Who Is Jesus? The Way, the Truth, and the Life

John 14:1-14

April 28, 2013

‘Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house there are many dwelling-places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also. And you know the way to the place where I am going.’ Thomas said to him, ‘Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?’ Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.’

 Philip said to him, ‘Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, “Show us the Father”? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own; but the Father who dwells in me does his works. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; but if you do not, then believe me because of the works themselves. Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father. I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it.

            Any time I read this passage, I can’t help but go back in time to an event that took place in our presbytery in 2000. If you are unfamiliar with Presbyterian stuff, a presbytery is similar to a diocese in the Catholic Church, except we don’t have bishops. An equal number of elders and pastors vote in these meetings, and these votes have a bishop’s authority.

            In 2000 a church in our presbytery, the Summit Presbyterian Church in Butler, came up with a confession that outlined their beliefs. For a little bit of history, all Presbyterian denominations are considered to be “confessing” denominations in that they all have a number of creeds, like the Apostles Creed, that help people understand our beliefs better.

            The Summit Church, upset at what they saw as the increasing moral laxity of our denomination, decided that they would write their own confession—one that would declare what it believed to be the correct position on salvation, the role of the Bible in Christian faith, and the proper perspective on sexual relations.

            A number of other churches in our presbytery decided that they liked the confession, and began adopting it for their own churches. It became known as the “Summit Confession,” and the movement it sparked became known as the “Confessing Church Movement.” The name for the movement harkened back to the attempt of German churches to create a confession that took a stand against the Nazis. A number of the folks behind the Summit Confession believed that the threat of homosexuality, as well as a more progressive view of faith, was a threat on the level of Nazism.

            The confession was introduced at a presbytery meeting in Cranberry, with the hopes that it would become a binding confession for all churches within the presbytery. When it was first introduced, I immediately had a problem with it. I believed that it made theological statements that were at odds both with the Presbyterian Church and the Bible. The three main tenets of the confession were that Jesus Christ is the only way to salvation and a relationship with God, that all parts of the Bible are applicable to our lives, and that the only proper sexual relations are those within marriage.

            I had issues with all three assertions, not the least of which was that I saw the whole document as a vehicle to try to oust homosexuals from the church. But my biggest problems were that I didn’t agree with it’s understanding of the Bible, not its assertion of Jesus as being the only way to salvation. First, the Bible. To say that all parts of the Bible are applicable to our lives is not quite what we believe. We are biblical people, and try to apply the whole Bible to our lives, but not all parts are applicable. For instance, the Bible is clearly on the side of permitting slavery. I would be completely biblical if I were to promote the restoration of slavery to this country. The Bible clearly recognizes slavery as permissible. It teaches is that masters are to treat their slaves well, and that slaves are to be obedient to masters. I think there are times when we recognize that the Bible, while very much being the Word of God, conveys it’s cultural bias. I believe it when the Bible says that we are all sinful. And I believe that this sin existed even among those who wrote Scripture. They were trying to communicate what they heard from God, but they were sinful themselves and therefore could mistakenly promote cultural beliefs like slavery, which we recognize as wrong today. Our task in reading the Bible is to sift out what is cultural so that we can more clearly recognize what is of God.

            Still, my primary objection with the Summit Confession was their understanding of salvation. When they say that Jesus is the only way to salvation, they are paraphrasing our passage for this morning, especially where Jesus says, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” Their response to me might even be your response to me, which is to say, “but Jesus just said he is the only way.” My answer is that this is not what Jesus said. He said “no one comes to the Father except through me.” That’s something different. But I’ll come back to this.

            My response to the confession, after it was passed and made binding on all of our churches, was to write a five-page letter to the presbytery, critiquing the confession, informing the other pastors and churches that I would not abide by this confession, and that I did not consider it to be one that was binding on me.

            There’s a bit more to why I thought the confession was wrong. Confessions in our denomination can only be created by our national church, and through a very democratic process. The process begins at a General Assembly meeting, which then is the annual meeting of representatives from all over the U.S. When a General Assembly decides that it might be good to create a new confession to make it clearer what we believe it votes to do so. In doing so, it creates a task force representative of the differing theology, ethnicity, gender, and ages of members of the denomination. The task force then works for three to five years on the confession. It then presents their confession to a subsequent General Assembly at the end of their work. The General Assembly votes on accepting it, and if it does, it sends it out to the whole denomination to be ratified by 2/3^rds of the presbyteries. Then the next General Assembly must vote it into being. At it’s best, this is a six-year process involving voices from all over the denomination. The Summit Confession was created by one pastor and members of one church, presented to our presbytery in the beginning of a meeting, and made binding by the end of that meeting. Hardly a Presbyterian way.

            When I sent out my letter, those supporting the confession became VERY angry with me. Many wanted to find a way to get me out of the presbytery and Calvin Church. They had plans, too. Fortunately, the fact that our session sent a letter to the presbytery stating that it would not abide by the confession fuddled those plans. Still, I had a very hard time deciding whether or not to stay. I came close to leaving Calvin Church. What kept me here was a day in prayer I spent, where I really sensed God saying to me, “I called you to this church, not this presbytery. You care for the church. I’ll care for the presbytery.” Interestingly, as angry as other pastors were at me, at our next presbytery meeting they rescinded the confession, and started working on a substitute “affirmation.” They also asked me to read over and help with the drafting of a substitute affirmation—one that was very different. In the end, the whole Confessing Church Movement died a few years later (I’m sure someone will get a hold of this sermon and get angry with me all over again, anyway).

            So what was my problem with their understanding of Jesus as the only way to salvation? I think it was a misuse of our passage for today. I believe that our passage for this morning may be one of the most misapplied, and misused passages of the whole Bible. People consistently use it to proclaim Christians to be saved, and people of all other religions to be damned. And on the surface this passage seems to support this belief. The problem is that this belief goes against what the passage says. It turns the passage into an answer to a question that was never asked by the disciples. No one in this passage is asking whether Christians are saved and others not.

