Spiritual Disciplines: Fasting

Here is my message from Sunday. The text was Mark 1:9-15:

On this first Sunday of Lent, we are beginning a new worship series looking at some of the spiritual disciplines. And we are doing so because the season of Lent is a time of the year in which people often take on one of the disciplines, or at least have greater interest in them than at other times. That is especially true with the first spiritual discipline that we are going to discuss, and that is fasting. Now just a little background, normally when we hear the word discipline today, we think of punishment for someone who has done something wrong, especially for children. But that is not the only definition of that word. Another definition is that of a rule, or series of rules, that govern conduct or activity or operation, which is why the United Methodist Church has a book of discipline. But the definition that better applies here is training that molds, corrects or perfects. And so athletes, for example, have certain disciplines that they undergo in order to work to get better or maintain themselves. This can be found in other areas as well, including in academic disciplines, another meaning of the word, but for us as Christians it is the word that comes before that describes our disciplines and that is that they are spiritual.

There is not a set list of the spiritual disciplines, or maybe a better way to say that is there is not an exhaustive list. Any activity that helps you focus your life in Christ, that helps you become more Christ-centered as our core values call for, or that helps you deepen your faith or relationship with God, could be a spiritual discipline. But there are some disciplines that most people talk about. Some of them include prayer and service, which we are not going to talk about in this series because we just talked about them in our series on our core values. But, in what is probably the best book on the spiritual disciplines, called Celebration of Discipline by Richard Foster, who is a Quaker and was born in New Mexico, he lists 12 disciplines, four of which we are going to discuss, fasting, confession, scripture reading and worship and then we’re going to look at another that he doesn’t cover, but which is also crucial to a deepened spiritual life and that is giving, which I know you are all looking forward to. But, again, the purpose of all of the activities is to help us grow in our faith and our relationship with God by being intentional, by disciplining ourselves to a certain activity. We do not do these so we can check off some box, or so that we can brag about it, so that it becomes a rote law, which can lead to spiritual death. We practice the disciplines so we can grow and become freer in our faith and relationship with God.

Jesus as Priest

Here is my message from Sunday. The text was Genesis 14:17-20 and Hebrews 7:11-28:

Immediately after Moses comes down from Mount Sinai with the Ten Commandments, the people, who have seen the thunder and lightning and the mountain smoking, basically said to Moses “Don’t let God talk to us anymore because that scares us. Instead you talk to God and then tell us what God says, and then you can tell God what we say.” Basically they wanted Moses to be an intermediary, an intercessor, between them and God. Now last week I said that Moses was considered the greatest of the Israelite prophets, even though we don’t normally think of him that way, because he served as God’s spokesperson delivering God’s message to the people, which was one of the primary roles of a prophet. But, what we also see in Moses, at least at this point is also the role of a priest, someone who serves as a mediator between God and the people, communicating information both ways. And that is the historic role of a priest in ancient Israel. To be an intercessor between God and the people.

And yet, as the society grew and became more complex, the role of the priest also increased and could no longer be done by someone in the family as Abraham and Jacob had also done. Instead there was a need for more centralization to provide stability and continuity as the 12 tribes of Israel grew. And so it isn’t much longer after the people ask Moses to be an intermediary, a priest for them, that we actually get the call of the Levites to become the priestly class, and of course this happens after the failure of Aaron in the story of the golden calf while Moses is away. It becomes clear that the people need more than what Moses can provide, and so new priests are called to lead the people and be responsible for the people in this way, and Aaron, Moses’ brother becomes the high priest.

