1 Corinthian 6:12-20
January 18, 2008
“All things are lawful for me," but not all things are beneficial. "All things are lawful for me," but I will not be dominated by anything. "Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food," and God will destroy both one and the other. The body is meant not for fornication but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. And God raised the Lord and will also raise us by his power. Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Should I therefore take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never! Do you not know that whoever is united to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For it is said, "The two shall be one flesh." But anyone united to the Lord becomes one spirit with him. Shun fornication! Every sin that a person commits is outside the body; but the fornicator sins against the body itself. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you were bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your body.
When I read this passage, I find it to be one of the more profound passages of scripture. The parts I find to be profound are not so much the parts where Paul talks about prostitution, fornication, and stuff like that. What really captures me is the last few sentences where Paul says, “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God, and that you are not your own?” Why is this so profound? To understand you really have to understand who Paul was writing to and why he wrote it?
To whom was Paul writing? He was writing to the Christians in Corinth, which meant that he was writing to people living in a city that was much like Las Vegas is today. Back then they very easily could have said, what goes on in Corinth stays in Corinth. The Greek city of Corinth had the reputation of being the most enticing or perverted (depending on which perspective you have) city in the Roman Empire. Why? The reason has to do with geography. If you’ve ever looked at a map of Greece, you’ll notice that it is a peninsula that juts out into the Mediterranean Sea. About 2/3rds of the way down the peninsula two long inlets carve into the peninsula, leaving a small isthmus connecting the upper peninsula with the lower one. Corinth lies directly on that small isthmus.
The residents of the city were very clever. They knew that during the winter traveling around the bottom of the Greek peninsula could be dangerous because of storms. So they created a system in which a ship could travel down one inlet, be literally pulled out of the water, placed on rollers, pulled for twenty miles, and then put back down in the other inlet. It was much like a rolling Panama Canal. So, it became a major transport city that benefitted from trade coming from the east and the west of the empire. The city quickly became rich, and with that wealth came access to all sorts of pleasures. The city became a center of prostitution and gluttony. It was a place where people sought to break the social conventions of the day regarding self-indulgence. Paul was writing to people who were used to having lots of overindulgence and little personal discipline.
Paul was offering theman alternative vision. He was using the Temple of Jerusalem as a model for how to live life, and especially how to treat out bodies. He was teaching them how to keep a mind, body, spirit balance. To truly understand his teaching, it helps to first learn a little bit about the Temple of Jerusalem.
To begin with the Temple was the center of worship for all the Jews. It was considered to be where God lived on earth. The very center of the Temple, the Holy of Holies, once housed the Ark of the Covenant, which was the throne of God. But there was more to the Temple than just the Holy of Holies.
The Temple itself was massive. The only part that remains today—it was destroyed by the Roman general, Pompey, around 70 A.D.—is what is now called the Western Wall or the Wailing Wall. This wall is one of the holiest sites of Judaism, and it is a place of prayer. A thousand years ago it was integrated into the Temple Mount, which is part of the complex surrounding the Dome of the Rock, a Muslim temple that is said to be built atop a rock where, according to Islamic tradition, Muhammad ascended to Heaven accompanied by the angel Gabriel. It is considered to be the third holiest site in Islam, behind Mecca and Medina.
Before the Temple of Jerusalem was destroyed it was massive. It’s hard to get a sense of how large it was, but if it were plopped down in the middle of Zelienople, it would take up most of the town. It’s walls were about ten stories tall. It was a rectangle with a series of small rectangular courts and buildings forming concentric spaces toward the center, where the Holy of Holies was. The first court, the Court of the Gentiles, took up much of the area of the Temple. This is the space where the moneychangers were, who you remember from the story of Jesus turning over the tables. The moneychangers would exchange Roman coins for temple coins, since the temple tax could not be paid with Roman coins.
Moving toward the center of the temple one found interior enclosed courtyards that Gentiles were forbidden to enter. The outermost of those courtyards was the Court of the Women. Jewish women could gather there, but could go no further in. Since this courtyard was covered with a roof, but open along the sides, the women could see further in, but not go further. Moving again into the center, there was the Court of the Israelites, which surrounded the main Temple building. Jewish men could gather there. This courtyard was the place where sacrifices took place. Each Israelite was expected to offer an animal sacrifice at least once a year. The idea was that the animal was sacrificed in place of the person, who rightly should be sacrificed to God for not living life God’s way. Animals served as substitutes for humans. Only unblemished animals could be sacrificed, since their innocence had the power to take on human sin. Rising up out of that courtyard was the magnificent Holy of Holies. It was where the Ark rested. There were two bronze- and gold-lined chambers in the interior this magnificent building. There was the Court of the Priests, where priests would bring the cooked meat from the sacrifices, and then there was the interior Holy of Holies itself, where two large bronze cherubim sculptures rested. This room could be entered only once a year, and only by the high priest.
As you can see, the temple was a highly ordered space for making sacrifices and worshiping God. This is the model Paul uses for how our bodies are to be a temple. He is using this temple in comparison to us, saying that each of us is like this temple in some way, and that we need to treat our bodies like this temple.
So what does it mean that we should treat our bodies as a temple? I believe that there are at least four inherent lessons. First, he is saying, let worship take place in our temples (our bodies), but don’t worship our temples. In our culture this is a huge lesson. We are a culture that too often worships physical perfection. Who do we admire in our culture? Too often it’s movie stars and athletes. I have no problem enjoying their work, but their physical obsessions aren’t a model for people who want to live balanced lives. If you’ve ever read even one issue of People Magazine, you immediately understand the problem of looking to celebrities as models. They may be physically beautiful, but often their lives are a mess. They live in a culture of body worship, but we are called to live lives where worship takes place in our bodies. Worshiping our temples can actually keep God from living in our temples by preventing worship of God from taking place in our temples.
Second, we need to allow our bodies—our temples—to be healthy, whole, and holy spaces where God can live. I am a big believer in this. I truly believe that it is difficult to worship God if we neglect our bodies. I believe in a body, mind, and spirit balance, and too often we either neglect the physical, or we obsess about the physical. I am particularly sensitive to this because I have struggled with my health and weight pretty much my whole adult life. I became very interested in physical health starting in college, when, despite the fact I was athlete playing on one of the top lacrosse teams in the country, and was at the top of physical fitness, I had high blood pressure. I was put on what was then considered to be a good diet, which was a high carbohydrate, low fat diet. Ever since I have been somewhat obsessive about my eating habits and exercise. That doesn’t mean that I don’t lapse every once in a while, but those are the exceptions, not the rule.
I exercise virtually every day, either lifting weights, or walking between 3 to 4 miles a day outside or on a treadmill. I’m limited in what I can do because I’ve had three knee operations on my right knee and now have arthritis in it. If I do any kind of impact exercise, my knee swells up like a grapefruit. For instance, three years ago I played badminton at our Calvin softball team’s picnic, and just doing that for an hour swelled my knee so much that I had to walk with a cane for a better part of a week. Thus, I struggle like everyone else to find exercise that is interesting.
I’m a fanatic about eating healthy, which may seem surprising to some people because I am heavy. I’m what I would call a “healthy heavy,” although I’d much prefer to be a skinny healthy. I’ve struggled with my weight all my adult life, but at the same time, I very rarely ever eat junk food. I tend to eat grainy breads, lean meats, and lots of vegetables and fruits. In fact, people who have lunch with me often make fun of the fact that I’m always ordering a grilled chicken salad.
One of the things I’ve recently figured out, and it’s allowed me to lose over 15 pounds without dieting, is that we are a nation of fast-eaters and large portions. I’ve become convinced that the reason so many of us struggle with our weight isn’t that we are unhealthy or don’t exercise. That may be true to some extent, but a bigger problem is that our portions are too large and our eating is too fast. I’m basing this belief on the work of a British man named Paul McKenna, and I find his arguments compelling.
He says that one of the biggest contributors to all of our weight problems is the instructions we got from our parents. I don’t mean to put all the blame on our parents, since they were trying to raise us to be healthy. It’s just that growing up most of our parents told us to “finish everything on your plate—there are starving children in Africa.” Of course, most of us responded by saying, “Well, maybe we can send them some of our leftovers.” Still, the damage was done. Most of us now eat everything on our plates, even if we are full. The result is that we eat more than we should. How we eat as adults is very different from how most children naturally eat. Most children rarely finish their plates. They’ll eat ½ to 1/3rd of what we put on their plates, and then ask, “how many more bites do I have to take?” We now tell them, “Two bites of your vegetables.” When I was a kid, I was told, like almost everyone else my age, “Eat everything.” The result is that nowadays I feel guilty if I leave food on my plate. It feels like wasting. What makes this worse is that plates are now so big now. They are 1/3rd to ½ larger than plates from twenty years ago. By finishing off our plates, we now eat 1/3rd to ½ more food than we did twenty years ago.
We also all eat so fast. Two generations ago, meals took a long time. People weren’t in such a hurry to get here or there. The result is that people tended to sit longer at meals and eat slower, focusing more on the flavors. Today, we are in such a rush that when we eat we mostly gobble and gulp, rather than nibble and sip. McKenna talks about an experiment that showed this. A group of people were taken to a pancake house for a free breakfast. Their breakfasts included scrambled eggs, hash browns, a stack of pancakes, and bacon. Virtually every one of them ate quickly, eating everything on their plates. The same group was then brought back a week later and given the exact same breakfast. This time, though, they were blindfolded, which forced them to slow down. Every one of them ate only ½ of their meals, saying that they were too full to finish. By slowing down they ate less by giving their bodies time to tell their brains that they were full.
You can do a simple, observational experiment to test the theory about weight gain and speed of eating. Go somewhere like a the food court of a mall, and notice the different ways that heavy people eat compared to how thinner people eat. I’ve done this, and I’ve been amazed. I watch the thinner people eat, and they take smaller bites, chew longer, and take longer in-between bites. They also tend leave food on their plates. Heck, I don’t have to compare them to heavy people. I compare them to myself. I eat fast, chew quick, and always clean my plate. It’s been amazing to me that instead of dieting, and by simply slowing down my eating, focusing more on chewing slow and tasting flavors, and not eating everything on my plate, I lose weight. This is what I mean by being healthy not only in what we eat, but in how we eat.
Taking care of our bodies also isn’t just a matter of eating healthy, slowly, and exercising. I think it also means getting enough sleep, taking enough breaks, and giving our lives some pause and balance against a world that screams at us to rush here and there. We aren’t called to worship our temples, but we do have to take care of them.
The third lesson is that we need to let regular prayer and sacrifice take place in our temples. We were created to be in a relationship with God. Temples are created to facilitate that relationship with God. A temple is no good unless it puts God at the center. We are called to put God at our center—to make sure we take time to sacrifice our egos to God, to make time to pray, read scripture, read spiritual books, and do anything that puts worship at the center. We were created to be temples for God, to be places where God resides at the center, just like the Temple of Jerusalem.
Finally, we need to make sure that our temples have the right order. The Temple of Jerusalem had a definite order and discipline. Just as there were courtyards, walls, and sacred spaces in the Temple, we need to have disciplined and ordered lives that allow God to reside at the center. We need to install a kind of discipline to our lives that allows them to overcome the chaos of life in order to let God live in the center. For example, by reading this sermon, you are applying a certain order. When you worship each week, you are applying that kind of order. When you pray each day you are applying that order. Our lives can have too much order, but that’s rarely our problem. We usually suffer from a lack of order and priority.
The point of all of this is that our bodies are our temples—temples for God to reside. Our question is whether we take this seriously. Do we worship our temples or allow worship to take place in them? Are our temples healthy? Do they have the right structure and order? Ultimately, the real question is, “What takes place in our temples?”
Amen.
Baptized in the Spirit
Acts 19:1-7
While Apollos was in Corinth, Paul passed through the interior regions and came to Ephesus, where he found some disciples. He said to them, "Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you became believers?" They replied, "No, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit." Then he said, "Into what then were you baptized?" They answered, "Into John's baptism." Paul said, "John baptized with the baptism of repentance, telling the people to believe in the one who was to come after him, that is, in Jesus." On hearing this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. When Paul had laid his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came upon them, and they spoke in tongues and prophesied—altogether there were about twelve of them.