            First of all, the disciples were Jewish, not Christian, so they weren’t going to ask if Christians are saved and others not. As Jews they knew they were saved and chosen. They weren’t wondering what their fate was. They knew they were already saved, and by following Jesus, they had become even more certain of their salvation.

            They were asking a completely different question of Jesus. They didn’t want to know who was saved and who wasn’t. They wanted to know how they could follow Jesus to heaven, since he had just told them that this is where he was going. We read this passage as a question on salvation because we’re tribal. What I mean is that to be human is to have a need to be part of a group that gives us an identity and a sense of security. For example, those of us from the Pittsburgh area are part of the Steeler, Penguin, and Pirate tribes. Those from the Zelienople/Cranberry area are part of the Seneca Valley tribe. All us are part of the national, U.S. tribe (a tribe that forges our national identity and gives us a sense of security). And we are part of a multitude of tribes that include our ancestral heritage, or ethnicity, our gender, and many of our interests. We all are part of tribes, and to be Christian is to be tribal to some extent. When you are part of a tribe, you want assurances that your tribe is better than the others, and that others are worse. This is how many Christians use our passage for today. They have a need to prove that the Christian tribe is the ONLY true religious tribe, and that all others lead to damnation. It’s a tool to both make us feel safer about our ultimate salvation, and to recruit others.

            I am not reducing Christianity just to its tribal elements. I’m simply pointing out that our tribal need can be an extension of our sin, and it can actually cause us to misuse Scripture. Jesus was trying to lead people beyond tribalism. He was breaking down walls, not building them up. Part of the Jewish anger against him was the way he treated people outside of the Jewish tribe. Read the gospels and notice what he did. He consistently reached out in love to those damned by the Jews. He touched and helped a Samaritan women by the well, one who had been divorced five times and was not living with a man she wasn’t married to. One who was clearly damned for being part of the wrong tribe (the Samaritans) and a sinner in that tribe. He healed the slave of a Roman soldier, a Syro-Phoenician woman, a Canaanite woman, and so many whose physical ailments targeted them by the Jews as suffering from physical infirmities that were clear demonstrations of their sin. Each person Jesus healed or blessed was part of a different tribe from the Jews, and he accepted them in. The early Christian movement did the same. It accepted Gentiles into the Jewish tribe. Outrageous!... at least according to the Jews of the time.

            Jesus wasn’t declaring a new tribe by saying he was the ONLY way to salvation. He was simply answering an important question from his followers on another topic. Our passage is part of a progression—part of a series of teachings begun in chapter 13 of John’s gospel that Jesus kept moving deeper and deeper and deeper. In chapter 13, Jesus starts by teaching them how they were to be after he left them. Their implicit question is, “How do you want us to serve you?” He takes a towel and washes their feet, telling them to follow his example. Their question is, “What is that example?” His answer is for them to become servants, doing whatever necessary, whatever lowly, to help people.

            Jesus then tells them of his impending betrayal. They ask, “Who will betray?” He tells them it is the one dipping his bread into the bowl. Next, he tells them that he will be going away. “Where?” they ask. He says that he is going to be with the Father, and that he will prepare places in heaven for them. He then says that they will know the way there. “How can they know the way? What is the way?” they ask. This is the question that leads to our passage for today. They are expecting explicit directions: do this, do that, and you will find your way. His answer isn’t directions. It’s a relationship.

            What Jesus is saying is really profound—let me give you an analogy. I want you to imagine that you are lost and looking for directions to get somewhere important. You stop your car and ask someone for directions. Now imagine that this person—obviously one of love and not a danger—says to you, “I’ll take you there. He jumps in the car and drives you. Along the way, he does more. He teaches, revealing to you the deeper truths of life. At the same time, he injects you with life. It’s like asking for directions, and the person drives, opens our lives on the way, and injects with B-vitamins and pure oxygen. In the process, he also becomes your companion for life—one you want!

            When he says that, “No one comes to the Father except through me,” he’s telling us that everyone who has an experience of God has that experience through him. I want you to look at this differently. He’s saying that if you have a direct experience of God that you don’t necessarily connect with Christ, it is still an experience through Christ. For example, as I mentioned several weeks ago, your experience of God through nature is an experience of God through Christ. You may not recognize it as such, but Jesus has said, “No one comes to the Father except through me.” It’s not a statement about who is saved and who isn’t. It’s a statement about the fact that your experiences of God in life, whether you recognize them as such, are through Christ.

            What he’s also saying to them and us is that our relationship with him opens us to God in everything. He’s saying that God isn’t a mystery up above. God is in them, you, and me because we are in Jesus and he in us. So if you want to discover God in your life, all you need to do is to open up to Christ—however you understand him—and you’ll discover God. What he’s not saying is that you have to have Christ figured out, or even that you have to have your theology completely worked out. You only have to become open.

            Let me close with a great example of this. This past Thursday we got to hear of a “Christ to the Father” experience from one the people joining Calvin Presbyterian Church. Her name is Ellen, and Ellen has been struggling with cancer for the past two years. She was diagnosed a month after the birth of her son. Ellen has gone through a lot. She has gone through all sorts of chemotherapy, and last fall she had a bone marrow transplant. Facing the transplant, a procedure that posed all sorts of dangers, she was worried. What if she didn’t make it? She wanted to raise her son. She hadn’t really grown up in church, or with much faith, but she felt that she needed to know if God both existed and was really with her.

            Late last summer, at about 2 a.m. one morning, she couldn’t sleep. So she went out onto her front porch to sit. She was scared. So she called out to God. She asked God for some sort of sign that God was with her and that everything would be okay. After her prayer she felt a sense of peace, and this helped her to sleep. The next morning she went out again on her porch to have her coffee there. She thought a bit about her prayer the night before, and as she did she felt something tickle her finger. She looked down and noticed a butterfly. It mesmerized her. It stayed on her finger for at least five minutes. Then, as she looked up from the butterfly, she noticed butterflies everywhere, fluttering around the trees, bushes, and porch. She felt a very clear sense that God was with her, and that she would be fine. That was her sign.

