others from that image we bear? Of course, but nothing we can do will ever take that image away. Jesus’ teaching in the first part of our text is an important reminder that we have a responsibility to not only affirm the dignity of others, but also to behave in ways that affirm our own dignity and value.

When Jesus told his disciples to turn the other cheek, he wasn’t telling them to passively take abuse. It was a mark of contempt to backhand someone on the right cheek, by turning the other cheek you were forcing the person striking you to do so as an equal. By turning the left cheek towards them you prevented them from backhanding you again and instead of rising to the provocation of the violent you take the moral high ground and force your assailant to acknowledge your humanity. In this situation Jesus takes the idea of lashing out in response to hurt and instead confronts an aggressor with the humanity of the person being attacked. We are being called not to take revenge or retribution, but instead are being called to extend the truth that every person has value in God’s sight and must be seen as our equal, and that we will not accept anything less than an affirmation of the dignity and value of every human being. When we are focusing on God, it becomes much easier to see the value of the image of God stamped on every person. Turning the other cheek then is an affirmation of human dignity and a challenge to attitudes that treat others as “less than.”

This next example involves another act of protest which is designed to graphically remind someone taking advantage of the legal system of Jesus’ day that the person they are taking advantage of is a human being. It was a common practice to sue people for their clothing to cover minor debts that were outstanding, and the moneylenders in Jesus’ day who were using Jewish law to collect were also violating Jewish law through the rates of interest that they charged. This put the people who borrowed from them in a situation that ultimately led to losing everything so that the moneylender would profit. Jesus again is reminding those around him that they could get creative in their reminders to others of their humanity. When people begin to take advantage of others, and treat them as means to ends, for the sake of their own souls they need to be confronted with the humanity of those they are taking advantage of. It is the same with the carrying of burdens. The Roman legions would force people to carry their packs and were legally limited to one mile. The Romans used people as beasts of burden, and by carrying that pack beyond the mile you lovingly forced that soldier to confront the fact that you were a person with dignity. Even in oppressive circumstances there are ways we can remind each other of the value and inherent dignity of every human life. The first step towards perfection is recognizing God’s love for every created person.

That first step is the easier one, and now Jesus raises the bar to the highest possible mark. Godliness. Perfection. God’s love is not exclusive. He loves every human being exactly as they are, right now. There is nothing required of us to be loved by God, every human being is loved. This gets tricky, because we don’t necessarily see ourselves or each other as loveable and there are plenty of messages out there which point out our flaws. There are plenty of statements that say you can be loved if you just change this one thing and we will provide it for the low, low price of $49.95. There are messages that tell us that because we do this one thing it makes us unlovable, and not worth anybody’s time or effort. Jesus tells us that the mark of God’s perfection is the love that he extends not just to those who deserve it, but to those who have chosen to be his enemies. Perfection is a tough mark to aim for, and keeping our eyes on God and allowing him to set our course means that we are going to have to love people who are not our friends. It means that we are going to have to love incredibly broken people.

God’s love doesn’t require anything of us, but somehow when we receive it we can’t remain the same. It is being loved by God that gives us the power to step away from the ways we miss the mark, and Jesus is teaching his disciples that being Godly means loving those you completely, utterly and totally see as your or God’s enemy. God welcomes us as we are and pours his love into lives as we are and we must do the same for others. Now we could come up with a whole list of others, but the reality is that Jesus is confronting the Jews with a major failure on their part to live up to the mission God gave them. The purpose of Israel and the reason they were chosen was not so that they could sit back and say “We are chosen so that makes us better than you.” No God called Israel for the purpose of leading the world into the paths of righteousness. God called Israel to be the means through which the world could be reconciled to God. All Jesus could see around him was a people that instead separated themselves from the world as a way to keep themselves pure and unstained. They had lost sight of their purpose.