Do you remember when you were baptized? Most of you probably don’t, since you were just a baby at the time, but some of you do. If you do remember, was it an amazing spiritual experience? Did you feel the Holy Spirit entering you? Did you receive the Holy Spirit? Most people, even when they are baptized as adults, don’t feel the Spirit entering upon baptism. They feel that it’s an important occasion, they are happy it happened, and they feel wet, but not necessarily filled with the Spirit.
So, have you received the Holy Spirit? I’m not sure that just because you were baptized that it automatically means that you received the Holy Spirit. It doesn’t mean that you didn’t. It’s just that real baptism in the Holy Spirit means making a choice that many Christians never really make. It’s not that they don’t want to make the choice. It’s that most of us don’t know we need to make the choice, and so what happens is that we end up living less of the life that we are called by Christ to live.
How do we make sure people receive the Holy Spirit at some point in their lives? Some churches only baptize people when they are ready to make the choice to be baptized, with the hope that this choice will open the person to the Holy Spirit. In Presbyterian churches, like ours, we encourage teens to make this choice after confirmation class. Unfortunately, there is a problem with that. Many or most times the teens just aren’t spiritually mature enough to really make the kind of choice that lets the Spirit in. Of course, that doesn’t mean that they would become spiritually mature later in life. Many people never become spiritually mature enough to let the Spirit in, and some are very mature early on and let the Spirit in as children.
So what does it mean to receive the Holy Spirit in baptism? I think it means making a foundational choice to give ourselves over to the Spirit and to willingly let the Spirit truly, deeply into our lives. It means letting the Spirit not only guide us to what God wants, but to let the Spirit move our lives according to God’s ways.
I think that for a long time I understood this concept in my head, the idea of receiving the Spirit, but I don’t know that I truly understood it from a deeper life-sense. Where I learned what it really meant was from a member of my previous church, where I served as an associate pastor.
This woman’s story is really fascinating, and shows the difference it makes in our lives when we truly become open to and receive the Spirit. The year was 1990, and I was preaching on the particular Sunday she visited. At that time I preached about once every five to six weeks. I was preaching about faith, and about how we needed it to give us purpose and meaning in life. Then I gave an example of what life without faith is like. I read the congregation a passage from a book that my wife, Diane, whom I was dating at the time, had given me. The book was titled The Search for Meaning, by Phillip Berman. Berman had traveled the country, interviewing people from all walks of life about what gave them meaning. He interviewed well-known people from all walks of life, as well as those who were unknown. Each chapter of the book tells of a different interview and a different perspective of meaning.
In my sermon I focused on an interview with one man, a man named Elisha Shapiro. In the book, Shapiro called himself a nihilist, which means that he didn’t believe in anything at all, not God, not meaning, not morality. Then I read a passage from the book in which Shapiro said, “But me, I call myself a nihilist. It’s part of my art to call myself a nihilist. There is no God, and I don’t feel like replacing him with anything, and I like it that way. It’s a joyful experience, not an angst-filled one. My basic belief, if you can call it that, is that there is nothing that’s constant, whether it’s a more or ethical tenet or whether it’s a physical law. Take for example the statement ‘the grass is green.’ That’s not always true. Nor is the sky always blue. Maybe that’s not true. We don’t know. Maybe it’s all a dream. I like the idea that everything that people cling to that’s comforting or gives them a grounding is subject to change. People change, and nothing is constant….
To me, there really isn’t any significance to life, none whatsoever. No significance. And I find that’s a comforting thing. You’re let off the hook that way. (Laughs.) People feel like that’s a terrible emotional deal. But there is no significance to my existing here. I’m a product of… if I were to try to figure out what I was a product of, the best thing I could guess would be billions of years of coincidences, dumb luck. I enjoy my existence as an animal organism—if I’m not just a figment of my own imagination. If I am in existence at all, I’m just this animal organism running by what makes it run, what coincidentally came along with this package.”
After reading that passage, I said to the congregation that I couldn’t understand how anyone could live this way; how anyone could live without a real sense of faith or meaning. At the end of the worship service the woman I mentioned before, who was visiting our church for the first time, shook my hand at the door as she dabbed away tears. She then asked if she could make an appointment with me. We went back to my office and made an appointment for the following Thursday.
Thursday came and she and I sat down to talk. She said to me, “I’ll bet you’re wondering why I had tears in my eyes on Sunday, and why I asked to meet with you.” I told her that the thought had crossed my mind, and that I hoped it wasn’t due to my giving a dreadfully bad sermon. She then went on to tell me her story. She told me how she had grown up in Southern California in a family that was part of the Four Square Gospel church, a fundamentalist church that was highly restrictive and regimented. Growing up, she felt as though she was never allowed to do anything the other children were doing, as though she was a prisoner of her parents’ religion. She couldn’t wait to get out from under her parents’ control.
She met a charismatic and dynamic man after high school—a man who promised her freedom and a life filled with adventure and excitement. She left home to travel with this man, along with a group of others who seemed to be part of his entourage. They lived an exciting life of drugs, partying, and experimentation. But then the life took a downward spiral. The man became more and more controlling. He enticed her to dabble in all sorts of sexual practices with other men, and he turned her into something very close to a prostitute. She found herself trapped in a nightmare. What made it worse was that because of this life, and diseases she picked up, her internal organs were scarred, leaving her with a working ovary on the right side of her body and a working fallopian tube on the other side.
It took her two years to escape his grasp. She moved back home and enrolled in college, majoring in psychology. After graduating she enrolled in a master of social work program so that she could become a counselor working with lost souls like herself. She eventually met a man, a psychologist, whom she married. They moved around a bit as he took on teaching jobs and worked in rehab centers. Their travels brought them to the town where I was an associate pastor. She told me that it had taken her so long to recover from the life with that man who had destroyed so much of her life, and that church was something that helped her tremendously, which is why, whenever she moved to a new town, looking for a new church was always a priority.
She then leaned forward and said to me, “You can imagine my surprise when I came here for church last Sunday, and you gave that sermon, talking about Elisha Shapiro. You see, Elisha Shapiro was the man I told you about.” She then said that she was still living the consequences of that life. All her life she wanted to have and raise children, but because of her internal scarring there was no way to become pregnant naturally. If you know anything about biology, you know that there is no way that an egg can travel across the body cavity to a fallopian tube on the other side. Her only option was in-vitro fertilization, especially since her husband was against adopting children.
She eventually joined the church and became a very active member, and one of our most prayerful members. Over the years she kept trying to have children via in-vitro, but after going through 12 or so treatments without success, at a cost of thousands of dollars, she decided that she couldn’t do it anymore.
A year or so passed. She and I talked over the year about her disappointment, and we even prayed for healing, but nothing seemed to work. She was disappointed and helpless to do anything about it. For a long time we didn’t talk about it. Then, one day, she walked into my office with a big ear-to-ear grin. I asked her what had happened, and she said, “I’m two months pregnant!” I said to her, “But I thought you quit the in vitros.” She said, “I did. This was a natural pregnancy.” I then asked her what had happened. This is the part that continues to inspire me.
She told me that about two months prior, in the midst of despair and sadness, she sat down with God and prayed, “Lord, you know how much I want to be a mother. You know how much I’ve wanted this my whole life. It doesn’t look like it’s going to happen, and there doesn’t seem to be anything I can do about it. So, Lord, I give you my life. If you want me to become a mother, I will become the best mother I can be, and I will serve you as a mother. If not, I will serve you the best I can in whatever you call me to do. All I want to do is to be yours, so I will follow you and serve you however you want.” She said that it must have been during that week that she got pregnant. She was convinced that she became pregnant because she surrendered to God and gave up her demand that God make her pregnant. She gave up control over her life. It was her saying to God that she was God’s no matter what, and that she was willing to give up her dreams, that seemed to open her to God’s Spirit. Her miracle happened because of her surrender. Seven months later she gave birth to a healthy baby boy. Two years later, she gave birth to another healthy baby boy. Both of these conceptions were pretty near physically impossible.
I believe that her life shows what it means to receive the Holy Spirit. It means to surrender to God and to really, truly let God be at work in our lives. She showed me that the path to the Spirit is to let go of our demands on God, to let go of our requirements that we will serve God if such-and-such happens. She showed me that the way to receive the Spirit is to say simply and with conviction, “God, I am yours no matter what you call me to do, no matter how you call me to live, and no matter what happens to me as a result. I am yours.”
Amen.
While Apollos was in Corinth, Paul passed through the interior regions and came to Ephesus, where he found some disciples. He said to them, "Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you became believers?" They replied, "No, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit." Then he said, "Into what then were you baptized?" They answered, "Into John's baptism." Paul said, "John baptized with the baptism of repentance, telling the people to believe in the one who was to come after him, that is, in Jesus." On hearing this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. When Paul had laid his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came upon them, and they spoke in tongues and prophesied—altogether there were about twelve of them.
Do you remember when you were baptized? Most of you probably don’t, since you were just a baby at the time, but some of you do. If you do remember, was it an amazing spiritual experience? Did you feel the Holy Spirit entering you? Did you receive the Holy Spirit? Most people, even when they are baptized as adults, don’t feel the Spirit entering upon baptism. They feel that it’s an important occasion, they are happy it happened, and they feel wet, but not necessarily filled with the Spirit.
So, have you received the Holy Spirit? I’m not sure that just because you were baptized that it automatically means that you received the Holy Spirit. It doesn’t mean that you didn’t. It’s just that real baptism in the Holy Spirit means making a choice that many Christians never really make. It’s not that they don’t want to make the choice. It’s that most of us don’t know we need to make the choice, and so what happens is that we end up living less of the life that we are called by Christ to live.
How do we make sure people receive the Holy Spirit at some point in their lives? Some churches only baptize people when they are ready to make the choice to be baptized, with the hope that this choice will open the person to the Holy Spirit. In Presbyterian churches, like ours, we encourage teens to make this choice after confirmation class. Unfortunately, there is a problem with that. Many or most times the teens just aren’t spiritually mature enough to really make the kind of choice that lets the Spirit in. Of course, that doesn’t mean that they would become spiritually mature later in life. Many people never become spiritually mature enough to let the Spirit in, and some are very mature early on and let the Spirit in as children.
So what does it mean to receive the Holy Spirit in baptism? I think it means making a foundational choice to give ourselves over to the Spirit and to willingly let the Spirit truly, deeply into our lives. It means letting the Spirit not only guide us to what God wants, but to let the Spirit move our lives according to God’s ways.
I think that for a long time I understood this concept in my head, the idea of receiving the Spirit, but I don’t know that I truly understood it from a deeper life-sense. Where I learned what it really meant was from a member of my previous church, where I served as an associate pastor.
This woman’s story is really fascinating, and shows the difference it makes in our lives when we truly become open to and receive the Spirit. The year was 1990, and I was preaching on the particular Sunday she visited. At that time I preached about once every five to six weeks. I was preaching about faith, and about how we needed it to give us purpose and meaning in life. Then I gave an example of what life without faith is like. I read the congregation a passage from a book that my wife, Diane, whom I was dating at the time, had given me. The book was titled The Search for Meaning, by Phillip Berman. Berman had traveled the country, interviewing people from all walks of life about what gave them meaning. He interviewed well-known people from all walks of life, as well as those who were unknown. Each chapter of the book tells of a different interview and a different perspective of meaning.
In my sermon I focused on an interview with one man, a man named Elisha Shapiro. In the book, Shapiro called himself a nihilist, which means that he didn’t believe in anything at all, not God, not meaning, not morality. Then I read a passage from the book in which Shapiro said, “But me, I call myself a nihilist. It’s part of my art to call myself a nihilist. There is no God, and I don’t feel like replacing him with anything, and I like it that way. It’s a joyful experience, not an angst-filled one. My basic belief, if you can call it that, is that there is nothing that’s constant, whether it’s a more or ethical tenet or whether it’s a physical law. Take for example the statement ‘the grass is green.’ That’s not always true. Nor is the sky always blue. Maybe that’s not true. We don’t know. Maybe it’s all a dream. I like the idea that everything that people cling to that’s comforting or gives them a grounding is subject to change. People change, and nothing is constant….
To me, there really isn’t any significance to life, none whatsoever. No significance. And I find that’s a comforting thing. You’re let off the hook that way. (Laughs.) People feel like that’s a terrible emotional deal. But there is no significance to my existing here. I’m a product of… if I were to try to figure out what I was a product of, the best thing I could guess would be billions of years of coincidences, dumb luck. I enjoy my existence as an animal organism—if I’m not just a figment of my own imagination. If I am in existence at all, I’m just this animal organism running by what makes it run, what coincidentally came along with this package.”