            Bringing this into our passage, Jesus (whom the butterfly is a symbol of) was the WAY to the Father. She experience God through Jesus. And she didn’t even necessarily know it, at least not at a conscious level.

            It’s so easy to get caught up in using this passage to say to people, “I’m in, you’re out.” My favorite use of this passage came from one of our members who is now a pastor, the Rev. Steve Cramer. When he was being examined to become a pastor by all the other pastors and elders at a presbytery meeting, he was asked a question relating to this passage. A pastor, using “I am the way, and the truth, and the life,” as the basis for his question, asked Steve if he believed that Christianity and Christ was the only way to salvation. It was a bit of a trap. Steve replied perfectly: “It is for me. I can’t speak for everyone, but he is the way of salvation for me. My calling is just to invite others into the same relationship with Christ as me.” Brilliant answer, and the right one.

            Only God gets to decide who is saved and who isn’t, and God doesn’t consult with us. What matters for us is simply that we open up to Christ as the way for us to discover God in our lives.

            Amen.

Who Is Jesus? The Way, the Truth, and the Life

John 14:1-14 April 28, 2013 ‘Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house there are many dwelling-places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also. And you know the way to the place where I am going.’ Thomas said to him, ‘Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?’ Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.’ Philip said to him, ‘Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, “Show us the Father”? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own; but the Father who dwells in me does his works. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; but if you do not, then believe me because of the works themselves. Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father. I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it. Any time I read this passage, I can’t help but go back in time to an event that took place in our presbytery in 2000. If you are unfamiliar with Presbyterian stuff, a presbytery is similar to a diocese in the Catholic Church, except we don’t have bishops. An equal number of elders and pastors vote in these meetings, and these votes have a bishop’s authority. In 2000 a church in our presbytery, the Summit Presbyterian Church in Butler, came up with a confession that outlined their beliefs. For a little bit of history, all Presbyterian denominations are considered to be “confessing” denominations in that they all have a number of creeds, like the Apostles Creed, that help people understand our beliefs better. The Summit Church, upset at what they saw as the increasing moral laxity of our denomination, decided that they would write their own confession—one that would declare what it believed to be the correct position on salvation, the role of the Bible in Christian faith, and the proper perspective on sexual relations. A number of other churches in our presbytery decided that they liked the confession, and began adopting it for their own churches. It became known as the “Summit Confession,” and the movement it sparked became known as the “Confessing Church Movement.” The name for the movement harkened back to the attempt of German churches to create a confession that took a stand against the Nazis. A number of the folks behind the Summit Confession believed that the threat of homosexuality, as well as a more progressive view of faith, was a threat on the level of Nazism. The confession was introduced at a presbytery meeting in Cranberry, with the hopes that it would become a binding confession for all churches within the presbytery. When it was first introduced, I immediately had a problem with it. I believed that it made theological statements that were at odds both with the Presbyterian Church and the Bible. The three main tenets of the confession were that Jesus Christ is the only way to salvation and a relationship with God, that all parts of the Bible are applicable to our lives, and that the only proper sexual relations are those within marriage. I had issues with all three assertions, not the least of which was that I saw the whole document as a vehicle to try to oust homosexuals from the church. But my biggest problems were that I didn’t agree with it’s understanding of the Bible, not its assertion of Jesus as being the only way to salvation. First, the Bible. To say that all parts of the Bible are applicable to our lives is not quite what we believe. We are biblical people, and try to apply the whole Bible to our lives, but not all parts are applicable. For instance, the Bible is clearly on the side of permitting slavery. I would be completely biblical if I were to promote the restoration of slavery to this country. The Bible clearly recognizes slavery as permissible. It teaches is that masters are to treat their slaves well, and that slaves are to be obedient to masters. I think there are times when we recognize that the Bible, while very much being the Word of God, conveys it’s cultural bias. I believe it when the Bible says that we are all sinful. And I believe that this sin existed even among those who wrote Scripture. They were trying to communicate what they heard from God, but they were sinful themselves and therefore could mistakenly promote cultural beliefs like slavery, which we recognize as wrong today. Our task in reading the Bible is to sift out what is cultural so that we can more clearly recognize what is of God. Still, my primary objection with the Summit Confession was their understanding of salvation. When they say that Jesus is the only way to salvation, they are paraphrasing our passage for this morning, especially where Jesus says, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” Their response to me might even be your response to me, which is to say, “but Jesus just said he is the only way.” My answer is that this is not what Jesus said. He said “no one comes to the Father except through me.” That’s something different. But I’ll come back to this. My response to the confession, after it was passed and made binding on all of our churches, was to write a five-page letter to the presbytery, critiquing the confession, informing the other pastors and churches that I would not abide by this confession, and that I did not consider it to be one that was binding on me. There’s a bit more to why I thought the confession was wrong. Confessions in our denomination can only be created by our national church, and through a very democratic process. The process begins at a General Assembly meeting, which then is the annual meeting of representatives from all over the U.S. When a General Assembly decides that it might be good to create a new confession to make it clearer what we believe it votes to do so. In doing so, it creates a task force representative of the differing theology, ethnicity, gender, and ages of members of the denomination. The task force then works for three to five years on the confession. It then presents their confession to a subsequent General Assembly at the end of their work. The General Assembly votes on accepting it, and if it does, it sends it out to the whole denomination to be ratified by 2/3rds of the presbyteries. Then the next General Assembly must vote it into being. At it’s best, this is a six-year process involving voices from all over the denomination. The Summit Confession was created by one pastor and members of one church, presented to our presbytery in the beginning of a meeting, and made binding by the end of that meeting. Hardly a Presbyterian way. When I sent out my letter, those supporting the confession became VERY angry with me. Many wanted to find a way to get me out of the presbytery and Calvin Church. They had plans, too. Fortunately, the fact that our session sent a letter to the presbytery stating that it would not abide by the confession fuddled those plans. Still, I had a very hard time deciding whether or not to stay. I came close to leaving Calvin Church. What kept me here was a day in prayer I spent, where I really sensed God saying to me, “I called you to this church, not this presbytery. You care for the church. I’ll care for the presbytery.” Interestingly, as angry as other pastors were at me, at our next presbytery meeting they rescinded the confession, and started working on a substitute “affirmation.” They also asked me to read over and help with the drafting of a substitute affirmation—one that was very different. In the end, the whole Confessing Church Movement died a few years later (I’m sure someone will get a hold of this sermon and get angry with me all over again, anyway). So what was my problem with their understanding of Jesus as the only way to salvation? I think it was a misuse of our passage for today. I believe that our passage for this morning may be one of the most misapplied, and misused passages of the whole Bible. People consistently use it to proclaim Christians to be saved, and