Jesus completely redefines for the Jews and us what it means to be pure and holy. This more than anything else puts him at odds with the systems of this world, that the mark of purity is not conformity, but is instead hospitality. God extends his love to every human being regardless of whether they are trying to live up to God’s love or not. God loves us so much that he even gives us the power to accept or reject the relationship that comes from accepting God’s love. When Jesus calls us to perfection after the manner of God we have some soul searching to do, because I know for sure that when I read this and I prayed over this I was squirming in my seat a bit. I had to ask myself if I was setting conditions on people being welcomed into the kingdom, if I was placing conformity to my ideals or my community’s ideals ahead of God’s love. This teaching of Jesus is not an easy one and challenges us to love people who not only don’t look like us, but also people who don’t think like us. In Jesus’ disciples we see a slice of Jewish societal conflicts and how God’s love can bring people with completely opposite agendas and philosophies of life together to follow him. Jesus could bring Matthew the tax collector profiting from the oppression of his people and Simon the violent revolutionary anti-Roman Zealot under the same banner of God’s love. God keeps challenging me and his church to consider who I might be neglecting or cutting myself off from because I see them as my or God’s enemies.

We are facing into some difficult questions as a society and we Christians are being called to perfection in the ways we address those questions, and it is so easy to miss that mark. The perfection of God’s love for humanity embodied in the cross and resurrection is the mark we aim at and it will require us to seek out those stray arrows that we might pick them up, aim and try again to match God’s love. Jesus loved us when we were his enemies, and laid down his life in demonstration of the depth of God’s love for us. The mark we aim at is not an easy one to face into. Quite often we take our eyes off that mark and I know that I have some repenting to do on this one and some growing, so as we enter into our time of open worship, let us all seek the throne of grace together. Let us all turn our eyes upon Jesus so that we might better love those who bear his image. After five minutes of silence someone will stand with the microphone. If you are led to speak in the silence I ask that you stand and wait for the microphone to be brought to you. We will try to give some space to others’ words, so the microphone may not come right away.

Let us seek God together.

 

Jesus’ Swearing Problem

When I was a kid we had a foolproof way to determine the truth from lies, and we knew that when we invoked this the promises and words that followed would be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. This method was called the “pinkie swear.” Somehow we attributed power to this little ritual that said once we do this the truth would be spoken. When the “pinkie swear” went from being something only used on occasion to a frequent usage of our daily lives it became obvious that we had trouble trusting what we said. We began to realize just how worthless the “pinkie swear” was, because for some reason it implied that for the most part our words were not trustworthy and that it required some kind of ritual for us to be honest. Eventually we also figured out that the person who we most had to invoke a “pinkie swear” with only had a very loose association with truthfulness and there were some people we never had to use “pinkie swears” with because we knew that whatever they said was the truth. Later on I learned the word integrity to describe what I saw in those people. When you hear the word “integrity” what comes into your mind? Just shout it out. All of these things have a thread in common and that is in living a life that is in harmony with itself. When our minds are not divided and every aspect of our lives reflects the truth of who we are, we are living integrated lives. When we live double lives and are one person in one setting and another outside that setting we are living a life of disintegration. We inhabit a disintegrated society in which different parts of our lives are compartmented off from each other and those divisions affect the decisions we make and the words we say. Jesus saw the same struggles in his own day and saw that there were dividing attitudes that led to actions which violate our integrity and he gives his disciples instruction in one area that breaks through the artificial divisions we set up in our minds.

33 “Again, you have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘Do not break your oath, but fulfill to the Lord the vows you have made.’ 34 But I tell you, do not swear an oath at all: either by heaven, for it is God’s throne; 35 or by the earth, for it is his footstool; or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the Great King. 36 And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make even one hair white or black. 37 All you need to say is simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything beyond this comes from the evil one. Matthew 5:33-37

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus has consistently raised the bar on what is expected of his followers. Instead of focusing on sin management Jesus moves our focus off of sin and on to God, where it belongs. This requires a transformation in us, one that takes the ways we have divided our own minds and unifies them in pursuit of God. In the Friends Church we acknowledge that our testimony is affected by our integrity. If the words of our mouths about unimportant things aren’t always true, how can we expect people to accept the most important truth of reconciliation with God through Jesus from us? Our faith and practice says:

We believe that integrity of speech and action honors Christ as it advances truth and, therefore, should characterize our social and business relationships. In allegiance to Christ’s command, we refrain from swearing oaths and from profanity of speech. We consider integrity a mark of Christian holiness.[i]

Our witness is damaged when our words and actions don’t match up.