After reading that passage, I said to the congregation that I couldn’t understand how anyone could live this way; how anyone could live without a real sense of faith or meaning. At the end of the worship service the woman I mentioned before, who was visiting our church for the first time, shook my hand at the door as she dabbed away tears. She then asked if she could make an appointment with me. We went back to my office and made an appointment for the following Thursday.
Thursday came and she and I sat down to talk. She said to me, “I’ll bet you’re wondering why I had tears in my eyes on Sunday, and why I asked to meet with you.” I told her that the thought had crossed my mind, and that I hoped it wasn’t due to my giving a dreadfully bad sermon. She then went on to tell me her story. She told me how she had grown up in Southern California in a family that was part of the Four Square Gospel church, a fundamentalist church that was highly restrictive and regimented. Growing up, she felt as though she was never allowed to do anything the other children were doing, as though she was a prisoner of her parents’ religion. She couldn’t wait to get out from under her parents’ control.
She met a charismatic and dynamic man after high school—a man who promised her freedom and a life filled with adventure and excitement. She left home to travel with this man, along with a group of others who seemed to be part of his entourage. They lived an exciting life of drugs, partying, and experimentation. But then the life took a downward spiral. The man became more and more controlling. He enticed her to dabble in all sorts of sexual practices with other men, and he turned her into something very close to a prostitute. She found herself trapped in a nightmare. What made it worse was that because of this life, and diseases she picked up, her internal organs were scarred, leaving her with a working ovary on the right side of her body and a working fallopian tube on the other side.
It took her two years to escape his grasp. She moved back home and enrolled in college, majoring in psychology. After graduating she enrolled in a master of social work program so that she could become a counselor working with lost souls like herself. She eventually met a man, a psychologist, whom she married. They moved around a bit as he took on teaching jobs and worked in rehab centers. Their travels brought them to the town where I was an associate pastor. She told me that it had taken her so long to recover from the life with that man who had destroyed so much of her life, and that church was something that helped her tremendously, which is why, whenever she moved to a new town, looking for a new church was always a priority.
She then leaned forward and said to me, “You can imagine my surprise when I came here for church last Sunday, and you gave that sermon, talking about Elisha Shapiro. You see, Elisha Shapiro was the man I told you about.” She then said that she was still living the consequences of that life. All her life she wanted to have and raise children, but because of her internal scarring there was no way to become pregnant naturally. If you know anything about biology, you know that there is no way that an egg can travel across the body cavity to a fallopian tube on the other side. Her only option was in-vitro fertilization, especially since her husband was against adopting children.
She eventually joined the church and became a very active member, and one of our most prayerful members. Over the years she kept trying to have children via in-vitro, but after going through 12 or so treatments without success, at a cost of thousands of dollars, she decided that she couldn’t do it anymore.
A year or so passed. She and I talked over the year about her disappointment, and we even prayed for healing, but nothing seemed to work. She was disappointed and helpless to do anything about it. For a long time we didn’t talk about it. Then, one day, she walked into my office with a big ear-to-ear grin. I asked her what had happened, and she said, “I’m two months pregnant!” I said to her, “But I thought you quit the in vitros.” She said, “I did. This was a natural pregnancy.” I then asked her what had happened. This is the part that continues to inspire me.
She told me that about two months prior, in the midst of despair and sadness, she sat down with God and prayed, “Lord, you know how much I want to be a mother. You know how much I’ve wanted this my whole life. It doesn’t look like it’s going to happen, and there doesn’t seem to be anything I can do about it. So, Lord, I give you my life. If you want me to become a mother, I will become the best mother I can be, and I will serve you as a mother. If not, I will serve you the best I can in whatever you call me to do. All I want to do is to be yours, so I will follow you and serve you however you want.” She said that it must have been during that week that she got pregnant. She was convinced that she became pregnant because she surrendered to God and gave up her demand that God make her pregnant. She gave up control over her life. It was her saying to God that she was God’s no matter what, and that she was willing to give up her dreams, that seemed to open her to God’s Spirit. Her miracle happened because of her surrender. Seven months later she gave birth to a healthy baby boy. Two years later, she gave birth to another healthy baby boy. Both of these conceptions were pretty near physically impossible.
I believe that her life shows what it means to receive the Holy Spirit. It means to surrender to God and to really, truly let God be at work in our lives. She showed me that the path to the Spirit is to let go of our demands on God, to let go of our requirements that we will serve God if such-and-such happens. She showed me that the way to receive the Spirit is to say simply and with conviction, “God, I am yours no matter what you call me to do, no matter how you call me to live, and no matter what happens to me as a result. I am yours.”
Amen.
What Others Dismiss
Luke 2:22-40
December 28, 2008
22 When the time came for their purification according to the law of Moses, they brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord 23 (as it is written in the law of the Lord, "Every firstborn male shall be designated as holy to the Lord"), 24 and they offered a sacrifice according to what is stated in the law of the Lord, "a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons."
25 Now there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon; this man was righteous and devout, looking forward to the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit rested on him. 26 It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord's Messiah. 27 Guided by the Spirit, Simeon came into the temple; and when the parents brought in the child Jesus, to do for him what was customary under the law, 28 Simeon took him in his arms and praised God, saying, 29 "Master, now you are dismissing your servant in peace, according to your word; 30 for my eyes have seen your salvation, 31 which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, 32 a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel." 33 And the child's father and mother were amazed at what was being said about him. 34 Then Simeon blessed them and said to his mother Mary, "This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed 35 so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed—and a sword will pierce your own soul too." 36 There was also a prophet, Anna the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was of a great age, having lived with her husband seven years after her marriage, 37 then as a widow to the age of eighty-four. She never left the temple but worshiped there with fasting and prayer night and day. 38 At that moment she came, and began to praise God and to speak about the child to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem. 39 When they had finished everything required by the law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee, to their own town of Nazareth. 40 The child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom; and the favor of God was upon him.
I’ve just finished reading a book and it may be the best book I’ve read in years. That’s saying a lot because I’ve read a lot of great books over the past few years. It’s about a Russian Orthodox priest named Father Arseny. I came across the book after giving a talk to about 250 Methodist pastors in North Carolina. During my talk I spoke about how God seems to work through coincidence (or providence), and how many people of faith experience God in this way. While sitting outside with several pastors during our lunch break, one of them said to me, “What you are saying reminds me of Father Arseny.”
I asked him who Father Arseny was. He said, “He’s an Orthodox priest who survived a Soviet Siberian gulag for 20 or more years. During that time he had an amazing faith and cared for others in the camp, transforming their lives and opening them to God.” As I often do when people suggest books to me, I wrote down the information and, when I got home, ordered the book. It took me a while to work through my stack of other books, but once I read this book I realized that this man may have been one of the truly great Christians of the 20th century. And he was a man others dismissed.
Father Arseny was originally an art scholar who became an Orthodox priest. He ended up being sentenced to the gulag after writing several articles about the importance of faith even among communists. In Stalinist Russia, where atheism was the official religion and Christians were persecuted aggressively, to write pro-Christian articles in public papers and magazines was to speak out politically against the government. During Stalin’s reign, Christians were considered to be the worst of all political agitators because belief in God was a threat to the supreme rule of Stalin. As a result, something like 44,000 priests were killed during his reign, and over 150,000 monks and nuns. By the time Stalin died, only 200 priests remained. Remember that statistic the next time someone says that Christianity is responsible for more deaths than anything else. Under Stalin’s atheistic reign, over 25 million people were killed, and millions of them for being Christian. A significant number of them died in the gulags.
The gulags were designed to kill people slowly and with a lot of pain. In the winter, the temperature generally hovered around -15 or -20, and dipping at times to -30. During the summer, the water from the frozen ground was released, making it extremely humid, creating an Eden for mosquitoes, which spread disease. Either way, the majority of people sent to the camps did not return.
The camps were filled with both political prisoners (often highly educated scholars, artists, and reporters) and common criminals (thieves, murderers, psychopath). Both had nothing but disdain for people who were religious. The atheistic political prisoners hated them because they saw religious people as being willfully stupid and superstitious. The criminals hated them because they hated anyone with a sense of morality. The result was that both treated Father Arseny with contempt and brutality. Yet Father Arseny always responded with love, even when they abused and beat him. And I don’t mean that he responded with a weak-kneed love, but with a genuine love. He was a man who cared about people, and often his love brought about miracles.
Father Arseny was easily dismissed by others, especially by those who were smart, powerful, or just wanted to fit in. But being dismissed by others never seemed to bother him. All he cared about was serving God. After he died in 1973, stories about him were collected from those who knew him either in the gulag or elsewhere. That’s what makes this book so fascinating. They tell the stories of Father Arseny from the perspective of those who were transformed by him.
For example, one particular reporter, Andreyenkov, who was sentenced to the same Siberian gulag as Father Arseny, wrote about how Father Arseny saved his life and made him a Christian. Like most other prisoners, Andreyenkov was assigned to work in the quarries, breaking One day he unfortunately stepped on ice that broke, immersing his foot in water, causing his heel to freeze to the boot. His foot went numb, and eventually his body as hypothermic blood spread throughout his body. When he returned to the barracks, he was half-dead from exposure. He could not remove his frozen boot no matter how hard he pulled. He fell back on his bed, thinking that he would die overnight. As he swooned in some sort of daze, he could feel someone pulling on his boots. It must be one of the other prisoners stealing my boots, he thought. If he survived the night, he would be forced to go out barefoot, or in flimsy shoes, the next day, meaning certain death. Still, he could offer no resistance. He just lay there. Then he felt someone massaging his feet and rubbing a balm over the sores. He passed out.
The next morning he was awakened as the other prisoners scrambled to get dressed and line up in formation. He looked around for his boots, terrified that they were gone. He saw Father Arseny walking toward him with his boots, which had been dried along with his socks. He grabbed them from Father Arseny, put them on, and ran outside. The question nagged him, “Why would that ignorant priest have helped him so? What was his angle? What did he want in return?”
That night he collapsed again on his bead, weak from work and exposure. Again, he felt someone tug at his boots. He looked up. It was Father Arseny, who once again rubbed his feet and put a healing balm on his sores. Arseny did this for several nights in a row until the man was strong enough to care for himself. Father Arseny never said a word. Andreyenkov couldn’t figure out how Father Arseny was able to dry the boots each night. He knew that had he left them on the stove and went to sleep, the criminals would have stolen them. What he found out later was that Father Arseny had indeed dried them on the stove, and had stayed up for four night straights to guard them. And this despite the fact that Father Arseny also had to work each day. Why had Father Arseny done this? Out of love. Over time Andreyenkov was so transformed by Father Arseny’s love that he became one of his spiritual children and pledged his life to Christ.
Another time Father Arseny performed a life-saving miracle with a young prisoner named Alexei. Alexei was sentenced to the gulag at age 23. When the criminals saw him, they immediately made plans to beat the young man down. Young prisoners always fared the worst. Pretending to be his friend, they convinced Alexei to play cards with them, betting for clothes. They all colluded to cheat, and soon had won all the young man’s clothes. When they asked for them, Alexei told them that he thought they were kidding and that they wouldn’t relinquish them. Smiling, Ivan the Brown, the leader of the criminals, set upon him like a wolf on a lamb. He began to beat Alexei mercilessly, a beating that everyone knew would lead to Alexei’s death. Seeing this, Father Arseny (knowing that to interfere would lead to his own death) calmly walked over and grabbed Ivan’s arm, preventing him from hitting Alexei again. Ivan spun around to Father Arseny and said, “I’ll get to you soon, Pop” (“Pop” was a derogatory name for a priest). He pulled out a knife to slash Alexei, and Father Arseny hit him in the arm with a surprising force, thus causing Ivan’s arm to go numb and to drop the knife. Ivan didn’t know what to do, but he had lost face. Father Arseny picked Alexei off the ground and took him to the water basin to care for his wounds, telling him that no one would bother him anymore. Amazingly, he was left alone.
The next day the guards came in and grabbed Father Arseny and Alexei and sentenced them to 48 hours in the punishment cell. Ivan had falsely turned them in for fighting. Being put in the punishment for 48 hours meant certain death for both men. The cell was about 8 feet by 8 feet, and lined with sheet metal. There was one open window near the top with iron bars. Outside the temperature was -20, meaning that the temperature inside was very close to that. What did this mean in practical terms? A man might survive 24 hours if he managed to jump up and down for 24 hours, but no one could do this for 48 hours, especially an old man like Father Arseny or the half-dead Alexei. Didn’t matter. They were thrown in anyway.