Jesus as Prophet

Here is my message from Sunday. The scripture was Hebrews 1:1-4, 2:5-12  and Luke 4:14-24:

In his first letter to the church in Corinth, Paul says that he didn’t come to them using lofty words or wisdom, but instead to make known amongst them only Christ and him crucified. And yet, that term Christ had a lot of meaning that eventually would have to be unpacked. Because Christ is a specific term. Even though we talk all the time about Jesus Christ, Christ is not his last name, and H is not his middle initial. Christ is a title, coming from the Greek word Christos which is the Greek word used for the Hebrew word Messiah, which means the anointed one. And so in proclaiming Jesus as Christ, Jesus as messiah, Jesus as the anointed one, there was a lot of understanding that went along with that. Or we might say that there was a lot of explanation that the early church had to do to come to understand who Jesus was that encapsulated his life, his death and most especially his resurrection. Jesus did not match the role that people expected of the Messiah, and so a new interpretation had to be given about Jesus, and one of the first titles was that of Christ. But when people asked “who is Christ”, or when the disciples and apostles set out to explain who Christ was, they didn’t seek to talk about his nature, but instead about his function. What does Christ do? Why is he important? How do we find salvation in his acts? How do we understand him as the Messiah?

And so the church spent years and years trying to answer some of those questions. And one of the ways that explanation was done was through assigning certain offices, or positions to Jesus, namely that of prophet, priest and king. And we have these titles and ideas appearing early on in the church. In the mid-first century, Justin Martyr was writing about these three offices, and just as an aside, like Jesus, Martyr was not Justin’s last name, that was given to him after he was martyred, otherwise that would be a rather unfortunate circumstance and heavy burden to carry. Later, Eusebius, the father of church history, would do the same. In the middle ages, Thomas Aquinas took up the topic, as did John Calvin in the Protestant Reformation, and John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist movement encouraged the preaching of Christ in all three of his offices.

Resurrection: Adoption

Here is my sermon from Mother's Day. The texts were Galatians 3:25-4:7 and Exodus 1:22-2:10. If you would like to see the testimonies given, please view the video on our Youtube page.

This past week I was at a conference center located right on the shore of Lake Tahoe. The lake, which is beautiful, played a significant role in human populations from the time of native Americans coming to the area on to the present, which is not really surprising, because water is obviously important to us as humans for survival. So perhaps it’s not surprising that according to the national institute of health, that 50% of the population on the earth live within 3 kilometers of freshwater, and only 10% of the worlds population lives more than 10 kilometers away. That’s true even with the increasing urbanization of the population, because the majority of large cities are also close to water. That was just as true in Egypt, and the Nile River played a crucial role in the life and activities of the people. While water can bring destruction and death, as see in storms and flooding, water is seen as a giver and protector of life, and so the Pharaoh’s instruction at the beginning of the book of Exodus to have male Hebrew children thrown into the Nile to drown stands in strong contrast to how the Nile was seen. Rather than being a source of life, he wants to make it, to turn it into, a source of death, but his actions are thwarted by four women.

Now perhaps that is not surprising that it is women who choose to protect life, and to even keep the water as a symbol and source of life. Even more striking, or important, is that other than the instruction from the Pharaoh handed down that all Hebrew male children are to be killed, there are no adult males in this story of Moses, and the fact that women play such a prominent role is not because this is a birth story. In fact, the story of Moses’ birth is just half a verse, half a sentence. It’s the role the women play in saving a life, in direct contradiction to the edict laid down the by the pharaoh himself. They are counteracting the rule which would distort the purpose of the Nile, the meaning of the Nile, to bring about death, rather than life. And so, Moses’ mother, who is not named, although Moses is not actually named yet either, makes a basket that is covered in bitumen and pitch, so that it will be waterproof. The Hebrew word translated here as basket, is the same word used to refer to Noah’s ark, and so we are called to see that this is a new form of salvation taking place here. Then the mother takes the basket, the ark, and places it amongst the reeds in the Nile. Now later when Moses will lead the Egyptians out of slavery, contrary to popular opinion, and some translations, he leads them not across the Red Sea, but across the Reed Sea. Again, we are called to see the story of the Israelites, of salvation, of freedom, of life, being played out here in this initial story of Moses.