It isn’t always easy to tell when we have faltered in this area so Jesus gives us some signs of our aim being off the mark. The first is that difficulty we have all run into of baptizing our personal opinions and attitudes in biblical language and speaking of them as if they are straight from the mouth of God.  I call it playing the “God Card.” There was a man in a church that I was part of who was convinced that God was calling him to become an elder in the church. The elders and pastors had a distinct unease with this idea, mainly because the man was a relatively new Christian who had an overly forceful personality, and this was in New York! The elders rightly discerned that the man was not mature enough in his faith to become an elder and they were proved right when, instead of investing in the development of his faith, the man sowed discord and split the church. Invoking God did not magically make the words the man said right and enforceable. Swearing by God or the dimension he dwells in that we call heaven cannot make a lie true, even if we really want to believe it.

In Jesus’ time it was common to invoke the land or capital city of your nation that the words you speak are true. Now this probably isn’t as big an issue for us since I don’t think anyone in our nation associates truth with anything that happens in Washington DC. However, it is important for us to look a little deeper to see what Jesus is getting at. Jesus is teaching us that oaths, no matter what they are on or by, are only as binding as the integrity of the person swearing them. In other words oaths are “pinkie swears” for grown-ups. At this point my understanding of this teaching is Jesus saying to his disciples: “Look guys. If you need to invoke an outside authority to make it appear that you are telling the truth, or to give your words extra weight, you have a reputation problem. It will be better for you to remain silent until you have earned a reputation for truthfulness and honest dealings.” There are no shortcuts to integrity. We can’t appropriate someone else’s and say that just because we are connected to this nation or this God or this people group that has a reputation for integrity we don’t have to do the hard work of having integrity ourselves. We have to let our own personal “Yes.” Really mean “Yes.” And not “I am agreeing with you for the sole purpose of ending this conversation and will quickly forget any promises I make so that I don’t have to deal with you or make you sad or mad by saying “No.” It is amazing the meaning we can fit into one little word. When we say ‘Yes” it must mean: “I wholeheartedly agree and am ready to follow through on what I say.”

Of course there is that other word that causes most of us to struggle. It only has two letters, and our children seem to have the ability to speak it with ease. This is one of those times we might have a lesson to learn from them. We really want to be loved and we love the people around us and it is so hard to deny someone you love what they are asking for, even when we can’t give it. Saying “no” is a very difficult thing, but is absolutely important for maintaining our integrity. If we are to be whole, we must say no to those things that we don’t have the ability or desire to give. We need to be honest with ourselves that sometimes we agree to do things that we don’t have the time or energy for because we want others to think highly of us. This is really natural, and it takes some intention on our part to look inward and know what it is we really feel about something before we open our mouths to agree or disagree with it. This is not easy for any of us, sometimes our mouths engage before our mind and we end up saying “Yes” and living “No.”  Our “No” must be an honest and loving “No.” This all takes some work on our part, not only in matching the words we say to our actions, but in communicating why we say “Yes” or “No.” Those one word answers require some unpacking on our part in order for others to gain understanding. If we let people know why we are so happy to say yes or why we have to regretfully say no, it builds up the relationships we are so afraid of losing. We also have to practice accepting the “No” of others. If we want others to receive our “No” with grace we need to receive “No” with grace.

I want to say that acting with integrity makes everything wonderful and great. That a life of integrity is carefree and easy, but unfortunately the evidence is against me. Quite often our integrity will be the cause of suffering, because someone really wanted that “Yes” and wasn’t prepared to take “No” for an answer. One of my heroes in the faith is a Dutch woman named Corrie Ten Boom. In World War Two when her hometown was invaded by the Germans she and her family hid Jews and helped them escape the concentration camps. She knew that by living out her “No” she could pay a heavy price for her integrity, and she did. She was eventually caught and sent to the very concentration camps she had been helping Jews escape. She survived, and was one of the missionaries that went into Germany to minister to the very people who had imprisoned her. She didn’t just say “No” as a pretext to push the Germans away, but her “No” and her actions were a sign of love. Sometimes the most loving thing we can do is say “No.” Just ask any parent.