What happened next was miraculous. Right away Father Arseny stood in the middle of the room and began mumbling something. Alexei asked him what he was doing. Father Arseny said, “I’m praying.” Alexei said, “What good is that, priest? We’re going to die here.” Father Arseny replied, “Well, if we are going to die then what better way to face death than with prayer.” Alexei didn’t know what to say, so he huddled in the corner and watched Father Arseny. Father Arseny prayed, O Lord God, have mercy on us sinners! Ever-merciful God! Lord Jesus Christ who because of They love became man to save us all. Through Thine unspeakable mercy save us, have mercy on us and lead us away from this cruel death, because we do believe in Thee, Thou our God and our Creator…. O, Lord our God, Jesus Christ! Thou didst say with Thy purest lips that if two or three agree to ask for the same thing, then Thy Heavenly Father will grant their prayer because, as Thou didst say, ‘When two or three are gathered in my name, I am among them.’”
As Alexei watched him, he noticed that Father Arseny’s garments changed to the dazzling white vestments of a priest. Soon, out of nowhere, two others in white vestments stood on his right and his left as al three continued the prayer. Alexei then noticed that he was breathing easier and the room had changed. They were in a church. He wondered if he was hallucinating. He felt warm. Listening to the three praying, he found himself starting to repeat the same prayers. Aware that Alexei was watching, Father Arseny told him to rest. Alexei did, and as he did he felt his mother’s presence next to him, holding him (he later found out that she had died while he was in the camp).
He awoke to see the three still praying. Suddenly he heard the sound of a door opening and then shouts. Looking back at Father Arseny, he saw the other two blessing him and Alexei as they disappeared, and Father Arseny was once again dressed in prison garb. A major came in shouting, “How could you have sentenced them to 48 hours? We will be punished for their deaths! What were you thinking…?” He stopped short as he saw Father Arseny and Alexei, both still alive. He had the doctor check them, who felt under their clothes and said, “They are both quite warm. I can’t explain it.”
The two men had survived for 48 hours in conditions that would have killed either you or me in six or seven hours. As you can imagine, Alexei became a Christian that day and stayed under the guidance of Father Arseny, even after both were released.
What Father Arseny’s story really showed is how easy it is for people to miss both how God is present and what God is doing in our midst. Even though we may have a measure of faith, we generally have a hard time knowing what to think about people like Father Arseny. We think of people like him as being too good to be true. But what made him special wasn’t any inherent talent. It was just his willingness to devote his life to prayer. In that way he is just like Simeon and Anna from our story above. What made them able to tell that Jesus was the messiah, while others merely saw a baby? The answer is that both Simeon and Anna were part of a small sect of prayer devotes called the Quiet Ones. They were people who lived near the Temple of Jerusalem, devoting themselves to a life of prayer. They weren’t monks or nuns, but lived normal lives. What made them special was that they brought prayer into everything, just like Father Arseny. The result is that they were able to sense and see things that others dismissed.
Would you like to have this kind of life? Would you like to sense and see God in everything? Would you like to be able to see and understand things that other dismiss? You can, but it takes a desire for four things:
First, we have to always make time for prayer no matter what. The truth is that no one is ever going to walk up to you and say, “Here, have some time for prayer.” Your kids won’t say that to you, your boss won’t, your co-workers won’t, your friends won’t, and your spouses probably won’t. You have to make and take time for prayer. And I don’t mean periodic prayer. I mean constant prayer, speaking to God as often as possible about whatever is going on in your life. If you are able to do this, it leads to the next step.
Second, we need to seek God’s will in each moment to the best we can, even if we aren’t sure what that will is. It’s the seeking that matters, even more than the finding. God wants to guide our lives, but we have to want to be guided.
Third, make worship central to our lives. I don’t know how much this resonates with people anymore. There are so many people today who call themselves spiritual but not religious, or Christian but not attending. Worship is central to the spiritual life. Why? Because worship, even when we find it boring, centers us in God. It is an activity that aims completely at being God-focused. Over time it opens us to God.
Finally, let this kind of prayer and worship lead you to act always in love. Prayer, devotion, and worship are not good if they don’t lead us to act in love.
All of these put together lead us to see and be what others dismiss. So here’s what I want you to do. Reflect on your life and ask a question: are you able to see and do what others dismiss? If not, why?
Amen.
December 28, 2008
22 When the time came for their purification according to the law of Moses, they brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord 23 (as it is written in the law of the Lord, "Every firstborn male shall be designated as holy to the Lord"), 24 and they offered a sacrifice according to what is stated in the law of the Lord, "a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons."
25 Now there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon; this man was righteous and devout, looking forward to the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit rested on him. 26 It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord's Messiah. 27 Guided by the Spirit, Simeon came into the temple; and when the parents brought in the child Jesus, to do for him what was customary under the law, 28 Simeon took him in his arms and praised God, saying, 29 "Master, now you are dismissing your servant in peace, according to your word; 30 for my eyes have seen your salvation, 31 which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, 32 a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel." 33 And the child's father and mother were amazed at what was being said about him. 34 Then Simeon blessed them and said to his mother Mary, "This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed 35 so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed—and a sword will pierce your own soul too." 36 There was also a prophet, Anna the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was of a great age, having lived with her husband seven years after her marriage, 37 then as a widow to the age of eighty-four. She never left the temple but worshiped there with fasting and prayer night and day. 38 At that moment she came, and began to praise God and to speak about the child to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem. 39 When they had finished everything required by the law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee, to their own town of Nazareth. 40 The child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom; and the favor of God was upon him.
I’ve just finished reading a book and it may be the best book I’ve read in years. That’s saying a lot because I’ve read a lot of great books over the past few years. It’s about a Russian Orthodox priest named Father Arseny. I came across the book after giving a talk to about 250 Methodist pastors in North Carolina. During my talk I spoke about how God seems to work through coincidence (or providence), and how many people of faith experience God in this way. While sitting outside with several pastors during our lunch break, one of them said to me, “What you are saying reminds me of Father Arseny.”
I asked him who Father Arseny was. He said, “He’s an Orthodox priest who survived a Soviet Siberian gulag for 20 or more years. During that time he had an amazing faith and cared for others in the camp, transforming their lives and opening them to God.” As I often do when people suggest books to me, I wrote down the information and, when I got home, ordered the book. It took me a while to work through my stack of other books, but once I read this book I realized that this man may have been one of the truly great Christians of the 20th century. And he was a man others dismissed.
Father Arseny was originally an art scholar who became an Orthodox priest. He ended up being sentenced to the gulag after writing several articles about the importance of faith even among communists. In Stalinist Russia, where atheism was the official religion and Christians were persecuted aggressively, to write pro-Christian articles in public papers and magazines was to speak out politically against the government. During Stalin’s reign, Christians were considered to be the worst of all political agitators because belief in God was a threat to the supreme rule of Stalin. As a result, something like 44,000 priests were killed during his reign, and over 150,000 monks and nuns. By the time Stalin died, only 200 priests remained. Remember that statistic the next time someone says that Christianity is responsible for more deaths than anything else. Under Stalin’s atheistic reign, over 25 million people were killed, and millions of them for being Christian. A significant number of them died in the gulags.
The gulags were designed to kill people slowly and with a lot of pain. In the winter, the temperature generally hovered around -15 or -20, and dipping at times to -30. During the summer, the water from the frozen ground was released, making it extremely humid, creating an Eden for mosquitoes, which spread disease. Either way, the majority of people sent to the camps did not return.
The camps were filled with both political prisoners (often highly educated scholars, artists, and reporters) and common criminals (thieves, murderers, psychopath). Both had nothing but disdain for people who were religious. The atheistic political prisoners hated them because they saw religious people as being willfully stupid and superstitious. The criminals hated them because they hated anyone with a sense of morality. The result was that both treated Father Arseny with contempt and brutality. Yet Father Arseny always responded with love, even when they abused and beat him. And I don’t mean that he responded with a weak-kneed love, but with a genuine love. He was a man who cared about people, and often his love brought about miracles.
Father Arseny was easily dismissed by others, especially by those who were smart, powerful, or just wanted to fit in. But being dismissed by others never seemed to bother him. All he cared about was serving God. After he died in 1973, stories about him were collected from those who knew him either in the gulag or elsewhere. That’s what makes this book so fascinating. They tell the stories of Father Arseny from the perspective of those who were transformed by him.
For example, one particular reporter, Andreyenkov, who was sentenced to the same Siberian gulag as Father Arseny, wrote about how Father Arseny saved his life and made him a Christian. Like most other prisoners, Andreyenkov was assigned to work in the quarries, breaking One day he unfortunately stepped on ice that broke, immersing his foot in water, causing his heel to freeze to the boot. His foot went numb, and eventually his body as hypothermic blood spread throughout his body. When he returned to the barracks, he was half-dead from exposure. He could not remove his frozen boot no matter how hard he pulled. He fell back on his bed, thinking that he would die overnight. As he swooned in some sort of daze, he could feel someone pulling on his boots. It must be one of the other prisoners stealing my boots, he thought. If he survived the night, he would be forced to go out barefoot, or in flimsy shoes, the next day, meaning certain death. Still, he could offer no resistance. He just lay there. Then he felt someone massaging his feet and rubbing a balm over the sores. He passed out.
The next morning he was awakened as the other prisoners scrambled to get dressed and line up in formation. He looked around for his boots, terrified that they were gone. He saw Father Arseny walking toward him with his boots, which had been dried along with his socks. He grabbed them from Father Arseny, put them on, and ran outside. The question nagged him, “Why would that ignorant priest have helped him so? What was his angle? What did he want in return?”
That night he collapsed again on his bead, weak from work and exposure. Again, he felt someone tug at his boots. He looked up. It was Father Arseny, who once again rubbed his feet and put a healing balm on his sores. Arseny did this for several nights in a row until the man was strong enough to care for himself. Father Arseny never said a word. Andreyenkov couldn’t figure out how Father Arseny was able to dry the boots each night. He knew that had he left them on the stove and went to sleep, the criminals would have stolen them. What he found out later was that Father Arseny had indeed dried them on the stove, and had stayed up for four night straights to guard them. And this despite the fact that Father Arseny also had to work each day. Why had Father Arseny done this? Out of love. Over time Andreyenkov was so transformed by Father Arseny’s love that he became one of his spiritual children and pledged his life to Christ.
Another time Father Arseny performed a life-saving miracle with a young prisoner named Alexei. Alexei was sentenced to the gulag at age 23. When the criminals saw him, they immediately made plans to beat the young man down. Young prisoners always fared the worst. Pretending to be his friend, they convinced Alexei to play cards with them, betting for clothes. They all colluded to cheat, and soon had won all the young man’s clothes. When they asked for them, Alexei told them that he thought they were kidding and that they wouldn’t relinquish them. Smiling, Ivan the Brown, the leader of the criminals, set upon him like a wolf on a lamb. He began to beat Alexei mercilessly, a beating that everyone knew would lead to Alexei’s death. Seeing this, Father Arseny (knowing that to interfere would lead to his own death) calmly walked over and grabbed Ivan’s arm, preventing him from hitting Alexei again. Ivan spun around to Father Arseny and said, “I’ll get to you soon, Pop” (“Pop” was a derogatory name for a priest). He pulled out a knife to slash Alexei, and Father Arseny hit him in the arm with a surprising force, thus causing Ivan’s arm to go numb and to drop the knife. Ivan didn’t know what to do, but he had lost face. Father Arseny picked Alexei off the ground and took him to the water basin to care for his wounds, telling him that no one would bother him anymore. Amazingly, he was left alone.
The next day the guards came in and grabbed Father Arseny and Alexei and sentenced them to 48 hours in the punishment cell. Ivan had falsely turned them in for fighting. Being put in the punishment for 48 hours meant certain death for both men. The cell was about 8 feet by 8 feet, and lined with sheet metal. There was one open window near the top with iron bars. Outside the temperature was -20, meaning that the temperature inside was very close to that. What did this mean in practical terms? A man might survive 24 hours if he managed to jump up and down for 24 hours, but no one could do this for 48 hours, especially an old man like Father Arseny or the half-dead Alexei. Didn’t matter. They were thrown in anyway.