Jesus the Prophet

Here is my sermon from Sunday. The text was Luke 4:14-24:

Today we begin a new sermon series that will take us through the next three weeks seeking to answer the question who is Jesus? We are doing this because I received several questions about Jesus when I asked for recommendations for sermon topics, but my caveat is that I am not going to be able to entirely encapsulate who Jesus is in only three weeks. In fact, it might be said that every single worship service we are seeking to understand a different element of Jesus and who he is for us, what he means for us, and how we are to live differently because of that. But I decided to try and tackle answering the question of who is Jesus by looking at the three different offices, or roles, that Jesus is said to hold, and those are prophet, priest and king. These are historic roles that have been assigned to Christ going all the way back to the earliest days of the church as they sought to understand Jesus and to give some context to his ministry and message. This is not about Jesus’ nature, but about his functions, and these are not hard and fast offices as there is overlap between the three, but we are going to take each office in kind and today we are going to look at Jesus as prophet.

Now of the three offices, prophet is probably the one that is least covered and perhaps even the least understood. Rev. Richard Rohr, is a Franciscan priest who although known around the world lives here in Albuquerque, says that he has seen lots of statues and stained glass to Christ the King and even Christ the Priest, as well as accompanying celebrations, and we will celebrate Christ the King Sunday, which is the last Sunday of the Christian year before Advent begins, in three weeks. But, he said, he has never seen a celebration or a statue or a stained-glass window to Christ the Prophet, and that, he says, means something’s out of balance. This was even true of John Wesley, the founder of Methodism who, although he said that his preachers should preach Jesus in all his offices, prophet, priest and King, but actually said very little about Jesus as a Prophet. But when we don’t see Jesus as a prophet, it means not only are we not hearing Jesus’ words, or understanding his message with the weight of prophecy, but it also means that we are missing an extremely crucial piece of information about how the early church understood Jesus and his ministry, which was as that of a prophet, but not just any prophet, but of the prophet, and I’ll explain what that means in just a moment.

Getting Close To God

Here is my sermon from Sunday. The text was Exodus 34:29-35 and Luke 9:28-42:

We start today with a confession.  This week we will celebrate Ash Wednesday, although perhaps celebrate is the wrong word to use, but in the Christian calendar the last Sunday before Ash Wednesday is known as Transfiguration Sunday, the day in which we hear one of the accounts of Jesus’ transfiguration on the mountain with three disciples.  A few weeks ago as I was doing worship planning, I wasn’t really thinking about this being the last Sunday before Lent, and so turned to the lectionary readings for today, and said, “Oh man, I don’t want to preach on the transfiguration again this year.”  While nowhere near as significant for most people, this story is sort of like Christmas and Easter in that it comes around every single year and we preachers get to a point and think, “what can I possibly say about this that hasn’t already been said.”  So my intention was to ignore Jesus on the mountain and instead talk about Moses on the mountain, which is also one of the traditional  readings for today.  But as I began to think about it more and more, I found myself seeing the connections and similarities between these two stories, and because God has a sense of humor, found myself coming back to preaching about the transfiguration, while at the same time trying to ignore it, because what I felt a pull towards in these two stories was not really what happens on the mountaintop, but instead what happens afterwards.

Moses has been up on the mountain talking with God, want to guess for how many days? 40.  And he comes down with the two tablets with the ten commandments in his hands.  This is actually the second set of tablets because he had shattered the first set he was given when he came down off the mountain and found that the people had constructed a golden calf and were worshipping it.  So Moses goes and meets with God again and comes down with a new set, which are the ones that end up in the Ark of the Covenant which makes Indiana Jones necessary.  But, when he comes off the mountain this time, in addition to the tablets, Moses’ face is also glowing from being in the presence of God, and the people are afraid to come near him, so Moses ends up putting a veil on his face, not to protect the people from what they see, but in order to try and quell their fear about what it means.  To put a distance between them and the presence of God.  Moses takes of the veil when he is with God, but then puts it on when he is with the people.  As an aside, when this passage was translated into Latin for the Vulgate, which is the Latin Bible, Jerome translated the word glows as horns, which is not really as strange as it may sound based on the Hebrew here, but that’s why sometimes you’ll see Moses as being portrayed with horns on his head, Michelangelo.