When we are careful with our commitments and honor the words we say by matching our actions to them, we actually increase the amount of good in the world and decrease the amount of evil. When we set our mark on God and let that point of aim guide us our actions and words will match up and the good news will be truly seen as good.

Our time of open worship begins with 5 minutes of silence in which we place our hearts and minds in God’s hands. Today I invite you to join me in asking God to help us overcome the ways our life may be divided, to give us the courage and love to say “No” when we need to, to give us the peace we need to say “Yes,” and the wisdom to discern when our “Yes” or “No” would lack integrity.

Let us pray.

 

[i] http://nwfriends.org/faith-practice/what-friends-believe/

Flavorful or Bland, Shining Out or Hiding Out

In the Sermon on the Mount we get a window into what Jesus feels are the basic attitudes and actions we need to engage in to follow his call on us. Jesus sat down to teach his disciples and began the process of turning their understanding of God’s priority structures and signs of heavenly favor upside down. He said that the people who really are blessed, who really have God’s favor are the ones that recognize their own brokenness, humbly approach God, hunger for God’s way of being and doing what is right, and extend mercy and peace to others. Jesus told the disciples that the results of this changed priority system will lead to opposition and even persecution, but they can rejoice in the fact that they are in God’s will regardless of the external circumstances. Jesus then goes on to explain that living out these good attitudes has profound effects with a warning about the consequences of abandoning these attitudes.

13 “You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot. 14 “You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven. Matthew 5:13-16

In today’s text Jesus begins by speaking my language: food and seasoning. Now salt has some very interesting effects that have been useful and highly valued over the years.  Salt was used in curing processes to prevent meat from decaying and while that is an important role Jesus is talking primarily about the effects of salt as a seasoning. When he calls us “the salt of the earth” he is saying that when we operate according to his priorities we bring out the good flavors around us.

When I was 10 and first trying out baking I decided to make a batch of my favorite chocolate chip cookies. I got the flour out, measured it and sifted it with the baking powder. I carefully measured out the sugar and took a little taste to make sure it was still sweet. I carefully melted the unsalted butter, measured it and mixed it with eggs and after mixing those together I mixed in the chocolate chips. This was going to be great. I preheated the oven and put my first batch of cookies in. I was so excited that I was going to have made chocolate chip cookies by myself for the first time. After 9 minutes they looked done so I pulled them out, let them sit for one excruciating minute then carefully removed them from the pan. I picked one up, blowing on it to cool it off then brought that cookie to mouth and took a bite. Ugh! I ran crying to Dad and after he got me calmed down enough to be coherent he came back to the kitchen, looked at all the ingredients I had out, took a very small bite of a cookie and said “You forgot the salt.” He measured some salt into the rest of the cookie dough and mixed it in well. When the next batch of cookies came out I carefully took a small bite and wow! That is what a chocolate chip cookie is supposed to taste like. When a neighborhood, workplace, school or other community experiences Christians who are dedicated to searching out and bringing to the forefront the hidden goodness in a bland world, that community begins to get a glimpse of just how good and fulfilling life really can be. Hope blossoms because people are reminded that the source of hope is present. There is of course another side to this. The salt does nobody any good sitting in the salt shaker. If it sits too long the water in the air slowly breaks it down until there is a solid clump of useless matter that you can’t even get out of the shaker anymore without a chisel. The salt needs to be poured out of the saltshaker onto the food in order to fulfill its function just as we need to step outside of our building and comfortable routines that can keep us walled off from the people who are trapped in the homogenizing blah of our consumer culture. We are called to season the world and bring out the good flavors God created.