What happened next was miraculous. Right away Father Arseny stood in the middle of the room and began mumbling something. Alexei asked him what he was doing. Father Arseny said, “I’m praying.” Alexei said, “What good is that, priest? We’re going to die here.” Father Arseny replied, “Well, if we are going to die then what better way to face death than with prayer.” Alexei didn’t know what to say, so he huddled in the corner and watched Father Arseny. Father Arseny prayed, O Lord God, have mercy on us sinners! Ever-merciful God! Lord Jesus Christ who because of They love became man to save us all. Through Thine unspeakable mercy save us, have mercy on us and lead us away from this cruel death, because we do believe in Thee, Thou our God and our Creator…. O, Lord our God, Jesus Christ! Thou didst say with Thy purest lips that if two or three agree to ask for the same thing, then Thy Heavenly Father will grant their prayer because, as Thou didst say, ‘When two or three are gathered in my name, I am among them.’”
As Alexei watched him, he noticed that Father Arseny’s garments changed to the dazzling white vestments of a priest. Soon, out of nowhere, two others in white vestments stood on his right and his left as al three continued the prayer. Alexei then noticed that he was breathing easier and the room had changed. They were in a church. He wondered if he was hallucinating. He felt warm. Listening to the three praying, he found himself starting to repeat the same prayers. Aware that Alexei was watching, Father Arseny told him to rest. Alexei did, and as he did he felt his mother’s presence next to him, holding him (he later found out that she had died while he was in the camp).
He awoke to see the three still praying. Suddenly he heard the sound of a door opening and then shouts. Looking back at Father Arseny, he saw the other two blessing him and Alexei as they disappeared, and Father Arseny was once again dressed in prison garb. A major came in shouting, “How could you have sentenced them to 48 hours? We will be punished for their deaths! What were you thinking…?” He stopped short as he saw Father Arseny and Alexei, both still alive. He had the doctor check them, who felt under their clothes and said, “They are both quite warm. I can’t explain it.”
The two men had survived for 48 hours in conditions that would have killed either you or me in six or seven hours. As you can imagine, Alexei became a Christian that day and stayed under the guidance of Father Arseny, even after both were released.
What Father Arseny’s story really showed is how easy it is for people to miss both how God is present and what God is doing in our midst. Even though we may have a measure of faith, we generally have a hard time knowing what to think about people like Father Arseny. We think of people like him as being too good to be true. But what made him special wasn’t any inherent talent. It was just his willingness to devote his life to prayer. In that way he is just like Simeon and Anna from our story above. What made them able to tell that Jesus was the messiah, while others merely saw a baby? The answer is that both Simeon and Anna were part of a small sect of prayer devotes called the Quiet Ones. They were people who lived near the Temple of Jerusalem, devoting themselves to a life of prayer. They weren’t monks or nuns, but lived normal lives. What made them special was that they brought prayer into everything, just like Father Arseny. The result is that they were able to sense and see things that others dismissed.
Would you like to have this kind of life? Would you like to sense and see God in everything? Would you like to be able to see and understand things that other dismiss? You can, but it takes a desire for four things:
First, we have to always make time for prayer no matter what. The truth is that no one is ever going to walk up to you and say, “Here, have some time for prayer.” Your kids won’t say that to you, your boss won’t, your co-workers won’t, your friends won’t, and your spouses probably won’t. You have to make and take time for prayer. And I don’t mean periodic prayer. I mean constant prayer, speaking to God as often as possible about whatever is going on in your life. If you are able to do this, it leads to the next step.
Second, we need to seek God’s will in each moment to the best we can, even if we aren’t sure what that will is. It’s the seeking that matters, even more than the finding. God wants to guide our lives, but we have to want to be guided.
Third, make worship central to our lives. I don’t know how much this resonates with people anymore. There are so many people today who call themselves spiritual but not religious, or Christian but not attending. Worship is central to the spiritual life. Why? Because worship, even when we find it boring, centers us in God. It is an activity that aims completely at being God-focused. Over time it opens us to God.
Finally, let this kind of prayer and worship lead you to act always in love. Prayer, devotion, and worship are not good if they don’t lead us to act in love.
All of these put together lead us to see and be what others dismiss. So here’s what I want you to do. Reflect on your life and ask a question: are you able to see and do what others dismiss? If not, why?
Amen.
Angels of Faith: Joy
Luke 1:26-38
December 14, 2008
In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin's name was Mary. And he came to her and said, "Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you." But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. The angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end." Mary said to the angel, "How can this be, since I am a virgin?" The angel said to her, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God. And now, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month for her who was said to be barren. For nothing will be impossible with God." Then Mary said, "Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word." Then the angel departed from her.
Have you ever wanted to travel for the holidays, to spend Christmas somewhere exotic? The Lederer family did. Years ago they decided that it would be great to spend Christmas in France. What could be better than spending Christmas in France? The lights, the tradition, the cathedrals, the wine? So they planned a trip that would start in Paris, and end in Nice on Christmas Eve. What could be nicer than Christmas in Nice? Unfortunately, the trip pretty much turned into a disaster. As they traveled from Paris to Nice, they found that all the hotels were cheap tourist traps, the weather dripped and rained the whole time, and the car kept breaking down. When the family finally made it to Nice on Christmas Eve they looked for a nice restaurant to have dinner together. Unfortunately, most of the restaurants in Nice were closed, and all they were able to find was a small, greasy restaurant. There were very few others in the restaurant as they ate: two German couples, two French families, and an American sailor sitting in the corner writing a letter, and smiling as he did. Near the bar the piano player listlessly plunked out Christmas tunes.
Other than the sailor, it seemed as though everyone had been hit by a scrooge bug. At the table of one of the French families, the father was scolding one of the children. At the table of one of the German couples, the wife was berating the husband. At the Lederer table, an argument erupted between Bill Lederer and his wife. She had ordered their meal in French, and when the wrong food came to their table, Bill figured it must be her fault for ordering wrong. Everyone was miserable.
To make matters worse, suddenly the door opened, bringing a rush of cold, wet air into the restaurant. In stepped an old French woman selling flowers. She went up to each table, asking, “Flowers, monsieur? Only one franc.” Each time she was shooed away by the people at the tables. She then sat down at the bar and ordered a bowl of soup. She looked at the piano player and said dejectedly, “Can you imagine, Joseph, soup on Christmas Eve?’ He only pointed to his empty tipping plate. Then, something special began to happen. Let me share with you what Bill Lederer says about these events:
The young sailor finished his meal and got up to leave. Putting on his coat, he walked over to the flower woman’s table. “Happy Christmas!” he said, smiling, an picking out two corsages, asked, “How much are they?”
Two francs, monsieur.” Pressing one of the small corsages flat, he put it into the letter he had written, then handed the woman a 20-franc note.
“I don’t have change, monsieur,” she said, “I’ll get some from the waiter.”
“No, ma’am” he said, leaning over and kissing the ancient cheek. “This is my Christmas present to you.” Straightening up, he came to our table holding the other corsage in front of him. “Sir,” he said to me, “may I have permission to present these flowers to your beautiful wife?” In one quick motion, he gave my wife the corsage, wished us a Merry Christmas, and departed.
Everyone had stopped eating. Everyone was watching the sailor. Everyone was silent. A few seconds later, Christmas exploded throughout the restaurant like a bomb.
The old flower woman jumped up, waving the 20-franc note. Hobbling to the middle of the floor, she did a merry jig and shouted to the piano player, “Joseph, my Christmas present, and you shall have half so you can have a feast too.” The piano player began to beat out “Good King Wenceslaus,” hitting the keys with magic hands, nodding his head in rhythm.
My wife waved her corsage in time with the rhythm. She was radiant and appeared 20 years younger… She began to sing, and our three sons joined her, bellowing the song with uninhibited enthusiasm.
“Gut, gut,” shouted the Germans. They jumped on their chairs and began singing in German…. The Germans ordered wine for everyone. They delivered it themselves, hugging the other customers, bawling Christmas greetings. One of the French families ordered champagne and made the rounds, kissing each one of us on each cheek. The owner of the restaurant started singing “The First Noel,” and we all joined in, half of us crying. (from “A Sailor’s Christmas Gift,” Chicken Soup for the Christian Soul, 1997).
This story reminds us that what really makes the difference at Christmas isn’t the decorations, the presents, the cookies, or the celebrations. What makes the difference is the sense of joy people either do or don’t have. As you can see, just because it’s the Christmas season doesn’t mean that there’s joy in people. Why is that? Why is it so hard for everyone to have joy at Christmas?
One of the problems with Christmas is that we’ve cheapened it. We’ve made it so much about the surface stuff that I’m not sure what kind of spiritual meaning Christmas has to us anymore. It’s typical for pastors and other Christians to complain that we’ve cheapened Christmas nowadays by making it all about retail and parties. But that’s not even what I’m talking about. That cheapening is a given. What I’m talking about is that even we diehard Christians have cheapened it. Some of the most joyless people at Christmas are those who complain that Christmas has lost its spirit. Let me show you what I mean.
Last week I received the following e-mail. It’s one of those e-mails that circulate periodically so that Christians can proclaim their outrage. The e-mail goes,
For years I've been bothered by the politically correct attitude. Lately I have become alarmed that Christmas is no longer a Christian holiday. It's become just a generic holiday. Why is it OK for other religions to celebrate their holidays of Ramadan, Kwanza or Hanukkah, and we have to have a "Holiday tree:, or even a "Celebrate the Season Parade". This is ridiculous, as you'll see by the verse below. So I say either celebrate the Christmas holiday or don't bother. Enjoy it and pass it on...and Oh yeah, Merry Christmas.
*Twas the month before Christmas*
*When all through our land,*
*Not a Christian was praying*
*Nor taking a stand.*
*See the PC Police had taken away,*
*The reason for Christmas - no one could say.*
*The children were told by their schools not to sing,*
*About Shepherds and Wise Men and Angels and things.*
*It might hurt people's feelings, the teachers would say*
* December 25th is just a 'Holiday'.*
*Yet the shoppers were ready with cash, checks and credit*
*Pushing folks down to the floor just to get it!*
*CDs from Madonna, an X BOX, an I-pod*
*Something was changing, something quite odd! *
*Retailers promoted Ramadan and Kwanzaa*
*In hopes to sell books by Franken & Fonda.*
*As Targets were hanging their trees upside down*
* At Lowe's the word Christmas - was no where to be found.*
*At K-Mart and Staples and Penny's and Sears*
*You won't hear the word Christmas; it won't touch your ears.*
*Inclusive, sensitive, Di-ver-si-ty*
*Are words that were used to intimidate me.*
*Now Daschle, Now Darden, Now Sharpton, Wolf Blitzen*
*On Boxer, on Rather, on Kerry, on Clinton!*
*At the top of the Senate, there arose such a clatter*
*To eliminate Jesus, in all public matter.*
*And we spoke not a word, as they took away our faith*
* Forbidden to speak of salvation and grace*
*The true Gift of Christmas was exchanged and discarded*
*The reason for the season, stopped before it started.*
*So as you celebrate 'Winter Break' under your 'Dream Tree'*
*Sipping your Starbucks, listen to me.*
*Choose your words carefully, choose what you say*
*Shout MERRY CHRISTMAS ,
not Happy Holiday!*
Please, all Christians join together and
wish everyone you meet
MERRY CHRISTMAS
Christ is The Reason for the Christ-mas Season!