people of all other religions to be damned. And on the surface this passage seems to support this belief. The problem is that this belief goes against what the passage says. It turns the passage into an answer to a question that was never asked by the disciples. No one in this passage is asking whether Christians are saved and others not. First of all, the disciples were Jewish, not Christian, so they weren’t going to ask if Christians are saved and others not. As Jews they knew they were saved and chosen. They weren’t wondering what their fate was. They knew they were already saved, and by following Jesus, they had become even more certain of their salvation. They were asking a completely different question of Jesus. They didn’t want to know who was saved and who wasn’t. They wanted to know how they could follow Jesus to heaven, since he had just told them that this is where he was going. We read this passage as a question on salvation because we’re tribal. What I mean is that to be human is to have a need to be part of a group that gives us an identity and a sense of security. For example, those of us from the Pittsburgh area are part of the Steeler, Penguin, and Pirate tribes. Those from the Zelienople/Cranberry area are part of the Seneca Valley tribe. All us are part of the national, U.S. tribe (a tribe that forges our national identity and gives us a sense of security). And we are part of a multitude of tribes that include our ancestral heritage, or ethnicity, our gender, and many of our interests. We all are part of tribes, and to be Christian is to be tribal to some extent. When you are part of a tribe, you want assurances that your tribe is better than the others, and that others are worse. This is how many Christians use our passage for today. They have a need to prove that the Christian tribe is the ONLY true religious tribe, and that all others lead to damnation. It’s a tool to both make us feel safer about our ultimate salvation, and to recruit others. I am not reducing Christianity just to its tribal elements. I’m simply pointing out that our tribal need can be an extension of our sin, and it can actually cause us to misuse Scripture. Jesus was trying to lead people beyond tribalism. He was breaking down walls, not building them up. Part of the Jewish anger against him was the way he treated people outside of the Jewish tribe. Read the gospels and notice what he did. He consistently reached out in love to those damned by the Jews. He touched and helped a Samaritan women by the well, one who had been divorced five times and was not living with a man she wasn’t married to. One who was clearly damned for being part of the wrong tribe (the Samaritans) and a sinner in that tribe. He healed the slave of a Roman soldier, a Syro-Phoenician woman, a Canaanite woman, and so many whose physical ailments targeted them by the Jews as suffering from physical infirmities that were clear demonstrations of their sin. Each person Jesus healed or blessed was part of a different tribe from the Jews, and he accepted them in. The early Christian movement did the same. It accepted Gentiles into the Jewish tribe. Outrageous!... at least according to the Jews of the time. Jesus wasn’t declaring a new tribe by saying he was the ONLY way to salvation. He was simply answering an important question from his followers on another topic. Our passage is part of a progression—part of a series of teachings begun in chapter 13 of John’s gospel that Jesus kept moving deeper and deeper and deeper. In chapter 13, Jesus starts by teaching them how they were to be after he left them. Their implicit question is, “How do you want us to serve you?” He takes a towel and washes their feet, telling them to follow his example. Their question is, “What is that example?” His answer is for them to become servants, doing whatever necessary, whatever lowly, to help people. Jesus then tells them of his impending betrayal. They ask, “Who will betray?” He tells them it is the one dipping his bread into the bowl. Next, he tells them that he will be going away. “Where?” they ask. He says that he is going to be with the Father, and that he will prepare places in heaven for them. He then says that they will know the way there. “How can they know the way? What is the way?” they ask. This is the question that leads to our passage for today. They are expecting explicit directions: do this, do that, and you will find your way. His answer isn’t directions. It’s a relationship. What Jesus is saying is really profound—let me give you an analogy. I want you to imagine that you are lost and looking for directions to get somewhere important. You stop your car and ask someone for directions. Now imagine that this person—obviously one of love and not a danger—says to you, “I’ll take you there. He jumps in the car and drives you. Along the way, he does more. He teaches, revealing to you the deeper truths of life. At the same time, he injects you with life. It’s like asking for directions, and the person drives, opens our lives on the way, and injects with B-vitamins and pure oxygen. In the process, he also becomes your companion for life—one you want! When he says that, “No one comes to the Father except through me,” he’s telling us that everyone who has an experience of God has that experience through him. I want you to look at this differently. He’s saying that if you have a direct experience of God that you don’t necessarily connect with Christ, it is still an experience through Christ. For example, as I mentioned several weeks ago, your experience of God through nature is an experience of God through Christ. You may not recognize it as such, but Jesus has said, “No one comes to the Father except through me.” It’s not a statement about who is saved and who isn’t. It’s a statement about the fact that your experiences of God in life, whether you recognize them as such, are through Christ. What he’s also saying to them and us is that our relationship with him opens us to God in everything. He’s saying that God isn’t a mystery up above. God is in them, you, and me because we are in Jesus and he in us. So if you want to discover God in your life, all you need to do is to open up to Christ—however you understand him—and you’ll discover God. What he’s not saying is that you have to have Christ figured out, or even that you have to have your theology completely worked out. You only have to become open. Let me close with a great example of this. This past Thursday we got to hear of a “Christ to the Father” experience from one the people joining Calvin Presbyterian Church. Her name is Ellen, and Ellen has been struggling with cancer for the past two years. She was diagnosed a month after the birth of her son. Ellen has gone through a lot. She has gone through all sorts of chemotherapy, and last fall she had a bone marrow transplant. Facing the transplant, a procedure that posed all sorts of dangers, she was worried. What if she didn’t make it? She wanted to raise her son. She hadn’t really grown up in church, or with much faith, but she felt that she needed to know if God both existed and was really with her. Late last summer, at about 2 a.m. one morning, she couldn’t sleep. So she went out onto her front porch to sit. She was scared. So she called out to God. She asked God for some sort of sign that God was with her and that everything would be okay. After her prayer she felt a sense of peace, and this helped her to sleep. The next morning she went out again on her porch to have her coffee there. She thought a bit about her prayer the night before, and as she did she felt something tickle her finger. She looked down and noticed a butterfly. It mesmerized her. It stayed on her finger for at least five minutes. Then, as she looked up from the butterfly, she noticed butterflies everywhere, fluttering around the trees, bushes, and porch. She felt a very clear sense that God was with her, and that she would be fine. That was her sign. Bringing this into our passage, Jesus (whom the butterfly is a symbol of) was the WAY to the Father. She experience God through Jesus. And she didn’t even necessarily know it, at least not at a conscious level. It’s so easy to get caught up in using this passage to say to people, “I’m in, you’re out.” My favorite use of this passage came from one of our members who is now a pastor, the Rev. Steve Cramer. When he was being examined to become a pastor by all the other pastors and elders at a presbytery meeting, he was asked a question relating to this passage. A pastor, using “I am the way, and the truth, and the life,” as the basis for his question, asked Steve if he believed that Christianity and Christ was the only way to salvation. It was a bit of a trap. Steve replied perfectly: “It is for me. I can’t speak for everyone, but he is the way of salvation for me. My calling is just to invite others into the same relationship with Christ as me.” Brilliant answer, and the right one. Only God gets to decide who is saved and who isn’t, and God doesn’t consult with us. What matters for us is simply that we open up to Christ as the way for us to discover God in our lives. Amen.