We also are the light of the world! Jesus has called us to shine his light all around us. When we obey the teachings of Jesus we shine so brightly that everything around us brightens and becomes clearer. The darkness is pushed back and the path out of the mire is made clear. Our lives must be lived in the light, and if our actions cannot be brought out into the light and performed where all can see, there is a problem. We look silly if we proclaim that we have the light and never let it shine beyond us. When we try to hide our light the darkness creeps in and promotes fear and division. The problem is that we are afraid of the light. We all know that as long as we are on this earth, we are imperfect and have work to do to shine brighter. The lens our light shines through is pretty smudged, and as we allow the light carried by others to shine on us and don’t hide the light coming from within we can actually see the smudges and begin scrubbing and asking God to help us and to clean us. As we do this work we are called to our light shines in the world and people can say “Hey is it just me or are things looking brighter?” and we can reply “Yes! God has cleaned me up a bit more and now his light shines much more clearly through me, clearly enough that I can even see it beginning to shine through you. Let me tell you how.” Just by being God’s lights here on earth we triumph over the darkness. We carry hope, true peace, mercy, meekness, comfort, and courage to face the darkness to everyone around us when we acknowledge our dependence on God as the source of our light. We can fan that light to flame in others as well, just by uncovering ourselves, stepping out, and pointing out all the ways we see God active in others around us.

All of the distractions that abound seek to make us forget about the beauty of God’s work; try to get us to forget about shining for a while. The distractions tell us that people are more comfortable in their darkness, that if we allow the light to shine our flaws will be just as visible as everyone else’s. That is true. If we don’t want to face our own flaws and brokenness we will do our best to hide the light and to snuff it out in others. We will talk against the people who seek to shine God’s light because of our own fears. When I was part of a church in which the pastor was challenging my desire to remain hidden and either keep the light to myself or at least have it pointed so it didn’t shine on me I talked against him. Not directly, of course, since that would force me to look at myself, but in smaller gatherings I would hint and insinuate to see who I might get to agree with me. I built little coalitions of people who were afraid of the light, and the first thing we did was declare the path of light to really be leading us into the uncertain darkness. We reasoned that the light was in here, and if we moved out of the light we would diminish it or tarnish it. It sounds so logical, so simple, so easy to believe, but we were listening to lies. The lies would have been true if the light came from us, and we really wanted to believe that we were the light source. The light didn’t come from us though. The early Friends called the light within “That of God”. What an important reminder it is: the light we carry is “that of God” which resides in us. When I allowed my fear to put me in a place in which I was trying to keep the light to myself or control what it illuminated I was in opposition to God. The truth is that the way I operated back then spoke more about my brokenness and fear than the problem or problems I was theoretically addressing. When writing this sermon God put it on my heart that I had never apologized to that pastor for my actions, so I stopped writing this sermon to send him an apology because I want my light to shine. I was thinking about that song I used to sing growing up called This Little Light of Mine and I got to reflecting on the line “Won’t let Satan blow it out.” And I realized that Satan isn’t the only one that I also have tried to blow out that little precious light.

When we carry that light of God and let it shine out without trying to control it we then begin to see “that of God” in others and can give others the certainty that if someone as broken and smudged as me can shine from the inward light of God then maybe they can too. That beautiful truth is the greatest truth we carry. In the evangelical tradition we call this the good news: The gospel message that Jesus has made the way for us to shine and to live in the light regardless of the condition in which we find ourselves.  We carry that great hope, and the light of that hope is so bright that it will shine through us regardless of our flaws and imperfections so brightly that we will be favorably compared to the light from a city on a hill that cannot be missed. I think at some level, even though we fear it, each one of us yearns for that light to shine fully through us. As we enter into our time of open worship it is important to remember this as a holy time in which we experience communion with God and the church, so I would like us as we begin to invite the Holy Spirit to open our eyes to the ways we might be hiding our light or keeping the salt in the shaker. Invite the Holy Spirit to help you repent and know that I am asking the Holy Spirit for the same thing. On this side of eternity we all have a long way to go and with God’s help our light can shine because we are willing to take the next steps towards his holy and perfect light.

Let us pray.

Salvation, Suffering, and Resurrection

(Click here to listen.)