*When all through our land,*
*Not a Christian was praying*
*Nor taking a stand.*
*See the PC Police had taken away,*
*The reason for Christmas - no one could say.*
*The children were told by their schools not to sing,*
*About Shepherds and Wise Men and Angels and things.*
*It might hurt people's feelings, the teachers would say*
* December 25th is just a 'Holiday'.*
*Yet the shoppers were ready with cash, checks and credit*
*Pushing folks down to the floor just to get it!*
*CDs from Madonna, an X BOX, an I-pod*
*Something was changing, something quite odd! *
*Retailers promoted Ramadan and Kwanzaa*
*In hopes to sell books by Franken & Fonda.*
*As Targets were hanging their trees upside down*
* At Lowe's the word Christmas - was no where to be found.*
*At K-Mart and Staples and Penny's and Sears*
*You won't hear the word Christmas; it won't touch your ears.*
*Inclusive, sensitive, Di-ver-si-ty*
*Are words that were used to intimidate me.*
*Now Daschle, Now Darden, Now Sharpton, Wolf Blitzen*
*On Boxer, on Rather, on Kerry, on Clinton!*
*At the top of the Senate, there arose such a clatter*
*To eliminate Jesus, in all public matter.*
*And we spoke not a word, as they took away our faith*
* Forbidden to speak of salvation and grace*
*The true Gift of Christmas was exchanged and discarded*
*The reason for the season, stopped before it started.*
*So as you celebrate 'Winter Break' under your 'Dream Tree'*
*Sipping your Starbucks, listen to me.*
*Choose your words carefully, choose what you say*
*Shout MERRY CHRISTMAS ,
not Happy Holiday!*
Please, all Christians join together and
wish everyone you meet
MERRY CHRISTMAS
Christ is The Reason for the Christ-mas Season!
So what’s the problem with this e-mail? Makes sense, doesn’t it? Shouldn’t we be upset that people have taken Christ out of Christmas? The problem is that even this person misses the point of Christmas. So what if someone says “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas?” So what if people are so respectful of others that they don’t say “Merry Christmas?”
The problem is that these Christians put their halos on so tight that they have no joy, but instead can only see reasons for complaining. The writer of this e-mail has cheapened Christmas by thinking its’ all about saying “Merry Christmas.” Joy isn’t found in saying “Merry Christmas” rather than “Happy Holidays.” Joy is found in how we live out the Christmas spirit. We can put just as much spiritual joy in “Happy Holidays” as we can in “Merry Christmas.” But if we are upset about people not saying “Merry Christmas,” then I suspect there’s little joy in us. When we are like this, our focus isn’t on God. It’s on propriety and decorum. People who obsess about things like this aren’t really open to the Christmas spirit. Instead, they are just as bad as those who insist on the politically correct “Happy Holidays.” They’ve lost sight of Christ, and have become like Sadducees or Pharisees who are more concerned for law than for God.
If we have joy that comes from God, we can share it with others regardless of what words we use. You see, the real point of Christmas is the formation of Joy in our souls. Actually, that’s the whole point of the Advent and Christmas season. Advent is meant to be much like Lent. It’s meant to be a time of prayer and preparation for Christ’s coming into our lives. The whole point is that if we spend the month before Christmas in prayer and reflection, as well as doing all that other stuff, then by the time Christmas is here we’re ready for Christ.
Unfortunately, too many of us either let the world around us determine our level of joy, or we let our past determine it. We let the world around us determine our joy whenever we demand that everything around us be perfect for Christmas. We want everyone to be happy. We want our kids to be on their best behavior. We want everyone to be so thankful for what we do. And when that doesn’t happen, we become upset. We let the world around us determine our level of joy. Also, we let the past determine our level of joy whenever we let the pain of our past determine how we’ll approach life in the present. So many of us have had difficult lives. And we’ve learned from that to look at life in skeptical ways, not trusting that good things can happen. We expect bad, and we distrust others, suspecting that they have bad motives. So this colors our lives.
We are called to live appreciative lives. Adrian van Kaam was the one who taught me about appreciation. He said that when we live with appreciation, we look around us and see value in everything—people, situations, sunsets, events, and so much more. We see life as bursting with God’s presence, and that’s what brings us joy. Even if we are in bad situations, we are able to recognize God’s presence and sense God’s hand. This takes us deeper than happiness. Happiness comes from things being good around us and affecting us inside. Joy comes from spirit being good in us and radiating outward. We have joy because our spirit sees the good in everything, even the bad.
On the other hand, we can look at life with a sense of depreciation. When we look at life depreciatively, we not only don’t see value in everything, but we diminish the value of even that which is good. We look at life suspiciously, wondering when the next shoe will fall or who the next person will be who will betray us. Being depreciative brings cynicism and despair to life. It causes us to lack joy, and to be unhappy in happy situations. You know people like this. Even when they are happy, they try not to smile, and when they do smile it looks painful.
The kind of joy that we are called to nurture and let grow in us is the kind of joy that Mary had already formed when the angel appeared to her. It was the kind of joy she expressed to Elizabeth about her pregnancy with Jesus. If you really understand the situation Mary was in, you would wonder why she had any joy at all. She was pregnant, and not pregnant by her husband-to-be, Joseph. Even if she had been pregnant by Joseph, she was pregnant before marriage. Either way, she was facing a life with a stigma. People could do the math and figure out that Mary was pregnant before marriage. Mary knew that she was facing a future in which, at the very least, people would look at her and say, “That’s the woman who go pregnant before marriage.” She knew she was to bear a stigma her whole life, as would Jesus. How did she react?
When she met with her cousin Elizabeth, already pregnant with John the Baptist, she talked about her pregnancy and said, "My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name.” This is the response of someone with joy. This is the response of someone who faces a bad situation and sees it bursting with God’s grace. This is the response of someone who understands how God wants us to live.
During this time of year we are called to form joy in our souls. It’s the kind of joy that transcends our situation, that transcends our circumstances, that transcends our condition. It’s the kind of joy that comes from the Spirit dwelling in our souls, and that looks for the good in all situations. And it’s the kind of joy that only comes when we make a decision to let God live in our souls so that we can find God’s grace in everything.
Amen.
Angels of Faith: Acceptance and Love
Matthew 1:18-25
December 7, 2008
Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly. But just when he had resolved to do this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, "Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins." All this took place to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet: "Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel," which means, "God is with us." When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took her as his wife, but had no marital relations with her until she had borne a son; and he named him Jesus.
Twenty years ago I read a story that had a huge impact on me spiritually. It was a story that taught me the lesson of Joseph in a way I had never considered before. It taught me that sometimes the right way is the way of acceptance, even when everything screams that we should change everything.
The story takes place many years ago in a small village. There was a young teen who became pregnant, yet she wasn’t married. Her father was outraged. How could his daughter dishonor him so? How could she have done this to her family? He and her uncles confronted her one evening, saying, “Who did this to you? Who has brought this shame on our family? Tell us so that we can punish him!”
The young girl didn’t know what to do. She didn’t want to reveal that it was the neighbor boy because she knew how he would be treated. So she said to them, “The father is the old hermit who lives on the other side of the village.” The man she implicated was considered to be a great spiritual guide and sage. Many had gone to him for guidance because they knew that he was a deeply prayerful and spiritual man. She thought that they would do nothing about it out of respect for the man. They did not react as she hoped. They were stunned, but then became outraged: “How could this man have betrayed us so? We trusted him! He must be held accountable!” With that they rushed en masse across the village, where they found him sitting in his cottage, praying.
Rousting him from his prayer, they yelled at him, telling him that he had dishonored them and the village. They told him that he must care for the child and make amends. The hermit looked at them, and with a sad face simply said, “Very well. Very well.”
The hermit found a woman in the village who would care for the child and his mother. He ensured that they had food and a healthy place to live. He made sure that the child would grow in a safe and loving environment.
A year passed, and with each passing day the young girl felt guiltier and guiltier. Finally, she told her family that the hermit really wasn’t the father, but that the neighbor boy, whom she loved, was the father. The family was shocked, and embarrassed. They felt guilty. How could they have treated that great spiritual sage in such a dishonorable way? How could they not have believed in him? So they rushed over to his cottage. They found him again in prayer. They apologized to him, asked if he could ever forgive them, told him that they would care for the girl’s young child. The hermit gave a small smile and simply said, “Very well. Very well.”
Why did I find this story so compelling? It’s an odd story—one that goes so much against our natural understanding of right and wrong. How could the hermit have been so accepting? If it were we in his situation, we would stand up for our rights. We would have proclaimed our innocence and have forced them to take a paternity test. We would have been outraged at their accusations. But the hermit, he accepted it. He accepted that perhaps God was calling him to provide care for a young child who otherwise might be abandoned or ostracized. He accepted that God wanted to protect the young girl. He accepted that there was a plan in all this. Is this how we react to difficult situations?
The truth is that we are a people who stand up for justice. And the hermit didn’t stand up for justice—he prayed. How unrealistic is that? Is that your normal response to trouble: prayer? Is that your normal response to anything, good or bad? What the story taught me was that there was another way of life that begins not with a need for justice, but with a desire for centeredness. Justice is important, and I certainly don’t want to diminish its importance, but it seems to me that as Christians everything else has to start with centeredness. Are we centered? Being centered is a way of life that accepts how life is, but at its core trusts even more in whatever God is doing. It’s a way of life that asks a fundamental question: Do I really trust that God is in the world, making everything okay?
When I look at our culture, it seems to me that most Americans have an attitude that one of our members expressed very well to me. He once told me that before joining Calvin Church his personal motto was, “If it is to be, it is up to me.” I believe that this is the unofficial motto for so many people. So many of us believe that we have to make a name or a way for ourselves. I don’t want to diminish the importance of that idea, but when we become consumed by it we can end up losing sight of what really matters. Joseph, in our passage, reflects another, deeper way of life. His motto very easily could have been, “It will be okay, if I trust in God’s way.”
Trusting in God’s way means relinquishing ultimate control of life and trusting in God. It means having hope for the future, even when there are no tangible signs that the future will work out. It means keeping an eternal perspective in mind always, even as we live an earthly life.
Unfortunately, when I say things like this, many people hear me saying something different. They hear me saying that we should do nothing and leave it all up to God. They hear me saying that we should just relax, eat bonbons, and let God take care of everything. That’s not what I am saying. What I am saying is what’s reflected in the Serenity Prayer. This is a prayer that I’m sure you know. It is the central prayer of the twelve-step movement, for so many who suffer from addictions. The prayer goes,
God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.
Living one day at a time;
Enjoying one moment at a time;
Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;
Taking, as He did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it;
Trusting that He will make all things right if I surrender to His Will;
That I may be reasonably happy in this life
and supremely happy with Him Forever in the next. Amen.
There’s a balance to be kept in life. It’s a balance of wisdom. It’s the balance between accepting what we cannot change, and the courage to change the things we can. Too many of us try to change what we have no power to change. Others of us are fearful, keeping quiet when bad things happen, hoping to avoid hurt and pain.
All of this brings me back to the example of Joseph, for he was the balance between acceptance and courage. Joseph accepted God’s will. When the angel appeared to him in a dream, he very easily could have disbelieved. How many of us have had dreams that we’ve dismissed? Yet he didn’t, which was amazing. Think about him. He finds out that his bride-to-be is pregnant, and not by him. He would have felt dishonored by Mary. Normally, he would have broken the marriage contract and dismissed her and the baby. He would not have been able to live with the shame of her pregnancy by another man. Yet he listened to his dream, accepting God’s way.
I’m inviting you to take time during this Advent season to ask how you are living. Are you accepting? Are you able to accept what God is doing in your life and in life in general? How do you live your life?
Amen.
Angels of Faith: Overcoming Doubt
Luke 1:5-20
November 30, 2008
First Sunday of Advent
In the days of King Herod of Judea, there was a priest named Zechariah, who belonged to the priestly order of Abijah. His wife was a descendant of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth. 6 Both of them were righteous before God, living blamelessly according to all the commandments and regulations of the Lord. 7 But they had no children, because Elizabeth was barren, and both were getting on in years. 8 Once when he was serving as priest before God and his section was on duty, 9 he was chosen by lot, according to the custom of the priesthood, to enter the sanctuary of the Lord and offer incense. 10 Now at the time of the incense offering, the whole assembly of the people was praying outside. 11 Then there appeared to him an angel of the Lord, standing at the right side of the altar of incense. 12 When Zechariah saw him, he was terrified; and fear overwhelmed him. 13 But the angel said to him, "Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you will name him John. 14 You will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth, 15 for he will be great in the sight of the Lord. He must never drink wine or strong drink; even before his birth he will be filled with the Holy Spirit. 16 He will turn many of the people of Israel to the Lord their God. 17 With the spirit and power of Elijah he will go before him, to turn the hearts of parents to their children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord." 18 Zechariah said to the angel, "How will I know that this is so? For I am an old man, and my wife is getting on in years." 19 The angel replied, "I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God, and I have been sent to speak to you and to bring you this good news.
Have you ever been visited by an angel? If you have been, did the angel have a message for you, and did you believe? If an angel were to visit you today with a message, would you believe? I think that most of us think we would believe, but I wonder if that’s true? How many of us would still doubt? I wonder how many of us would be like Zechariah?