Who Is Jesus? the Light of the World

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John 8:12-20

April 14, 2013

Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, ‘I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life.’ Then the Pharisees said to him, ‘You are testifying on your own behalf; your testimony is not valid.’ Jesus answered, ‘Even if I testify on my own behalf, my testimony is valid because I know where I have come from and where I am going, but you do not know where I come from or where I am going. You judge by human standards; I judge no one. Yet even if I do judge, my judgment is valid; for it is not I alone who judge, but I and the Father who sent me. In your law it is written that the testimony of two witnesses is valid. I testify on my own behalf, and the Father who sent me testifies on my behalf.’

Then they said to him, ‘Where is your Father?’ Jesus answered, ‘You know neither me nor my Father. If you knew me, you would know my Father also.’ He spoke these words while he was teaching in the treasury of the temple, but no one arrested him, because his hour had not yet come.

            I don’t know if you recognize the name James Zwerg. I’d be surprised if you did, especially if you were born after 1961. Zwerg gained national attention for several photos of him that went newspaper viral in 1961. One picture was of him slumped against a wall and covered in blood. Another was of him in a hospital bed with bruises all over his face, eyes swollen shut, with a newspaper showing the picture mentioned before on the front page. What had happened to him to make his picture so widespread?

            It all started when he was a freshman, attending Benoit College in Wisconsin. His roommate there became a huge influence in his life. This young man was someone Zwerg admired and respected, yet he was also deeply effected by how his roommate was treated by the other students at Benoit. You see, Zwerg’s roommate was African American, and Zwerg witnessed this young man of dignity, intelligence, and compassion being called n***er, being pushed and shoved, and otherwise denigrated.

            Zwerg became so convinced that he needed to understand life from his friend’s perspective that he took advantage of an opportunity to be part of an exchange program with Fisk University, an all-black university in Nashville, Tennessee. It was there that he first heard of the idea of Freedom Riders. These were college students who chartered buses to cities in the South where desegregation protests were taking place. The buses were symbolic of their standing with those asking for local mass transit buses to be desegregated.

            Zwerg boarded a bus for Montgomery, Alabama, along with forty others, both black and white. He was terrified of what might happen. What made it worse was that he had had a terrible fight with his parents the night before on the phone. His father was so angry with him that he wouldn’t speak to him. His mother just kept repeating that Zwerg was going to give his father a heart attack. He kept trying to tell them that it was their Christian ethic and example that was leading him to do this, but they wouldn’t listen. Still, he knew deep in his heart that he was doing what Christ wanted him to do.

            As the bus got closer to Montgomery, Zwerg’s prayer became more intense. He prayed over and over again these words from Psalm 27:

The Lord is my light and my salvation;
   

            whom shall I fear?


The Lord is the stronghold of my life;
   

            of whom shall I be afraid?

            As he thought about his parents, he also kept praying the last verse of the psalm:

If my father and mother forsake me,
   

            the Lord will take me up.

           

            As they pulled into the Greyhound bus station, an angry mob of 300 awaited them. They were armed with baseball bats, two-by-fours, and chains. They had threatened and intimidated both reporters and police, so few beyond the mob were there to witness it, let alone prevent it. As Zwerg and the other students disembarked, they were grabbed by the mob who started clubbing and beating them. Zwerg crumpled to the ground quickly, but a man pulled him up and held his shoulders so that the crowd could keep beating him.

            In those moments, Zwerg had an experience that he would later say was the most beautiful one of his life. He bowed his head and asked God to give him the strength to remain nonviolent and to forgive those beating him. He only felt the first blow. After that, all he felt was an intense peace and calm. He knew that no matter what happened to him, whether he lived or died, he would be okay.

            Photographers took his picture after the beating, and from there they were published on the cover of newspapers worldwide. A particularly poignant one was of him next to John Lewis, who eventually became a U.S. Congressman from Georgia, both of them covered with splatterings of blood.

            What led Zwerg to become so brave? What led him to join with others in these Freedom rides? Ultimately, Zwerg understood what it meant when Jesus said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life.”