Today’s scripture is a little complex and there are various interpretations of it. This kind of writing is actually one of the things that I love about the bible because it makes me think and reminds me of just how much I will never understand about the fullness of God. In pointing us to God and his greatness we will always be confronted with things we cannot always understand, and that is actually a good thing. The most dangerous times for us are those times in which we think we have God all figured out. It is then that we stray from the truth and make for ourselves a false God of our own device. When we encounter texts like todays they force us to recognize the limits of our comprehension and return to the simple place of saying “God, you are Lord of all and that is what I know. I don’t understand, but wait on you.” Needless to say I had a lot of waiting to do with this text and still have a bit left to do. While my thoughts are not finished on this text I will share what I felt led to, but in this case must say that especially verse 19 and 20 are hard for this 21st century guy to wrap his head around.

18 For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive in the Spirit. 19 After being made alive, he went and made proclamation to the imprisoned spirits— 20 to those who were disobedient long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built. In it only a few people, eight in all, were saved through water, 21 and this water symbolizes baptism that now saves you also—not the removal of dirt from the body but the pledge of a clear conscience toward God.[e] It saves you by the resurrection of Jesus Christ, 22 who has gone into heaven and is at God’s right hand—with angels, authorities and powers in submission to him. 1 Peter 3:18-22

When we talk about the suffering of Jesus, we tend to limit our focus to the events surrounding his crucifixion. I would like us to pull back for a moment and look at the big picture. Jesus suffered for over 30 years in his life as a human. I can’t imagine what kind of pain it must have been to have access to the power, wisdom and knowledge of being in very nature God and denying that every day. I can’t imagine what it must have been like to feel pain and accept it rather than willing it away. So when we speak of Jesus suffering, let us remember the enormity of all he suffered on our behalf, not just the events of one day. He suffered the injustice of being falsely accused and being put to death and he suffered skinned knees, hitting his thumb with a hammer and puberty. All this he did so that we could come to God.

Since there is no non-controversial interpretation of this next bit I am going to pick what I think is the most challenging to share with you. There is a simple underlying message here that through Jesus God’s love is for every person who has ever lived and will ever live, no matter what. God’s love is extended to every human being, even those who have rejected him, even the darkest of evildoers. There are plenty of other passages that talk about how God loved us before we came to love him to back this interpretation up, but I want to read to the description of the people killed in the flood from the book of Genesis:

5 The Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time. 6 The Lord regretted that he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was deeply troubled. 7 So the Lord said, “I will wipe from the face of the earth the human race I have created—and with them the animals, the birds and the creatures that move along the ground—for I regret that I have made them.” 11 Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight and was full of violence. 12 God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways. 13 So God said to Noah, “I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth. Genesis 6:5-7, 11-13

These people that Genesis tells us God regretted making are the very people Peter tells us Jesus went to in order to offer redemption. This makes me squirm a bit since I have to ask myself who I am not welcoming into my life that God has offered his redemption to. Who is it that I might be denying the chance at entering the kingdom? If Jesus could go to those violent offenders who caused God to regret making them who can be off limits to us? This is what I mean by a tough application because it forces me to look inside myself and see who I really don’t want to be saved. When I look at myself in that light I see that I am not yet fully clean, that the scrubbing I try to do to clean my soul is not enough.

Our efforts at making ourselves right never seem to be enough, and I’ll be honest here they aren’t. No matter how hard we try to get everything right we still fail, but we are not without hope. Even when the water doesn’t get us clean and we come to the point at which we wonder what can be done the Spirit comes. When we turn to the Spirit and ask Him to make us clean He descends with holy fire and in his baptism of fire we are purified. I don’t know about you, but as I reflect on my day as I prepare for sleep I ask the Spirit to help me see where in that day I have failed to listen for his voice, what I have done that was wrong and I ask that he descend on me with fresh fire to purify me more. The beautiful thing is that when we ask to be cleaned God is faithful to purify our hearts. I am not the man I was a year ago because the Holy Spirit is purifying me. Without the aid of the Holy Spirit I would not have lost as much weight as I have and I would still be a glutton. I am not done, but by God’s help I have taken another step forward in my journey towards him.