Most people don’t appreciate the subtleties of the story about Zechariah in the passage above. When you understand the story more, you understand the depths of Zechariah’s doubt and what it says about our doubts. Zechariah was a priest serving the great temple in Jerusalem. When we think of priests today, we tend to think of Roman Catholic priests or pastors. Zechariah was not that kind of priest. Temple priests in Jesus’ day presided over sacrifices in the temple, or did other various duties surrounding those sacrifices. Everyday, thousands of the Jewish faithful flocked to the temple to offer up their sacrifices. To be a temple priest, a man had to be a direct descendent of Aaron, Moses’ right-hand man. In Jesus’ day, there were so many descendents of Aaron that few priests were permanent. Instead, most priests worked regular jobs and served in the temple twice a year. There were approximately 24,000 priests, with about 1000 serving the temple each week. Thus, each priest served in the temple for two weeks per year, and it was the high point of his or her year.
Zechariah was serving his two weeks in the temple, and he had a special duty on this particular day. He was to light the incense in the inner part of the temple. The incense was believed to have the power to lift the sacrifice to God, so it was a special and powerful duty, and would have served as the highpoint of his life. He entered the inner sanctum to light the incense, his hand shaking in nervous awe as he put the flame to the incense. Suddenly, the angel Gabriel stood before him. Gabriel told Zechariah that his wife, Elizabeth, was to bear a child (John the Baptist), who would have the spirit of Elijah in him. John would prepare the way for the coming of the messiah. Zechariah doubted. I’m not sure how you would have been in that situation, but Zechariah had a common affliction. He couldn’t get rid of his logical self. Logic said that there was no way his wife could bear a child. She was in menopause. Physically, logic says, it was impossible for Elizabeth to bear a child. So Zechariah asked Gabriel how he could be sure that what Gabriel said was true. Gabriel responded that because Zechariah doubted, he would be struck mute until John was born.
Put yourself in Zechariah’s shoes (or sandals). Would you have believed? Belief, even in the face of a visit by an angel, is harder than you think. I remember years ago talking with a professor at a local university who was an agnostic leaning toward atheism. He told me that back when he was a teenager or a child, while he was going through some very difficult times, he woke up to find Jesus sitting on the end of his bed. I asked him if it was really Jesus or just a dream. He said it was really Jesus, that he could have reached out and touched him. I asked him what Jesus was doing. He said that he was just looking in a caring way. Was there a message? “Not really,” he said. I then asked if, looking back at that experience, he was still an agnostic leaning toward atheism, and he said yes. I asked him in several different forms how he could have been visited by Jesus and not believe. He told me that he didn’t know, but that he just didn’t believe. Doubt, sometimes, is easier to come by than belief.
When angels, the Spirit, Jesus, or some other manifestation of God visits you, what do you do with your natural doubts? There are ways to prepare yourself to have an open heart and soul to them, ways to be open and ready whenever God comes to you. I believe that God speaks all around us all the time, but we aren’t always receptive. How do we become receptive? Well, I’ve asked an expert on receptivity to talk with us about an experience she had. So I’m turning my sermon over to Connie Frierson, our program director, to talk about her experience of being visited by God:
As many of you know I am a widow. I was with my husband Allen for twenty-two years, when he very suddenly died of a heart attack in July of 2006. Allen and I met in the Air Force in Las Vegas, Nevada. He was a hotshot fighter pilot and I was a JAG otherwise known as an Air Force lawyer. And we were really happy. So the time after Allen’s death was one of the darkest times in my life. But God was present with me in my grief and God helped me put my loss in perspective. One of the ways God spoke is through this necklace I am wearing today.
About three months after Allen’s death, my dear sister Beverly was in Lake Mills, Wisconsin visiting with her daughter, Julie and Julie’s husband, Mike. Lake Mills is a charming little town and has a farmers market every Saturday. Bev, Julie and Mike went to the market in the park and were wandering about looking for pumpkins and squash and vegetables. All the things we enjoy in the fall. But the market also includes some crafters. In one end of the park was a woman with two tables full of beads and jewelry. Bev was idly looking over everything when she was struck with one necklace and earring set. She knew that that necklace was for me and she had this idea that the necklace was somehow from Allen. Now Bev and I are bargain hunters to the core and we just don’t buy each other jewelry. So Bev dismissed this notion of the necklace and moved on. But she couldn’t seem to get this idea out of her head. She asked my niece, Julie, to come back and look at these tables of jewelry. Bev asked Julie, “Is there anything here for Connie?” Julie immediately went right to this necklace. So Bev decided to buy the necklace for me. As the woman was wrapping the necklace and earrings up, Bev asked her if she knew anything about the beads in the necklace. Bev was just making conversation. But the woman lit up and she said, “Oh yes, I know all about these beads. The brown bead is a brown agate from Tibet, said to heighten spiritual awareness and the turquoise is a special order from a little family mine somewhere out west, called Pilot Mountain.” At that point both Bev and Julie started to cry because this necklace really was a gift to me from my pilot husband.
But the deeper I looked into these beads the more I found. The Pilot Mountain Mine isn’t just somewhere out west. Pilot Mountain is in Tonopah, Nevada. Tonopah Nevada is a very, very small town closest to the Tonopah Test Range. Allen was one of probably less than 100 pilots in the 1980’s that were part of a group flying and training in the then Top Secret stealth fighter, the F-117 on the Tonopah Test Range. This was the group Allen was flying with when we met. This is the group that I became the attorney for in my time in the Air Force. As Allen flew into the Air Field at Tonopah, Pilot Mountain was one of the checkpoints into the field. He flew over it nightly. This necklace was tied to an incredible time in my life and Allen’s life. No kidding, this was a gift from Allen.
But something even more interesting was happening here. The week that I received the necklace, I was in the beginning of a Christian Education Class at Seminary. The book we were reading by Craig Dystrika, Dystrika used a certain phrase over and over again. It was his primary metaphor for Christian Education. The phrase was, “What do these stones mean?” The phrase is taken from the book of Joshua, chapter 4. That phrase was the title of a chapter in Dystrika’s book. He mentions it in his introduction and his dedication of the book. It was the main topic of my professor’s lecture for three classes. In my small group or section, I had to listen to four students reflection papers on that one phrase, “What do these stones mean.” At the end of about two weeks of this I realized that God wanted me to think about WHAT DO THESE STONES MEAN! What do the stones in this necklace mean?
As I looked at the necklace you see that the Pilot Mountain Turquoise is cut into little hearts. The veining of the turquoise are like little cracks and fissures. The hearts look like they are broken. That certainly matched my experience of a great love and a great loss. But the characteristic of Pilot Mountain Turquoise is that the crackling and fissures range from deep, dark black to golden. As I looked at these broken and fractured hearts I realized that God was speaking to me in a very real symbolic way. Grief is black and heart breaking, yet in time and God’s grace our greatest sorrows can be transformed, that darkness can be changed to gold. This necklace was a very real reassurance that my grief would be transformed.
What do these stones mean? I then turned to Joshua Chapters 3 and 4. This is the story of the people of Israel crossing into the Promised Land. After forty years in the wilderness the people are going into the land of milk and honey. God tells Joshua to pick men of each tribe. And when the priests cross the River Jordan carrying the Ark of the Covenant. When the Jordan River is held back so that the priest cross on dry ground. The men are to pick up the stones that the priest’s feet touched. And these stones will remind everyone that God has held back the waters and that God was present in the Ark of the Covenant when the people of Israel crossed into the Promised Land. What does it mean when we say or sing of crossing the River Jordan and entering the Promised Land? Most often it means that we are looking forward to life with God beyond the life on this earth. The Pilot Mountain necklace, the hearts broken and transformed, the assurance of God of a Promised Land, all of these have come together in understanding what these stones mean to me. God has used a language unique to me, to comfort and reassure. If you listen and are open God speaks to you as well.
Connie’s story teaches us a lot about being receptive to God. First, it teaches us that it takes a willingness to believe. Are we willing to believe when what we experience goes against human logic, against our logic? Second, it teaches us that if we are willing to look, listen, and sense beyond our normal human senses, we can hear God. Are we willing to listen with our hearts, spirits, and souls?
God speaks, but are we ready to hear?
Amen.
What Is Our Calling?
Matthew 25:31-46
"When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left. Then the king will say to those at his right hand, "Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.' Then the righteous will answer him, "Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?' 40 And the king will answer them, "Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.' Then he will say to those at his left hand, "You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.' Then they also will answer, "Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?' Then he will answer them, "Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.' And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life."
So what’s going to happen to you when the great division comes? What’s going to happen when Jesus separates us from one another, putting some on the right and some on the left? Which side will you be placed on? Will you be with the sheep or the goats?
The truth is that I’d be hard-pressed to find many Christians who would say, “Me? I’ll be among the goats.” Most of us believe we’ll be running with the sheep, but is that true? Looking at Jesus’ criterion for grazing with the sheep, how do you match up?
Now, I need to tell you that I’m not much of a “rapture” guy. What I mean is that I’m not a big believer in the theology of the rapture. You know the belief. It’s an idea based on one small passage of scripture, Matthew 24, in which Jesus says to be watchful for the coming of Christ because “two will be in the field; one will be taken and one will be left.” It’s a confusing passage because it’s hard to tell if he is using poetic language typical of the Middle East, or predicting something. Still, for the first 1800 years of Christianity, no one thought that this passage was literal. It was understood to be figurative, telling people to always be aware that Christ can return at any moment. It wasn’t until an Irish evangelical preacher, John Nelson Darby, preached about it in the mid-1800s that anyone believed in the rapture. At any rate, I’m not a big believer in the rapture because I believe it’s a theology that’s built on speculation.
Still, I often wonder what people who believe in the rapture, who read books like the Left Behind series, think of this passage. I wonder because most of them seem to believe that getting to heaven has to do with having the right beliefs. They believe that if we proclaim Christ as Lord and believe in Jesus’ saving power, then they will be taken up in the rapture. But what do they make of this passage, which says that judgment doesn’t have to do with having the right belief? This passage seems to say that it’s not so much a matter of what we believe as it is of how we love. Reading our passage for this morning, what seems to determine our entry into the kingdom of heaven is how we treat the people who struggle in life. What matters seems to be how we treat the poor, the hungry, the sick, and the imprisoned.
With this in mind, my question for you is simple: to what extent do you care about people who are poor, hungry, lack proper clothing, or are in prison? Do you think about them at all? A little? A lot?
I find that in our culture there are many people who have a very damaging, un-Christian attitude toward the poor and the imprisoned. They tend to split them into two categories: the deserving and undeserving. For instance, there are those who believe that most poor people are poor because they haven’t worked hard enough to overcome their poverty. These are the folks whom I’ve heard at cocktail parties and elsewhere say things like, “I’ve worked for everything I have. Those people are lazy. They do nothing, but they still get a handout. If it were up to me, they’d all be forced to do roadwork or something like that. I shouldn’t have to support their laziness. Don’t get me wrong. There are some people who are poor because they have a mental problem, but most of them are just lazy.” These folks believe in helping only those who deserve to be poor, whatever that means. The problem is that Jesus doesn’t distinguish the deserving and undeserving poor. He just tells us to care about the poor.
People also similarly talk about those in prison in the same way. They say things like, “Those people did something wrong. They should be punished. We shouldn’t be having country clubs for prisoners. Prisons should be harsh places that cause people pain for all the pain they’ve caused.” Again, the problem is that Jesus calls us to care for prisoners, to love them, not abuse them. What do we do with teachings like that?
No matter what causes people to be poor, hungry, homeless, sick, thirsty, imprisoned, or strange, Jesus calls us to care for them. This whole passage gets so much to the heart of Christian faith and what we do with it. There are a lot of Christians who are good at playing the role of Christian—at proclaiming themselves good, seeming sinless, proclaiming others as sinful, knowing the Bible, and things like that. But that doesn’t make them truly Christian in the sense of our passage.
Let me give you an example. Several years ago a woman was referred to me because she had some questions about faith. She was disturbed by an experience she had had, and wanted to talk about it with a pastor who wasn’t part of her church. What disturbed her was her experience on a mission trip to Thailand to help victims of the 2004 tsunami.