            Zwerg lived in a time of darkness that had encompassed much of American life for over 300 years. It began with slavery and continued on through the brutality of segregation. Despite the election of an African American President, some of the same feelings of bigotry still exist today.

            Prejudice and bigotry are always a beguiling darkness because it feels like “rightness” to those immersed in it. People who are prejudiced never think they are prejudiced. In fact, often they think that they are upholding God’s natural order of things. Most slave-owners, and the people of the South during slavery, thought there was a natural order to the world, and “Negros” were on the bottom—that their God-given purpose was to be slaves to enlightened whites. Those who supported segregation thought much of the same thing. Even in Jesus’ day, the Jews who had become Christian believed that the natural order was that Jews were chosen, and the Gentiles were not. So the integration of Gentiles into this new, primarily Jewish/Christian faith was considered to be wrong.

            The fact is that most of us never know we’re in darkness. Whatever darkness we walk in feels either right or inconsequential when we are taking part in it. That’s the problem with the world’s darkness. It doesn’t feel like darkness, and it can even feel a bit light-ish. Whenever we walk in darkness, we can be deluded into thinking that we’re promoting God’s order or God’s will.

            When Jesus says that he is the light of world, he’s being literal. He’s telling people that if they open up to him personally, if they are willing to really listen for his voice, and not just follow a principle or policy, they will see life the way Christ sees it. This is what we talk about when we use the word “discernment.” We seek to live by Christ’s light by living in a way that looks for where the light of Christ is shining in the world. When Jesus says that he is the light of the world, he is saying that through him we can see how God wants the world to be. We now recognize that James Zwerg was living and acting in the light of Christ, but that’s because we’ve managed to mostly step out of the darkness of prejudice against African Americans—mostly.

            The key isn’t waiting for the passage of time to reveal Christ’s light, but to see by it in the present. One of my big complaints about America is that while we are very religious, we’re often not very spiritual. We often fight about religious stuff without ever really seeking what God wants. The Civil Rights movement showed how religious people can mistake darkness for Christ’s light, and religious belief for the Spirit’s work. It is possible to read the Bible, go to church, know Christian theology backwards and forwards, and still not see by Christ’s light. It’s because we aren’t used to looking at what Christ shines on, so instead we look at what the world shines on.

            One of my favorite stories of this way of preferring darkness to light is from a 13^th century Sufi Muslim mystic who taught deep spiritual lessons by making fun of himself. His name was Nasruddin. One day a man found Nasruddin on his hands and knees outside of his home, looking intently for something on the ground. The man asked Nasruddin what he was doing. Nasruddin said, “I lost my keys.” So, the man got down on the ground with him and began looking.  For thirty minutes they both looked intently, but neither could find the keys. Finally, the man asked Nasruddin, “Where exactly did you lose your keys?”  Nasruddin responded, “Over there by the bushes.” Incredulous, the man asked, “Then why have we been looking over here?” Nasruddin replied, “Because the light is so much better over here.”

            Today, so many people choose the world’s light over Christ’s light because they think it helps them see, even if it means they miss all the good and important stuff that Christ’s light is shining upon. Many of these people have strong religious opinions to go with their strong political opinions. The problem is that these beliefs become their light. They substitute religious light for Christ’s light. They can be just like the Pharisees Jesus was speaking to, whose belief in law was much stronger than their openness to God.

            We’re all like this at times. For example, our political identity as Republicans or Democrats is stronger than it is as Christians. Or our philosophical identity as conservatives or liberals is stronger than it is as Christians. What our passage is saying is that we need to put Christ at the foundation, rather than our political, philosophical, or even religious beliefs. The point is to be a Christian first, and let that influence our politics, beliefs, and religious practices, not the other way around.

            The light of Christ is much like our doggy light. I have a special flashlight. If you look at it in normal light it looks like a weak, purple-y light. It doesn’t give off much visible light. But if you shine it in pitch black, it shines on doggy pee so that you can see where the dog has decided that it’s much better to stay indoors than to brave the snow and cold. Basically, this is a light that shines on things we can’t see without it.

            This is what the light of Christ is like. It shines not only on the parts of life we can’t normally see, but also on what we don’t want to see. It shines on the poor, the struggling, the imprisoned. It shines on people who suffer from bigotry, indifference, and hatred. It shines on what we can do to make the world a better place, even if it means we might suffer in the process.

            Christ’s light shines on those who we need to care about, on life the way we need to live it, and on the Spirit who is always present. My question to you is  what light do you live by?

            Amen.

Who Is Jesus? The Word of God

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Who Is Jesus? The Resurrection and the Life

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John 20:1-18

Easter Sunday, March 31, 2013

Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb. So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, ‘They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.’ Then Peter and the other disciple set out and went towards the tomb. The two were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. He bent down to look in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in. Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen wrappings lying there, and the cloth that had been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself. Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead. Then the disciples returned to their homes.

 But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb; and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. They said to her, ‘Woman, why are you weeping?’ She said to them, ‘They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.’ When she had said this, she turned round and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, why are you weeping? For whom are you looking?’ Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, ‘Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.’ Jesus said to her, ‘Mary!’ She turned and said to him in Hebrew, ‘Rabbouni!’ (which means Teacher). Jesus said to her, ‘Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, “I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.” ’ Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, ‘I have seen the Lord’; and she told them that he had said these things to her.

            I started thinking about something this past week, after visitors to the church asked me how long I’ve been at Calvin Presbyterian Church, and if I ever consider leaving. I realized that I’ve been pastor of this church for 17 years? If I’m here for another full year, I’ll have been the longest-tenured pastor in this church’s history. That would be quite a remarkable feat, since the average Presbyterian pastor’s tenure at a church is five years, and the average tenure of a pastor in any denomination (even including Roman Catholic, where the bishop places pastors) is seven years. Of course, this church was lucky to have the longest-tenured pastor before me in Dick Anderson.

            Staying here this long is certainly not what I expected when I came to Calvin Church. I don’t know that I saw this church as a stepping stone to bigger churches, but it occurred to me that since most pastors don’t stay longer than five years, I would probably be here three to five years, and then move on to a larger church.