In two weeks, we will celebrate together the thing that makes this all possible. Peter knew that the Crucifixion wasn’t enough on its own, and in truth the new covenant was made and validated not by the cross, but by the empty tomb. It is the resurrection, not the death that is the source of our hope. In the cross everything that kept us separated from god was put to death, not only the sin, but the systems for sin management and categorization as well, this is why the curtain into the holy of holies was torn. God was no longer operating in the comfortable box of the religious system that kept people at a distance from him. Jesus then became the first fruits of the everlasting life to come, the sign of the promise. Just as the rainbow was the sign of God’s promise to not destroy the earth again, Jesus’ resurrection is the sign of God’s salvation. The sacrifice of violence was overthrown, the way of death was defeated, and because Jesus submitted to suffering we now have direct access to God through the continuing baptism of the Holy Spirit. Every human being has the opportunity to have that same access to God now, all because Jesus rose from the dead.

Since Jesus accomplished all these things through rising from the dead, he now sits at the right hand of God with all submitted to his loving, peaceful rule. Jesus now speaks into every heart through the Holy Spirit if we take the time to listen, surrender and let ourselves be saved. I don’t always do this well. Sometimes I don’t listen, or listen but don’t obey, or I allow my mind to filter what I hear through my prejudices and preconceived notions. Even my disobedience doesn’t keep him away from me. This was a hard lesson for me to learn. I always thought that when I sinned God rejected me again until I confessed and came to him. You would think I wasn’t paying attention when we read and reread Romans 8. But those old images of an angry God who had it in for us just waiting to smack us down when we stepped out of line were hard to overcome because they made so much more sense than the God who loved so much that he chose to lose his power, suffer and die in order to bring us into new life with him. That is the God who I have met in Jesus. I desperately desire to live up to a fraction of the love and forgiveness I have been shown, but I can’t do it alone. You can’t do it alone either. This is why we are called together as Jesus’ body the church: that we can help get each other’s eyes back on Jesus when we get distracted by the “sense” of the world around us. There is a lot to chew on in this passage, and I encourage you to reread it while we are in open worship and listen for that still small voice. The Spirit is faithful to fill us with his presence if we open our hearts to his cleansing love. If, as the Spirit moves within you, a message is brought to your mind, take some time to discern what parts of the message may be filtered through your preconceived ideas and ask the Spirit to give you clarity that you might speak what comes from God and nothing else. That is the hope I carry, that someday every word that passes my lips finds its source in the Holy Spirit within me. Until that glad and distant day let us bring our hearts, minds, and bodies to Jesus and ask the Father to send his Holy Spirit to descend on us with the fresh fire of God’s presence.

Dear Stan

Dear Stan,

I hope that on some level you know how much of an impact you have had on the people you have faithfully served in ministry. When I first started attending Olympic View Friends Church you took me under under your wing and mentored me. I was a brash, abrasive, East-coast transplant in the midst of culture shock, questioning my worth because of being unemployed. You invested your time in me and I grew as a man and as a follower of Christ because of it. One of the things I appreciate most about that time was that you didn’t give me advice, just asked questions and pointed me towards Jesus. Then, as I shared difficult things you showed compassion with my struggles and gently guided me towards grace and mercy with a humorous and compassionate spirit. Through your influence, my immature faith was deepened and I began to confront myself and stop hiding from my brokenness behind pious language and a judgmental spirit. Through your patience I learned to value silence and carving out time to listen for the still small voice and allow the Spirit to minister to me even when I didn’t hear anything. You encouraged me in a discipline I still struggle to live up to: listening for the voice of the Spirit in every conversation I have.

Through your example I learned what the spiritual parenthood of being a Friends pastor looks like, and I felt the way open for me pursue God’s call to minister as a pastor after the manner of Friends. I was afraid and distrusting of authority, and you were the right person God brought into my life to restore my faith that the church really could be the priesthood of ALL believers. You got me started on the recording process, and I am a recorded Friends Pastor because of you.

When I heard that you died, my heart fell. Your voice has been a strong one that spoke words that point to the character of Jesus and the loss of that voice is a blow to the Northwest Yearly Meeting. I hope that I can honor the time, effort, and love you have invested in me in my ministry.

I think I will go eat some toast now.

Your Sorrowful F/friend,

Gil George