When the tsunami hit Southeast Asia in 2004, her heart went out to all the people who had lost their homes and were now struggling just to find food, water, and shelter. Her church set up this mission trip to go to Thailand to help the victims. It was her impression that the mission trip would be to help them rebuild, to bring food and supplies, and otherwise help them recover. When she got there, she was a bit dumbfounded to discover that the mission was to stand in front of a large Buddhist temple and hand out Christian tracts (tracts written in English) to the people living there (most of whom could not speak or read English). The tracts essentially said that Jesus was the only way to salvation, and that they had to give up their faith and become Christian if they were to be saved.
She was shocked at this because she saw that what these people needed was food, clothing, housing, medicine, and so much more. Her church’s mission was ignoring those needs in order to talk about salvation in a language the people didn’t understand. She spoke with the leaders of the mission, and she was told that if these people turned their lives over the Christ, they would be helped, and so what they were doing was to help them find help.
Another interesting thing happened. The members of the mission trip were warned to stay out of the Buddhist temple because the devil was there. She was warned that the devil might hurt their faith if they went inside. This piqued her curiosity. She wanted to go inside and see what a Buddhist temple looked like, especially since the people were so devoted to it.
Struggling with what to do, she finally decided that it was just too compelling. She had to see what was inside this temple. And so she walked up the steps. Walking in, she was overcome with the beauty inside. It was transcendent. It was inspiring. And she had a deep spiritual experience. It wasn’t an experience that led her to become Buddhist. It was an experience that actually deepened her Christian faith. She had an overwhelming sense of Christ’s presence in that place. Unfortunately, she was left with a problem: “How do I tell others about this? They’ll brand me as a heretic, even though I’ve had an experience of Christ.” And that’s what they did when she told a few of them.
Here’s the real crux of the situation, though. These folks had a chance to be sheep and help the poor, but instead they handed out tracts. They were more concerned about whether the poor believed the right things than they were that the poor had adequate food and shelter. They were Christian, but they didn’t follow Christ’s message of our passage for today.
What do you do to help the poor everyday? Do you think about this? There’s no judgment from me if you don’t, but we are called to help the poor. That’s one of the reasons we constantly try to offer opportunities here in the church. For instance, we periodically do meals for the Ladle and Hearth ministry in Ambridge. We encourage you to contribute to the local food bank. We are presently doing a coat and sweater drive. We have a special mission fund as part of our church to financially help people in trouble. It’s why we do a backpack drive and other activities for the Pittsburgh Project. There’s a lot we do in the church, which is great. And we hope to do more. Still, do you look for other opportunities on your own? How do you help the poor?
How you vote makes a difference. To me this is a huge aspect of helping the poor, and I’m glad that I now get to talk about it after the election so that it doesn’t sound like I’m endorsing one party or another. Simply put, to be Christian means to vote for people who care about the poor. There are a lot of theories about how to do this. There’s the trickle down theory, which says that we should invest in the investors, and that they will create new wealth and jobs. There’s the bubble up theory, which is that we invest in the poor, giving them more buying power, and thus helping the economy from the ground up. Why is it that we have to have one or the other? Why can’t we have both, which makes more ecological sense? If you understand weather patterns, water both trickles down and evaporates back up. Why is it that we have to vote for the poor against the economy, or for the wealthy against the poor? Either way, whatever economic theory we have, we should be putting the welfare of the poor at the center of our vote because that’s a reflection of what scripture says. Why not vote for politicians and policies who want to bring better housing, food, quality of life, education and opportunity to the poor?
The question is also central to our giving habits. Do we give to charities that help the poor beyond the church? One of the people I really admire in this way is former Steelers player, and present radio analyst, Tunch Ilkin. Ilkin was an all-pro offensive lineman. He now analyzes games, and I love to watch him on Mondays on Savran on Sports, as he uses a telestrater to break down games. He doesn’t just say things like, “The coaches stink,” like most of us do. Instead, he shows in slow motion why critical plays either worked or didn’t, how someone did or didn’t execute well, and how someone either made or missed an assignment. But the thing that I really admire about him is not his football knowledge. I like it, but I don’t admire it. What I admire is his work over the past twenty years for the Light of Life Ministry on the northside of Pittsburgh. This is a ministry that cares for the hungry and the homeless. He isn’t just a football guy. He’s a Matthew 25 guy, and that’s what is really defining about his life.
Getting back to our scripture, the passage is basically asking a simple question: how much do we care about those whom few care about? How we answer is what defines us as Christians
Amen.
So what’s going to happen to you when the great division comes? What’s going to happen when Jesus separates us from one another, putting some on the right and some on the left? Which side will you be placed on? Will you be with the sheep or the goats?
The truth is that I’d be hard-pressed to find many Christians who would say, “Me? I’ll be among the goats.” Most of us believe we’ll be running with the sheep, but is that true? Looking at Jesus’ criterion for grazing with the sheep, how do you match up?
Now, I need to tell you that I’m not much of a “rapture” guy. What I mean is that I’m not a big believer in the theology of the rapture. You know the belief. It’s an idea based on one small passage of scripture, Matthew 24, in which Jesus says to be watchful for the coming of Christ because “two will be in the field; one will be taken and one will be left.” It’s a confusing passage because it’s hard to tell if he is using poetic language typical of the Middle East, or predicting something. Still, for the first 1800 years of Christianity, no one thought that this passage was literal. It was understood to be figurative, telling people to always be aware that Christ can return at any moment. It wasn’t until an Irish evangelical preacher, John Nelson Darby, preached about it in the mid-1800s that anyone believed in the rapture. At any rate, I’m not a big believer in the rapture because I believe it’s a theology that’s built on speculation.
Still, I often wonder what people who believe in the rapture, who read books like the Left Behind series, think of this passage. I wonder because most of them seem to believe that getting to heaven has to do with having the right beliefs. They believe that if we proclaim Christ as Lord and believe in Jesus’ saving power, then they will be taken up in the rapture. But what do they make of this passage, which says that judgment doesn’t have to do with having the right belief? This passage seems to say that it’s not so much a matter of what we believe as it is of how we love. Reading our passage for this morning, what seems to determine our entry into the kingdom of heaven is how we treat the people who struggle in life. What matters seems to be how we treat the poor, the hungry, the sick, and the imprisoned.
With this in mind, my question for you is simple: to what extent do you care about people who are poor, hungry, lack proper clothing, or are in prison? Do you think about them at all? A little? A lot?
I find that in our culture there are many people who have a very damaging, un-Christian attitude toward the poor and the imprisoned. They tend to split them into two categories: the deserving and undeserving. For instance, there are those who believe that most poor people are poor because they haven’t worked hard enough to overcome their poverty. These are the folks whom I’ve heard at cocktail parties and elsewhere say things like, “I’ve worked for everything I have. Those people are lazy. They do nothing, but they still get a handout. If it were up to me, they’d all be forced to do roadwork or something like that. I shouldn’t have to support their laziness. Don’t get me wrong. There are some people who are poor because they have a mental problem, but most of them are just lazy.” These folks believe in helping only those who deserve to be poor, whatever that means. The problem is that Jesus doesn’t distinguish the deserving and undeserving poor. He just tells us to care about the poor.
People also similarly talk about those in prison in the same way. They say things like, “Those people did something wrong. They should be punished. We shouldn’t be having country clubs for prisoners. Prisons should be harsh places that cause people pain for all the pain they’ve caused.” Again, the problem is that Jesus calls us to care for prisoners, to love them, not abuse them. What do we do with teachings like that?
No matter what causes people to be poor, hungry, homeless, sick, thirsty, imprisoned, or strange, Jesus calls us to care for them. This whole passage gets so much to the heart of Christian faith and what we do with it. There are a lot of Christians who are good at playing the role of Christian—at proclaiming themselves good, seeming sinless, proclaiming others as sinful, knowing the Bible, and things like that. But that doesn’t make them truly Christian in the sense of our passage.
Let me give you an example. Several years ago a woman was referred to me because she had some questions about faith. She was disturbed by an experience she had had, and wanted to talk about it with a pastor who wasn’t part of her church. What disturbed her was her experience on a mission trip to Thailand to help victims of the 2004 tsunami.
When the tsunami hit Southeast Asia in 2004, her heart went out to all the people who had lost their homes and were now struggling just to find food, water, and shelter. Her church set up this mission trip to go to Thailand to help the victims. It was her impression that the mission trip would be to help them rebuild, to bring food and supplies, and otherwise help them recover. When she got there, she was a bit dumbfounded to discover that the mission was to stand in front of a large Buddhist temple and hand out Christian tracts (tracts written in English) to the people living there (most of whom could not speak or read English). The tracts essentially said that Jesus was the only way to salvation, and that they had to give up their faith and become Christian if they were to be saved.
She was shocked at this because she saw that what these people needed was food, clothing, housing, medicine, and so much more. Her church’s mission was ignoring those needs in order to talk about salvation in a language the people didn’t understand. She spoke with the leaders of the mission, and she was told that if these people turned their lives over the Christ, they would be helped, and so what they were doing was to help them find help.
Another interesting thing happened. The members of the mission trip were warned to stay out of the Buddhist temple because the devil was there. She was warned that the devil might hurt their faith if they went inside. This piqued her curiosity. She wanted to go inside and see what a Buddhist temple looked like, especially since the people were so devoted to it.
Struggling with what to do, she finally decided that it was just too compelling. She had to see what was inside this temple. And so she walked up the steps. Walking in, she was overcome with the beauty inside. It was transcendent. It was inspiring. And she had a deep spiritual experience. It wasn’t an experience that led her to become Buddhist. It was an experience that actually deepened her Christian faith. She had an overwhelming sense of Christ’s presence in that place. Unfortunately, she was left with a problem: “How do I tell others about this? They’ll brand me as a heretic, even though I’ve had an experience of Christ.” And that’s what they did when she told a few of them.
Here’s the real crux of the situation, though. These folks had a chance to be sheep and help the poor, but instead they handed out tracts. They were more concerned about whether the poor believed the right things than they were that the poor had adequate food and shelter. They were Christian, but they didn’t follow Christ’s message of our passage for today.
What do you do to help the poor everyday? Do you think about this? There’s no judgment from me if you don’t, but we are called to help the poor. That’s one of the reasons we constantly try to offer opportunities here in the church. For instance, we periodically do meals for the Ladle and Hearth ministry in Ambridge. We encourage you to contribute to the local food bank. We are presently doing a coat and sweater drive. We have a special mission fund as part of our church to financially help people in trouble. It’s why we do a backpack drive and other activities for the Pittsburgh Project. There’s a lot we do in the church, which is great. And we hope to do more. Still, do you look for other opportunities on your own? How do you help the poor?
How you vote makes a difference. To me this is a huge aspect of helping the poor, and I’m glad that I now get to talk about it after the election so that it doesn’t sound like I’m endorsing one party or another. Simply put, to be Christian means to vote for people who care about the poor. There are a lot of theories about how to do this. There’s the trickle down theory, which says that we should invest in the investors, and that they will create new wealth and jobs. There’s the bubble up theory, which is that we invest in the poor, giving them more buying power, and thus helping the economy from the ground up. Why is it that we have to have one or the other? Why can’t we have both, which makes more ecological sense? If you understand weather patterns, water both trickles down and evaporates back up. Why is it that we have to vote for the poor against the economy, or for the wealthy against the poor? Either way, whatever economic theory we have, we should be putting the welfare of the poor at the center of our vote because that’s a reflection of what scripture says. Why not vote for politicians and policies who want to bring better housing, food, quality of life, education and opportunity to the poor?
The question is also central to our giving habits. Do we give to charities that help the poor beyond the church? One of the people I really admire in this way is former Steelers player, and present radio analyst, Tunch Ilkin. Ilkin was an all-pro offensive lineman. He now analyzes games, and I love to watch him on Mondays on Savran on Sports, as he uses a telestrater to break down games. He doesn’t just say things like, “The coaches stink,” like most of us do. Instead, he shows in slow motion why critical plays either worked or didn’t, how someone did or didn’t execute well, and how someone either made or missed an assignment. But the thing that I really admire about him is not his football knowledge. I like it, but I don’t admire it. What I admire is his work over the past twenty years for the Light of Life Ministry on the northside of Pittsburgh. This is a ministry that cares for the hungry and the homeless. He isn’t just a football guy. He’s a Matthew 25 guy, and that’s what is really defining about his life.
Getting back to our scripture, the passage is basically asking a simple question: how much do we care about those whom few care about? How we answer is what defines us as Christians
Amen.
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