            I’ve certainly had my opportunities to move on over the years. I don’t say this to brag, but I have had quite a few large churches, both in the Pittsburgh area and nationally, pursue me, and I’ve turned them all down. After one particularly large church pushed me to interview, a friend of mine questioned my reasoning for turning the church down. She asked me, “Why do you stay at Calvin Presbyterian Church? My answer surprised her and me. Before I could even think, I blurted out, “Because it’s insignificant!”

            That sounds like a critique of Calvin Church, doesn’t it? It’s not, and in a few moments you’ll see why it’s actually a very big compliment. It could be easy to misinterpret my reasoning as my wanting to be a big fish in small pond, or that I’ve become complacent. Both would be untrue. Calvin Church has actually become something of a much bigger pond both regionally and nationally. People notice what we do. And anyone who knows me also knows that I’m not a real complacent kind of person. I study, I grow, I change, and I expect the church to do so, too.

            The real reason that I stay is that I had an insight from the Bible, and from our passage for this morning, about the nature of significance. The insight is this: the most significant ministry often takes place in insignificant places, because God finds significance in insignificance.

            I had a similar insight about the nature of insignificance while watching the History Channel’s miniseries, The Bible. Have you been watching it? I know that many people are. One of the things that stood out to me in the miniseries is how well they show the insignificance of Jesus in view of the powers that be in Jerusalem. Jesus is repeatedly called “Jesus of Nazareth,” or “the Nazarine,” by Caiaphas, the chief priest of the Temple—a powerful and significant man. The term, “of Nazareth,” is intentional because it is a put down. Nazareth is a nowhere place from a nowhere region. Galilee was considered to be a backwater place of the Roman Empire, and Nazareth was one of the least significant towns in Galilee.

            Caiaphas’ putdown might be the equivalent of us saying that someone comes from Mingo, West Virginia, or Tioga, North Dakota. I have nothing wrong with either place, but neither place comes up in conversations about significant places. And we could easily, possibly mistakenly, dismiss someone from either place as being a bumpkin. That’s what Caiaphas is saying about Jesus. He is saying, “This man is insignificant and needs to be crushed for the bug he really is!”

            The irony of Caiaphas’ putdown is that in his own pursuit of significance as Temple high priest, he lost sight of what made the Jewish faith significant in the first place. What made them significant was their insignificance. The Israelites were never a strong nation from a worldly perspective. In fact, when they were at their strongest it wasn’t because they were so strong. It was because the nations around them were so weak. Israel was always the highway armies took on their way to war with other great powers. When the Assyrians, Greeks, Babylonians, or Romans wanted to conquer Egypt, they first conquered Israel to pave the way. When Egypt tried to conquer Assyria, Babylon, and elsewhere, it first subdued Israel. David was very much a strong king, but of a relatively small nation that gained prominence during at time of international weakness. As significant as he is to us today, and to the people of the Jewish faith, he was never an internationally significant figure.

            In fact, in keeping with the biblical story, he became king because he was insignificant. His older brothers were stronger, and looked more like kingly material. God anointed David, who was a young man with little strength or accomplishment. But in his insignificance he did have the one attribute God seems to see as most significant: the willingness to say YES to God.

            The history of the Jewish faith is one of insignificance. Abraham was nobody, chosen by God to become the founder of a Chosen people. Who knows how many other people God might have called but said NO. All we know is that Abraham was the one who said YES. Joseph was insignificant—the youngest son of a desert, Bedouin tribe of Jews, sold into slavery and then imprisoned. But he said YES to God. Moses was significant, but when he fled into the desert he became insignificant. And he’s the one called by God to lead an insignificant people to the Promised Land. His, and their, main attribute was to say YES to God. The Jews never became powerful, and even after gaining their land, they lost it during the Exile, while they were insignificant slaves in Babylon. After their return to Israel, they first were under the Assyrians, then the Greeks, and then the Romans. They were insignificant.

            To think of Jesus as insignificant is hard for us because we are a people of greatness who are attracted to greatness. It’s hard for us not to be impressed by greatness. For example, I spoke several weeks ago about my brush with greatness while in Texas. I was on a plane with Joe Greene. As I walked through the plane’s cabin, there was Joe Greene in first class, looking at me. I then found myself standing next to him outside of baggage claim while waiting for my ride. And as I ate in a restaurant on that Saturday night, in walks Joe Greene. I’m not great, but just by being near him I seem greater (although not to him). We love greatness, and want to be associated with greatness.

            But greatness from our perspective isn’t the same as greatness from God’s perspective, and often God sees the people who are the most insignificant as the most significant, if they have lived in God’s significance.

            Most of you know that I’m fascinated with Near Death Experiences. One of the things I’ve found remarkable about many accounts is the message so many people bring back. A significant number have reported that they reviewed their lives with a heavenly being, and in that review what seemed to matter was not their accomplishments, nor their status with other people. How significant they were in the world seemed insignificant. What seemed to matter most is how loving they were. As Eben Alexander said about his experience, in his book, Proof of Heaven, was that mattered there was love. What God and everyone else in heaven seems to care about is whether or not we loved and are filled with love. God measures greatness in terms of how loving we are, not by how important people thought we were. And often it is the people who are considered to be the least significant who also love the most. This is a reason I thought of Calvin Church as insignificant. In it’s insignificance to the world, it has been incredibly significant in love.

            Where I saw this really demonstrated in the History Channels’ The Bible was in the scene of Jesus praying in the Garden of Gethsemane. Jesus prays that, if it be the Father’s will, this cup will pass—that he will not have to be crucified. Jesus is tormented in this prayer, just as Scripture describes.

            Then the camera cuts to the Temple, where the Sanhedrin (the governing board of the Temple) prays for God to take care of them and to deal with this Jesus fellow. The chief priest, Caiaphas, prays that God would be with them during the Passover season, allowing them to make it meaningful for everyone without the interference of radicals like Jesus. Then the camera cuts to Pontius Pilate and his wife, and they are praying to figurines of their ancestors, praying that their ancestors would be with them in governing Judea, and that the gods would help them deal with this radical, Jesus.

            Pilate is considered significant because he is the Roman-installed governor. Caiaphas is considered significant because he is the chief priest of the Temple, and therefore the closest thing the Jews had to a spiritual leader. Jesus is insignificant. He’s a rabble-rouser, a heretic, and a blasphemer who is about to be arrested and killed. He is a “nothing” who needs to be crushed in order to stamp out his pitiful movement. Yet he is also the only one asking God to lead him to fulfill God’s will, and the only one seeking to love God and others through his actions. The others are asking God to fulfill their will. Jesus’ insignificance leads him to do what is significant in God’s eyes—to follow in love, not considering his own welfare. That’s not Caiaphas’ and Pilate’s motivation.

            I think that the story of the resurrection continues to show us how God works through insignificance. As I said before, Jesus came from insignificance (Nazareth) and ministered mostly in insignificance (Galilee). And who were the people Jesus focused most of his efforts on? They were the insignificant by the world’s standards: the poor, the disabled, the outcasts, prostitutes, Gentiles, and everyone rejected by the powerful.

            Even as Jesus grew in significance, he died in insignificance as a common criminal, hanging on a cross. The cross was the Roman form of execution that screamed out, “This person was nothing compared to the power of Rome! See how we make our enemies suffer?” As much temporary acclaim as Jesus received during his life (Sermon on the Mount, feeding of the 4000 and 5000, and his parade into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday), his death on the cross showed the world his insignificance. To make it worse, he was abandoned by everyone but his mother, Mary Magdalene, and one disciple.  

           

            Yet is was Jesus’ resurrection that bore testimony to his significance. You see, this is the way God works. God raises the insignificant to significance, and often lowers the significant to insignificance.

            Let me share two short stories that capture this idea of how greatness comes through the significance of love. The first is told by Fred Craddock, a well-known professor of preaching. He says that number of years ago a seminary professor (was it he, himself?) was vacationing with his wife in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. One morning, they were eating breakfast at a little restaurant, hoping to enjoy a quiet, family meal. While they were waiting for their food, they noticed a distinguished looking, white-haired man moving from table to table, visiting with the guests. The professor leaned over and whispered to his wife, 'I hope he doesn't come over here.' But sure enough, the man did come over to their table.

            “Where are you folks from?” he asked in a friendly voice. “Oklahoma ,” they answered. “Great to have you here in Tennessee ,” the stranger said. “What do you do for a living?” “I teach at a seminary,” he replied.

            “Oh, so you teach preachers how to preach, do you? Well, I've got a really great story for you.” And with that, the gentleman pulled up a chair and sat down at the table with the couple.

            The professor groaned and thought to himself, “Great,… Just what I need,... another preacher story!”

            The man started, “See that mountain over there? (pointing out the restaurant window). Not far from the base of that mountain, there was a boy born to an unwed mother. He had a hard time growing up, because every place he went, he was always asked the same question, 'Hey boy, Who's your daddy?’ Whether he was at school, in the grocery store or drug store, people would ask the same question, 'Who's your daddy?’”

            “He would hide at recess and lunch time from other students. He would avoid going in to stores because that question hurt him so bad. When he was about 12 years old, a new preacher came to his church. He would always go in late and slip out early to avoid hearing the question, 'Who's your daddy?'”

            “But one day, the new preacher said the benediction so fast that he got caught and had to walk out with the crowd. Just about the time he got to the back door, the new preacher, not knowing anything about him, put his hand on his shoulder and asked him, ‘Son, who's your daddy?’

            The whole church got deathly quiet. He could feel every eye in the church looking at him Now everyone would finally know the answer to the question, ‘Who's your daddy?'”

            “This new preacher, though, sensed the situation around him and using discernment that only the Holy Spirit could give, said the following to that scared little boy. 'Wait a minute! I know who you are! I see the family resemblance now. You are a child of God.' With that he patted the boy on his shoulder and said, 'Boy, you've got a great inheritance. Go and claim it.'”

            “With that, the boy smiled for the first time in a long time and walked out the door a changed person. He was never the same again. Whenever anybody asked him, 'Who's your Daddy?' he'd just tell them , 'I'm a Child of God..'”

            The distinguished gentleman got up from the table and said, “Isn't that a

great story?” The professor responded that it really was a great story!

            As the man turned to leave, he said, “You know, if that new preacher hadn't told me that I was one of God's children, I probably never would have amounted to anything!” And he walked away.

            The seminary professor and his wife were stunned. He called the waitress over & asked her, “Do you know who that man was—the one who just left that was sitting at our table?” The waitress grinned and said, “Of course. Everybody here knows him. That's Ben Hooper. He's governor of Tennessee !”

            A final story: I don’t know if you know Ellie Fleming. She has been very active in the Presbyterian Church (USA) both nationally and locally. She has told a story to many of us about her experience one day in Pittsburgh, while meeting friends of hers for lunch in the Strip District. She couldn’t find a spot in any of the parking lots, but managed to find a lucky spot on the street right near the restaurant.

            It was a tight spot, and she tried a number of times to back in, but she couldn’t. A young man stepped out to guide her, but it didn’t work. Finally, he said, “Can I just park it for you? I’m pretty good at this.” She said, “Sure.” And he zipped it into the spot with ease and skill. He handed her the keys and asked, “Is that okay? Is there anything else I can help you with? ” She said, “It’s great,… can I touch you?” He replied, embarrassed, “Sure,… I guess.” Afterwards, Ellie walked away, thinking to herself, “Who will believe this, that Sydney Crosby just parked my car?” 

            What matters in the Christian life is that we live a life brought out by the resurrection—that we live a life of love. It doesn’t matter how significant other people think you are. All that matters is how significant to God what you do is, and if it is based on love, it is significant.

            In the end, this is why I stay at Calvin Presbyterian Church: because in its insignificance it knows how to do and be what God finds significant.

           

            Amen.